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As explained in our Mission, Citizen.ca focuses on knowledge closely connected to Canadian identity and Canadian spirit, rather than every fact about Canada. Some topics will therefore be absent. If you believe a missing topic belongs within this focus, please contact us.

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597 recordsStructured records (JSON) ↗
Monument to Philemon Wright, Gatineau.
CA-K895Economy & trade

Philemon Wright, founder of Hull and the Ottawa timber trade

In 1800 the American entrepreneur Philemon Wright founded the farming settlement that became Hull. Turning to the region’s forests for income, he pioneered the Ottawa Valley timber trade, floating his first raft of square timber to Québec in 1806, and later built Canada’s first timber slides to bypass the Chaudière Falls. The Ottawa Valley became a major source of Canadian timber exports in the second quarter of the 19th century.

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Photo: Jeangagnon · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
John Clarence Webster, portrait.
CA-K885Culture & sport

John Clarence Webster, surgeon and historian

John Clarence Webster, born at Shediac, trained in medicine and held posts at Edinburgh, McGill and Chicago, becoming chief obstetrician and gynecologist at Chicago’s Presbyterian Hospital. After retiring he turned to history, writing many articles on New Brunswick and helping found museums at Saint John and Fort Beauséjour. He served on the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada.

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Photo: New York : J. T. White Company · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Charles Marega, 1929 (Archives of Ontario).
CA-K880Culture & sport

Charles Marega, sculptor of Vancouver

Charles Marega, an Italian-Canadian sculptor, created many notable monuments in British Columbia after arriving in 1909, first in the Beaux-Arts style and later in Art Deco. He helped found both the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts. The lions of the Lions Gate Bridge, his last public work in the city, are among Vancouver’s best-known icons.

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Photo: Unknown photographer; Archives of Ontario · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
W.R. Motherwell, 1913 (Bain News Service).
CA-K878Economy & trade

W.R. Motherwell, champion of the western farmer

William Richard Motherwell, born in Perth, Ontario, settled at Abernethy and advocated for western farmers. In 1901 he helped initiate the Territorial Grain Growers’ Association, which sought better grain inspection and shipping. As Saskatchewan’s agriculture minister from 1905 to 1918, he supported agricultural education and co-operative grain handling; he later served as Canada’s agriculture minister.

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Photo: Bain News Service, publisher · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Susan Louisa Moir Allison, portrait.
CA-K876Culture & sport

Susan Allison, memoirist of the BC interior

Susan Allison wrote a memoir of settler life in the interior of British Columbia, describing the experiences of women, children and Indigenous people. As an amateur ethnographer, she also recorded Similkameen and Okanagan stories. Her writings are historical sources that should be read in the context of European settlement and colonial relations.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Plaque honouring Wilmot at the New Brunswick Legislative Building.
CA-K874History

Lemuel Allan Wilmot, reformer and Lieutenant-Governor

Lemuel Allan Wilmot, born in Sunbury County, entered politics as a Reformer and represented York County from 1835 to 1851. As Attorney General he was in effect the head of New Brunswick’s first government under responsible government. Named to the Supreme Court in 1851, he resigned in 1868 to become Lieutenant-Governor until 1873.

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Photo: JJonahJackalope · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
James L. Ralston, 1921 (Harris & Ewing).
CA-K873History

J.L. Ralston, Minister of National Defence

James Layton Ralston, born in Amherst, Nova Scotia, was a lawyer, provincial legislator and decorated First World War veteran. He became Minister of National Defence in Mackenzie King’s government in 1926 and again in 1940. His support for conscription for overseas service was opposed by King, and he was forced to resign from cabinet in 1944.

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Photo: Harris & Ewing · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Alfred Ernest Cross, 1920 (Curlette).
CA-K872Economy & trade

A.E. Cross, rancher, brewer and Stampede founder

Alfred Ernest Cross, born in Montréal and trained in agriculture and veterinary medicine, came west in 1884 and took up ranching. In 1892 he founded the Calgary Brewing and Malting Company, and he was an early investor in Turner Valley oil and gas. He sat in the North-West Territories Assembly from 1898 to 1902 and was one of the founders of the Calgary Stampede.

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Photo: Curlette · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
William Francis Ganong, April 1913.
CA-K871Places & geography

William Francis Ganong, scholar of New Brunswick

William Francis Ganong, born in Saint John, was a scientist, cartographer, geographer and historian. During 38 years as professor of botany at Smith College in Massachusetts (1894–1932), he gathered and published historical and scientific material on New Brunswick and became a leading authority on the mapping of North America’s east coast. He died in Saint John in 1941.

