In 1607 Henry Hudson was an obscure English sea captain. By 1610 he was an internationally renowned explorer. He made two voyages in search of a Northeast Passage to the Orient and had discovered the Spitzbergen Islands and their valuable whaling grounds. In the process, Hudson had sailed farther north than any other European before him. In 1609, working for the Dutch, he had explored the Hudson River and had made a Dutch colony in America possible.

Sailing from England in 1610, on what would be his most famous voyage, Hudson began his search for the Northwest Passage through the...

Shrouded in the mists of history and legend, the province of Newfoundland and Labrador is a land of mysteries. Its waters are a graveyard for countless wrecked ships. Its lore is full of tales about treachery and murder. And it was once the haunt of pirates. Haunt, indeed

Newfoundland and Labrador has tales of the supernatural that date back centuries, to a time before Canada even existed as a nation. Here the ghosts not only lurk in old houses and forlorn cemeteries, they come up out of the sea to walk the decks of ships before the eyes of terrified crewmen. They lament out on the...

During the American Revolution and the border conflicts that followed, Simon Girty's name struck terror into the hearts of U.S. settlers in the Ohio Valley and the territory of Kentucky. Girty (1741-1818) had lived with the Natives most of his life. Scorned by his fellow white frontiersmen as an "Indian lover," Girty became an Indian agent for the British. He accompanied Native raids against Americans, spied deep into enemy territory, and was influential in convincing the tribes to fight for the British.

The Americans declared Girty an outlaw. In U.S. history books he is a...