Maritime History
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Alligators of the North: The Story of the West & Peachey Steam Warping Tugs
The Alligator was an amphibious machine designed and patented in Canada in the late 1880s. This warping tug was capable of towing a log boom across a lake and then portaging itself to the next body of water. Steam-powered and rugged, it was one of the pioneers in the mechanization of the forest industry and for more than thirty years was ubiquitous in northern Ontario until eclipsed by its worthy successor the Russel tug.
Bluenose Master: The Memoirs of Captain Ernest K. Hartling
Captain Ernest Hartling, born in Spanish Ship Bay, Nova Scotia, in 1906, takes us on a voyage through a life crammed with adventure, colour, and excitement.
Bluenose Master: The Memoirs of Captain Ernest K. Hartling
Captain Ernest Hartling, born in Spanish Ship Bay, Nova Scotia, in 1906, takes us on a voyage through a life crammed with adventure, colour, and excitement.
Fighting at Sea: Naval Battles from the Ages of Sail and Steam
Donald E. Graves explains the role of the Royal Navy in the Siege of Quebec in 1759 that led to its capture by Britain in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. British historian Andrew Lambert describes how the USS President was defeated by HMS Endymion in 1815, near the end of the War of 1812, and American William S. Dudley recounts the last battle of "Old Ironsides," USS Constitution in which the famous ship was triumphant. Douglas M. McLean describes a four-day battle against U-boats stalking a major convoy in the North Atlantic during Wolrd War II. Michael Whitby describes in detail a nighttime destroyer battle in the English Channel, as the Germans attempted to harass supply lines to the Normandy beaches. Finally British historian Malcolm Llewellyn-Jones describes the intricacies of the hunt for a U-boat in British coastal waters. The book is well illustrated and there are detailed maps of the episodes described.
Fire When Ready, Gridley: Great Naval Stories from Manila Bay to Vietnam
A history of naval warfare discusses the greatest sea battles of the twentieth century, discussing Jutland, Pearl Harbor, the Falkland Islands, and Vietnam, and features the comments of figures ranging from Churchill to Kipling to C. S. Forester.
Mary Rose – King Henry VIII’s warship 1510-45: Insights into the construction, operation, rescue and restoration of a great Tudor ship and its contents
From the time that Henry VIII's warship Mary Rose was raised from the Solent in 1982 after 437 years on the seabed, to the present day, she has been constantly in the public eye. The Tudor ship and the 19,000 artifacts recovered from within her are a fascinating time capsule of life in Tudor times as well as offering unique insights into life in Henry's navy.
RMS Titanic Manual: 1909-1912 Olympic Class
The world famous ocean liner Titanic, which sank on her maiden voyage in 1912, is the latest subject to receive the Haynes Manual treatment. With an authoritative text and hundreds of illustrations, see how this leviathan was built, launched and fitted out. Read about her lavish passenger accommodation. Learn about the captain's responsibilities, including the operation of a transatlantic liner. Consider the chief engineer's view -- how did he manage the huge engines and other onboard systems? What was it like to operate luxury ocean liner from the perspective of Titantic's owner, the White Star line?
Samuel Cunard: Nova Scotia’s Master of the North Atlantic
An illustrated biography of a Canadian who sparked a world transportation revolution.
In North America, the name Cunard is synonymous with shipping. This book traces the entrepreneurial rise of Samuel Cunard who, for decades, ruled a shipping empire on the North Atlantic.
By the time Cunard died in 1865, he had witnessed the emergence of steamships, developed trade links with China and helped establish the Quebec and Halifax Steam Navigation Company. He was a director of the Bank of British North America and bought huge tracts of land in PEI. He won the transatlantic mail service contract between Britain and North America, and built several of the most luxurious steamships of the day. His ships helped Britain in the Crimean War and he became Sir Samuel Cunard for his support of the war effort. The Cunard line which he founded was long a major force in the development of international travel.
This book combines the Cunard story with 150+ colour and black and white visuals covering Cunard's life and the subsequent history of his company. A fascinating and readable account of the brilliance and determination of one man who played an innovative role in world transportation history.
Schooners: Great Lakes Album Series
The "Great Lakes Album Series" is a tribute to the vessels that helped develop the Great Lakes basin into one of the world's major industrial heartlands. The illuminating text and fascinating historical photographs bring to life the memorable story of these hard-working lake vessels and their crews.
The Age of Sail: Master Shipbuilders of the Maritimes
The 19th century was the age of shipbuilding in the Maritime Provinces: all along the coast men were turning trees into ships that would sail on the world's oceans. Farmers and fishermen became master craftsmen building huge, deep-water vessels.
In this beautifully illustrated volume, marine historian Stanley Spicer recaptures the age of sail and its many colourful characters. From hundreds of shipbuilders, Spicer has selected the Troops of Saint John, the Killams of Yarmouth, Joseph Cunard in Bathurst, the Peake family of Prince Edward Island, John Young of Lunenburg and the Moshers in Avondale. Through these often larger-than-life figures we explore the triumphs and tragedies of the Maritimes' great age of shipbuilding and ship owning.
The Age of Sail draws on a range of rich visual resources including ship portraits, archival photographs, engravings, and artifacts displayed in the collections of leading Maritime museums, adding depth to a gripping historical account.
The Arctic Grail: The Quest for the North West Passage and the North Pole, 1818-1909
Scores of nineteenth-century expeditions battled savage cold, relentless ice and winter darkness in pursuit of two great prizes: the quest for the elusive Passage linking the Atlantic and the Pacific and the international race to reach the North Pole. Pierre Berton's #1 best-selling book brings to life the great explorers: the pious and ambitious Edward Parry, the flawed hero John Franklin, ruthless Robert Peary and the cool Norwegian Roald Amundsen. He also credits the Inuit, whose tracking and hunting skills saved the lives of the adventurers and their men countless times.
