How much do you know about Canada?
I think I know this much... Am I wrong?
while in Sidney, BC
Canada?
No matter where you live in the world you’ve probably heard of Canada. Even if it’s just as the blob north of the United States. Surely, everyone has heard of Canada’s big brother to the south. They are older. The United States gained its independence from Great Britain ninety-one years before four eastern Canadian provinces—Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick—joined to form a dominion. And the USA is larger—if you don’t include bodies of water. So, of course, you’ve heard of the United States of America. And Canada is cool with being the little brother.
If you have heard of Canada you may know that it is divided into provinces and territories. You may even know the names of some of the provinces—Ontario, Quebec, Toronto.
No, wait. Toronto isn’t a province. Or at least it isn’t yet.
You may have heard of the province east of Quebec. You may know it as the Maritimes. However, if you type ‘the Maritimes’ into a search engine you’ll discover that it’s not one province but, in fact, five. Five? Is that correct? Let’s check our math, shall we? Geographically from Quebec east to the Atlantic Ocean, first up is New Brunswick. Then Nova Scotia. Then Prince Edward Island. Prince Edward Island is the smallest province so most people just call it PEI, for short. See three provinces. Did I say five? No, I’m sure I said three. And I’m not done. Here’s a Canadian magic trick, if you add Newfoundland to—. Wait, I forgot something. If you add the province now known—since 2001—as Newfoundland Labrador to the mix you no longer have the Maritimes. No, now—poof—you have the Atlantic provinces.
So that’s Eastern Canada. That’s where most people live. In fact, if you put Canada on a teeter tooter it won’t teeter or tooter. It would remain on a permanent tilt. So why look west? Many politicians have asked themselves that very question. Why?
Western Canada remained overlooked for so many years that some people who live on that side of the country got… Well, they got uppity. Not to name names but… Alberta. Alberta thinks it’s a prairie province. But it has too many hills and even mountains. Everyone knows that prairies are flat.
Prairies. That might be a new word for you. You may wonder what a prairie province is. Or you may not.
On the west coast—or wet coast, as some people who think they’re funny call it. Ha! Ha!—of Canada, you have Canada’s answer to California British Columbia. At this point, after naming all of the significant Canadian provinces, most people are too exhausted to say British Columbia so British Columbia became known simply as BC. The southern part of BC gets very little snow and usually enjoys mild weather. Usually. There are, of course, exceptions but people who live in BC—let’s call them BCers—don’t like talking about those days, hours. Instead, they like to talk about the flowers that bloom while the rest of Canada is still using snow shovels. They talk so much and so loud about those flowers that people who once lived in the prairie provinces now live in BC. There’s that word again. Prairies.
Up north lie the territories. They’re like Canada’s attic. Occasionally, we ask ourselves, I wonder what’s up there? But it takes too much effort to find out.
What’s up there? Let me see there’s Nunavut—established in 1999, it is the newest territory. The Northwest Territory. Where did that name come from? Maybe because the territory is north and west of Ontario. Maybe? And then there’s the Yukon or is it Alaska? I can never remember which one is American and which one is Canadian. I guess technically they’re both American—they’re both part of North America.
Okay… Okay, the prairies. Saskatchewan is a chunk of flat land close to Alberta and Manitoba is a chunk of flat land close to Ontario. Many people think that those provinces are bland and they could be right.
There you have it. That’s Canada.
I hear you. You need more. You want to learn more about the prairies, about Manitoba. Okay. Here you go then…
Manitoba—briefly
Manitoba is the ancestral home of the Cree, Ojibway, Dakota, Ojibway-Cree, and Dene; birthplace of the Metis nation; and home to the largest population of Icelanders outside of Iceland. Manitobians celebrate their rich, diverse ethnicity with festivals such as the Manito Ahbee Festival (an Aboriginal festival) and Festival du Voyaguer (a French festival) and Islendingadagrunn (an Icelandic festival) and Folklorama (a multicultural festival) and…
Manitoba has a fascinating, complex history.
It all started with the Aboriginals. According to T.R. Weir’s article for The Canadian Encyclopedia “Manitoba” (August 8, 2012), the Aboriginals began arriving in Manitoba from 10,000 to
13,000 BCE. The Aboriginals lived off the land—hunting, fishing, trapping, and gardening. They lived in harmony with nature, only taking what they needed to survive.
White explores searching for the Northwest Passage—a shortcut to the riches of the Orient—”discovered” Manitoba in the 1600s. They didn’t find their shortcut but they did find riches and the fur trade began.
Des Grosseillers and Radisson bought land from Charles II of England and established the Hudson’s Bay Company—a fur trading company—on May 2, 1670.
For the benefit of trappers and traders, fur trade marriages between Aboriginal women and European—British and French—men were arranged. These unions were good news for the men—‘created kinship ties, bridged political, social and commercial relationships, [but bad news for the women—]...abuses, abductions, rape, and abandonment were commonplace.’[1]
Shared parentage gave birth to a new nation—the Metis.
In the 1800s, the Canadian government grew hungry for new land to settle. The Metis worried about what these plans would mean for their future. They needed a champion and found him in Louis Riel. Born in Manitoba and educated in Quebec, Riel had the skills and courage his people needed. Riel halted the work of a survey crew, prevented a government official from entering the region, took over a fort, and established a government. He had agitators bent on overthrowing his government arrested and brought to trail. Peace restored, he negotiated with the Canadian government and created Canada’s fifth province. He chose the name Manitoba. “Manitoba” is derived from words in the Cree and Assiniboine
languages. In Cree, “manito-wapaw” means “the Strait of the spirit”. In Assiniboine, the words “mini” and “tobow” mean “lake of the prairie”.
