Arthur Bousfield - Royal Tours 1786-2010: Home to Canada

Royal Tours

17862010

ARTHUR BOUSFIELD AND GARRY TOFFOLI

Home to Canada

17862010

Copyright Arthur Bousfield and Garry Toffoli, 2010

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

Editor: Cheryl Hawley

Design: Jennifer Scott

Printer: Friesens

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Bousfield, Arthur, 1943

Royal tours, 1786-2010 : home to Canada / by Arthur Bousfield and Garry Toffoli.

Issued also in an electronic format.

ISBN 9781459711648

1. Visits of state--Canada. 2. Royal visitors--Canada. I. Toffoli, Garry, 1953- II. Title.

FC223.R6B69 2010 394.40971 C2010-902410-9

1 2 3 4 5 14 13 12 11 10

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

J. Kirk Howard, President

Printed and bound in Canada.

www.dundurn.com

Dundurn Press

3 Church Street, Suite 500

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

M5E 1M2

Gazelle Book Services Limited

White Cross Mills

High Town, Lancaster, England

LA1 4XS

Dundurn Press

2250 Military Road

Tonawanda, NY

U.S.A. 14150

To

RICHARD MICHAEL TOPOROSKI

Ukrainian Catholic, Doctor of Philosophy, retired Associate Professor of Classics, royalist, constitutionalist, writer, public speaker, British Columbian who over many years and in a diversity of ways has been a mentor and friend of the authors

THE AUTHORS ARE INDEBTED to the chairman and board of the Canadian Royal Heritage Trust/Fondation du patrimoine royal du Canada for allowing them to use many pictures from the King Louis XIV Canadian Royal Heritage Archives and the King George III Canadian Royal Heritage Library. There are also many individuals who have helped with the book to whom the authors owe and wish to express their gratitude. Janet Huse generously and graciously took pictures of the Toronto portion of Her Majesty the Queens 2010 tour, as she has in the past of royal tours for other works by the authors. Lynne Bell put photos of many Canadian royal tours she has covered as a journalist at their service. Other pictures by Monarchy Canada photographers were also used. Dr. Christopher McCreery, M.V.O., secretary to the lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia, and Mr. Michael Laffin, manager of Province House, facilitated obtaining several important historic Nova Scotia royal pictures as illustrations. Garry Shutlak, senior archivist Public Services, Nova Scotia Archives, arranged the use of the miniature of Madame de St. Laurent. Mrs. Barbara Rusch, the ephemera diva, permitted the authors to reproduce two pages from the Duke of Kents letter in her collection and surprised them with the droll trade advertisement bearing the colour images of the Duke and Duchess of Kent. All uncredited illustrations in this book are from the public domain. The kindness serendipitous in origin of Mr. Robert McWilliams in allowing access to the notes of his great-granduncle, Honourable Roland McWilliams, lieutenant-governor of Manitoba, and great-grandaunt, Mrs. (Margaret) McWilliams, and use of pictures of the Earl of Athlone, HRH Princess Alice, HRH the Duke of Kent, and HRH the Princess Elizabeth (Queen Elizabeth II) in the McWilliams Papers is gratefully acknowledged. Rachelle Ross, archivist of the Great-West Life Assurance Company, was especially helpful in locating the Canada Life painting by A.J. Casson and granting leave for its inclusion. The Currency Museum of the Bank of Canada kindly supplied the picture of the 1917 dollar in the National Currency Collection bearing the image of HRH Princess Patricia of Connaught (Lady Patricia Ramsay). Jim Allan and Bob Gilbert facilitated photographing of the Orillia Hunt mural at Parkwood depicting the Prince of Wales and Colonel R.S. Sam McLaughlin.

WHEN QUEEN ELIZABETH II left California for British Columbia in 1983, she said that she was going home to Canada. She was not the first member of the royal family to call Canada her home. This book relates the Canadian stories of eleven senior members of the royal family who were or would become monarch, viceroy, chatelaine, or commander-in-chief, together with their eight consorts and members of their immediate families who came to Canada. They all called and made Canada home.

Since Canadas pioneer days, members of the royal family have been making the country their home through residence, public service, and naval and military duty. Sometimes only for the space of a journey, sometimes for several years, princes, princesses, near or remote heirs to the throne, future monarchs or actual sovereigns, the royalties identified themselves intimately with the folk and life of the land. Four centuries of Canadas history the eighteenth to the twenty-first are bridged by their journeys. Space limits the members of Canadas royal family whose stories can be described in this account, so it must be noted here that dozens of other royalties have, in the past and the present, made homes in Canada for various lengths of time and purposes. This book is a representative, not a comprehensive, account of the royal family in Canada.

In order to tour, many royal travellers crossed the ocean; others began their journeys from short-term Canadian homes. They made their way through the length and breadth of a land of constantly stretching borders. Their routes were covered by means as varied as the transportation technology of the day allowed: jet, calche, batteau, helicopter, curricle, car, horseback, prairie wagon, train, sleigh, tram, warship, loggers raft, royal yacht, steamship, and ocean liner.

Besides influencing Canadas development in important ways, royal tours often changed the royalties lives. Official tour, private holiday, exercise of the office of governor general, or military service, whatever they undertook was exacting. They could find themselves quelling a riot, meting out justice, opening a bridge, or perhaps shaping a nationality, ameliorating foreign relations, bringing a ray of hope to minorities, lifting public life for a few precious moments above the mundane or divisive political fray. Some royalties arguably executed their duties better than others; none showed neglect or disdain for the people among whom they moved.

Abroad, their tours showcased Canada. To Canadians at home, by causing communities large and small to put their best foot forward, they revealed the immensity, diversity, and grandeur of the country. Royal journeys provide glimpses of Canadian life and people that otherwise would never be recorded. Royal tours are as Canadian as a hockey game and even older.