The poems in this book arise from Robinson's Crossing - the place where the railway ends and European settlers arriving in northern Alberta had to cross the Pembina River and advance by wagon or on foot. How have we crossed into this country, with what violence and what blind love? Robinson's Crossing enacts the pause at the frontier, where we reflect on the realities of colonial experience, but also on the nature of living here- on historical dwelling itself. In long meditative narratives and shorter probing lyrics, Jan Zwicky shows us-as she has in her celebrated Lyric Philosophy and the Governor General's award-winning Songs for Relinquishing the Earth - how music means and meaning is musical. My great- grandmother slept in a boxcar on the night before she made the crossing. The steel ended in Sangudo then, there was no trestle on the Pembina, no siding on the other side. They crossed by ferry, and went on by cart through bush, the same eight miles. Another family legend has it that she stood there in the open doorway of the shack and said, "You told me, Ernest, it had windows and a floor." - from "Robinson's Crossing"

Cougar’s Crossing “To read a book by Lillian Ross is to travel to another time and place with characters who quickly become family. Read this true-to-life novel to feel the essence of the rugged era on the Canadian prairies… raw, messy, inspired by hope and motivated by grit. Ross weaves a poignant drama of wounded love, jealousy and human emotion.” Corrine McConchie, Librarian Vancouver Excerpt from Iris Tuftin’s Editor’s Comment …Could this be ‘his’ remains, we wondered? The hated man who killed our Aunt Florence in 1921? …The facts were overwhelming – more fascinating than we ever imagined. Now the story of Cougar’s Crossing would have to be changed. We knew the truth – or most of it. A Historical Novel with a Mysterious Twist The loud, brash, irreverent Cougar Wright swore like a trooper and didn’t believe in a higher power than his own strength, but he loved his family and wanted them to join him in his struggle to tame the wilderness. His family’s dance with destiny in Alberta’s Northwest would shake his world and theirs.

From 1947, when Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers, through 1959, when the Boston Red Sox became the last major league team to integrate, more than a hundred African American baseball players crossed the color line and made it to the major leagues. Each of these players is profiled in this comprehensive book, which includes their statistics and capsule biographies, their triumphs and their on- and off-field trials as they integrated the game. Some of these players became superstars of the game and eventual Hall of Famers - Jackie Robinson, Ernie Banks, Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, Roy Campanella, and Bob Gibson - but most, fine journeymen like Frank Barnes, Willie Kirkland, Billy Bruton, and Harry Simpson, were average players. However, all were pioneers, facing down the enormous difficulties of integrating organized baseball.