Never mind Sidney Crosby’s overtime goal. The greatest Canadian victory was the liberation of Holland. It cost more than four billion dollars—because it cost the lives of 1,482 Canadians and resulted in 6,298 casualties. The Dutch remain grateful. In the eighth volume of his Canadian Battle Series, On To Victory (D&M $37.95), Mark Zuehlke recalls the fiercely-fought and bittersweet military triumph to end his story of Canada in World War II. Berton without the bow-tie, Zuehlke is a popular historian who deserves all the credit his work can get in an era when “creative non-fiction” is de rigeur.
Canada’s liberation of western Holland and the crucial estuary was its bloodiest campaign in World War II but its blow-by-blow progress was previously under-appreciated. Previously, in 2007, Zuehlke extensively documented the 55-day, mud-soaked struggle of the First Canadian Army in 1944 to open the Antwerp coast for Allied shipping in Terrible Victory: First Canadian Army and the Scheldt Estuary Campaign.
The Allied invasion of Sicily was the first battle experience for 20,000 troops from the 1st Canadian Infantry Division and the 1st Canadian Tank Brigade. Zuehlke recounted their combat versus fierce German opposition for 28 days in Operation Husky (D&M $36.95), his seventh volume documenting major Canadian campaigns of World War II.
As of his sixth title pertaining to World War II, Mark Zuehlke was touted as the nation's leading writer of popular military history by his publisher, an opinion shared by Jack Granatstein. He subsequently produced The Canadian Military Atlas and a history of the War of 1812 entitled For Honour's Sake: The War of 1812 and The Brokering of an Uneasy Peace.
Born in Vernon on August 27, 1955, Zuehlke grew up in the Okanagan Valley where he first heard stories about British remittance men, leading him to write his first book of popular history, Scoundrels, Dreamers and Second Sons: British Remittance Men in the Canadian West (1994). He has co-authored, co-produced, and served as historical consultant for a one-hour documentary entitled The Remittance Men based on Scoundrels, Dreamers and Second Sons. It first aired on CTV in 2000.
Since 1981, Zuehlke has been one of B.C.'s most versatile writers, specializing in military history while starting a second career as a mystery novelist. His 'detective' is a Tofino coroner named Elias McCann who is partnered with a beautiful Cambodian-born girlfriend Vhanna. Hands Like Clouds won the Arthur Ellis First Novel Award in 2000 and Sweep Lotus was an Arthur Ellis Best Novel Award finalist in 2005.
When he lived in Kelowna, Zuehlke served as regional director of the Periodical Writers Association of Canada. He later became national PWAC president. He subsequently became founding national president of the the Electronic Rights Licensing Agency, an organization no longer in existence.
Zuehlke now lives in Victoria. He won the City of Victoria Butler Book Prize in 2006 for Holding Juno and the The Lela Common Award for Canadian History [see press release below] in 2007.
BOOKS:
Fiction
Sweep Lotus: An Elias McCann Mystery. Dundurn Group, 2004.
Carry Tiger to Mountain: An Elias McCann Mystery, Castle Street Mysteries, Dundurn Group, 2002.
Hands Like Clouds: An Elias McCann Mystery, Castle Street Mysteries, Dundurn Group, 2000.
Military
On To Victory (D&M 2010) $37.95) 978-1-55365-430-8
Operation Husky (D&M 2008) $36.95 978-1-55365-324-0
Terrible Victory: First Canadian Army and the Scheldt Estuary Campaign (D&M 2007). $37.95. 978-01-55365-227-4
For Honour's Sake: The War of 1812 and The Brokering of an Uneasy Peace (Knopf, 2006).
Canadian Military Atlas: Four Centuries of Conflict from New France to Kosovo (Douglas & McIntyre, 2006). Maps by C. Stuart Daniel.
Holding Juno: Canada's Heroic Defence of the D-Day Beaches, June 7-12, 1944, Douglas & McIntyre, 2005.
Juno Beach -- Canada's D-Day Victory, Douglas & McIntyre, 2004.
The Gothic Line: Canada's Month of Hell in World War II Italy, Douglas & McIntyre, 2003.
The Canadian Military Atlas: The Nation's Battlefields from the French and Indian Wars to Kosovo, Stoddart Publishing Company, 2001. Co-author C. Stuart Daniel.
The Liri Valley: Canada's World War II Breakthrough to Rome, Stoddart Publishing Company, 2001.
Ortona: Canada's Epic World War II Battle, Stoddart Publishing Company, 1999.
The Gallant Cause: Canadians in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939, Whitecap Books, 1996.
General
Scoundrels, Dreamers & Second Sons: British Remittance Men in the Canadian West, Dundurn Group, 2001, Second Edition, Revised and Expanded.
The Yukon Fact Book: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about the Yukon, Whitecap Books, 1998.
The Alberta Fact Book: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Alberta, Whitecap Books, 1997.
Fun B.C. Facts for Kids, Whitecap Books, 1996.
The B.C. Fact Book: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about British Columbia, Whitecap Books, 1995.
Scoundrels, Dreamers and Second Sons: British Remittance Men in the Canadian West, Whitecap Books, 1994.
The Vancouver Island South Explorer: The Outdoor Guide, Whitecap Books, 1994.
Magazine Writing from the Boonies, Carleton University Press, 1992. Co-authored with Louise Donnelly.
