List of 150 Alberta Historical People
) Donald Smith (Lord Strathcona), Drove the "Last Spike" in 1885
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- 25) Edmonton Grad Basketball Team- Best Team to Play the Sport!
- 26) Edouard Hector Rouleau, Physician
- 27) Emily Murphy- One of Canadas "Famous 5"
24) Donald Smith (Lord Strathcona), Drove the "Last Spike" in 1885Donald Smith was born on August 6, 1820 in Forres, Scotland to Alexander Smith and Barbara Stuart. As a boy, Donald was inspired by the tales of his uncle who was a fur trader and he wanted to join the Hudson’s Bay Company. He set off for Canada in May 1838. Once he arrived in Montreal he was hired as an apprentice clerk. After some time there he was sent to the Hudson’s Bay post at Tadoussac, Quebec as a clerk and then was later sent to Mingan, Quebec where he was later put in charge of that fort. Donald was sent to the post at Rigolet, Labrador where he would become the Chief Factor and he ran a successful trading post. He would later be put in charge for the Labrador district for the Hudson’s Bay Company. With Donald’s hard work, he was promoted to commissioner of the Montreal department in 1868, managing the company’s eastern operations. At this time in 1869, there was growing tensions in the Red River Area in what is now Manitoba. Donald was appointed as a special commissioner by Prime Minster John A. Macdonald to help with this crisis and he helped spare the lives of most of the prisoners that were taken by Louis Riel and his men. For his work Donald was appointed President of the Hudson’s Bay Council of the Northern Department in 1870 and was later named the Acting Governor of Assinaboia. He also helped in the transfer of Hudson’s Bay land to the Federal government. In 1870 was elected to the provincial legislature in Manitoba, where he served until he was defeated in 1880. He was also elected as a member of parliament for the riding of Selkirk in 1871. Donald became very wealthy through his business dealings and he played a large role in the creation of the Canadian Pacific Railway. He helped drive the last spike to complete the trans-Canada railway in 1885. Donald was also named to the board of the Bank of Montreal in 1872, later becoming its president in 1887. He also became Governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1889. He later was named Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal in August 1897. Donald Smith died in 1914 in London, England at the age of 94. By Tom Elder 25) Edmonton Grad Basketball Team- Best Team to Play the Sport!The Edmonton Grads were a Canadian women basketball team forming in the year 1915 when the team’s coach, J. Percy Page moved from Ontario to Edmonton, Alberta to teach at McDougall High School. That year, the Grads won the Alberta High School Provincial championships, which was the year the girls on the team graduated from high school. As a result of the win, the girls asked Percy to continue to be their coach and he accepted. In the year 1924 the Grads won the first women’s title in the world. The Edmonton Grads had a record of winning ninety-five percent of their games and in the early years when Edmonton had a population of just 60,000 the stands would be packed with 6,000 fans to cheer on the team. The team went their separate ways in 1940 after 25 years of playing basketball together when the Second World War began and their home arena, the Edmonton Arena, became home to the Royal Canadian Air Force. The team was known as the finest basketball team that ever stepped out on the floor and they won an amazing 502 out of 522 games. By Jaden Baragar
Graduated from the École Normale Laval in Quebec City in 1861 1862-1865: studied at the Séminaire de Nicolet from 1862 to 1865. He was a captain in the militia company at the seminary and attended the School of Military Instruction of Quebec for two months in 1864. He studied medicine and graduated at the Université Laval and in 1870 and practised medicine in Ottawa, and Bryson, Quebec.
By Suzanne de Courville 27) Emily Murphy- One of Canada's "Famous 5"In a time when women mostly stayed home and took care of the family, Emily Murphy was unusual. Before she was involved in fighting for women’s rights, she was well known to readers as “Janey Canuck.” She had published several best-selling novels under that name while she and her husband, Arthur, a church minister, were living in England. Arthur and Emily moved to Edmonton in 1907 where Emily started writing for the newspapers. In 1910 Emily became the first woman to sit on the board of a hospital. Over the next twenty years she would sit on the boards of many other organizations including the National Council of Women. She also became the president of the Canadian Women’s Press Club. In 1916 Emily became concerned with the fate of women in the justice system. She wrote to the Attorney General, saying that women should have a separate court so that their cases could be heard by other women. To her surprise the Attorney General agreed and offered her the job of judge in the court. In accepting this offer, Emily became the first woman to hold this position in the British Empire. However, on her first day in court, a lawyer quoted a part of the British North America Act that stated that women were not persons so she had no right to be a judge. Naturally, Emily looked for a way to have this law changed. To do so, she learned, she had to have a group of five people present a motion to Parliament to challenge this part of the Act. She got four like-minded women to sign her petition and took the case to the Supreme Court. They lost. In 1928 the “Famous Five” appealed the case to the Privy Council in England and the decision was reversed. Women were persons! This meant that women could be appointed to the Senate. Logically, Emily Murphy should have been the first female senator, but she was not. Before she could be appointed, she passed away at the age of 65 from diabetes. By Christine Hayes
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