The Prairies

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Lillian Beynon Thomas' suffragist campaign succeeded where all others had failed. This full-length biography fills an important gap in the history of the 'votes for women' movement, a campaign which saw Manitoba become the earliest federal or provincial Canadian jurisdiction to grant women the franchise.
Lillian's "Home Loving Hearts" page in the Prairie Farmer newspaper, a weekly column in which she advocated for a wide variety of women's rights, made her one of the most popular, pioneering women's page journalists on the prairie. During this time, she founded the rural Homemakers' Clubs affiliated with the University of Saskatchewan. To achieve the franchise, she eschewed the then traditional tools of back-room, partisan party politics by instead developing a broadly-based, grass-roots movement which stands as a forerunner of modern political campaign techniques.
Facing hostile opposition to her pacifist views in Winnipeg during World War One, she and her husband went into voluntary exile in New York City where she raised money through a newspaper column describing the plight of destitute sailors in that metropolis. Returning home, she became a leading Canadian short-story writer, playwright, and public advocate for a Canadian cultural identity, distinct from that of Britain or America.
This is the story of how a young girl came with her settler family to a desolate part of the hardscrabble prairie and who, despite these humble origins, succeeded in engineering a fundamental Canadian democratic reform and championing the emerging Canadian cultural nationalism.

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In Prairie Oddities: Punkinhead, Peculiar Gravity and More Lesser Known Histories Darren Bernhardt recounts historical anecdotes from middle-Canada's past that were never given top billing, the ones that faded away in time but left their marks behind. Laden with archival images, Bernhardt's stories restore focus on the gunslinging fugitive who became a folk hero, the curious and chaotic battle for Kenora, the flower-bearing American spy, the ghost trail of the Bergen Cutoff, the lost bells of St. Boniface, how the bison were saved from extinction, Hudson Bay's missing gravity, and the many firsts accomplished in the northwest.
The stories of what was - and what could have been - arouse imagination and kindle interest in a complicated and colourful past.

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A captivating history of folk traditions, beliefs, and culturally diverse customs in the early homesteading era on the Canadian Prairies.

The homesteading era on the Canadian Prairies (1867-1914) was a dynamic period of history, when hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children, migrating primarily from northwestern and eastern Europe, descended nascent provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. Some were lured by the promise of prosperity and land ownership, while others were fleeing war, famine, and persecution.

Homesteaders have been studied and written about extensively, often within the context of "settling" the Canadian West and the displacement of Indigenous populations. These narratives, while crucial to our understanding of Canada's national identity and colonial past, tend to obscure the personal stories, beliefs, and mindsets of those individuals who came to this part of the world and made a life there.

Drawing on a treasure trove of archival sources, historian Sandra Rollings-Magnusson presents a vivid and deeply personal collection of Prairie folklife, revealing stories full of humour, superstition, fear, and hope. She gives insight into homesteaders' daily lives, including instances of water-witching, signs of good and bad luck, neighbourly practical jokes, and popular pastimes. Through adaptation, hardship, homesickness, and a sense of adventure, they built communities with others from different backgrounds, creating a unique culture that blended the old with the new.

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A tasty oral history

In 2018, Janis Thiessen, Kimberley Moore, and collaborator Kent Davies refashioned a used food truck into a mobile oral history lab. Together they embarked on a journey around Manitoba, gathering stories about the province's food and the people who make, sell, and eat it. Along the way, they visited restaurant owners, beer brewers, grocers, farmers, scholars, and chefs in their kitchens and businesses, online, and on board the food truck. The team conducted nearly seventy interviews and indulged in a bounty of prairie delicacies, from Winnipeg's "Fat Boys" to Steinbach's perogies to Churchill's cloudberry jam.

