Charles Mair (September 21, 1838 – July 7, 1927) was a
Canadian poet and
journalist
A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...
. He was a fervent
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
nationalist
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Th ...
noted for his participation in the
Canada First movement and his opposition to
Louis Riel
Louis Riel (; ; 22 October 1844 – 16 November 1885) was a Canadian politician, a founder of the province of Manitoba, and a political leader of the Métis people. He led two resistance movements against the Government of Canada and its first ...
during the two
Riel Rebellions in western
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
.
Early life and education
Mair was born at Lanark,
Upper Canada
The Province of Upper Canada (french: link=no, province du Haut-Canada) was a part of British Canada established in 1791 by the Kingdom of Great Britain, to govern the central third of the lands in British North America, formerly part of th ...
, to Margaret Holmes and James Mair. He attended
Queen's University but left it after one year to help with the family’s troubled businesses in Lanark.
Career
On leaving college, Mair became a journalist.
[Mair, Charles]
" Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online. Web, Mar. 21, 2100.
In Ottawa in 1868, Mair was introduced by civil servant and writer Henry Morgan to young lawyers George Denison, William Foster, and Robert Haliburton. The three organized the Canada First Movement, a small openly nationalist social group which grew over time.
[
Mair reported for the '']Montreal Gazette
The ''Montreal Gazette'', formerly titled ''The Gazette'', is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Three other daily English-language newspapers shuttered at various times during the second half of th ...
'' during the first Riel Rebellion in 1869-70, during which time he was twice imprisoned, and sentenced to execution, but managed to escape that fate in the Spring of 1870.["Mair, Charles"; ''Encyclopedia of Canada'' (Toronto: University Associates, 1948), XV, 225.] He wrote extensively in opposition to Riel's cause, and his columns incensed the citizenry of Red River. At a dinner given by Alexander Begg; Annie McDermot Bannatyne, the Métis daughter of Andrew McDermot
Andrew McDermot (1790 – 12 October 1881) was a Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) employee who became an independent fur trade merchant and member of the Council of Assiniboia.
McDermot's background and family relations
McDermot was born in Bellangare ...
and wife of Andrew Graham Ballenden Bannatyne, reacted to Mair's account of tensions between Métis and white wives with a public slap and horse-whipping, which inspired the first western roman-à-clef, Begg's 1871 ''Dot it Down: A Story of Life in the Northwest'', presenting "a caricature of Mair as a self-important Upper Canadian flirt who dots down his sneering observations about the west", according to the ''Dictionary of Canadian Biography''.[
In 1885, during the second Riel Rebellion, Mair served an Officer of the Governor-General's Body Guard. He worked as a civil servant in the Canadian west,][ and, in 1899, was appointed as secretary to the Métis Scrip Commission. He travelled thousands of miles through the northwest, and kept a journal of his experiences which contains historical details about the treaty negotiations,] and about the native and Métis people and places of the time. However, "Mair’s prose, and the reaction to it, obscured his road work, which drew more resentment."[
Mair was a Freemason
He died in ]Victoria, British Columbia
Victoria is the capital city of the Canadian province of British Columbia, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of 91,867, and the Greater Victoria area has a population of 397,237. The ...
.
Writing
Mair published the first book of poetry in post-Confederation Canada, 1868's ''Dreamland and Other Poems''. Although the poetry was not particularly notable, it became popular after Mair was captured by Louis Riel and managed to escape.[W.J. Keith,]
Poetry in English
1867 to 1918," ''Canadian Encyclopedia'' (Edmonton: Hurtig, 1988), 1696.
''The Dictionary of Canadian Biography
The ''Dictionary of Canadian Biography'' (''DCB''; french: Dictionnaire biographique du Canada) is a dictionary of biographical entries for individuals who have contributed to the history of Canada. The ''DCB'', which was initiated in 1959, is a ...
(DCB)'' states that ''Dreamland'' "demonstrates a conventional colonial approach to poetry. Such poems as 'August' succeed in their attention to natural detail: descriptions of the blueflies, the milkmaids, and the 'ribby-lean' cattle in parched fields anticipate the mature nature poetry of Archibald Lampman. But too often he wrote not of the timberlands he knew but of a dreamland weakly modelled upon the romantic flights of Keats
John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculos ...
