Person

Mair, Charles, 1838-1927

1838-1927

Charles Mair was born at Lanark, Ontario on September 21, 1838. He was educated in Lanark, Perth and spent one year at Queens University, Kingston. He returned to Lanark to spend ten years working for his father. In 1868 Mair had his first volume of poetry "Dreamland and Other Poems" published in Ottawa. While in Ottawa he and George Denison, William Foster, Robert Haliburton and Henry Morgan formed the Canada First Party with the aim of helping Canada attain her rightful place in the British Empire. He married Elizabeth (Eliza) Beth MacKenney in 1869 and together they had seven children - Maude, Florence, Fanny, George, Cecil, Mabel, and Bessie. Charles Mair and his family lived in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan from 1877 to 1884. While there, the Mairs purchased large land holdings and partially supported their family by buying, selling, and renting property. In 1884 Mair moved his family to Windsor, Ontario, where he spent much of his time writing poetry. In 1886, his poetry book "Tecumseh" was published and it became a major work of Canadian literature. Mair returned to Prince Albert in 1886 and remained there, writing and speculating in land until 1892. He spent the following six years in the Okanagan attempting to find some financial security. In 1898 he was appointed to the Ministry of the Interior as an Immigration Officer. In 1899 Charles Mair was appointed English secretary to the Scrip Commission that transferred the Athabasca and Peace River districts to the Dominion of Canada. This commission lasted for four months. As a result of this work, Charles Mair and Roderick MacFarlane co-authored "Through the MacKenzie Basin", a narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition, which was published in 1908. He spent the next five years in Winnipeg, and then moved to Lethbridge, Coutts, and finally to Fort Steele. He spent the years 1912-1921 as the Customs and Immigration Officer at Fort Steele and retired from government service in 1921. Charles Mair lived with his daughter Fanny in Calgary until 1924. The years 1924 to 1927 were spent in Victoria where he died on July 7, 1927.

MS 14

Fort Steele Heritage Town Archives

Draft

Partial

Revised 9 January 2011.
Revised by BCANS Coordinator 24 January 2011.