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Winnie-the-Pooh is a popular character in children’s books, movies and TV series. Originally appearing in Winnie-the-Pooh, a children’s book written by author A.A. Milne in 1926, the fictional character was based on a female black bear found in White River, Ontario. The bear, also called Winnie, was resident at the London Zoo, where she had been donated by Harry Colebourn, a veterinarian in the Canadian Army during the First World War.

Powwows are celebrations that showcase Indigenous music, dances, regalia, food and crafts. Commonly hosted by First Nations communities (either on reserve or in urban settings), powwows are often open to non-Indigenous and Métis and Inuit peoples alike. Contemporary powwows originated on the Great Plains during the late 19th century and, since the 1950s, have been growing in size, number and popularity. Powwows serve an important role in many Indigenous peoples’ lives as a forum to visit family and friends, and to celebrate their cultural heritage, while also serving as a site for cross-cultural sharing with other attendees and participants. Indeed, powwows provide the opportunity for visitors to learn about, and increase their awareness of, traditional and contemporary Indigenous life and culture.

Historically, the cradleboard (or cradle board), was used by various Indigenous peoples to protect and carry babies. Securely bound to a thin rectangular board, a baby could be carried on its mother's back or put in a safe location while she performed her daily routine. In some communities, Indigenous peoples still use cradleboards.

Inuksuk (also spelled inukshuk, plural inuksuit) is a figure made of piled stones or boulders constructed to communicate with humans throughout the Arctic. Traditionally constructed by the Inuit, inuksuit are integral to Inuit culture and are often intertwined with representations of Canada and the North. A red inuksuk is found on the flag of Nunavut. In Inuktitut, the term inuksuk means "to act in the capacity of a human." It is an extension of the word inuk meaning "a human being." Inuksuit have been found close to archaeological sites dating from 2400 to 1800 BCE in the Mingo Lake region of southwest Baffin Island. (See also Prehistory.) While stone figures resembling human forms are often referred to as inuksuk, such figures are actually known as inunnguaq.

Canadian Voice of Women for Peace (VOW) is a feminist, non-partisan, non-profit, non-governmental organization founded in 1960. The organization opposes violence and war and promotes nuclear disarmament, peace and social justice. It does so through education, advocacy and strengthening the voices of women. Famous members include politician Thérèse Casgrain, activist Grace Hartman and physicist Ursula Franklin.

Oral histories play an integral role in Indigenous cultures. They transmit important histories, stories and teachings to new generations. Oral histories — a type of primary source — let Indigenous peoples teach about their own cultures in their own words. Other types of primary sources, such as artifacts from historical Indigenous communities, also transmit knowledge about Indigenous histories and ways of life. Academics, researchers and museum curators use such sources to highlight Indigenous perspectives.

Chanson in Quebec. It is through the oral folk tradition, deriving its essential qualities from European folklore, that the Quebec chanson has carved out its privileged position.

Confederation and music. Confederation is the popular term for the federal union in 1867 of the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada (thereafter Ontario and Quebec), New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia under the name Dominion of Canada.

Based on an ancient Inuit folktale, Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner) is the first Inuktitut-language feature film ever made. A critically-acclaimed commercial success, it won numerous awards worldwide, including the Camera d’or for best first feature at the Cannes Film Festival and five Genie Awards, including Best Screenplay, Best Direction and Best Motion Picture, as well as the Claude Jutra Award (now the Canadian Screen Award for Best First Feature). It is widely considered one of the best Canadian films ever made, and in 2015 was ranked No. 1 of all time in a poll conducted by the Toronto International Film Festival (see Top 10 Canadian Films of All Time).

Oral history is an account of the past transmitted by word of mouth. It has made important contributions to the ways in which we understand and interpret the past. Today, oral history has become an important field of study. Oral histories are also central to Indigenous cultures, both historical and contemporary. (See also Historical Sources and Indigenous Oral Histories and Primary Sources.)

By the 1920s comics were an established popular art form in North America. With the advent of the Depression, however, significant changes occurred as publishers responded to the public's growing appetite for escapist entertainment.

Prior to the 1960s, only a few periodicals were published for Indigenous people, mainly by non-Indigenous missionary and government organizations. Notable examples were the Chinook-language Kamloops Wawa (1891-1905) and the Inuktitut-language Oblate publications of the 1940s and 1950s.

Communications have played a special role in the North. Terrain, climate and distance made it difficult for northerners to communicate with each other or with southern Canada before the advent of electronic media. In traditional times, Inuit messages were passed through personal contact.

Le Devoir is a French-language newspaper founded in Montreal in 1910 by Henri Bourassa. Known for its financial independence, this daily newspaper is still active to this day.

The Thule were an Indigenous people who began to occupy the Arctic, from Alaska to Greenland, around 1000 CE. In the winter, the Thule used a house built partially into the ground to keep them warm for long periods of time. One striking feature of this structure was the roof, which was sometimes made of whalebone. (See also Architectural History of Indigenous Peoples in Canada.)

Partially inspired by the Columbine High School massacre, The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen won the 2012 Governor General’s Award for Children’s Literature. Susin Nielsen’s 2012 youth novel tells the story of Henry Larsen, a teenager who is forced to confront his feelings and learn how to carry on after his bullied, outcast brother commits a school shooting. It was also named the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children and received the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award.

Caroline Pignat’s Egghead (2008) is a young adult novel that details the effects of bullying through the eyes of three junior high school students. The novel has been lauded for its sensitive portrayal of multiple perspectives of the causes and effects of bullying. Egghead was shortlisted for numerous prizes, including the Ontario Library Association’s Red Maple award, the Saskatchewan Young Reader’s Association Snow Willow Award and the Canadian Library Association’s Young Adult Book of the Year award. 

Margaret Atwood’s ninth novel, Alias Grace (1996), is a work of historical fiction that centres on the mysterious figure of Grace Marks. She was convicted in 1843 at the age of 16 for the murder of her employer, Thomas Kinnear, a wealthy Scottish Canadian, who was killed along with his housekeeper and mistress, Nancy Montgomery. Alias Grace won the Giller Prize for fiction in 1996. It was also shortlisted for a Governor General’s Award and England’s Booker Prize. In 2017, Sarah Polley adapted Atwood’s novel into a six-part CBC/Netflix miniseries, starring Sarah Gadon as Marks.

Robertson Davies’s landmark novel Fifth Business (1970) explores the life and psyche of a seemingly ordinary history teacher, Dunstan Ramsey, who has unwittingly played a key role in some remarkable events. It was the first book of Davies’s Deptford Trilogy, which also includes The Manticore (1972) and World of Wonders (1975). Fifth Business became arguably Davies’s most recognized novel and catapulted him to international recognition.

Section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ensures the right to instruction in French or English to the children of the francophone and anglophone minority communities in all of Canada’s provinces. Section 23 allows francophones to establish French-language school boards in each of the majority-anglophone provinces. Thanks to this key provision of the Charter, francophones outside of Quebec and anglophones in Quebec can pursue their education in their own language.