The Franklin Conspiracy is an absorbing account of the single most enigmatic event in Canadian history. In 1845, two British Royal Navy ships, the Erebus and the Terror, commanded by Sir John Franklin, entered the Canadian Arctic in search of the Northwest Passage. Neither ship returned. A fifteen-year search uncovered evidence of unparalleled disaster, but to this day no one knows exactly how the 129 men of the Franklin Expedition met their deaths.

Although the expedition did not run out of food, there is clear evidence of cannibalism. The ships carried two hundred message cylinders with them, yet failed to leave records. Stranger still, an earlier explorer, Thomas Simpson, was reputedly murdered for the "secret of the Northwest Passage." What was this "secret"?

The Franklin Conspiracy is an exhaustively researched, compellingly reasoned answer to that question. The result is a shocking saga of conspiracy, cover-up, and unbelievable secrets.

Here are Canada’s haunted houses, ghosts and poltergeists, weird visions of the past and improbable visions of the future, and assurances that there is life after death. included are more than 175 accounts of such events and experiences told mainly by the witnesses themselves — Canadians from all walks of life and all parts of the country. Some of the stories are classics. Others are little known. About one-third of the accounts have never before appeared in print. This fascinating, scary book brings together the most notable stories from the archives of John Robert Columbo, Canada’s "Mr. Mystery," who is known for his many paranormal collections, including Ghost Stories of Canada, Haunted Toronto, Ghost Stories of Ontario, and Strange But True. Whatever your views are about the supernatural and the paranormal — skeptic, believer, middle-of-the-road — this huge collection of stories filled with thrills and chills will cause you to wonder about the n ature of human life and the afterlife.

When did you last have a psychic experience? Are you in the habit of seeing or sensing the presence of spirits and ghost? Have you ever spotted a lake monster or sighted a UFO? When did you last consult a fortune-teller, approach a medium work an Ouija board, or read an astrology column? Have you ever had a premonition that some odd event would occur, and then witnessed it actually occurring? Did you ever experience a sense of "deja vu" or a moment of pure bliss?

"Extraordinary Experiences: Personal Accounts of the Paranormal in Canada" is a collection of over seventy short yet curiously gripping accounts of experiences and events that may be regarded as abnormal or paranormal. Colombo has collected highly readable accounts of unusual experiences from the past and the present. The supernatural practices of the Indians of the 18th and 19th centuries are described by Samuel Hearne and Paul Kane. From the turn of the century come accounts of "crisis apparitions," poltergeists, and haunted houses, as reported by spiritualists and other observers. But the majority of the personal narratives derive from letters sent to the editor in response to his requests featured in daily newspapers across the country, for first-hand accounts of the supernatural and the paranormal. Over one hundred readers responded; here are some of there responses...

"Extraordinary Experiences" is an extraordinary reading experience. No book quite like it has ever before appeared in Canada. "

What are "snow worms"?

Are there more moose than people in the Yukon?

What is the meaning of the word "Niagara"?

Where will you find the world's largest perogy?

Does Elvis have a street in Ottawa named after him?

What was Pierre Elliott Trudeau's favourite snack food?

Which province was the last to shift traffic from the left-hand side of the road to the right?

These are some of the questions that are asked - and answered - in 1000 Questions About Canada. Every reader with an ounce (or a gram) of curiosity will find these intriguing questions and thoughtful answers fascinating to read and ponder. This book is for people who love curious lore and who want to know more about the country in which they live.

Mysteries of Ontario brings together, for the first time, some five hundred accounts of strange events and eerie experiences, each keyed to one of 250 places in the province. It turns out that, far from being a humdrum part of the planet in which to live and work, Ontario is a province that is alive with ghosts and spirits, mysterious disappearances, and peculiar happenings enough to make your hair stand on end, turn your blood cold, and send shivers up and down your spine

John Robert Colombo has been collecting materials for this book since 1967. Even so, more than two years were devoted to researching, writing, copy-editing, and photo editing Mysteries of Ontario. The reader is invited to peruse the great historical mysteries that have moved Canadians in the past from LaSalle's missing Griffon to the peculiar disappearance of Ambrose Small, from the spiritualistic legacy of the Fox Sisters of Consecon to the appearance in the 1990s of "ghost walks," "haunted hayrides," and "boo barns." This is a book that unites folklore and scholarship, the supernatural and the speculative, culture and mysticism, the occult and the peculiar, the psychical and the cultural, the human and the non-human.

