Charles Mair is of considerable significance in both Canadian literature and history. Less than a year after Confederation he published the appropriately entitled Dreamland and Other Poems (1868), Canada's first important collection of poetry. In 1886 Tecumseh, A Drama appeared, a patriotic verse drama that was an almost sensational success, in Toronto at least. But he is equally notable, in some quarters notorious, for his melodramatic role in the Riel insurrection at Red River in 1869 and 1870. from which he narrowly escaped with his life. During his long life he was an avid if eventually disillusioned nationalist.

Mair's paternal grandparents were Scottish immigrants to Lanark, Upper Canada (later Ontario), in 1824, his father in 1831; Mair was born there on 21 September 1838, the son of James and Margaret Mair. Until he was thirty he lived in Lanark and nearby Perth, obviously much influenced by the romantic if culturally primitive life of the timber trade...