Books in Stories of Canada series

As a pioneer in Canada in the early 1800s, Catharine Parr Traill was one of the first writers to record the Ontario wilderness in literary and scientific detail, and her stories for young people became part of a new focus on young people. Her books on emigration encouraged other pioneers who struggled with life in a new country. Catharine was a natural storyteller who loved to write. As an adult in Canada, she wrote while she was hungry and fearful for her family’s safety. Her life was one of hardship and adventure, but also of great joy. This biography shows how an English girl called Katie became an adult who gave so much to North America’s early literature.

Portia White, born in 1911, had a dream: to sing on stage. Even as a little girl in Halifax, Nova Scotia, she could imagine an audience before her, clapping as she took her bow. But how could a poor girl growing up in a family with ten siblings make that dream come true? At that time, there were few opera roles available for black singers. To become a recital singer, she would have to go to Europe to study. How could she ever afford that? But Portia was not only a talented contralto, she was determined. With the support of her family and community, she eventually climbed onto stages across Canada, the United States, and Central and South America in the late 1930s and early 1940s. She crossed the colour barrier to enter concert halls and sing before white and black audiences on both continents. Later, she became a teacher and mentor of other well-known and successful singers. When Portia White died in 1968, she left a legacy of living to her belief that "first you dream and then you lace up your boots."

When Emily Stowe was born in Ontario in 1831, every girl’s life followed a set pattern. Regardless of her personality, intelligence, capabilities or creativity, her future was limited to housework and childcare. Emily Stowe was determined to change that pattern. Sydell Waxman, a writer, researcher and lecturer on women of the 1800s, tells of the events in the life of the young Emily Stowe which caused her to become, not only the first woman school principal and the first woman to practise medicine in Canada, but a pioneer in the fight for women’s rights. With the help of original sketches and archival material, Changing the Pattern also creates a vivid picture of Canada in the late 1800s as it follows Emily’s crusade to create new patterns for girls’ lives.

We had to pass where no human being should venture. On the morning of May 28, 1808, Simon Fraser, two clerks, two Native guides, and nineteen voyageurs set out in four frail birch-bark canoes from Fort George on the Pacific slope of the Rocky Mountains. Before them was an unnamed and unexplored river that led south and, Fraser hoped, west to the Pacific coast. Every bend threatened new dangers - impassable rapids, treacherous portages, unfriendly Natives. But in seventy-one days, Fraser and his party fought their way to the mouth of the savage river and back to Fort George. Fraser's journey on the river named for him is one of the most remarkable feats in the exploration of western Canada. Although Fraser failed to find the navigable canoe route to the Pacific, so desperately needed by the North West Company, his exploration helped to secure for Great Britain - and for Canada - the vast territory that became British Columbia. The Savage River is a gripping account by award-winning author Marjorie Wilkins Campbell of one of the greatest adventures in Canadian history. First published in 1968, the book is base on Simon Fraser's journal of his remarkable journey on the river that bears his name.