In the 1920s, 20,000 Mennonites left the newly formed Soviet Union and emigrated to Canada. Among them were Heinrich and Helena Kroeger and their five children. Based on Heinrich's diaries and letters, and archival research, Hard Passage speaks to the indomitable spirit of Mennonite immigrants to the Canadian West.

A CBC BOOKS MUST-READ NONFICTION BOOK FOR BLACK HISTORY MONTH Nominated for the Toronto Book Award Smartly dressed and smiling, Canada’s black train porters were a familiar sight to the average passenger—yet their minority status rendered them politically invisible, second-class in the social imagination that determined who was and who was not considered Canadian. Subjected to grueling shifts and unreasonable standards—a passenger missing his stop was a dismissible offense—the so-called Pullmen of the country’s rail lines were denied secure positions and prohibited from bringing their families to Canada, and it was their struggle against the racist Dominion that laid the groundwork for the multicultural nation we know today. Drawing on the experiences of these influential black Canadians, Cecil Foster’s They Call Me George demonstrates the power of individuals and minority groups in the fight for social justice and shows how a country can change for the better.

Tenacious activism of the Alpine Club of Canada leads to mountain recreation and conservation.

Despite the "green" benefits of rail travel, Canada has lost much of its railway heritage. Across the country stations have been bulldozed and rails ripped up. Once the heart of communities large and small, stations and tracks have left little more than a gaping hole in Canada's landscapes. This book revisits the times when railways were the country's economic lifeline, and the station the social centre. Here was where we worked, played, listened to political speeches, or simply said goodbye to loved ones never knowing when they would return. The landscapes which grew around the station are also explored and include such forgotten features as station hotels, restaurants, gardens and the once common railway YMCA. Railway companies often hired the world's leading architects to design grand station buildings which ranged in style from chateau-esque to art deco. Even small town stations and wayside shelters displayed an artistic flare and elegance. Although most have vanished, the book celebrates the survival of that heritage in stations which have been saved or indeed remain in use. The book will appeal to anyone who has links with our rail era, or who simply appreciates the value of Canada's built heritage.

In the 1930's, when Hitler's Nazi party was growing in Germany, it also gained popularity in the Sudetenland, inhabited by a German-speaking population that had been added to Czechoslovakia in 1919. A minority group, the Social Democrats, became active in opposing that party. When Britain's Neville Chamberlain ceded the area to Germany in 1938 as the "Price for Peace," these people were in danger of incarceration or even execution. Of those who escaped, a number were able to immigrate to Canada. Although none of them had any training or experience in agriculture, being office or factory workers in towns or cities of central Europe, they were admitted to Canada providing that they become farmers. A group of about 518 ranging in age from 1 month to 54 years were brought to Tupper, BC, in the Peace River District, under the supervision of the Canadian Colonization Association, a subsidiary of the Canadian Pacific Railway, to develop their own farms out of a virtual wilderness. This book is the story of their first five years there.