The snowstorm raging through the little town of Skagway is the least of Andy Seaberg's worries. He is more concerned about the big basketball game he and his fellow fifth graders will be playing against the tough sixth graders. But before this event can even take place, Andy's father is called away to Seattle, and his mother is rushed to the hospital with a severe case of the flu. This leaves Andy at home with his two younger sisters and a pesky little brother and a handful of other problems to solve before he can even get to his basketball practices. The Skagway Kids: Alaska Snowstorm continues where Alaska Christmas left off, Christmas day of 1946, and rushes with howling North Wind into January 1947. Can Andy get everything back to normal before the day of the big game?

The town of Skagway was born in 1897 after its population quintupled in under a year due to the Klondike gold rush. Balanced on the edge of anarchy, the U.S. Army stationed Company L, a unit of Buffalo Soldiers, there near the end of the gold rush. Buffalo Soldiers in Alaska tells the story of these African American soldiers who kept the peace during a volatile period in America's resource-rich North. It is a fascinating tale that features white officers and Black soldiers safeguarding U.S. territory, supporting the civil authorities, protecting Native Americans, fighting natural disasters, and serving proudly in America's last frontier. Despite the discipline and contributions of soldiers who served honorably, Skagway exhibited the era's persistent racism and maintained a clear color line. However, these Black Regulars carried out their complex and sometimes contradictory mission with a combination of professionalism and restraint that earned the grudging respect of the independently minded citizens of Alaska. The company used the popular sport of baseball to connect with the white citizens of Skagway and in the process gained some measure of acceptance. Though the soldiers left little trace in Skagway, a few remained after their enlistments and achieved success and recognition after settling in other parts of Alaska.

Verlen Kruger and his partner Steve Landick wanted to take a canoe trip that would surpass all others, and they did. Paddling their canoes or carrying them on the connecting land passages, they toured North America, from the Arctic Ocean to Baja California, from New Orleans to the coast of Maine, crossing the USA from south to north and west to east. They mastered wild storms on the ocean, often paddled 75-100 miles or more in a day, shot through deadly rapids going downstream, and paddled up several major rivers, reaching the climax by going up the Grand Canyon. Again and again they were warned, "It can't be done" or "You'll never make it", but each time they rose to the challenge and kept going, finally competing a canoe trip of 28,000 miles that lasted three and a half years and was appropriately named The Ultimate Canoe Challenge. This is the story as Verlen lived it.

This edition of "The Canadian Encyclopedia is the largest, most comprehensive book ever published in Canada for the general reader. It is COMPLETE: every aspect of Canada, from its rock formations to its rock bands, is represented here. It is UNABRIDGED: all of the information in the four red volumes of the famous 1988 edition is contained here in this single volume. It has been EXPANDED: since 1988 teams of researchers have been diligently fleshing out old entries and recording new ones; as a result, the text from 1988 has grown by 50% to over 4,000,000 words. It has been UPDATED: the researchers and contributors worked hard to make the information as current as possible. Other words apply to this extraordinary work of scholarship: AUTHORITATIVE, RELIABLE and READABLE. Every entry is compiled by an expert. Equally important, every entry is written for a Canadian reader, from the Canadian point of view. The finished work - many years in the making, and the equivalent of forty average-sized books - is an extraordinary storehouse of information about our country. This book deserves pride of place on the bookshelf in every Canadian Home. It is no accident that the cover of this book is based on the Canadian flag. For the proud truth is that this volume represents a great national achievement. From its formal inception in 1979, this encyclopedia has always represented a vote of faith in Canada; in Canada as a separate place whose natural worlds and whose peoples and their achievements deserve to be recorded and celebrated. At the start of a new century and a new millennium, in an increasingly borderless corporate world that seems ever more hostile to nationaldistinctions and aspirations, this "Canadian Encyclopedia is offered in a spirit of defiance and of faith in our future. The statistics behind this volume are staggering. The opening sixty pages list the 250 Consultants, the roughly 4,000 Contributors (all experts in the field they describe) and the scores of researchers, editors, typesetters, proofreaders and others who contributed their skills to this massive project. The 2,640 pages incorporate over 10,000 articles and over 4,000,000 words, making it the largest - some might say the greatest - Canadian book ever published. There are, of course, many special features. These include a map of Canada, a special page comparing the key statistics of the 23 major Canadian cities, maps of our cities, a variety of tables and photographs, and finely detailed illustrations of our wildlife, not to mention the colourful, informative endpapers. But above all the book is "encyclopedic" - which the "Canadian Oxford Dictionary describes as "embracing all branches of learning." This means that (with rare exceptions) there is satisfaction for the reader who seeks information on any Canadian subject. From the first entry "A mari usque ad mare - "from sea to sea" (which is Canada's motto, and a good description of this volume's range) to the "Zouaves (who mustered in Quebec to fight for the beleaguered Papacy) there is the required summary of information, clearly and accurately presented. For the browser the constant variety of entries and the lure of regular cross-references will provide hours of fasination. The word "encyclopedia" derives from Greek expressions alluding to a grand "circle of knowledge." Our knowledge has expandedimmeasurably since the time that one mnd could encompass all that was known.Yet now Canada's finest scientists, academics and specialists have distilled their knowledge of our country between the covers of one volume. The result is a book for every Canadian who values learning, and values Canada.