Beginnings

Ann Walsh has selected fourteen captivating stories written by accomplished authors from across Canada for this historical anthology. Each of the stories focuses on a \"first-time\" historical experience, such as the meeting between natives and Europeans at Fort St. James; the ship carrying filles du roi as brides for the settlers of New France; the first elections in which women in Canada were allowed to vote; the first gourmet meal cooked in a CPR rail camp for Cornelius Van Horne; a mine disaster in the Crowsnest Pass, with the subsequent introduction of safety lamps for the miners; and an account of the \"Home Children\" first sent to Canada during the nineteenth century, supposedly for a better life, but often to work in slave-labour conditions.