In 1987, Merilyn Simonds happened upon a cache of letters, albums, and clippings in the attic of her house in Kingston, Ontario. Among the overflowing boxes and stuffed sugar sacks was a collection of letters from the months immediately after the First World War. It was a one-way correspondence, often scratched in pencil on what looked like toilet paper ? 79 letters, some of them 25 pages long, written by a prisoner in Kingston Penitentiary to a young girl who lived on the outskirts of Portsmouth village, on the brink of a prison quarry where convicted men broke stone ten hours a day, doing hard time.
Joseph Cleroux was a thief and a con artist, incarcerated in the country?s most notorious prison, a young man determined that jail would not break or tame him. Phyllis Halliday was a seventeen-year-old school girl who fell under the spell of someone she could never meet or touch, except through their clandestine correspondence. He called himself Daddy-long-legs, she called herself Peggy. Their letters allowed them both to escape the confines of their lives, although the risk entailed in that taste of freedom increased as Joe asked more and more of Phyllis and conditions inside the prison deteriorated. William St. Pierre Hughes was superintendent of the nation?s penitentiaries at the time, a reformer out of favour with his political masters. His fate, like Joe?s and Phyllis?s, was bound to the conspiracies inside Kingston Penitentiary, conspiracies that eventually erupted into the first riot in Canadian penal history.
The historic city of Kingston is located where the St. Lawrence river flows into Lake Ontario. Settled by 17th C. explorers to establish a trading hub with Natives, it played a key role in the War of 1812 as a base for the British Naval fleet. Today many of its historic buildings still stand, as well as the beautiful Rideau Canal, which connects Kingston with Ottawa.
Occupying a full city block and facing Lake Ontario, Kingston's city hall is a prominent landmark constructed in the neoclassical style. The city hall was completed in 1844, with its scale and design reflective of Kingston's status as capital of Ontario at that time. In 1961, the building was designated a National Historic Site of Canada.
Located seven kilometers north of the city, the Kingston Mills is the southern most lockstation along the Rideau Canal. Here you can see an old lockhouse (now a visitor's centre), discover the history of the canal - which is a World Heritage Site - and peer down into the old lock.
Originally constructed in 1833?1834, and officially opened on June 1, 2023 as the "Provincial Penitentiary of the Province of Upper Canada," the Kingston Penitentiary was one of the oldest prisons in continuous use in the world at the time of its closure in 2012. It was one of nine prisons in the Kingston area that ranged from minimum-security facilities to the maximum-security facilities Kingston Penitentiary and Millhaven Institution (which was initially built to replace Kingston Pen).
Tours that might be of interest.
Dense population and high crime rates, has led to the creation of several prisons in Ontario over the years - and their history is well-documented. From Kingston Penitentiary to the Prison for Women, there is a lot of infamous history and much of it lies in the city of Kingston.
Reading Julie Berry?s poetry means entering a new poetic space, crossing thresholds of pain and delight at once raw and refined. ?like marie d?oignies who buried bloody/ mouthfuls of herself/ in the garden/ i need my poems to be like this,? Berry writes in ?Touching Ground.? ?Like this? is finely-turned and constantly surprising, haunting as plainsong, throaty as the blues.
Learn the history behind this national holiday, celebrating the birth of a nation by Canadians from coast to coast. See the many different ways in which this multi-cultural nation recognizes this occasion with fireworks, music, food, a day-off work, and other special events.
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In his second of six books in the series Upper Canada Preserved ? War of 1812, author Richard Feltoe continues a battlefield chronicle that combines the best of modern historical research with extensive quotes from original official documents and personal letters, bringing to life the crucial first six months of the 1813 American campaign to invade and conquer Upper Canada. The Pendulum of War documents the course of more than seven major battles and over a dozen minor engagements that were fought on the St.
The Life of Yousuf Karsh: Portrait in Light and Shadow tells, for the first time ever, the full story of how a young Armenian immigrant living in Ottawa in the 1930s became the most prominent portrait photographer of the twentieth century. Acclaimed biographer Maria Tippett was granted unprecedented access to the private section of the extensive Karsh archives, and interviewed family members and former colleagues of Karsh (1908-2002).