Thiessen and Moore serve up the results of this research in mmm... Manitoba. Mixing recipes, maps, archival records, biographies, and full-colour photographs with fascinating stories, they showcase the province's diverse food histories. Through the sharing and preparing of food, the authors investigate food security and regulation, Indigenous foodways and agriculture, capitalism's impact on the agri-food industry, and the networks between Manitoban food producers and retailers. The book also explores the roles of gender, ethnicity, migration, and colonialism in Manitoba's food history.

Hop on the Manitoba Food History Truck and journey into the province's past with engaging essays and easy-to-follow recipes for kjielkje and schmauntfat, snow goose tidbits, chicken karaage, the Salisbury House flapper pie, duck fat smashed potatoes, Ichi Ban cocktails, pork inihaw, and more. mmm... Manitoba offers a thoughtfully nuanced, deliciously digestible, and wholly unique regional history that is sure to satisfy.

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A motley group's long trek across the prairies, witnessing the land, reflecting on the past, and creating new paths for the future
 
Equal parts memoir, travelogue, and manifesto, The Good Walk recounts the adventures of settler and Indigenous ramblers who together retrace the earliest historical trails and pathways of the prairies. Readers will share the experience of trekking thousands of kilometres on swollen feet along the Traders' Road, the Battleford Trail, and the Frenchman Trail - prairie paths that haven't been trod for over a century.

The story is steeped in Treaty 4 and Treaty 6 history and is edged with Canadian, nêhiyaw, and Métis stories, politics, and poetry. It braids Indigenous and settler perspectives together along routes increasingly emptied of the family farms and small towns that once defined a province and doesn't shy away from the 1870s and 1880s clearing of the plains nor the 2016 killing of Colton Boushie.

Travel with the group of dreamers who instigated these annual prairie pilgrimages through prairie storms, small-town welcomes, and humorous chance encounters, all while bearing witness to the evolving politics of land ownership and the racialization of access.
 

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In the tenth book in the Guides for the Prairie Gardener series, lifelong gardeners Janet Melrose and Sheryl Normandeau take on the very prairie subject of grasses.

Was ever there a prairie-er subject than grass? Important providers of habitat and food for numerous wildlife species, grasses also serve an integral role in erosion control. For the gardener they can open up a bounty of landscaping options, from the lawn to the pond. In the tenth installment of their popular gardening guide series, lifelong gardeners Janet Melrose and Sheryl Normandeau give you the skinny on everything from sod to sedges and raking to rushes.

Following a primer on what exactly defines a grass, Sheryl and Janet take your questions on matters like clumpers vs spreaders, mulching and fertilizers, how to tackle problems like chinch bugs and fairy rings.

The pair dedicate a chapter to lawns, providing a wide selection of alternatives to the tried and true commercial lawn species and answer questions on raking, aerating, laying sod, mowing, and dealing with dogs and all the damage they seem hardwired to do.

Taking your questions on aquatic grasses, as well as edible species (like wheat, rye, and corn), and finishing up with a hall of fame of the best grasses for your every plan and purpose, the authors are sure to expand your knowledge on this truly homegrown topic!

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A GLOBE & MAIL BESTSELLER
INCLUDES THE NATIONAL POST'S TOP MOST POPULAR RECIPES OF 2023!

The quintessential classic Christmas baking book, with over 120 recipes to celebrate the festive baker in all of us!

A Very Prairie Christmas Bakebook is the only cookbook you will need this season, whether you're from the Prairies or just love Christmas baking. Take it from Karlynn Johnston, the bestselling author of Flapper Pie and a Blue Prairie Sky and The Prairie Table and someone who owns SIX Christmas trees--these goodies are sure to keep your Christmas spirit going all season long.

