National Network for Equitable Library Service

Short-listed for the 2010 Banff Mountain Book Festival Competition The Mountain Knows No Expert epitomizes George Evanoff’s philosophy towards the outdoors, while presenting an intriguing contrast with the man himself. Widely regarded as an "expert," he was a knowledgeable, experienced, and practical outdoorsman, teacher, and mentor, yet ironically lost his life in the mountains in an encounter with a grizzly.

High on the Big Stone Heart is a collection of vibrant and entertaining essays on the people and places of Canada's Boreal North as seen through the eyes of one of the country's most celebrated writers of non-fiction. Accompany Charles Wilkins as he ranges across the wilds of northern Quebec; ventures deep into the subarctic Yukon in search of caribou; and tracks the north coast of Lake Superior, the world's most elegant and mysterious body of fresh water. Meet Murray Monk, trapper extraordinaire, and Barney Giesler, the king of the wooden boat builders.

Born in Manitoba of Icelandic parents, Vilhjalmur Stefansson (1879-1962) became one of Canada’s most famous and controversial Arctic explorers. After graduate studies in anthropology at Harvard University, Stefansson lived with and studied Inuit in the Mackenzie River Delta in the Northwest Territories in the winter of 1906-07.

Treasures of many kinds still lie hidden below crumbling castles and ruined monasteries; in macabre tombs; in subterranean labyrinths and sinister caverns. Many sunken treasures lie beneath the seas, oceans and lakes of the world. Vast stores of pirate gold are still hidden on many a real life treasure island such as Oak Island at Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. Many treasures were looted, hidden and lost after the two World Wars - Hermann Goering, for example, one of most powerful leaders of Nazi Germany, is strongly suspected of hiding huge treasures at Veldenstein and Lake Zeller.

One of Canada's founding peoples, the Irish arrived in the Newfoundland fishing stations as early as the seventeenth century. By the eighteenth century they were establishing farms and settlements from Nova Scotia to the Great Lakes. Then, in the 1840s, came the failures of Ireland's potato crop, which people in the west of Ireland had depended on for survival.

Born in Thamesville, Ontario, a student at Queen’s University in Kingston in the 1930’s, and editor and later publisher of the Peterborough Examiner from the 1940s to the mid-1960s, playwright, essayist, critic, professor, and novelist Robertson Davies (1913-1995) was one of Canada’s pre-eminent literary voices for more than a half-century. Davies, with his generous beard and donnish manner, was the very epitome of the "man of letters," a term he abhorred.

Long-dead British soldiers, grieving lovers, an undead priest - Niagara-on-the-Lake’s long and colourful history is kept alive by ghosts of its past. Widely considered to be Canada’s most haunted community, the town has preserved much of its built heritage, thus providing perfect "haunts" for age-old spirits. Through historical investigation and engrossing storytelling, the authors have detailed nearly two dozen ghosts.

By 1781, the sixth year of the American rebellion, British strategic focus had shifted from the northern states to concentrate in the south. Canada’s governor, Frederick Haldimand, was responsible for the defence of the Crown’s largest colony against the threat of Franco-American invasion, while assisting overall British strategy.

Born and raised in Port McNicoll, John Arpin discovered his musical talents early: at the age of four he could pick out tunes on the piano that he had heard on the radio; by ten, he had been identified as a child prodigy by a Royal Conservatory of Music adjudicator. He would go on to become one of Canada’s finest keyboard virtuosos, playing at concert halls around the world.

Although they committed separate crimes, Arthur Lucas and Ronald Turpin met their deaths on the same scaffold at Toronto's Don Jail on December 11, 1962. They were the last two people executed in Canada, but surprisingly little was known about them until now. This is the first book to uncover the lives and deaths of Turpin, a Canadian criminal, and Lucas, a Detroit gangster. The result of more than five years of research, The Last to Die is based on original interviews, hidden documents, trial transcripts, and newspaper accounts.