Title search results
Showing 1 - 20 of 2502 items
Printbraille
Canadian history, Biography, General non-fiction
Human-transcribed braille
Terry Fox’s remarkable story, just in time to mark the 40th anniversary of the Marathon of Hope!The award-winning Scholastic Canada…
Biography series highlights the lives of remarkable Canadians, whose achievements and legacies have inspired and changed the lives of those that followed them.In Meet Terry Fox, the legendary story of how Terry Fox came to run the Marathon of Hope is chronicled: —his love of sports as a child and teenager; his devastating bone cancer diagnosis; the hospital stay that inspired him to do something to raise awareness about this disease; the poignant moment he dipped his artificial leg in the waters of St. John’s, Newfoundland; and the heartbreaking moment he ended his run. This was also the moment his truly inspiring legacy began.Written by award-winning author Elizabeth MacLeod, this portrait of Terry Fox couples simple yet compelling writing with full-colour, comic-flavoured illustrations by Mike Deas that help bring this unforgettable story to life!Available copies:
0
DAISY audio (CD), DAISY audio (Direct to player), DAISY audio (Zip)
Canadian history, Native peoples of Canada
Human-narrated audio
See below for English description.Irene, huit ans et ses deux frères sont forcés de quitter leur famille pour aller dans…
un pensionnat loin de chez eux. C'est la loi! Dans cet endroit austère, on les empêche de parler leur langue et on leur donne un numéro en guise de nom. À la fin de l'année scolaire, les enfants rentrent à la maison et informent leurs parents des conditions exécrables dans lesquelles ils doivent vivre au pensionnat. Trouveront-ils un moyen de cacher les enfants afin qu'ils n'y retournent jamais?Inspiré de la vie de la grand-mère de Jenny Kay Dupuis, Je ne suis pas un numéro met en lumière une sombre partie de l'histoire du Canada de manière à sensibiliser les enfants et à leur permettre d'en tirer une leçon humaine et historique.When eight-year-old Irene is removed from her First Nations family to live in a residential school she is confused, frightened, and terribly homesick. She tries to remember who she is and where she came from despite the nuns' efforts to force her to do otherwise. When she goes home for summer holidays, her parents decide to never send her away again, but where will she hide and what will happen when her parents disobey the law? Based on the life of Jenny Kay Dupuis’ own grandmother, Je ne suis pas un numéro is a must-read book that brings a terrible part of Canada's history to light in a way that children can learn from and relate to.Original title: I Am Not a Number
Braille (Contracted), Electronic braille (Contracted), DAISY Audio (CD), DAISY Audio (Direct to Player), DAISY Audio (Zip), DAISY text (Direct to player), DAISY text (Zip), Word (Zip), ePub (Zip)
Canadian history
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
Mitigating the destruction and chaos wrought upon the civilian populations of northwest Europe during the latter years of the Second…
World War became the focus of Civil Affairs, a little-known branch of the First Canadian Army. Comprising a motley collection of civilians-turned-soldiers – too old for combat yet too valuable to remain off the front lines – the members of Civil Affairs served as liaisons between Canadian combat forces and the civilians they encountered on the ground.Civilians at the Sharp Endfollows the story of the Civil Affairs branch through France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany in 1944-45. David Borys highlights how Civil Affairs helped civilians caught in the jaws of war by delivering food and medicine, providing shelter for refugees and displaced persons, establishing law and order, dealing with resistance groups, and aiding in the reconstruction of infrastructure in damaged urban areas. Once in Germany the branch was further challenged as it transformed into a military government and became a force of occupation, rehabilitating a war-torn Germany and purging the state of its Nazi leadership, while at times having to protect German civilians from the recently liberated prisoners of the Nazi state.Borys demonstrates that while the Canadian Army was indeed concerned for the welfare of civilians, military operations took priority over civilian needs. Civil Affairs was forced to negotiate this complex terrain, assisting civilian populations while ensuring that they never impeded the work of the Canadian military and the ultimate defeat of Nazi Germany.