These quests are peopled with remarkable figures full of passion and eccentricity. They include Charles Hall, an obscure printer who abandoned family and business to head to a frozen world of which he knew nothing; John Ross, whose naval career ended when he spotted a range of mountains that didn't exist; Frederick Cook, who faked reaching the North Pole; and Jane Franklin, who forced an expensive search for her missing husband upon a reluctant British government.
Pierre Berton, who won his first Governor General's award for The Mysterious North, here again gives us an important and fascinating history that reads like a novel as he examines the historic events of the golden age of Arctic exploration.
The Charley-Man: A History of Wooden Shipbuilding at Quebec 1763-1893
The launching of the little barquentine White Wings from a Lauzon shipyard in 1893 brought to an end the construction of square-rigged sailing ships at Quebec, and industry which produced over 1,600 stately vessels to carry timber and masts from the North American heartland to British ports. The Charley-Man presents over 200 photos, tables, drawings, graphs, and reproductions of archival documents to illustrate the story of these ships and the shipbuilders.
The Saga of the Bluenose
A short, but excellent little book about a true legend of Canada, the schooner Bluenose, which appears on the Canadian dime and is a symbol of that great country, right along with the Maple Leaf. This book packs a lot into its pages and really puts the reader on board the legendary fishing/racing schooner, from her construction in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia to her demise in the Caribbean--and her proud rebirth as the Bluenose II, which sails around the world today as a great representative of Canada. I had purchased this book in Nova Scotia and it was all the more meaningful to me after having seen the Bluenose II in port in Halifax. A great read for anyone into sailing and anyone who loves Canada, whether you're Canadian--or a neighbor to the south like me, who loves nearly everything Canadian except for the weather!
The Sinclair Saga: Exploring the Facts and the Legend of Prince Henry Sinclair
In this book Mark Finnan explores the facts and legends that surround Scotland's Prince Henry Sinclair and his possible voyage to Nova Scotia and New England in 1398.
Sinclair was Admiral of the Seas during the latter half of the fourteenth century, a master mariner whose travels took him to England, Norway, France, Italy and the Middle East. His ships sailed westwards to Iceland and Greenland in the wake of his Viking forefathers. But a controversial map and document give strong reason to believe that he led an expedition to North America almost 100 years before Cabot and Columbus, and that he was connected to the Knights Templar and the legend of the Holy Grail.
The Sinclair Saga takes readers on a voyage of discovery from North America to the Orkney Islands, encountering many people and places on both sides of the Atlantic associated with the Sinclair legend.
The Town that Died: The True Story of the Greatest Man Made Explosion Before Hiroshima
A really interesting and detailed account of the explosion in Halifax harbor in 1917 that destroyed a large part of the city and killed and injured thousands of the inhabitants.
The True Glory: The Story of the Royal Navy over a Thousand Years
A history of the Royal Navy divided into periods of British History: Anglo Saxon, Tudor, Stuart, Hanoverian, George III, Waterloo to Crimea, Crimea to WW1, Inter War Years, WW2 to Hiroshima, and 1945 to the Present Day.
The Wexford: Elusive Shipwreck of the Great Storm, 1913
The steamer Wexford, with her flared bow, tall masts, and her open, canvas-sided hurricane deck, charmed spectators as she carried cargo across the Great Lakes. The romance and adventure of her British and French history in the South American trade followed her. Under newly appointed 24-year-old captain Bruce Cameron, her fateful final voyage was punctuated with opportunities to be saved from destruction , but his persistence in trying to make port at Goderich led to tragedy - a victim of the storm of 1913. Over a period of 87 years, she eluded many efforts to locate her remains, but was finally discovered in 2000 by a sailor using a fish-finding device. Since then, she has been visited by thousands, but sadly plundered. Our story traces her history from her British origins in 1883, through the transition to become a "Laker," the eventful storm, the search, and her ultimate discovery in southern Lake Huron, and the controversy over how she should be protected.
Warships of the Civil War Navies
Warships of the Civil War Navies presents statistical data, war service, and histories of all the ships that participated in the Civil War.
York Boats of the Hudson’s Bay Company: Canada’s Inland Armada
York Boats of the Hudson's Bay Company, Canada's Inland Armada tells the stories of men and boats that helped lay the foundations of Canada's western provinces and northern territories. Johnson's accomplishment serves to fill in a missing page in Canadian history - no other book tells in such detail and with such drama the history of this particularly Canadian mode of transportation and exploration.
Hardly the lighthearted story of a band of merry canoeists hauling goods from port to settlement, York Boats of the Hudson's Bay Company is about the "hardest work ever seen by human beings". A triumph of human ingenuity and strength against the most severe elements.
Johnson gives voice to the Metis, First Nations, French Canadians, and Orkneymen, who poled, sailed, rowed, and portaged the "newfangled boats with keels" up and down Canada's rivers. Through rapids, firestorms, freezing cold, and over impossible terrain, the York boatmen and guides worked themselves to the bone to deliver freight from York Factory on Hudson Bay to the scattered settlements within Rupert's Land. They also came to the aid of settlers, charted new territory, and found new resources throughout Canada's west and north.
With 57 archival images, 11 maps, and two appendices, illustrating the York Boat story, York Boats of the Hudson's Bay Company is not just history - it's armchair adventure.