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The Battle of Seven Oaks, or the Victory of the Frog Plain (la Victoire de la Grenouillère), took place 19 June 1816. The battle was a culmination of the Pemmican Wars and the escalating fur trade disputes between the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) and the North West Company (NWC). Pemmican was the food supply that the fur traders depended on to carry out operations. On the day of the battle, a party of about 60 Métis and First Nations men, led by Cuthbert Grant, was heading west of the Forks to deliver pemmican to the NWC canoe brigades on Lake Winnipeg. They were confronted at Seven Oaks by HBC Governor Robert Semple and 28 men (mostly HBC officers and employees). The gunfire and hand-to-hand combat that resulted left Semple and 20 of the HBC party dead. On the Métis side, 16-year-old Joseph Letendre died, and Joseph Trottier was wounded.

The rather casual pace and attitude of the US forces provided an opportunity for the British. A local youth named Billy Green had gathered critical intelligence on the approaching US forces, including their location and disposition.

The October Crisis refers to a chain of events that took place in Quebec in the fall of 1970. The crisis was the culmination of a long series of terrorist attacks perpetrated by the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ), a militant Quebec independence movement, between 1963 and 1970. On 5 October 1970, the FLQ kidnapped British trade commissioner James Cross in Montreal. Within the next two weeks, FLQ members also kidnapped and killed Quebec Minister of Immigration and Minister of Labour Pierre Laporte. Quebec premier Robert Bourassa and Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau called for federal help to deal with the crisis. In response, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau deployed the Armed Forces and invoked the War Measures Act — the only time it has been applied during peacetime in Canadian history.

The Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) was a militant Quebec independence movement that used terrorism to try and achieve an independent and socialist Quebec. FLQ members — or felquistes — were responsible for more than 200 bombings and dozens of robberies between 1963 and 1970 that left six people dead. Their actions culminated in the kidnapping of British trade commissioner James Cross and the kidnapping and subsequent murder of Quebec cabinet minister Pierre Laporte, in what became known as the October Crisis.

In 1837 and 1838, French Canadian militants in Lower Canada took up arms against the British Crown in a pair of insurrections. The twin rebellions killed more than 300 people. They followed years of tensions between the colony’s anglophone minority and the growing, nationalistic aspirations of its francophone majority. The rebels failed in their campaign against British rule. However, their revolt led to political reform, including the unified Province of Canada and the introduction of responsible government. The rebellion in Lower Canada, which is also known as the Patriots' War (la Guerre des patriotes), also gave French Canadians one of their first nationalist heroes in Louis-Joseph Papineau.

The North American heartland, linked by rivers running from the north, west, and south and flowing eastwards via the St Lawrence River, saw intense fighting during the War of 1812.

When the First World War began in August 1914, the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) was unprepared to fight a war at sea. Founded only in 1910, it consisted of two obsolete cruisers, HMCS Niobe and HMCS Rainbow, and about 350 regular sailors, augmented by 250 reservists. During the war, it was assigned a growing number of tasks, which it was ill-equipped to perform. This included protecting Canadian coastal waters against German U-boats. The RCN scrambled to find ships and sailors but was ill-equipped to fight enemy submarines, which sank several vessels in Canadian waters in 1918.

12e Régiment blindé du Canada (12e RBC) is the junior of three regular armoured regiments in the Canadian Army. The regiment was established in 1871 as a militia infantry battalion and was converted to an armoured regiment in 1936. In 1968, the Regular Force regiment was formed, designated 12e RBC. The regiment or detached squadrons have served in peace operations and in Afghanistan. 12e RBC has been based at CFB Valcartier, Quebec, since 1968 and is part of 5 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group, 2nd Canadian Division.

The Halifax class of helicopter-carrying frigates (FFH) are multi-purpose warships of the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN). There are 12 ships in the class. They were conceived in the 1970s as a replacement of the St Laurent and related classes of destroyer escorts, to provide antisubmarine warfare (ASW) protection for the fleet. The Halifax class entered service in the early 1990s, just after the end of the Cold War, and proved instead to be highly versatile general-purpose warships. Due to a major class-wide modernization project completed in the 2010s, they remain the backbone of the RCN surface fleet. The Halifax class will be replaced in the 2030s by the Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC) ships announced in 2019.

Canada helped develop the world’s first nuclear reactors and nuclear arms. During the Second World War, Canada participated in British research to create an atomic weapon. In 1943, the British nuclear weapons program merged with its American equivalent, the Manhattan Project. Canada’s main contribution was the Montreal Laboratory, which later became the Chalk River Laboratory. (See Nuclear Research Establishments). This Allied war effort produced the atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. It also led to the development of Canada’s nuclear energy industry.

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​HMCS Kootenay was a destroyer in the Canadian Navy. In 1969, an accident at sea killed 9 sailors and injured 53 others. It was the worst peacetime disaster in the history of the navy.

"There was a lot of targets but both sides were doing cruel things. There’s nothing sweet or easy about war and there’s nobody fighting clean wars anymore."

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Please be advised that Memory Project primary sources may deal with personal testimony that reflect the speaker’s recollections and interpretations of events. Individual testimony does not necessarily reflect the views of the Memory Project and Historica Canada.

The Battle of the Windmill was one of a series of raids launched along the Canada/US border in the summer and fall of 1838 by the Hunters’ Lodges, secret societies established by Canadian rebels who had taken refuge in the northern United States after the failed rebellions of 1837. Several thousand Americans also joined these societies, whose goal was to push the United Kingdom and the United States into war so as to liberate the Canadian provinces from British tyranny. The Battle of the Windmill was fought from 12 to 16 November 1838 near Prescott, in Upper Canada, and ended in a defeat for the invaders from the US. One month later, the Battle of Windsor put an end to the American incursions and Canadian rebellions.

Canadian Forces Bases (CFBs) are the homes of the operational units of the Canadian Armed Forces. Bases also provide housing and support services to Armed Forces members and their families. Canadian Forces Stations (CFSs) are smaller than bases and usually have minor operational units, but little or no support function.

The Battle of Kapyong is one of Canada’s greatest, yet least-known, military achievements. For two days in April 1951, a battalion of roughly 700 Canadian troops (the 2nd Battalion of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry Regiment) helped defend a crucial hill in the front lines of the Korean War against a force of about 5,000 Chinese soldiers. Besieged by waves of attackers, the Canadians held their position amid the horror of close combat until the assaulting force had been halted and the Canadians could be relieved. Their determined stand contributed significantly to the defeat of the Communist offensive in South Korea that year.

The CIM-10B Bomarc was the world’s first long-range, nuclear capable, ground-to-air anti-aircraft missile. Two squadrons of the missile were purchased and deployed by the Canadian government in 1958. This was part of Canada’s role during the Cold War to defend North America against an attack from the Soviet Union. Prime Minister John Diefenbaker’s refusal to equip the missiles with nuclear warheads led to a souring of Canada’s relationship with the United States, especially once the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the issue to the fore. The issue split Diefenbaker’s Cabinet and contributed to his party losing the 1963 election.