Tilley and Tupper Our Founding Fathers
August 24, 2010
By Rev Ed Hird
Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley, a Father of Canadian Confederation and twice the Lt. Governor of New Brunswick, rose each morning to start his day with prayer and Scripture reading. As the 33 founding Fathers gathered in 1864 at Charlottetown, PEI, there were many suggestions on what to call this new nation. That morning, as Tilley read from Psalm 72:8, he became so convinced that Canada should be a nation under God, that when he came down to the Conference session, he presented the inspired name “Dominion of Canada”. Our National Motto on our Coat of Arms “A Mari Usque Ad Mare” (from sea to sea) was drawn once again straight from Psalm 72:8. “He shall have dominion from sea to sea.”
Tilley came to a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ in 1839 through his Anglican rector, the Reverend William Harrison. His life was so dramatically transformed that he even became an Anglican Sunday School teacher and a Church Warden (Elder). Tilley’s son Harrison became a well-known Anglican priest.
One day, an 11-year old girl ran to Tilley for help, after her drunken father brutally stabbed her mother to death. Because of this tragedy, Tilley went from being a quiet pharmacist to becoming the Premier of New Brunswick in his campaign for alcohol reform. When Tilley brought in actual alcohol legislation, he was burned in effigy, his house was attacked, and his family’s lives were threatened.
Tilley the ‘dry’ Anglican was good friends with Sir Charles Tupper the ‘drinking’ Baptist Premier of Nova Scotia. Both shared a passion for railways which they believed were the key to the Maritimes’ future. Sir Charles Tupper eventually became the Federal Minister of Railways, bringing the CPR railway line to Vancouver, and BC into Confederation. Before the arrival of the railway, traveling to Vancouver would take all summer by riverboat and stagecoach.
The 1864 Charlottetown meeting was originally intended to bring a Maritime Union of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, to defend against the threat of American invasion. But Tupper and Tilley dreamed bigger, inviting Ontario and Quebec to join them in a new Confederation. Tupper believed in the greatness of Canada, saying: “The human mind naturally adapts itself to the position it occupies. The most gigantic intellect may be dwarfed by being cabin’d, cribbed and confined. It requires a great country and great circumstances to develop great men.”
Tupper read the Bible fully from cover to cover by the age of eight. His father Charles 
Tupper Senior, a prohibitionist, was one of the founding fathers of the fast-growing Maritime Baptist Churches. While training as a medical doctor in Edinburgh, Charles Jr discovered Scotch from which he never recovered. Tupper served as first president of the Canadian Medical Association.
In 1867 the Halifax Morning Chronicle had described Tupper as “the most despicable politician within the bounds of British North America.” Throughout his career Tupper was variously described as “the Boodle Knight,” the “Great Stretcher” (of the truth), “the old tramp,” the “Arch-Corruptionist,” and “the old wretch.”.
Tupper has the distinction of being the shortest-serving Prime Minister in Canadian history, even beating out Joe Clark and Kim Campbell (67 days!). His marriage, despite allegations of philandering, lasted longer than any other Prime Minister: 66 years!
Tupper, the longest-surviving Father of Confederation, served in six federal cabinet portfolios. If there was something that was really difficult to get done, somebody who needed to be won over, Macdonald often said: ‘Call Tupper.’ Tupper could make things happen.
In 1883 a British Columbia contractor close to Tupper was awarded a two million dollar job though rivals submitted lower bids. The opposition suspected a payoff. Tupper faced a legal challenge and demands for a full inquiry. He promptly left his retirement home in Vancouver and sailed for London, far from the cry of scandal, to take a diplomatic posting.
Sir Charles Tupper and Sir Leonard Tilley remind us that God can use the most unlikely people in building a nation.
The Rev. Ed Hird, Rector
St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver
Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)
http://stsimonschurch.ca
-previously published in the North Shore News
-award-winning author of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’
http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com
p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD. This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.
-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide : Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada
You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide
Louis Riel: Canadian Patriot?
July 24, 2010
By Rev Ed and Mark Hird 
Who was Louis Riel? Was he a patriot or a dissident or both?
