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Provenance:

Collection of C. Frank Turner, Toronto, ON
By descent to the present Private Collection, Toronto, ON

Note:

Cyril Francis (C. Frank) Turner was an individual of many talents, and a remarkably varied life. A wartime commando, and flying officer, peacetime militiaman, author, editor, and amateur historian (who could trace his ancestry to 14th century Mawddwy Bandits in Wales), he is perhaps most remembered for authoring the popular 1973 book Across the Medicine Line: The Epic Confrontation Between Sitting Bull and the North-West Mounted Police.

An adventurer with a hands-on approach to the study of history, Turner assembled a collection of historical First Nations objects, and traveled to many of the far flung, and at times dangerous locations covered in his book, interviewing first-hand, and keeping correspondence with descendants of participants in the events. Speaking in 1973 of the urgency of preserving stories, Turner expressed, “The land is still there. So are the descendants, Indians and Whites. It is the heritage that is fading away.”

Waddington’s is pleased to present the research archives, and First Nations collection of Cyril Francis Turner.