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Books : History : Americas : Canada : 19th Century
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Listen to a short interview with Jon Latimer
Host: Chris Gondek | Producer: Heron & CraneIn the first complete history of the War of 1812 written from a British perspective, Jon Latimer offers an authoritative and compelling account that places the conflict in its strategic context within the Napoleonic wars. The British viewed the War of 1812 as an ill-fated attempt by the young American republic to annex Canada. For British Canada, populated by many loyalists who had fled the American Revolution, this was a war for survival. The Americans aimed both to assert their nationhood on the global stage and to expand their territory northward and westward.
Americans would later find in this war many iconic moments in their national story--the bombardment of Fort McHenry (the inspiration for Francis Scott Key's "Star Spangled Banner"); the Battle of Lake Erie; the burning of Washington; the death of Tecumseh; Andrew Jackson's victory at New Orleans--but their war of conquest was ultimately a failure. Even the issues of neutrality and impressment that had triggered the war were not resolved in the peace treaty. For Britain, the war was subsumed under a long conflict to stop Napoleon and to preserve the empire. The one lasting result of the war was in Canada, where the British victory eliminated the threat of American conquest, and set Canadians on the road toward confederation.
Latimer describes events not merely through the eyes of generals, admirals, and politicians but through those of the soldiers, sailors, and ordinary people who were directly affected. Drawing on personal letters, diaries, and memoirs, he crafts an intimate narrative that marches the reader into the heat of battle.
(20071001)
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In 1897 a grimy steamer docked in Seattle and set into epic motion the incredible succession of events that Pierre Berton's exhilarating The Klondike Fever chronicles in all its splendid and astonishing folly. For the steamer Portland bore two tons of pure Klondike gold. And immediately, the stampede north to Alaska began. Easily as many as 100,000 adventurers, dreamers, and would-be miners from all over the world struck out for the remote, isolated gold fields in the Klondike Valley, most of them in total ignorance of the long, harsh Alaskan winters and the territory's indomitable terrain. Less than a third of that number would complete the enormously arduous mountain journey to their destination. Some would strike gold. Berton's story belongs less to the few who would make their fortunes than to the many swept up in the gold mania, to often unfortunate effects and tragic ends. It is a story of cold skies and avalanches, of con men and gamblers and dance hall girls, of sunken ships, of suicides, of dead horses and desperate men, of grizzly old miners and millionaires, of the land — its exploitation and revenge. It is a story of the human capacity to dream, and to endure.
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This book gathers the riveting stories of adventurous women-miners, madams, merchants, and mothers -- who went North during the gold rush era.
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Morgan offers an authentic and deliciously humorous account of the prostitutes and other "disreputable" women who were the earliest female pioneers of the Far North.
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In the four years between 1881 and 1885, Canada was forged into one nation by the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The Last Spike reconstructs the incredible story of how some 2,000 miles of steel crossed the continent in just five years — exactly half the time stipulated in the contract. Pierre Berton recreates the adventures that were part of this vast undertaking: the railway on the brink of bankruptcy, with one hour between it and ruin; the extraordinary land boom of Winnipeg in 1881–1882; and the epic tale of how William Van Horne rushed 3,000 soldiers over a half-finished railway to quell the Riel Rebellion.
Dominating the whole saga are the men who made it all possible — a host of astonishing characters: Van Horne, the powerhouse behind the vision of a transcontinental railroad; Rogers, the eccentric surveyor; Onderdonk, the cool New Yorker; Stephen, the most emotional of businessmen; Father Lacombe, the black-robed voyageur; Sam Steele, of the North West Mounted Police; Gabriel Dumont, the Prince of the Prairies; more than 7,000 Chinese workers, toiling and dying in the canyons of the Fraser Valley; and many more — land sharks, construction geniuses, politicians, and entrepreneurs — all of whom played a role in the founding of the new Canada west of Ontario.
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With the building of the railroad and the settlement of the plains, the North West was opening up. The Klondike stampede was a wild interlude in the epic story of western development, and here are its dramatic tales of hardship, heroism, and villainy. We meet Soapy Smith, dictator of Skagway; Swiftwater Bill Gates, who bathed in champagne; Silent Sam Bonnifield, who lost and won back a hotel in a poker game; and Roddy Connors, who danced away a fortune at a dollar a dance. We meet dance-hall queens, paupers turned millionaires, missionaries and entrepreneurs, and legendary Mounties such as Sam Steele, the Lion of the Yukon.