Louis Riel was born at St. Boniface (Winnipeg, Manitoba) on October 22nd 1844, inheriting from his father a mixture of French, Irish and Aboriginal blood, with French predominating.
Louis’ mother Julie sent her son Louis to become Canada’s first Metis priest. The 1864 death of his father however weighed heavily on Louis, bringing about an abrupt end to his seminary training. Four months from becoming a priest, Louis met a young Montreal girl, fell in love, and decided to marry. He rashly left the College of Montreal without obtaining his degree, and then his marriage plans collapsed when his fiancée’s parents forbade this proposed union with a Metis. Embittered by this racist-rejection, Riel left Montreal in 1866 – without a wife, without a career, without money.
Returning home to the Red River settlement, Riel found that locusts had devastated the land. With the demise of the Hudson Bay Company’s influence, both Eastern Canada and the United States seemed poised to swallow up the Red River settlement. The Metis felt forgotten, ignored and politically abandoned.
Without adequately consulting the local 12,000 Red River people, the Hudson Bay Company sold the Red River settlement to Eastern Canada. Louis Riel rallied the Metis people in 1869 to take over the local Fort Garry, the Western nerve centre of the HBC. Riel’s goal was to force the Federal Government to negotiate Manitoba’s admission into Confederation as a full province, not just a territory. The provincial name Manitoba, rather than the expected territorial name Assiniboia, came from Louis Riel himself.
Louis Riel proclaimed that the Metis were ‘loyal subjects of Her Majesty the Queen of England’. “If we are rebels, said Riel, “we are rebels against the Company that sold us, and is ready to hand us over, and against Canada that wants to buy us. We are not in rebellion against the British supremacy which has still not given its approval for the final transfer of the country…We want the people of Red River to be a free people…”
The Americans watched the Red River Rebellion with keen interest. Ignatius 
Donnelly, a former Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota, said: ‘If the revolutionists of Red River are encouraged and sustained…, we may within a few years, perhaps months, see the Stars and Stripes wave from Fort Garry, from the waters of Puget Sound, and along the shore of Vancouver.’ In the summer of 1870, Nathanial F. Langford and ex-governor Marshall of Minnesota visited Riel at Fort Garry. They promised Riel $4 million cash, guns, ammunition, mercenaries and supplies to maintain himself until his government was recognized by the United States. Riel declined.
After William O’Donohogue ripped down the Union Jack, Riel immediately reposted the Union Jack with orders to shoot any man who dared touch it. Despite his rebellious reputation, Louis Riel showed himself to be a Canadian patriot who single-handedly kept Western Canada from being absorbed by the USA. Riel prayed in his diary: “O my God! Save me from the misfortune of getting involved with the United States. Let the United States protect us indirectly, spontaneously, through an act of Providence, but not through any commitment or agreement on our part.” Riel also prophetically noted in his diary: “God revealed to me that the government of the United States is going to become extraordinarily powerful.”
“The Metis are a pack of cowards”, boasted 
Thomas Scott, “They will not dare to shoot me.” If it was not for Riel’s sanctioning of the tragic shooting of the Orangeman Thomas Scott, he might have ended up in John A Macdonald’s federal Cabinet. Thomas Scott’s death made Riel ‘Canada’s most hated man’.
After fleeing to the United States, Riel was then elected in his absence as a Manitoba MP. The Quebec legislature in 1874 passed a unanimous resolution asking the Governor-General to grant amnesty to Riel. That same year, after Louis Riel’s re-election as MP, he entered the parliament building, signed the register, and swore an oath of allegiance to Queen Victoria before slipping out to avoid arrest. The outraged House of Commons expelled him by a 56-vote majority.
Exiled to Montana, Riel married and became a law-abiding American citizen. In 1884, with the slaughtering of the buffalo, many First Nations and Métis were dying of hunger. The Metis in Saskatchewan convinced Riel to return to Canada. Riel sent a petition to Ottawa demanding that the Metis be given title to the land they occupied and that the districts of Saskatchewan, Assiniboia and Alberta be granted provincial status. The Federal Government instead set up a commission. In the absence of concrete action, Louis Riel and his followers decided to press their claims by the attempted capture of Fort Carlton.
