The Making of Canada: An Epic History in Twenty Extraordinary Lives

by Greg Koabel

The Making of Canada is a bold reimagining of Canada’s past, presenting the nation’s evolution through the stories of twenty diverse and fascinating individuals who at critical moments in time shaped its identity.



Moving beyond the familiar names of Champlain and Macdonald, historian Greg Koabel, creator of the popular Nations of Canada podcast, shines a spotlight on lesser-known figures such as William Weston, the risk-taking merchant who gambled on Atlantic exploration, and Shingwaukonse, the visionary Ojibwe chief who pioneered resource-sharing negotiations with Canada’s government.



From Indigenous leaders to Métis trailblazers and war heroes, Koabel interweaves personal lives with pivotal moments in Canada’s journey, demonstrating how individuals struggles, regional challenges, and cross-cultural exchanges built the foundations of a modern nation. This insightful and delightfully readable book dismantles the linear narrative of Canada’s history and reveals a more complex, diverse, and multi-faceted story, connecting Canada’s past with its present in surprising and thought-provoking ways.

Genres: History, Canada, Nonfiction

327 pages, Hardcover

Published May 6, 2025

Reviews

[Emily Posthumus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting look into many different lesser known historical figures in Canada's past. I particularly liked the chapter on Mary Ann Shadd and those that covered early voyageurs.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Readable and informative.

[Brendan Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. As the title suggests, it talks about the making of Canada, up until 1867. The chapters focus typically on one or two specific historical characters or events and how they encapsulate a trend or event in pre-Confederation Canada. The chapters are all self-sustained, so other than my own demand of chronological order, there’s no reason why you would have to go through the book from Chapter 1 to Chapter 20 in that order. You could start on 14 and skip to 20 if you’re interested in the Irish question in Ontario, for example.
Much of the content has already been discussed on Koabel’s podcast, and you can’t avoid the comparison between the book and the podcast. It’ s the same subject matter, and the self-contained chapters are like episodes, running typically 15-20 pages long. This makes it a good “cottage book”, in that you can pick it up anywhere, whenever you have a half-hour free.
My favorite chapters were Chapter 1 (John Cabot and William Weston), 4 (The Le Moyne Brothers), 5 (Kondiaronk and the Great Peace of Montreal, and 17 (Mary Ann Shadd). One of the reasons that Koebel stands out as an historian is that he insists on putting multi-culturalism as a sine qua non feature of Canada from the very beginning. Rather than the tired narrative of “first there were Indians, then French, then British” Koebel puts front and centre the fact that indigenous people didn’t disappear, the French were not confined to the back-woods of Quebec, and that Scandinavians, Basques, Spanish, Irish, Russians, Germans, Ukrainians, Jews, and Africans have been here for a very long time and cannot be simply categorised away as new immigrants. There is an underlying thesis that Canada has never been a cultural monolith, regardless of the changing hegemonies that have come and gone.
Removing that grand narrative, the strength of the book is on the petty narratives, of using the lives of grand individuals to illustrate the greater phenomena of the world that they inhabit. It’s a good read, it’s fun, it’s intellectually satisfying. It’s exactly what I was looking for.

[Diane Jeske · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone who just moved to Canada a month ago I was hoping to learn more about this new abode of mine. While I did glean from this book a general timeline of events up to Confederation, I did not get much more from it. It reads rather like a school text: who did what when in twenty chapters. There was no real insight or analysis, and I became quite bored by the end of it. Suitable, perhaps, for a YA reader interested in learning about the colonial period of what is now Canada.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Early Canadian history is incredibly compelling. Adventure, betrayal, glory, hero’s and villains. With politics that would put Game of Thrones to shame. Told in a very approachable and human way. I wish this is how I was taught history in school. It’s so much more than names and dates.

The more modern history (after 1850) is still boring though. Sorry.

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book delivers what its title claims! It's a collection of thought provoking tales of little known nation builders who played outsized roles in shaping Canada. Their legacies reverberate through modern day Canada if you take the time to look.

[James McNeal · Rating 5 out of 5]

very interesting.

[Pomegranate · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book. Well-researched and timely.