Currently working on TWO new nonfiction books for kids slated to release in 2026: Children of the SS Atlantic (Nimbus Publishing), and The High Flyers of Tea Hill (Acorn Publishing). Click here for more details!
Winner of the Atlantic Book Awards’ Readers’ Choice Award and a CBC Books‘ best of 2023. Also selected for TD Summer Reading Club 2024, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library in Canada, and is shortlisted for the Hackmatack Awards 2024-25!
A gorgeous picture book that pays homage to Freddie Carmichael — the first Indigenous commercial pilot in the Arctic —with each month of the year highlighting moments from his life, the beauty of the North and the power of dreams.
When Freddie was young, he saw a plane up close for the first time when it dropped off supplies at his family’s remote bush camp. He was instantly hooked.
Freddie flew for nearly seventy years, doing everything from supply runs to search and rescue to transporting dog teams to far-flung areas.
This book celebrates Freddie’s early dreams of flying and his later achievements. Readers move with Freddie through the year, hearing about his journey as a pilot and leader, while learning the names of the months in Gwich’in and Inuvialuktun at the same time. Art from Inuvialuit painter Audrea Loreen-Wulf perfectly captures the incredible Western Arctic as well as Freddie’s love for aviation.
PRAISE FOR Freddie the Flyer:
“Shines with a love of both planes and place.” —Kirkus Reviews
“The story of an Indigenous boy who dreamed of taking to the sky unfolds across the year in this picture-book biography that draws on Gwich’in language, the power of an unshakable passion, and, as rendered in the gorgeous painted illustrations, the beauty of nature.” —Booklist
“A tribute to the first Indigenous commercial pilot in the Arctic…written in three languages: English, Gwich’in, and Inuvialuktun. Loreen-Wulf’s richly colored illustrations reveal the rugged landscape, different seasons, and various animals.” —School Library Journal
One of CBC Books‘ Best Canadian Picture Books of 2019!
Come along on an aviation journey with Alis! This spunky female guide will take you through an ABC of planes featuring gorgeous cut-paper art.
An A to Z of planes past and present, this book has stunning cut-paper art and a cute-as-a-button guide named Alis. Named for Dr. Alis Kennedy, likely one of the first Indigenous women to obtain a commercial pilot licence in Canada, Alis will take you on an aviation tour from the Avro Arrow to the Zeppelin and everything in between.
Meticulously researched and uniquely crafted, this is a one-of-a-kind book that will delight aviation fans big and little.
Now available in both hardback and paperback editions!
PRAISE FOR Alis the Aviator:
“This is an alphabet book with a difference! . . . A delight to any child interested in identifying planes.” —Resource Links
“A plane fan’s new best friend.” —School Library Journal
“If you have a child who loves planes, this is absolutely a book to add to your bookshelf. Alis the Aviator is a perfect combination of aviation vocabulary and facts, the ABC’s, and unique collage illustration.” —Canadian Picture Book Blog
What is real reconciliation? This collection of essays from both Indigenous and non-Indigenous contributors from across Canada welcomes readers into a timely, healing conversation—one we’ve longed for but, before now, have had a hard time approaching.
These reflective and personal pieces come from journalists, writers, academics, visual artists, filmmakers, city planners, and lawyers, all of whom share their personal light-bulb moments regarding when and how they grappled with the harsh reality of colonization in Canada, and its harmful legacy. Without flinching, they look deeply and honestly at their own experiences and assumptions about race and racial divides in Canada in hopes that the rest of the country will do the same.
Featuring a candid conversation between CBC radio host Shelagh Rogers and Chief Justice Sinclair, this book acts as a call for all Canadians to make reconciliation and decolonization a priority, and reminds us that once we know the history, we all have the responsibility—and ability—to make things better.
“In This Together demonstrates that colonization is not a thing of Canada’s past, and suggests that real reconciliation is only possible through an honest appraisal of our present.” —Quill & Quire
This book tells the story of Laurentian Air Services and its subsidiaries, Air Schefferville, Delay River Outfitters and more.
Drawing on interviews with Laurentian’s owners, pilots and ground crew, Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail explores this innovative company’s colorful 60-year history from its founding in Ottawa in 1936 with Waco biplanes through the 1990s when it operated twin-engine turboprops. This book is filled with lively flying anecdotes from the cockpits of world-famous bushplanes, including the de Havilland Beaver and Otter, the Douglas DC-3 and the Grumman Goose. From daring rescues and close calls, to the filming of Hollywood’s Captains of the Clouds, Laurentian’s pilots did it all.
Interlaced with these fascinating accounts are stories of back-country air tourism, the mineral and hydro-power boom in Quebec and Newfoundland-Labrador and tales of flying into fishing and hunting camps in remote regions of Ungava. With an exciting collection of photographs – many never before published – this is a long-overdue book that will appeal to all who enjoy the romance of flying on the frontier.
“For those curious about the nuts and bolts of bush flying, I’d recommend Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail’s For the Love of Flying, a chronicle of the origin, people, and places of a charter air operation in eastern Canada.
Begun as a family-history project, the book developed into a beautifully illustrated account of a well-known aviation business. Brochures, advertisements, articles, and sidebars about flying in the wet wilderness are scattered among contemporary and historic photographs, and all of it gives FLOF the ability to transport readers on journeys to the outer reaches of the civilized world.”
SMITHSONIAN’S AIR & SPACE MAGAZINE
With Polar Winds: A Century of Flying the North, Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail brings us an extraordinarily intimate, engaging and all-encompassing chronicle of Canadian flight north of the 60th parallel.
Metcalfe-Chenail proves herself a remarkable historian and writer, weaving factual accounts with compelling stories of risk, heroism and adventure. Brimming with amazing archival photographs and gripping detail acquired through meticulous research and personal interviews, Polar Winds is a definitive and important addition to the canon of Canadian aviation history. An astonishing accomplishment.
Carol Shaben, bestselling author of Into the Abyss
And I have words featured in these anthologies…
