The Oxford Companion to Canadian History

This indispensable new guide to Canadian history is comprehensive, authoritative, and--above all-- companionable. It the essential guide to the significant events, issues, institutions, people, and places that have shaped Canadian life from earliest times to the late twentieth century.

In more than 1,700 entries, the country's leading historians describe and analyze events in political, military, social, economic, cultural, and intellectual history, drawing on the latest scholarship. Topics such as gambling, potlatches, abortion, hockey, capital punishment, jackatars, and shipwrecks find a place alongside more traditional entries like prime ministers and suffragists, exploration and fur trade, railways and responsible government. Politicians, soldiers, scientists and industrialists, feminists, social activists and religious leaders, all make an appearance. Vikings and Basque whalers, Jesuits and filles du roi, the Huron Feast of the Dead, privateers, charivaris, the Acadian grand derangement, the Metis buffalo hunt, rebellions, the On-to-Ottawa trek, bunkhouse men and bush pilots, the battle at Vimy Ridge, gold rushes, Spanish influenza, Frontier College, corvettes, trade unions, midwives, Automatistes, the Mad Trapper, La Bolduc, free trade and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, all contribute to the fascinating story which is Canada's history.

Entries are arranged from A-Z and fully cross-referenced, with a complete index to guide readers to related topics. This new companion provides learned, accessible, and up-to-date studies of the key subjects and personalities in Canadian history.