Canada Up to 1867
I don’t remember much from my Canadian History class, but what I do remember was boring. I was in grade nine and I took it by choice, which made it even worse: dates, battles, and politics of the day.
Nobody mentioned Sgt. Bill, the goat who served with the Canadian infantry in the First World War, or the Pig War of 1859, a twelve-year standoff over a potato-thieving pig that directly shaped the modern boundary of British Columbia, or Olivia Poole, an Ojibwe woman who drew on a traditional cradleboard practice she witnessed as a girl to invent the Jolly Jumper.
In my opinion it’s the small moments, like the controversy surrounding a hungry pig, that truly shape who we are as a nation, but I recognize the importance of the turning points in history too.
The timeline below is not a history lesson but a starting point.
c. 24,000 years ago: People take shelter in the Bluefish Caves near Old Crow, Yukon, leaving the oldest confirmed evidence of human presence in Canada.
c. 10,000 years ago: As the glaciers retreat, peoples spread across the land from Haida Gwaii to the shores of Nova Scotia.
c. 10,000 years ago: The Niitsitapi establish themselves as the peoples of the northwestern plains, following the bison across a vast territory.
c. 10,000 years ago: The Mi’kmaq settle the Atlantic provinces and develop a governing Grand Council that rules seven districts by consensus.
c. 985: Norse sailor Bjarni Herjolfsson becomes the first European to sight the coastline of North America.
c. 1000 CE: Leif Eriksson establishes a Norse settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, the first European foothold on the continent.
c. 1400 (estimated): The Mi’kmaq Grand Council governs seven districts across Mi’kma’ki through a grand chief and consensus decision-making.
c. 1450 (estimated): Dekanahwideh the Peacemaker and Hiawatha unite five nations to form the Haudenosaunee Confederacy in the Great Lakes region.
1493: Pope Alexander VI issues the Doctrine of Discovery, granting European nations legal claim to lands not inhabited by Christians.
1497: John Cabot lands on the Atlantic coast of North America and claims the territory for England.
c. 1500 (estimated): The Haudenosaunee Confederacy, formed by five nations, is already one of the world’s earliest participatory democracies when Europeans arrive.
c. 1500 (estimated): The Huron-Wendat govern civil and war-related affairs through village councils open to all men over 30.
c. 1500: An estimated 200,000 to 2.5 million Indigenous people inhabit what is now Canada, speaking up to 450 distinct languages.
Early 1500s: European fishermen working the Grand Banks make sustained contact with Mi’kmaq peoples along the Atlantic coast.
1534: Jacques Cartier hears the Iroquoian word kanata on his second voyage and unknowingly gives the country its name.
1537: Pope Paul III declares that Indigenous peoples are truly human, must not be enslaved, and may receive the Catholic faith.
1578: Martin Frobisher and his crew celebrate Thanksgiving on what would become Nunavut.
1600s onward: The fur trade grows into a vast continental enterprise built on Indigenous knowledge, technology, and labour.
1608: Samuel de Champlain founds a fortified trading post at Quebec on the St. Lawrence River.
1642: Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve founds Ville-Marie on the island of Montreal, future heart of New France.
1647: Residents of Quebec City, Montreal, and Trois-Rivières hold the first civil election in New France.
1649: The Haudenosaunee destroy the Huron-Wendat homeland of Wendake, scattering a people who survive today in Wendake, Quebec.
1670: The Hudson’s Bay Company establishes a fur trade monopoly that reshapes the economy of the entire northern continent.
1749: Edward Cornwallis arrives with 2,567 settlers and founds Halifax as the new capital of Nova Scotia.
1755: The British forcibly deport approximately 10,000 Acadians who refuse to swear an oath of allegiance to the Crown.
1756: The Seven Years’ War sees Britain and France battle for control of North America with Indigenous allies on both sides.
1758: Nova Scotia holds the first elected legislative assembly in what is now Canada.
1759: General Wolfe leads his troops to the Plains of Abraham and Quebec falls to the British by morning.
1763: Chief Pontiac leads an Indigenous alliance in a coordinated campaign to drive the British from the Great Lakes.
1763: The Royal Proclamation establishes the legal framework for Crown relations with First Nations peoples.
1774: The Quebec Act protects French civil law and Catholic worship, cementing a distinct identity within British North America.
1775: American forces attack Quebec on New Year’s Eve but are repulsed and Canada remains under British control.
1776: The first Loyalist refugees arrive in Halifax, with 40,000 more to follow and reshape the colony.
1792: Lower Canada holds its first elections, open to property-owning men and women over the age of 21.
1793: Alexander Mackenzie completes the first overland crossing of North America to the Pacific Ocean.
1811: Lord Selkirk receives a land grant at Red River and plants the northwest’s first European agricultural colony.
1812: Mohawk warriors led by John Norton help repel the American advance at the Battle of Queenston Heights.
1815: The War of 1812 ends with the Treaty of Ghent, but First Nations allies bear the greatest cost of the conflict.
1829: The Welland Canal opens, linking Lakes Erie and Ontario and unlocking the interior for trade.
1834: The Abolition of Slavery Act comes into effect across the British Empire, making Black people British subjects.
1836: The Champlain and St. Lawrence Railroad opens as Canada’s first railway.
1837: Governor Gosford orders the arrest of 26 Patriote leaders, triggering the Lower Canada Rebellion.
1848: Nova Scotia becomes the first British colony to achieve responsible government and full domestic self-governance.
1849: The Province of Canada strips women of voting rights they had held since the elections of 1792.
1856: The Grand Trunk Railway completes its line from Guelph to Sarnia, a major force in Canadian economic development.
1857: The Gradual Civilization Act offers First Nations men the vote in exchange for surrendering their treaty rights.
1858: Gold seekers flood British Columbia in the Fraser River Gold Rush, devastating Indigenous communities throughout the region.
1864: Delegates gather in Charlottetown and agree to pursue a confederation of all the British North American colonies.
1867: The British North America Act creates the Dominion of Canada on July 1.
