General Histories

Northwest Epic is the panoramic story of the courageous U.S. Army Engineers and civilian contractors who toiled in the tense months after Pearl Harbor to build a 1,500-mile emergency supply line through the rugged Canadian Rockies to isolated military bases in Alaska. The construction of this winding gravel road--GI's called it the ALCAN--was very much an all-American adventure: blacks, whites, and natives working together under the harshest extremes of climate and terrain--racing to bolster Alaska's defenses and deter another Japanese attack on North American soil. It is a story of ambitious men, such as Lieutenant General Brehon B. Somervell, the Army's suavely ruthless chief logistician, who brooked no opposition to his grandiose schemes. "Dynamite in a Tiffany Box" some called him. It is the story of Master Sergeant Wansley Hill and thousands of other black soldiers who, unwanted by their country for duty on the front lines, nonetheless proved themselves steadfast heroes in the land of the midnight sun. And it is also the story of natives like Charlie McDonald, a guide whose intimate knowledge of the land--with its dense forests, impassable muskeg bogs, and unmapped mountain valleys--was used by the Army Engineers to help build a road that has brought fundamental change to a once-remote corner of the North American continent. The Alaska Highway--with its hundreds of bridges, chain of airfields, and oil refinery and pipeline system (known as CANOL)--opened to traffic in late 1942 and was in full use one year later. Though one of the greatest feats of twentieth-century macro-engineering, this huge project sparked as much protest as patriotism. Critics argued that the road was in the wrong place and would have little postwar value; a well-publicized investigation of CANOL's excesses gave a critical boost to the career of Senator Harry S. Truman. Despite such controversy, the completion of the highway provided a historical watershed for the territory of Alaska, for in the decades that followed, the land would be propelled, often reluctantly, from a pristine refuge, a nineteenth-century land inhabited by natives, dreamers, and rugged individualists, into the twentieth century. In the tradition of David McCullough's The Path Between the Seas, Heath Twichell's Northwest Epic is a sweeping and richly textured history, a book that tells of almost forgotten hardships and heroics during the darkest days of World War II.

To celebrate the centenary of Huntsville, a delightful community in central Ontario long known as a summer resort area, the Research Committee of the Muskoka Pioneer Village has prepared a book of old photographs showing places and people in Huntsville and the townships of Brunei, Chaffey, Stephenson, Stisted, and the Lake of Bays. Each old photograph is accompanied by a story that has been an individual effort. This accounts for the various styles of writing and the depth of information relating to it. There are 126 photos, as well as old advertisements and maps, divided into chapters that outline early history, scenes, main street, industries, hotels, general stores, railway stations, fairgrounds, schools, churches, houses, resorts, and cottages. Unlike many local research groups, the Huntsville Centennial Committee has been especially careful to select only good quality photographs that have reproduced well and offer the real flavour of the community with the clarity that readers always hope for, but do not always get. Information and photographs were gathered from over 160 families with roots in the area, and the atmosphere of early Muskoka life has been captured successfully. The book is in horizontal format, contains a bibliography, but lacks an index.

An interesting look at the early days of north american petroleum drilling. Illustrated with black and white photographs, maps and line drawings. Topics covered include: The Hard Oilers of Enniskillen: A Brief History of Oil; Gum Beds; Charles Nelson Tripp; Paris International Exhibition; The First Oil Well; James Miller Williams Jigging Down; Hugh Nixon Shaw; John Henry Fairbank; Wild Wells; Race Riot; Canadian Oil Association; Royal Honours; Old Fairbank; Drilling and Refining Technology; Jake Englehart and William H. McGarvey; The Return of Charles Nelson Tripp; Boom and Bust. The Oil Barons of Petrolia: The Petrolia Discovery; Vantuyl and Fairbank and Vaughn; Harry Prince; The Petrolia Assemblies; Corporate Ventures; Petrolia Family Politics; Foreign Drillers and Imperial Dreams; Founding Imperial Oil Company; The Oil Exchange; William McGarvey in Galicia; Imperial Success; Baronial Buildings; Death of the Fathers; Standard Oil Raids; Royal Petrolian; Standard Takeover; Ghost Town; Englehart's Railway; and The End of an Era

This book greatly expands on the original Northcott book published in 1989. It covers the people of Thunder Bay Beach, its history from the first settler, Louis Antoine Labatte, to the present day. Nearly 1000 photographs, many in full colour, illustrating the changing life styles of the community.