Pierre Berton's riveting account reveals to us the spectacle of the Chilkoot Pass, and the terrors of lesser-known trails through the swamps of British Columbia, across the glaciers of souther Alaska, and up the icy streams of the Mackenzie Mountains. It contrasts the lawless frontier life on the American side of the border to the relative safety of Dawson City. Winner of the Governor General's award for non-fiction, Klondike is authentic history and grand entertainment, and a must-read for anyone interested in the Canadian frontier.
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Three hundred vintage advertising and promotional posters.
During the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, the Canadian Pacific Railway Company (CPR) was widely hailed as "The World's Greatest Travel System." The Canadian Pacific transcontinental railroad spanned North America from the Atlantic to Pacific oceans. The company also operated luxury hotels and resorts, passenger ocean liners, cargo ships, and an airline.
To promote the company and Canada to the world, Canadian Pacific produced more than 2,500 stunning lithographic and silkscreen posters -- 1,000 of which were created in its own graphic studio.
Posters of the Canadian Pacific is a treasury of three hundred of the finest posters published by the company. They were displayed in Canadian Pacific offices and independent travel agencies worldwide from the 1880s until the 1970s. These posters enticed millions to visit and even settle in Canada.
The posters span the years 1883-1973 with special focus on the Art Deco style posters of the 1920s and '30s. They focus on travel and leisure -- activities on ski slopes, golf courses, beaches, and luxury resorts. Other posters feature Canadian Pacific ocean liners in exotic locations around the globe such as the West Indies, Rio, Hawaii and the Orient.
Posters of the Canadian Pacific will appeal to a wide audience including art lovers, history buffs and railroad enthusiasts.
(20041203)
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The most photographed event in America during the 19th century.
More than 10,000 images reside in public archives and private collections, depicting every aspect of what popular historian Pierre Berton has called "one of the strangest mass movements in history." For this book, Berton selected 200 photographs, some iconic, some touchingly personal, and most previously unpublished.
The Klondike Quest brings to life the panoramic drama of the great stampede for gold as seen by the ordinary gold-seeker. The photographs are beautifully reproduced and informatively and colorfully captioned. "One million people, it is said, laid plans to go to the Klondike. One hundred thousand actually set off. And so the Klondike saga is a chronicle of humanity in the mass.... For the next eighteen months, the Yukon interior plateau became a human anthill."
(20051028)
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This popular guide describes the history of the famous Chilkoot Trail, called "the meanest 32 miles in history, " and details equipment to take, trail etiquette, and mile-by-mile trail information for hikers.
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In 1896, a small group of prospectors discovered a stunningly rich pocket of gold at the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon rivers, and in the following two years thousands of individuals traveled to the area, hoping to find wealth in a rugged and challenging setting. Ever since that time, the Klondike Gold Rush--especially as portrayed in photographs of long lines of gold seekers marching up Chilkoot Pass--has had a hold on the popular imagination.
In this first environmental history of the gold rush, Kathryn Morse describes how the miners got to the Klondike, the mining technologies they employed, and the complex networks by which they obtained food, clothing, and tools. She looks at the political and economic debates surrounding the valuation of gold and the emerging industrial economy that exploited its extraction in Alaska, and explores the ways in which a web of connections among America’s transportation, supply, and marketing industries linked miners to other industrial and agricultural laborers across the country. The profound economic and cultural transformations that supported the Alaska-Yukon gold rush ultimately reverberate to modern times.
The story Morse tells is often narrated through the diaries and letters of the miners themselves. The daunting challenges of traveling, working, and surviving in the raw wilderness are illustrated not only by the miners’ compelling accounts but by newspaper reports and advertisements. Seattle played a key role as "gateway to the Klondike." A public relations campaign lured potential miners to the West and local businesses seized the opportunity to make large profits while thousands of gold seekers streamed through Seattle.
The drama of the miners’ journeys north, their trials along the gold creeks, and their encounters with an extreme climate will appeal not only to scholars of the western environment and of late-19th-century industrialism, but to readers interested in reliving the vivid adventure of the West’s last great gold rush.
"Morse demonstrates the dramatic environmental damage created by the gold rush, but she also helps us understand the very real accommodations that miners had to make if they hoped to survive in these far northern landscapes. . . . She is a superb storyteller with a wry sense of humor, a flair for the quirky detail and the revealing anecdote, and a keen appreciation for the tragicomic underside of this famous event."--from the Introduction by William Cronon
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Most North American railroads began their lives as local or regional enterprises, growing larger through acquisition and construction. By contrast, Canadian Pacific Railway was conceived as a transcontinental railroad from the beginning. CPR has not only provided transportation;it has given tangible expression to the political, economic, and social connections between Canada's eastern and western provinces.
