Canada in the world -- Canadians abroad; Important trend-setters with Canadian connections

Impact of Canada on the world

Important trend-setters and cultural leaders who had Canadian connections

Patrick Dalzel-Job, the model for James Bond, spent years in a log cabin in the BC bush.

(Wiki "Patrick Dalzel-Job")

Mary Ellen Pleasant, one of richest women of San Francisco in 1800s, and first super-wealthy black woman in the U.S. An abolitionist, in 1858 she spent time in an abolitionist community in Chatham, Ontario, where she met John Brown. who in 1859 would, with financial backing from Pleasant and others, conduct a raid on an armoury at Harper's Ferry in an opening round of the U.S. Civil War.

When captured at Harper's Ferry, John Brown had on his person a note signed "M.E.P." promising additional money if required. (Pleasant's handwriting was such that authorities read the signature as "W.E.P.", assumed a man had written it, and spent the next several years looking for a man with the initials "W.E.P.")

https://wams.nyhistory.org/industry-and-empire/expansion-and-empire/mary-ellen-pleasant/

(see "Mary Ellen Pleasant")

in 1858 she may have been known as Mrs. James Smith -- she married John James Pleasance (spellings vary) circa 1848.

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Canadian presence in countries around the world

Canadians in Spain

1919 "Canadenca strike"

A strike at a Spanish business backed by a Canadian bank ignited the labour unrest that grew to be a general strike in 1919.

The Canadenca strike[1] (Catalan: Vaga de La Canadenca, Spanish: huelga de La Canadiense) was initiated in February 1919 by the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) .

It lasted over 44 days and evolved into a general strike that paralyzed much of the industry of Catalonia.

The strike originated at the main electricity company in Barcelona, Riegos y Fuerzas del Ebro, a subsidiary of Barcelona Traction, popularly known as la Canadenca because its major shareholder was the Canadian Bank of Commerce of Toronto.

Spanish Civil War

Norman Bethune

Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

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Canadians in United Kingdom

Clockwork Orange

Anthony Burgess's wife was raped by Canadian soldiers during WWII. The assailants were never caught.[?]

This deplorable incident perhaps inspired the rape scene in his book Clockwork Orange.

Scotland

many signs of Canada in Scotland (just as there are many signs of Scotland in Canada)

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Canadians in the U.S.

Jack Kerouac's parents came from Quebec.

Elon Musk's mother was born in Sask. and he spent some of his young adult life in that province.

Donald Trump's grandfather made his wealth in northern BC during the Yukon gold rush.

many of the early Hardy Boys novels were written by Canadian Leslie McFarlane.

Superman invented by two Canadians

first comic has miners using breathing apparatus to rescue trapped miners. The term for that apparatus was used in Canada, but not in the U.S.

(also Solomon Gundy shows Canadian influence?)

baseball, a popular sport in the U.S., invented in Canada. The sport's early roots are clouded in mists of time but one story has it that it was invented in Canada.

basketball was invented in Canada (without question)

[etc.]

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Canadians in Estonia

Estonia's first prime minister (circa 1989) had lived in Vancouver for many years.

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Famous people who died in Canada

Errol Flynn died in Vancouver 1959. Earlier that same year he had been in Cuba as a journalist interviewing Castro. He self-produced the film Cuban Rebel Girls - his girlfriend of the time, of course, plays the film character who falls in the water and gets her shirt wet.

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Canadians in far-away climes in historical literature

in C.S. Forester's book African Queen, Archie, played by Humphrey Bogart in the film of the same name,  was a Canadian.

 in fact the book The Invention of Tradition (editors Hobsbawn and Ranger) states that "in 1880s and 1890s many whites were arriving in southern Africa from Europe, Canada and Australia in work in the mines."

African Queen is set in 1914, not so long after the 1890s.

In the Wilbur Smith novel When the Lion Feeds, the main character Sean Courtney befriends Duff Charleywood who, previous to going to South Africa, had worked as a miner in Canada.

Thomas Carlyle's Sartor Resartus features the character "Blumine". it is said that she is patterned after Carlyle's first love Margaret Gordon who, after her parents would not let her marry Carlyle, became Lady Bannerman Her husband, Alexander Bannerman, was governor of Newfoundland during the hectic 1860s, where electioneering and rioting caused multiple lethal shootings. (Callbeck, The Cradle of Confederation, p. 167)

Callbeck cites a place in the writings of Carlyle's wife where she says she desires to be loved as much as Margaret.

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Canadian inventions

fitted sheets

A Canadian - an Albertan in fact - invented fitted sheets. St. Albert

Organized time-zones

Sandford Fleming (also a proportionalist and electoral reformer)

McIntosh apples

led to the name of the Macintosh computer (albeit mis-spelled)

zipper?

Robertson screw

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