J. Patrick Boyer – författare

Justices of the peace, constables, and game wardens from the late 19th century are brought to vivid life interacting with a variety of accused citizens.

Rare views of human lives in turmoil are revealed in several hundred trials conducted in 1890s Muskoka by Magistrate James Boyer of Bracebridge. The charges and evidence show how raw life really was in Canada’s frontier towns, with cases ranging from nostalgic and humorous to pitiable and deeply disturbing. While dispensing speedy justice, Boyer, who was also town clerk and editor of the Northern Advocate, the first newspaper in Ontario’s northern districts, kept a careful record in his handwritten "bench book" of all these cases. That bench book, recently found by his great-grandson, lawyer J. Patrick Boyer, provides the raw material for Raw Life. This first-time publication of the these cases demonstrates how, in Canadian society, some things haven’t changed much over the years – from early road rage to the plight of abused women, from environmental contamination to punitive treatment of the poor.

Justices of the peace, constables, and game wardens from the late 19th century are brought to vivid life interacting with a variety of accused citizens.

Rare views of human lives in turmoil are revealed in several hundred trials conducted in 1890s Muskoka by Magistrate James Boyer of Bracebridge. The charges and evidence show how raw life really was in Canada’s frontier towns, with cases ranging from nostalgic and humorous to pitiable and deeply disturbing. While dispensing speedy justice, Boyer, who was also town clerk and editor of the Northern Advocate, the first newspaper in Ontario’s northern districts, kept a careful record in his handwritten "bench book" of all these cases. That bench book, recently found by his great-grandson, lawyer J. Patrick Boyer, provides the raw material for Raw Life. This first-time publication of the these cases demonstrates how, in Canadian society, some things haven’t changed much over the years – from early road rage to the plight of abused women, from environmental contamination to punitive treatment of the poor.

A young law clerk from England falls in love in 19th-century New York and reinvents himself in Canada.

Quiet Isaac Jelfs led many lives: a scapegoated law clerk in England; a soldier in the mad Crimean War; a lawyer on swirling Broadway Avenue in New York. His escape from each was wrapped in deep secrecy. He eventually reached Canada, in 1869, with a new wife and a changed name. In his new home — the remote wilderness of Muskoka — he crafted yet another persona for himself. In Another Country, Another Life, his great-grandson traces that long-hidden journey, exposing Isaac Jelfs’ covered tracks and the reasons for his double life.

The world as we know it has been turned upside down by recent events but it’s still a place where leadership is needed more than ever.

Fifteen Canadians with highly diverse perspectives and richly different experience explore this timely question in Leading in an Upside-Down World.

Chapter by chapter, stories of Canada unfold and future prospects for leadership grow clearer as these eminent Canadians explain how to "recognize leadership" in an age where old institutions and behaviours are being left behind. They also identify leadership attributes that endure. Leading in an Upside-Down World gives voice to both scholars and practitioners of Canadian-style leadership.

Robert Boyer was a consummate Canadian, whose long career can be measured by words. An author, journalist, researcher, editor, printer, and public speaker, Boyer’s professional life began at the age of 19 when he became a newspaper editor, and continued through the publication of his twelfth book at the age of 88. He was also a church organist, a member of the Ontario Legislature for seventeen years, and the first vice-chairman of Ontario Hydro.

A Canadian Shield Book Published by Dundurn in partnership with Canadian Shield Communications Corporation.

Robert Boyer was a consummate Canadian, whose long career can be measured by words. An author, journalist, researcher, editor, printer, and public speaker, Boyer’s professional life began at the age of 19 when he became a newspaper editor, and continued through the publication of his twelfth book at the age of 88. He was also a church organist, a member of the Ontario Legislature for seventeen years, and the first vice-chairman of Ontario Hydro.

A Canadian Shield Book Published by Dundurn in partnership with Canadian Shield Communications Corporation.

Limited time offer.

A local library, passport to a larger world for its individual patrons, is also a democratic institution whose contribution to the strength of a community is out of all proportion to its size or membership.

Several thousand Carnegie libraries were built a century ago when Andrew Carnegie, who had risen from poverty to become "the richest man in the world" vowed to donate all his money before he died and set about giving millions of people around the world the same "gift of reading" he had with access to a library as a factory working boy. Across the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and other corners of the English-speaking world, he created "the free republic" of libraries. This is the story of one of them.

By tracing evolution of library service in the Canadian town of Bracebridge from 1874 to the present day within the broad sweep of larger cultural and economic patterns, Boyer’s engaging book provides a specific example of the universal transformation of books and information technologies and the libraries that house them from the 19th to 21st centuries. Most readers will find endearing and tantalizing parallels with their own library experience, wherever they live.

Written to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Andrew Carnegie Library in Bracebridge in 2008, Boyer’s book is an inspired and engaging effort to show patterns and perils that probably hold true for most local libraries although some of the dramatic and comedic episodes here are surely unique. This story is so rich it could be a feature movie.

This richly detailed biography illustrates how a determined Canadian seeking justice created an enduring legacy. Through vigorous battles, Jim McRuer’s passion for justice was translated into laws that daily touch and protect the lives of millions today.

James Chalmers McRuer was not easy to get along with or even much liked by many lawyers who dubbed him ’Vinegar Jim.’ Yet countless others saw him as heroic, inspirational, a man above and apart from his times.

His resolute focus on justice changed the lives of married women with no property rights, children without legal protection, aboriginals caught in the whipsaw of traditional hunting practices and imposed game laws, and prisoners locked away and forgotten. Environmental degradation and those causing it, murderers, stock fraud artists and Cold War spies all came within the ambit of J. C. McRuer’s sharp legal mind and passion for justice. Upon turning 75, McRuer embarked on his most important work of all, becoming Canada’s greatest law reformer and remaining active into his 90s.