Ontario Boys explores the preoccupation with boyhood in Ontario during the immediate postwar period, 1945?1960. It argues that a traditional version of boyhood was being rejuvenated in response to a population fraught with uncertainty, and suffering from insecurity, instability, and gender anxiety brought on by depression-era and wartime disruptions in marital, familial, and labour relations, as well as mass migration, rapid postwar economic changes, the emergence of the Cold War, and the looming threat of atomic annihilation.
In 1831, eighteen-year-old Oonagh Corcoran emigrates with her sister from southern Ireland to Upper Canada. In the deep folds of cool, green forest off the vast inland sea of Lake Ontario, she believes she has found paradise ? only to discover that the New World harbours its own horrible injustices when she meets a fugitive slave from Virginia named Chauncey Taylor.
In April 1813 the Americans launched a new campaign to conquer Upper Canada, after their failure to do so in 1812. However, following initial victories, the U.S. assault stalled as a combined force of British regulars, Canadian militia, and Native allies counterattacked, throwing the Americans entirely onto the defensive by the end of June. During the next six months, this seesaw of military advantage was repeated again and again as each side escalated its commitment of men and resources and fought to gain the "final" victory.
Despite the "green" benefits of rail travel, Canada has lost much of its railway heritage. Across the country stations have been bulldozed and rails ripped up. Once the heart of communities large and small, stations and tracks have left little more than a gaping hole in Canada's landscapes. This book revisits the times when railways were the country's economic lifeline, and the station the social centre.
Throughout 1812 and 1813, Upper Canada had been the principle target for a succession of American invasions and attacks. Fortunately they all had been repulsed, but at a high cost in lives and the devastation of property on both sides of the border. By the beginning of 1814, both sides were determined to bring the war to an end with a decisive victory through an escalated commitment of men and military resources.
Using a rigorous marxist structuralist methodology, the book draws the reader into a compelling web of economic, social, and geographical structures, showing how human actions, sometimes murderous, arise from forces larger than the individual.
Lead authors Karla O'Regan and Susan Reid have produced a concise, accessible, and engaging text that covers the main curriculum requirements for introductory-level Criminal Justice courses in Canadian universities and colleges. Drawing on well-known case studies to connect the book's theoretical content to real-world issues, it lays out the key concepts, terms, and history for readers before shifting its focus to an exploration of key questions and issues in Canadian criminal justice today.
This text fills a longstanding and growing need for a current and comprehensive overview of women and the Canadian criminal justice system, in all its aspects. The wealth of content includes everything from an accessible overview of essential theory, to practical challenges such as mental health issues and community reintegration, to an examination of women?s roles and careers in the field of criminal justice.
Elizabeth Simcoe was married to first Lt. Governor of Upper Canada John Graves Simcoe. She was a privileged, upper-class, English woman who refused to be left behind in England, therefore travelling with her husband and carving an English society out of what is now recognized as Ontario. Unparalleled by anyone in her time, Elizabeth forged through Lower and Upper Canada, creating one of the most inspiring and tragic stories of Canada.
Stephen D. Mecredy tells the story of Fort Henry, the people and events--hangings, escapes, cholera outbreaks--involved in its colourful past.
Alias Grace is based on the story of the notorious 1843 murders of Thomas Kinneat and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery in Upper Canada. While the novel is based on true facts, the perspective is written through the eyes of a fictional doctor, Simon Jordan, who is researching the case. The story follows Jordan's researching of criminal behaviour, but is altered to the attempt to reconcile the truth about the case, and Grace Marks's involvement. Grace Marks and fellow servant of the house, James McDermott, were convicted of the crime.
In Acts of Courage, Connie Brummel Crook dramatizes the life of one of Canada?s most enduring heroines, Laura Secord. from young Laura Ingersoll?s early days in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, amidst the turmoil that followed the American Revolutionary War, the story outlines her father?s difficult decision to move his family to Upper Canada.
The St. Lawrence River forms part of the boundary between Canada and the United States and connects the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. This informative book follows this important commercial waterway across the provinces of Ontario and Quebec to where it reaches the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
In December 1883, Peter Lazier was shot in the heart during a bungled robbery at a Prince Edward County farmhouse. Three local men, pleading innocence from start to finish, were arrested and charged with his murder. Two of them ? Joseph Thomset and David Lowder ? were sentenced to death by a jury of local citizens the following May. Nevertheless, appalled community members believed at least one of them to be innocent ? even pleading with prime minister John A. Macdonald to spare them from the gallows.
