Listen to this article 00:08:31

ADVENTURES — with Ursula Maxwell-Lewis

As questions of sovereignty challenge Canada, mass deportations escalate in the United States, and nations worldwide grapple with who should be allowed to live where—often filtered through race, creed, or colour—my mind turns, as it often does in times of crisis, to history.

Even after immigrating to Canada three times, I remain, historically, an immigrant. As a child, I survived with my adventurous Scottish mother in a snow-covered tent in an Ontario field. Perhaps that memory draws me to the stories of early settlers—immigrants themselves—who faced Canadian realities far harsher than ours.

Consider James Douglas, a 16-year-old mixed-race immigrant from Scotland, who almost certainly would not have “passed muste

See Full Page