It was taken as a given that the HBC was a sort of interchangeable entity with the Canadian government and the British Parliament. In Ontario, we were taught what really amounted to the Hudson's Bay Company History of Canada. In defense of my own thesis, that puts you way ahead of me, Chet. I certainly didn't watch that CBC-TV movie about Riel that aired in the late 70s. He must have been mentioned in the media, but I wasn't paying attention. I don't remember anyone ever talking about Riel outside of a history classroom. Nothing! Maybe francophones in Québec learned more about Riel, but I grew up in an English bubble. I could not have come up with even one more detail - not a year, not a place-name. And when I say everything, I mean absolutely everything. And that's everything that I would have been able to remember on that subject from my grade eight history class. Prior to 1995 - which was when I read Maggie Siggins' biography of the man - I knew the following about Louis Riel: he was a French Métis he led a rebellion in Winnipeg in the nineteenth century he was somehow responsible for someone's execution - and there was a big fuss about that and he himself was hanged. Growing up in Québec did not give me an advantage in the "acquiring-knowledge-about-Riel" department.
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