In 1918, Canadian Pacific steamship Princess Sophia ran aground on Alaska’s Vanderbilt reef. She sat there for two terrifying days before sinking in a raging snowstorm. Seventy-six years later, a cruise ship called the Star Princess was sailing in the same stretch of water — and Alaska’s worst maritime disaster nearly repeated itself.
"an excellent anthology ... a lovely project" --Silver Donald Cameron Given that Canada has the longest coastline in the world and its motto is "From Sea unto Sea," it is not surprising that virtually every Canadian writer has been inspired to write about some aspect of the sea at some point in their work. As this book shows, those watery passages are some of the very best writing the nation has produced. Journeying coast to coast to coast, from the picturesque and isolated Vancouver Island village of Ucluelet, through the desolate Northwest Passage, to historic Signal Hill at the tip of Newfoundland's Avalon Peninsula, Spindrift: A Canadian Book of the Sea invites the reader on an evocative voyage. Reflecting on a myriad of sea-related themes--including the earliest Indigenous presence, the first nautical exploration of Canada, the arrival of immigrants on the nation's shores, the realities of making a living on the water, tragic marine events, warfare and celebrated vessels and people--Spindrift paints a compelling portrait of Canada. Editors Michael and Anita Hadley have distilled the essence from a vast collection of maritime reflection by some of Canada's greatest fiction and non-fiction writers including Milton Acorn, Pierre Berton, Earle Birney, M. Wylie Blanchet, Emily Carr, Donald Creighton, Michael Crummey, Barry Gough, Lawrence Hill, Edith Iglauer, Joy Kogawa, Malcolm Lowry, Linden MacIntyre, Yann Martel, L.M. Montgomery, Donna Morrissey, Farley Mowat, Alice Munro, Peter C. Newman, E.J. Pratt, Al Purdy, Nino Ricci, Stan Rogers, Jane Urquhart and Rudy Wiebe, to name but a few. Whether yachtsman, professional seafarer, or simply an admirer of ocean vistas, the reader will be moved and delighted by this treasury of Canadian voices. Please note that, due to licensing concerns, selections in the ebook differ slightly from the print book.
Alaska Shipwrecks: 12 Months of Disasters is a month to month accounting of the worst, largest and most interesting maritime disasters in Alaska history. Each chapter is a different month and each begins with significant statistics for that month in history. Included with the descriptions of 275 significant tragedies are word for word stories told by survivors, rescuers and other first hand observers. Particular attention has been paid to listing all of the thousands of names of persons who were lost. In some cases survivors names are included as well.
Aunt Phil's Trunk Volume Three entertains readers as they travel through Alaska's history from 1912 to 1935. This book of nonfiction short stories highlights the pioneering spirit of early Alaskans as they enter a new era as a territory of the United States. As with the first two books, Volume Three is filled with close to 350 historical photographs. Downing Bill weaves page-turning narratives. Readers follow along as men with axes, hammers and mauls pound a path through the vast Alaska wilderness to lay railroad tracks that connect the deep-water port of Seward in the south to the territory's interior town of Fairbanks in the north. Through the stories in this volume, readers watch a railroad construction town grow out of the tundra to become Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska. Volume Three also shares stories about epidemics and disasters, including the Great Sickness of 1918, the sinking of the steamship Princess Sophia in Southeast Alaska and the incredible diphtheria serum run in 1925 when brave mushers and their tenacious dogs saved the town of Nome from certain death. This book shines a light on early aviators who blazed new trails through Alaska skies, how the Alaska Native people struggled for recognition and how farmers from America's Midwest carved out an agricultural community in the wild Matanuska Valley. It ends with the fatal airplane crash of humorist Will Rogers and aviator Wiley Post near Barrow in 1935.