Braille (Contracted), Electronic braille (Contracted), DAISY Audio (CD), DAISY Audio (Direct to Player), DAISY Audio (Zip), DAISY text (Direct to player), DAISY text (Zip), Word (Zip), ePub (Zip)
Canadian history, Native peoples, General non-fiction
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
Indigenous activism put small-town northern Ontario on the map in the 1960s and early 1970s. Kenora, Ontario, was home to…
a four-hundred-person march, popularly called "Canada's First Civil Rights March," and a two-month-long armed occupation of a small lakefront park. Canada's Other Red Scare shows how important it is to link the local and the global to broaden narratives of resistance in the 1960s; it is a history not of isolated events closed off from the present but of decolonization as a continuing process. Scott Rutherford explores with rigour and sensitivity the Indigenous political protest and social struggle that took place in Northwestern Ontario and Treaty 3 territory from 1965 to 1974. Drawing on archival documents, media coverage, published interviews, memoirs, and social movement literature, as well as his own lived experience as a settler growing up in Kenora, he reconstructs a period of turbulent protest and the responses it provoked, from support to disbelief to outright hostility. Indigenous organizers advocated for a wide range of issues, from better employment opportunities to the recognition of nationhood, by using such tactics as marches, cultural production, community organizing, journalism, and armed occupation. They drew inspiration from global currents - from black American freedom movements to Third World decolonization - to challenge the inequalities and racial logics that shaped settler-colonialism and daily life in Kenora. Accessible and wide-reaching, Canada's Other Red Scare makes the case that Indigenous political protest during this period should be thought of as both local and transnational, an urgent exercise in confronting the experience of settler-colonialism in places and moments of protest, when its logic and acts of dispossession are held up like a mirror.
DAISY audio (CD), DAISY audio (Direct to player), DAISY audio (Zip)
History, Canadian history
Human-narrated audio
In this definitive and meticulously researched account of the Jewish experience in Canada, award-winning and critically acclaimed author Allan Levine…
documents a story that is rich, accessible, often surprising, and epic in its scope. Relying on an abundance of primary sources and first-hand documentation and interviews, Seeking the Fabled City chronicles the successes and failures, the obstacles overcome and those not conquered, of a historic journey and the people who travelled it.Seeking the Fabled City is a story that unfolds over 250 years--from the decade after the conquest of New France in 1759, when small numbers of Sephardic Jews of Spanish and Portuguese descent arrived in British North America, through the great wave of Russian and Eastern European Jewish immigration at the turn of the twentieth century, to the present, in which Canada's large Jewish community, no longer hindered by the anti-Semitism of the past, is free to flourish. This is a chronicle of a people that takes place at hundreds of locales across the country--mainly in the large urban centres of Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, and Winnipeg, but also in west coast and maritime villages and tiny prairie towns--in a riveting drama with a cast of thousands.Relying on an abundance of primary sources and first-hand documentation and interviews, Seeking the Fabled City chronicles the successes and failures, the obstacles overcome and those not conquered, of a historic journey and the people who travelled it.
Braille (Contracted), Electronic braille (Contracted), DAISY Audio (CD), DAISY Audio (Direct to Player), DAISY Audio (Zip), DAISY text (Direct to player), DAISY text (Zip), Word (Zip), ePub (Zip)
Native peoples biography, Biography, Canadian history
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
Charged with fresh material and new perspectives, this updated edition of the groundbreaking biography From Brotherhood to Nationhood brings George…
Manuel and his fighting tradition into the present. George Manuel (1920–1989) was the strategist and visionary behind the modern Indigenous movement in Canada. A three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, he laid the groundwork for what would become the Assembly of First Nations and was the founding president of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples. Authors Peter McFarlane and Doreen Manuel follow him on a riveting journey from his childhood on a Shuswap reserve through three decades of fierce and dedicated activism. In these pages, an all-new foreword by celebrated Mi'kmaq lawyer and activist Pam Palmater is joined by an afterword from Manuel’s granddaughter, land defender Kanahus Manuel. This edition features new photos and previously untold stories of the pivotal roles that the women of the Manuel family played – and continue to play – in the battle for Indigenous rights.
Braille (Contracted), Electronic braille (Contracted), DAISY Audio (CD), DAISY Audio (Direct to Player), DAISY Audio (Zip), DAISY text (Direct to player), DAISY text (Zip), Word (Zip), ePub (Zip)
Canadian history, Laws and statutes, Politics and government
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
On February 6, 1920, a small group of public service employees met for the first time to form a professional…
association. A century later, the Professional Institute of the Public Service Canada (PIPSC) is a bargaining agent representing close to 60,000 public sector workers, whose collective efforts for the public good have touched the lives of every Canadian. Published on the centennial of PIPSC’s founding, Leading Progress is the definitive account of its evolution from then to now—and a rare glimpse into an under-studied corner of North American labour history. Researcher Dr. Jason Russell draws on a rich collection of sources, including archival material and oral history interviews with dozens of current and past PIPSC members. The story that unfolds is a complex one, filled with success and struggle, told with clarity and even-handedness. After decades of demographic and generational shifts, economic booms and busts, and political sea change, PIPSC looks toward its next hundred years with its mission as strong as ever: to advocate for social and economic justice that benefits all Canadians.
