50 Fun Facts About Canadian History

Which seafarers built a settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows about a thousand years ago, centuries before Columbus sailed?

The Norse left eight sod-and-timber buildings and more than 800 objects at the site, which a Norwegian husband-and-wife team excavated in the 1960s.

Which British Columbia runner with an artificial leg began the 1980 Marathon of Hope to raise money for cancer research?

Terry Fox covered 5,373 kilometres in 143 days before cancer in his lungs forced him to stop outside Thunder Bay.

Which fur-trading enterprise, chartered by King Charles II in 1670, once controlled the vast territory of Rupert's Land?

Hudson's Bay Company was the oldest corporation in North America, and it acted as the territory's de facto government until it gave up the land to Canada in 1869.

Which Nova Scotia port was devastated in December 1917 when the explosives-laden ship Mont-Blanc blew up in the harbour?

Halifax suffered the largest human-made explosion the world had seen up to then, which killed at least 1,782 people and injured an estimated 9,000 more.

Which gold rush drew an estimated 100,000 fortune seekers north after a strike on Bonanza Creek in 1896?

The Klondike stampede was brutal: only 30,000 to 40,000 of those who set out reached the goldfields, and just a few hundred got rich.

At which April 1917 battle in France did all four divisions of the Canadian Corps first fight together?

Vimy Ridge was held by three divisions of the German 6th Army, and its capture became a lasting symbol of Canadian national achievement and sacrifice.

Which railway was finished in 1885 when financier Donald Smith drove the last spike at Craigellachie?

Canadian Pacific kept a promise made to British Columbia when it joined Confederation in 1871, and Smith bent the iron spike badly as he hammered it in.

Which Glasgow-born lawyer from Kingston, Ontario, became the first prime minister at Confederation in 1867?

John A. Macdonald went on to serve 19 years in the office, a total that only one later prime minister has beaten.

Which animal's pelt, prized in Europe for making felt hats, became the driving force of the fur trade?

Beaver fur felted so well that Europe's hat makers could not get enough of it, and the animal that built the fur trade is now Canada's national animal.

Which city, founded as Bytown in 1826, did Queen Victoria select as the capital of the Province of Canada?

Ottawa took its present name in 1855, two years before the Queen's letter, and the first session of Parliament in its new buildings was held in 1866.

Which French explorer planted a cross at Gaspé in 1534 and claimed the land for King Francis I?

Jacques Cartier also put the name Canada on the map, applying an Iroquoian word he heard to the shores of the great river he explored.

Which navigator and mapmaker, remembered as the Father of New France, founded Quebec in July 1608?

Samuel de Champlain crossed the Atlantic more than 20 times and drew the first accurate maps of the eastern coastline and the Great Lakes region.

Which British general was killed at the moment of victory on the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec in 1759?

James Wolfe was struck by three musket balls at the height of the battle, and the French commander Montcalm died of his own wounds the next day.

Which French-speaking people did the British deport from the Maritimes from 1755, many of them later reaching Louisiana?

Acadians became the Cajuns of Louisiana; about 11,500 of an estimated 14,100 were deported, and some 5,000 of them died of disease, starvation or shipwreck.

Which refugees of the American Revolution arrived in such numbers that New Brunswick was split from Nova Scotia?

Loyalists poured into Nova Scotia after 1783, some 35,000 to 40,000 of them, and those who settled around the Bay of Fundy soon had a colony of their own.

Which Upper Canada woman walked 32 km through American-held territory in 1813 to warn the British of a coming attack?

Laura Secord's warning helped the British and their Mohawk allies repel the invaders, and a chocolate company took her name on the centennial of her walk.

Which Shawnee chief joined forces with the British and helped capture Detroit in August 1812?

Tecumseh was killed fighting American troops at the Battle of the Thames in Upper Canada in October 1813, a little over a year after his greatest success.

Under which name was Toronto known when American forces captured it and razed its parliament building in April 1813?

York was the capital of Upper Canada, yet its capture settled little, because the British warships on Lake Ontario were based at Kingston.

Which island rejected Confederation in an 1869 election but finally joined in 1949 as the tenth province?

Newfoundland had stood apart within the British Empire for 80 more years, and no province has joined Confederation since.

Which territory was separated from the Northwest Territories in 1999 to give Inuit self-government?

Nunavut has a land mass almost as large as Mexico, yet the 2021 census counted fewer than 37,000 people there, most of them Inuit.

Which 1867 law passed in London joined New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and the Province of Canada into one federal country?

The British North America Act kept that name until 1982, when it was restyled the Constitution Act, 1867; United Kingdom records still use the original title.

Which Métis leader headed the Red River Resistance of 1869–70 and was hanged for high treason in Regina in 1885?

Louis Riel is also remembered as a founder of the province of Manitoba, which grew out of the first resistance he led.

Which Normandy beach did the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division storm on D-Day, 6 June 1944?

Juno had stronger defences than many other landing sectors, yet by the evening halt the Canadians had pushed farther inland than any other D-Day landing force.

Which French port did a mostly Canadian force of about 6,000 raid on 19 August 1942, retreating within six hours?

Dieppe cost the raiders dearly: of the 5,000 Canadians who took part, 3,367 were killed, wounded or taken prisoner.

Which Guelph-born army physician wrote the poem In Flanders Fields after a friend's burial at Ypres in 1915?

John McCrae wrote the poem on May 3, 1915, after presiding at the funeral of his friend Alexis Helmer, and Punch magazine printed it anonymously that December.

Which wartime prime minister, Canada's longest-serving, secretly used mediums to contact his dead mother?

Mackenzie King held the office for a total of 21 years and 154 days, spread over three separate periods, and led the country through the Second World War.

