Mair, Charles (1838-1927), was a Canadian poet and journalist. His best-known poetry vividly describes the beauty of the Canadian wilderness. Mair’s poetry was collected in Dreamland and Other Poems (1868) and Tecumseh: a Drama, and Canadian Poems (1901). He also wrote Through the Mackenzie Basin (1908), a travel book describing the Mackenzie Basin in northwestern Canada. Mair’s conservationist essay “The American Bison” (1890) led to the establishment of a sanctuary for one of the few remaining bison herds.
Mair was born on Sept. 21, 1838, in Lanark, Upper Canada (now in Ontario). During 1869 and 1870, he was a correspondent for the Toronto Globe and the Montreal Gazette. He helped found the “Canada First” movement, a group that promoted nationalist feeling after the formation of the Dominion of Canada in 1867. He died on July 7, 1927.
