The Canadian Archivist Douglas Brymner and his «Noble Dream»

The purpose of the article is to reconstruct the life path and activities of Douglas Brymner (1823–1902), journalist, politician, state server and the fi rst chairman of the Dominion Archives of Canada, a member of the Royal Society of Canada (since 1895) and the American Antiquarian Society (since 1898), based on archival and personal sources, to analyze the main issues of the implementation of the Canadian archive development project «The Noble Dream», which was the result of combining elements of the British and European archival systems into a single Canadian archival network. The methodology is based on the principles of historicism, objectivity, and general scientifi c (analysis and synthesis, methods of structural and functional analysis), as well as general historical methods – chronological, retrospective, and biographical, thanks to which it was possible to reconstruct the picture of a person's life in a certain space. The use of source studies methods made it possible to analyze D. Brymner's «Reports on Canadian Archives» and to explore the collection of Frederick Haldimand (1718–1791) in these reports. The scientifi c novelty of the study lies in the fact that for the fi rst time, on the basis of a comprehensive analysis and involvement in the scientifi c circulation of archival and personal sources, to explore the little-known pages from D. Brymner's biography, including archival activity. Conclusions. In the formulated conclusions, the chronological sequence of D. Brymner's activities as the head of the archive branch at the Department of Agriculture of Canada is documented, his personal contribution to the activities of the archive, his role in initiating the copying of archival documents, including outside Canada, and the development of the universal document collection system are presented.