Manitoba found itself with its first-ever post-Confederation Premier on this date in 1870, though Alfred Boyd’s title would be Provincial Secretary. Boyd is one of the most mysterious leaders in Canada after Confederation.  No one can say for sure when he exactly arrived in what was then called Rupert’s Land, and we can’t be sure when he left Manitoba to return to England. What we do know is that Manitoba’s Lt.-Governor in 1870, Adams George Archibald, felt Boyd acceptable to the province’s many ethnic groups including the Metis, French and English. Boyd continued to hold Manitoba’s top political job after the first provincial election in December 1870. After that, he would hold onto the job less than one year before resigning. He was seen as too pro-Catholic and French by many. Eventually he headed home to England where he passed into history in 1908. You can read more about this fascinating and mysterious leader at his entry at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography.   caption id="attachment_718637" align="alignleft" width="299" Alfred Boyd/caption Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist.  He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy.  A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.