The Trent system of lakes, rivers, and canals occupies a considerable part of the counties of Hastings, Durham, Northumberland, Peterborough, Haliburton, and Victoria, in the province of Ontario. This volume of documents, records, and early writings covers the discovery and settlement of the valley, development and decline of the lumber trade, the Trent Canal and community life, and is abundantly illustrated in gravure and line from source materials. The Times Literary Supplement says of this first volume that is "raised high hopes of an important contribution to Canadian social and economic history." British Book News says that the "excerpts from manuscripts, newspapers, old and rare books and pamphlets, with the excellent contemporary illustrations, give a vivid and valuable account of early life in this interesting area."

This volume is an integrated overview and synthesis of available data relating to the Quaternary evolution of the River Trent. It provides detailed descriptions of the Pleistocene sedimentary records from the Trent, its tributaries and related drainage systems - a sedimentary record that spans a period of approximately half a million years - and the biostratigraphical and archaeological material preserved therein. Significant new data are presented from recently discovered sites of geological and archaeological importance, including previously unrecognised fluvial deposits, as well as novel analyses, such as mathematical modelling of fluvial incision as recorded by the river terrace deposits. In combination with a thorough review of the literature on the Trent, these new data have contributed to revised chronostratigraphical and palaeogeographical frameworks for central England and revealed the complexity of the Pleistocene fluvial and glacial records in this region. The fragmentary Trent terrace sequence is an important element of wider reconstructions of Pleistocene palaeodrainage in Britain, providing a link between the records preserved in the English Midlands and those in East Anglia.

Canada's leaders were key participants. Governor-generals, from Sir Guy Carleton, who ordered the first survey, to Lord Syndenham, who cancelled construction in 1841, were intimately involved in the project. For nearly a century every prime minister, from Francis Hincks, who tried to sell the decaying locks and dams, through John A. Macdonald, who revived the scheme, to Robert Borden, who finally completed it, was caught up in this most persistent public project. But the most important participants were countless little-known Canadians who, for one reason or another, promoted the scheme and doggedly pushed it to a conclusion. This is their story.