In this marvelously illustrated history, author Tom Murray provides readers with an engaging look at the railroad whose own history is, in many ways, the history of Canada itself. In addition to examining the prehistory leading to CPR's incorporation in 1881 and its current status as one of the continent's leading carriers, Murray explains the colossal geographic obstacles overcome by CPR's founders; motive power and rolling stock through depression, war, and peacetime; renowned diversification efforts that included a passenger ship line, an airline serving four continents, a chain of four-star hotels, and western mining operations; and the colorful cast of characters who laid the groundwork that made CPR what is today.
Marvelous photography carefully chosen from the collections of top rail photographers and archives across Canada and the United States illustrate the national icon that began as a railway, became a global transportation system, and evolved into a diversified industrial conglomerate before settling into its role as the respected carrier it is today.
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In 1896 gold was discovered in British Columbia on Rabbit Creek, a tributary of the Klondike River. Newspapers trumpeted the discovery around the world. People from far and wide heeded this call and planned expeditions to the icy fields of the far north. Business owners in Seattle and elsewhere recognized gold's discovery as an opportunity to profit from the hordes of wide-eyed miners heading north. They hoped to supply erstwhile miners with the myriad goods and services they required--food, clothing, medicine, tools, machinery, boats, and pack animals.
However, Seattle wasnít alone in recognizing this economic opportunity and competed with San Francisco, Portland, Tacoma, and Victoria and Vancouver, British Columbia, to become outfitters for Klondike-bound miners. Seattle businessmen organized to win the miners' attention--and their ready cash--which would ensure that Seattle grew into an influential West Coast city.
Historian Lisa Mighetto captures the unique character of Seattle at the turn of the 19th century. Her engaging prose illuminates this in-depth study of the economics and culture of the time. Mighetto incorporates important background history of Seattle and its settlement and growth prior to the gold rush. Her storytelling skills capture the character of this robust city and its fragile class structure, a mixture of dry goods empires, saw mill kings, politicians, stalwart citizens, and the occasional ne'er-do-well.
Mighetto has gathered newspaper advertisements designed to attract the neophyte miners. An outstanding selection of historical photos and an array of informational graphics detail Seattleís growth as an important trade and business center.
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There have been guidebooks to military sites before, but no book has covered the War of 1812 in its entirety. Now for the first time, Dundurn Press can offer this guidebook to all of the major historic sites of the War of 1812, and some of the more obscure ones. In detailing these sites, Collins has included 385 historic sites and markers, twenty-seven maps, and forty-seven illustrations. Utilizing some of the old "pen and ink" drawings from the last century, the author has given a "then and now" feel to the sites. Icons have been associated with each entry so that the reader can know at a glance what is offered at each site. Each entry gives a full history of what occurred and is cross referenced to related sites. The book includes a chronology of the war, and is a handy tool for both the traveller and the historian. This guide fills a gap in the canon of existing War of 1812 literature, and is a welcome addition to the collections of both the serious student of the war and the amateur historian.
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In 1896, gold was discovered in the Yukon's Klondike. To get there, stampeders hiked the legendary Chilkoot Trail, packing their gear almost straight up and over a formidable mountain pass linking the Alaskan coast and the Yukon interior. Thousands of gold-fevered stampeders attempted the perilous journey in the depths of a northern winter. Not all of them made it.Now historians from Parks Canada and U.S. National Park Service have co-authored a well illustrated, in-depth look at the dramatic history of what is now an international historic site and popular recreational trail. Chilkoot Trail, Heritage route to the Klondike, looks past the gold rush to its origins as an important trade route thousands of years ago, and examines First Nations use of the area today. A timely volume, published in the 100th year after gold was discovered in the Klondike.
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"... the definitive analysis of the battle of Chippawa. Donald Graves establishes its historical background, describes the opposing armies, brings them into battle, and assesses the results, without wasting a word — yet his account of the battle combines high colour and exact detail. You find yourself alternately in the generals' boots and the privates' brogans, in all the smoke, shock and uproar of a short-range, stand-up fire fight."
- John Elting, author of Swords Around a Throne: Napoleon's Grande Armee
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The first white man to cross North America, Scottish-born Alexander Mackenzie (1764-1820) was typical of his generation of explorers: this bold adventurer who surveyed the untamed wilderness with impressive accuracy was also a hardheaded businessman who ventured into unknown Canadian territory in search of profits from fur trading. Canadian historian Barry Gough admires Mackenzie's toughness and daring without glossing over the towering ego and knack for self-promotion that won him a knighthood from England in 1802. First Across the Continent is another enjoyable entry in the University of Oklahoma's Western Biographies series.