Braille (Contracted), Electronic braille (Contracted), DAISY Audio (CD), DAISY Audio (Direct to Player), DAISY Audio (Zip), DAISY text (Direct to player), DAISY text (Zip), Word (Zip), ePub (Zip)
Canadian history, History
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
Masterful, ambitious, and groundbreaking, this is a major new history of our country by one of our most respected thinkers…
and historians -- a book every Canadian should own. From the acclaimed biographer and historian Conrad Black comes the definitive history of Canada -- a revealing, groundbreaking account of the people and events that shaped a nation. Spanning 874 to 2014, and beginning from Canada's first inhabitants and the early explorers, this masterful history challenges our perception of our history and Canada's role in the world. From Champlain to Carleton, Baldwin and Lafontaine, to MacDonald, Laurier, and King, Canada's role in peace and war, to Quebec's quest for autonomy, Black takes on sweeping themes and vividly recounts the story of Canada's development from colony to dominion to country. Black persuasively reveals that while many would argue that Canada was perhaps never predestined for greatness, the opposite is in fact true: the emergence of a magnificent country, against all odds, was a remarkable achievement. Brilliantly conceived, this major new reexamination of our country's history is a riveting tour de force by one of the best writers writing today.
Braille (Contracted), Electronic braille (Contracted), DAISY Audio (CD), DAISY Audio (Direct to Player), DAISY Audio (Zip), DAISY text (Direct to player), DAISY text (Zip), Word (Zip), ePub (Zip)
Canadian history, War, World War II
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
A masterful telling of the way World War Two has been remembered, forgotten, and remade by Canada over seventy-five years.…
The Second World War shaped modern Canada. It led to the country's emergence as a middle power on the world stage; the rise of the welfare state; industrialization, urbanization, and population growth. After the war, Canada increasingly turned toward the United States in matters of trade, security, and popular culture, which then sparked a desire to strengthen Canadian nationalism from the threat of American hegemony. The Fight for History examines how Canadians framed and reframed the war experience over time. Just as the importance of the battle of Vimy Ridge to Canadians rose, fell, and rose again over a 100-year period, the meaning of Canada's Second World War followed a similar pattern. But the Second World War's relevance to Canada led to conflict between veterans and others in society--more so than in the previous war--as well as a more rapid diminishment of its significance. By the end of the 20th century, Canada's experiences in the war were largely framed as a series of disasters. Canadians seemed to want to talk only of the defeats at Hong Kong and Dieppe or the racially driven policy of the forced relocation of Japanese-Canadians. In the history books and media, there was little discussion of Canada's crucial role in the Battle of the Atlantic, the success of its armies in Italy and other parts of Europe, or the massive contribution of war materials made on the home front. No other victorious nation underwent this bizarre reframing of the war, remaking victories into defeats. The Fight for History is about the efforts to restore a more balanced portrait of Canada's contribution in the global conflict. This is the story of how Canada has talked about the war in the past, how we tried to bury it, and how it was restored. This is the history of a constellation of changing ideas, with many historical twists and turns, and a series of fascinating actors and events.
Braille (Contracted), Electronic braille (Contracted), DAISY Audio (CD), DAISY Audio (Direct to Player), DAISY Audio (Zip), DAISY text (Direct to player), DAISY text (Zip), Word (Zip), ePub (Zip)
Canadian history
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
In Inequality in Canada Eric Sager considers one of the defining – but hardest to define – ideas of our…
era and traces its different meanings and contexts across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.Sager shows how the idea of inequality arose in the long evolution in Britain and the United States from classical economics to the emerging welfare economics of the twentieth century. Within this transatlantic frame, inequality took a distinct form in Canada: different iterations of the idea appear in Protestant critiques of wealth, labour movements, farmer-progressive politics, the social gospel, social Catholicism in Quebec, English-Canadian political economy, and political and intellectual justifications of the social security state. A tradition of idealist thought persisted in the twentieth century, sustaining the idea of inequality despite deep silences among Canadian economists. Sager argues that inequality goes beyond the distribution of income and wealth: it is the idea that there are wide gaps between rich and poor, that the gaps are both an economic problem and a social injustice, and that when inequality appears, it is as a problem that can be either eliminated or reduced.It is precisely because inequality appears in different contexts, and because it changes, Sager reasons, that we can begin to perceive the contours and cleavages of inequality in our time. In our century, a political solution to inequality may rest on the recovery of an ethical ideal and egalitarian politics that have long preoccupied the history of Canadian thought.
