The boundary between Canada and the United States is famously described as the longest undefended border in the world. But it was not always so. In The Struggle for the Border, renowned journalist and popular historian Bruce Hutchison tells the little-known story of how that border was
established. It is a story of frontier war, explorers' expeditions, Fenian raids, the burning of Washington, and of political threats and counterthreats. Hutchison carries the amazing chronicle up to the days just after the Second World War and the continental military and economic unification that
laid the foundations of contemporary Canada.
The Wynford edition of The Struggle for the Border includes a new Introduction by Vaughn Palmer, one of Canada's foremost political journalists and a winner of the Bruce Hutchison Award. Palmer's Introduction puts both the book and Hutchison's
career in historical context for today's readers.
Introduction to the Wynford Edition
Introduction
1. The Odd Neighbours
2. The Rock
3. The Lost Blueprint
4. The Eagle
5. Letters from New York
6. A Soldier of Virginia
7. To Hébert's Farm
8. The English Gentleman
9. Blunder at Philadelphia
10. The Yankee Horse Traders
11. Tragedy at New York
12. The Mad General
13. Beyond the Shining Mountains
14. Race to the Sea
15. The Black Canyon
16. The Man in Scarlet
17. Emperor and King
18. Creatures Large and Tiny
19. The Titan from New England
20. The Dictator and His Disciples
21. Days of Goodwill
22. Old Tomorrow
23. Back to Quebec
24. Wild Irishmen
25. The Road to Ottawa
26. The Five-Ring Circus
27. The World's Lover
28. Defeat on the Potomac
29. Railway and Rebellion
30. Soft Voice,
Big Stick
31. Taft's Orphan Child
32. The Higher Lunacy
33. Friends, Alive or Dead
34. Onward from Hyde Park
35. Days of Doubt
Index
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Bruce Hutchison (1901-1992) was one of Canada's foremost journalists. His career spanned most of the twentieth century and he was the recipient of many honours, including three Governor General's Awards for his works of nonfiction.
Born in Prescott, Ontario, he was taken to
British Columbia as an infant and grew up in Victoria. He became a high-school journalist for the Victoria Times in 1918 and a political reporter in Ottawa in 1925; he returned to the Times, also reporting on the provincial legislature for the Vancouver Province. He was an editorial writer and
columnist for the Vancouver Sun (1938), assistant editor on the Winnipeg Free Press (1944-50), and then returned to the Victoria Times, where he served as editor from 1950 to 1963, establishing his reputation as a leading political journalist and commentator. In 1963 he became editorial director of
the Vancouver Sun and in 1979 editor emeritus; he wrote a weekly column for the Sun until his death. In addition to his newspaper work, Hutchison wrote dozens of pulp stories in the 1920s, a novel, and even a film script, "Park Avenue Logger," which was produced in Hollywood. By the end of his
career he had won three National Newspaper Awards, three Governor General's Awards, the Royal Society of Arts Award for Journalism, and the Bowater Prize. He received the inaugural Royal Society of Arts Award for Distinguished Journalism in the Commonwealth (1961), was placed on the Maclean's Honour
Roll (1989), and received the City of Victoria Prize (1990), and the Jack Webster Foundation First Lifetime Achievement Award (1991).
In nearly seventy-five years of political reporting, spanning the careers of ten prime ministers, Hutchison developed friendships with political
personalities that ranged from Louis St Laurent and Lester Pearson to Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Jean Chrétien. His writings on Canada and its political figures were characterized by the confidential vignette, but he was criticized for partisan loyalty to the Liberal Party - a charge he always
denied. His best-known book, The Unknown Country: Canada and Her People (1943) - which won a Governor General's Award, and is still in print after several revised editions - is a delightful panorama of Canada, containing vivid descriptions of place and personality, with short lyrical vignettes
between chapters. Hutchison also dealt successfully with the larger movements of politics and economics. His novel The Hollow Men (1944), the story of a newspaper correspondent disillusioned by world war, combines subtle political satire with sympathy for wilderness life.
Hutchison's
other titles include The Fraser (1950) in the Rivers of America series; The Incredible Canadian: A Candid Portrait of Mackenzie King (1952; Govenor General's Award); Canada's Lonely Neighbour (1954); The Struggle for the Border (1955); Canada: Tomorrow's Giant (1957; Governor General's Award), and
Mr. Prime Minister 1867-1964 (1964), which was condensed as Macdonald to Pearson: The Prime Ministers of Canada (1967). Hutchison also wrote Western Window (1967), a collection of essays, as well as the text for Canada: A Year of the Land (1967), a lavish picture book on Canada produced by the
National Film Board. At the age of eighty Hutchison published Uncle Percy's Wonderful Town (1981), a dozen fictional and nostalgic accounts of life in Emerald Vale, B.C., a town with the features of Merrit, Cranbrook, and Nelson in British Columbia. While short on emotional range, these stories -
narrated by a fourteen-year-old boy - evoke a vanished time and place. A Life in the Country (1988) is both a memoir and a meditation on country life. Hutchison's autobiography, The Far Side of the Street (1976), expressed a highly personal view of the growth of his generation, and reaffirmed his
vision of a modern and responsible Canada. - Geoff Hancock, The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature
The Unknown Country - The late Bruce Hutchison and Introduction by Vaughn Palmer
The Fraser - The late Bruce Hutchison
Introduction by Vaughn Palmer
The Incredible Canadian - The late Bruce Hutchison
Introduction by Vaughn Palmer
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