Category: Canadiana
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The Tragic Life and Afterlife of Édouard Beaupré, Giant of Willow Bunch
Édouard was a perfectly normal child when he arrived into this world in Willow Bunch Saskatchewan on January 9, 1881. His father was Gaspard Beaupré, a French Canadian from Quebec. His mother was Florestine Piché, a Metis woman who fled the Red River Colony in Manitoba during the 1870 uprising. The first-born of twenty siblings,…
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A Danceland on Little Manitou
The local indigenous peoples discovered it first. The local indigenous people discover everything first. It’s impossible to say when they first discovered it but the first documented story tells of two young First Nations men afflicted by the smallpox epidemic. No longer possessing the strength to travel, they were left behind by their companions, and…
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23 Camels in British Columbia
On March 1, 1862, a modest ad appeared in the Daily British Colonist. This Victoria-based periodical of note represented and serviced the nascent Colony of Vancouver Island, the nascent Colony of British Columbia, and indeed, much of the vast landscape we now call Western Canada. It read simply: To Packers. Twenty-five camels for sale. Apply…