All Afloat: A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways

Canada was born on the water. Long before railways crossed the continent or roads connected its provinces, the rivers, lakes, and coastlines carried everything that mattered: people, goods, ideas, and the very identity of a young nation. William Wood's All Afloat traces this essential truth through centuries of Canadian history, showing how the St. Lawrence served as the original highway for migration and trade, how the Great Lakes became industrial arteries, and how the Atlantic and Pacific coasts linked Canada to the wider world. The book follows the evolution of watercraft from birchbark canoes to steamships, chronicles the engineering marvels of canal development, and illuminates the navigators and traders who shaped a country's contours. This is maritime history as cultural portrait: water not merely as infrastructure but as the bloodstream of a civilization. For readers who sense that a nation's soul lives in its relationship to the land it inhabits, All Afloat offers a rich, sweeping meditation on how water made Canada.