Families, Lovers, and their Letters takes us into the passionate hearts and minds of ordinary people caught in the heartbreak of transatlantic migration. It examines the experiences of Italian migrants to Canada and their loved ones left behind in Italy following the Second World War, when the largest migration of Italians to Canada took place. In a micro-analysis of 400 private letters, including three collections that incorporate letters from both sides of the Atlantic, Sonia Cancian provides new evidence on the bidirectional flow of communication during migration. She analyzes how kinship networks functioned as a means of support and control through the flow of news, objects, and persons; how gender roles in productive and reproductive spheres were reinforced as a means of coping with separation; and how the emotional impact of both temporary and permanent separation was expressed during the migration process. Cancian also examines the love letter as a specific form of epistolary exchange, a first in Italian immigrant historiography, revealing the powerful effect that romantic love had on the migration experience.

While games of chance have been part of the Aboriginal cultural landscape since before European contact, large-scale commercial gaming facilities within First Nations communities are a relatively new phenomenon in Canada. First Nations Gaming in Canada is the first multidisciplinary study of the role of gaming in indigenous communities north of the 49th parallel. Bringing together some of Canada’s leading gambling researchers, the book examines the history of Aboriginal gaming and its role in indigenous political economy, the rise of large-scale casinos and cybergaming, the socio-ecological impact of problem gambling, and the challenges of labour unions and financial management. The authors also call attention to the dearth of socio-economic impact studies of gambling in First Nations communities while providing models to address this growing issue of concern.

The First World War profoundly affected every community in Canada. In Regina, the politics of national identity, the rural myth, and the social gospel all lent a distinctive flavour to the city’s experience of the Great War. For many Reginans, the fight against German militarism merged with the struggle against social evils and the “Big Interests,” adding new momentum to the forces of social reform, including the fights for prohibition and women’s suffrage.James M. Pitsula traces these social movements against the background of the lives of Regina men who fought overseas in battles such as Passchendaele and Vimy Ridge. Skillfully combining vivid detail with the larger social context, For All We Have and Are provides a nuanced picture of how one Canadian community rebuilt both its realities and myths in response to the cataclysm of the “war to end all wars.”

Adele Wiseman was a seminal figure in Canadian letters. Always independent and wilful, she charted her own literary career, based on her unfailing belief in her artistic vision. In The Force of Vocation, the first book on Wiseman's writing life, Ruth Panofsky presents Wiseman as a writer who doggedly and ambitiously perfected her craft, sought a wide audience for her work, and refused to compromise her work for marketability.Based on previously unpublished archival material and personal interviews with publishers, editors, and writers, The Force of Vocation charts Wiseman's career from her internationally acclaimed first novel, The Sacrifice, through her near career-ending decisions to move into drama and non-fiction, to her many years as a dedicated mentor to other writers. In the process, Panofsky presents a remarkable and compelling story of the intricate negotiations and complex relationships that exist among authors, editors, and publishers.

Canadians have an ambivalent feeling towards the North. Although climate and geography make our northern condition apparent, Canadians often forget about the north and its problems. Nevertheless, for the generation of historians that included Lower, Creighton, and Morton, the northern rivers, lakes, forests, and plains were often seen as primary characters in the drama of nation building. W.L. Morton even went so far as to write that the ìmain task of Canadian life has been to make something of that formidable heritageî of the northern Canadian shield. For many politicians and developers, "to make something" of the North came to mean thinking of the North as an empty hinterland waiting to be exploited, and today, hydroelectric projects, mining, milling, pulp and paper, and other industries have changed much of the North beyond recognition.One of the first parts of the North to be aggressively industrialized was northern Manitoba. When all of Manitoba was given in 1670 to a group of entrepreneurs, a precedent was set that was replicated throughout the provinceís history. After the province entered confederation in 1870, provincial politicians and business leaders began to look to the northern resources as a new key to the provinceís economic development. Particularly after 1912, they saw resource development in the North as a strategy to expand the provincial economy from its agricultural base. Jim Mochoruk shows how government and business worked together to transform what had been the exclusive fur-trading preserve of the Hudsonís Bay Company into an industrial hinterland. He follows the many twisting paths established by developers and politicians as they chased their goal of economic growth, and recounts the ultimate costs of development in economic, ecological, and political terms.

Manitoba's ninety-three species of fish give the province the third most diverse fish population in Canada. The provinceís variety of geological features, with its major lakes, rivers, tributaries, and watersheds, is due in large part to its history as the basin for Glacial Lake Agassiz. This, combined with its access to the waters of Hudson Bay and large American river systems, has provided habitat for a wide diversity of freshwater fish. Species from lampreys to goldeye, catfish to perch, bigmouth bass to slimy sculpin swim in waters from arctic rivers in the north to Red River tributaries and down to the Mississippi in the south.Freshwater Fishes of Manitoba is a comprehensive, user-friendly guide. Each species is accurately depicted in detailed colour photographs and accompanying map, with descriptions of physical characteristics, spawning and feeding habits, distribution, habitat, ecological role, and economic importance. The guide also includes an extensive glossary, keys to identifying the families, species, and subspecies, and information on documentation and preservation of specimens. Freshwater Fishes of Manitoba is not only the definitive guide to these fishes of Manitoba, it is also accessible and reliable for a range of users from general fishers to professional fish biologists.

Historian Royden Loewen has brought together selections from diaries kept by 21 Mennonites in Canada between 1863 and 1929, some translated from German for the first time. By skillfully comparing and contrasting a wide cross-section of lives, Loewen shows how these diaries often turn the hidden contours of household and community "inside out." The writers featured were ordinary rural people: young women and grandmothers, rural preachers and landless householders. They include a teenaged boy who immigrated from Russia to Manitoba in 1875 as well as a successful merchant, a traveling evangelist, and a devout, conservative church elder. An elderly grandfather recounted the daily circuit of his children's homes, while 19-year-old Marie Schoeder wrote of her literary aspirations, her "secret hope" that some day she would "write things that have a real worth, things that are worth printing, and things that other folks would love to read and pay for." From the Inside Out also contrasts diaries from two distinct Mennonite communities in Canada. The Swiss-American Mennonites in Waterloo County, Ontario, faced rapid urbanization, while the Dutch-Russian Mennonites in southern Manitoba maintained their more rural environment. The diaries mirror their writers' preoccupations with work and weather, but they also reveal a communityís social structure and round of activities such as weddings, funerals, and worship services. In the process of diary-keeping, the writers sought to make sense of a dynamic and often unpredictable world. Reading what they chose to record is to learn much about their culture. Their writings provide glimpses of their lives, their collective mindset, and their history as a people.