Natural Regions

Canada may be divided into several natural regions based upon geologic history. They are the Appalachian Region, the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence Lowlands, the Canadian Shield, the Interior Plains, the Cordilleran Region, and the Arctic Region.

Farthest east is the Appalachian Region, which includes the Atlantic Provinces and the Gaspé Peninsula in Quebec. This region is a northern extension of the Appalachian Mountains of the United States and, like them, is an area of lakes, rivers, and tree-clad hills. Deposits of coal, gypsum, and other nonmetallic minerals as well as metallic ores may be found in the region. Offshore in the Atlantic Ocean the frigid waters of the Labrador Current, rich in the tiny organisms upon which larger ocean life feeds, meet the warmer waters of the Gulf Stream. The resulting conditions and the presence of the continental shelf have led to the formation of one of the world's most bountiful fishing areas, the Grand Banks.

Westward from the Atlantic, between the Appalachians and the Canadian Shield, lies the region known as the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence Lowlands. Here the Mesozoic limestones, sandstones, and shales are overlain by glacial drift, the sediments left when glacial lakes drained away 11,000 years ago. This region's Point Pelee on the Ontario shore of Lake Erie, the most southerly part of Canada, is farther south than the northern boundary of California. The richness of its soils has helped make this region the most populous in Canada and one of the country's main agricultural regions.

The projection of the Canadian Shield known as the Frontenac Axis slices the St. Lawrence Lowlands in two to form the Thousand Islands in the St. Lawrence River and the Adirondack Mountains in the United States. Here the ancient granites of Precambrian rock rise above the surrounding sedimentary materials and mark the beginning of the vast expanse of barren rock, forest, muskeg swamps (grassy bogs), and beautiful lakes that are characteristic of the Shield. Covering nearly 2 million square miles (5 million square kilometers), this region contains a wealth of minerals and thick evergreen forests that provide for Canada's huge forest-products industry. Numerous rivers provide hydroelectric power for the cities of the lowlands and for export to the United States.

Near the center of the Canadian Shield, in the Hudson Bay area, is a large sedimentary basin. More than half of the basin underlies the bay; the rest makes up the Hudson Bay Lowland, which stretches along the bay's southwestern coast. This nearly flat region has poor drainage, with muskeg swamps dominating the landscape.

In a wide belt between the Canadian Shield and the western mountains, stretching from the border with the United States to the shores of the Arctic Ocean, is the region known as the Interior Plains. Thick layers of sedimentary rock form a low, rolling landscape that rises gradually to the west. Cereal-growing areas of the eastern and central part of the region give way, as the land rises, to the cattle ranches of the west and the forests of the north. The sedimentary rock layers in Alberta yield petroleum, natural gas, and coal; in Saskatchewan they yield potash.

A huge section of the mountainous spine of the Western Hemisphere forms the Cordilleran Region. Massive geologic forces buckled and folded ancient sediments to form these chains of mountains that run roughly parallel to the Pacific shore. The eastern portion of the Cordillera consists of the Rocky Mountains, which rise from the Interior Plains and form the Continental Divide between eastward- and westward-flowing rivers. Only three natural passes cut through the Canadian Rockies—Yellowhead, Kicking Horse, and Crowsnest—and it is through these that the produce of the prairies must pass to reach the markets of the Pacific Rim. Farther west, the Columbia and Skeena mountains, the interior plateaus, and the deep gorges of the Fraser and Thompson rivers also have made travel difficult. Finally, the massive Coast Mountains plunge into the Pacific, forming sheer walls and a deeply indented, fjordlike coast. Vancouver Island and the Queen Charlotte Islands, projections of another fold of the Earth's crust, form the Island Mountains. In the St. Elias Mountains in the Yukon Territory to the north, Canada's highest point—Mount Logan—soars nearly 20,000 feet (6,000 meters) above sea level. It is almost on the border of Alaska. Minerals, forest products, and the abundant harvests of farms, rivers, and the ocean make the Cordilleran Region important to Canada.

The Arctic Region consists of thousands of islands north of the Canadian mainland. The southeastern islands are an extension of the Canadian Shield. The rest make up two distinct landform areas: the Arctic lowlands to the south and the Innuitian Mountains to the north. The Innuitians are geologically young mountains similar to those of the Cordilleran Region, with some peaks and ridges reaching 10,000 feet (3,000 meters). Much of the Innuitian region is permanently covered with snow and ice. Because of the hostile climate, the mountains are largely unexplored.

Rivers and Lakes

More than 8 percent of Canada's area is covered by water, and this is still the key to the prosperity of the nation. All its major cities and towns are located on a main river or lake.

Two main watersheds, or ridges that account for differences in the direction of water drainage, divide Canada. The first and most significant of these is the Continental Divide in the Rocky Mountains. A less noticeable but important watershed is a ridge of high land that more or less follows the 49th parallel of latitude from the Rockies to the head of the Great Lakes; it separates the waters flowing northward to the Arctic Ocean or Hudson Bay from those flowing eastward toward the Atlantic Ocean or southward to the Gulf of Mexico.

The North and South Saskatchewan rivers carry water from the Rockies to Manitoba's Lake Winnipeg. Together with the flow from the Red and Assiniboine rivers in southern Manitoba, these waters flow northeastward through the Nelson River to Hudson Bay. Numerous rivers from Manitoba, northern Ontario, and northwestern Quebec also flow into Hudson Bay and James Bay. Almost all other rivers in Canada flow into the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River system and then into the Atlantic Ocean.

In all the world there is no collection of fresh water to equal the Great Lakes. From Duluth, Minn., in the United States, they stretch in an unbroken line through the St. Lawrence to Belle Isle, Newfoundland and Labrador, a distance of more than 2,300 miles (3,700 kilometers). Canada shares all of the lakes with the United States except Lake Michigan, which lies entirely within the United States. These huge lakes have long played a major role in westward expansion and economic growth. They have eased the flow of raw materials, agricultural products, and finished goods to and from markets all over the world and have greatly enriched the two nations that share them.

Climate

In a land as vast as Canada, it is natural to find a great variety of climates. Although overall the country is cool, there are some remarkable differences from region to region. The factors that cause these variations include ocean currents, mountain ranges, and latitude.

Ocean currents have the strongest effect on climate along the Pacific coast. Westerly winds, blowing from the sea to the land, carry moisture onshore from the warm waters of the Alaska Current. The mountains force the winds upward, causing the air to cool and produce rain. These conditions result in heavy precipitation and mild winter and summer temperatures along the coast of British Columbia.

The heavy rainfall on the western side of the mountains leaves little moisture in the air as it moves to the east. Thus the Prairie Provinces are dry. Without the moderating influence of the ocean, this region experiences hot summers and severely cold winters.

Ontario and Quebec have more rainfall than the Prairie Provinces because the air masses pick up moisture from the Great Lakes and Hudson Bay. Southern Ontario and Quebec have hot, humid summers and cold, snowy winters.

The effect of the Atlantic Ocean is not as great as that of the Pacific because the westerly winds blow from the land onto the water. Nevertheless, the warm Gulf Stream does moderate summer and winter temperatures and make the Atlantic Provinces wetter than central Canada.

The Arctic Region has frigid winters and short, cool summers. Winters grow more severe with increasing distance north of the Equator.

Culture

Canada's history has produced a culture that, in its broadest sense, is a mixture of British, French, and American influences. These elements blend and sometimes compete in every aspect of cultural life, from filmmaking and writing to cooking and sports. Canada's native peoples and immigrant groups have added to the mix, creating a cultural diversity that the country considers a national asset. In 1971 the federal government adopted an official policy of multiculturalism, and through various funding arrangements it encourages ethnic communities to keep alive their language and cultural traditions.

