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I believe many Canadians know little about the discovery and development of what would become Canada beyond the two superstars in Canadian history: the Mohawk leader Joseph Brant, whose real name was Thayendanegea, and the British General Isaac Brock. And maybe also Jacques Cartier and Samuel de Champlain. Beyond Brant and Brock hopes to fix that. Canada after Confederation (1870). What is Canada? Canada is hockey. Canada is baseball. Canada is basketball. Canada is fishing along rivers catching perch or on a lake landing a muskellunge (Musky). Canada is the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic Oceans. Canada is the great open plains of the West and big sky country. Canada is the majestic peaks, glaciers, mountain streams and thick forests of the Rockies. Canada is the long backroads heading off into the horizon past farms, villages, forests, and lakes. Canada is a beaver dam, a moose wandering amongst trees in the boreal forest. OK, so now that we have finished flipping through the pictures on the wall calendar, let’s discover how much Canada is more than these wall-posters. ...

Sir Martin Frobisher (from 1620) In my series of articles on Martin Frobisher in my Substack Beyond Brant and Brock, I provide an overview of the life of Sir Martin Frobisher as it relates to the founding of Canada. To achieve that I had to be selective. 22: Preparing to journey to the Artic: Martin Frobisher becomes a Privateer by Glenn J Lea The Englishman Martin Frobisher is credited with first venturing into the Artic to the west of Greenland in search of the Northwest Passage. The idea for the expedition didn't come out of nowhere. ...

Frobisher leads a successful assault on El Leon, a key Spanish fort in Brittany, with the help of French troops among whom was a young Samuel de Champlain. Northern coast of Brittany Sometimes, as the saying goes, facts are more fascinating than fiction. In this, the last chapter of Sir Martin Frobisher, historians could not write a better ending for the great Privateer’s life. Frobisher exited history on the same peninsula that Samuel de Champlain entered history.1 ...

“The singular achievement of this new expedition was not so much that it met most of its objectives, but that it did so in the face of many strong reasons to abandon the voyage entirely. If this untypical commitment and cohesion was an occasion for praise, a great part was due to Frobisher himself.” Locations of Frobisher's Final Voyage Frobisher prepares for his final voyage to the Arctic When Martin Frobisher returned from his second voyage in 1576 with 200 tons of mined ore, he was at the zenith of his reputation1. Up and down England he was hailed as a hero and great explorer in the same class that Sir Francis Drake or Sir Walter Raleigh would be. But unlike these explorers, Frobisher’s peak veneration would not last. His financially disastrous third voyage in 1578 would lead to the ruin of the “Company of Cathay” investors. It would also result in a debacle of failed attempts at extracting gold from the 800 or so tons of ore extracted from the Arctic. ...

Michael Lok believed a dubious opinion that the black rock from the Arctic contained gold. A second voyage was sent to Little Hall’s Island to mine 200 tonnes of the rock. Sample of the rock that cost many lives and fortunes lost While on an island during Frobisher’s first voyage to the Arctic in 1576, one of his mariners picked up an unusual black rock that had within it something that glittered. ...

Martin Frobisher unexpectedly met the Indigenous peoples who inhabited the Arctic. We need to understand who they were before continuing our story. 1578 watercolor by John White depicting three Inuits abducted by Frobisher during his 1578 voyage to Baffin Island. The Inuit peoples Before we continue the story of Frobisher’s voyages to the Arcti, some context about the peoples Martin Frobisher and his crews encountered would be helpful. ...

Martin Frobisher led his small fleet in search of the “Straight of Anian” only to experience a close encounter with the Inuit people of Frobisher Bay. The coast of Baffin Island. (Source: Wikipedia) Why search for the Northwest passage? Securing funding for Frobisher’s voyage to search for a north-west passage to the Pacific Ocean was proving to be very difficult. As no concrete evidence was available that this route existed, speculators needed good reasons to back a venture that could potentially ruin them. ...

Martin Frobisher is credited with the first expedition into the Arctic in search of the Northwest Passage. But the idea for the journey didn’t come out of nowhere. Earliest known portrait of Martin Frobisher painted by Cornelius Ketel circa 1576-1578. Source: Wikipedia commons North America witnessed its first Thanksgiving feast in 1621, or so the myth goes. “Pilgrims” who were in fact religious dissidents (not Anglican) landed in what would become Plymouth, Massachusetts, but being non-explorers, their food ran out. Their new theocratic settlement in the vein of “The Handmade’s Tale” were saved by the Wampanoag peoples who took pity on these rattled foreigners. ...

John Ware, Canada’s Legendary Cowboy (1845-1905) This Article is dedicated to Nettie Ware (1893-1989) “a man of unquestioned honesty and agreeable nature…[who] boasted the rare distinction of never having been thrown from a horse. At roughriding and roping he was an expert’’ (Turner, 1950, pg. 461). Sometimes in life you are at the right place and the right time to met the most amazing people. No, I’m not talking about the day I met a former Canadian Prime Minister, which was rather underwhelming. I’m talking about the time I met Miss Janet “Nettie: Ware. ...

I’ve been told that Canadians are excellent writers. If there ever was an overstatement this certainly is one of them. Yet Canada has produced some world renowned authors. Think Margaret Atwood (“The Handmaid’s Tale”), Nobel prize winning Alice Munroe (“Lives of Girls and Women), Lucy Maud Montgomery (“Anne of Green Gables”), Mordecai Richler (“Barney’s Version”), Yann Martel ()“Life of Pi”), Leonard Cohen, Northrop Frye (“Fearful Symmetry”) and Malcolm Gladwell (“Outliers”, “Tipping Point”) to name a few. ...