“Some of the most important parts of our Canadian historical story are not told in our history books…” says Karolyn Smardz Frost. “These are the stories of the people who came in search of freedom and helped build this nation into the Canada we know today.”
Karolyn is an archaeologist, historian, and Governor General’s award-winning author of I’ve Got a Home in Glory Land. She co-wrote The Underground Railroad: Next Stop, Toronto! and was co-editor of The Archaeology Education Handbook: Ontario’s African-Canadian Heritage, and A Fluid Frontier: Slavery, Resistance, and the Underground Railroad in the Detroit River Borderland.
Her latest work, the narrative non-fiction Steal Away Home: One Woman’s Epic Flight to Freedom – And Her Long Road Back to the South, recounts the escape of fifteen-year-old slave Cecelia Reynolds into Canada, the family and friendships she leaves behind, and her journey back home. The Winnipeg Free Press said Karolyn’s “evocative descriptions of landscapes and cityscapes capture the various times and places of Cecelia’s story.”
Karolyn is visiting professor at Acadia University, and senior research fellow for African Canadian history at York University’s Harriet Tubman Institute.
Born in Toronto, she divides her time between Wolfville, Nova Scotia, and a cottage overlooking Mahone Bay.
Appearing in: 24. Freedom Seekers: the African Experience in North America, 27. Historical Research from Old Sources
