Barry Lane was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, and studied history at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario. He later served as a Captain in the United Nations Emergency Force, Sinai, at its headquarters on the Suez Canal in Egypt. Since 1976, he has resided in Quebec City. Barry speaks fluent English and French, and is also conversant in Russian and Italian.
After working in historical interpretation with Parks Canada, Barry became co-founder and Vice-President of Mendel Tours in 1984. The company specializes in organizing academic travel for the alumni and associate members of major American universities and museums. Barry’s special interests are British colonial and maritime history. He has lectured extensively on rail trips across Canada, and to cruise ship passengers sailing along the St. Lawrence, in the Canadian Maritimes, along the American Atlantic coast, the Great Lakes, and in the Caribbean.
In Paris, in 1991, he was awarded the Antoine de Saint-Exupéry prize for his book, "Ce jour-là en Nouvelle-France". This award is given to the author of the best children’s book published in the French language, outside of France.
Retired from Mendel Tours in 2014, Barry has just completed a book entitled « Canadian Pacific and the Golden Age of Travel. » Among many other captivating topics, this publication retraces the story of Canadian Pacific Railway, which became, in the early 20th Century, the largest transportation company in world history. Barry also continues to work as an historical lecturer on board both cruise ships and trains.
The Acadians: from Nova Scotia to Louisiana
The Grand Dérangement, the deportation of 15,000 Acadians (French colonists) from Maritime Canada between 1755 and 1763 is one of the most poignant chapters in North American history, a story made famous by Longfellow’s epic prose poem Evangeline. With beautiful colour illustrations from a 19th-century edition of the poem, the speaker tells the dramatic tale of the expulsion, the arrival of “Cajuns” in Louisiana and Acadians’ partial return to the Maritimes.
.JPG)
