Search for ""

The term Ungava, meaning "towards the open water," was used to designate the Inuit band established at the mouth of the Arnaud (Payne) River.

Jean-Marie-Rodrigue Villeneuve, Oblate priest, Roman Catholic archbishop of Québec, cardinal (b at Montréal 2 Nov 1883; d at Alhambra, Calif 17 Jan 1947). After studying philosophy and theology, he began a teaching career and became active in nationalist circles, with Abbé Lionel GROULX.

The fluctuating fauna and subarctic climate, with warm summers and very cold winters, required a seminomadic way of life. Families gathered in spring and summer fish camps, at autumn meat camps, and clustered for part of the winter near dried food supplies and at good fish lakes.

Arnold Maria Walter, OC, musicologist, educator, administrator (born 30 August 1902 in Hannsdorf (Hanušovice), Moravia; died 6 October 1973 in Toronto, ON).

Henry Bird Steinhauer, Shahwahnegezhik (Ojibwa) or Sowengisik (Cree), meaning "Southern Skies"; Methodist minister, Indigenous leader (b at Rama Indian settlement, Lk Simcoe, UC c 1818; d at Whitefish Lake, Alta 29 Dec).

Roy Miki, academic, poet, critic, editor, activist (born at Winnipeg, MB 10 Oct 1942).

Belgians have contributed significantly to the economic, social and cultural development of Canada despite their relatively small numbers and their dispersion across the country. Originally, the majority of immigrants were Flemings whose settlement concentred in the agricultural regions of Québec, southwestern Ontario and Manitoba. Since 1945, Belgian immigrants have tended to be young, well-educated French-speaking professionals and entrepreneurs who prefer the urban centres, particularly in British Columbia and Alberta.

Charles Leon Aurthello Bibb (a.k.a. Lee Charles), OBC, singer, actor, civil rights activist, guitarist (born 7 February 1922 in Louisville, Kentucky; died 23 October 2015 in Vancouver, BC). Leon Bibb was a Tony Award-nominated actor, popular folk singer and trailblazing civil rights activist. After moving to Vancouver in the early 1970s, he made pioneering contributions to professional theatre and Black culture in Canada. He was inducted into the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame and the Order of British Columbia.

George Ramsay Cook, historian (born 28 November 1931 in Alameda, Saskatchewan; died 14 July 2016 in Toronto, Ontario). Educated at the UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA (BA), QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY (MA) and the UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO (U of T) (PhD), Ramsay Cook taught history first at U of T and later at YORK UNIVERSITY until his retirement in 1996.

Social organization was based on kinship and on various types of formal partnership, and affiliation between individuals tended to be more a matter of personal choice than is usually found among other Inuit groups.

Steven L. Point (Xwĕ lī qwĕl tĕl), politician, lieutenant-governor of British Columbia from 2007 to present (b at Chilliwack, BC).

Contemporary Acadia is best known through the voices and images of its artists and festivals, although a significant francophone population living in the Atlantic Canada region identifies itself with this historic and cultural community and is striving to transform it into a modern society (see Acadian Culture).

Jean Guyon, priest, artist (b at Château-Richer, Qué 5 Oct 1659; d at Paris, France 10 Jan 1687). Bishop LAVAL had great hopes for this young Canadian priest, who died before he could create any significant body of work.

Letitia Youmans, née Creighton, temperance worker (b in Hamilton Twp, UC 3 Jan 1827; d at Toronto 18 July 1896), founder of the WOMAN'S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION in Canada. Educated at the Burlington Ladies' Academy, she graduated in 1847 and taught there for 2 years.

Jean-Louis Riel (also known as Louis Riel Sr.), Métis leader, farmer, miller (born in 1817 in Île-à-la-Crosse, Saskatchewan; died in 1864 in Saint-Boniface, Manitoba). Riel rallied hundreds of Métis people in support of Métis defendants against the Hudson’s Bay Company in the 1849 Sayer trial. A landmark case in the history of the Canadian West, the Sayer verdict re-established free fur trade in the Red River Colony. By the 1850s, Jean-Louis Riel had become a leader of the French-Canadian community in the Red River. His role in having the French language used in the Assiniboia courts, and in gaining representation for the Métis on the Council of Assiniboia, helped to cement this status. Riel’s outspoken stance on Métis rights and autonomy significantly influenced his son, Louis Riel, who went on to become arguably the most significant historical Métis leader.

Adele Wiseman, novelist (b at Winnipeg, Man 21 May 1928; d at Toronto, Ont 1 June 1992). Wiseman's Russian-Jewish parents emigrated in the early 1920s from the Ukraine to Winnipeg.

Voyageurs were independent contractors, workers or minor partners in companies involved in the fur trade. They were licensed to transport goods to trading posts and were usually forbidden to do any trading of their own. The fur trade changed over the years, as did the groups of men working in it. In the 17th century, voyageurs were often coureurs des bois — unlicensed traders responsible for delivering trade goods from suppliers to Indigenous peoples. The implementation of the trading licence system in 1681 set voyageurs apart from coureurs des bois, who were then considered outlaws of sorts. Today, the word voyageur, like the term coureur des bois, evokes the romantic image of men canoeing across the continent in search of furs. Their life was full of perilous adventure, gruelling work and cheerful camaraderie.

David Zeisberger, Moravian clergyman (b near Ostrava, Czech 11 Apr 1721; d in Ohio 17 Nov 1808). Beginning in the 1740s he carried on Moravian missionary work among the Indians of Pennsylvania and founded a settlement in Ohio.

Eleazer Williams, Protestant Episcopalian minister, pretender to the French throne (b at Lake George, NY, about 1788; d at St Regis Reservation, NY 28 Aug 1858). Williams was of mixed Haudenosaunee and white ancestry from the Caughnawaga (now Kahnawake) Reserve near Montréal.

Edward Wix, Church of England clergyman, missionary (b at Faulkbourne, Eng 1 Feb 1802; d at Swanmore, Isle of Wight, Eng 24 Nov 1866). Wix graduated from Oxford in 1824 and was ordained in 1825.