On Thursday, Oct. 16, Ted Barris will make a special presentation at Festival Place, in Sherwood Park, Alberta, based on his latest book – The Great Escape: A Canadian Story. On the night of March 24, 1944, eighty Commonwealth airmen crawled through a 360-foot-long tunnel, code-named “Harry.” Most slipped into the darkness of a pine forest beyond the wire of Stalag Luft III, a German POW compound near Sagan, Poland. The event became known as “The Great Escape.” What audiences who’ve seen/heard Ted Barris present this story have learned is that “The Great Escape” was in many ways “made in Canada.”

Ted has given this talk and visual presentation nearly 200 times since his book was published in September 2013, but each event leaves his audience caught up in the story of the escape and Ted’s passion to get the story right. His presentation comes across like a Hollywood movie script, but it is in fact the true story!

Ted Barris is an author, journalist and broadcaster. As well as hosting appearances on CBC Radio and regular contributions to the National Post and Legion, Air Force and Zoomer magazine, he is a full-time professor of journalism and broadcasting at Centennial College in Toronto. He has authored 17 published, non-fiction books.

In 2011 he received the Canadian Minister of Veterans’ Affairs Commendation and in 2012 the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. On June 2, The Great Escape: A Canadian Story received the 2014 Libris Best Non-Fiction Book Award.