Toronto has hosts of ghosts that go as far back as the War of 1812...and others as recent as the Nineties. From the spirit of the Keeper of the Gibraltar Point Lighthouse to the four spectres that haunt the stairwells and corridors of Queen's Park, our most conspicuously ghostly presences and sites are all revealed in Haunted Toronto. Sixty-six haunts and paranormal locales are captured in dramatic detail. Arranged like a guidebook for walking or driving tours, this richly illustrated book is the perfect companion for spectre-seeking urban adventurers. Whether or not you spot a ghost or two in Toronto, you'll encounter the fascinating, sometimes morbid lore of the city's past, and you're guaranteed never again to look at its historic sites in quite the same way.

Here is a book to thrill and chill you

It brings together sixty-nine stories of haunted houses, ghosts, poltergeists, apparitions, and other eerie events and experiences.

What is amazing is that all the stories are true - they actually happened - and they happened in Ontario

Did Sir John A. Macdonald give advice from the dead?

Did William Lyon Mackenzie King engage in a friendly conversation with a veteran newspaperman at Kingsmere two years after his death?

Is Ottawa's Laurier House haunted?

What happened in Toronto's Mackenzie House?

Did an apparition of Walt Whitman appear in Bon Echo Provincial Park?

Does a beautiful lady in white haunt old stone houses in the north Woodstock area?

What was behind the Baldoon Mystery and the Dagg Poltergeist?

Do such things happen? Are they happening today?

In these pages there are ghosts aplenty. They appear in the villages, towns, and cities of Ontario - among them: Goderich, Hamilton, London, Toronto, Niagara-on-the-Lake, North Bay, Oakville, Oshawa, St. Catharines, and Sarnia

Perhaps there is a ghost near you...

Personal Accounts of the Mysterious in Canada.

Here is a list of three dozen of the top literary locales in the country. The selection of sites is necessarily subjective, yet it attempts to represent geographical, historical, social, and cultural concerns as well as strictly literary interests. Had this list been prepared by the editors of "Michelin Guide," they would have added asterisks or stars to the entries: * Interesting. ** Worth a detour. *** Worth a journey.

It is the opinion of the author of "Canadian Literary Landmarks" that all thirty-six sites are "Worth a journey." It is recognized that the average person is unlikely to visit No. 1, not to mention No. 36, but as these sites happen to be the first and last entries in the book, they mark a convenient and symbolic beginning and ending. (No. 1 being L'Anse aux Meadows, Epaves Bay, Nfld. and No. 36 being the North Pole, NWT).

A collection of quotations from Canada’s greatest literary theorist. "There is no Canadian writer of whom we can say … that their readers can grow up inside their work without ever being aware of a circumference." Northrop Frye came to that conclusion after a detailed study of the imaginative achievements of Canada’s writers from the earliest period to 1965, when that sentence from his study first appeared in print. Over the decades since then, the statement has come to be regarded as a benchmark of individual and national literary achievement. The Northrop Frye Quote Book is a specialized dictionary of quotations on all subjects that is based on the thoughts and writings of one person. It is the handiwork of a single contributor, albeit the cogitations of a remarkable one. It is also evidence that there is a Canadian writer of whom it may be said that we can grow up inside his work "without ever being aware of a circumference." John Robert Colombo has written, translated, edited, or compiled over two hundred books, including seven dictionaries of quotations. He is a graduate of the University of Toronto and a Fellow of the Frye Centre at Victoria University. Jean O’Grady, a graduate of the University of Toronto, served as the associate editor of The Collected Works of Northrop Frye. She is also the author of the biography of Margaret Addison, the first dean of women at Victoria College.

Just when you thought it was safe to peek out from under the covers, along comes Ghost Stories of Canada to remind you that there are plenty of ghouls to watch out for in the True North.

Ghost Stories of Canada is a collection of one hundred of the eeriest accounts of ghosts, poltergeists, and hauntings ever told in Canada. Included are descriptions of some the most spine-tingling mysteries of the past - the Mackenzie River Ghost, the Baldoon Mystery, the Wynyard Apparition, and the Great Amherst Mystery, to name a few. There are also first-hand narratives of the ghostly experiences of present-day men and women from all walks of life in all parts of the country.

This is a book to sit awake with - especially on a dark and stormy night