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Pierre Berton was the historian who shaped Canadian identity more than any other – and taught the nation how to roll up a joint on TV.
If it weren’t for Pierre Berton, far fewer Canadians would know the legend of Sam Steele, Canada’s most famous Mountie and probably the world’s most cartoonishly Canadian person. From 1898 to 1899, Steele was commissioner for the Yukon, as thousands of men and women from around the world streamed into the Klondike in search of fortune. The Canadian Mounties were determined that, unlike the American gold rushes, the Canadian one was to be an orderly affair. Steele was the “prototype of the Hollywood Mountie,†Berton wrote – tall, “erect as a pine tree, limber as a cat†and so good at his job that “you could lay a sack of nuggets on the side of the trail and return in two weeks to find it untouched.â€
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[url=http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160928-the-man-who-taught-canadians-how-to-think-of-themselves[/url]
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