Fully unified only since 1949, and still plagued by the Québec imbroglio, Canada is a country of intertwining histories rather than a single national evolution. Not only does each of its provinces maintain a high degree of autonomy, but each grouping of native peoples can claim a heritage that cannot be fully integrated into the story of white Canada. Such a complex mosaic militates against generalization - although Canadians themselves continue to grapple with the nature of their own identity - but nonetheless what follows attempts to identify key events and themes
The beginnings
The ancestors of the
aboriginal peoples
of North America first entered the continent around 25,000 years ago, when vast glaciers covered most of the northern continents, keeping the sea level far below that of today. It seems likely that North...
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The aboriginal peoples
Before the Europeans arrived, the aboriginal peoples - numbering around 300,000 - were divided into three main language groups: Algonkian, Athapascan (principally in the north and west) and Inuktitut (Inuit). Within these groups existed a multitude of...
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The coming of the Europeans
The first recorded contact between Europeans and the native peoples of North America occurred in around 1000 AD, when a
Norse
expedition sailing from Greenland landed somewhere on the Atlantic seaboard, probably in Newfoundland
....
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New France
Meanwhile, in 1535,
Jacques Cartier
, on a voyage paid for by the French crown, made his way down the St Lawrence, also hoping to find Asia. Instead he stumbled upon the Iroquois, first at Stadacona, on the site of Québec City, and later at...
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The rise of the British
In 1670 Charles II of England had established the
Hudson's Bay Company
and given it control of a million and a half square miles adjacent to its namesake bay, a territory named Rupert's Land, after the king's uncle. Four years later the...
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The migrations
The success of this policy was seen during the
American War of Independence
(1775-83) and the Anglo-American War of 1812. The Canadiens refused to volunteer for the armed forces of the Crown, but equally they failed to respond to the appeals...
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The division and union of Canada
During this period economic expansion was principally generated by the English-speaking merchants who now controlled the Montréal-based fur trade, organized as the
North West Company
. Seeking political changes that would enhance their economic...
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Confederation
In the mid-1860s "Canada" had achieved responsible party government, but British North America was still a collection of
self-governing colonies
. In the east, Newfoundland was almost entirely dependent on its cod fishery, Prince...
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The consolidation of the west
Having apparently settled the question of a constitution, the Dominion turned its attention to the west. In 1869, the territory of the Hudson's Bay Company was bought for £300,000 and the
Northwest Territories
, as the area then became known,...
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Native peoples in the twentieth century
For the
native peoples
the opening of the twentieth century ushered in a far from happy time. Herded onto small reservations under the authoritarian paternalism of the ministry, they were subjected to a concerted campaign of Europeanization -...
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Québec and the future of Canada
Just as Canada's native peoples drew inspiration from the national liberation movements of the late 1950s and 1960s, so too did the
Québécois
. Ever since the conquest of 1760, francophones had been deeply concerned about
la survivance
...
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The present
To say that the rest of Canada has become exasperated by the interminable discussions over the future of Québec would be an understatement - and was never more so than during the
Meech Lake
conference of 1990, which conspicuously failed to...
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The history of the railway in Canada
Even before Confederation in 1867, Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada's first prime minister, grasped the need to physically link the disparate provinces of the new nation. Each area needed lines of communication to the east and west to counteract the natural...
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