"Our Dick" was Richard McBride, Premier of British Columbia from 1903 to 1915. McBride was the first B.C.-born premier and the only one ever to be knighted. McBride, B.C. is named for him. McBride's most famous deed was to buy two American-built submarines in early August 1914, just before American neutrality laws that would have prevented the sale came into effect. A few days later, the submarines were taken over by the Dominion government.

On September 15, 1885, Jumbo, the largest elephant ever held in captivity (3.5 metres tall, weighing approximately 6 tonnes, with a trunk 70 centimetres in circumference) was killed by a train while on tour with the Barnum and Bailey circus in the southwest Ontario town of St. Thomas. According to one story, Jumbo and a dwarf elephant, Tom Thumb, had been taken by their keeper, Matthew Scott, for an evening walk by the railroad tracks. Tom Thumb strayed onto the tracks just as an unscheduled train approached. Jumbo protectively placed himself between the train and Tom Thumb, and was killed. Scott wept.

Barnum, who had purchased Jumbo from the London Zoo for $10,000, offset his financial loss by having Jumbo's hide and skeleton put on display. St. Thomas cigar maker B. F. Honsinger cashed in by marketing a line of Jumbo cigars. Its label featured an image of the pachyderm with Scott standing in the curl of his trunk.

Jumbo's skeleton is now at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. A giant—in fact, jumbo-sized—statue was erected by the city of St. Thomas in 1985.

Joseph Montferrand (1802–1864) was a Montreal voyageur, logger and strongman whose exploits made him a French-Canadian people's champion and a legend from the Ottawa Valley to his native city. His reputation was built on thrashing bullies and trouncing gangs of ruffians of various backgrounds—English, Irish, American—in northern logging camps and the border towns of Bytown (later Ottawa) and Hull. In modern times, he has been commercialized as "Joe Mufferaw" in English-language popular song and Ottawa Valley tourist and children's literature.

In the early 1900s, the French Canadian popular hero was honoured with his own brand of cigars. The inner label shows scenes from four stories associated with Montferrand, captioned in French: leaving the imprint of his boot on a tavern ceiling as a "calling card;" defeating an English garrison's boxing champion; turning the tables on a bully; and swinging an opponent's body to rout 100 "Shiners" (Orangemen) on the bridge from Bytown to Hull.

The Reverend George Monro Grant
(1835–1902) was the much-loved principal of Queen's University during the last quarter of the 19th century. Grant's vision—and fund-raising acumen—made Queen's one of Canada's leading institutions of higher learning.

Early in life, Grant had accompanied Sanford Fleming on the expedition to survey the route for the Canadian Pacific Railway; the experience deepened his sense of nationalism which he described in his popular book, Ocean to Ocean. Grant remained an influential thinker and shaper of public opinion. Shortly before he died, his students raised funds to erect a building on campus in his honour. He did not live to see Grant Hall's limestone tower, Queen's best-known landmark, completed in 1905. Grant's descendents include philosopher George Grant, author of Lament for a Nation, and historian-journalist Michael Ignatieff.

Perhaps "Grant" cigars, by local Kingston manufacturer, S. Oberndorffer, were sold to raise funds for Grant Hall. The label, shown here in its entirety (the one on the Canadian Museum of Civilization's small, 10-cigar box was trimmed to fit) shows the edifice on one side and one of the city's renowned Martello towers on the other.

Samuel ("Colonel Sam") Steele (1849–1919) played a role in every major police operation and military action of Canada's first 50 years. He joined the militia in 1866 during the Fenian raids, served in the 1870 Red River Expedition, and in 1873 joined the newly created North West Mounted Police. Within six years he was in command at Fort Qu'Appelle, and within a dozen, Superintendent of the force. He helped establish order during the Klondike Gold Rush. During the South African War, he was appointed commander of Strathcona's Horse by Lord Strathcona himself. After training the Second Canadian Division and taking it overseas to fight in World War I, Steele, by then a Major General, was considered too old for action and put in charge of Canadian troop training in Britain. Shortly after the war, Steele, aged 70, planned to return to Calgary but fell victim to the flu pandemic. He was buried in England.

The cigar box honouring Colonel Steele shows him during the South African campaign with his horse. The voyage from Halifax had been particularly hard on the 599 mounts of Strathcona's Horse: nearly 20 per cent of them perished at sea.

The lithograph artist of the Earl of Minto cigar label chose to depict his subject's experience as aide-de-camp to Major Frederick Middleton, head of the force sent to quell the North-West Rebellion of 1885. But Sir Gilbert John Murray Kynynmond Elliot, 4th Earl of Minto (1845–1914), is better remembered today as Canada's Governor General from 1898 to 1904, influential in the founding of the National Archives, launching Ottawa's famous Minto Skating Club, establishing the Minto Cup awarded to the champion of the Canadian Lacrosse Association, and helping to create the first tuberculosis foundation in Canada.

Sir Wilfrid Laurier came to office in 1896 as Canada's first French-Canadian and second Liberal Prime Minister. An ardent nationalist, he only reluctantly accepted a knighthood from Queen Victoria and sent Canadian troops to support Britain during the Boer War; in 1909, he created the Department of External Affairs to relieve Canada of its dependence on Britain for international negotiation on its behalf. With the west opening to European settlement and the country thriving economically, Laurier confidently stated, "As the nineteenth century was that of the United States, so I think we can claim that Canada shall build the twentieth"—which has come down to us as the slogan, "The twentieth century belongs to Canada."

A perusal of early (1883–1900) cigar manufacturers in Victoria, B.C. reveals an interesting mix of mostly Chinese, German and Jewish names. The Pride of Victoria cigar was made by M. A. Levy or J. Levy & Sons.

The "Seal Skin" on this turn-of-the-20th-century box referred to the Inuit reliance on the seal for fur, rather than to the Newfoundlanders' annual seal hunt to the ice floes off Labrador. "Swilin'" would not be part of the Canadian experience until Newfoundland joined the Dominion in 1949.

In 1916, the prosperous southwestern Ontario city of Berlin was Canada's centre of German population (mostly descendents of settlers from Pennsylvania) and German culture. With anti-German sentiment running high during World War I, the city was pressured into changing its name. The choice was "Kitchener," after the British Secretary of State for War who had just lost his life on a diplomatic mission to Russia. There are cigar boxes from the town in this era in which a small label saying "Kitchener" has been pasted over the original "Berlin".

The Granby Smelter in Grand Forks, B.C., was the second largest operation of its kind in the British Empire from 1900 to 1919. J. Bruce Payne, a cigar maker in Granby in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, seems to have had a good sense of humour: he named one of his brands with a punning reference to the Granby on the other side of the country.

At the turn of the 20th century, Montreal was Canada's largest and most cosmopolitan city, its financial and industrial centre, and its tobacco manufacturing capital.

Major hotels often had a tobacco shop that sold a house brand of custom-made cigars.

The image is based on an 1887 photograph called "The Bounce" or "Habitant Blanket Toss" by Montreal photography studio William Notman and Son. The men, wearing stylized traditional French Canadian costume, are members of the Montreal Snow Shoe Club, known as the "Tuque Bleue" for their blue caps. The popular club, established in 1840, met for winter woods outings, held races and contests, and sponsored public entertainments, tableaux, and song performances—the last highly patriotic, since club members had strong ties to Great Britain (the stripes on their costumes were the colours of the British flag). "The Bounce" was lithographed and widely reproduced in contemporary newspapers.

This label, with its thistle-to-maple leaf, pond-to-arena transition, artfully shows the transformation of a winter sport—and a people—from Scottish to Canadian.