AWARDS:
2000 Best First Novel Award, Arthur Ellis Crime Writers of Canada. (Hands Like Clouds).
2006 City of Victoria Butler Book Prize (Holding Juno).
2007 Canadian Authors Association Lela Common Award for Canadian History (For Honour's Sake)
[BCBW 2010]
Carry Tiger to Mountain (Dundurn $11.99)
Info
A shipwreck off the coast of Tofino turns out to be a freighter smuggling immigrants from Southeast Asia. Coroner-detective Elias McCann and his Cambodian girlfriend Vhanna protect a surviving girl who is chased by kidnappers. Also among the immigrants is Vhanna’s cousin who stirs up dark memories of the Khmer Rouge. The first Elias McCann mystery was Hands Like Clouds. Zuehlke lives in Victoria. 1-55002-417-5
[Spring 2003 BCBW]
The Liri Valley (Stoddart $45)
Info
Forget that classic American movie ‘A Walk in the Sun.’ Mark Zuehlke of Victoria recounts in detail the Canadian breakthrough on the southern gateway to Rome—the first corps-scale engagement fought by Canadians in World War II—in The Liri Valley (Stoddart $45).
“The road the Canadians marched in Italy was a long one. In May 1944, they were but halfway down it. When they marched out of the Liri Valley, few bothered to look back at the ruined land behind them. They marched toward an uncertain future and the Liri Valley battle slipped into obscurity, where it still remains.”
The forgotten slice of Italian history is a follow-up to Zuehlke’s account of Canada’s ‘epic World War II battle,’ Ortona (Stoddart), The Canadian Military Atlas (Stoddart) and The Gallant Cause: Canadians in the Spanish Civil War (Whitecap). That’s more than 1,000 pages of recaptured history, finding the veterans, digging out the facts. Tough slogging.
0-7737-3308-6
[BCBW SUMMER 2002]
Sweep Lotus
info
A Tofino coroner has his hands full when a girl known only as Sparrow is found on a beach wrapped in barbed wire. Sweep Lotus (Dundurn $11.99) is the third Elias McCann mystery set in the Long Beach community.
[BCBW 2004]
Victoria Author Wins National History Prize
Press Release (2007)
Victoria author Mark Zuehlke’s For Honour’s Sake: The War of 1812 and the Brokering of an Uneasy Peace has been awarded the Canadian Authors Association Literary Awards 2007 Lela Common Award for Canadian History. The award consists of a $2500 cash prize and an engraved silver medal. Zuehlke will be presented with the award at the upcoming 86th Annual National Conference of the CAA on July 7 in Ottawa.
Regarding their decision to award the prize to Zuehlke the judges commented that the book was a “well-written popular history of the War of 1812 with a fine balance between politics, military operations, and diplomacy. Notable for being fair and balanced in its treatments of the belligerants. Zuehlke’s book is one of the best popular accounts of the War of 1812, notable for the way it relates what happened on the battlegrounds of North America and at sea to the diplomatic struggle between Britain and the United States. The wonderful irony is that word of the peace, finally hammered out in Ghent, Belgium at Christmas 1814, did not reach the United States in time to prevent the battle of New Orleans, the worst British defeat of the war.
“An approachable account of a period in Canadian history that continues to generate much interest. Dense with military strategy and details, details, details….Although many may want a definitive book on the War of 1812 that declares a clear winner, Zuehlke’s thoroughly researched book makes sense of the opposing accounts of that time and the ambiguous results of the conflict. Beyond the specifics of the battles and the Treaty of Ghent that brought an end to them, this book sheds some light on the murky area that lies between war and peace.”
Zuehlke is one of Canada’s preeminent popular historians, whose ongoing series on the battles fought by Canadians in World War II has garnered much critical praise. One of those books, Holding Juno: Canada’s Heroic Defence of the D-Day Beaches, June 7–12, 1944 won the 2006 City of Victoria Butler Book Prize. He is also the author of a popular mystery series of which the premiere novel, Hands Like Clouds, won the Crime Writers of Canada’s Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel.
The Lela Common Award for Canadian History was established in 1997 through a bequest from the estate of Lela Florence Common, a long-time member of the Hamilton Branch of the CAA, who was active throughout her life in writing and researching historical topics. Past winners have included Will Ferguson (2001), Ken McGoogan (2002), Charlotte Gray (2005), and Jack Granatstein (2006).
Terrible Victory: First Canadian Army and the Scheldt Estuary Campaign
Article
Canada’s liberation of western Holland and the crucial estuary was its bloodiest campaign in World War II but its blow-by-blow progress has been hitherto under-appreciated. Now Mark Zuehlke has extensively documented the 55-day, mud-soaked struggle of the First Canadian Army in 1944 to open the Antwerp coast for Allied shipping in Terrible Victory: First Canadian Army and the Scheldt Estuary Campaign (D&M $37.95). 78-01-55365-227-4
[BCBW 2008]
On To Victory (D&M $37.95)
Article
Never mind Sidney Crosby’s overtime goal. The greatest Canadian victory was the liberation of Holland. The Olympics cost only four billion dollars; the Dutch liberation cost the lives of 1,482 Canadians and resulted in 6,298 casualties. The Dutch remain grateful. In On To Victory (D&M $37.95), the eighth and final volume of his Canadian Battle Series for World War II, Mark Zuehlke recalls Canada’s fiercely-fought and bittersweet military triumph. It’s his 23rd book. In an era when “creative non-fiction” is de rigueur, Zuehlke is a popular historian who deserves more credit for his slogging in the trenches of old-fashioned research. 978-1-55365-430-8
[BCBW 2010]
