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Create AccountHenri-Marie Dubreil de Pontbriand, sixth bishop of Québec (b at Vannes, France Jan 1708; d at Montréal 8 June 1760). Educated by the Jesuits and Sulpicians and appointed bishop of Québec in 1740, Pontbriand arrived in August 1741 determined to remedy the abuses of episcopal absenteeism.
Captain George Downie, naval officer, military figure in the WAR OF 1812 (b at New Ross, Ireland; d near Plattsburgh, NY, 11 Sept 1814). George Downie joined the Royal Navy in the 1790s and was promoted to lieutenant in 1802.
Henry Jones, community founder (b at Plympton St Maurice, Eng 21 or 22 May 1776; d at Maxwell, Ont 21 Oct 1852). A Royal Navy purser, Jones was probably the first socialist in British North America.
Étienne Parent, journalist, lawyer, public servant, essayist (b at Beauport, LC 2 May 1802; d at Ottawa 22 Dec 1874).
Frederick Philipse Robinson, British army officer, military figure in the WAR OF 1812 (b Sept 1763, New York, US; d Sussex, England, 1 Jan 1852). Frederick Robinson was born in the British Province of New York.
Woodcock, who was born in Winnipeg but went to England with his parents as an infant and did not return to this country until he was in his late 30s, had two job titles, both of which invited ongoing confusion. First, he was a man of letters.
By 1909 a booming provincial economy allowed McBride and his government to plan for a provincial university and to promise continued prosperity through such means as the construction of railways.
Médard Chouart Des Groseilliers, explorer, fur trader (bap at Charly-sur-Marne, France 31 July 1618; d at New France 1696?). A man of courage who valued personal freedom and initiative, Des Groseilliers opened Lakes Michigan and Superior to the fur trade and Jesuit missionaries.
Thomas Head Raddall, historical novelist (b at Hythe, Eng 13 Nov 1903; d at Liverpool, NS 1 Apr 1994). Raddall was brought as a boy to Nova Scotia, the province about which he was to write in a score of books, fictional and nonfictional.
Enos Collins, merchant, privateer, banker (b at Liverpool, NS 5 Sept 1774; d at Halifax 18 Nov 1871). Enos went to sea as a cabin boy on one of his father's fishing vessels, becoming master of a trading ship before he was 19.
Martin Boutet, (Sieur de Saint-Martin). Choirmaster, violinist, teacher, soldier, tailor, carpenter, b Sceaux, France, ca 1617, d Quebec City ca 1686. He enlisted 7 Apr 1643 at La Rochelle to serve for three years in Canada as a soldier and labourer.
Grande Société, contemporary name for war profiteers charged with providing food for Canada and the French troops stationed there during the SEVEN YEARS' WAR.
Robert John Parsons, journalist, politician (b at Harbour Grace, Nfld, c 1802; d at St John's 20 June 1883). With William Carson and other Newfoundland Liberals, he founded the weekly Newfoundland Patriot in 1833 and became its sole owner and editor (1840).
The Patriotes was the name given after 1826 to the Parti canadien and to the popular movement that contributed to the Rebellions of 1837-38 in Lower Canada.
Dr. James Naismith, physical educator, author, inventor, chaplain, physician (born 6 November 1861 in Almonte, Ontario; died 28 November 1939 in Lawrence, Kansas). James Naismith is best known as the inventor of the sport of basketball. He was also the first full-time athletics instructor at McGill University and established the basketball program at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, where he worked and lived for 41 years until his death. Naismith became the first member of the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1959. He was posthumously inducted to Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame and Canada’s Walk of Fame. In 2010, his original hand-written rules for the sport of basketball were sold at auction for $4.3 million, a sports memorabilia record.
Blair Fraser, journalist (b at Sydney, NS 17 Apr 1909; d on the Petawawa R, Ont 12 May 1968). Fraser was one of the leading journalists of the 1950s and 1960s, and as Ottawa editor of Maclean's from 1943-60 he had a unique opportunity to influence a national audience.
These big-game hunters sought mammoths, mastodons, camels and horses that were native to North America at the time. Following the retreat of the Wisconsin glaciers, these animals became extinct, hastening the end of this stage of North American Prehistory.
Peter Fidler, fur trader, mapmaker, explorer (b at Bolsover, Eng 16 Aug 1769; d at Fort Dauphin [Man] 17 Dec 1822).
Francis Joseph Fitzgerald, Royal North-West Mounted Police inspector (b at Halifax 12 Apr 1869; d Yukon Territory Feb 1911).
