A Thousand Miles of Prairie

by Blanchard, Jim

• ISBN13: 9780887556654
• ISBN10: 0887556655
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-11-01
• Publisher: Univ of Manitoba Pr

Summary

A Thousand Miles of Prairieis a fascinating look at Manitoba's early boom years (1880-1910) through the eyes and words of some of the most interesting personalities of early Winnipeg. This collection brings together 14 pieces from the first decades of the Manitoba Historical Society, when its lectures were attended by the province's political and cultural elite. Jim Blanchard has chosen selections that give us a vivid taste of the diversity of intellectual life in turn of the century Manitoba. Besides writings by early historians such as George Bryce and Charles Bell, he includes a paper by the young Ernest Thompson Seton, who writes about his attempts to raise prairie chickens. There is also a description of the last passenger pigeons found in Manitoba. The collection includes lively personal reminscences, such as Gilbert McMicken, Canada's first spymaster, talking about foiling a Fenian raid on Winnipeg, and Archbishop Samuel Matheson, who tells about his boyhood adventures in the great Red River floods of the 1860s.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Introduction	3	(12)
Alexander K. Isbister (1883)	15	(10)
George Bryce
The Prairie Chicken (1884)	25	(8)
Ernest Thompson Seton
The Abortive Fenian Raid on Manitoba (1888)	33	(28)
Gilbert McMicken
Seven Oaks (1891)	61	(34)
George Bryce
Charles Bell
Social Customs and Amusements of the Early Days in Red River Settlement (1893)	95	(12)
John McBeth
The Old Crow Wing Trail (1892)	107	(22)
John C. Schultz
The Charitable Institutions of Winnipeg (1899)	129	(24)
Marion Bryce
A Review History of the Passenger Pigeon of Manitoba (1905)	153	(12)
George Atkinson
The Early Icelandic Settlements in Canada (1901)	165	(12)
Sigtryggur Jonasson
Galicians Dwelling in Canada and Their Origin (1906)	177	(12)
Michael Sherbinin
The Old Forts of Winnipeg (1927)	189	(30)
Charles Napier Bell
Early Winnipeg Newspapers (1930)	219	(20)
John W. Dafoe
Floods at Red River (1932)	239	(16)
Samuel Matheson
Appendix	255