History is about people. We can tell a lot about a nation by the individuals it admires or vilifies, puts on a pedestal or ignores. Double Take – Portraits of Intriguing Canadians prods us to take a second look at 59 Canadians we thought we knew.

What makes Tommy Douglas’ humble Bible, printed in the millions, so unique? It’s because it nourished not only his spiritual life but also his social activism and his political involvement.

If you’d walked in downtown Ottawa this past summer, you could have seen four men hoisting a 600-kilogram safe through a basement window and then attaching it to a crane, which in turn deposited the safe on a flatbed truck. But this was no heist: it was the Museum of Civilization picking up a donation.