Books by David Menary

Brothers of the Wind portrays the epic quest of three Canadian speed skaters, close friends and fierce competitors, to win Olympic gold in the 1990s. This story chronicles their successes and setbacks from their early days as promising teenagers, beginning in 1990, to become world-class skaters. It's a story that was more than 10 years in the making, and culminates at the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics. Woven into the fabric of this tale are revealing threads of insight into the sport of speed skating - both long track and short track. The sport has resulted in more Olympic medals for Canada than almost any other sport. Follow these incredible young men from their formative teenage years as they grow into world-class athletes. The brotherhood they form along the way, accompanied by their mastery of the ice and an unshakable confidence, instilled fear among their competitors. But as much as they were feared on the ice, these Brothers of the Wind were admired by friends and foes alike.

Before the American Civil War, and almost a decade before Confederation, abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass visited Galt (present-day Cambridge, Ontario), and Ayr, Canada West. It was mid-December 1857, and he lectured about "The Brotherhood of Nations." Douglass was a familiar figure on the lecture circuit, having helped many fugitive slaves flee to Canada through the Underground Railroad. Although Douglass had been a close associate of radical abolitionist John Brown, he also developed a friendship with President Abraham Lincoln that lasted until Lincoln's assassination by John Wilkes Booth. The lecture series that winter in Galt included other well-known speakers, but all other speeches were free to the residents of the town, except for the Douglass lecture, for which there was a 12-and-a-half cent admission charge. Proceeds helped defray travel costs for Douglass, and fund his anti-slavery newspaper in Rochester, N.Y. When he died in 1895, he was one of the best-known men in America.