This book is a group of narratives of the most striking events of our colonial history connected with the principal points of interest to the tourist visiting Canada and the northern borders of the United States.
 
The narratives are drawn, with the addition of explanatory passages, from "The Conspiracy of Pontiac," "Pioneers of France in the New World," "The Jesuits in North America," "Count Frontenac," and "Montcalm and Wolfe."
 
A first time reader of Parkman starting with this book may not realize that destiny can turn on a dime if there is indeed no such thing as predestined events. For those that are so inclined to predestined  events “A LEGEND OF TICONDEROGA” may have particular interest to you. Parkman only presents what he has found in his life long research and leaves the supernatural occurrences for the reader to judge.
 
Would George Washington's fortune have been different but for Wolfe's victory at Quebec over Montcalm which lead to the end of France's control over Canada. As long as France remained a threat to New England the colonies needed the help of England. With England in control of Canada the colonies started drifting toward independence. The independence movement would have happened much later if the colonies did not need England for protection against France. Washington may not have been around when the colonies declared independence if Wolfe did not do the near impossible at Quebec to win Canada for England. But for Washington the American Revolution and the formative years of the new republic may have turned out differently. Providence or accident has often been a pondered question when looking at a chain of events from the pages of history. I for one vote for neither. A little bit of luck and a lot of hard work and the right philosophy is a better Stewart. Montcalm, Wolfe, Washington and many others out of Parkman's pages from history fit into Theodore Roosevelt's philosophical football analogy. They "Hit the line hard and tried not to foul" and destiny seems to have favored those that played the game the best. This is a slight variation of the analogy. The original analogy is "Hit the line hard and do not foul". Although Montcalm may have tried not to foul at Fort William Henry his foul is infamous.
 
I hope you take the time to enjoy all of Parkman’s history books. It was a summer well spent for me, listening to each book at least twice during production while making them available on this web site. 
 
(This book had the least number of footnotes but they have been removed for reasons already stated elsewhere.