Location:
McNally Robinson Booksellers Grant Park Shopping Centre
1120 Grant Avenue, Winnipeg
Tuesday, June 3
Reception at 7:30 pm; Reading at 8:00 pm.
Author Lucille H. Campey will be in attendance.
Call McNally Robinson at 204-475-0483 for more information.
The 2003 bicentennial of the founding of Belfast, Prince Edward Island, marks a fitting time to reappraise Lord Selkirk's work in Canada. While the Selkirk settlers coped with extreme adversity, they influenced the growth of Canadian society and contributed greatly to the rich Scottish heritage evident today.
Aptly named "The Silver Chief" by the five Indian chiefs with whom he negotiated a land treaty at Red River, Thomas Douglas, the fifth earl of Selkirk, spent an immense fortune helping Scottish Highlanders relocate themselves in Canada. The Belfast settlers of 1803 confounded Selkirk's many critics with their earlier successes, but when he and his other settlers extended their colonization efforts beyond this to Baldoon (later Wallaceburg) in Upper Canada and Red River (later Winnipeg), great obstacles and setbacks were encountered. Far from being the unmitigated disaster that Selkirk's contemporaries and later commentators claimed, the book shows how the Baldoon families were able to persevere and move on to create a thriving community at Wallaceburg. Coming up against fierce opposition, the Red River settlement had to withstand the wrecking tactics of powerful men in the fur trade. Selkirk and his colonists persevered and in the end created an agricultural settlement deep in the North West, which would have far-reaching consequences for Canada's future development. Using a wealth of documentary sources, the author includes maps, charts and extensive tables of passenger lists, making this a valuable resource for genealogists.
This is Lucille H. Campey's third book on the subject of Scottish emigration to Canada. Her earlier books are "A Very Fine Class of Immigrants": Prince Edward Island's Scottish Pioneers 1770-1850 (2001) and "Fast Sailing and Copper-Bottomed": Aberdeen Sailing Ships and the Emigrant Scots They Carried to Canada 1774-1855 (2002).
256 pages / 6 x 9 / illustrated / maps / charts / ships lists / notes / bibliography / index
ISBN: 1-896219-88-8
Price: $24.95 SC CAN / $17.95 SC US
Available from fine bookstores or directly from the publisher.
NATURAL HERITAGE/NATURAL HISTORY INC.
P.O. Box 95, Station O
Toronto, Ontario M4A 2M8
Phone: (416) 694-7907 or 1-800-725-9982
Fax: (416) 690-0819
E-mail: info@naturalheritagebooks.com
Web site: www.naturalheritagebooks.com
