National Network for Equitable Library Service

Short-listed for the 2012 Speaker’s Book Award Edmund Zavitz (1875–1968) rescued Ontario from the ravages of increasingly more powerful floods, erosion, and deadly fires. Wastelands were talking over many hectares of once-flourishing farmlands and towns. Sites like the Oak Ridges Moraine were well on their way to becoming a dust bowl and all because of extensive deforestation. Zavitz held the positions of chief forester of Ontario, deputy minister of forests, and director of reforestation.

The Chinese have become a vibrant part of Toronto’s multiculturalism, with no less than seven Chinatowns created since 1984. Short-listed for the 2013 Speaker’s Book Award and for the 2012 Heritage Toronto Award The modest beginnings of the Chinese in Toronto and the development of Chinatown is largely due to the completion of the CPR in 1885. No longer requiring the services of the Chinese labourers, a hostile British Columbia sent them eastward in search of employment and a more welcoming place. In 1894 Toronto’s Chinese population numbered fifty.

Discover the scrapyard statue planned for University Avenue, the flapper-era "CN Tower" that led to a decade of litigation, and an electric light-rail transit network proposed in 1915.

The Canadian National Exhibition grounds are so richly steeped in history that there are spirits that dwell there who like to come out and play and work. When one thinks of Toronto’s Canadian National Exhibition, memories of bright lights, cotton candy, the rush of people, and the excitement of rides spring to mind. But when the lights go down and the people head home, the fairground takes on a life of its own. The spirits that dwell there from the exhibition’s long history come out to play and work, even to scare the occasional employee.

Canadians line the overpasses of the Highway of Heroes to show their support, grief, and pride in our fallen champions. The first four Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan were repatriated at Canadas largest military base in 2002. The fallen soldiers were driven down the 172-kilometre stretch of highway between Trenton and Toronto, and pedestrians lined the overpasses, hoping to make a connection with the grieving families. The support these people show isnt political; its not a movement for or against Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan.

Gavin Hamilton’s research shows that a toxin found in natural rubber might well have been the culprit in the 43 babies’ deaths at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children in 1980–81. In 1980-81, 43 babies died at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children from a supposed digoxin overdose. Serial murder was suspected, leading to the arrest of nurse Susan Nelles. In order to clear Nelles’s name, an investigation was launched to find an alternate explanation. No one on the Grange Royal Commission of Inquiry had expertise in diagnosis.

Here is one of the most unique and fascinating food histories in the world, exploring the diverse culinary history of Canada. Winner of the 2007 Canadian Culinary Book Award for Canadian Food Culture In Canadians at Table we learn about lessons of survival from the First Nations, the foods that fuelled fur traders, and the adaptability of early settlers to their new environment.

In the early 20th century the Canadian North was a mystery, but the Canadian military stepped in, and this book explores its historic activities in Canada’s Arctic. Is the Canadian North a state of mind or simply the lands and waters above the 60th parallel? In searching for the ill-fated Franklin Expedition in the 19th century, Britain’s Royal Navy mapped and charted most of the Arctic Archipelago. In 1874 Canadian Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie agreed to take up sovereignty of all the Arctic, if only to keep the United States and Tsarist Russia out.

One of Canada’s best-known and most-honoured biographers turns to the raw material of his own life in Writing History. A university professor, prolific scholar, public intellectual, and frank critic of the world he has known, Michael Bliss draws on extensive personal diaries to describe a life that has taken him from small-town Ontario in the 1950s to international recognition for his books in Canadian and medical history.

The Arctic is ruled by ice. For Inuit, it is a highway, a hunting ground, and the platform on which life is lived. While the international community argues about sovereignty, security, and resource development at the top of the world, the Inuit remind us that they are the original inhabitants of this magnificent place - and that it is undergoing a dangerous transformation. The Arctic ice is melting at an alarming rate and Inuit have become the direct witnesses and messengers of climate change.