Who, Us?

Spite is a beautiful thing. Channelled correctly, it is the ultimate motivator—less blinding than revenge, more enduring than anger, as fulfilling as happiness without any of the delirium.

The men and women in Legacy: How French Canadians Shaped North America are a testament to the power and necessity of this maligned sentiment. The book, edited by the senator and former journalist André Pratte, along with the editor and writer Jonathan Kay, sketches out the lives of maverick French Canadians—a baker’s dozen of them—whose exploits served to steal glory from the conquering English. North America is a far more interesting place as a result.

With a few exceptions—notably Jack Kerouac, a French Canadian soul whose upbringing in Lowell, Massachusetts, robbed him of the French words he so wished to...