Inside, you'll find over 120 of the best of the best recipes for filling your family's homes and bellies with festive cheer, including:

Traditional family recipes: Inspire memory-making for you and yours with sweets like Traditional Whipped Shortbread, Divinity Candy, and Auntie Darlene's Dark Whisky Fruitcake.Home-grown Prairie desserts: Treats like Millionaire's Shortbread and Marshmallow Yule Logs warm the soul when the Prairies turn into a winter wonderland.The ultimate cookie exchange guide: Pick up tips for hosting and baking the best cookies to swap, like Cherry Snowballs and Gumdrop Cookies.Cocktails and punches: Get the Christmas party started with drinks like the Retro Sherbert Party Punch and the Perfect Christmas Crantini.Ukrainian Christmas dishes: learn Karlynn's family's traditional recipes, like Pampushky and Kutia.
Indulge in the chilly season's slower pace with a glorious, once-a-year baking fest where you pull out all the stops. Whether you're a fan of Karlynn's previous books or you're discovering her vintage charm for the first time, these sweetly dressed pages make it clear that this is the book she was born to write. A Very Prairie Christmas Bakebook is a feast for all senses, for reminiscing in your favorite festive memories and making cherished new ones.

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A top-ten 2023 Bestseller!
In this book, scientist-historian Gordon Goldsborough hits the road in search of adventure and little-known stories from Manitoba's past. Among the places he visits are underground radiation monitoring posts from the Cold War, a remote hydroelectric generating station, cruise ships on the Red River, and the original route of the Trans-Canada Highway.

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The legacy of the Hamiltons' psychic archive

In the wake of the First World War and the 1918-19 pandemic, the world was left grappling with a profound sense of loss. It was against this backdrop that a Winnipeg couple, physician T.G. Hamilton and nurse Lillian Hamilton, began their research, documenting and photographing séances they held in their home laboratory. Their extensive study of the survival of human consciousness after death resulted in a stunning collection of hundreds of photographs, including images of tables flying through the air, mediums in trances, and, most curious of all, ectoplasm-a strange, white substance through which ghosts could apparently manifest.

The Art of Ectoplasm invites readers to explore the Hamiltons' research and photographic evidence which has attracted international attention from scholars and artists alike. Notable figures like Arthur Conan Doyle participated in the Hamilton family's séances, and their investigations garnered support among the psychical scientific community, including renowned physicist Oliver Lodge, the inventor of wireless telegraphy. In the century since their creation, the Hamilton photographs (now housed at the University of Manitoba) have continued to perplex and inspire as the subject of academic study, comedic parody, and artistic and cinematic renderings.

This fascinating collection reflects on the history and legacy of the startling and uncanny images found in the Hamilton Family archive. As contemporary society continues to feel the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, The Art of Ectoplasm offers a compelling look at a chapter in social history not entirely unlike our own.

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A celebration of cultural inheritance and the evolution of language

Mapping the language, literature, and history of Icelandic immigrants and their descendants, this collection, translated and expanded for English-speaking audiences, delivers a comprehensive overview of Icelandic linguistic and cultural heritage in North America. Drawn from the findings of a three-year study involving over two hundred participants from Manitoba, North Dakota, Saskatchewan, and the Pacific West Coast, Icelandic Heritage in North America reveals the durability and versatility of the Icelandic language.

Editors Birna Arnbjörnsdóttir, Höskuldur Thráinsson, and Úlfar Bragason bring together a range of interdisciplinary scholarship to investigate the endurance of the "Western Icelander." Chapters delve into the literary works of Icelandic immigrant writers and interpret archival letters, newspapers, and journal entries to provide both qualitative and quantitative linguistic analyses and to mark significant cultural shifts between early settlement and today.

Icelandic Heritage in North America offers an in-depth examination of Icelandic immigrant identity, linguistic evolution, and legacy.

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While Canada is home to one of the largest Ukrainian diasporas in the world, little is known about the life and culture of Ukrainians living in the country's rural areas and their impact on Canadian traditions. Drawing on more than ten years of interviews and fieldwork, Ukrainian Ritual on the Prairies describes the culture of Ukrainian Canadians living in the Prairie provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Despite powerful pressure to assimilate, these Ukrainians have managed both to preserve their sense of themselves as Ukrainian and to develop a culture sensitive to the realities of Prairie life, creating their own uniquely Ukrainian Canadian traditions. The Ukrainian church, an iconic though now rapidly disappearing feature of the Prairie landscape, takes centre stage as an instrument for the retention of Ukrainian identity and the development of a new culture. Natalie Kononenko explores the cultural elements of Ukrainian Canadian ritual practice, with an emphasis on family traditions surrounding marriage, birth, death, and religious holidays. Ukrainian Ritual on the Prairies gives voice to a group of everyday people who are too often overlooked, highlighting their accomplishments and their contributions to Canadian life.

