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Mer de l'Ouest ("Western Sea"), originally the goal of exploration during the French regime, was the stuff of wishful thinking obligingly corroborated by Indians. Initially thought to be an inland sea somewhere west of the Great Lakes, it gradually blended in imagination with the Pacific.

Lower Canada was a British colony from 1791 to 1840. Its geographical boundaries comprised the southern portion of present-day Quebec. In 1791, Britain divided the Province of Quebec into Upper Canada and Lower Canada. (See: Constitutional Act 1791.) Britain had followed a similar policy of territorial division twice before. Prince Edward Island was detached from Nova Scotia in 1769. The provinces of Cape Breton and New Brunswick were created in 1784 in response to the wave of Loyalist immigration (which also occurred in Quebec). In 1841, Upper Canada and Lower Canada were renamed Canada West and Canada East, respectively. They were united as the single colony of the Province of Canada.

A crushing defeat for the British in the WAR OF 1812, the sacking of York began on the morning of 27 April 1813. At dawn, a flotilla of 16 American ships under Commodore Isaac Chauncey made its way to the capital of Upper Canada, YORK [Toronto].

The Webster-Ashburton Treaty, signed 9 August 1842, was negotiated by US Secretary of State Daniel Webster and Alexander Baring, First Lord Ashburton, for Britain.

This neologistic term came into public consciousness with the appointment of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism in 1963. On examining its terms of reference the commission could not find the word in a dictionary.

Serpent Mounds, situated on a bluff overlooking Rice Lake near Peterborough, Ont, is the only known effigy mound in Canada.

Following the global circumnavigation of Magellan's expedition, 1519-22, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V wished to locate a N American strait into Asian waters. The Spaniards possessed information on the Newfoundland and Labrador coasts from Portuguese voyages and from BASQUE fishermen and whalers.

In 1890 SIR WILLIAM VAN HORNE purchased Minister's Island on PASSAMAQUODDY BAY for his summer resort. Van Horne built a most impressive sandstone house there, which he called Covenhoven.

Upper Canada was the predecessor of modern-day Ontario. It was created in 1791 by the division of the old Province of Quebec into Lower Canada in the east and Upper Canada in the west. Upper Canada was a wilderness society settled largely by Loyalists and land-hungry farmers moving north from the United States. Upper Canada endured the War of 1812 with America, William Lyon Mackenzie’s Rebellion of 1837, the colonial rule of the Family Compact and half a century of economic and political growing pains. With the Act of Union in 1841, it was renamed Canada West and merged with Lower Canada (Canada East) into the Province of Canada.

Under the terms of 3 conventions Spain was obliged to accede to British requests and compensate the British for their losses.

King himself was most comfortable playing host to the conferences in Québec, and he was amply photographed and filmed with Churchill and Roosevelt.

In late 19th Century, the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada was the major railroad in the Province of Canada (Ontario and Quebec), connecting Toronto to Montreal.

The period between 1960 and 1980 was a definitive moment in Canadian literary history. Energized by the country’s centennial celebrations and widespread cultural nationalism, authors were excited by the prospect of Canadian literature as a means to help develop a national identity.

Wartime Prices and Trade Board, est 3 Sept 1939 by the Canadian government immediately before the onset of WORLD WAR II, and initially responsible to the Dept of Labour. Its creation reflected the government's concern that WWI conditions of inflation and social unrest should not return.

Samson, first locomotive in North America to burn coal and the first to run over all-iron rails. Built in New Shildon, England, it was shipped to Pictou, NS, to haul coal from the Albion Mines 9.6 km over a tramway to Dunbar Point on Pictou Harbour.

​First used as a slogan by the Mouvement Souveraineté-Association (MSA), forerunners of the Parti Québécois, this term became the PQ’s cornerstone and main objective.

Hudson's Bay Record Society, est 1938 by the HUDSON'S BAY CO to publish selections from its extensive company records accumulated since 1670. Under an agreement with the CHAMPLAIN SOCIETY, 12 volumes appeared, 1938-49.

The importance of Beringia is twofold: it provided a pathway for intercontinental exchanges of plants and animals during glacial periods and for interoceanic exchanges during interglacials; it has been a centre of evolution and has supported apparently unique plant and animal communities.

Held on 30 October 1995, the referendum on Québec sovereignty was settled by a narrow victory for the “No” camp — as had been the case in the 1980 referendum.

 Reconstruction is the process of readjustment to a peacetime economy following WWII. Many believed the end of the war would mean a return to the economic depression of the 1930s, with falling production and widespread unemployment.