Leisure For Canadians

"Research Centre for Sport in Canadian Society, University of Ottawa."

Emma had the perfect trifecta: a long-term job as an engineer designing sewers; a steady relationship with her reliable boyfriend; and an adoring and creative best friend (about whom she wasn’t quite ready to admit her unrequited feelings). Then early one morning, a phone call changed her world forever. Now she’s having nightmares that threaten to disrupt the space-time continuum –– nightmares of hiding from bombs in basements, of glass shattering from nearby explosions. But these disturbing dreams, in which she inhabits the body of a young girl named Lily, seem all too real, and Emma’s waking life begins to be affected by the events that transpire in this mysterious wartime landscape. Convinced she has been given a chance to save a life, Emma tries to rescue Lily from heartache, but ultimately it is through Lily that Emma finds her way back. The Almond in the Apricot navigates connections formed across space and time and explores love, grief, and the possibility that the universe might be bigger than either Emma or Lily ever imagined.

2016 Speaker's Book Award — Shortlisted 2016 Heritage Toronto Book Award — Nominated An account of the women working in high-security, dangerous conditions making bombs in Toronto during the Second World War. What was it like to work in a Canadian Second World War munitions factory? What were working conditions like? Did anyone die? Just how closely did female employees embody the image of “Rosie the Riveter” so popularly advertised to promote factory work in war propaganda posters? How closely does the recent TV show, Bomb Girls, resemble the actual historical record of the day-to-day lives of bomb-making employees? Bomb Girls delivers a dramatic, personal, and detailed review of Canada’s largest fuse-filling munitions factory, situated in Scarborough, Ontario. First-hand accounts, technical records, photographic evidence, business documentation, and site maps all come together to offer a rare, complete account into the lives of over twenty-one thousand brave men and women who risked their lives daily while handling high explosives in a dedicated effort to help win the war.

"The book has two aims. First, it demonstrates the common ground between the fast-growing fields of environmental history and mobility studies in terms of subject matter, theoretical approaches, and methodology. Second, it shows how mobility--the movements of people, things, and ideas, as well as their associated cultural meanings--has been a key factor in shaping Canadians' perceptions of and interactions with their country. Approaching the burgeoning field of environmental history in Canada through the lens of mobility reveals some of the distinctive ways in which Canadians have come to terms with the country's climate and landscape. The collection seeks to accomplish these aims with a broad scope: a series of case studies that span Canada's diverse regions, from the closing of the age of sail in the late nineteenth century to post-World War II automobile culture. Chapters examine a wide range of topics, from the impact of seasonal climactic conditions on different transportation modes, to the environmental consequences of building mobility corridors and pathways, and the relationship between changing forms of mobility with tourism and other recreational activities. The contributors employ a number of methodologies, including the use of traditional archival sources (correspondence, government reports, business ledgers, publicity materials) as well as historical geographic information systems (HGIS), qualitative and quantitative analysis, and critical theory."--

What role does history play in contemporary society? Has the frenetic pace of today's world led people to lose contact with the past? A high-profile team of researchers from across Canada sought to answer these questions by launching an ambitious investigation into how Canadians engage with history in their everyday lives. The results of their survey form the basis of this eye-opening book. Canadians and Their Pasts reports on the findings of interviews with 3,419 Canadians from a variety of cultural and linguistic communities. Along with yielding rich qualitative data, the surveys generated revealing quantitative data that allows for comparisons based on gender, ethnicity, migration histories, region, age, income, and educational background. The book also brings Canada into international conversation with similar studies undertaken earlier in the United States, Australia, and Europe. Canadians and Their Pasts confirms that, for most Canadians, the past is not dead. Rather, it reveals that our histories continue to shape the present in many powerful ways.