Written primarily by Daisy Phillips, with a few by her husband Jack, to her family in England, these letters describe the creation of a shortlived English home in the Windermere Valley of southwestern British Columbia. Not given to introspection, Daisy registers her immediate and frank reactions to her new environment and startling new way of life. From her letters we learn of the experiences of the Phillips and their neighbours in settling the newly opened land and of their attempts to grow fruit in an area with limited agricultural potential.
In her third and final book in the English in Canada series, Lucille Campey provides an overview of the great exodus from England to Canada which peaked in the early twentieth century. Drawing on wide-ranging documentary and statistical sources, Campey traces this major population movement on a region-by-region basis.
In this previously unknown collection of letters, we see colonial British Columbia through the eyes of a young naval officer who spent three years on Vancouver Island commanding a Royal Navy gunboat during the Cariboo gold rush. A keen observer of life in the new world, Edmund Hope Verney corresponded on a regular basis with his father, a prominent British MP. The letters are highly engaging and provide an interesting record of many aspects of colonial life, including political and social history, civic and eccleciastical affairs, the impact of the gold rush, the establishment of European settlements, relations with Natives, and comments on the personalities and activities of leading figures in colonial British Columbia.
“‘Remittance man’ was meant to be a disparaging term. It reflected the fact that these young men had been sent to the colonies to spare their families continuing embarrassment or shame. At home they had been scoundrels, dreamers, and second sons without future prospects. Perhaps in…the Canadian West they would make something of themselves. If they didn't, at least they would be far enough away that little disgrace would fall upon their families.” —Mark Zuehlke Beginning in 1880, thousands of young, upper-class British men with few prospects were sent to the Canadian West to distance them from British society. Still supported by their families, thus earning them the title “remittance men,” these men set out to continue their lives of leisure in this new land. With education, respectable breeding and the belief “from birth that they were superior beings,” the remittance men descended upon Western Canada with expectations of accomplishing something great and increasing their wealth. In reality, they hunted, played games, courted women, and enjoyed distinguished pursuits that squandered their parents' money and made hard-working Canadians raise their eyebrows. Though their era in Western Canada was short, 1880–1914, “they left an indelible mark perpetuated by the stories and legends that sprung up around them.” In Scoundrels, Dreamers & Second Sons, first published fifteen years ago, Mark Zuehlke traces the path of the remittance men through Western Canada, highlighting their adventures, limited successes and glorious failures.
In the context of surging interests in reconciliation and decolonization, settler colonialism increasingly occupies political, public, and academic conversations. Nothing to Write Home About is a detailed study of the settler colonial significance of British family correspondence sent between the United Kingdom and British Columbia between 1858 and 1914. Drawing on thousands of letters written by dozens of correspondents, it offers insights into epistolary topics including trans-imperial family intimacy and conflict, settlers’ everyday concerns such as boredom and food, and the importance of what correspondents chose not to write about. Analyzing both the letters’ content and their conspicuous, loaded silences, Laura Ishiguro traces how Britons used the post to navigate the family separations integral to their migration and to understand British Columbia as an uncontested settler home. This book argues that these letters and their writers played a critical role in laying the foundations of a powerful, personal settler colonial order that continues to structure the province today.
Archibald McDonald was one of the most important fur traders in the region west of the Rockies. He is particularly remembered as a factor at Forts Langley, Kamloops, and Colville, and as one of the traders who enabled the Hudson's Bay Company to gain control of the vast region west of the Rockies. A pioneer cartographer, he also prepared the first censuses of Kamloops and Fort Langley. In this informative and entertaining collection of letters, his life as a factor, family man, amateur naturalist, and close observer of everything going on around him provides an invaluable glimpse of both the man and the Pacific Northwest.
Lucille H. Campey’s acclaimed, groundbreaking series on English immigration to Canada is finally available in a collected volume with this complete, three-book edition. A must for genealogists and history lovers interested in the tremendous waves of English immigration to Canada, whose story has never been told in its full depth and detail until now. Planters, Paupers, and Pioneers: English Settlers in Atlantic Canada The first-ever comprehensive book written on early English immigration to Canada, Planters, Paupers, and Pioneers focuses on the factors that brought the English to Atlantic Canada. It traces English arrivals to their various settlements in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland, and considers their reasons for leaving their homeland. Who were they? When did they arrive? Were they successful? And what was their lasting impact? Drawing on wide-raging documentary resources, this book is essential reading for individuals wishing to trace English and Canadian family links. Seeking a Better Future: The English Pioneers of Ontario and Quebec The exodus from England that gathered pace during the 19th century accounted for the greatest part of the total emigration from Britain to Canada. And yet, while copious emigration studies have been undertaken on the Scots and the Irish, very little has been written about the English in Canada. Drawing on wide-ranging data collected from English record offices and Canadian archives, Seeking a Better Future considers why people left England and traces their destinations in Ontario and Quebec. Challenging the widely held assumption that emigration was primarily a flight from poverty, Campey reveals how the ambitious and resourceful English were strongly attracted by the greater freedoms and better livelihoods that could be achieved by relocating to Canada’s central provinces. Ignored but not Forgotten: Canada’s English Immigrants The great exodus from England to Canada peaked in the early 20th century, and although they were widely ignored in the past as an immigrant group, the English are now being given the attention they deserve. Drawing on wide-ranging documentary and statistical sources, Ignored but not Forgotten traces this major population movement on a region-by-region basis. Campey reveals the outstanding contributions by English immigrants to Canada’s settlement and development, and challenges the assumption that English Canadians were a privileged elite. In fact, most came from humble backgrounds. The book is essential reading for genealogists and general readers interested in why the English immigrated to Canada and the great scope of their achievements. What critics are saying "Campey’s chapters are well-written and hold the readers attention." — GenealogyMagazine.com "A major addition to the literature for those looking for insight into their pioneer immigrant ancestor experience." — Anglo-Celtic Connections "[Lucille Campey] has distilled a copious amount of research.... informative and engaging." — The British Columbia Genealogist
Changing Women, Changing History is a bibliographic guide to the scholarship, both English and French, on Canadian's women's history. Organized under broad subject headings, and accompanied by author and subject indices it is accessible and comprehensive.
Dirk Hoerder shows us that it is not shining railroad tracks or statesmen in Ottawa that make up the story of Canada but rather individual stories of life and labour - Caribbean women who care for children born in Canada, lonely prairie homesteaders, miners in Alberta and British Columbia, women labouring in factories, Chinese and Japanese immigrants carving out new lives in the face of hostility. Hoerder examines these individual experiences in Creating Societies, the first systematic overview of the total Canadian immigrant experience. Using letters, travel accounts, diaries, memoirs, and reminiscences, he brings the immigrant's experiences to life. Their writings, often recorded for grandchildren, neighbours, and sometimes a larger public, show how immigrant lives were entwined with the emerging Canadian society. Hoerder presents an important new picture of the emerging Canadian identity, dispelling the Canadian myth of a dichotomy between national unity and ethnic diversity and emphasizing the long-standing interaction between the members of a different ethnic groups.
