Can you identify the story behind the name(s) from Canadian history? There is no special importance placed on these entries over others who may be more worthy of mention. As a former social studies teacher, they just came to mind and seemed interesting.
They span centuries and have no special order to their inclusion.
Answers at the bottom of post:
1. Mary Pickford
2. Marc Garneau
3. Anne Shirley
4. Mathew Begbie
5. Tim Horton
6. Lt Col John McCrae, MD
7. Bluenose
8. Calixa Lavallée
9. James Naismith
10. E. Whalen; A.T. Galt; George Brown; J.A. Macdonald; Col. J.H. Gray; C. Tupper; E.-P. Taché ; S.L. Tilley; George-E. Cartier; J. McCully; E.B. Chandler; W.H. Steeves; Lt. Col. J.H. Gray G. Coles; H.L. Langevin; E. Palmer; O. Mowat; J.M. Johnson; A.G. Archibald; C. Fisher J. Cockburn; J.C. Chapais; W.A. Henry; R.B. Dickey; A.A. Macdonald; W.H. Pope; J.A. Shea; F.B.T. Carter; H. Bernard; J.H. Haviland
11. The Company of Adventurers and Planters of London and Bristol
12. Skookum Jim, Dawson Charlie, George Carmack
13. Archie Stansfield Belaney
14. Silver Dart
15. Pierre Laporte & Thomas D'arcy McGee
Answers:
1.
Mary Pickford was born Gladys Louise Smith on April 8th 1892 in Toronto Canada. Mary joined Famous Players later Paramount Pictures in 1913 and started to make feature length films. During the next few years Mary's fame and fortune grew and she also acquired her nickname "America's Sweetheart".
2.
Marc Garneau was Canada's first astronaut and
became the first Canadian in space in October of 1984. In 1984 he was one of seven chosen from over 4,000 applicants. He flew on the shuttle Challenger, from October 5 to 13, 1984 as payload specialist.
3.
Anne Shirley has come to represent Prince Edward Island and is the main character of the Anne of Green Gables series of novels.
Lucy Maud Montgomery (photo on left) is the author best known for her character Anne Shirley.
4.
Mathew Begbie was
sent from England in 1858 to be the first judge of the new colony of British Columbia and later Chief Justice. He was viewed as resolute, but fair, upholder of British law. He was referred to as the "Hanging Judge", a moniker that was somewhat unfair. All murder convictions brought on the death sentence in those days and there was no latitude on the part of the judge or jury for another sentence.
His efforts and those of the governor helped ensure that the colony remained British and part of Canada during the time of a huge influx of Americans with the Cariboo Goldrush.
5.
Ti
m Horton was signed by the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1949. His NHL career spanned 22 seasons and landed him in the Hockey Hall of Fame. In 1964, he and a partner opened the "Tim Horton Donut Drive-in" in Hamilton, Ontario. In February of 1974 while playing for the Buffalo Sabres, a few hours after being named the third star in a victory over the Leafs, Horton set out alone to drive back to Buffalo. Known for his love of speed, the sports car he was driving flew off the highway and he was killed.
Today there are over 2,200 "Tim Hortons" outlets in Canada and the northeastern U.S.
6.
Jo
hn McCrae's "In Flanders Fields" remains to this day one of the most memorable war poems ever written. It is a lasting legacy of the terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915. A surgeon attached to the 1st Field Artillery Brigade, Major McCrae spent seventeen days treating injured men in the Ypres salient.
It had been an ordeal that he had hardly thought possible. McCrae later wrote of it:"I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days... Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done."
One death particularly affected McCrae. A young friend and former student, Lt. Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, had been killed by a shell burst on 2 May 1915. Lieutenant Helmer was buried later that day in the little cemetery outside McCrae's dressing station, and McCrae had performed the funeral ceremony in the absence of the chaplain.
The next day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked, McCrae vented his anguish by composing a poem. In fact, it was very nearly not published. Dissatisfied with it, McCrae tossed the poem away, but a fellow officer retrieved it and sent it to newspapers in England. The Spectator, in London, rejected it, but Punch published it on 8 December 1915.
On January 28, 1918, while still commanding No 3 Canadian General Hospital at Boulogne, McCrae died of pneumonia.
"In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields."
7.
Blu
enose I -
Have you ever looked closely at the Canadian dime? The vessel depicted is the most famous schooner of all time.
The International Fishermen's Trophy was created in 1920 and would become a source of considerable national pride as ships from the great fishing fleets of Gloucester, Massachusetts and Lunenburg, Nova Scotia vied for the title. In 1920, the first competition for the Trophy was won by a vessel from Gloucester. A design was commissioned from William J. Roue, a young naval architect from Halifax, for a schooner that would meet the high standards of the Lunenburg fishing fleet but that could also capture the Trophy. Nova Scotia was the home of the greatest deep-sea fishing fleet in the world, and proud of its shipbuilding and fishing heritage. Its rival was Gloucester, Massachusetts, which shared the same kind of pride. For generations, the "Yanks" and the "Novies" had delighted in racing each other to the fishing grounds. During the next 17 years of racing, no challenger, American or Canadian, could wrest the International Fishermen's Trophy from the Bluenose.