Due to the Canadian Pacific Railway, my great-grandfather Oliver Allen was shipped with the Toronto militia to quickly defeat Riel at Batoche. Using an American Gatling gun with 1,200 rounds a minute, the battle did not last long. While in the West, Oliver Allen met his future wife Mary Mclean a Regina Leader news-reporter sympathetic to Louis Riel. Right before Riel’s hanging, Mary Mclean disguised herself as a Catholic priest in order to interview Riel. Before Riel died, he prayed in his diary: “Lord Jesus, I love you. I love everything associated with You…Lord Jesus, do the same favour for me that You did for the Good Thief; in Your infinite mercy, let me enter Paradise with You the very day of my death.”
The Reverend Ed Hird, Rector
St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver
Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)
http://stsimonschurch.ca
-previously published in the North Shore News
-award-winning author of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’
http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com
p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD. This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.
-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide : Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada
You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide
Lord Stanley’s Famous Cup
June 6, 2010
By Rev Ed Hird
My Grandfather Allen loved both Stanley Park and the Stanley Cup. During the Great Depression, he was bumped from being a CPR Railway Engineer to shoving coal. He had to work seven days a week and had little time to see his children. But Grandpa Allen was happy to even have a job in those tough times. When he retired, Grandpa had more time available. He became the co-ordinator for the Stanley Park Shuffleboard Court, and walked every day the 5 miles around the Stanley Park seawall. As a young boy, I loved walking and talking with my Grandpa, feeding the squirrels and enjoying the Park scenery. Stanley Park in beautiful Vancouver BC is still full of many memories for me.
My Grandpa and Nana Allen were also great Stanley Cup fans, never missing a televised game. One of my three sons is such a dedicated hockey fan that if PhDs were offered for studying the NHL, Vancouver Canucks, and Wayne Gretzky, I am sure that we would have a Rhodes Scholar on our hands.
Under Wayne Gretzky’s leadership, The Edmonton Oilers won the Stanley Cup for the fourth time in five years. After one of those victories, Gretzky said, ‘‘You know, I’ve held 
women and babies. I’ve held jewels and money. But nothing will ever feel as good as holding that cup.’ The recently-retired ‘Great One’ was one of the most accurate shooters in history, was named the NHL’s Most Valuable Player every year from 1980 to 1987, and held over 40 scoring records in the NHL – almost every record for goals and assists that can be achieved. As one sports columnist put it, Gretzky was ‘not merely the best hockey player in the world, but one of the nicest and most unspoiled.’
It is not just Wayne Gretzky but every hockey player who dreams of the moment when he might hoist the coveted Stanley Cup. As a sports commentator put it, the Stanley Cup, sometimes called the ‘Big Mug’, is the hottest thing on ice. As the oldest trophy in North America, being over 100 years old, it’s covered with names of hundreds of players who have played on winning teams. “Hockey, more than any other sport, has placed its emphasis on trophies and cups,” said Clarence S. Campbell, former president of the National Hockey League. “Ever since 1893, the world of hockey has revolved around the Stanley Cup. And the history of pro hockey is the history of the Stanley Cup. I would say that the Cup is the best-known trophy in North American sport today.” Hockey writer Gerald Eskenazi of the New York Times commented during a telecast of the 1974 Stanley Cup finals: “The Stanley Cup is uniquely Canadian. We have nothing in this country that transcends how the Canadians feel about the Stanley Cup as an ultimate goal –not the Super Bowl, not the World Series, nothing…”
The old Cup has been lost, stolen, dented, repaired, and mounted on new bases that grew taller and taller with the years. One player on his way home from a victory party in Ottawa drop-kicked the cup into a canal, then returned the next day to retrieve it. Another team forgot the cup in a photographer’s studio, so the studio cleaning woman took it home and grew geraniums in it! Colorado’s Sylvian Lefebre even went so far as to have his child baptized in the Cup a few years ago! Twice in the late 1960’s, the cup was stolen from the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. In 1968, a replica was made. It is this stand-in that we now see presented to the champion team. The original stays safely in the Hockey Hall of Fame, guarded by electronic burglar alarms.