Braille (Contracted), Electronic braille (Contracted), DAISY Audio (CD), DAISY Audio (Direct to Player), DAISY Audio (Zip), DAISY text (Direct to player), DAISY text (Zip), Word (Zip), ePub (Zip)
Arts and entertainment, Canadian history, General non-fiction, True crime
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
An in-depth exploration of the Don Jail from its inception through jailbreaks and overcrowding to its eventual shuttering and rebirth.…
Conceived as a “palace for prisoners,” the Don Jail never lived up to its promise. Although based on progressive nineteenth-century penal reform and architectural principles, the institution quickly deteriorated into a place of infamy where both inmates and staff were in constant danger of violence and death. Its mid-twentieth-century replacement, the New Don, soon became equally tainted. Along with investigating the origins and evolution of Toronto’s infamous jail, The Don presents a kaleidoscope of memorable characters — inmates, guards, governors, murderous gangs, meddlesome politicians, harried architects, and even a pair of star-crossed lovers whose doomed romance unfolded in the shadow of the gallows. This is the story of the Don’s tumultuous descent from palace to hellhole, its shuttering and lapse into decay, and its astonishing modern-day metamorphosis.
Braille (Contracted), Electronic braille (Contracted), DAISY Audio (CD), DAISY Audio (Direct to Player), DAISY Audio (Zip), DAISY text (Direct to player), DAISY text (Zip), Word (Zip), ePub (Zip)
Canadian history
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
For decades, the Canadian Armed Forces has used the work of foreign scholars and writers in its professional military education…
to try to understand the human dimension of warfare: why and how people are motivated to fight, and how they behave once they do fight. Yet the specific Canadian context, experience, and perspective are often lost in favour of appeals to universal truths. The first major Canadian study of combat motivation in almost forty years, Why We Fight redresses this imbalance by presenting some of the best new work on the subject. Bringing together top military practitioners and scholars to discuss some of the most controversial issues of modern warfare, Why We Fight examines the face of battle as experienced by Canadians. It explores sexual violence in war, professionalism, organizations, leadership, shared intent, motivation in extremis, and the toxicity of the "warrior" culture. Its chapters offer key insights on combat motivation theories, the modern operating environment, and the collective and individual identities of the men and women who fight for Canada. Many worry that technology is leading us towards a post-human age, particularly in war. Why We Fight affirms the centrality of the human being in warfare in Canada's past, present, and future.
Braille (Contracted), Electronic braille (Contracted), DAISY Audio (CD), DAISY Audio (Direct to Player), DAISY Audio (Zip), DAISY text (Direct to player), DAISY text (Zip), Word (Zip), ePub (Zip)
Science and technology, Canadian history, Science and medicine biography
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
With interviews from Chris Hadfield and Marc Garneau, the tale of Canada’s involvement in international space exploration from the 1960s…
to the present day Canada is a small but mighty power in space exploration. After providing the Canadarm robotic arm for the space shuttle in 1981, Canada received an invitation to start an astronaut program — a program that quickly let its people accumulate skill and prestige. Canadian astronauts have since commanded the International Space Station, flown as co-pilots on spacecraft, and even held senior roles within NASA. This book traces how Canada grew from small beginnings into a major player in international space policy. You will hear about Canada’s space program from the words of its astronauts, from Canadian celebrity Chris Hadfield to Liberal cabinet minister Marc Garneau to Governor General Julie Payette. You will experience the excitement and challenges of reporting on a rocket launch in Kazakhstan, as Canada sent its latest astronaut to space in preparation for possible moon missions in the 2020s. And you will learn from the people who work behind the scenes on Canadian space technology and space policy about why we are doing this — and what we plan to do next.
Braille (Contracted), Electronic braille (Contracted), DAISY audio (CD), DAISY audio (Direct to player), DAISY audio (Zip), DAISY text (Direct to player), DAISY text (Zip), Word (Zip), ePub (Zip)
Canadian history, Native peoples of Canada, General non-fiction
Human-narrated audio, Automated braille
Inuit games have been played as long as anyone can remember! Learn all about Inuit games and why they are…
important for staying healthy and strong for life in the Arctic.