Riel ‘adopted a List of Rights based on a multicultural, bilingual and inclusive vision of a province that respected the rights of Indigenous and minority communities. The Government of Canada sent emissaries to negotiate with Riel and eventually accepted the List as the basis for the 1870 Manitoba Act.’ [2]
On May 12, 1870, John A. Macdonald—Canada’s first prime minister—signed the Manitoba Act. He created a new province but many of the Metis lost their land.
In search of land, many French-speaking Metis moved farther west and English became the dominant language in the province. Even though the Manitoba Act had established a bilingual Manitoba the English-only attitude continued to spread across the province until ‘in March 1890, the provincial legislature passed a bill that abolished French as an official language of Manitoba.’ [2]
It took ninety-five years to bring French back to Manitoba but in June 1985 a Supreme Court ruling once again made Manitoba an officially bilingual province.
From 1871 to 1910, the Aboriginals of Manitoba signed treaties 1 to 6 and 10 to establish peace.
The Canadian government signed the treaties to acquire land. Macdonald created reservations to suppress the Aboriginals and to assimilate the non-English speaking, non-British settlers.
‘The southwest shore of Lake Winnipeg, in the Interlake region of...Manitoba, [was established as a] reserve for Icelanders’ in October 1875.’ [3]
The land was chosen for the Icelanders by a delegation of Canadian government officials—including men of British and Icelandic ethnicity—even though there was already an Aboriginal village there. Houses that had been built by the Aboriginals became homes for the Icelanders. No money was exchanged. The settlers just took the houses.
Life on the reserve was very hard and the Icelandic settlers were ill-equipped to meet these challenges.
When much smaller Canadian fish swam through holes in the nets brought from Iceland… When the settlers suffered in the cold Canadian winters… When the settlers died from smallpox during the epidemic the Canadian government choose to blame the victims. When the Icelanders fell short of the great white northern Norse of legend the Canadian government called them lazy and backward.
The government had financed the experiment in Icelandic re-settlement. They had gambled on success and fearing failure grew frustrated.
Yes, many settlers died but some survived thanks to their Aboriginal neighbours—neighbours like John Ramsay. John Ramsay doesn’t sound like an Aboriginal name—and it’s not. An Indian Agent—acting with the authority that the Indian Act provided—ensured that John’s birth name was lost in the dust of time. Ramsay was a skilled hunter and musher. Doctors hired him and his dog sled team to take
them to remote places—usually to the Icelandic settlements. One day, a doctor hired Ramsay to take
him across frozen Lake Winnipeg to a settlement that was being hit hard by smallpox. When Ramsay set out that morning, he was a husband and a father of four. When he returned home, he was a widow with one daughter. Smallpox, spread by the Icelandic settlers, had killed most of his family. The Icelandic settlers had stolen land from his friends and family and destroyed his family but still Ramsay didn’t turn his back on them. Instead, he continued to act compassionately. He would go hunting, bag a moose, and share it with his neighbours. John Ramsay was a Canadian hero who deserves to be remembered.
Thanks to Ramsay, and others like him, some Icelandic settlers survived and even, eventually, strived.
Led by men such as Sigtryggur Jonasson, the father of New Iceland, the Icelandic settlers established the first Icelandic newspaper, church and library in Canada.
Eager for progress and to prove to the Canadian government how civilized they were, the
settlers established a local government that combined aspects of the Icelandic and Canadian parliamentary systems. Iceland has the oldest parliamentary system in the world.
The Icelandic influence can be seen today in the place-names of Gimli and Hecca Island and Arborg and Lundar and…
And... And...
I have to tell you about the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and the Winnipeg Folk Festival and --.
Okay, there's just too much. You're just going to have to travel there yourself.
[1] Scott Berthelette, “Women and the Fur Trade”, The Canadian Encyclopedia, January 30, 2023 https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/women-and-the-fur-trade
[2] Glen Dawkins, “NDP push for Louis Reil Recognition as first Premier of Manitoba”, Winnipeg Sun, February 17, 2020
https://winnipegsun.com/news/local-news/ndp-push-for-louis-riel-recognition-as-first-premier
[3] Michel Verrette, “Manitoba Schools Question”, The Canadian Encyclopedia, February 7, 2006 https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/manitoba-schools-question
Ryan Christopher Eyford, “An Experiment in Immigrant Colonizations: Canada and the Icelandic Reserve, 1875-1897”, 2010
file:///C:/Users/Byronmobile/Downloads/eyford_ryan.pdf
Saskatchewan by Correina MacRae
Happy Canada Day!
Bonne fete du Canada!
while in Duncan, BC
Sunday, July 7th 2 to 4 pm
Mayne Island poets reading in the Japanese Gardens
Satuday, July 20th 2 to 4 pm
Mayne Island Library celebrates its 30th anniversary with cake and lemonade
Next Sunday...
The List of Last Chances is about the friendship that forms between thirty-eight-year-old Ruth "Ruthie" MacInnes and sixty-eight-year-old Kay March when they drive from PEI to BC.
