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DEATH ON TWO FRONTS
CADIGAN, SEAN
Death on Two Fronts, part of The History of Canada series, examines the tragic transformation of
Newfoundland’s political culture between 1914 and 1934. For many people throughout Canada and the
rest of the world, 1914 was important because it marked the beginning of the First World War. While the
year became significant for the same reason in Newfoundland, it was not originally so. Newfoundland’s
economy depended on the sea, and the seal hunt was vital. During the spring of 1914, seventy-seven
men of the S.S. Newfoundland died and many more were injured when they became lost on the ice fields,
locally known as “the front,” off the northeast coast. What became known as the Newfoundland sealing
disaster galvanized popular discontent against mercantile profiteering and recklessness on the seal hunt,
and influenced Newfoundland politics. The Great War muted this discontent and fostered a nationalist
political culture founded on notions of honour, sacrifice, and patriotism—particularly after the mass deaths
in the Royal Newfoundland Regiment at Beaumont Hamel. This nationalism was easily shaken, however,
in the post-war economic crisis that plagued Newfoundland, frustrating more progressive attempts to deal
with economic and social problems, and led to the collapse of responsible government in 1934. Although
sealers had died in 1914 and soldiers fell in the years of the Great War, it was liberal democracy in
Newfoundland that was the final casualty in the bitter struggles over the meaning of these events.
HISTORY
ALLEN LANE
9780670065394
$34.00 HC
SEPTEMBER 2013
1ST PRINTING 5000 IN CANADA
304 PAGES
DEATH WINS IN THE ARCTIC
KARRAM, KERRY
With prospectors, trappers, and whalers pouring into northwestern Canada, the North West Mounted
Police were dispatched to the newest frontier to maintain patrols, protect indigenous peoples, enforce
laws, and establish Canada's sovereignty in the North. In carrying out their duties, these intrepid men
endured rigorous and dangerous conditions. On December 21, 1910, a four-man patrol left Fort
McPherson, Northwest Territories, heading for Dawson City, Yukon, a distance of 670 kilometres. They
never arrived. The harrowing drama of their 52-day struggle to survive is an account of courageous
failure, one that will resonate strongly in its depiction of human intelligence pitted against the implacable
forces of nature. Throughout their ordeal, issues of conservation, law enforcement, Aboriginal peoples,
and sovereignty emerge, all of which are global concerns today.
HISTORY
DUNDURN
9781459717534
$19.99 TP Original
NOVEMBER 2013
190 PAGES