I Could not take it

Posted by Mike Barat, 11 months ago

The Siren Years By Charles Ritchie. This book is about Mr. Ritchie Years as a Candaian diplomat in Washington, and London in the 30's and 40's. When I frist started reading this book I expected Mr. Ritchie to be a bit of a bore, and some what pompous. I expected mr. Ritchie to be some what pompous because what he did for a living. Yet after roughly 45 pages I had to stop for good. Mr. Ritchie was just to much of a pompous bore. I will admit the book did some interesting stories, but not enough to over come Mr. Ritchie as a a person.

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Brief Biography on the Hero of Upper Canada

Posted by Marilyn Penner, 11 months ago

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The bi-centennial of the War of 1812 starts next year, so I thought I'd better read about the man buried beneath the general atop the column at Queenston Heights. The man Brockville and Brock University is named after. The "Hero of Upper Canada".
I found this a good start - not too little, but not an overwhelming lot. Fryer goes through his life and his family (who helped him in buying his commissions. That's how you got ahead in the British Army then, though Isaac made himself a thoroughly professional soldier.) Fryer is uncritical of Brock. I'll let the War of 1812 experts comment on this book in terms of his generalship; but I'm impressed by how Brock had to be the overall "in-charge" man in Upper Canada: here in York, there in Amherstberg, next stop Kingston or Niagara. He's also very handsome on the cover. He earned the title of 'Hero" in all respects.

Ms. Fryer also goes a bit into the colours of the facings of various regiments Brock had served in or had connections to as commander in chief of the forces of Upper Canada.

Many appearances by Tecumseh, Schaefe, the M'Donnells and Fitzgibbon, and cameos by John Strachan and others. She didn't go into enough detail about them in my opinion, but perhaps enough to whet interest.

It's a small book, and can be read for essay research or in your spare time.

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Death or Canada

Posted by Marilyn Penner, 13 months ago

A book anyone interested in Toronto's history should read - about the immigration of thousands of famine starved Irish to Upper Canada in 1847. Many of those thousands were funneled through Toronto from lake steamers and flatboats - packed "like fish in a barrel" - sick and dying squeezed in with the marginally healthy.
The book tells of sheds and hospitals overwhelmed with typhus cases, of municipal graft and stopgap measures that didn't (or couldn't go far enough), of R.C. Bishop Power, the local emigrant agent and the chief medical officer dying of the contagious disease contracted through their daily visits. It talks of the founding of the Emigrants' Hospital (where the Toronto International Film Festival building now stands. The display and archives room on the third floor has a case of artifacts), the House of Providence, the Lunatic Asylum, the Toronto Board of Health, the Widows and Orphans Home.
The book also discusses how the Irish, particularly the Irish Catholics, fared in Protestant Toronto. Though they did not tip the balance, the Catholic presence in Toronto rose from 7% to over 25% in the 1840s due to the surviving famine immigrants.
This book doesn't say enough, but what it says is worth reading. The welcome of refugees and relief of suffering has always challenged us.

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Book Of Negroes

Posted by KipseeSox, 3 years ago

Recently read the "Book of Negroes" by L. Hill and was surprised to have it partially set in Canada. For those who don't know, the book is about slave trading essentially. On a side note, did you know that the book had to be called something else in the US as the "Negroes" was deemed offensive? The title refers to an actual document. Check it out, good read.

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Early Black-Canadian History : Informative for Adults as well as Youth

Posted by Marilyn Penner, 3 years ago

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Long ago, I asked someone who 'Dick's Creek' , that flowed behind the St. Catharines General Hospital, was named after. That person replied, "Captain Dick". "Who was Captain Dick?", I asked. She did not know. She thought he was a ship's captain, because the creek was part of the first Welland Canal.
So, I was surprised to read that "Captain Dick" was a black man, one of the earliest settlers, a former slave, and that he fought not only with Butler's Rangers in the American Revolution, but also started up the Coloured Corps that fought in the War of 1812.
There wasn't much documented about slaves, so this book says all the little that is known about Richard Pierpoint. Still, this is a fine primer about the African slave trade, and about slavery and the black militias in Upper Canada, Nova Scotia, and Vancouver Island. I got a litte better understanding of what "Captain Dick", Josiah Henson, and other black settlers in Upper Canada had to deal with, and a fine lesson about their part in fighting and peacekeeping during the wars, the 1837 rebellion and the building of the Welland Canal - as well as a new slave's lot during the Atlantic crossing to the auction block.

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New Biography of the Strickland Sisters of Upper Canada

Posted by Marilyn Penner, 4 years ago

It's not as full a biography as 'Sisters in the Wilderness', but the illus. makes it a fine companion volume. You see what they left in England, get some inkling as to what sister Agnes thought of their works (I think the author of Lives of the Queens of England thought her sisters were 'going native'.) Good for school as well as public libraries.

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My interest is in Canadian women's stories, or lives of women in Canada. The Strickland sisters are perhaps not the average female emigrants from England, but they knew how to describe what they saw, heard, and endured. They came from an upper middle class world - born into Jane Austen's world of the 1790's. They had their mote of snobbery: their eldest sister Agnes wrote "The Lives of the Queens of England", a huge multivolume set of biographies in the Romanic style. (If you enjoy Ann Radcliffe's gothic tales, you would enjoy reading those biographies. I wish my public library still had them on loan.) She apparently liked to hob-nob with the great and good, and was in effect her emmigrant sisters literary agent. I did not know before how many poems, essays and short stories Catherine and Susanna wrote between them about life in the backwoods. They must have influenced the way Englishwoman and children - if not the men - saw Upper Canada and pioneer living. I have always been impressed by Mrs. Traill's "The Female Emigrant's Guide" (later titled "The Canadian Settler's Guide") because it is so practical. I've never had to put it into use myself, of course, but Mrs. Traill said it was just what she wished she had when she started out. Since apparently the information was either from her experience or from her mentors', it must have been the 'right stuff'. Small enough to read on the bus, but the illustrations make it a good 'coffee table' book, and quite interesting as an introductory biography.

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Making of Passchendaele

Posted by Nikki, 4 years ago

Global is showing a "making of" Passchendaele show on Saturday, October 11 on all its stations.

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