It is #CanadaBookDay so lets celebrate some of our great writers, in the style of steampunk!
1. Margaret Atwood
She has won two Booker Prizes, the Governor General's Award & many other awards. She has written 18 books of poetry, 11 non-fiction books & 18 novels.
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2. Richard Wagamese
A survivor of Residential School, he was given the name of Buffalo Cloud and told by an elder his role was to write stories.
He wrote several books but his most famous was Indian Horse, which won several awards & became a movie.
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3. Robert Munsch
In his writing career, Munsch wrote some of the best-known children's books in the world. His most famous was Love You Forever, which has sold over 30 million copies worldwide. The Paper Bag Princess has sold 7 million copies.
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4. Farley Mowat
One of Canada's most beloved writers, his books have been translated into 52 languages and sold 17 million copies. His best known books are People of the Deer and Never Cry Wolf. His books often had an environmental focus.
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5. Rita Joe
Called the Poet Laureate of the Mi'kmaq People, Rita Joe survived Residential School and relearned her language & culture. Her poems often outlined her experiences at the school.
Rita Joe Day is celebrated in Nova Scotia every Feb. 20.
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6. Alice Munro
Her work has revolutionized the architecture of short stories & are often set in Huron County, Ontario.
She has won three Governor General's Awards & a Man Booker Prize.
In 2013, she became the 1st Canadian to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
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7. Robertson Davies
Over the course of his writing career, 11 books in three different trilogy sets. He won the Governor General's Literary Award in 1972 & was short listed for the Booker Prize in 1986.
He was often referred to as Canada's Man of Letters.
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8. Gabrielle Roy
One of French Canada's most celebrated writers, Roy's work helped lay the foundation of the Quiet Revolution in Quebec.
In 1945, she wrote her most famous book, Bonheur d'occasion, which was released in English as The Tin Flute in 1947
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9. Mordecai Richler
His work often focused on the Jewish community in Canada, along with Canadian & Quebec nationalism. Some of his most famous works were The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz & Solomon Gursky Was Here. He won 2 Governor General Awards.
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10. Lucy Maud Montgomery
Her most famous work is Anne of Green Gables, which has sold 50 million copies, but in her life she also wrote 20 novels, 530 short stories, 500 poems and 30 essays. Most of her work was set in Prince Edward Island.
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It is #SikhHeritageMonth and this is the story of Sikhs gaining the vote!
The first Sikh immigrants to British Columbia were permitted to vote in civic elections. This right to vote would not last long as the province began to strip rights away from the Sikh people.
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In March 1907, BC Premier William Bowser introduced legislation to deny the provincial vote to any immigrant from India who was not of Anglo-Saxon descent.
Vancouver took the vote away from Sikhs the following month.
The Sikh people couldn't vote federally either.
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At the 1921 Imperial Conference in England, a resolution was passed to grant South Asians in the British Empire the right to vote.
Canada simply ignored the resolution.
Some MPs, like Samuel Jacobs, Canada's 1st Jewish MP, supported giving Sikhs the vote.
This is the story of the Willow Bunch Giant, Edouard Beaupre, and the fight over his body.
Edouard Beaupre was born in Willow Bunch, NWT (now Sask.) on Jan. 9, 1881.
The 1st of 20 children born to Gaspard Beaupre & Florestine Piche, by the age of nine he was 6 feet tall.
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At the age of 12, he was 6ft-6in tall and he stopped going to school.
Still well educated, he spoke five languages (French, English, Metchif, Cree & Sioux).
At 17, he was 7ft-3in tall & was known for his strength, able to bend iron bars & lift horses to his shoulders.
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At 21, he stood 7ft-11in & he toured to bring in an income.
On July 1, 1904, he signed a contract with Barnum & Bailey Circus.
Two days later, he died of a pulmonary hemorrhage at the age of 23.
At his death he was 8ft-2in tall.
It is #SikhHeritageMonth and this is the story of Hardial Singh Atwal, the first Sikh person born in Canada!
On Aug. 28, 1912, Hardial Singh Atwal was born to Balwant Singh and Kartar Kaur. His father Balwant had arrived in Canada in 1907. His mother arrived in 1912.
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Hardial's father was a freedom fighter in the Ghadar movement. He had gone back to India, then returned to Canada on the Komagata Maru in 1914.
He was arrested & sent back to India where he was put to death for political agitation against the British government.
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Hardial Singh returned to India in 1936 where he married Rattan Kaur on June 15, 1936
Since he was born in Canada, he could come back, but his new wife could not. He made repeated trips to India to see her & three of their children were born there in 1940, 1949 & 1951
Mina Benson Hubbard was born today in 1870. This is her amazing story!
Born on a farm near Bewdley, Ontario to Irish & English immigrants, she trained as a nurse at the Brooklyn Training School for Nurses, graduating in 1899. She then worked in a Staten Island hospital.
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In 1900, she married Leonidas Hubbard, a patient at the hospital.
An adventurer, her husband died on an expedition to Labrador of starvation & exhaustion in 1903.
Dillon Wallace survived & wrote a book about the experience, which Hubbard believed tarnished her husband.
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In 1905, Wallace was planning another trip to Labrador, so Hubbard planned one of her own to clear her husband's name
With her was George Elson & two Cree men. They left on June 27, 1905, the same day as Wallace. The press called it a race & it garnered a lot of attention
Born in 1886 in present-day Pakistan, she married Bhag Singh who lived in a nearby village. Her husband came to Canada in 1906 where he protested the exclusionary immigration laws of Canada.
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In 1910, he came back to India to get Harnam Kaur and their two children, to take them to Canada.
Their goal with immigrating the entire family was to establish the rights of wives to join husbands in Canada.
This was easier said than done.
To prevent immigration from India, the Canadian government required immigrants to make a continuous journey from their country to Canada.
When Harnam Kaur & her family attempted to enter San Francisco, then Seattle but they were sent back to Hong Kong by the Americans.