Braille (Contracted), Electronic braille (Contracted), DAISY Audio (CD), DAISY Audio (Direct to Player), DAISY Audio (Zip), DAISY text (Direct to player), DAISY text (Zip), Word (Zip), ePub (Zip)
United States history, Biography, United States travel and geography, Arts and entertainment, Music biography, Business and economics, Canadian history, Music, Actors biography
Synthetic audio, Human-transcribed braille
A dazzling, epic biography of Levon Helm––the beloved, legendary drummer and singer of the Band. He sang the anthems of…
a generation: "The Weight," "Up on Cripple Creek," and "Life Is a Carnival." Levon Helm's story––told here through sweeping research and interviews with close friends and fellow musicians––is the rollicking story of American popular music itself. In the Arkansas Delta, a young Levon witnessed "blues, country, and gospel hit in a head-on collision," as he put it. The result was rock 'n' roll. As a teenager, he joined the raucous Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, then helped merge a hard-driving electric sound with Bob Dylan's folk roots, and revolutionized American rock with the Band. Helm not only provided perfect "in the pocket" rhythm and unforgettable vocals, he was the Band's soul. Levon traces a rebellious life on the road, from being booed with Bob Dylan to the creative cauldron of Big Pink, the Woodstock Festival, world tours, The Last Waltz, and beyond with the man Dylan called "one of the last true great spirits of my or any other generation." Author Sandra B. Tooze digs deep into what Helm saw as a devastating betrayal by his closest friend, Band guitarist Robbie Robertson––and Levon's career collapse, his near bankruptcy, and the loss of his voice due to throat cancer in 1997. Yet Helm found success in an acting career that included roles in Coal Miner's Daughter and The Right Stuff. Regaining his singing voice, he made his last decade a triumph, opening his barn to the Midnight Rambles and earning three Grammys. Cancer finally claimed his life in 2012. Levon is a penetrating, skillfully told tale of a music legend from Southern cotton fields to global limelight.
Braille (Contracted), Electronic braille (Contracted), DAISY Audio (CD), DAISY Audio (Direct to Player), DAISY Audio (Zip), DAISY text (Direct to player), DAISY text (Zip), Word (Zip), ePub (Zip)
Canadian history, Politics and government
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
In this brilliant and thoroughly engaging work Ian McKay sets out to revamp the history of Canadian socialism. Drawing on…
models of left politics in Marx and Gramsci, he outlines a fresh agenda for exploration of the Canadian left. In rejecting the usual paths of sectarian or sentimental histories, McKay draws on contemporary cultural theory to argue for an inventive strategy of “reconnaissance.” This important, groundbreaking work combines the highest standards of scholarship, and a broad knowledge of current debates in the field. Rebels, Reds, Radicals is the introduction to McKay’s definitive multi-volume work on the history of Canadian socialism (volume one, Reasoning Otherwise: Leftists and the People’s Enlightenment in Canada, 1890-1920 is now available).
Braille (Contracted), Electronic braille (Contracted), DAISY Audio (CD), DAISY Audio (Direct to Player), DAISY Audio (Zip), DAISY text (Direct to player), DAISY text (Zip), Word (Zip), ePub (Zip)
Canadian history, History
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
Exploring Toronto’s history through tantalizing true tales of romance, marriage, and lust. Toronto’s past is filled with passion and heartache.…
The Toronto Book of Love brings the history of the city to life with fascinating true tales of romance, marriage, and lust: from the scandalous love affairs of the city’s early settlers to the prime minister’s wife partying with rock stars on her anniversary; from ancient First Nations wedding ceremonies to a pastor wearing a bulletproof vest to perform one of Canada’s first same-sex marriage ceremonies.Home to adulterous movie stars, faithful rebels, and heartbroken spies, Toronto has been shaped by crushes, jealousies, and flirtations. The Toronto Book of Love explores the evolution of the city from a remote colonial outpost to a booming modern metropolis through the stories of those who have fallen in love among its ravines, church spires, and skyscrapers.
