Canadian History
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Canadian History’
After two years in South Africa, a Scottish civil servant began turning out best-selling adventure tales.
John Buchan (1875-1940), 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, was a man of many talents: classicist, barrister, writer of serious history and rattling adventure yarns, influential member of the Church of Scotland, high-flying Westminster MP, and from 1935, Governor-General of Canada.
What George Stephenson was to the railways of England, Sandford Fleming was to the railways of Canada.
At the start of the nineteenth century, railways brought a handful of struggling colonies together to form a great nation, and Sandford Fleming (1827-1915), then just a young Scottish surveyor from Kirkcaldy, played as important a part in that as any other man.
In 1859, peaceful co-existence on the Canadian border was severely tested by a marauding pig.
Even quite late in Queen Victoria’s reign, Britain and the United States of America were still carving up what had once been British colonial territory. One disputed region was San Juan Island near Vancouver, where a dead pig almost led to war.