DID YOU KNOW THAT THE FATHER OF CONFEDERATION AND THE FIRST PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA WAS AN INTERNATIONAL BUSKER?

"Macdonald's professional, family, constituency, and parliamentary responsibilities produced intolerable pressures. From time to time throughout his life he would break away – retreat from familiar scenes, sometimes alone, sometimes with a friend, and drink heavily.

During this period, for example – the exact date is not known – Macdonald and another young lawyer, John Rose of Montreal, made a strange visit to the United States. Years later Lord Carnarvon described the incident:

"When quite a young man [Sir John A. Macdonald] and Sir John Rose, and a third, whose name I forget, went into the States and wandered about as strolling musicians. Macdonald played some rude instrument, Rose enacted the part of a bear and danced, and the third did something else. To the great amusement of themselves and everyone else, they collected pence by their performance in wayside taverns, etc.

Source: Sir John A. Macdonald The Man and The Politician, by Donald Swainson, Quarry Press Inc., 1971, p. 36.