Bemocked of Destiny

Centenary Edition

Edited by Martin McAllister, Aenaes McCharles

Bemocked of Destiny was first published in 1908, a condition of the last will and testament of an extraordinary Canadian pioneer. Teacher, speculator, geologist, prospector, community organizer and outspoken advisor to provincial and federal politicians, McCharles’s first-person account of life in the heady days of the late-19th-century frontier offer us more than a glimpse into the age in which he lived.

The story begins with McCharles’s boyhood on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, and goes on to describe the periods of his life spent in Bruce County and the cities of London, Ottawa and Toronto, Ontario, in the 1870s. He was part of the exciting booms in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, in the 1880s. Finally McCharles settled as a prospector in Sudbury, Ontario, where he staked the North Star Mine, eventually part of Vale (Inco) mining property inventory.

In the second part of this centenary transcription of the original, Martin McAllister explores McCharles’s legacy and the tragic untold story of Harry, McCharles’s only child. In addition, McAllister outlines the history of the McCharles Prize and three of his scientific papers demonstrating McCharles’s interest in paleogeology and archaeology.

Contents

·      New Introduction: The Dominion Day Meeting

·      Sidebar For Protection and Posterity

·      BOOK ONE The 1908 original, annotated

·      A Sacred Motive

·      Chapter I By the Atlantic shore

·      Chapter II Leaving for the west

·      Chapter III Starting out into the world

·      Chapter IV A short married life

·      Chapter V On the flowery prairie

·      Chapter VI An eastward move

·      Chapter VII In the Sudbury district

·      Sidebar: The North Star Mine

·      Chapter VIII The Boer War and other things

·      Chapter IX Porridge and the pen

·      Chapter X The great mystery of life

·      Chapter XI Signs of the times

·      Chapter XII In the wild woods

·      Sidebar: Canada/US Relations (sidebars added)

·      Chapter XIII The tyranny of religious creeds

·      Chapter XIV Some frauds of the present day

·      Chapter XV A new experience

·      Aeneas McCharles’s 1906 Will

·      BOOK TWO An Afterword

·      Preamble and probate of the will

·      The Autobiography: A promise kept

·      Errors in stone: Cemetery spelling

·      The Nickel City park: The gift that isn’t giving

·      His Nine of Diamonds: The Tragedy of Harry McCharles

·      The McCharles Prize: “The most beautiful thing I’ve seen in metal.”

·      APPENDIX Papers from The Winnipeg Years

·      Preamble 1

·      The Extinct Cuttle-Fish in the Canadian North-West: Toronto, 1885

·      The Footsteps in Time in the Red River Valley: Winnipeg, 1886

·      The Mound-Builders of Manitoba: American Journal of Archeology, 1887

·      Notes

·      Index

About the Authors

Martin McAllister (1939-2011) was employed at Inco Ltd., Sudbury, for nearly forty years. In retirement, Marty was engaged in writing and research.

Aeneas McCharles (1844-1906)—teacher, speculator, geologist, prospector—was part of the exciting booms in Winnipeg and Sault Ste. Marie in the 1880s and settled in Sudbury, where he staked the North Star Mine (now part of Vale Inco).