I had no idea until recently that both the Stanley Cup and Stanley Park are named after the same Governor General of Canada, Frederick Arthur Stanley. When Lord Stanley moved to Canada, his seven sons became passionate hockey players. Being kicked off the public rinks by jealous figure skaters, the Stanley brothers formed their own team ‘The Rideau Rebels’ and played on the frozen lawn of the Governor General’s Rideau Hall residence. Lord Stanley’s seven sons then cornered their father and convinced him to donate a $50 rose bowl for the winner of their amateur competitions. The first winners of the Stanley Cup were the predecessors of the famous Montreal Canadiens who have won the Cup more than any other team in history. It is safe to say that no other cup in history has ever inspired so many brilliant goals, fabulous rushes, split-second saves, and overtime breakthroughs.
Lord Stanley never actually saw a Stanley Cup competition, as he moved back to England in 1893 as the sixteenth Earl of Derby. In England, Lord Stanley went on to become the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, the first Chancellor of Liverpool University, and the president of the British Empire League.
And why did Lord Stanley end up having a park in Vancouver named after him? Once again it was CPR influence by the same William Van Horne who kept BC in Confederation and gave Vancouver its Dutch namesake.
My prayer for all Lord Stanley Cup/Park fans is that we may realize that through faith in Jesus Christ, we have an even greater trophy waiting for us in eternity (Philippians 3:14) Let us run and skate in such a way as to get the prize, the crown of righteousness in the Lord.
The Reverend Ed Hird, Rector
St. Simon’s Church, North Vancouver
Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)
http://stsimonschurch.ca
-award-winning author of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’
http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com
p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD. This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99CDN/USD.
-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide : Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada
You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide
-previously published in the Deep Cove Crier
The Unforgettable Captain Vancouver
June 5, 2010
By Rev Ed Hird
North Vancouver District…North Vancouver City…West Vancouver… Vancouver City…Vancouver, Washington….How did so many local cities get a Dutch name like Vancouver?
The name goes back to when the Canadian Pacific Railway came to Port Moody in 1886, and then to Vancouver in 1887. Vancouver was first called Gastown, before being changed to Granville after Lord Granville for his part in birthing the Canadian Confederation. Some key ‘movers-and-shakers’ wanted to name Vancouver ‘The City of Liverpool’. The ‘Railway General’, William Van Horne, then vice-president of the CPR, felt that this newly incorporated city deserved a famous name to go with its famous future. “This is destined”, said Van Horne, ” to become a great city, perhaps the greatest city in Canada. We must see to it that it has a name commensurate with its dignity and importance, and Vancouver it shall be, if I have the ultimate decision.”
Since William Van Horne had been the driving force behind CPR’s rapid completion of the CPR line through the Prairies and onto Port Moody; he was listened to most carefully. Sir William Van Horne went on to become the President of the CPR in 1888; before being knighted in 1894. Both the Vancouver, Washington citizens and the Vancouver Island residents were upset that Van Horne had stolen their name given to them by Captain George Vancouver himself. Fort Vancouver, Washington was established in 1824 as the first British Settlement on the West Coast. The Victoria merchants were so upset by this ‘theft’ that they organized a boycott of all Eastern Canada companies who did business with Van Horne’s Vancouver.
Robert Beaven of Victoria complained how wrong it was that Van Horne, being an American citizen, could take so much control after only two years in Vancouver. It is highly ironic that the CPR coast-to-coast railway, which kept BC from joining the USA, was to a very large extent managed and built by Americans. Pierre Burton notes how upset some people were that Van Horne hired more Americans than Canadians to accomplish this nationalist task of uniting Canada by rail.
Why did Van Horne choose Vancouver?? Perhaps part of Van Horne’s attraction to Captain George Vancouver is that they were both of Dutch ancestors, and that both as orphans had ‘made good’ despite enormous obstacles. Vancouver’s paternal family had once been the van Coevordens in the Province of Drenkte, Holland.
Captain Vancouver led one of the greatest expeditions ever undertaken. His mandate came from a sudden threat of war with Spain. 
