Pathfinders of the Great Plains is the 19th volume of the Chronicles of Canada from 1914. Lawrence J. Burpee explores the heroism of Verendrye. Excerpt: "Page I. EARLY SERVICE II. FIRST ATTEMPT AT EXPLORATION III. ACROSS THE PLAINS IV. THE MANDAN INDIANS V. THE DISCOVERY OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS VI. LA VÉRENDRYES' LATTER DAYS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE."

The Prairie Provinces cover Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

A multidisciplinary analysis of the Canadian West.

Much has been written about the history and the people of northern Manitoba, but until now this body of work has not been readily accessible to the researcher or teacher. This bibliography identifies published sources, such as books and magazine and journal articles, as well as unpublished sources that are available to the public, including academic theses and government pamphlets, reports, and studies. It includes primarily materials dealing with the area north of 53rd parallel of latitude, but it also includes material on the area east of Lake Winnipeg as far south as the 51st parallel, a region that is similar to the North. References are listed under seven topics: bibliographies and research aids; the fur trade; Aboriginal and Métis populations; exploration and travel accounts; church and mission histories; northern geography and resources; and community histories and twentieth century resource exploitation.

Reproduction of the original: All Float by William Wood

The fur trade was the heart of the French empire in early North America. The French-Canadian (Canadien) men who traversed the vast hinterlands of the Hudson Bay watershed, trading for furs from Indigenous trappers and hunters, were its cornerstone. Though the Canadiens worked for French colonial authorities, they were not unwavering agents of imperial power. Increasingly they found themselves between two worlds as they built relationships with Indigenous communities, sometimes joining them through adoption or marriage, raising families of their own. The result was an ambivalent empire that grew in fits and starts. It was guided by imperfect information, built upon a contested Indigenous borderland, fragmented by local interests, and periodically neglected by government administrators. Heirs of an Ambivalent Empire explores the lives of the Canadiens who used family and kinship ties to navigate between sovereign Indigenous nations and the French colonial government from the early 1660s to the 1780s. Acting as cultural intermediaries, the Canadiens made it possible for France to extend its presence into northwest North America. Over time, however, their uncertain relationships with the French colonial state splintered imperial authority, leading to an outcome that few could have foreseen – the emergence of a new Indigenous culture, language, people, and nation: the Métis.

The study of history in Canada has a history of its own, and its development as an academic discipline is a multifaceted one. The Professionalization of History in English Canada charts the transition of the study of history from a leisurely pastime to that of a full-blown academic career for university-trained scholars - from the mid-nineteenth to the late twentieth century. Donald Wright argues that professionalization was not, in fact, a benign process, nor was it inevitable. It was deliberate. Within two generations, historians saw the creation of a professional association - the Canadian Historical Association - and rise of an academic journal - the Canadian Historical Review. Professionalization was also gendered. In an effort to raise the status of the profession and protect the academic labour market for men, male historians made a concerted effort to exclude women from the academy. History's professionalization is best understood as a transition from one way of organizing intellectual life to another. What came before professionalization was not necessarily inferior, but rather, a different perspective of history. As well, Wright argues convincingly that professionalization inadvertently led to a popular inverse: the amateur historian, whose work is often more widely received and appreciated by the general public.

Sixteen papers by foremost American, Canadian, and English historical geographers examine the sources of Imagery of the American and Canadian Great Plains, the processes of image formation, and the behavioral implications of various kinds of images. The papers deal with exploratory images of the Plains, resource evaluation in the prefrontier West, governmental appraisal of the western frontier, real and imagined climatic hazards, the desert and garden myths, and adaptations to reality.