The earliest Canadian literature was written by French explorers, missionaries, and settlers. Notable among these books was Marc Lescarbot's Histoire de la Nouvelle France (History of New France), from 1609. This and other early French colonial works were published in France and intended for European readers. The first French books to be published in Canada appeared only in the 1830s. The first major contribution in English was made by Thomas Haliburton of Nova Scotia, with The Clockmaker; or, the Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick of Slickville (1836). Canadian novelists made great strides in the 20th century, especially after World War I. Drama experienced something of a renaissance in Canada beginning in the 1960s, with Toronto becoming the third largest production center in the English-speaking world after London and New York City.

Canada's visual arts tradition dates back to the earliest years of human settlement. The sculpture and handicrafts of the native peoples, including the stone carvings of the Inuit and the totem-pole carvings of the Northwest Coast Indians, are now recognized as important works of art. Since the arrival of Europeans, painting has been the focus of most Canadian artists. In the 19th century Canadian painters often used their native European styles to depict Canadian landscapes and locales. The influential landscape painters known as the Group of Seven devoted themselves to developing a national style in the first decades of the 20th century. Many later Canadian painters moved away from landscapes in favor of such movements as abstract and conceptual art. The National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, dating from 1880, includes the most extensive collection of art by Canadians.

Music flourished in Canada beginning in the second half of the 20th century. Choral music societies developed across the country, and opera was available not only in such metropolitan areas as Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver but also in remote parts of the country through touring productions. The symphony orchestras of Toronto and Montreal have international reputations.

Sports are another valued part of Canadian life. Some of the sports played in Canada, such as lacrosse, are derived from those of the native peoples or the early settlers. Ice hockey is Canadian in tradition and leadership, and it remains one of the country's favorite winter sports. All of the original teams of the National Hockey League were Canadian. Ice skating and skiing are also popular winter activities.

Education and Health

The Canadian constitution grants responsibility for public education to the provinces. In the territories, the federal government funds education but the territorial assemblies administer the schools. Educational systems vary from one jurisdiction to the next, but in general all children must attend school from age 6 or 7 to age 16. Most children begin their schooling at age 5 in kindergarten. At about age 14, most students move from elementary school into a four-year secondary school. Instruction is available in English or French in each province and territory.

The public school systems in some provinces include denominational schools. These are also called separate schools because they usually are administered separately from the nondenominational system. Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Quebec have Roman Catholic and Protestant separate schools; Newfoundland and Labrador has a more open system that allows a number of religious groups to organize their own schools. The other provinces officially have nonsectarian school systems but still have allowed some state support for religious schools.

Students in Canada may pursue postsecondary education either in a community college or in a university. Community colleges are public institutions that offer bachelor's degrees in some academic programs but focus mainly on technical and occupational training. Many colleges allow students to earn credits before transferring to a university. The largest universities include the University of Toronto, founded in 1827, and the multicampus University of Quebec (1968). In 1960 Canada had 29 community colleges with 9,000 students; by 1999 there were about 200 such institutions with some 400,000 full-time students. In this same period the university system expanded from 44 to 75 institutions, and the number of full-time students increased from 114,000 to more than 580,000.

Under the Canadian constitution, the federal government is responsible for the education of aboriginal peoples. Its handling of the task has been controversial. Beginning in the 1880s the government supported a system of church-run residential schools, which were designed to assimilate aboriginal peoples into Canadian life and break ties to their native culture. Many of the children forced to leave their homes to attend the schools were abused and made to feel ashamed of their native heritage. In 1998 the federal government issued an apology for the treatment of aboriginal peoples in the residential schools and established a “healing fund” to assist the thousands of surviving individuals who were subjected to the program. The federal government continues to fund aboriginal schools but has little direct involvement in their administration.

Canada has a national health-care system that is designed to provide quality medical care for all its residents. The federal government determines national standards, but provincial governments are responsible for providing, financing, and managing most health-related services. As Canadians have been living longer, the costs of the system have increased substantially, leading many provincial governments to reduce benefits or increase social-insurance taxes.

Cities

Even though Canada is often thought of as a land of open spaces, its population is mostly urban. About four fifths of the people live in cities, towns, or villages with a population of 10,000 or more. Many people who are classified as rural residents do not work in agriculture but commute to an urban center to work. Toronto, Ont., is the largest city in Canada, followed by Montreal, Que., its French-language rival, and Vancouver, B.C., in the west.

Since the mid–20th century Toronto has grown phenomenally, from a rather sedate provincial town to a thriving, cosmopolitan metropolitan area. In 1998 Toronto merged with the municipalities of East York, Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough, and York to form the new City of Toronto. This “megacity” is part of a larger urban region called the Golden Horseshoe, which extends westward along the southern shores of Lake Ontario to the Niagara peninsula.

Toronto's development owes much to the city's location on the northern shore of Lake Ontario. Its access to the Atlantic Ocean via the St. Lawrence Seaway and to major American industrial cities via the Great Lakes has enabled Toronto to become an important international trading center. It also has surpassed Montreal to become the country's dominant financial center. The skyline of downtown Toronto, near the lakefront, is dominated by the CN Tower, a communications spire that is also the world's tallest freestanding structure. (See also Toronto.)

Montreal, situated at the meeting point of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence rivers, is often described as the largest French-speaking city outside France. It and Quebec city, both founded in the 17th century, are Canada's oldest cities. Outside the high-rise towers of the central business district, the influence of French architecture and culture is evident. The 19th-century buildings of Old Montreal provide a view of the city's vibrant past. Modern Montreal has a strong research and development sector and remains a financial center. Because of its location at the eastern end of the St. Lawrence Seaway, it is also the most important seaport in eastern Canada. (See also Montreal.)

Vancouver, in southwestern British Columbia, is the focus of the financial, commercial, agricultural, and industrial life of the province. Towered over by the Coast Mountains, Vancouver's harbor is Canada's largest, busiest, and most picturesque. The city serves as Canada's main business hub for trade with Asia and the Pacific Rim. (See also Vancouver.)

Canada's other large urban region is the Calgary-Edmonton corridor in Alberta, which extends from Calgary in the south to Edmonton in the north. In the early 21st century this region had a higher rate of population growth than any of the three largest metropolitan areas. Much of the growth was the result of internal migration from other provinces.

Other metropolitan areas in Canada with a population of more than 500,000 include Ottawa-Hull, which straddles the border of Ontario and Quebec; Hamilton, Ont.; and Quebec city, Que. Ottawa is the national capital. Winnipeg is the heart of the most populous metropolitan area in central Canada. Quebec city, with its well-preserved old town, has retained an Old World character and is arguably the most charming metropolis in Canada.

Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing

As Canadians moved from rural areas to cities in the 20th century, the economic importance of agriculture, forestry, and fishing declined. By the first years of the 21st century this sector employed just 3 percent of the workforce and accounted for 2 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), which is the value of all the goods and services produced in a country during a year. Nevertheless, the sector remains integral to the national economy, producing food for both the domestic and export markets and providing raw materials for food processing, forest products, and other industries.

Industry

Like other industrialized countries, Canada experienced a major shift toward a service economy beginning in the late 20th century. Industry's share of the economy steadily declined during this period, but it is still a significant contributor. In the early 21st century manufacturing, construction, mining, and public utilities together accounted for more than one fourth of Canada's GDP and employed about one fifth of its workforce.

