The Wild Frontier

The Wild Frontier: More Tales from the Remarkable Past (Pierre Berton)

This book is a series of short stories about interesting people in Canada's past. (John Jewitt, Wilfred Grenfell, Sam Steele, Isaac Jorges, Cariboo Cameron, Mina Hubbard, and Almighty Voice). 
I found the stories very engaging, but the language may be a bit above the average grade ten student to read on their own, and a bit too long for a read-aloud in class. 
The best story I found was that of Sam Steele, as a bonus assignment for Chapter 7 (Canada in 1915), because it touched on many different aspects of the course. It follows Sam Steele's adventures with the RCMP to the NorthWest Rebellion, then up to the Klondike, then on the CPR. 
Of course, I also appreciate the many "burton-isms" of what it means to be Canadian.

The Wild Frontier : More Tales from the Remarkable Past

Sandford Fleming

I associate Sandford Fleming's name as an inventor of standard time (the clock in Greenwich and the concept of "time zones"). I guess that is the first thing I learned about him in a picture book in grade school. When I started teaching Social Studies, I was reminded that Fleming was Canadian. In fact, he was a well-known surveyor for the railroad and eventually engineered much of the Canadian Pacific Railroad.
What recently peaked my interest in Samuel Fleming, however, was when I came across an interesting factoid. Apparently, it was Fleming that designed the image of the beaver on Canada's first postage stamp. I have already posted some thoughts about Canada's first stamp (and the first stamp to picture an animal), but I didn't know that it was designed by Sandford Fleming. I wonder if the image itself was his choice, or if he just designed it?