There is much more to this book than its stunning array of visual materials, however. The essays contained here will appeal to readers of various sorts and of differing inclinations. John Jennings's opening two chapters provide a lucid exposition of Canada's "white birch" wilderness that allowed for a "canoe developed to such perfection that, after European contact, it continued, unaltered except in size, to be the central element in the development of what is now Canada." In a coherent and broad-reaching overview, Jennings identifies three distinct North American frontier histories: the frontier of the horse, characterized by an absence of water and "mutual incomprehension" and confrontation between Europeans and native peoples; the settler frontier of the axe and plow; and the canoe frontier. Of these the canoe frontier was unique, because it "did not covet the land, only its bounty." The French and later the Scots came to look upon native peoples as "partners in a very lucrative trade," rather than as nomadic opponents of settled agriculture. Eventually the canoe frontier was eclipsed by the development of railways in the nineteenth century and later by the coming of the airplane to the north in the 1930s.