Racing journalist Bob Carson has a terrific article about how Abe Orpen engineered a head-to-head who's the best race between Man-of-War, maybe the iconic racehorse, and Sir Barton, Canadian winner of the Triple Crown (though it did not have the name then). This was 1920. The purse was $75,000 -- let's just say a kajillion in today's money. The crowd was huge, the betting astronomical -- and the whole thing took place at a dumpy little racetrack outside Windsor, Ontario. Carson does a great job of setting out the whole story -- except he's maybe a bit too polite about Abe Orpen. "He had a talent for making money," sure, but he was way more of an underworld figure than Carson seems to realize.
The cover story "Desperado" presents Lillie Davy aka Pearl Hart, a woman from Lindsay, Ontario, who held up a train at gunpoint in Arizona in 1899. Butch Cassidy images for the cover -- but John Boessenecker's article is as much about uncovering the poverty, abuse, family violence, and petty crime that is the upbringing anyone who got involved in holding up trains at gunpoint in 1899. Lillie had a "colourful" but not a happy life. Rural Ontario in the late 19th century -- not all pastoral sweetness.
Also -- who knew? -- Jean-Louis Trudel on the dime novels, spy thrillers, and noir-ish detective yarns of mid-20th century Quebec.
And a strong, well researched article by David Pugliese on Canadians in the Korean War, just as the 70th anniversary of the war ending is being noted this month. Nice personal detail from a couple of centenarian vets.
Lots of other features, strong reviews, bits from the Beaver archives.
