Did you ever witness something that was so far from normal that you didn't dare to tell anyone about it? This is a collection of short stories in that vein. Tales of cryptids and the paranormal that are so outlandish they can't possibly be true. Or so your mind would have you believe. From hair-raising encounters to bizarre life forms, these tales will surely chill you to the bones. So if you ever saw something out of the corner of your eye only to have it disappear when you looked that wa...

There is a burning desire within us all that wants us to be more than we ever thought we could be. Bigger, stronger, and more confident in our abilities than we ever thought possible. What if all of those possibilities were literally at your fingertips? The Forging of the Ring is a series of epic tales that allow us to do exactly that. Follow the ring as it makes its journey from mystical lands on the hands of heroes and villains alike battling monsters and creating the fine line between g...

The Cayuga are one of the original five nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, a powerful alliance of Native American tribes in the Northeast, inhabiting much of the land in what is now central New York State. When their nation was destroyed in the Sullivan–Clinton campaign of 1779, the Cayuga endured 200 years of displacement. As a result, relatively little is known about the location, organization, or ambience of their ancestral villages. Perched on a triangular finger of land against...

Who says that the future is always bright? The prospect of better things yet to come is most certainly an attractive thought, one that propels scientific, creative, and social advancement. It is an endeavor that drives humanity forward. But the future is vague and difficult to predict. Not everything turns out the way it is expected. In fact, it is oftentimes not always for the better. In this collection of futuristic tales, the highs and lows of humanity's struggle to break the boundaries...

The Grimacing Goblin Inn is not a place to enter lightly. Frequented mostly by lowly rogues and cutthroats, it is best to keep one hand on your weapon's hilt and your back against a wall. The ale is cheap, which suits the Goblin's clientele well as the patrons drink and swap yarns. Come in, sit back and eavesdrop on these stories told by the adventurers themselves, but keep an eye on your coin pouch. Things have a tendency to go missing in this gloomy inn.This is a collection of her...

In this landmark work on a subject too often dismissed as paranormal or disreputable, Jeff Meldrum gives us the first book on sasquatch to be written by a scientist with impeccable academic credentials, an objective look at the facts in a field mined with hoaxes and sensationalism.Meldrum reports on the work of a team of experts from a wide variety of fields who were assembled to examine the evidence for a large, yet undiscovered, North American primate. He reviews...

Beginning in the late 1980s, a series of improbable bark beetle outbreaks unsettled iconic forests and communities across western North America. An insect the size of a rice kernel eventually killed more than 30 billion pine and spruce trees from Alaska to New Mexico. Often appearing in masses larger than schools of killer whales, the beetles engineered one of the world's greatest forest die-offs since the deforestation of Europe by peasants between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries.

J. M. Adovasio has spent the last thirty years at the center of one of our most fiery scientific debates: Who were the first humans in the Americas, and how and when did they get there?At its heart, The First Americans is the story of the revolution in thinking that Adovasio and his fellow archaeologists have brought about, and the firestorm it has ignited. As he writes, “The work of lifetimes has been put at risk, reputations have been damaged, an astounding amount of sil...

Thorough, detailed, and scientifically up-to-date, Prairies: A Natural History provides a comprehensive nontechnical guide to the biology and ecology of the prairies, or the Great Plains grasslands of North America, offering a view of the past, a vision for the future, and a clear focus on the present. With a total area of more than 3.5 million square kilometers (500,000 in Canada and the remainder in the United States), the prairies occupy the heartland of the co...

A new vision is sweeping through ecological science: The dense web of dependencies that makes up an ecosystem has gained an added dimension-the dimension of time. Every field, forest, and park is full of living organisms adapted for relationships with creatures that are now extinct. In a vivid narrative, Connie Barlow shows how the idea of "missing partners" in nature evolved from isolated, curious examples into an idea that is transforming how ecologists understand the entire flora and fa...

Before Ontario there was ice. As the last ice age came to an end, land began to emerge from the melting glaciers. With time, plants and animals moved into the new landscape and people followed. For almost 15,000 years, the land that is now Ontario has provided a home for their descendants: hundreds of generations of First Peoples. With contributions from the province's leading archaeologists, Before Ontario provides both an outline of Ontario's ancient past and an easy to understand explan...

Quetico Park in northwestern Ontario celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2009. Long-recognized as a gem among parks, Quetico contains some of the largest stands of old-growth red and white pine in Canada , as well as a diversity of fascinating lichens, carnivorous plants in specialized habitats.The author presents an insightful look into Quetico's natural history as he examines the adapations that have allowed moose, white-tailed deer, wolves and other mammals to survive. The human...