Origins of the Canadian Empire

The Emperor's grandfather, Herri Jason Bowglass, was born on 12 June 2089, the son of an itinerant violinist, Jason Bowglass (2061-2099) and the art-critic Greta Pennistone (2064-2130) in Vancouver, just before the then Canusanian Coalition forces annexed the Arctic Territories. His family moved north in the Great Relocation when he was only six years old (his younger sister, Greta, being famously lost on the way and turning up later in his life - but that's another story and we don't want to get ahead of ourselves). At earl-school, Herri wasn't all that good at the academics, except for geography. He began to show a phenomenally precocious grasp of geopolitical realities as early as his tenth year and, had he not, it's doubtful he would have progressed to mid-school at all (such was the need for heavy manual labour - this was long before the Rebotalact).
Thus Herri was able to develop his skills and float around in a generally middle-class environment. From there he could begin to build up a pretty decent land rental business. Although he married well, to Fabia Giacarla Haia Brox in May of 2112, the marriage did not do as well as its earlier promise and was dissolved in August 2115. The single child, Gordon Herri Haia Bowglass, would die in mysterious circumstances on his nineteenth birthday.
Two years later, a second marriage in August 2117 to Alici Dawkins (a descendant of one of the clones of pre-revolutionary ethologist Richard Dawkins) was to prove more successful and resulted in the three children Vaughan Herri, Gerala Alici and Duran MacIntosh Bowglass, the Emperor's father. When Alici died suddenly in June 2125 Herri, devastated, retired from business and public life for six years (the last four of which coincided with the slowly developing Diadic Rift), leaving the management of his company (by now a very prosperous one) to Will Goddard, his chief recorder.
In 2131, with the breakdown of relations between the increasingly fractious components of the Canusanian Coalition about to develop into a full scale war, Herri - in a moment captured on Gorvidaleo 933 - strode unannounced into Will Goddard's suite on the (then) seventeenth floor of the Bowglass Building in New Toronto and declared his return to business. In a meeting lasting several hours, recorded (in The Goddard Fractioning) by Agnes van Uys, Will Goddard's principal agent for the Arctic Territories, the future direction of the Least Lease Landwell Company was mapped out in detail. It is widely believed that Goddard's daughter, Kristina Farrier Goddard (then aged seven years) was betrothed to Duran (aged eight) during this meeting but as this is not mentioned in the Goddard Fractioning there's no evidence to support what is thought by many authorities to be an incipient folk-story.

The Canadian Imperial Lineage, 2182

Within the space of several months the acrimonious disputes between Canada, Sweden, Japan and China on the one hand and the Old USA, the Russian Federation and Korean Vanguard on the other (the New USA remaining studiously, some say pusillanimously, neutral) were effectively doused by the actions taken by the new Least Lease Landwell Company. The path was clear for the development of the articles of the Arctic Republic. Herri's marriage to Agnes van Uys in September 2133 coincided with the Declaration of Shu Qi and the induced stability persisted until the Boston Line Disaster of 2140.