DAISY audio (CD), DAISY audio (Direct to player), DAISY audio (Zip)
Adventure and exploration, Journals and memoirs, Canadian history
Human-narrated audio
On an icy night in October 1984, a Piper Navajo commuter plane carrying 9 passengers crashed in the remote wilderness…
of northern Alberta, killing 6 people. Four survived: the rookie pilot, a prominent politician, a cop, and the criminal he was escorting to face charges. Despite the poor weather, Erik Vogel, the 24-year-old pilot, was under intense pressure to fly--a situation not uncommon to pilots working for small airlines. Overworked and exhausted, he feared losing his job if he refused to fly. Larry Shaben, the author's father and Canada's first Muslim Cabinet Minister, was commuting home after a busy week at the Alberta Legislature. After Paul Archambault, a drifter wanted on an outstanding warrant, boarded the plane, rookie Constable Scott Deschamps decided, against RCMP regulations, to remove his handcuffs--a decision that profoundly impacted the men's survival. As they fought through the night to stay alive, the dividing lines of power, wealth and status were erased and each man was forced to confront the precious and limited nature of his existence. The survivors forged unlikely friendships and through them found strength and courage to rebuild their lives. Into the Abyss is a powerful narrative that combines in-depth reporting with sympathy and grace to explore how a single, tragic event can upset our assumptions and become a catalyst for transformation.
DAISY audio (CD), DAISY audio (Direct to player), DAISY audio (Zip)
Canadian history, Journals and memoirs, European history
Human-narrated audio
An intimate portrait of immigration, family, and the heartbreaking (and sometimes hilarious) things that happen along the way from the…
author Colum McCann calls "the greatest writer of our generation."In My Parents, Aleksandar Hemon tells the story of his parents' immigration from Bosnia to Canada--of the lives that were upended in the Siege of Sarajevo and the new lives his parents were forced to build. As ever with his work, Hemon portrays both the perfect, intimate details (his mother's lonely upbringing, his father's fanatical beekeeping) and a sweeping, heartbreaking history of his native country, from the rule of Otto von Bismarck to the massacres that shocked the world. It is a story full of many Hemons, of course--his parents, sister, uncles, cousins--and also of German occupying forces, Yugoslav communist revolutionary partisans, royalist Serb collaborators, and a few befuddled Canadians.That would be enough to astound readers and yet Hemon also shares an untampered series of beautifully distilled memories and observations titled This Does Not Belong to You, the perfect complement to a major work from a major writer who is about to become unignorable.
DAISY audio (CD), DAISY audio (Direct to player), DAISY audio (Zip)
History, Canadian history
Human-narrated audio
Intrepid voyager, writer and comedian Michael Palin follows the trail of two expeditions made by the Royal Navy's HMS Erebus…
to opposite ends of the globe, reliving the voyages and investigating the ship itself, lost on the final Franklin expedition and discovered with the help of Inuit knowledge in 2014.The story of a ship begins after the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, when Great Britain had more bomb ships than it had enemies. The solid, reinforced hulls of HMS Erebus, and another bomb ship, HMS Terror, made them suitable for discovering what lay at the coldest ends of the earth. In 1839, Erebus was chosen as the flagship of an expedition to penetrate south to explore Antarctica. Under the leadership of the charismatic James Clark Ross, she and HMS Terror sailed further south than anyone had been before. But Antarctica never captured the national imagination; what the British navy needed now was confirmation of its superiority by making the discovery, once and for all, of a route through the North-West Passage. Chosen to lead the mission was Sir John Franklin, at 59 someone many considered too old for such a hazardous journey. Nevertheless, he and his men confidently sailed away down the Thames in April 1845. Provisioned for three winters in the Arctic, Erebus and Terror and the 129 men of the Franklin expedition were seen heading west by two whalers in late July. No one ever saw them again. Over the years there were many attempts to discover what might have happened--and eventually the first bodies were discovered in shallow graves, confirming that it had been the dreadful fate of the explorers to die of hunger and scurvy as they abandoned the ships in the ice. For generations, the mystery of what had happened to the ships endured. Then, on September 9th, 2014, came the almost unbelievable news: HMS Erebus had been discovered thirty feet below the Arctic waters, by a Parks Canada exploration ship. Palin looks at the Erebus story through the different motives of the two expeditions, one scientific and successful, the other nationalistic and disastrous. He examines the past by means of the extensive historical record and travels in the present day to those places where there is still an echo of Erebus herself, from the dockyard where she was built, to Tasmania where the Antarctic voyage began and the Falkland Islands, then on to the Canadian Arctic, to get a sense of what the conditions must have been like for the starving, stumbling sailors as they abandoned their ships to the ice. And of course the story has a future. It lies ten metres down in the waters of Nunavut's Queen Maud Gulf, where many secrets wait to be revealed.