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Create AccountThe 16 squat, flat-roofed towers built in British North America from 1796 to 1848 were distributed as follows: Halifax (5), Saint John (1), Québec City (4) and Kingston (6). The towers were built during times of tension with the United States.
One of history's most famous wartime poems, "In Flanders Fields" was written during the First World War by Canadian officer and surgeon John McCrae.
Guelph, Ontario, was typical of small Canadian cities during the First World War. Of its population of about 16,000, more than a third, 5,610, volunteered for military service; 3,328 were accepted. Today, 216 of their names are engraved on the city’s cenotaph. While Guelphites served overseas, the war had a profound and lasting effect on their hometown — an experience that provides an insight into wartime Canada.
“Within sight of this house over 100 men of the Queen’s Own Rifles were killed or wounded, in the first few minutes of the landings.”
La Musique du Royal 22e Régiment. The regimental band of the Royal 22e Régiment. Originally named the Royal 22nd Regiment by King George V, the infantry unit was renamed in 1928 as the Royal 22e Régiment to reflect the language and culture of the unit.
The Nancy was a schooner built in 1789 at the then-British port of Detroit, by a Montréal shipbuilding company under the supervision of John Richardson (whose daughter's and wife's names were Nancy).
On 7 December 1863, during the American Civil War, 16 Confederates seized American coastal steamer Chesapeake off Cape Cod and diverted it to Saint John, NB.
Stoney Creek National Historic Site commemorates a British victory over American forces at the Battle of Stoney Creek fought on 6 June 1813 in the settlement of Stoney Creek, now part of the city of Hamilton.
The museum's four permanent exhibition spaces, called the Canadian Experience Galleries, are arranged in chronological fashion to trace the history of armed conflict and its effect on Canadian history and culture.
The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued by King George III on 7 October 1763. It established the basis for governing the North American territories surrendered by France to Britain in the Treaty of Paris, 1763, following the Seven Years’ War. It introduced policies meant to assimilate the French population to British rule. These policies ultimately failed and were replaced by the Quebec Act of 1774 (see also The Conquest of New France). The Royal Proclamation also set the constitutional structure for the negotiation of treaties with the Indigenous inhabitants of large sections of Canada. It is referenced in section 25 of the Constitution Act, 1982. As such, it has been labelled an “Indian Magna Carta” or an “Indian Bill of Rights.” The Proclamation also contributed to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War in 1775. The Proclamation legally defined the North American interior west of the Appalachian Mountains as a vast Indigenous reserve. This angered people in the Thirteen Colonies who desired western expansion.
This is the full-length entry about the Royal Proclamation of 1763. For a plain language summary, please see Royal Proclamation of 1763 (Plain Language Summary).
The Canadian Expeditionary Force was the army raised by Canada for service overseas in the First World War. About 630,000 Canadians enlisted between 1914 and 1918—most of them volunteers—as soldiers, nurses, doctors, and forestry and railway crews. More than 234,000 were killed or wounded in the war.
Eric Walters’s young adult novel Shattered (2006) tells the story of Ian Blackburn. He is shaken out of his privileged life when he meets Jack, a homeless veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces. A member of the failed United Nations peacekeeping mission to Rwanda, Jack introduces Ian to some of humanity’s darkest moments. Shattered received the 2007 Ontario Library Association’s White Pine Award for best Canadian children’s book and the 2007 National Chapter of Canada International Order of the Daughters of Empire Violet Downey Book Award.
In the final months of the Second World War, Canadians were tasked with liberating the Netherlands from Nazi occupation. In April 1945, the First Canadian Army began clearing the northern and western Netherlands, where many had suffered from food and fuel shortages in what became known as the “Hunger Winter.” Over 1,000 Canadian servicemen died in April 1945 during the last push to liberate the country. The Dutch people greeted their Canadian liberators with cheers and gratitude and continue to honour their sacrifice today.
The North Shore (NB) Regiment (NS(NB)R) is a bilingual, primary reserve infantry regiment of the Canadian Army. It is part of the 5th Canadian Division, 37th Canadian Brigade Group. The regimental headquarters is located in Bathurst, New Brunswick. Regimental battle honours include Passchendaele, Ypres 1917 and Hill 70 (First World War); the Normandy Landing and the Battle of the Scheldt (Second World War).
While they may not have had access to the battlefields, a number of Canadian women artists made their mark on the visual culture of the First World War by representing the home front. First among these were the women affiliated with the Canadian War Memorials Fund, Canada’s first official war art program. Founded in 1916, the stated goal of the Fund was to provide “suitable Memorials in the form of Tablets, Oil-Paintings, etc. […], to the Canadian Heroes and Heroines in the War.” Expatriates Florence Carlyle and Caroline Armington participated in the program while overseas. Artists Henrietta Mabel May, Dorothy Stevens, Frances Loringand Florence Wyle were commissioned by the Fund to visually document the war effort in Canada.
When the Second World War ended, more than a million Canadian men and women, serving in uniform, were set to return to their homes. A driving question for the country was: What was owed to the veterans?
By December 1837 and January 1838, rebels from Upper and Lower Canada had suffered heavy defeats at the hands of British and Loyalist forces. (See: Rebellion in Lower Canada; Rebellion in Upper Canada.) They fled to the United States to seek financial and military assistance. The American public was aware that there had been armed conflicts in the Canadas. Many were even initially supportive. However, the presence of Canadian rebels on American soil forced many to question American involvement. The growing tensions with Great Britain over the Caroline Affair complicated matters. The creation of the Republic of Texas and the fight over the abolition of slavery were also factors. In January 1838, US President Martin Van Buren took steps to ensure America’s neutrality in the Canadian rebellions.
As the threat of another world war loomed ever larger, Canadians, far from the conflict, would face a difficult choice of whether to stand again with Britain or remain isolated and safe in North America.
The Battle of the Châteauguay National Historic Site commemorates the Battle of Châteauguay, a battle in the War of 1812 that took place on 26 October 1813.
In 1976, the cairn was moved to the newly created Battle of Beaverdams Park in Thorold. Also moved to the park was a stone monument, erected in 1874, marking the grave of 16 American soldiers found during the construction of the third Welland Canal.