Services

Despite the continued vitality of agriculture and manufacturing in Canada, the service sector employs more people than all other activities combined—some three fourths of the workforce. The sector encompasses a broad range of activities outside of the goods-producing industries, including public administration, finance, health care, and education.

Tourism ranks among the fastest-growing service areas. Canada is one of the world's leading destinations for foreign travelers, particularly from the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, and Germany. Canadian and foreign travelers spend billions of dollars each year on transportation, accommodations, food, recreation, and entertainment as they travel in the country.

The Canadian economy has always relied heavily on trade. Canada's economic development historically depended on the export of raw materials, especially fish, fur, grain, and timber. Over the years, however, raw materials have declined as a percentage of Canada's exports while processed, fabricated, and manufactured goods have increased. The leading Canadian exports include automobiles and automobile parts, aircraft, machinery, telecommunications equipment, chemicals, plastics, fabricated metals, oil, natural gas, and forestry products, including wood pulp and newsprint. Among the main imports are automobiles and automobile parts, industrial machinery, chemical products, textiles, oil, and foods that cannot be grown or produced domestically.

For many years cheaper labor in parts of Europe and Asia led the Canadian government to create tariffs, or extra charges on foreign products, to protect Canadian manufacturers. In the 1980s Canada began moving away from this policy to comply with international trading rules. In 1989 Canada established a free-trade area with the United States, beginning the process of phasing out protectionist trade and investment barriers. The implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 expanded the free-trade area to include Mexico. The agreement solidified the already strong trading relationship between Canada and the United States, which accounts for about three fourths of all Canadian trade. Canada's other important trading partners include Japan, the United Kingdom, Mexico, China, and Germany.

Transportation and Communications

An efficient transportation system has always been a necessity in Canada because of the country's enormous size, the unevenness of its population distribution, and the need to ship goods over great distances. The national transportation system began with the Canadian Pacific Railway, built in the 1880s to connect the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts. Today the number of railway miles per capita in Canada is among the world's highest, with the major networks in the southern part of the country. Two companies, Canadian Pacific Railway and Canadian National Railways, control most of Canada's railway facilities. Most passenger service is handled by VIA Rail.

Water transport is integral to Canada's international and domestic trade. The busiest port is Vancouver, B.C., which handles many of the country's exports, especially to Asian markets. Most of Canada's imports come through the eastern ports of Montreal and Halifax, which are well situated for receiving goods from Europe. The most important inland shipping route is the 2,342-mile (3,769-kilometer) St. Lawrence–Great Lakes Seaway, which connects the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean through a series of locks and canals. The seaway accommodates all but the largest oceangoing vessels, making the upper St. Lawrence and Great Lakes area open to four fifths of the world's maritime fleet.

Vast distances and rugged terrain have made air transport very important in Canada. The leading airline is Air Canada, which offers domestic and international service. Toronto's Lester B. Pearson International Airport is by far the busiest in the country.

The government-run Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) operates national television and radio networks in both English and French. Many privately owned stations are affiliated with the CBC and help to distribute its programming. More than 100 daily newspapers are published in Canada in more than 20 languages. Virtually all Canadian households have at least one telephone, and Canadians have also embraced new communications technology, as cell phone and Internet use greatly expanded in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. By 2002 more than three fifths of Canadian households had access to the Internet.

Prehistory and European Contact

Canada's native peoples began migrating to North America from Asia at least 12,000 years ago and possibly much earlier. They presumably traveled over a now-submerged land bridge between Siberia and Alaska. The Inuit of the Arctic were probably the last of the native peoples to reach Canada. The Indians who lived in the area before contact with Europeans belonged to 12 different language groups, including the Algonquian, Iroquoian, Siouan, Athabascan, and Inuktitut. Within each language group there were usually political and cultural divisions. The one characteristic shared by virtually all the groups in precontact Canada was that they were self-governing and politically independent.

The earliest European discovery of North America was made by Norse seafarers known as Vikings (see Vikings). The vague accounts of their exploits are drawn from their sagas, epic stories in prose or verse handed down by word of mouth through many generations. In about AD 985 Norse seamen sailing from Iceland to Greenland were blown far westward off their course and sighted the islands of Newfoundland and Labrador. The report of forested areas on the unfamiliar coast encouraged further explorations by Norse colonists from Greenland, whose settlements lacked lumber.

In about AD 1000 Leif Ericson became the first European to land in North America (see Ericson, Leif). According to the sagas, this was the first of many Norse voyages to the eastern shores of the continent. The Vikings established a colony in a wooded area they named Vinland but stayed there for only a short time. In 1963 the remains of houses and other artifacts of a Norse settlement dating from this time were discovered at L'Anse aux Meadows, at the northernmost tip of Newfoundland. This site may have been Vinland, but archaeologists do not know for certain.

Rediscovery and Exploration

In 1497 the Italian explorer John Cabot sailed west from Bristol, England, intent on finding a new trade route to Asia for his patron, King Henry VII of England (see Cabot, John). This voyage led to the rediscovery of the eastern shores of Canada. Cabot was as confident as Christopher Columbus had been that a new seaway was now open to Asia. On a second voyage the following year, Cabot explored the coast of North America, landing at various points—none too clearly charted—from Baffin Island to Maryland. The Cabot voyages gave England a claim by right of discovery to an indefinite area of eastern North America. England's later claims to Newfoundland, Cape Breton Island, and neighboring regions were at least partly based on Cabot's exploits.

Of more immediate significance were the explorer's reports of immensely rich fishing waters. Soon Portuguese, Spanish, and French fishing vessels were crossing the Atlantic to fish in the waters southeast of Newfoundland and east of Nova Scotia. Occasionally such ships even cruised into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. At times their crews encountered Indians along the shores who were willing to trade furs for iron and other manufactured goods.

When it was realized that only the wilds of an unexplored new world had been discovered rather than a new passage to Asia, there was a spirit of disillusionment in Europe. Gradually, however, this feeling was replaced by a fresh interest in North America as Spanish and Portuguese adventurers were reported to be bringing home rich cargoes of gold and silver from the Caribbean. In 1524 King Francis I of France sent a Florentine navigator, Giovanni da Verrazano, on a voyage of reconnaissance overseas. Verrazano explored the eastern coastline of North America from North Carolina to Newfoundland, giving France too some claim to the continent by right of discovery. (See also America, discovery and colonization of.)

Cartier's Explorations

The first known penetration of the interior through the St. Lawrence River gateway took place the following year, when Cartier returned as leader of a new expedition. Pressing upstream in three small vessels, he reached the Indian village of Stadacona, near the site of the present-day city of Quebec. A little more than 150 miles (240 kilometers) farther upstream he reached a large island. Here he found another Indian village, Hochelaga, on the site of the present-day city of Montreal. From the peak behind it, which he named Mont Réal, he could see the foaming Lachine Rapids blocking the way to the upper waters of the St. Lawrence. At Stadacona, Cartier and his followers passed a bitter winter. Many of his party died from cold and scurvy before he could set sail for France the following spring.

End of the First Colonizing Effort

In 1541 Cartier led his third, and probably his last, expedition to the St. Lawrence. A new headquarters was established at Cap-Rouge, a few miles upstream from Stadacona. This time Cartier was to be followed by Jean François de la Rocque, sieur de Roberval, with a party of colonists. After a wait that lasted through the following winter, Cartier set sail for home, only to meet Roberval's party “in three tall ships” in the harbor of what is now St. John's, on the island of Newfoundland.