British ships had been seized, the flag had been insulted, rights of British subjects had been violated, all in that distant port of Nootka on what came to be called Vancouver Island. Captain Vancouver was sent to receive Nootka back from the Spanish, and to map the Pacific Coast. He and his men, squeezed into two ninety-nine foot sloops, covered 65,000 miles in only four years. Vancouver had meticulously mapped the continental shore line from latitude 56 degrees north, in southeastern Alaska, to his assigned southern limit. He proved once and for all that there was no mythical Northwest Passage. It was a remarkable accomplishment, a tribute to Vancouver’s perseverance, drive, and energy. Without Vancouver’s monumental work, it is conceivable that the northern boundary of Oregon might have been fixed at latitude 54/40 North and Canada today would have no Pacific shores.
Vancouver learnt well from his mentor Captain Cook in the methods of warding off the dreaded illness called scurvy. The seamen detested and grumbled at the strange dishes he made sure were included in their daily diet. They only wanted salt pork, beef, and dried peas –their usual fare. However, Vancouver provided them with extras in the form of pickled cabbage, malt, a peculiar-tasting beer, lime-juice, and something officially described as carrot marmalade. They either ate their foods or were given the lash. British sailors got the nickname ‘limey’ from this ‘peculiar’ practice of daily lime-juice. Vancouver’s ‘limeys’ stayed alive and healthy when, in almost any other vessel afloat, perhaps half of them would be dead inside two years at sea.
Along the way to Vancouver Island, Captain Vancouver learnt many native languages with ease. At one point, he used this skill to do successful marriage counseling that reconciled the King and Queen of Hawaii. In a remarkably contemporary tone, King Tamaahmaah denied his wife’s accusations of adultery, pleading, however, ‘that his high rank and supreme authority was a sort of license for such indulgences.’ The Hawaiian King was so grateful for Vancouver’s marital and political advice that he ceded all of the Hawaiian Islands over to the British Crown. Shortsightedly the British government didn’t want another obscure little colony, and so refused the offer. Just think…if we’d played our cards right, Hawaii could have become the 11th province of Canada!
Captain Vancouver inscribed the names of 
every officer he had ever respected up and down the coast. : All in all, Vancouver discovered and named more than two hundred places. As a young child, I remembered my mother commenting rapturously about Mt. Baker. I had no idea that Mom was invoking the memory of Vancouver’s third lieutenant. Burrard Inlet was named by Vancouver for an old shipmate of Europa and Expedition days in the Caribbean, Sir Harry Burrard of the navy. Point Grey was named as a compliment to Vancouver’s friend Captain George Grey.
Many BCers don’t realize that the Spanish once ‘owned’ the BC Coast. In honour of his cordial relations with the Captain Quadra who relinquished the Spanish claim to BC, Captain Vancouver gave to Vancouver Island the full name of ‘Quadra & Vancouver Island’.
Four years at sea began to wear down Vancouver’s spirit. Near the end, he commented: “I am once more entrapped in this infernal Ocean, and am totally at a loss to say when I shall be able to quit it.” To his brother Van, he wrote complaining about ‘these remote and uncouth regions’. He never heard one word from his superiors in all of the four years. After his heroic journey around the world, Vancouver received little acclaim and less money. The admiralty took four years to pay the wages they owed Vancouver; the small amount they allowed barely covered his debts. With the horrific Napoleonic wars breaking out, no one had the time to worry about some obscure little settlements on the Northwest coast of what Queen Victoria eventually named as British Columbia.
Vancouver died broken-hearted and rejected at age 40. His tombstone in Petersham was only a plain common grave that was soon forgotten about. Years later, it is well-tended and is remembered annually by the people of British Columbia, who helped rebuild St. Peter’s Church after the Second World War. On this 212th Anniversary of Vancouver’s death, may we each choose to be courageous on our journeys of life. May Jesus the Captain of our souls keep our sails aloft and trimmed.
The Reverend Ed Hird, Rector
St. Simon’s Church, North Vancouver
Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)
http://stsimonschurch.ca
-award-winning author of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’
http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com
p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD. This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99CDN/USD.