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A GLOBE & MAIL BESTSELLER

Over 100 Proud-to-be-Prairie recipes showcasing the seasons, produce, flavours, and traditions of one of Canada's most exciting culinary regions.

Dan Clapson and Twyla Campbell take us on a grand tour of the many faces and places that make up the Canadian Prairies. With over 100 delectable recipes, Prairie draws inspiration from the beauty of the changing seasons as well as the many different ingredients and cultures that make the Prairies such a culinary hotspot. The book is filled with

Tried-and-true seasonal recipes that will introduce Prairie flavours to your home kitchen like Sorrel, Farro, and Chicken Soup and Saskatchewan Succotash SaladIngredients special to the Prairies like Sea Buckthorn, Haskap, and Saskatoon BerryIntroductions to many of the Prairie's most exciting chefs and their signature recipesA mix of modern and traditional recipes, from perogies to Beet Mezzalune
No matter the season, the Prairies are all about preserving every ounce of food, so of course there's also tons of helpful tips and tricks on reducing food waste. There's even a Staples chapter with recipes for stocking your pantry to keep you cooking all year long. Both a love letter to Canada's grandest provinces and an indispensable collection of recipes, Prairie is as inviting and bountiful as the region it celebrates.

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As gardeners, we care. We care for our bountiful vegetable gardens. We care for our beautiful perennial flower beds and the aromatic herbs that we grow. We care about the fruit bushes and trees in our realm; along with the birds, and other creatures that share our garden space. That essential element of care in us also extends into caring for the Earth, which is particularly important in this time of climate change. So how can gardeners help care for the planet? The first step is to be informed. We need to ask ourselves what exactly is climate change? How will this affect my gardening practices? As our guest editor for this year, we invited Dr. Danny Blair to join us. Dr. Blair is a co-director of the Prairie Climate Centre and is a professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Winnipeg where his area of expertise is climatology. His research looks at climate change with a particular focus on the Prairie Provinces. Dr. Blair and a number of his colleagues as well as several of our other authors provide information that will help you understand climate change, how it is affecting us now and how it will continue to affect our practices in home gardening in the future. Once we know what climate change is all about, step two is how can we help? There is much that home gardeners can do to adapt their gardening practices in the face of the changing climate. Read about the use of native and drought-resistant plants, water management; composting, and the importance of healthy soil. Discover how to reduce your carbon footprint by using less plastic, planting more trees and using mulch. And, as always, whether you are a newcomer or a veteran gardener, there are also articles of general interest to all who garden in our short-season planting zones.

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Finalist, Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction
Finalist, Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher
With a foreword by Beatrice Mosionier.
Abandonment, loss, endless transitions, self-reliance, continued persistence, and fierce beauty all coexist in this compelling collection of stories of ten women who journey from victims of the child welfare system to survivors, and beyond. These women face endless challenges, oppression, and trauma but discover their power through creativity, self-awareness, education, motherhood, and extreme empathy.
They decipher their personal stories looking back through the lens of their lived experience to contribute to changing the narratives of how people who grew up in in the child welfare system see themselves, and how society sees them. These stories create compassion and understanding, breaking down biases.
They also illustrate the direct and multi-faceted relationships between residential schools, the breakdown of Indigenous families, the perpetuated system racism of of the child welfare system and oppression through other societal systems. Many of these women are the voices of those who could have been murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls but have lived to tell their stories. Embracing their humanity, their courageous sharing teaches and informs us. These heartbreaking and inspiring stories will educate and create change.

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