Isaac Brock: Larger Than Life

Killed by a sharpshooter at the Battle of Queenston Heights in the War of 1812, Isaac Brock is revered as a hero and the saviour of Upper Canada. But he did much more. From a daring swim off the Channel Island of Guernsey to a fantastical duel in Barbados to Horatio Nelson’s victory at the Battle of Copenhagen, Isaac Brock’s life was one adventure after another. It was also a charmed life, twice saved by a handkerchief, of all things. Then there was the mystery of his fiancee …Ven Begamudre sets Brock’s life story in the context of the larger struggle between Britain France - a struggle that gave rise to other heroes like Wellington and Nelson, who greatest victories were in Europe or in European waters, while Isaac made his name on colonial soil. In this story we meet Brock’s nephew, Ferdinand Brock Tupper, who published the first biography of Isaac Brock in 1845. Over 30 years after Isaac’s death, Ferdinand sifts through the correspondence in his uncle’s old trunk and tries to reconstruct Isaac’s life in order to preserve the family name and Isaac Brock’s rightful place in history. Brock used the American invasion of the Canadas in 1812 to unite the settlers and Aboriginal People in a common cause. Although vastly outnumbered, Brock and his ally, the Shawnee war chief Tecumseh, bluffed the Americans into surrendering Fort Detroit and captured the entire Michigan Territory with little bloodshed. After the Battle of Detroit, Isaac was made Sir Isaac Brock, KB. In life, Isaac Brock was larger than life. In death, he became a mythic figure whose magnificent monument at Queenston Heights is a symbol of Canadian nationhood.