-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide : Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada
You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide
-previously published in the Deep Cove Crier
Alfred Nobel: Lord of Dynamite, Servant of Peace
August 29, 2009
By Rev Ed Hird
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, approximately 60 to 100 million mines are still scattered throughout 69 countries. These weapons kill or maim more than 25,000 people a year –equivalent to a victim every 22 minutes. Thanks to the tragic death of Princess Diana in 1997, the evil effects of land mines finally received centre stage.
It is quite ironic that the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize went to campaigners against landmines. A Nobel Peace Prize is worth over a million dollars, and is one of the world’s top awards. Yet the founder of the Peace Prize, Alfred Nobel, earned his multi-millions by selling armaments and explosives throughout the world.
Alfred Nobel has been described as the Lord of Dynamite, because he both invented and 
named Dynamite, taking it from the Greek word ‘dynamos’, meaning ‘power’. World War One and Two devoured millions of lives, indirectly due to the technological advances in Alfred Nobel’s laboratories. In the past, the gunsmoke from cannons used to stop battles, because the massive clouds of smoke blocked the view of the generals.
Alfred Nobel, however, invented smokeless gunpowder, enabling the slaughter at Flanders Fields to go on hour after hour without ceasing. In many ways, Alfred was just following in his father Immanuel’s footsteps. Immanuel Nobel, a loyal Swede, invented land and sea mines as a cost-effective means of protecting Sweden’s roads and beaches. The Swedish government, however, showed no interest; so he moved to Russia, where he helped the Russians beat back the English and French fleets with the use of mines. English Admiral Napier recorded in his famous diary: ‘The Gulf of Finland is full of infernal machines.’
How ironic that the Nobel fortune is now being used this year to combat the spread of these very mines! The Nobel family made millions by manufacturing nitroglycerin, a useful but unstable explosive. After Alfred’s 20 year-old brother Emil was tragically killed in a nitroglycerin explosion, their father Immanuel had a crippling stroke.
In response, Alfred devoted himself to discovering a new safe explosive. By 
combining nitroglycerin with kieselguhr clay, Alfred created a stable, transportable explosive, which he called dynamite. England, being cultural conservative, would have nothing to do with dynamite. So instead the Scots cornered the dynamite market.
North America, which always loves a new fad, went crazy over dynamite. At one point, North Americans were even using dynamite as a new ‘humane way’ of killing cattle for the meat industry! In the 1880’s, the great railway engineer William Cornelius Van Horne built three Nobel Dynamite factories in Canada. That very dynamite made it possible for the Canadian Pacific Railway to be blasted through the mighty Rockies all the way to the West Coast. It would not be far off to say that without Nobel’s dynamite, B.C. would probably be part of the United States today.
Alfred Nobel never wanted dynamite to be used for other than peaceful purposes. He was thrilled when his dynamite blasted a path 
for the Panama Canal in 1914. Sadly enough, his dynamite also blasted countless lives from 1914- to 1918, including the lives of my great-uncles William and Harry.
All his life, Alfred Nobel loathed war. He considered war to be ‘the horror of horrors and the greatest of all crimes’. “For my part,” Nobel said, “I wish all guns with their belongings and everything could be sent to hell, which is the proper place for their exhibition and use.”
In many ways, Alfred Nobel is a symbol of the 
fact that it is never too late to change, never too late to start again. When Alfred’s older brother Ludwig died, one newspaper accidentally printed Alfred’s obituary instead. The obituary described Alfred as a man who became rich by enabling people to kill each other in unprecedented numbers.
Deeply shaken by this assessment, Alfred Nobel resolved, from then on, to use his fortune in awarding accomplishments that benefited humanity. In his will, Alfred designated five annual awards to benefit leaders in physics, chemistry,medicine, literature, and peace. The Nobel Peace award was for ‘the person who shall have done the most or the best work to promote fraternity between nations, for the abolition of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses…’
Twelve out of his twenty relatives were so incensed that they launched lawsuits to try to reverse the terms of his philanthropic will. In contrast, Emanuel Nobel, the spokesman for the Russian branch of the family, supported the generous intentions of the will. King Oscar II of Sweden, in a personal audience with Emanuel, said: “Your Uncle Alfred has been influenced by peace fanatics, and particularly by women.” Emanuel replied that he would not care to expose his sisters and brothers to the risk of being reproached in the future by distinguished scientists for having appropriated funds that properly belonged to them. After his bold comments to the king, Emanuel followed his lawyer’s advice and immediately fled from Sweden back to Russia, to avoid arrest by the disgruntled king.
