Ken Conibear, Northern pioneer, Rhodes Scholar and storyteller of life in Canada's far North, writes of his exciting, dangerous, and humourous experiences taking his boat, the Lady Greenbelly, over 1000 miles from Fort Nelson down the majestic and rugged Mackenzie River to the Arctic Ocean. He took on this adventure for two reasons. First, he intended to carry freight to the Arctic communities with his newly acquired freight scow, the Lady Greenbelly, and then sell her there for a handsome profit. Second, Bill Sweet, an elderly, retired insurance salesman from Seattle who had read Ken's previous books, had convinced Ken to take him and a young friend, Jack Havens, on a side trip-a wilderness filming expedition up the relatively unmapped Rat River. During the course of the trip, everything that could go wrong with the Lady Greenbelly's motor did go wrong, and Bill Sweet himself caused more than a few problems because of his unbounded, but inept, enthusiasm-and excessive politeness. The people met on the trip provide their own stories - the Eskimo whalers who cheerfully gambled away their year's earnings; Mike Krutko, a storekeeper in Fort Providence who always remained cheerful - even as provisions for his store sank with the Lady Greenbelly; the priest at the Catholic mission who recalled last seeing Ken when he was only a small child; and the fir trappers, Jake and Izor, who went Outside to find a wife for Izor and instead adopted a 12-year-old English war orphan-and then headed back north with all the supplies any 12-year-old would need. With an axe, their team of sled dogs and the only butcher's chopping block in the North, they were among many who came to the rescue of the notoriously inept Lady Greenbelly. News travels fast in the North, and the Lady Greenbelly's reputation had spread so that impossible to sell-at any price. Stuck with her, Ken had to return south up the many rapids of the Mackenzie and Liard Rivers, facing more adventures and life-threatening situations-always with courage, a lot of luck and never-ending good humour.

Demers revives the memory of journalist Miriam Green Ellis, an all-but-forgotten feminist, suffragist, and agricultural reporter who documented the modernist sphere for over four decades and who refused to be confined to the "women's pages." With written material from the University of Alberta's Miriam Green Ellis Collection, accompanied by an excellent selection of photographs, Ellis's inimitable voice and views on Albertans, westerners, and Canadians in the early decades of the twentieth century emerge clearly. Readers interested in Canadian women studies, journalism, or feminism will find Ellis's highly coloured perspective both entertaining and informative.

In the late 1920's a fur trapper, Jimmie Allen, leaves 'down north' Canada for the first time in his life in order to find a wife. Working at a restaurant in Edmonton, Grasille Jansen dreams of the richer and more exciting lives she has read about in popular magazines as she goes about her work as a waitress. While serving Jimmie, Grasille realizes that Jimmie is a very unusual customer but definitely not a silent man. Words come readily to his tongue and his enthusiastic outpouring of exciting stories of his North (some true, some not) lead to an Othello-like wooing and a speedy marriage when Grasille is convinced that she will find her dream with Jimmie. Together, in a cabin they built together on the Quatre-Fourches River, the real drama of the story - loneliness - is fought out. Knit into this main strand you have the moving story of Susie, Jimmie's part-Indian friend and trapping partner, who was accepted as equal by whites and who refused to take treaty money - except once. He is memorable, even in defeat. Also we have the Cowdrays who run the inevitable, all-purpose store in Fort Chipewyan on the usual liberal, if not generous, credit terms. Grasille has no idyllic time as a trapper's wife and faces many difficulties. She is game and she wins through, with the aid of a remarkable not to say, dramatic, phenomenon of nature.

This is a realistic novel of the Canadian Northwest, situated on Little Bent Tree Lake in Canada's Northwest Territories, in which animals are the chief characters. It describes with humour, drama and pathos a whole community of animals and birds and their unceasing struggle to live. It is neither a fantasy nor a treatise. It is fiction, with creatures of the world playing the main parts in the drama- the beaver, the muskrat, the silver fox, the whiskey-jack, wolverine and many others. Along with all the emotions that make any story worth reading- love, hate, fear, envy- here are such animal/human qualities as heroism, devotion, mother love, fidelity, cunning, all portrayed through the lives of the book's characters. Their loves, hunger, feasts, fights, sadness, gladness, deaths, their interrelations, the part played in their lives by winter, summer, the snows, the winds, the buildings of the beaver, the introduction of fear into their lives because of the introduction of man, the hunter/trapper- these are combined into a unified plot which draws to an exciting climax.

Now in its 93rd year of publication this standard Canadian reference source contains comprehensive and authoritative biographical information on notable living Canadians. Those listed are carefully selected because of the positions they hold in Canadian society or because of the contribution they have made to life in Canada. entries are added each year to keep current with developing trends and issues in Canadian society. Included are outstanding Canadians from all walks of life: politics, media, academia, business, sports and the arts, from every area of human activity. memberships, creative works, honours and awards and full addresses. Of use to researchers, students, media, business, government and schools it is a useful source of general knowledge.