Disregarding the orders of Roberval, who was his senior officer, to accompany the colonizing party back to Quebec, Cartier sailed for France under cover of darkness. The Roberval expedition proceeded upstream, and a tragically unsuccessful effort was made to found a permanent colony on the site where Cartier had wintered the previous season. By the following year some 60 of the colonists had died. Roberval decided to abandon the whole colonizing project, and France itself turned its back on the Canadian experiment for almost 60 years.

Champlain's Explorations

Throughout the rest of the 16th century the European fishing fleets continued to make almost annual visits to the eastern shores of Canada. Chiefly as a sideline of the fishing industry, there continued an unorganized traffic in furs. At home in Europe new methods of processing furs were developed and beaver hats in particular grew very fashionable. Thus new encouragement was given to the infant fur trade in Canada. In 1598 Troilus de Mesgouez, marquis de la Roche, set out for Canada armed with a new kind of authority—a royal monopoly that gave him the exclusive right to trade in furs.

La Roche established a small colony on Sable Island, an isolated Atlantic sandbar southeast of what is now Nova Scotia. The settlement, which proved a dismal failure, was the first of a series of efforts by France to persuade various leaders to set up colonies in Canada in return for an official monopoly of the fur trade. In 1600 Pierre Chauvin established a trading post at Tadoussac, on the St. Lawrence River. This post survived for about three years.

In 1604 the fur monopoly was granted to Pierre du Guast, sieur de Monts. He led his first colonizing expedition to an island located near the mouth of the St. Croix River. Later this was to mark the international boundary between the province of New Brunswick and the state of Maine. Among his lieutenants was a geographer named Samuel de Champlain, who promptly carried out a major exploration of the northeastern coastline of what is now the United States (see Champlain, Samuel de). In the spring the St. Croix settlement was moved to a new site across the Bay of Fundy, on the shore of the Annapolis Basin, an inlet in western Nova Scotia.

Here at Port Royal in 1605 a fur-trading settlement was established. It was France's most successful colony to date. The land came to be known as Acadia (see Acadia).

Establishment of the First Permanent Colony

The cancellation of De Monts's fur monopoly in 1607 brought the Port Royal settlement to a temporary end. Champlain persuaded his leader to allow him to take colonists and “go and settle on the great River St. Lawrence, with which I was familiar through a voyage that I had made there.” In 1608 he founded France's first permanent Canadian colony. It was at Quebec, at the foot of a great rocky cape on the north shore, which formed a natural fortress barring the way upstream to the interior.

The early years of the Quebec colony were hard, and the population grew slowly. Champlain administered its affairs and took personal charge of an organized exploration of the unknown interior. Where he did not actually travel himself, he sent other explorers. One was Étienne Brulé, the first European to cross Pennsylvania and later the first to see Lake Superior. In 1609 Champlain himself discovered the lake that was later named for him, and in 1615 he journeyed by canoe up the Ottawa River, through Lake Nipissing, and down Georgian Bay to the heart of the Huron country, or Huronia, near Lake Simcoe. During these journeys Champlain aided the Huron in battles against the Iroquois, who sought to eliminate the Huron and take complete control of the interior fur trade. The Iroquois thus became mortal enemies of the French.

In 1628 war broke out between England and France. The hostilities extended to the New World, where they served as an excuse for English adventurers with ties to rivals of Champlain's to besiege Quebec. In 1629 Champlain suffered the humiliation of having to surrender his almost starving garrison. He was taken to England as a prisoner. Peace, however, had been declared between England and France before the surrender, and New France was accordingly restored to the French. Champlain returned from Europe to spend his few remaining years in Quebec. He became governor of New France in 1633.

Growth of the Colony

New France continued to grow slowly. The fur trade served both to keep alive an interest in the territory and at the same time to discourage the development of agriculture, the surest foundation of a colony in the New World. Settlers founded Trois-Rivières, farther up the St. Lawrence, in 1634.

The most distant outpost for many years was Montreal, founded by Paul de Chomedy, sieur de Maisonneuve, on May 18, 1642. First known as Ville-Marie, this settlement, later to become one of Canada's largest cities, was begun as a mission post. One of the most famous of the leaders who accompanied Maisonneuve was Jeanne Mance, founder of the Hôtel-Dieu, the first hospital at Ville-Marie.

The establishment of Montreal was part of a large Canadian missionary movement that was based in France. Missionaries traveled with the explorers and worked to convert the Indians in New France to Christianity. During the 40 years following the founding of Quebec, a dozen mission posts were built in the Huron country south of Georgian Bay.

The Huron lived under constant threat of attack by the Iroquois dwelling south and east of Lake Ontario. Suddenly, in 1648, the Iroquois launched their final invasion of Huronia. Several Jesuit priests died in the fighting, and within a year both the Huron and the missionaries had been either wiped out or driven elsewhere.

War with the Iroquois continued to be one of the great obstacles to the expansion of settlement in New France. The history of the colony contains many accounts of heroism dating from this period. The soldier Adam Dollard des Ormeaux has been called the savior of New France for leading a small band of Frenchmen and Indian allies in a stand to the death against an Iroquois war party that was on its way to destroy the settlement at Montreal. When the Iroquois counted their losses, they abandoned their plans to attack Montreal. Another notable story is that of 14-year-old Marie-Madeleine de Vercheres, who is remembered for defending her family's fort against attacking Iroquois in 1692 even if she later embellished the tale to exaggerate her heroism.

Seigneur and Habitant

The feudal system of landholding, which had long been established in France, was adopted in the colony. The nobles, in this case the seigneurs, were granted lands and titles by the king in return for their oath of loyalty and promise to support him in time of war. The seigneur in turn granted rights to work farm plots on his land to his vassals, or habitants. In exchange, the habitants were required to pay certain feudal dues each year, to work for the seigneur for a given number of days annually, and to have their grain ground in the seigneurial mill.

In underpopulated New France the habitants welcomed the fact that the seigneur was obligated to build a mill. They had no military duties to perform except their common defense against the Indians. Because there was little money and not much use for it, the taxes took the form of payments in chickens, geese, or other farm products. These obligations were hardly burdensome. The seigneurs wanted their habitants to stay farmers, and there was as much land as anyone could till.

Governor, Intendant, and Bishop

As in France, there was nothing resembling a democratic system of government in the colony. The senior official was the governor, appointed by the king. In the exercise of his almost absolute power he felt more responsible to the king in France than to the people he governed.

Another post of French officialdom was established in Canada in 1665 with the appointment of an intendant, whose chief duties concerned finance and the administration of justice. However, there was sufficient overlapping of authority between governor and intendant to breed more jealousy than cooperation between the two offices.

Jean Talon, who had come to New France in 1665 to serve as the first intendant, brought about a rapid expansion of the colony. He encouraged agriculture, business, crafts, and exploration and stimulated immigration. Under his direction, a census of New France was taken in 1666, which showed a population of 3,215. By that time the English controlled 10 colonies on the Atlantic coast to the south, and they had greatly exceeded New France in population and self-sufficiency (see America, discovery and colonization of).

In 1672 Count Louis de Frontenac arrived in the colony as governor (see Frontenac, Louis de). He built a fort at Cataraqui, near what is now the city of Kingston, and brought the Iroquois into an enforced peace. He directed a series of major exploratory voyages to the interior. Among the greatest explorations were those made by Louis Jolliet, Father Jacques Marquette, and René Cavelier, sieur de La Salle. By 1682, however, the troubles between Frontenac and the intendant, Jacques Duchesneau, had become so serious that the king recalled both governor and intendant. (See also Jolliet, Louis; La Salle, Sieur de; Marquette, Jacques.)