It’s remarkable when you think of all the 
intriguing people who have received the Nobel Peace Prize, and whose lives have been radically changed by that very act. The names have become part and parcel of our recent history, names like Martin Luther King Jr, Nelson Mandela, F.W. De Klerk, Albert Schweitzer, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Andrei Sakharov, Yitzhak Rabin, Mikhail Gorbachev, Elie Wiesel, Lech Walesa, Mother Teresa, Anwar Sadat, and Menachim Begin. The first Canadian to ever receive the Nobel Peace Prize was the much-loved Prime Minister Lester Pearson, for his role in helping to end the Suez Canal crisis. The first person ever to receive the Nobel Peace Prize was Jean Henri Dunant, the founder of the International Red Cross Society, back in 1901.
My prayer is that Jesus the Prince of Peace may raise up many such Champions of Peace in the 21st Century. Blessed indeed are the Nobel Peace-makers (Matthew 5:9).
The Reverend Ed Hird, Rector
St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver
Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)
http://stsimonschurch.ca
-author of the award-winning ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’
http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com
p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD. This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.
-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide : Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada
You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide
-previously published in the Deep Cove Crier
The Irreplaceable Sandford Fleming
August 6, 2009
By Rev. Ed Hird
Recently I dropped over to my friend Keith Cameron who had inspired the ‘Captain Robert Dollar’ article. Keith was so pleased by the Deep Cove Crier article that he gave me another tip: “Write about Sir Sandford Fleming, a Scottish Canadian. Fleming was a thinking renaissance man, organizing time for the world. Fleming was a man’s man, bold and adventurous”
When I ask many people about Sandford Fleming, they are tempted to confuse him with Alexander Fleming who discovered penicillin. At age 17, Sandford Fleming emigrated to Canada from his hometown Kirkaldy in Scotland.
Sandford Fleming’s remarkable discovery was time, Standard Meridian Time. In the 19th Century, there were 144 different time zones in North America. Every city was its own Greenwich, having its own personal time zone. As Clarke Blaise put it, “Every self-respecting town on the continent had a right to its own newspaper, its own baseball or cricket team, and its own individual time.”
Sandford Fleming served as the Chief Engineer and Surveyor for the Canadian Pacific Railway. He was an amazing visionary, first proposing a sea to sea railway in 1858, well before people would take him seriously. Several top Canadians told Fleming that since Canada already had sixteen miles of railway, there was no longer a need for engineers! He should just go back to Scotland. A few years later, Fleming became the sole engineer to oversee the survey for the Intercolonial Railway linking the Maritimes to Quebec. As an engineer, Fleming loved anything to do with engines and railways. .
Railway engines brought unimaginable new speed to the vast land of Canada. They also brought new disasters when locomotives crashed into each other because of different time clocks. Sandford knew that it was time to figure out what time it really was. Going to the UK to argue for standardized time, he was snubbed and not even allowed to present his scheduled paper. Jealousy between European nations for a long time paralyzed initiatives to make Greenwich Time the standard time around the world. Sandford showed remarkable perseverance in bringing us the Standard Time that we now take for granted. As Hugh MacLean put it, “Fleming never knew when he was licked.”
Sandford was there at the 1864 Charlottetown Conference which birthed the nation of Canada. He was there for the Last Spike at Craigellachie in November 7th 1885 when Canada was joined by rail from sea to sea. Sandford Fleming has been called ‘the outstanding Canadian of the nineteenth century’.
Where would Canada be today without dedicated engineers like Fleming? Engineers have built Canada from the ground up. Clark Blaise comments: “The engineering profession, always a high calling – and often a source of profound despair – for Fleming, is the link between science and society. The engineer calculates the cost of change, understands debentures and interest rates, the politically possible, the socially beneficial. He reads the future.” As a person of faith, Fleming saw the Engineering profession through the eyes of Isaiah 40 which talked about every valley being exalted: “It is one of the misfortunes of the profession to which I am proud to belong that our business is to make and not to enjoy; we no sooner make a rough place smooth than we must move to another and fresh field, leaving others to enjoy what we have accomplished.”