." However, the book was praised by "the established poet Charles Sangster
Charles Sangster (July 16, 1822 – December 9, 1893) was a Canadian poet. He was the first poet to write poetry which was substantially about Canadian subjects. ''The Dictionary of Canadian Biography'' calls him "the best of the pre- confeder ...
, who referred to Canada's sophisticated literary tradition as one that was habitually overlooked in the popular press."[
Writing later in the ''Ottawa Journal,'' ]William Wilfred Campbell
William Wilfred Campbell (1 June ca. 1860 – 1 January 1918) was a Canadian poet. He is often classed as one of the country's Confederation Poets, a group that included fellow Canadians Charles G.D. Roberts, Bliss Carman, Archibald Lampman, a ...
saw ''Dreamland'' as a precursor to the nature poetry later popularized in Canada by the Confederation Poets: "The thirty-three poems constitute the first attempt to deal with Canadian nature, in the manner of Keats and the other classic poets, and many of them in theme and treatment are similar to the verse of Lampman
Lampman is a small town of around 735 people located in the south-east part of the province of Saskatchewan, Canada, roughly 30 miles north-east of Estevan. It is named after the Canadian poet, Archibald Lampman.
To the north-west of Lampman, ...
and Roberts.... And there are strong evidences in Mair's work that he influenced these poets to a great extent."[John Garvin, "Charles Mair," ''Canadian Poets'' (Toronto: McClelland, Goodchild & Stewart, 1916), 19, UPenn.edu, Web, May 10, 2011.]
Mair published ''Tecumseh'', a historical drama mainly in blank verse dealing with the War of 1812
The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States, United States of America and its Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom ...
, in 1886. The ''Dictionary of Canadian Biography'' calls ''Tecumseh'' "a major contribution to our 19th-century literary heritage, wherein the War of 1812 is the central event of Canadian history
The history of Canada covers the period from the arrival of the Paleo-Indians to North America thousands of years ago to the present day. Prior to European colonization, the lands encompassing present-day Canada were inhabited for millennia by ...
. Among the many literary treatments of this war...''Tecumseh'' stands as the most accomplished."[
Canadian critic Alan Filewood praises Mair's treatment of issues on the path to mature Canadian nationhood, using General Isaac Brock to represent the responsibility to the monarchy and progress, and the Indian chieftain Tecumseh to represent the responsibility to nature and the environment. Similarly, Dennis Duffy, writing in ''The Canadian Encyclopedia'', calls Mair's writing "pedestrian and untheatrical", but it stresses the importance of Mair's vision of Canada as "a co-operative enterprise in contrast with the self-seeking individualism of the United States."
]
Recognition
Mair was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1889.[
In 1937 he was designated a ]Person of National Historic Significance
Persons of National Historic Significance (National Historic People) are people designated by the Canadian government as being nationally significant in the history of the country. Designations are made by the Minister of the Environment on the re ...
.["]Persons of National Historic Significance
Persons of National Historic Significance (National Historic People) are people designated by the Canadian government as being nationally significant in the history of the country. Designations are made by the Minister of the Environment on the re ...
," Wikipedia, Web, Apr. 22, 2011.
Publications
*''Dreamland and Other Poems.'' London: S. Low, 1868
Events
January–March
* January 2 – British Expedition to Abyssinia: Robert Napier leads an expedition to free captive British officials and missionaries.
* January 3 – The 15-year-old Mutsuhito, Emperor Meiji of Jap ...
. Montreal: Dawson, 1868,[
*''Tecumseh.'' Toronto: Hunter, Rose & Co., ]1886
Events
January–March
* January 1 – Upper Burma is formally annexed to British Burma, following its conquest in the Third Anglo-Burmese War of November 1885.
* January 5– 9 – Robert Louis Stevenson's novella ''Strange ...
. London: Chapman & Hall, 1886.[Search results: Charles Mair]
Open Library, May 9, 2011.
*''Through the Mackenzie Basin: A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 .'' London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., 1903.[
]
References
External links
*
*
*
at ttp://archives.queensu.ca/ Queen's University Archives
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mair, Charles
1838 births
1927 deaths
19th-century Canadian male writers
19th-century Canadian poets
Canadian male poets
Canadian male journalists
Canadian nationalists
Canadian people of Scottish descent
Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada
Journalists from Ontario
People from Prince Albert, Saskatchewan
Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada)
Pre-Confederation Saskatchewan people
Writers from Saskatchewan