Amazing people, events and places which infuse the country with life
A farmer and lobbyist for rights, James Gladstone of Alberta’s Kainai Reserve arrived in the Senate of Canada with one big problem – First Nations people could not vote. In native headdress of long feathers held with a band crafted of beautiful, fine beadwork, and dressed in an elegant beaded coat to match, James Gladstone […]
Placed in the Memorial Chamber of the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill, the Books of Remembrance honour the soldiers who sacrificed their all for others. World War One claimed tens of thousands of Canadian lives, lost in the battles far away in overseas war theatres. To recognize the great sacrifices made, the government of Canada […]
Overtaking horse and carriage, motor vehicles surged as means of transport. T.A. Russell built cars for the wealthy with quiet engines and luxurious interiors While other men were building cars for the masses in the early 1900s, low-priced vehicles that almost anyone could afford, Thomas Russell had his eye set on the well-to-do. Though he […]
A National Historic Site, the wreck of HMS Breadalbane lies deep in icy waters high above the Arctic Circle, off the coast of Nunavut In the summer of 1853, HMS Breadalbane and HMS Phoenix set sail from England carrying cargos of supplies. The expedition party of Sir Edward Belcher was running low on supplies; organized […]
Canada needed troops for WWI, and needed them soon. A great promoter, Samuel Hughes enlisted a substantial number of soldiers for duty in a short time. But Hughes was also a rogue. He and the Prime Minister sharply disagreed on policies, and then Jughes resigned. Samuel Hughes was a military man at heart. Born into […]
Constructed in 1831 at Quebec City, Royal William‘s steam engines powered paddle wheels. The vessel plied the St. Lawrence River and the Atlantic Ocean. Churning through the brisk waters of the St. Lawrence River and later the vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean, the Royal William was an impressive vessel, using only her steam engines […]
Summer 1912, Thomas Wilby and Jack Haney made a road trip in a special REO from Halifax, NS to Vancouver, BC. Roads? What Roads? And the men? Not friends. In a grand gesture, Jack Haney backed the wheels of the special Reo automobile into the beach water of the Atlantic Ocean at Halifax, Nova Scotia […]
The receiver in Newfoundland moved, tap, tap, tap on December 12, 1901. The Morse Code letter “S” had travelled thousands of miles.. On December 15, 1902, Marconi transmitted a full message. Success! The boy grew up with an intense curiosity about the sciences of electricity and physics. Born on April 25, 1874, Guglielmo Marconi was […]
Arriving from New Zealand in 1898, Rutherford dove into research in the Montreal, Quebec lab, initiating major discoveries that enlarged the field of nuclear physics. A physics expert trained under scholarship at Cambridge University’s Cavendish Laboratory in England, Ernest Rutherford was stymied in furthering his research. It wasn’t a lack of skills nor was it […]
Hearing loss did not restrict Joseph Burr Tyrrell. He was one of Canada’s highly respected geologists, first to find Albertosaurus and rich seams of coal. Scarlet fever struck Joseph Tyrrell when he was a young child and the illness left him with permanent hearing damage. Tyrrell, born on November 1, 1858 in Weston, Ontario, was […]
With irons and brooms, members of the Montreal Curling Club used the thick ice of the St. Lawrence River as their rink. Brrrr… it was a cold game outside Settling into their new homeland of Canada, lively Scottish immigrants knew just how to fill the frosty winter months with activity. The lack of granite stones […]
The first black-owned and operated newspaper in Canada, ‘Voice of the Fugitive’ provided vital information to slaves seeking freedom north of the border A prosperous plantation in Shelby County, Kentucky was the birthplace of Henry Walton Bibb on May 10, 1815. The baby was not born into the wealth and comfort of the south. There […]