In 1872 Sandford and his good friend the Rev. George Grant led an expedition to BC in order to survey the future Canadian Pacific Railway. The travelogue they wrote about their adventures became a Canadian best-seller. Both Sandford and George shared a deep Christian faith that sustained them through many trials and tribulations. Wherever Sandford went, he always found time to worship on Sundays, even if it was simply kneeling by the railway tracks and giving thanks to Almighty God. Sandford even wrote a simplified worship service that travellers and busy construction crews could use.
Sandford was always inventing. He created Canada’s first postage stamp, the three-penny beaver. In 1849, he founded the Royal Canadian Institute which became the Royal Society of Canada, a leading scientific institute. He wrote twelve books and served as Chancellor of Queen’s University for thirty-five years. Despite enormous opposition, Fleming built the world’s first sub-Pacific cable bringing instantaneous communication around much of the world. It was for this amazing feat that Queen Victoria knighted Fleming in 1897.
My prayer for those reading this article is that we too like Sir Sandford Fleming may be creative, persevering, and ground-breaking.
The Reverend Ed Hird
Rector, St. Simon’s North Vancouver
Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)
http://stsimonschurch.ca
-author of the award-winning book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’
http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com
p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD. This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.
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-an article in the September 2009 Deep Cove Crier
Sir Sandford Fleming: Inventor of Time
August 5, 2009
By Rev Ed Hird
When Sir Sanford Fleming first came to Canada, he was told “Go back to Scotland”. The need for engineers was over. Some were convinced that we would only need sixteen miles of railway in Canada. Fortunately for us, Fleming loved a challenge. He was passionate about railways, once driving a bear off the railway tracks with nothing but an umbrella and a loud cry.
Fleming has been described as the outstanding Canadian of the nineteenth century. Prime Minister John A Macdonald appointed him as chief surveyor and engineer of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Fleming knew that he needed to see the route first-hand. With the Rev George Grant, he canoed and portaged across Canada in 1872, creating a best-selling travelogue ‘Ocean to Ocean’. The beauty and ruggedness of Canada’s wilderness spoke to the depths of his soul.
Our most recognizable Canadian photo is ‘The Last Spike’, celebrating the completion of our national railway on November 7th 1885. Fleming, our most famous Canadian engineer, was right there at the centre of the photo.
To complete the Canadian Pacific Railway in just ten years was an astronomical task, but Fleming always made time for God in his busyness. Fleming only missed attending church twelve times in his entire life. Sometimes ‘church’ was simply kneeling by the Rocky mountain railway tracks and giving thanks. On all his surveying trips, no work and travel was done on Sunday if he could help it. He even wrote a worship service that his busy construction crews could use.
After the frustration of his missing an Irish train, Fleming went on to create Meridian Standard Time in 1878. Standard Time replaced the dangerous chaos of 144 different North American time zones. Every city had its own 
unique time, none of which agreed with any other city. Standard Time went a long way towards keeping locomotives from crashing into each other because of different clocks.
Fleming founded the Canadian Institute which grew into the Royal Society of Canada. He published a dozen books, served for thirty-five years as Chancellor of Queen’s University. Canada’s very first postage stamp: the three-cent beaver, was the creation of Fleming. Fleming was knighted in 1897 by Queen Victoria for building the world-circling sub-Pacific cable. For the first time in history, the world could communicate instantaneously around the globe. With membership in over seventy international societies, he was Canada’s preeminent voice on the world stage. Everyone looked to Sir Sanford Fleming.
Fleming was often snubbed, sidelined, criticized but he never let the nay-sayers stop him from accomplishing his life-goals. Fleming knew that God had put him here on earth to make a difference, to help raise up the nation of Canada from sea to sea. Fleming’s strength came from a deep sense that God would never abandon his children.
The Reverend Ed Hird+
Rector, St. Simon’s North Vancouver
Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)
http://stsimonschurch.ca
-author of the award-winning book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’
edhird
