Conrad Black's Rise to Greatness. Here is the CBC's book review. The fact that the CBC despises everything about it should tell you it's a pretty good read.
In reality it is written from a very stateist perspective of the wheelings and dealings of the political elites over the course of Canadian confederation. It is full of interesting lore & stories & conversations of past leaders. Conrad manages to be right entertaining and downright hilarious in his retelling of history at times, and yet the book is immaculately well referenced.
CBC has a bit of a point, if you want to learn the history of common people, the explorers, the fur traders, the settlers, the Hudson Bay company, the unions, you will want to pair it with some sources dealing with history of common people as you won't really find that in this book. Lots of these exist. Almost every small town in the praires has a history book about its formation and its people. Lot's of early Hudderite and Mennonite history's out there. There are many journals of HBC explorers and the early priests who made contact with the Indigenous.
But it sounds like you want to learn about the politics of Confederation. Rise to Greatness is a great place to start. Bewarned, it is like 1,200 pages long. It is a bit of a beast.
https://www.amazon.ca/Rise-Greatness-History-Vikings-Present/dp/077101354X
Conrad Black's Rise to Greatness. Here is the CBC's book review. The fact that the CBC despises everything about it should tell you its s pretty good read.
In reality it is written from a very stateist perspective of the wheelings and dealings of the political elites over the course of Canadian confederation. It is full of interesting lore & stories & conversations of past leaders. Conrad manages to be right entertaining and downright hilarious in his retelling of history at times, and yet the book is immaculately well referenced.
CBC has a bit of a point, if you want to learn the history of common people, the explorers, the fur traders, the settlers, the Hudson Bay company, the unions, you will want to pair it with some sources dealing with history of common people as you won't really find that in this book. Lots of these exist. Almost every small town in the praires has a history book about its formation and its people. Lot's of early Hudderite and Mennonite history's out there. There are many journals of HBC explorers and the early priests who made contact with the Indigenous.
But it sounds like you want to learn about the politics of Confederation. Rise to Greatness is a great place to start. Bewarned, it is like 1,200 pages long. It is a bit of a beast.