Search for ""

Alf Erling Porsild, botanist, northern explorer (b at Copenhagen, Denmark 17 Jan 1901; d at Vienna, Austria 13 Nov 1977).

Frederick Pursh, botanist (b Friedrich Traugott Pursch in Grossenhain, Saxony 4 Feb 1774; d at Montréal 11 July 1820). At age 25 Pursh left Dresden to try his luck in the New World.

Alice Evelyn Wilson, MBE, geologist, paleontologist (born 26 August 1881 in Cobourg, ON; died 15 April 1964 in Ottawa, ON). Educated at the Universities of Toronto and Chicago, Wilson spent her entire professional career, from 1909 to 1946, with the Geological Survey of Canada. She was Canada’s first female geologist and the recognized authority on the fossils and rock of the Ottawa-St. Lawrence Valley. While she repeatedly faced barriers as a woman in a profession dominated by men, Wilson was gradually recognized for her work through various honours, including becoming the first female Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1938.

Clifford Donald Wiens, architect, designer, teacher (born 27 April 1926 in Glenn Kerr, SK; died 25 January 2020 in Vancouver, BC). Clifford Wiens’s distinguished body of work reflects both corporate modern architecture and a broader expressionist movement. Wiens was known for his superb and inventive architectural and structural details, as well as for his simple but strong forms. His distinctive approach to structure and form was shaped by his relationship with the abstract painters in the Regina Five and his background in industrial design. Wiens won two Massey Awards and the Prix du XX^e siècle from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. Following his death in 2020, the Globe and Mail called him Saskatchewan’s “leading architect of the postwar era.”

Alexander Graham Bell, teacher of the deaf, inventor, scientist (born 3 March 1847 in Edinburgh, Scotland; died 2 August 1922 near Baddeck, NS). Alexander Graham Bell is generally considered second only to Thomas Alva Edison among 19th- and 20th-century inventors. Although he is best known as the inventor of the first practical telephone, he also did innovative work in other fields, including aeronautics, hydrofoils and wireless communication (the “photophone”). Moreover, Bell himself considered his work with the deaf to be his most important contribution. Born in Scotland, he emigrated to Canada in 1870 with his parents. Bell married American Mabel Hubbard in 1877 and became a naturalized American citizen in 1882. From the mid-1880s, he and his family spent their summers near Baddeck on Cape Breton Island, where they built a large home, Beinn Bhreagh. From then on, Bell divided his time and his research between the United States and Canada. He died and was buried at Baddeck in 1922.

Although Alexander Graham Bell is most famously credited as the inventor of the telephone, he also coached what was arguably the world’s most advanced aviation team of the early 20th century.

Andrew Smith, veterinarian, educator (born 12 July 1834 in Dalrymple, Scotland; died 15 August 1910 in Toronto, ON).

Rose Mamelak Johnstone, FRSC, biochemist (born 14 May 1928 in Lodz, Poland; died 3 July 2009 in Montreal, QC). Rose Johnstone is best known for her discovery of exosomes, a key development in the field of cell biology. These tiniest of structures originating in all cells of the human body are vehicles that transport proteins, lipids and RNA from one cell to another. A pioneer of women in science, Johnstone was the first woman to hold the Gilman Cheney Chair in Biochemistry and the first and only woman chair of the Department of Biochemistry in McGill University’s Faculty of Medicine.

Ann Augusta Stowe-Gullen, née Stowe, physician, lecturer, and activist (born 27 July 1857 in Mount Pleasant, ON; died 25 September 1943 in Toronto, ON). The daughter of celebrated suffragist Emily Stowe, Augusta Stowe-Gullen was the first woman to graduate from a Canadian medical school. She was also a passionate activist for women’s franchise.

Cecily Jane Georgina Fane Pope, nurse (born 1 January 1862 in Charlottetown, PE; died 6 June 1938 in Charlottetown, PE).

Canadian Medical Association, est 1867 by 167 doctors in Québec City. It is a voluntary federation of 10 autonomous provincial medical associations united at the national level and now represents the majority of English- and French-speaking physicians across Canada.

Robert Foulis, inventor, civil engineer, painter (born 5 May 1796 in Glasgow, Scotland; died 26 January 1866 in Saint John, NB). Robert Foulis is known as the inventor of the world’s first steam-operated fog alarm, which was installed on Partridge Island in 1859. While Foulis never patented or even profited from his life-saving innovation, his invention assisted fogbound mariners for over a century.

Louis-Edmond Hamelin, OC, GOQ, geographer (born 21 March 1923 in Saint-Didace, QC; died 11 February 2020 in Quebec City, QC).

Amelia Yeomans (née LeSueur), physician, social and political reformer, temperance advocate, suffragist and public speaker (born 29 March 1842 in Québec City, Canada East; died 22 April 1913 in Calgary, AB).

Anne Elizabeth Haviland, née Grubbe, botanist and collector (born 28 September 1818 in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England; died 10 November 1902 in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island).

Donna Theo Strickland, CC, physicist (born 27 May 1959 in Guelph, ON). Donna Strickland is a pioneering physicist, known for her work on ultrafast lasers. She is currently a professor of physics at the University of Waterloo. She has authored more than 90 publications and has made seminal contributions to the field of laser technology. In 2018, Strickland was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for her work on the development of laser technology.

Arthur Edwin Covington, scientist, astronomer (born at Regina 21 Sept 1913; died at Kingston, Ont, 17 Mar 2001). He earned a BSc and MSc in physics from UBC and completed his doctoral degree and post-graduate studies in nuclear physics at the University of California at Berkeley.

Ivan Peter Fellegi, OC, statistician (born 22 June 1935 in Szeged, Hungary). Ivan Fellegi served as Statistics Canada’s chief statistician for 23 years. In this role, he introduced new methods for collecting and compiling national statistics. He has also vocally defended the agency’s independence from politics.