John Boyko on Sir Sandford Fleming

History Matters by Canadian Institute for Historical Education · Jul 2, 2026 · 42m

In this episode Allan talks with historian and author John Boyko about his latest book, In Pursuit of Tomorrow: The Inventive Life of Sandford Fleming. While Fleming is best known for coming up with the idea of standard time and time zones used around the world today, that was just one of a long list of significant achievements. By his mid-twenties, Fleming had already surveyed and mapped half a dozen Ontario cities, redesigned Toronto’s waterfront, created Canada’s first postage stamp featuring the beaver, founded the Canadian Institute, and established a reputation as one of the country's…