Canadian Holmes

Canadian Holmes is the magazine of The Bootmakers of Toronto. The magazine was first published in 1973, a little over a year after the group was founded. The title was a play on the title of a newspaper supplement of the time called Canadian Homes, a home improvement magazine distributed in the Saturday editions of major Canadian newspapers. The idea of forming a Sherlock Holmes society in Toronto emerged from ‘A Weekend with Sherlock Holmes’, an event held at the Metro Toronto Central Library in December 1971. The inaugural meeting was held in February 1972, at the University of Toronto, where it was noted that a ‘Mixture of scholarship and whimsy is what is needed at meetings’. That tradition has been well maintained.

The title of the Society is derived from the popular Sherlock Holmes adventure The Hound of the Baskervilles where a boot is stolen from Sir Henry Baskerville. Later in the story we find out it was to enable the hound to find him and kill him. That iconic boot was made in Toronto by a bootmaker called Meyers. The Society became The Bootmakers of Toronto and the leader of the Society is referred to as Meyers.