Frontenac was sent out as governor again in 1689, just after a new war had broken out between France and England. He carried the fighting right into the English colonies, dispatching expeditions overland against the settlements to the south in the dead of winter. When Sir William Phips led a British fleet upstream to Quebec in 1690, the French governor refused the demand for surrender, saying to the emissary of the English commander, “I will answer your general by the mouths of my cannon!”

In 1674, with the elevation of the vicar apostolic, François Xavier de Laval-Montmorency, to the rank of bishop, a new and powerful office was created at the head of the clergy in New France. Laval organized the parish system in the colony, gave encouragement to the missionaries, and founded Quebec Seminary for the training of young men for the priesthood. He resigned his office in 1684 but spent the last 20 years of his life in the seminary he had established in Quebec.

French and English Rivalry

While the English colonies were growing rapidly along the Atlantic seaboard, French fur traders and explorers were extending long but thinly supported strands of ownership deep into the heart of North America. La Salle's exploration of the Mississippi to its mouth in 1682 gave France a claim to a vast area bordering the American colonies from the Great Lakes and the Ohio River valley southward to the Gulf of Mexico. It could be only a matter of time before the rivalries between France and England elsewhere in the world would be reflected in a final struggle for the ownership of the North American continent. England's concern over France's threatened control of much more than half the continent began as early as Henry Hudson's last voyage, in the time of Champlain (see Hudson, Henry), and the searches for the Northwest Passage by such explorers as Sir Martin Frobisher, John Davis, and William Baffin.

England came to realize that the easiest riches of the New World were to be found in furs rather than in gold. Thus it was quick to follow up its claim to the back-door route to the fur country by founding the Hudson's Bay Company in 1670, on the suggestion of Pierre Esprit de Radisson and Médart Chouart, sieur de Groseilliers (see fur trade, history of the).

For many years England's domination of Hudson Bay was threatened by the French. In 1686 Pierre Troyes led an amazing overland expedition from Montreal to the shores of the bay, where his followers succeeded in capturing a number of the company forts by surprise. In his party was one of the most daring and brilliant leaders in the history of New France, Pierre le Moyne, sieur d'Iberville. Iberville commanded a series of naval raids into the bay during the next few years and almost succeeded in driving the English from this part of the continent altogether. (See also Iberville, Pierre.)

A fresh struggle between France and England, known as Queen Anne's War, broke out in 1702 and led to the capture of Port Royal by the English in 1710 (see Queen Anne's War). The Treaty of Utrecht, which reestablished peace in 1713, required France to surrender the Hudson Bay Territory, Newfoundland, and Acadia (which became Nova Scotia). France was permitted to keep Cape Breton Island as well as its inland colonies.

As an immediate result of this setback, France founded the powerful Fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island. It was to serve as a year-round military and naval base for France's remaining North American empire and also to protect the entrance to the St. Lawrence River. During the next 25 years Louisbourg was developed into the most heavily fortified bastion in North America.

In 1745 an army of New Englanders led by Sir William Pepperell mounted an expedition of 90 vessels and 4,000 soldiers against Louisbourg. The fortress had become a hornet's nest of raiders who preyed on the merchant ships of the American colonies. Within three months the New Englanders succeeded in forcing Louisbourg to surrender. The fortress was returned to France, however, by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle signed in 1748. (See also King George's War.)

To counterbalance the renewed threat from Louisbourg, England set up an Atlantic bastion of its own. In 1749 a fleet bearing more than 2,500 new settlers from the British Isles began the construction of the city of Halifax in Nova Scotia.

The Final Struggle for the Continent

Peace between the two rival powers did not last long. Fresh fighting broke out in the New World in 1754, when the British sent an expedition against French-held Fort Duquesne, in the Ohio River valley where the city of Pittsburgh now stands. This and a second expedition the next year were both unsuccessful. In 1755 a tragic episode occurred in Acadia. The Acadian French who refused to take the oath of allegiance to the English king were herded aboard transports and shipped to the English colonies to the south (see Acadia). American histories refer to the fighting that began in 1754 as the French and Indian War. In 1756 this war became part of a larger conflict between England and France and their respective allies in Europe that came to be known as the Seven Years' War. (See also French and Indian War; Seven Years' War.)

During the conflict, the English objective in North America was to overrun New France and particularly to seize Quebec, the nerve center of the colony. Under the skillful generalship of Louis-Joseph Montcalm, the routes to Quebec down the St. Lawrence River from Lake Ontario and north down the Richelieu were successfully closed. The first was stopped at Oswego, and the second at Ticonderoga. The French won brilliant victories at both of these points. The third route lay up the St. Lawrence, past the French stronghold of Louisbourg. In 1758 a powerful British force landed on Cape Breton Island. In the fighting that followed, Louisbourg fell for the second and last time in its history. The waterway to Quebec was open at last. In 1759 a fleet of 140 ships, carrying 9,000 troops commanded by Gen. James Wolfe, sailed up the St. Lawrence and laid siege to the capital of New France.

Both Wolfe and Montcalm were mortally wounded in the fighting. Montreal, cut off from all hope of reinforcements and supplies from France, fell easily before the advancing British forces the following season. When the Treaty of Paris at last brought the Seven Years' War to a close in 1763, the British flag waved over almost all of eastern North America. (See also Montcalm, Louis-Joseph; Wolfe, James.)

Early British Rule

The British faced two immediate problems in the vast territory that had thus been added to their other Atlantic colonies. There were more than 60,000 French-speaking subjects in the new province of Quebec (the former New France). In addition, there were large tracts of thinly settled wilderness in the Great Lakes area where their isolated garrisons were seriously outnumbered by the Indians.

Led by an Ottawa chieftain named Pontiac, the Indians suddenly rose against the English and overthrew these forts one by one, massacring the soldiers in them. By the middle of 1763 the only British soldiers left west of Lake Erie were in Fort Detroit. It alone among the western forts held out against Pontiac until fresh troops were rushed in, and the Indian uprising was subdued at last. (See also Pontiac.)

The Quebec Act of 1774

The loyalty of the new province was soon put to the test. Within a year of the passing of the Quebec Act, the American Revolution had begun in the 13 Atlantic colonies. In the fall of 1775 the rebelling colonies sent two armies north to capture the “14th colony.” Sir Guy Carleton, the British governor of Canada, narrowly escaped capture when one of these armies, under Richard Montgomery, took Montreal. Carleton reached Quebec in time to organize its small garrison against the forces of Benedict Arnold. Arnold began a siege of the fortress, in which he was soon joined by Montgomery. In the midwinter fighting that followed, Montgomery was killed and Arnold wounded. When spring came the attacking forces retreated. During the rest of the American Revolution, there was no further fighting on Canadian soil.

The United Empire Loyalists

When peace was established in 1783, many thousands of Loyalists, who were referred to as Tories by their fellow countrymen, left the newly created United States. These colonists had remained loyal to Great Britain during the Revolution. They started their lives afresh under the British flag in Nova Scotia and in the unsettled lands above the St. Lawrence rapids and north of Lake Ontario.

This huge influx of settlers, who were known in Canada and England as the United Empire Loyalists, marked the first major wave of immigration by English-speaking settlers since the days of New France. Their arrival had two immediate consequences for the British colonies. Both the Atlantic province of Nova Scotia and the inland province of Quebec had to be reorganized.

