by Charles Mair

Charles Mair (1838-1927) was a Canadian poet and fervent nationalist noted for his organisation of the Canada First movement and his role opposing the provisional government of Louis Riel during the Red River Rebellion of 1869-1870 and during the North-West Rebellion of 1885. Mair was a Freemason. The modern Canadian critic Alan Filewood wrote of the political and philosophical ideas expressed by Mair in his Tecumseh: A Drama (1886): Mair's projection of Canadian nationhood is embodied in the character of Lefroy, a Byronesque poet who flees civilization to seek solace in nature's genius. He learns - tragically - from the British General Brock that natural law finds its outward form in the monarchic principle, and from the Indian chieftain Tecumseh that nature must be defended against the perversion of American materialism. His works include Dreamland (1868) and Through the Mackenzie Basin (1908).