Murray explores how far local characteristics affected the operation of a criminal justice system transplanted from England; his analysis includes how legal processes affected Upper Canadian morality, the treatment of the insane, welfare cases, crimes committed in the district, and an examination of the roles of the Niagara magistrates, constables, and juries. Murray concludes by arguing that while the principles and culture of British justice were firmly implanted in the Niagara district, this did not prevent justice from being unequal, especially for women and visible minorities.
The Call to Arms is the first of six books in the series Upper Canada Preserved ? War of 1812. Each book in this battlefield-based chronicle combines the best of modern historical research with extensive quotations from original official documents and personal letters to bring to life this crucial period of Canada's early history. Numerous historical images of locations are counterpointed with comparable modern perspectives to give a true then-and-now effect.
Rose Ricciardelli draws on interviews with almost sixty former federal prisoners to show how their criminal convictions, masculinity, and sexuality determined their social status in prison and, in consequence, their potential for victimization.
The book outlines the modern ?inmate code? that governs prisoner behaviours, the formal controls put forth by the administration, the dynamics that shape sex-offender experiences of incarceration, and the personal growth experiences of many prisoners as they cope with incarceration.
In 1812, the future of British North America hung in the balance as the United States declared war with the avowed goal of conquering the Canadas and removing British influence from the continent forever.
The sixth and final book of the Upper Canada Preserved ? War of 1812 series, The Ashes of War examines in detail the closing stages of the war on the Northern Frontier, including the two-month siege of Fort Erie, the engagement at Cook?s Mills, the American attempt to recapture Michilimackinac (Mackinac), the tale of the Nancy, and the American raids into southwestern Upper Canada.
Understanding Crime in Canada: An Introduction to Criminology provides an overview of the foundations of criminology, and is intended for an introductory-level university and college audience. In addition to surveying the key theoretical approaches, it also examines important aspects in the study of criminology, including the role of the media; key points of criminal law; ways of measuring crime; and a thorough survey of the various types of crime. Case studies and boxes are used throughout to illustrate the theoretical aspects of the text in a real-world context.
In the Skin of a Lion is a love story and an irresistible mystery set in the turbulent, muscular new world of Toronto in the 20s and 30s. Michael Ondaatje entwines adventure, romance and history, real and invented, enmeshing us in the lives of the immigrants who built the city and those who dreamed it into being: the politically powerful, the anarchists, bridge builders and tunnellers, a vanished millionaire and his mistress, a rescued nun and a thief who leads a charmed life.
In The Truth about Luck, Iain Reid, author of the highly popular coming-of-age memoir One Bird's Choice, accompanies his grandmother on a five-day vacation -- which turns out to be a "staycation" at his basement apartment in Kingston. While the twenty-eight-year-old writer is at the beginning of his adult life, his ninety-two-year-old grandmother is nearing the end of hers.
The Way to Come Home is Carolyn Smart?s fourth book of poems. It is a collection that ranges from celebrating the rural landscape north of Kingston, Ontario to re-creating the painful last phase of her friend Bronwen Wallace?s life in a moving sequence titled ?The Sound of the Birds.? The volume?s opening sequence, ?Cape of Storms,? views the hatred thriving amid the astonishing physical beauty of South Africa while ?The woman is bathing? details a journey to Costa Rica that is a journey into the self.
Helen Humphreys? younger brother was gone before she could come to terms with the fact that he had terminal cancer. Diagnosed with stage 4B pancreatic cancer at the age of forty-five, he died four months later, leaving behind a grieving family. Martin was an extraordinary pianist who debuted at the Royal Festival Hall in London at the age of twenty, later becoming a piano teacher and senior examiner at the Royal Conservatory of Music. The two siblings, though often living far apart, were bonded on many levels.
On December 22, 2022 as eastern Canadians were getting ready for the holidays, a bizarre weather system brought crippling freezing rain to central and eastern Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick. Over 300,000 people lost power in Toronto alone and 70,000 were still without it on Christmas morning. Officials estimate that 40% of power lines in the GTA were affected and more than 20% of Toronto?s tree canopy was destroyed.
In 1987, Merilyn Simonds happened upon a cache of letters, albums, and clippings in the attic of her house in Kingston, Ontario. Among the overflowing boxes and stuffed sugar sacks was a collection of letters from the months immediately after the First World War.
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