Canada's History

Aboriginal peoples lived in different ways. The Huron-Wendat and the Iroquois both farmed and hunted, while the Cree and Dene in the Northwest were hunter-gatherers.

European diseases killed many Aboriginal people, who had no immunity to them.

About 1,000 years ago, Vikings from Iceland reached Labrador and Newfoundland. What is left of their settlement, l’Anse aux Meadows, is a World Heritage site.

John Cabot, an Italian who moved to England, was the first to map Canada’s Atlantic coast. He landed in 1497 and claimed the land for England.

Jacques Cartier sailed across the Atlantic three times between 1534 and 1542 and claimed the land for the King of France.

The name Canada comes from kanata, an Iroquoian word that means “village.”

In 1604, the French explorers Pierre de Monts and Samuel de Champlain started the first European settlement north of Florida.

Champlain built a fortress in 1608 where Québec City stands now.

In 1701, the French and the Iroquois agreed to make peace.

In 1670, King Charles II of England gave the Hudson’s Bay Company the sole right to trade in all the lands whose rivers drain into Hudson Bay.

The brave fur traders who travelled by canoe were known as voyageurs and coureurs des bois. They formed close alliances with First Nations.

In 1759, the British beat the French at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in Québec City. This ended France’s empire in America.

Both army commanders, James Wolfe and the Marquis de Montcalm, were killed while leading their soldiers in that battle.

The Quebec Act of 1774 gave Catholics freedom of religion and let them hold public office, which Britain itself did not allow at that time.

The Quebec Act brought back French civil law but kept British criminal law.

Over 40,000 Loyalists, people who stayed loyal to the Crown, fled the American Revolution and settled in Nova Scotia and Quebec.

Joseph Brant led thousands of Mohawk Loyalists into Canada.

Halifax, Nova Scotia, elected the first representative assembly in 1758.

The Constitutional Act of 1791 split the Province of Quebec in two: Upper Canada (later Ontario) and Lower Canada (later Quebec).

In 1793, under Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe, Upper Canada was the first province in the Empire to start moving toward ending slavery.

Britain banned the buying and selling of slaves in 1807, then ended slavery across the whole Empire in 1833.

Thousands of slaves escaped from the U.S. to Canada through the Underground Railroad, a Christian network that opposed slavery.

The United States invaded Canada in June 1812, thinking it would win easily. It was wrong.

Major-General Sir Isaac Brock took Detroit, but he was killed defending Queenston Heights near Niagara Falls. The Americans lost that battle.

In 1813, Charles de Salaberry and 460 soldiers, mostly French Canadiens, stopped 4,000 American invaders at Châteauguay, south of Montreal.

The war made sure Canada stayed independent of the United States, and it partly shaped the Canada–U.S. border.

In 1837–38 there were armed rebellions near Montreal and in Toronto. Without enough support from the public, the rebels lost to British troops and Canadian volunteers.

Lord Durham, an English reformer, was sent to report on the rebellions. He advised merging Upper and Lower Canada and giving them responsible government.

Responsible government means the Crown’s ministers need the support of most of the elected representatives to govern.

In 1840, Upper Canada and Lower Canada were joined together to form the Province of Canada.

Nova Scotia, in 1847–48, was the first colony in British North America to get full responsible government.

La Fontaine, who defended democracy and French language rights, was the first leader of a responsible government in the Canadas.

From 1864 to 1867, leaders from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and the Province of Canada worked to create a new country. They are called the Fathers of Confederation.

The Fathers of Confederation set up two levels of government: federal and provincial.

The first four provinces were Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Together they formed the Dominion of Canada.

Britain’s Parliament passed the British North America Act in 1867, and the Dominion of Canada was officially born on July 1, 1867.

Manitoba and the Northwest Territories joined Canada in 1870.

British Columbia joined Canada in 1871.

Prince Edward Island joined Canada in 1873.

In 1880, the Arctic Islands were transferred to the Northwest Territories.

Yukon Territory became part of Canada in 1898.

Alberta and Saskatchewan both joined Canada in 1905.

Newfoundland and Labrador joined Canada in 1949, and Nunavut was added in 1999.

Sir John A. Macdonald, a Father of Confederation, became Canada’s first Prime Minister in 1867.

Sir George-Étienne Cartier, a Montreal railway lawyer and close ally of Macdonald, led Quebec into Confederation.

When Canada took over the northwest from the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1869, the Métis of Red River were not asked. Louis Riel led an armed uprising and took Fort Garry.

After a second rebellion in 1885, Riel was tried and executed for high treason. Many people see him as a hero who defended Métis rights and as the father of Manitoba.

Prime Minister Macdonald created the North West Mounted Police (NWMP) in 1873 to bring peace to the West and help in talks with the Indians.

British Columbia joined Canada in 1871 because Ottawa promised to build a railway to the West Coast. The last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway was driven on November 7, 1885.

After the railway was built, Chinese people faced discrimination, including the Head Tax, an entry fee based on race. The Government of Canada apologized for it in 2006.

Sir Wilfrid Laurier was the first French-Canadian prime minister after Confederation. He encouraged people to move to the West.

More than 7,000 Canadians volunteered to fight in the South African War (1899–1902), also called the Boer War, and more than 260 of them died.

In April 1917, the Canadian Corps captured Vimy Ridge, with 10,000 killed or wounded. The victory gave Canadians a reputation for great bravery.

In 1918, General Sir Arthur Currie, called Canada’s greatest soldier, commanded the Canadian Corps during the last hundred days of the war.

The fighting stopped with the Armistice on November 11, 1918. The war cost 60,000 Canadian lives, and 170,000 more Canadians were wounded.

Dr. Emily Stowe, the first Canadian woman to work as a doctor in Canada, founded the women’s suffrage (right to vote) movement here. Manitoba was the first province to let women vote, in 1916.

In 1918, most female citizens aged 21 and over got the right to vote in federal elections. In 1921, Agnes Macphail became the first woman MP.

Thanks to the work of Thérèse Casgrain and others, women in Quebec got the vote in 1940.

Canadians wear a red poppy and keep a moment of silence at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, to honour those who served and those who died.

The stock market crash of 1929 caused the Great Depression, also known as the “Dirty Thirties.” In 1933, unemployment reached 27%.

The Bank of Canada, a central bank that manages the money supply and keeps the financial system stable, was created in 1934.

On D-Day, June 6, 1944, 15,000 Canadian soldiers captured Juno Beach in Normandy, France, from the German Army.

The Second World War started in 1939, when Adolf Hitler, the Nazi dictator of Germany, invaded Poland.

Canadians fought bravely but lost the defence of Hong Kong against Japan in 1941 and a raid on Dieppe, France, in 1942.

Canada gave more to the Allied air war than any other Commonwealth country. Through the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, more than 130,000 Allied air crew were trained in Canada.

The Royal Canadian Navy had its finest hour in the Battle of the Atlantic, guarding convoys of merchant ships from German submarines.

During the war, the federal government forced Canadians of Japanese origin to move and sold their property without paying them for it.

In 1988, the Government of Canada apologized for these wrongs during the war and paid the victims.