Source: MAPS IN MINUTES™ © RH Publications (1997)

The second largest country of the world, occupying the whole of the northern part of North America except for Alaska and bounded by three oceans: the Pacific on the west, the Arctic on the north, and the Atlantic on the east. Canada is a federation of ten North American provinces (Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Saskatchewan), the Yukon Territory, the Northwest Territories, and the semiautonomous region of Nunavut.

Physical

Canada’s southern boundary crosses the Rocky Mountains and continues eastward on latitude 49° N. to the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence, and then crosses the northern Appalachian Mountains to join the sea along the Saint Croix River. While the Saint Lawrence is Canada’s most important river, the Mackenzie in the north-west is the longest. Northern Canada is a land of lakes, wide and winding rivers, low tundra vegetation, and dark coniferous forests. The heart of the country is a vast grain-growing region, despite a harsh climate of very cold winters and very warm but short summers. The land becomes more hilly in Quebec and the easternmost maritime provinces, and farmers concentrate on orchard crops. Canada has huge deposits of iron ore, copper, zinc, nickel, uranium, and other minerals.

Economy

The tenth largest economy in the world, Canada depends on the neighbouring USA, with whom it signed a free-trade agreement in 1989, for about 75% of its trade. Major exports include motor vehicles (assembled from imported components), machinery, crude oil, timber, natural gas, gold, potash, copper, iron ore, diamonds, chemicals, and newsprint. With the world’s third-largest oil reserves, Canada is the world’s fifth largest producer of oil and also of natural gas; however, Canada’s plans to exploit Arctic oil and gas reserves are currently hampered by diplomatic, environmental, and economic issues. Canadian agriculture is diverse, with extensive grain, oil seed (Canola), dairy, and fruit-farming as well as ranching and fur-farming.

History

Originally inhabited by Native Americans (First Nations) and by Inuit in the far north, in the 10th century Vikings established a settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows. John Cabot landed in Labrador, Newfoundland, or Cape Breton Island, in 1497 and in 1534 Jacques Cartier claimed the land for France. The first French settlement was begun by fur traders in Acadia (now part of Nova Scotia) in 1604. In 1608 Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec on the St Lawrence River. Governor Frontenac defended Quebec against Sir William Phips (1691) and led a successful campaign against the hostile Iroquois (1696). Explorers followed the routes of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Valley—La Salle reached the mouth of the Mississippi in 1682—and the name Canada came to be used interchangeably with that of New France, which referred to all French possessions in North America. Conflict between Britain and France was mirrored in Canada in the French and Indian wars. By the Peace of Utrecht (1713) France gave up most of Acadia, Newfoundland, and Hudson Bay. The remainder of New France was conquered by Britain and ceded in 1763. During or immediately after the American War of Independence some 40,000 United Empire Loyalists arrived in Nova Scotia and present-day Ontario. St John’s Island was renamed Prince Edward Island in 1799 and Cape Breton Island was joined to Nova Scotia in 1820. In 1791 Quebec was divided into Upper and Lower Canada, but following the Act of Union of 1840 the two were reunited to form the Province of Canada. Two frontier agreements were made with the USA: the Webster–Ashburton Treaty (1842) and a treaty ending the Oregon Boundary dispute (1846). Fears of US expansion led to the British North America Act (1867), creating the Dominion of Canada. The new dominion acquired full responsibility for home affairs. In 1870 the Hudson’s Bay Company’s lands around the Red River were formed into the Province of Manitoba, while the Northwest Territories passed from control of the Company to the federal government. In 1873 Prince Edward Island joined the Confederation, British Columbia, including Vancouver Island, having done so in 1871. This had been on the promise of a Canadian Pacific Railway, which was completed in 1885, enabling prairie wheat to flow east for export. Britain gave Canada title to the arctic islands in 1880. In 1896 the Yukon boomed briefly with the Klondike gold rush. In 1905

Canada. Following the American War of Independence (1775–83) many loyalists to the British crown moved north into the British colonies of Quebec and Nova Scotia. As the 19th century progressed, Canada evolved from colonial to dominion status (1867), establishing complete national sovereignty in 1982. The 20th century has seen an influx of immigrants from central and southern Europe to add to the earlier settlers of mainly French and British descent, the majority of residents of Quebec remaining Roman Catholic and French-speaking. Those descendants of the country’s earlier inhabitants, the First Nations and Inuits who have not been attracted to the industrial south live in scattered settlements.

Alberta and Saskatchewan became federated provinces. Newfoundland joined the dominion in 1949. The Hudson’s Bay Company gradually ceded all the lands for which it was responsible, but as a corporation it has retained a significant place in the Canadian economy. As the provinces developed, so did their strength vis-à-vis the central federal government, a strongly centralized political system being resisted. In 1982 the British Parliament accepted the complete national sovereignty of Canada, although it retained allegiance to the British crown as well as membership of the Commonwealth of Nations. Constitutional disputes continued through the 1980s and 1990s, with Newfoundland, Manitoba, and Quebec all rejecting proposed solutions, the last insisting on ‘distinct society’ status, but rejecting independence in provincial referendums in 1980 and 1995. In 1992 Canada signed the North American Free Trade Agreement. The semiautonomous region of Nunavut was created in 1999 as a territory for the Inuit people. Following elections in 2006 Stephen Harper became Canada’s first right-of-centre Prime Minister in 13 years, at the head of a minority Conservative government. The 2008 election produced the same result, but a convincing victory in 2011 enabled the Conservatives to form a majority government. Harper lost to Liberal Justin Trudeau in 2015, resigning as leader of the party.