Which prime minister, winner of the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize, oversaw the adoption of the Maple Leaf flag?

Lester Pearson won the prize for proposing the United Nations Emergency Force that resolved the Suez Crisis, and as prime minister he also unified the armed forces.

Which prime minister brought the constitution home from Britain in 1982, with a new Charter of Rights and Freedoms?

Pierre Trudeau signed the proclamation with Queen Elizabeth II on Parliament Hill on April 17, 1982; until then, key parts of the constitution could be changed only by the British Parliament.

Which city, founded in 1642 as Ville-Marie, hosted the Expo 67 world's fair and the 1976 Summer Olympics?

Montreal takes its name from Mount Royal, the triple-peaked mountain the first settlement was built around, and no other Canadian city has hosted the Summer Games.

Which Irish-born poet, journalist and Father of Confederation was assassinated in April 1868?

Thomas D'Arcy McGee was killed by a single handgun shot, and Patrick Whelan, convicted largely on forensic and circumstantial evidence, was hanged the following February.

Which Ontario-born doctor shared the 1923 Nobel Prize in medicine for isolating insulin at the University of Toronto?

Frederick Banting was only 32 when he won, and he split his prize money with Charles Best, the student who had worked beside him.

Which Lunenburg racing schooner, launched in 1921, won the International Fishermen's Trophy and is pictured on the dime?

Bluenose kept working as a fishing vessel between races, was sold in 1942 to haul freight in the Caribbean, and was wrecked off Haiti in 1946; the government declared the coin's schooner to be her only in 2002.

Which Mach 2 interceptor jet was cancelled on 20 February 1959, a day the aviation industry called Black Friday?

The Avro Arrow's cancellation put 14,528 Avro employees out of work immediately, and the finished aircraft, tooling and plans were ordered destroyed two months later.

Which 1970 emergency began when the FLQ kidnapped British diplomat James Cross and Quebec minister Pierre Laporte?

The October Crisis brought the first peacetime use of the War Measures Act, under which police arrested and detained 497 people; Laporte was murdered by his kidnappers.

Which Canadian forward scored with 34 seconds left to win the final game of the 1972 Summit Series against the Soviets?

Paul Henderson, not yet a star, scored the winning goal in each of the last three games, the final one after Canada trailed by two goals with a period to play.

Which Progressive Conservative became the first woman to serve as prime minister in June 1993?

Kim Campbell had already been the first woman to serve as justice minister; four months after she took office, her party lost all but two of its seats.

Which 1987 constitutional deal to recognize Quebec as a distinct society died when two provinces failed to ratify it?

The Meech Lake Accord was named for the lake in Quebec's Gatineau Hills where the premiers reached their consensus in April 1987; its three-year ratification clock ran out in June 1990.

Which fish did a 1992 federal moratorium put off limits after stocks fell to 1% of historic levels?

Northern cod had shaped life on the eastern coast for 500 years, and the collapse cost about 37,000 fishers and plant workers their jobs.

Under which name was the July 1 national holiday known from 1879 until it was renamed in 1982?

Dominion Day echoed the wording of the 1867 founding act; a 1946 bill to rename it passed the Commons quickly but died after the Senate amended it.

Which Underground Railroad conductor led her own parents to safety in St. Catharines, in what is now Ontario?

Harriet Tubman worshipped at the Salem Chapel in St. Catharines, now a National Historic Site, and rescued some 70 enslaved people in about 13 trips south.

Which Nova Scotia businesswoman refused to leave a whites-only area of a New Glasgow cinema in 1946?

Viola Desmond was convicted over a one-cent difference in tax between two seats; she received a posthumous free pardon in 2010 and appeared on the $10 bill in 2018.

Which British naval officer led the ships Erebus and Terror into the Arctic in 1845 to find the Northwest Passage?

John Franklin died in June 1847 with his ships locked in ice off King William Island, and none of the expedition's 129 officers and men survived.

Which Irish republican brotherhood based in the United States raided across the border in 1866, spurring Confederation?

The Fenians hoped to pressure Britain into leaving Ireland; instead their raids helped push the provinces to unite against the threat of invasion.

Which Speaker of the Assembly led the Patriote movement and the failed Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837–1838?

Louis-Joseph Papineau had been chosen leader of the Patriotes in 1826, and he organized boycotts of British imports before the rising began.

Which chartered steamship carrying 376 passengers from Punjab was refused entry at Vancouver in 1914?

Komagata Maru was turned back under the continuous journey rule although its passengers were British subjects, and police killed 20 of them when the ship returned to India.

Which British earl's 1839 report on the rebellions urged uniting Upper and Lower Canada into one province?

Lord Durham also pressed for responsible government, which took another decade to arrive, while French Canadians opposed a union designed to erase their nationality.

Which Soviet embassy cipher clerk defected in September 1945 with 109 documents exposing espionage in the West?

Igor Gouzenko walked out three days after the Second World War ended, and his revelations are often credited as a triggering event of the Cold War.

Which French fortress on Cape Breton Island fell to New Englanders in 1745 and to British forces again in 1758?

Louisbourg was handed back to France in 1748 in exchange for border towns in what is now Belgium; after the second capture, British engineers destroyed its fortifications.

Under which name are the roughly 800 young women sent to New France under Louis XIV from 1663 known?

The King's Daughters, or filles du roi, were sent because the young colony was populated mostly by men: soldiers, fur traders and missionary priests.

Which governor general bought a decorative bowl for ten guineas in 1892 as a challenge prize for amateur hockey clubs?

Lord Stanley's bowl, made in Sheffield and bought from a London silversmith, became hockey's championship trophy, and he was among the first inductees of the Hockey Hall of Fame.