Footprints, by filmmaker and first-time writer Dave Toms of Peterborough, Ontario, focuses on summer sports and award-winners, presenting short four-page profiles of 50 Canadian athletes, one-third of them female.

Arranged chronologically, the achievements of athletes span 130 years of history. Notable female athletes include Bobbie Rosenfeld, Marilyn Bell, Sylvie Fréchette, and Silken Laumann. The Matchless Six – half a dozen athletes who made up Canada’s first women’s team at the Amsterdam 1928 Olympics – enjoy a lot of coverage in this book. Toms points out the injustices women have faced in various sports, without accusing any single institution.

There are some unexpected inclusions here: the Bluenose fishing schooner (not the crew), Northern Dancer (the thoroughbred, not the jockey), and the 1976 Montreal Summer Olympic Games. These unique profiles add depth to the book. The stories also touch on booze smuggling, suicide, tragic deaths, a terrorist attack, and illicit sports-enhancing drugs.

In describing Canadian athletes’ wins – wrapped in the Canadian flag, grinning from ear to ear, or with tears of pride rolling down their cheeks – Toms evokes a wonderful sense of nationalism. Going beyond heroes like Terry Fox and Donovan Bailey, Footprints broadens the canon of books about Canadian athletes who have influenced history.