Charles Mair

Charles Mair (born September 21, 1838 in Lanark County , Upper Canada , † July 7, 1927 in Victoria , British Columbia ) was a Canadian poet and playwright . As a member of the Canadian Party and co-founder of Canada First , he fought the provisional government led by Louis Riel during the Red River Rebellion .

biography

In 1857 he dropped out of medicine at Queen's University in Kingston after a year to help his family's financially distressed timber business. He worked as a salesman for ten years, during which time he began to write poetry. In 1868 his first volume of poetry, Dreamland and other poems , was published, whose romantic description of untouched nature was strongly influenced by John Keats . In the same year he was one of the co-founders of the Canada First movement , whose aim was to promote Canadian nationalism .

William McDougall , Secretary of State for Public Works, appointed Mair to be his secretary to help prepare for the transition from Rupert's Land to the Canadian state. At the same time, Mair was a correspondent in the Red River Colony for several newspapers, including The Globe . He married Eliza McKenney, the niece of John Christian Schultz . Through friendship with the founder of the Canadian nationalist party , Mair was drawn into the events of the Red River Rebellion . After he and fifty other men barricaded themselves in Schultz's house, he was captured and sentenced to death

However, Mair was later able to flee to Ontario , where he and Schultz stirred up hatred against Louis Riel and the Provisional Government. A manuscript he had worked on for five years was lost during the rebellion. Mair ran a shop in Portage la Prairie and also worked as an agent for the North West Emigration Aid Society , which supported immigrants. He continued to write poetry for various newspapers and moved with his family to Prince Albert in 1877 .

During the Northwest Rebellion in 1885, Mair was a member of a unit of volunteers guarding a telegraph station. In 1886 he published the Blankvers drama Tecumseh , his most important literary work. It refers to the life of the Indian chief Tecumseh and presents the Canadian state as a heroic collective work of the British Empire, which stands in contrast to the divisive individualism of the USA. In 1889 Mair was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada . In the following years he worked again as an immigration agent. Based on his work as secretary to James Andrew Joseph McKenna , he published Through the Mackenzie Basin in 1908 , in which he calls for the protection of indigenous customs and traditions from the harmful effects of civilization.

Mair spent the last years of his life in Victoria , British Columbia . In 1924 he received an honorary doctorate from Queen's University.

Works

• Dreamland and other poems. Sampson Low, Son & Marston, London 1868.
• Tecumseh. A drama. Hunter, Rose & Co. et al., Toronto et al. 1886.
• Through the Mackenzie Basin. A narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River treaty expedition of 1899. Notes on the mammals and birds of northern Canada by Roderick MacFarlane. William Briggs, Toronto 1908.

Web links

• Charles Mair . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
• Charles Mair ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .