Dramatic Episodes in Canada’s Story
Title: Dramatic Episodes in Canada’s story
Author: C. W. Jefferys
Publisher: Toronto, Ryerson, 1930. 74 p. Illus.
- title page - “Written and illustrated by C.W. Jefferys, R.C.A.”
- dust jacket – info. and illus. q.v.
- A Prefatory Note
Many men had dreamed of a way to the Orient by a western voyage. Among them was another native of Genoa, Giovanni Cabotto, or John Cabot,* as later he came to be called.
It was Champlain's great desire to explore the country whence came the great river on whose banks he had planted the settlement of Quebec, and to search for a passage which would lead to the Western Sea.
In 1613 Champlain made a journey up the Ottawa River, at that time unknown to the white man. Like all early explorers, Champlain hoped that it led to the sea - that sea which stretched to the Far East of Asia.
Montreal, to-day the largest city in the Dominion, was founded as a mission station in 1642 by a little band of pious devotees, who planted this outpost of the Christian faith in the heart of a savage, heathen world.
St. Lusson holds in one hand a sod of earth. This was part of the procedure in taking possession of land. This ceremony was performed by discoverers and often also by seigneurs on entering on territory granted them by the king.
Late in June, 1673, Frontenac set out from Montreal on his journey up the St. Lawrence. With him there were about 400 men; habitants, voyageurs, Indians, old soldiers of the Carignan regiment...
On the 6th of December, 1678, a little party of Frenchmen was toiling through the snow-clad forest that crowned the cliffs of the Niagara gorge. Far below, the tossing rapids raced towards the whirlpool around which the travellers had circled.
On New Year's Day, 1743, the snowclad tops of distant mountains came in sight to the west. For eight days the war party journeyed toward the mountains.
The founding of Halifax was an early experiment in town planning and assisted immigration. In 1749 the British Government decided to establish a settlement in Nova Scotia.
The day was blazing hot. Montcalm threw off his gold-laced coat and, in his shirt sleeves, took a position from whence he could see nearly all the field of battle.
In each of the five sieges which Quebec has sustained the strongest defence of the city has been its natural situation. Every besieger first of all had to overcome Quebec s geography.
In the narrative of Captain Cook's last voyage will be found detailed descriptions of the West Coast Indians, their houses, clothing, tools, etc., as they were in 1778.
The greatest migration to Upper Canada took place along the shores of the St. Lawrence and the Bay of Quinte. In the early summer of 1784 the refugees started on the long journey to their new homes.
It is an interesting coincidence that on the same day that Mackenzie saw the Arctic Sea from an island at the mouth of the Mackenzie River, July 14, 1789, the people of Paris attacked and captured the Bastille.
The coming of the railroad in to the prairie country stirred the minds of the Indians of the West with uneasy forebodings. They saw in the surveyors with their instruments, measuring out the lands, magicians of evil omen...
When Manitoba became a province, many of the Metis of the Red River valley, inheriting the roving and independent habits of their ancestors, the Indians and voyageurs of the old fur-trading companies, were unable to adjust themselves...