Prince Edward Island had broken off from Nova Scotia in 1769. In 1784 the area of previously unsettled forests to the west of the Bay of Fundy was established as a separate colony known as New Brunswick. Cape Breton Island was simultaneously separated from Nova Scotia (a division that was ended in 1820). In all, some 35,000 Loyalist immigrants are believed to have settled in the Maritimes.

The settlement of the more inaccessible lands north and west of Lake Ontario and along the north shore of the upper St. Lawrence proceeded somewhat more slowly. About 5,000 Loyalists came to this area.

Upper and Lower Canada

It was clear that these United Empire Loyalists who had come to the western wilderness of what was still part of Quebec would not long be satisfied with the limited rights and French laws established by the Quebec Act. Accordingly, in 1791 the British Parliament enacted the Constitutional Act, whereby Quebec was split into the two provinces of Upper and Lower Canada. Each of these was to be governed by a legislative council appointed for life and a legislative assembly elected by the people.

The right to be represented in a lawmaking assembly was something new for the French-speaking inhabitants of the lower province. Legislative assemblies had been in existence in Nova Scotia since 1758, in Prince Edward Island since 1773, and in New Brunswick since 1786. Representative government, however, was not necessarily responsible government, as was to be demonstrated before another 50 years had passed.

Settlement and Exploration in the West

The Canadian prairies were not entirely unknown even in the days of New France. As early as the 1730s a family of explorers headed by Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye, began a series of overland explorations far to the west of Lake Superior. Their travels carried them into what is now the western United States, perhaps as far as the foothills of the Rockies. They visited Lake Winnipeg, the Red River, the Assiniboine River, and the Saskatchewan River as far upstream as the fork formed by the North and South Saskatchewan headstreams.

The posts of the Hudson's Bay Company had given England a preferred jumping-off point for exploration of the Canadian west. An expedition under Henry Kelsey explored part of that territory in 1690, long before the journeys of the La Vérendryes. In 1754 Anthony Henday traveled from Hudson Bay as far as the foothills of the Rockies, reaching a point near the site of present-day Red Deer, Alta. Another Hudson's Bay Company trader, Samuel Hearne, discovered Great Slave Lake in 1771, and by descending the Coppermine River to its mouth, he became the first European to reach the Arctic Ocean by land. Although the Rockies still barred the overland route to the western ocean, the Pacific coast of Canada was visited by sea in 1778, when Capt. James Cook explored the northwest coastline from Vancouver Island to Alaska.

In 1783 a group of Montreal merchants founded the powerful North West Company. Not only did the new fur-trading company provide sharp competition, but its trappers explored large parts of the previously unknown expanses of the Canadian west. In 1789 Alexander Mackenzie (a Nor'wester, as agents of the North West Company were called) followed the river that now bears his name from its source to the Arctic Ocean. Disappointed because he had not discovered a route to the Pacific, he set out on another expedition in 1792. After a strenuous journey over the most rugged terrain on the continent, Mackenzie and his companions at last crossed the Rocky Mountains to reach the Fraser River in 1793. From the Fraser they portaged to the Bella Coola, which they descended until they sighted the long-sought western sea. Only a few weeks earlier Capt. George Vancouver had explored the same part of the Pacific coast by sea.

Mackenzie's journey was the first made by a European across the continent in either Canada or the United States. In 1808 the Fraser River was thoroughly explored by Simon Fraser, after whom it is named. In 1811 David Thompson completed his exploration of the Columbia from its source, in southeastern British Columbia, to its mouth, in what is now Oregon.

The Selkirk Settlement

Although fur trading and settlement did not go well together, Thomas Douglas, earl of Selkirk, became interested in the possibilities of settling Scottish farmers who had lost their farms at home in the fertile valley of the Red River near the site of present-day Winnipeg. From the Hudson's Bay Company he purchased a huge tract of 100,000 acres (40,000 hectares) in this area. In 1812 the first group of Selkirk's settlers from Scotland and Ireland began to arrive from Hudson Bay, where they had spent the previous winter.

The Nor'westers and the Métis who worked for them considered the new settlement a threat to their livelihood. Fighting broke out between the new settlers and the established traders. In 1817 Selkirk himself visited the colony with a force of military veterans to put an end to the troubles and to punish the Nor'westers and their partners, whom he held responsible for the bloodshed that had occurred. The North West Company brought a lawsuit against Selkirk for the action he had taken, and he was forced to pay damages. Although Selkirk returned to Great Britain in poor health in November 1818 and died a disappointed man a few years later, he had begun the first permanent settlement on the Canadian prairies. (See also fur trade, history of the; Manitoba.)

The War of 1812

The early hopes of the United States to drive the British entirely from North America were dashed by a series of defeats at the hands of British regulars and Canadian militia forces. Fort Michilimackinac, at the entrance to Lake Michigan, was captured by the British soon after the outbreak of fighting and was not recaptured during the remainder of the war. An American attack across the Detroit border was not only forced back but, under the brilliant generalship of Gen. Isaac Brock, ably assisted by the Shawnee chieftain Tecumseh and his warriors, was turned into a disastrous defeat. The army defending Detroit was forced to surrender, and the fort itself fell into British hands. Later the same year the United States launched an attack on the Niagara frontier. Brock was killed early during the fighting at Queenston Heights, but the invasion was repulsed.

Although there were times when the United States occupation of the whole of Upper Canada seemed almost certain, brilliant defensive battles turned the tide on every such occasion. Among the most important engagements were those at Châteauguay and Crysler's Farm in the autumn of 1813, at a time when United States forces were threatening to capture Montreal and cut off the only supply line to Upper Canada. At Châteauguay, British forces under Col. Charles de Salaberry were greatly outnumbered by those of the United States, but Salaberry's strategic positioning of his troops in the woods convinced the Americans that they were surrounded by superior forces and caused them to retreat. This battle also provided another opportunity for French Canadians to fight side by side with their English-speaking countrymen. The victory contributed a great deal to the growing national pride of Canadians in both Upper and Lower Canada.

Great Britain and the United States signed a peace treaty on Dec. 24, 1814. The agreement called for the restoration of forts and territories that had been captured by both countries, leaving neither side a clear winner. Nevertheless, the war had a lasting effect by arousing strong feelings of nationalism among the people of the British colonies in Canada. All likelihood of a union between the United States and Canada had disappeared. (See also War of 1812.)

Struggle for Self-Government

The successful defense of their homeland had not left the Canadians incapable of seeing faults in their own form of government. There were those—especially among the successful businessmen and wealthier landowners—who believed that the colonists had sufficient powers of self-government through their elected assemblies. There were others, however, who saw little advantage in an assembly whose bills could be defeated by the legislative council or could go unsigned by the governor on the advice of the executive council. The real power did not lie in the hands of the people through their elected representatives but with appointed officials who were responsible only to the government in Britain. In practice the power lay in the hands of the governor and of his executive advisers.

The citizens could use their assembly as little more than a forum in which to criticize the manner in which the government was operated. Worse still, local matters that today are dealt with by elected municipal bodies were all handled by the central government of each colony.

Mackenzie and Papineau Rebel

The period following the War of 1812 was one of expansion of population, business, and settlement. This was especially true in Upper Canada, where large numbers of newcomers were attracted by low-cost land grants. The very growth of the colony offered many opportunities for profit by those who could control the land grants.

One of the loudest opponents of the government's administration of the land grants—and of autocratic colonial rule in general—was William Lyon Mackenzie (see Mackenzie, William Lyon). His criticisms centered on the elite group of officials somewhat misleadingly known as the Family Compact, who dominated the government of Upper Canada. As a member of the provincial legislature, Mackenzie listed a long series of grievances that exposed the inadequacies of colonial rule. When the government failed to redress these problems, Mackenzie began to call for the independence of Upper Canada.

