Along the Shoreexamines the Toronto waterfront, past and present, through the lens of four lakefront communities and districts — the Scarborough shore (including the Bluffs), the Beach, the Island, and the Lakeshore (New Toronto, Mimico, Humber Bay, and Long Branch). Each retains a direct and immediate connection with Lake Ontario and the natural world. Exploring the history, landscape, geography, and people of each of these waterfront areas reveals a rich heritage that has gone l...

Ontario is rich in ghost towns, communities that were once thriving but which have been reduced to mere shadows of their former selves. Nine villages -- including silver camps, fishing ports, crossroads hamlets, and farming settlements -- come alive on the pages of this book. The term 'ghost town' invariably conjures up images of fog-shrouded cemeteries, buildings with sinister visages, and of course, restless spirits of the dead. While often this is merely our imagination at play, in some...

With over 15,000 copies sold, Cycling the Kettle Valley has proven to be a remarkable resource for anyone interested in the stunning abandoned railbed located in the southern interior of British Columbia. One of the premier rail trails in North America, it contains spectacular sections through impressive canyons requiring tunnels and trestles to carry the railbed through rock ridges and across mountain streams. Growing public interest in conservation of the railbed and its structu...

Terry Boyle unveils the eccentric and bizarre in these mini-histories of Ontario's towns and cities: the imposter who ran the Rockwood Asylum in Kingston; Ian Fleming's inspiration for James Bond; the Prince of Wales's undignified crossing of Rice Lake; the tragic life of Joseph Brant; the man who advertised his wife's death before poisoning her; as well as Ontario's first bullfight and the answer to the question, "Why did so many lumberjacks sport beards?"The colourful characters,...

**PGWUncle John's taking the plunge . . . into the Great White North!RaincoastHey, Canada! Uncle John salutes you!**For 25 years, Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader has been wildly popular in Canada, so we decided to dedicate an entire edition to our friends in the Great White North--even though much of the continental U.S. is north of Canada’s southernmost point. That misconception--and a whole lot more--is revealed in this loving ode to a friendly natio...

A lively book illustrated with archival photos, Secrets of Lake Simcoe is a valuable addition to local history collections and provides a refreshing way for anyone to view what some consider to be Canada's sixth Great Lake.At the heart of central Ontario, Lake Simcoe has played an important role in the province's history for hundreds of years. Today a popular destination for pleasure-seekers and cottagers, it helped open up the region to explorers and fur traders, settlers...

The stories of the men and women who dug for gold on Williams Creek are told in this revised and updated edition of a Canadian bestseller.The legendary town of Barkerville is flourishing today, just as it did more than 150 years ago, but this time under the care of professional and amateur historians. Richard Thomas Wright peels back the pages of history as he unearths the area’s history and chronicles the fortunes and the follies of gold-rush-era Barkerville. The result of years o...

Russia has the Trans-Siberian Highway, Australia has Highway 1, and Canada has the Trans-Canada Highway, an iconic road that stretches almost 8,000 kilometres across six time zones.In the summer of 2012, on the highway's 50th birthday, Mark Richardson drove its entire length to find out how the road came to be and what it's now become. In his daily account of the 10-week road trip, originally published as a blog on macleans.ca, he follows the original "pathfinders," Thomas...

Canada is a country rich in stories, and few take as much joy as Douglas Gibson in discovering them. As one of the country’s leading editors and publishers for 40 years, he coaxed modern classics out of some of Canada’s finest minds, and then took to telling his own stories in his first memoir, Stories About Storytellers.Gibson turned his memoir into a one-man stage show that eventually played almost 100 times, in all ten provinces, from coast to coast. As a literary touri...

Explore Ontario's historic roads, each with unexpected side trips and a fascinating story.In his relentless quest for the unusual in a world of the mundane, modern-day explorer Ron Brown has traveled nearly every backroad in Ontario. This guidebook features 22 trips, each illustrated with photographs and accompanied by an easy-to-follow map.These trips range in length from afternoon outings to weekend excursions. And all lead to fascinating out-of-...

Whether you hike, bike, ride the rails, or drive, the shore of Lake Ontario can yield a treasure trove of heritage sites and natural beauty -- if you know where to look.Travel with Ron Brown as he probes the shoreline of the Canadian side of Lake Ontario to discover its hidden heritage. Explore "ghost ports," forgotten coves, historical lighthouses, rumrunning lore, and even the location of a top-secret spy camp. The area also contains some unusual natural features, including a mys...

On the morning of June 13, 1886, a rogue wind fanned the flames of a small clearing fire—and within five hours, the newly incorporated city of Vancouver, British Columbia, had been reduced to smoldering ash. Vancouver is Ashes: The Great Fire of 1886 is the first detailed exploration of what happened on that pivotal, yet seldom revisited day in the history of Canada’s third-largest city. Lisa Anne Smith tells the story with numerous archival photographs. She uses eye-witness accounts to de...