intrigue s u m m e r g u i d e 2 0 1 7 1 7 3 prove to be the richest in Canada and the second-richest in the Western Hemi- sphere, making Harry one of the wealthiest men in the world. His Lake Shore Mines would ultimately net him the staggering sum of $60,000 per day (the equivalent of $720,000 per day in today’s currency). Harry set about enjoying the good life that so many years of hard work and depri- vation had earned him. On a world cruise in 1923, the 48-year-old Oakes met Eu- nice MacIntyre, a tall, attractive Austra- lian some 25 years his junior, and they soon married. Over the next ten years, the union would produce five children. Five years later, he moved his grow- ing family to Niagara Falls, Ontario, where he became a Canadian citizen. He built a 35-room mansion, created a private golf course, and purchased one of the most extraordinary cars of his time. With its 12-cylinder engine and red leather seats, the hand-built 1928 Hispano-Suiza H6B “Sedanca de Ville” was large, elegant, and powered with the same engines used by World War I French fighter planes. In 2008, Harry’s very car (see photo, left page) sold at a Bonhams auction for nearly a quarter of a million dollars. arry was magnanimous with his wealth, rewarding those who’d helped him and launching a num- ber of local civic-improvement projects into which he poured millions of dollars. Over time, however, he came to resent what he considered the exorbitant taxes–$17,500 a day–that the Canadian government levied upon him. In 1935, he left Canada, taking his wife and children to live in the Carib- bean city of Nassau, on the island of New Providence in the Bahamas. In those days, Nassau was the quiet backwater capital of the British colony and a bastion for well-heeled whites in a place where abject poverty existed alongside fab- ulous wealth. As he had when he first ar- rived in Niagara Falls, Harry set about im- proving conditions on the island for both its native poor and its privileged whites. He built an air base, polo field, country club, and golf course. He also purchased and improved the local hotel. He added a wing to the hospital, provided public transpor- tation, employed a large number of the lo- cals, and initiated programs to address the poverty in which many of the island- ers were living. For his largesse, the Crown awarded him a baronetcy, whereupon he became Sir Harry Oakes. e t arr akess assau ansi nandthe s ene his i lentdeathin his a e heBritish l nial telin assau ught akesin e i ht ir arr akess daughter an .