As affairs in Upper Canada moved toward a climax, an equally serious crisis was building in Lower Canada. The grievances were different, but the causes were similar. Here the real power was in the hands of a British governor and his councilors, referred to critically as the Château Clique, who constantly rebuffed the elected representatives of the French-Canadian majority. The leader of the radical reforms in Lower Canada was Louis-Joseph Papineau (see Papineau, Louis). Papineau, like Mackenzie, had been elected to the provincial legislature several times. Also like Mackenzie, he had finally come to the conclusion that no lasting reform could be achieved unless the bonds with Britain were severed.

Rioting occurred in Montreal in 1837. When the government decided to arrest Papineau, he immediately fled across the border to the United States. Largely because the radicals interpreted this as persecution of their leader, open rebellion followed in several centers. All revolts were quickly put down.

Similar troubles broke out in Upper Canada almost immediately. Mackenzie prematurely called for an advance toward Toronto from his headquarters just north of the city before his ill-equipped followers were sufficiently well organized. The attack was driven back and the city, rapidly filling with Loyalist supporters, was fully alerted. A few days later these forces marched northward against Mackenzie and, after a short skirmish, dispersed his troops.

Like Papineau, Mackenzie fled across the United States border, but he had not abandoned the struggle. Early in 1838 he took possession of Navy Island in the Niagara River and, with a small number of followers, tried to organize his planned republic under what he spoke of as a “provisional government of Upper Canada.” The army and militia were now in full control of the situation, and they forced Mackenzie to return to the United States once again. Other disturbances followed along the border during 1838. After a few unsuccessful raids, the United States took steps to prevent its territory from being used for further attacks against the Canadas.

The struggle for reform was more peaceful in the Maritimes. Here the leading reformers included Joseph Howe, in Nova Scotia, and Lemuel Allan Wilmot, in New Brunswick. Howe had a much clearer understanding of the principles and advantages of responsible government—that is, government accountable to the people through their elected representatives—than had either Mackenzie or Papineau. Although he was persecuted for some of the criticisms he voiced in his newspaper, the Novascotian, he rallied widespread support. When sued for libel, he won his case.

The Durham Report

The seriousness of the troubles in British North America caused deep concern in Great Britain, where memories of the American Revolution could be recalled. At the request of Queen Victoria, who came to the throne in 1837, John George Lambton, earl of Durham, accepted appointment as governor in chief of British North America with special powers as lord high commissioner. He arrived in Quebec in the spring of 1838; though he ended his stay before the year was out, his Report on the Affairs of British North America is one of the most important documents in the history of the British Empire.

Durham recommended that Upper and Lower Canada be united under a single parliament. He said that if the colonies were given as much freedom to govern themselves as the people of Britain had, they would become more loyal instead of less so. He even forecast the possibility of a future union of all the British colonies in North America. His only serious error of judgment was his strong recommendation that French-speaking Canadians be forced to assimilate into the growing English-speaking majority. Durham drove himself and others tirelessly to gather the information he required for his report during the few months he was in Canada. His political opponents at home, however, continued to attack him, and, stung by their criticisms, he returned to Britain to submit his findings. He did not live to witness the action that was taken on his report, for within a year he became ill and died.

Canada West and Canada East

In the first several years of this period, the principle of complete self-government and the subordination of the governor's authority to that of Parliament was developed and finally accepted. It was a critical time in the constitutional history of Canada, and the ability of the two chief Canadian nationality groups to get along with each other was tested for many years.

Each side produced great public figures. Prominent were Robert Baldwin from Canada West and Louis Hippolyte Lafontaine from Canada East (see Baldwin, Robert). Both men had taken part in the agitation preceding the rebellions of 1837, but they had stood apart from the extreme measures that led to armed insurrection. Both had grasped the meaning of responsible government. By joining forces they formed a strong coalition during the early years of the new government, and the result was that much legislation was carried through. Included were laws for establishing municipal governments, for founding the University of Toronto as a nonsectarian institution, and for changing the system of law courts.

The real test of the principle of responsible government took place in 1849. Parliament passed the Rebellion Losses Bill, which had to go before the governor-general, James Bruce, earl of Elgin, for his signature to become law. The bill provided for compensation to those who had suffered during the rebellion of 1837 in Lower Canada. It was violently opposed by many of the Tories, who felt that tax money was being turned over to former rebels.

There was some question as to whether or not Elgin would sign the bill as his ministers advised him to do. When Elgin decided that he must sign into law whatever bill was recommended to him by his Cabinet, he was made the object of a torrent of abuse from the Tories. Elgin's carriage was attacked, and his house was stoned. Furthermore, rioting broke out, and the Parliament buildings in Montreal were razed by fire. Out of the ashes of the government buildings, however, was born true colonial self-government that embodied the principle of responsible cabinet rule.

The Colonies Develop

In the meantime Canada was swelling with settlers, and the foundations of a British province on the west coast were being laid. A flood of newcomers began to arrive after the War of 1812, mostly from the British Isles. About 800,000 immigrants came to Canada between 1815 and 1850, a movement sometimes called the Great Migration. The hardships faced by the new settlers were many. The trials often began in the crowded, cholera-ridden, and poorly provisioned sailing ships that brought the immigrants in great numbers across the Atlantic. The building of new settlements went on in the Maritime Provinces and in the Canadas, and early in the 19th century Cape Breton Island was settled by Gaelic-speaking farmers from the Scottish Highlands.

The largest tracts of land available for settlement were in Upper Canada, where the opening of new settlements in the dense forests was an almost continuous process during this period. One of the largest and most famous of these was the huge tract of land on the north shore of Lake Erie acquired by Thomas Talbot in about 1802. Established in 1803, the Talbot Settlement was governed by him during the whole period of its development, which covered almost 50 years. In 1824 a large private enterprise known as the Canada Company, promoted by John Galt, was launched with government backing. Settlements began after the company obtained about 2.5 million acres. Between 1824 and 1843 the company was responsible for opening up most of the western part of the province lying north of Talbot's land.

Until the coming of the railway, the principal method of moving heavy freight over long distances was by water. Canals in the colonies were therefore improved, and new ones were dug. Roads were cut through the bush to connect the far-flung centers of settlement with lake and river ports. On the backwoods farms great branding fires burned steadily for weeks at a time as the pioneers slowly cleared their lands. As a rule, the stumps were left in the ground to rot, which required from five to six years for most woods. Cedar and pine roots could hamper the use of horse-drawn plows for as long as 15 to 20 years. In most respects pioneer life was very similar in Canada and the United States.

Settlement on the Pacific Coast

The isolation of the Pacific coast from the rest of Canada was almost complete during this period. The only practical route from the Pacific coast to Britain was by sea around Cape Horn. When the North West Company was absorbed by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1821, Dr. John McLoughlin was sent to superintend the affairs of the latter organization in the huge area lying between the Rockies and the Pacific and reaching as far south as California.

The boundary line between United States and British territory on the west coast was far from clear at this time. The Hudson's Bay Company possessed a flourishing trading post at Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River more than 200 miles (320 kilometers) south of the site of the present-day city of Vancouver. For a number of years this Oregon country (which included the future state of Washington) was the scene of fur trading and settlement by the British and Americans alike by common agreement. (See also Oregon; Washington.)

