Cypress Hills Massacre
The following article is an editorial written by The Canadian Encyclopedia staff. Editorials are not usually updated.
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Create AccountThe following article is an editorial written by The Canadian Encyclopedia staff. Editorials are not usually updated.
The following article is an editorial written by The Canadian Encyclopedia staff. Editorials are not usually updated.
In the fall of 1929, Canada’s Minister of Justice, Ernest Lapointe, travelled to England. He took with him Dr. Oscar Skelton — the “elder statesman” of the Canadian civil service, as William Lyon Mackenzie King once described him. When Lapointe and Skelton were done their negotiations, they had confirmed that Canada would have its independence from the British Empire.
The following article is an editorial written by The Canadian Encyclopedia staff. Editorials are not usually updated.
"Great men are almost always bad men," Lord Acton famously said. If that is so, we are going to have to tolerate flaws if we want to celebrate "great" Canadians. The eugenics movement of the early 20th century particularly tries our tolerance of several of our textbook heroes.The following article is an editorial written by The Canadian Encyclopedia staff. Editorials are not usually updated.
The following article is an editorial written by The Canadian Encyclopedia staff. Editorials are not usually updated.
The following article is an editorial written by The Canadian Encyclopedia staff. Editorials are not usually updated.
The following article is an editorial written by The Canadian Encyclopedia staff. Editorials are not usually updated.
The following article is an editorial written by The Canadian Encyclopedia staff. Editorials are not usually updated.
The following article is an editorial written by The Canadian Encyclopedia staff. Editorials are not usually updated.
In 1946, John Humphrey became director of the United Nations Division on Human Rights, and Eleanor Roosevelt was named the United States representative to the UN’s Commission on Human Rights. Humphrey was an obscure Canadian law professor. Roosevelt was the world’s most celebrated woman. For two years, they collaborated on the creation of one of the modern world’s great documents: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was adopted on 10 December 1948.
The following article is an editorial written by The Canadian Encyclopedia staff. Editorials are not usually updated.
The following article is an editorial written by The Canadian Encyclopedia staff. Editorials are not usually updated.
The following article is an editorial written by The Canadian Encyclopedia staff. Editorials are not usually updated.
The following article is an editorial written by The Canadian Encyclopedia staff. Editorials are not usually updated.
It is the greatest murder mystery in Canadian political history. Thomas D’Arcy McGee, Father of Confederationand outspoken opponent of the Fenians, was assassinated on an Ottawa street in the early hours of Tuesday, 7 April 1868.The following article is an editorial written by The Canadian Encyclopedia staff. Editorials are not usually updated.
According to legend, Sheila Na Geira (also spelled NaGeira and Nagira) was an Irish aristocrat or princess who, 300 or 400 years ago, while travelling between France and Ireland, was captured by a Dutch warship and then rescued by British privateers. She fell in love and was married to one of the privateers, Lieutenant Gilbert Pike. They settled at western Conception Bay. By the early 20th century, the legend was being told as part of Newfoundland’s oral tradition, and has since been popularized by poems, novels, scholarly articles and several plays.
The fur trade was a vast commercial enterprise across the wild, forested expanse of what is now Canada. It was at its peak for nearly 250 years, from the early 17th to the mid-19th centuries. It was sustained primarily by the trapping of beavers to satisfy the European demand for felt hats. The intensely competitive trade opened the continent to exploration and settlement. It financed missionary work, established social, economic and colonial relationships between Europeans and Indigenous people, and played a formative role in the creation and development of Canada.
(This is the full-length entry about the fur trade. For a plain-language summary, please see Fur Trade in Canada (Plain Language Summary).)
York Factory, also known as York Fort, Fort Bourbon by the French, and Kischewaskaheegan by some Indigenous people, was a trading post on the Hayes River near its outlet to Hudson Bay, in what is now Manitoba. During its life, it served as a post and later as a major administrative centre in the Hudson’s Bay Company’s fur trade network. It also bore witness to the largest naval battle to take place in Arctic Canada, the Battle of Hudson Bay in 1697.
During the fur trade in Canada, items of European manufacture (historically referred to in the literature as Indian trade goods) were traded with Indigenous peoples for furs. These items include, for example, metal objects, weapons and glass beads. (See also Trade Silver.)
In various ways, however, cultural exchanges went both ways. Some Europeans, namely the voyageurs, adopted various Indigenous technologies and clothing during the fur trade, including
the use of moccasins, buckskin pants and hats, and snowshoes.
Countries, communities, and individuals around the world are grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic. How will historians remember this time in history? Canada During COVID-19: A Living Archive is meant to capture the experiences of everyday Canadians as they live through this challenging time.
Throughout the period of the historical fur trade, water routes were the natural “highways” of the voyageurs and coureurs des bois. Canoes (later boats — principally York boats) were the principal vehicles. The location of trading posts depended on the presence of Indigenous peoples willing and able to trade, and on the ease of transportation to and from them.