8. There is a certain sense of irony in the fact that the most patriotic song in Canada, the National Anthem - O Canada, was written by a French Quebecer, who served as an officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War and who died and was buried in Boston Massachusetts. In 1933, his body was brought back to Canada where he was finally laid to rest in the Montréal.
The lyrics were composed by poet and judge Sir Adolphe-Basile Routhier in French and translated to English in 1906. It has been tweeked a few times since then.
"O Canada" was proclaimed as Canada's national anthem on July 1, 1980, one hundred years after it was first sung in Quebec.
9. James Naismith 
was born in Almonte, Ontario, Canada in 1852. Naismith was a graduate of McGill University in 1887, where he studied philosophy, and the Presbyterian Theological College (Montreal) in 1890.
In 1891, while working as a physical education teacher at the YMCA International Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts he was asked to look for a way to relieve his students' boredom during indoor winter gym classes.
Inspired in part by a game he played as a child in Ontario called Duck-on-a-Rock, Naismith's basketball started December 15th 1891 with thirteen rules, a peach basket nailed to either end of the school's gymnasium, and two teams of nine players. The final score was 1-0.
On January 15, 1892 Naismith published the rules for basketball.
10. The Fathers of Confederation were the architects of the plan that resulted in the proposal that would bring the individual British American colonies together under a Federalist system. There were three main conferences which were held and to be included as a Father of Confederation, it means to have been in attendance during the debates during one of the conferences. These conferences were Charlottetown (1864), Quebec (1864), London (1866).The Fathers of Confederation for the most part were leading politicians from the British Colonies interested in forming a Federal Union or a Confederation. Although not all colonies joined Canada in 1867, they eventually did join at a later date and in the case of Newfoundland, the last to join, not until 1949. As these additional Provinces joined Canada a second tier of "Fathers of Confederation" were added to the list. An example of this is Joey Smallwood who was the Premier of Newfoundland and led them into Confederation in 1949. He often bragged that he was the only living Father of Confederation. Without the action of these men, the union of the British colonies in North America would not have occurred.
11. The
Company of Adventurers an
d Planters of London and Bristol were also known as The New Found Land Company. It was established in 1610 with the intent to colonize Newfoundland (just in case you were ever wondering how the island got its name). John Guy was given the right by the crown to begin a colony and was proclaimed the governor.
(Didn't believe that anyone would get this one. Just something I remembered from back when and thought would be interesting.)
12. Skookum Jim, Dawso
n Charlie, George Carmack are the co-discoverers of gold in the Yukon that eventually led to the Klondike Goldrush. The
full story of the find is fascinating.
"Skookum" is a Chinook word assigned to Jim during the time he carried goldrusher's gear over the Chilkoot Pass for a fee. It means, in his context, a powerful/strong individual.
13. Better known as
Grey Owl, Archie Stansfield Belaney was fascinated with North American natives and dreamed of becoming one. At 17 he left England for northern Canada where, apart from his war service, he spent the remainder of his life. Through his association with the Ojibwa of northern Ontario he learned about the wilderness.
He became convinced of the need for conservation and this became the central theme of 3 books that he wrote. His works were extremely popular, especially in Britain, where he made 2 lecture tours.
After his death the press discovered his English birth, and in the ensuing uproar his contributions as a conservationist were forgotten. Only a generation later were they again recognized.
14 . The
Silver Dart was the first powered, heavier than air machine to fly in Canada. J. McCurdy was the principal designer and pilot. The first flight took place in Baddeck Bay, Nova Scotia on Feb 23, 1909. Pulled on to frozen Baddeck Bay by horsedrawn sleigh, it flew on its second attempt. Traveled about 30 m, at the highest elevation of 9 m for almost a kilometer.
15. Both
McGee and Lap
orte are the only two politicians assassinated in Canada.
By 1866, McGee's political star was fading. He was elected to the House of Commons in 1867 by a slim majority, but was not included in Macdonald's first post-Confederation Cabinet. By 1868, McGee was planning to leave politics for a job in the civil service. He also hoped to spend more time on his writing and poetry. On April 7, 1868, McGee attended a late-night session in the House of Commons, where he gave a passionate speech in favour of national unity. Returning home, he was shot and killed as he entered the door of his rooming house in Ottawa. It is generally believed that McGee was the victim of the Fenians. His killer was captured and hung.
The Fenians were an Irish nationalist group based in the U.S. and Canada. An extreme wing of the organization believed that a successful invasion of Canada by the brotherhood would force the British into granting independence for Ireland for a return of Canada.
An attempt was made in 1870 to invade Canada but authorities were tipped off and the invasion was thwarted.
McGee's criticism of the Fenians is believed to have led to his death.
Pierre Laporte 
was the Minister of Labour in Quebec in 1970. He was kidnapped from his home by members of a cell of the FLQ (Front de Liberation du Quebec), an extremist organization bent on gaining independence for Quebec from Canada. Seven days after his kidnapping his strangled body was found in the trunk of a car. His killers were arrested and spent years in prison.
