Canada’s 13th Prime Minister, the Right Honourable John Diefenbaker, passed into history on this date in 1979. After official ceremonies in Ottawa, Dief’s body was famously taken by train for burial in Saskatoon. Stories from his funeral train’s journey remain legendary in political circles. Dief was 83 when he died at his Rockcliffe Park home.
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.