Atlantic Provinces
Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Newfoundland constitute the Atlantic provinces.
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Create AccountNova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Newfoundland constitute the Atlantic provinces.
In 1841, Britain united the colonies of Upper and Lower Canada into the Province of Canada. This was in response to the violent rebellions of 1837–38. The Durham Report (1839) laid out the guidelines to create the new colony with the Act of Union in 1840. The Province of Canada was made up of Canada West (formerly Upper Canada) and Canada East (formerly Lower Canada). The two regions were governed jointly until Confederation in 1867. Canada West then became Ontario and Canada East became Quebec.
The Torngat Mts of the far north rise in splendid isolation - the highest peaks east of the Rockies. Though in the same latitude as the British Isles, Labrador's forbidding terrain and extreme climate support only sparse settlement.
The word “Maritimes” is a regional designation for the Canadian provinces of Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
Prince Edward Island is Canada's smallest province, making up just 0.1 per cent of Canada’s total land area. It is situated in the Gulf of St Lawrence and separated from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick by the Northumberland Strait.
Newfoundland, the youngest of the Canadian provinces, joined Confederation in 1949. Some portion of its coast was undoubtedly one of the first parts of the continent seen by Europeans. Its total area is 405, 720 km2, of which Labrador makes up almost three-quarters (294,330 km2).
Lying in the northwestern corner of Canada and isolated by rugged mountains, the Yukon borders Alaska to the west, British Columbia to the south and the Northwest Territories to the east. Historically, it is indelibly associated with the great Klondike Gold Rush.
Nova Scotia is Canada’s second-smallest province (following Prince Edward Island) and is located on the southeastern coast of the country. The province includes Cape Breton, a large island northeast of the mainland.
The Northwest Territories lie northwest of central Canada, bordered to the east by Nunavut, to the west by the Yukon and to the south by the northeastern corner of British Columbia, as well as the entire northern borders of Alberta and Saskatchewan.
New Brunswick is one of three provinces collectively known as the "Maritimes." Joined to Nova Scotia by the narrow Chignecto Isthmus and separated from Prince Edward Island by the Northumberland Strait, New Brunswick forms the land bridge linking this region to continental North America.
Nunavut, which translates from the Inuktitut dialect of the Eastern Arctic Inuit as "Our Land," is a Canadian territory.
Quebec is the largest Canadian province. At 1.5 million km², its territory accounts for 15.5 per cent of Canada's total area. The province shares borders with Ontario, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland and Labrador.
Ontario is Canada's most populous and second-largest province. It stretches from Canada's southernmost point at Middle Island in Lake Erie in the south, to the Manitoba-Ontario border on Hudson Bay in the north, and from the banks of the St. Lawrence River in the east, to the Manitoba border in the west.
Sometimes referred to as the “keystone” province because of its position in the centre of the country, Manitoba is bounded by Nunavut and Hudson Bay to the north, Ontario to the east, the United States to the south and Saskatchewan to the west.
Saskatchewan is part of the Prairie region and is the only province with entirely artificial boundaries. It is bordered by the US to the south, the Northwest Territories to the north, and Manitoba and Alberta to the east and west respectively.
Alberta, the westernmost of Canada's three Prairie provinces, shares many physical features with its neighbours to the east, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The Rocky Mountains form the southern portion of Alberta's western boundary with British Columbia.
British Columbia is Canada's most westerly province, and is a mountainous area whose population is mainly clustered in its southwestern corner. BC is Canada’s third-largest province after Québec and Ontario, making up 10 per cent of Canada’s land surface.
The Red River Rebellion (also known as the Red River Resistance) was an uprising in 1869–70 in the Red River Colony. The uprising was sparked by the transfer of the vast territory of Rupert’s Land to the new Dominion of Canada. The colony of farmers and hunters, many of them Métis, occupied a corner of Rupert’s Land and feared for their culture and land rights under Canadian control. The Métis mounted a resistance and declared a provisional government to negotiate terms for entering Confederation. The uprising led to the creation of the province of Manitoba, and the emergence of Métis leader Louis Riel — a hero to his people and many in Quebec, but an outlaw in the eyes of the Canadian government.
Rupert’s Land was a vast territory of northern wilderness. It represented a third of what is now Canada. From 1670 to 1870, it was the exclusive commercial domain of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) and the primary trapping grounds of the fur trade. The territory was named after Prince Rupert, the HBC’s first governor. Three years after Confederation, the Government of Canada acquired Rupert’s Land from the HBC for $1.5-million. It is the largest real estate transaction (by land area) in the country’s history. The purchase of Rupert’s Land transformed Canada geographically. It changed from a modest country in the northeast of the continent into an expansive one that reached across North America. Rupert’s Land was eventually divided among Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories.