These joyful, heartwarming tales of Big Joe and his animal friends are sure to tickle the fancy of children and adults of all ages who can still suspend disbelief.
People thought nine-year-old Rebecca was a “wild animal” when she moved to town. For six years she had lived in the railway village of Brent in Algonquin Park in a boxcar beside the tracks. Her vivid memories of those years provide insight into her isolated but fulfilling life there. Her individual story reflects Canada’s struggle for its own identity in the 1900s.
Told in her own voice and supported by remarkable photographs of the era, Rebecca’s story is a must read for anyone interested in railways, Algonquin Park, or Canadian history in general.
Michael Ouellette woke up after three of the five days spent in ICU at the Hospital of Yellowknife. On the third of the five days spent in ICU at the hospital in Yellowknife, Michael Ouellette woke up with little, to no memory of what happened that shocked even his wife who sat right by his bedside. Through the efficient efforts of the Medevac team, he was flown 190 miles out of the isolated mine site north of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. The next 28 days under the care of the skilled team of medical professionals was just the beginning of a roller coaster ride of challenges as he worked through reorientation to a life altogether different from what he was used to. As life hands him limes and lemons, he looks at the new meaning of adventure in his life with humor and insight, just thankful to be alive. Death snatched him away but he managed to slip through its fingers like grains of sand. His second chance at life proves that the Great Spirit is more powerful than death. An acquired brain injury poses a twist to this new beginning as Ouellette pulls you into his world.
No one kept the name of Grey Owl alive in the 1960’s and 1970’s more than his daughter Dawn. All her adult life she defended her father as did her mother, Anahareo, from those who underscored his contribution to the cause of conservation. She knew how timely his central message was: “You belong to Nature, not it to you”.
When two diverse and distinct cultures meet in Mattawa in the 1950s it makes for an improbable story. Read about a remarkable Black doctor from the Caribbean nation of Haiti and an attractive Russian woman from wartorn Europe and their struggle to find their place in a multicultural Canada. Will integrity and hard work be enough to overcome the odds and make for a meaningful life? Read this powerful and moving story that unfolds where the Ottawa and Mattawa Rivers meet.
This book is a chronological history of the Monestime family from their places of birth to the present day. In the case of Dr. Monestime, it covers his life from his Haitian birth on December 16, 1909 through 100 years including his children and grandchildren, to the present day.
This book is the story of a man, who was a doctor for forty years, including successful careers in Haiti and Canada, two long periods of medical training, thousands of operations as a surgeon, and many births as a doctor; he could be remembered for this alone.
But the story is much more than that, when you add his widely recognized remarkable political career as Canada’s, if not North America’s, first Black mayor. The legacy of his achievements for the people of Mattawa and beyond has made him something of a legend.
Situated on an alluvial plain on both sides of the Mattawa River where the Mattawa joins of the Ottawa River, the view is a spectacular. The wide expanse of water, the Laurentian Mountains in Quebec in the distance, joined and accented by the railway bridge, is memorable. This community of about 1000 households and 2500 people has a history going back hundreds of years to when the Algonquin people stopped here regularly to rest and repair their birchbark canoes after, or prior to, attempting the Mattawa River run while hunting or delivering furs. Two groups of Algonquins under Antoine Kiwiwisens and Amable du Fond settled here more permanently in the early eighteen hundreds. Their hunting territory was to the northwest and southwest of the Mattawa River respectively. Their names remain on our maps today. Amable du Fond built the log house that remains as one of the town’s oldest buildings. It served as a chapel and infirmary at one time.
“MATTA” (Meeting) and “WA” (Water)
Mattawa’s history is one of the most colorful in Canada. It’s name in the Indian language means “Meeting of the Waters”. The area was a bountiful hunting ground for the Indians long before 1610 when the first white man arrived and paddled up the Mattawa River.
This book is a true life tale about the good medicine of the thunderbirds. It is the deeply personal account of an adoptee who had been receiving strange intuitive clues to his lost ancestral roots since he was a boy.
While seeking out hints to his suspected Indigenous identity, guidance about his greater life purpose appeared instead. Thunderbird knowledge began to be revealed to him in a series of visions about the existence of a mysterious mountain. His visions also included the actual, earthly steps he would need to take if he stood a remote chance of making it up there.
By acting upon the inspirations of his visions and following through, the spirits of thunderbirds started to come to him. Presenting themselves as the “Old Ones”, he believed his Algonquin ancestors were helping him to find his way. And so began his lengthy traditional schooling about the enlightening and empowering nature of thunderbirds and their life changing medicinal role. Although in pain, he endured the training.
Upon being told, “The weakest people need the strongest medicine”, he accepted he struggled emotionally and was perpetually pining for peace. But with the aid of the thunderbirds, he at last followed the trail up the mountain. Now at the top he finally discovered the sacred high place of the thunderbird nest. And upon seeing that everything he had learned helped him to know the truth, he was finally able to realize his own.
Quest for the Thunderbird Nest is a testimony to the wondrous power of Algonquin spirituality in helping us heal and be happier human beings.
by Marcel Labelle $20
At the end of a hot summer, Ken takes Pat on a fishing trip to Kiosk, the town of their birth. When they arrive, Pat is shocked and saddened to see that the church, the school, and all the houses he knew as a child, are gone. Nothing remains but a few lonely sidewalks — and the ghost of forgotten residents. Driven by the loss he sees in Pat, Ken decides it’s time to protest the decision that left many of his friends and family unconnected and adrift. He contacts the media and then, drawing on skills he obtained during a lifetime in the bush, he leads the police on a wild chase. He taunts them, the government, and those people in power who, two decades earlier, orchestrated the death of the town.
Suzette’s career as a journalist is failing, but when her boss discovers she was born in Kiosk, he sends her to cover the breaking story of the protest. She arrives to find an old friend and her first love in grave danger. The police, tired of the ridicule, are sending in a tactical unit and Suzette’s reports almost lead the police to Ken. Alienated from her old friends, she is caught between job and friendship.
Politicians, Native Leaders and corporate executives are drawn into the conflict and some are pushed to acts of desperation. Caught in a situation that is growing increasingly dangerous, Suzette, Pat, and Ken are foreced to make decisions that will not only define their pasts, but also decide their futures — and time is running out.