British troops was Major General James Wolfe, while the Marquis de Montcalm was at the head of the French forces. The British were victorious and five days later Quebec, the Capital of New France, surrendered. That storied battle still resonates. The surprise landing of British troops combined with the short duration of the battle and… Read more »
FREE SHIPPING “Jean-Yves Soucy’s story and encounter with my Dad provides a charming glimpse into a changing world, for us all.” Romeo Saganash It’s 1963, Jean-Yves Soucy is 18 and dreams of being a fire warden scanning the boreal forest from a fire tower. But he ends up at an equipment depot between Val-d’Or and… Read more »
Nadine is banished to a home for unwed mothers in 1950. She’s 15. Her baby daughter, whose father is shrouded in secrecy, is put up for adoption without her permission. Vowing to reunite one day with her daughter, she cuts all ties with her dysfunctional Irish and French-Canadian Catholic family whose past is cluttered with… Read more »
“Women do not go on strike and do not get drunk.” — John A. Rose, cigar manufacturer, explaining to a Royal Commision why textile manufacturers should hire women, 1888. Girls and women were essential to industrialization in Canada, particularly in the cotton textile industry, which was concentrated in Quebec. In 1891, for example, more than… Read more »
Some liken formal histories to four-lane highways. Nick Fonda answers with a meandering country road, quietly charming, with a human face. If all politics is local, so all history is local… and anecdotal. As the great urban thinker Jane Jacobs said, anecdotes are the only real evidence because they come from stories people tell. Though… Read more »
Foreword by Toula Drimonis “intelligent, funny, often ironic…” Publishers Weekly Born in Hungary in 1975, Akos Verboczy moved to Montreal, Quebec at the age of 11 with his sister and mother, an esthetician, who learned that in Canada women were willing to pay a fortune ($20) to have their leg hair brutally ripped out. His… Read more »
The Anti-Gallic Letters by Adam Thom were published in book form in 1836. They are based on Thom’s editorials in the Montreal Herald written under the nom de plume “Camillus” between September 1835 and January 1836. They were never reprinted despite the importance of the people for whom Adam Thom was the public voice. These people… Read more »
The Morrin Centre is at the heart of Quebec City’s history. It once housed Quebec’s common jail, the Presbyterian-run Morrin College, and the scholarly activities of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec. Today, it is home to the city’s main English-language cultural centre and library. The colourful stories of each of these institutions reveal… Read more »
Courage, diplomacy, love, and conspiracy make for an action-packed adventure in a little-known past. This third instalment of the series continues Radisson’s adventures with the Jesuits and the Iroquois. Mastering the Iroquois language and customs, Radisson leads a mission of French traders and Jesuits to Onondaga in an attempt to build alliances and trade for… Read more »
Frederick Coburn (1871-1960) was arguably Canada’s best-known painter at the peak of his career. Nick Fonda revisits Coburn’s work providing charming new insight into the painter and his surroundings. His method includes casting an inquisitive gaze on other accomplished artists who have followed quite unusual paths as they responded to the same muse that moved… Read more »
