Well known author and historian Neil McQuarrie will visit Borderland museums next week to speak on his upcoming book, “The Forgotten Trail, from Thunder Bay to Red River.”
McQuarrie’s talks will focus on the birth, life and death of the road that today may very well be called “TransCanada Highway 1.0.”
He will discuss the book from 7-9 p.m. Wednesday at the Fort Frances Museum and at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Koochiching Museums in International Falls. The public is welcome to attend.
In 1867 Canada was born. Its tiny population of farmers and fishermen was strung out across the farmlands of Ontario, along the St. Lawrence River valley and out onto the coastlines of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
Not much more than a year later, this new, and virtually poverty-stricken nation had exploded in size. It had inherited close to half of the North American continent, including a virtually empty ocean of open prairie far to the west. Owning all that territory was all well and good, but Canadians wondered “How do we get there?” And, more so, how do we get there before the Americans do?
The best answer was to build a railroad from east to west, but Canada could hardly afford that. The second best answer was to carve a 450 mile trail through the bush from the Great Lakes to Red River. Ten years earlier a man named Simon Dawson had shown them how it could be done.
