The beginning of Owen Sound can be traced to the 1840 historical meeting, in a small forest clearing, between surveyor Charles Rankin and land agent John Telfer. Owen Sound: The Port City begins with the Native Peoples of the area and moves through pioneer settlement to the creation of a city in this more northerly area of central Ontario. The influence of Georgian Bay and the beginning of marine commerce, combined with the coming of the rai ...
This is the remarkable story of the trail that became the longest street in the world, as officially recognized by The Guinness Book of Records . Begun in 1794, Yonge Street was planned by the ambitious Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe as a military route between Lake Ontario and Lake Huron. Anxious to bolster Upper Canada’s defences against the new republic to the south, which he heartily loathed, Simcoe had his Queen’s Rangers survey an ...
This book provides the first exhaustive study of the great Scottish exodus to Canada written in modern times. Using wide-ranging sources, some previously untapped, Lucille Campey examines the driving forces behind the Scottish exodus and traces the remarkable progress of Scottish colonizers across Canada. Mythology and truth are considered side by side as their story unfolds. Scots had a profound impact on Canada and shaped the course of its his ...
Jean Morrison has written a fascinating and important book, full of drama and colourful historical figures. Rare paintings, drawings, maps and archival photographs complement her impeccable research and lively text. Superior Rendezvous-Place encompasses the French predecessors of Fort William, Native Peoples of the time and the evolution of the fur trade, with an emphasis on the North West Company era. This most important work concludes w ...
The working life of the distinguished surveyor Guy Blanchet reflects the story of northern Canada in the first half of the twentieth century. Beginning his career in the boreal forests of Alberta and Saskatchewan, using pack horses and dog teams, Blanchet went north to map large areas of the Barrens by canoe, and soon became caught up in pioneer northern aviation. His story encompasses the Great Depression and the Second World War, which in turn ...
It is difficult for Todmorden Mills Museum visitors to imagine that this site so close to the busy Don Valley Parkway was once home to an important mill. As early as 1793 Governor Simcoe recognized the industrial potential of this portion of the Don River. By 1795 Skinner's sawmill was under construction, initiating an era of technological development that spread beyond the valley of the Don into what was then Muddy York. Today, Todmorden s ...
Gavin Hamilton Green was well-known to Goderich visitors as the «racy, entertaining and genial proprietor» of Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe. His writings describe the colourful, sometimes wily ways of pioneer history in Colborne Township and Huron County. Green supplies a large repertoire of witty anecdotes, which together with several illustrations of old-timers and old places, give his book the true atmosphere of the times to which they relate. T ...
