Acclaimed Canadian author Ken McGoogan talks about how, from out of McMaster’s new Dr. William G. Bensen Fur Trade Collection of Robert D.W. Band, fur-traders spring to life and lay the foundations of Canadian nationhood.

Bush-runners like Pierre Esprit-Radisson emerge in the late 1600s. Then come the Highlanders who, having built Montreal’s Golden Square Mile, create a fur trade kingdom that extends westward to the Pacific and Arctic oceans.  We witness the battle between the North West Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company, both peopled by rogues, rascals and would-be kings.

Anybody who thinks Canadian history is dull and boring is in for a shock.

This free public lecture is in celebration of the Dr. William G. Bensen Fur Trade Collection of Robert D.W. Band, donated by the Bensen Family in honour of Dr. William Bensen ’71, ’73.

When: Tuesday, June 4 @ 7:00 p.m.
Where: Convocation Hall in University Hall (McMaster main campus)

REGISTER NOW

About Ken McGoogan:

Ken McGoogan is an author, lecturer and one of Canada’s premier historians.  He has worked as a journalist at major dailies in Toronto, Montreal and Calgary. He sails with Adventure Canada and teaches creative non-fiction at the University of King’s College in Halifax.

Ken’s work has been recognized with the Pierre Berton Award for History, the UBC Medal for Canadian Biography, the Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize and the Christopher Award for “a work of artistic excellence that affirms the highest values of the human spirit.”