In 1846 the Oregon Boundary Treaty determined that the international boundary should follow the 49th parallel, but that Vancouver Island should remain British. James Douglas, director of Fort Vancouver, had begun the building of Fort Victoria, on Vancouver Island, just three years earlier. In 1849, under his supervision, it became the Hudson's Bay Company's western headquarters.

The economic dominance of the fur trade was challenged in 1858 by the electrifying news that gold had been discovered along the Fraser River. Douglas, with support from the British government, promptly extended his authority to the mainland. There was a great need to bring law and order to the mining camps arising everywhere in the new territory. This need was met by Matthew Begbie, a firm and respected judge whom Douglas called to his assistance. Many of the miners departed when the gold rush subsided. The people who stayed formed the nucleus of the later province of British Columbia.

One of the great engineering accomplishments of Canadian history up to this time was the building of the Cariboo Road between 1862 and 1865. It ran from the Fraser River port of Yale to the heart of the Cariboo gold-mining country, about 400 miles (640 kilometers) upstream. The territory it ran through had been almost impassable.

The Confederation Idea

Sentiment bound the Canadas, the Maritimes, and British Columbia more closely to Britain than to each other. There were different standards of currency in use in the several colonies, and trade between them was complicated by customs barriers. Their everyday business brought them into close touch with the United States. When the St. Lawrence ports of Quebec and Montreal were frozen in, news and even passengers traveled on the new United States railways across the eastern states from New York to the Canadian border. The newly invented magnetic telegraph, which was installed in Toronto in 1846, soon connected that city not only with Quebec but also with New York City and New Orleans in the United States.

From 1861 to 1865 people in the British colonies watched with interest and uneasiness the course of the American Civil War (see American Civil War,). From this great conflict they saw arise a freshly united nation, powerfully equipped with what were now surplus tools of war and, in the opinion of many, only too willing to use them against the neighboring British colonies. Britain had almost gone to war against the North because the North's blockade of Southern shipping interfered with Britain's cotton trade. United States extremists reviving the old cry of “manifest destiny” were again calling for the absorption of the British colonies into the United States.

In the 1850s Lord Elgin had negotiated a 10-year trade treaty with the United States whereby tariffs were reduced on a reciprocal basis on many items. The resulting increase in trade with the United States—which in part replaced trade with Britain—led to an economic boom in Canada. When the United States announced in 1864 that it would not renew the treaty, colonial politicians promoted increased intercolonial trade as a substitute.

The government of the Canadas under the Act of Union was running into difficulties because Canada West by this time had increased in population faster than Canada East. The act had provided for equal representation of both parts of the colony at a time when French-speaking Canada East was numerically much larger than Canada West. A state of almost continuous deadlock ensued in Parliament, with no government able to secure a clear majority.

Between 1861 and 1864 four separate ministries and two general elections failed to end the impasse. In 1864 a coalition headed by the leader of the Conservatives, John A. Macdonald, and Liberal leader George Brown, who was founder of the Toronto Globe, gave promise of a more stable government (see Macdonald, John A.). Macdonald, with his trusted ally Georges-Étienne Cartier from Canada East, then obtained Brown's assurance of cooperation in the best interests of the country, even though Brown had long considered Macdonald and Cartier his deadly political enemies.

The coalition government wanted to work out some form of federal union to include the Maritime Provinces if they were willing. Provincial matters would be left to the individual provinces. Only subjects of concern to all the provinces would be dealt with by the federal government.

Dominion from Sea to Sea

By fortunate coincidence, the possibility of a local union of colonies was under discussion at this very time in the Maritimes. A conference was convened in Charlottetown, P.E.I., in 1864 to discuss the question. Macdonald, accompanied by Brown and Cartier, headed a delegation from Canada to this meeting of their Maritime counterparts. They set forth the possible advantages of a union wide enough to include the Canadas as well. It was quickly agreed that another meeting should be held to consider the plan further. The result was the Quebec Conference, which was held later the same year. Agreements in principle on the conditions that might permit so ambitious a union were finally reached. These agreements were summed up in the Seventy-two Resolutions.

As if to lend emphasis to the importance of such a union, the anti-British Fenians in the United States were voicing plans to strike a blow for Irish independence at home by invading the British colonies in North America. In 1866 this threat culminated in a series of raids across the border into Canada, which were successfully repulsed. The United States took steps to preserve its neutrality by suppressing further Fenian attacks from its side of the border. Some of the national spirit of 1812 to 1814 was rekindled in the British colonies and served to strengthen the movement toward confederation.

The British North America Act provided that there should be four provinces in the new Dominion at the outset—Ontario (formerly Canada West), Quebec (Canada East), New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia—and that others could join later. Each province was to have its own seat of government, its own lawmaking body, and its own lieutenant governor to represent the Crown. In addition, the act established a federal government at Ottawa, composed of a House of Commons (elected), a Senate (appointed for life), and a governor-general as the Crown's representative. It set forth the matters on which the provinces could make laws and listed those that were the special concern of the government at Ottawa. Any powers not listed were to belong to the federal government. (The act remained in force until it was superseded by the Constitution Act of 1982.)

New Dominion Is Launched

The first Parliament of the new Dominion met on Nov. 6, 1867, with Macdonald as prime minister. By the Deed of Surrender of 1869, Canada purchased the vast Northwest Territories from the Hudson's Bay Company. The company was permitted to retain trading rights in the area and a small percentage of the prairie lands. (See also Hudson's Bay Company.)

The only western settlement of importance east of the Rockies was the Red River Settlement in Manitoba, which had attained a population of some 12,000 since Selkirk's time. The Métis were the most numerous of these settlers. Their leader, Louis Riel, defied the new governor sent out to take over possession of the territory from the Hudson's Bay Company. Riel seized Fort Garry, set up his own provisional government, and forwarded demands to Ottawa that the civil rights and the land rights of the people be protected. At this point Riel might easily have won a place in Canadian history as the father of Manitoba, but he committed the grave error of imprisoning some of the Ontario settlers who opposed him and of having one of them, Thomas Scott, executed.

Calmer judgments prevailed when Donald Smith (later Lord Strathcona) and Bishop Alexandre Taché, the religious leader of the Red River Settlement, went to Ottawa and obtained passage of the Manitoba Act of 1870. By this act Manitoba was constituted a province, with its seat of government at Fort Garry (later Winnipeg). But it was a much smaller province, amounting to little more than the Red River Settlement. The right of the French-speaking inhabitants to their own religion and schools was recognized. Soldiers under Col. (later Sir) Garnet Wolseley were sent to Fort Garry to bring law and order on authority from Ottawa. Riel allowed his provisional government to collapse and fled from the new province. The Red River Rebellion was ended but not the career of Riel.

The first Dominion census, which was taken in 1871 in accordance with the British North America Act, showed a population of 3,689,257. In the same year the Treaty of Washington was signed between Britain and the United States, which settled United States and Canadian use of the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence system and the Yukon River in Alaska. The United States was accorded fishing rights in Canadian Atlantic waters for a limited period in return for 5¹/₂ million dollars in compensation. Among the five commissioners who represented Britain in these negotiations was Macdonald. His presence signaled recognition of Canada's new status in the British Empire.

During the same summer of 1871, British Columbia joined the new Canada Confederation. Improvement in overland communications was a primary condition imposed by the new province. Macdonald pledged that the Dominion government would begin construction of a transcontinental railway within two years and complete it within 10 years.

Progress on the Intercolonial Railway, which was to link the Maritimes with Quebec, encouraged Prince Edward Island in 1873 to become the seventh province in the Dominion. The transcontinental railway project already was requiring heavy fina