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Richard Pierpoint (also historically referred to as Pawpine, Parepoint; Captain Pierpoint, Captain Dick; Black Dick), loyalist, soldier, community leader, storyteller (born c. 1744 in Bondu [now Senegal]; died c. 1838, near present-day Fergus, ON). Pierpoint was an early leader in Canada’s Black community. Taken from West Africa as a teenager and sold into slavery, Pierpoint regained his freedom during the American Revolution. He settled in Niagara, Upper Canada, and attempted to live communally with other Black Canadians. In the War of 1812, he petitioned for an all-Black unit to fight for the British and fought with the Coloured Corps.

Joao Alvares Fagundes, explorer (fl 1521). In 1520 he explored the coast south and west of Cape Race, Nfld, and perhaps entered the St Lawrence River. He may have sighted Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, Cape Breton Island and Sable Island.

Jean-Marie (or Jean) Beaudet. Conductor, pianist, administrator, organist, b Thetford-Mines, Que, south of Quebec City, 20 Feb 1908, d Ottawa 19 Mar 1971; BA (Séminaire de Québec) 1928, diplôme de virtuosité (Fontainebleau) ca 1930. Brother of Pierre Beaudet.

Gaspar Corte-Real, explorer (b 1450?; d 1501). A native of the Azores, he initiated Portuguese claims in the North Atlantic. It is thought that he reached Greenland and worked his way south to Newfoundland in 1500, and that he

"The Red Cross went up twice to try and rescue the two wounded, right up in front, but the Germans kept firing on them."

Joseph Lewis, alias Levi Johnston, also Lewes and Louis, fur trader (born c. 1772–73 in Manchester, New Hampshire; died 1820 in Saskatchewan District). Joseph Lewis was a Black fur trader, originally from the United States, who participated in the fur industry’s early expansion into the Canadian Northwest in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He is one of very few Black people involved in the fur trade whose name was documented in existing texts. Joseph Lewis is further notable for being the first Black person in present-day Saskatchewan, as well as, in all likelihood, Alberta.

Haida are Indigenous people who have traditionally occupied the coastal bays and inlets of Haida Gwaii in British Columbia. In the 2016 census, 501 people claimed Haida ancestry, while 445 people identified as speakers of the Haida language.

George Anderson Wells, bishop, scholar, lecturer (b at Clarke's Beach, Nfld 18 Nov 1877; d at Toronto 10 Apr 1964). Wells was a fisherman, sealer, labourer, and a trooper in the SOUTH AFRICAN WAR before continuing his education at various American institutions.

The Children of Peace. A religious sect active in the area of Sharon (known as Hope until the 1860s but from the 1840s mainly as Sharon), south of Lake Simcoe, Ont, from the second to the ninth decade of the 19th century.

William Morton. Tenor, teacher, b Deloraine, south of Brandon, Man, 27 Sep 1912. First trained as a violinist - he played in a dance orchestra at 13 - Morton studied voice in Regina with Alicia Birkett and in 1933 made his radio debut on CKCK.

Paul Hahn. Cellist, businessman, b Reutlingen, south of Stuttgart, 11 May 1875, d Balsam Lake, Ont, 20 Jul 1962. Paul Hahn arrived in Canada in 1888 and settled in Toronto. His cello teachers included Rudolph Ruth in Toronto and Alwin Schroeder in Boston.

“Canuck” is a nickname for a Canadian — sometimes bearing a negative implication, more often wielded with pride. It goes back at least as far as the 1830s, and its meaning has changed over time. The word “Canuck” may be most familiar today as the name of a National Hockey League franchise, the Vancouver Canucks (see British Columbia). In the 20th century, the term enjoyed a much broader use.

James McGill, fur trader, merchant, politician, philanthropist (born 6 October 1744 in Glasgow, Scotland; died 19 December 1813 in Montreal, Lower Canada). James McGill was one of Montreal’s most prominent citizens in the 18th and early 19th centuries. He grew a successful career as a fur trader into a business empire. McGill also held various positions in public office, including three terms in Lower Canada’s legislature. His will contained the endowment for McGill University. James McGill’s achievements cannot be separated from the fact that he enslaved Black and Indigenous people and profited from this practice.

Tsimshian (Tsim-she-yan, meaning “Inside the Skeena River”) is a name that is often broadly applied to Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, speaking languages of the Tsimshian language family. In the 2016 census, 2,695 people reported speaking a Tsimshian language, with the largest concentration (98.1 per cent) living in British Columbia. Another 5,910 people claimed Tsimshian ancestry.

The North-West Resistance (or North-West Rebellion) was a violent, five-month insurgency against the Canadian government, fought mainly by Métis and their First Nations allies in what is now Saskatchewan and Alberta. It was caused by rising fear and insecurity among the Métis and First Nations peoples as well as the white settlers of the rapidly changing West. A series of battles and other outbreaks of violence in 1885 left hundreds of people dead, but the resisters were eventually defeated by federal troops. The result was the permanent enforcement of Canadian law in the West, the subjugation of Plains Indigenous Peoples in Canada, and the conviction and hanging of Louis Riel.