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Online Lecture: An Evening with Stephen R. Bown
January 18 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Join us and author Stephen Bown on January 18!
Please join us for an evening with award-winning author Stephen R. Bown as he discusses his latest book Dominion: The Railway and the Rise of Canada, which tells the gripping and eye-opening account of the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway and how it enabled the nation of Canada.
With over 3,000 kilometers of track, much of it driven through wildly inhospitable terrain, the CPR would be the longest railway in the world and the most difficult to build. Its construction was the defining event of its era and a catalyst for powerful global forces.
The times were marked by greed, hubris, blatant empire building, oppression, corruption and theft. They were good for some, hard for most, disastrous for others. The CPR enabled a new country, but it came at a terrible price.
In recent years Canadian history has been given a rude awakening from the comforts of its myths. In Dominion, Stephen Bown again widens our view of the past to include the adventures and hardships of explorers and surveyors, the resistance of Indigenous peoples, and the terrific and horrific work of many thousands of labourers. His vivid portrayal of the powerful forces that were molding the world in the late 19th century provides a revelatory new picture of modern Canada’s creation as an independent state.
ABOUT STEPHEN
Stephen R. Bown is the author of eleven books on the history of exploration, science and ideas. He has won the BC Book Prize, the Alberta Book Award and the William Mills Prize for Polar Books. His previous book, The Company: The Rise and Fall of the Hudson’s Bay Empire, was a national bestseller and winner of the 2021 National Business Book Award and the J.W. Dafoe Book Prize. Born in Ottawa, he now lives near Banff in the Canadian Rockies.
ABOUT TRM
The Toronto Railway Museum (TRM) brings people together by telling stories of Toronto’s railway heritage. The Museum is located in the heart of downtown Toronto and is typically open year-round. TRM presents exhibits, tours, educational programs and publications that broaden the understanding and appreciation of Toronto’s rich railway history. TRM is committed to telling the stories of the railways, and welcoming conversations of its varied experiences through its lecture series, exhibits and integrated programming with a mission to learn from the past to make the future better.