Canham grew up in Maine, where, when he was as young as 8 years old, he began helping his father run a small newspaper in Sanford.

[1] In 1925 Canham graduated from Bates College, where was captain of the debating team and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and he joined the Christian Science Monitor the same year.

[2] Soon after starting work at the Monitor, Canham took leave to earn his bachelor's and master's degrees at Oriel College, Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship,[3] covering the League of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland for the Monitor on breaks,[2] where he made a significant impression and built a long list of contacts.

He wrote about international affairs in the company of other Monitor correspondents such as Roscoe Drummond, William Henry Chamberlin and Reuben H.

[2][5] In 1953, Canham was sent to Holland to give Queen Juliana of the Netherlands a $27,000 donation from The First Church of Christ, Scientist to help those effected by the North Sea flood of 1953.

Linda K. Fuller called the book "groundbreaking" and "the most comprehensive, authoritative account" of the paper's history up to that point.

[2] The Marianas Variety wrote that "[in] a political atmosphere often charged with acrimony and pettiness, he managed to remain fair, objective and untainted by narrow partisanship.

"[9] Walter Cronkite told Canham that the Monitor was "representative of the finest in independent, courageous and unbiased American journalism.