Robert Dunsmuir

Laird of the Mines (1999)

Though he came to the wilds of colonial Vancouver Island as an indentured coal miner, Robert Dunsmuir became a mine owner, a railroad builder and the richest man in British Columbia. A man of exceptional ability, he had no patience with underlings who defied his paternalistic methods. Legend has it that he promised his wife a castle if she would leave Scotland, and he kept his promise. Craigdarroch Castle rose on a hill overlooking Victoria, but he died before it was completed.