Arthur Buies, baptized Joseph-Marie-Arthur, was a Canadian author, journalist, founder of journals, regional pundit, and commentator. A lucid witness to and passionate participant in the late 19th-century ideological battles, Buies left behind a body of exceptional works which are not well known.
Background
Arthur Buies was born on January 24, 1840 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the son of William and Marie Antoinette Leocadie (d'Estmauville) Buies. When he was only a year old, his parents moved to British Guiana, leaving William in Quebec with his aunts.
Education
Arthur went to school everywhere, beginning at seminaries and then, after visiting British Guiana when he was sixteen years old, he traveled to Europe and resumed his studies in a seemingly whimsical manner. He attended colleges in Dublin and Paris, and spent a short time in 1860 in Italy, serving in Giuseppe Garibaldi's army.
The experience in Garibaldi's army, though brief, helped spark his journalistic proclivities. It was this experience that became the content of his first article, published in 1862 in Montreal, where Buies had decided to return. The article praised Garibaldi because of his political leanings and actions taken against the Papal States, even though such an opinion was extremely unpopular in Canada. Such fearlessness and dissention became Buies's method of operation, at least during his feisty professional youth.
Buies continued to seize upon controversial topics, declare his opinion, and blast it out as strongly as possible. There was no ambiguity in any of his work during his twenties, as he tackled the issue of secularizing education and declared his arguments against the church. He wrote letters from 1864-67 outlining his pagan views, that were later published in Lettres sur le Canada and in the journal Le Pays. True to his arguably hyperactive tendencies, he took off to Paris in 1867, but it was not the constructive trip for which he had hoped. Thus, he returned to Quebec and continued where he had left off - rigorously espousing his religious and political viewpoints. This time, however, he was even more organized and intent upon their exposure, as during the next ten years he founded three journals for the purpose of his uncompromising journalistic enterprises.
Beginning with newspaper articles and smaller endeavors that proved successful, he was able to determine that there was in fact an audience for more regional journalism. Thus, he gathered his articles and assembled them into a sequence of books honing in on the particulars and peculiarities of Quebec's culture and geography in relation to its recent history. Buies began to think and work like an entrepreneurial journalist, recognizing regional opportunities and seizing them as his means for a successful professional life and career. He wrote books about Canadian rivers, the Great Lakes, and nearby mountain ranges.
Though he was writing about geographical influences, Buies did not abandon his passion for expressing his beliefs and social observations. In fact, he was somewhat of a visionary when it came to identifying subjects that were destined to gain attention. He died on January 26, 1901 aged 61 in Quebec, Canada.
He never involved himself in active politics, but participated in all the Parti Rouge's intellectual crusades.
Personality
Buies was somewhat of a personal marketing wizard, able to identify what his personal and professional goals were and mold a life and career that would satisfy both as much as possible. As he matured, he became a realist, able to set aside his soap box frivolities, amend his writing style, and produce work to meet a specific demand. He took advantage of whatever aspects of his work appeared successful to the public and built upon his successes, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel. His efforts and purposefulness helped to ensure that choosing a career as a writer was to be "distinguished from the indignity of hackwork.''
Connections
In 1887 Arthur married Marie-Mila Catellier, the daughter of Canada's under secretary of state, and they had five children.