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Photo: White · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Maurice Cullen, R.C.A., 1931 (Archives of Ontario).
CA-K866Culture & sport

Maurice Cullen, painter of the Canadian winter

Maurice Cullen, born in St. John’s, studied sculpture in Montréal under Philippe Hébert and painting at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Returning in 1895, he taught at the Art Association of Montreal and in the First World War served overseas as an official war artist. His international reputation rests mainly on his impressionist views of the Canadian winter.

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Photo: Unknown photographer; Archives of Ontario · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
David Laird, 1894 (The Canadian Album).
CA-K864Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

David Laird, the Indian Act and the Numbered Treaties

As Minister of the Interior from 1873 to 1876, David Laird helped shape policies that treated First Nations as wards and sought their assimilation, and was the main figure in consolidating earlier laws into the Indian Act of 1876. He negotiated Treaties 4, 7 and 8, whose meaning remains disputed. As Indian commissioner he restricted ceremonies and at times worked to dispossess First Nations of promised reserves. He also founded the Charlottetown Patriot.

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Photo: Unknown photographer · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
William Henry Steeves, portrait.
CA-K857History

William Henry Steeves, New Brunswick merchant and Father of Confederation

William Henry Steeves, born in Hillsborough, was a leading merchant and lumberman before entering politics. He sat in New Brunswick’s Assembly and Legislative Council and was almost continuously in cabinet from 1854 to 1865. Bringing a reform-minded business outlook, he supported the Intercolonial Railway and Confederation to aid the province’s economy, and was named to the Senate in 1867.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Vilhjálmur Stefánsson (Bain News Service).
CA-K855Places & geography

Vilhjálmur Stefánsson, Arctic explorer

Vilhjálmur Stefánsson, born at Arnes, Manitoba, in 1879 to an Icelandic family, made three expeditions to the Canadian Arctic between 1906 and 1918 and wrote widely about the land and its Indigenous Peoples. Inuit support was essential to his success; his Iñupiaq partner Panigavluk worked as informant, hunter and seamstress, yet he abandoned his family. A controversial figure, he promoted the idea of a “friendly Arctic”.

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Photo: Unknown (Bain News Service, publisher) · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Charles Sherwood Noble, 1918.
CA-K845Economy & trade

Charles Noble and the Noble Blade

Charles Sherwood Noble, farmer, inventor and entrepreneur, showed the farming potential of the drought-prone Palliser Triangle. During the Great Depression he worked with the Dominion Experimental Farm to promote dry-land farming methods, and in 1936 invented the Noble Blade, a cultivator that cut weeds at the roots without disturbing the soil, greatly reducing erosion. His company became Alberta’s largest maker of such implements.

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Photo: unknown (Life time: 1910s) · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
William Aberhart, 1920 (Curlette Studio).
CA-K840History

William Aberhart, Social Credit premier of Alberta

William “Bible Bill” Aberhart, a Calgary high school principal and evangelical preacher, led the founding of Alberta’s Social Credit party and became premier in 1935, winning re-election in 1940. He used radio to reach audiences first as an evangelist and then as a politician.

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Photo: Curlette Studio · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Adam Shortt, about 1920.
CA-K837Institutions

Adam Shortt, economist and historian

Adam Shortt, born near London, Ontario, founded the department of political economy at Queen’s University and advised governments. In 1908 he joined the first Canadian Civil Service Commission. In Ottawa he worked with Dominion Archivist Arthur Doughty to build the national archives’ collections, and from 1913 to 1917 the two co-edited the historical series Canada and Its Provinces.

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Photo: Bain News Service, publisher · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
William Henry Pope, 1873 (William James Topley).
CA-K836History

William Henry Pope, Island advocate of Confederation

William Henry Pope, born at Bedeque, Prince Edward Island, became Colonial Secretary in 1859 and represented Queen’s County in the Assembly from 1863 to 1867. A strong supporter of Confederation, he was a delegate to the Charlottetown and Quebec conferences of 1864. He became a judge of Prince County in 1873.

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Photo: William James Topley · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Robert Harris, C.M.G., R.C.A. (Archives of Ontario).
CA-K835Culture & sport

Robert Harris, painter of the Fathers of Confederation

Robert Harris, born in Wales, came to Prince Edward Island in 1856 and studied art in Charlottetown, Boston, London, Paris and Rome. One of Canada’s leading portrait painters and a long-time teacher, he was an original member of the Royal Canadian Academy and its president from 1890 to 1903. He is best known for his painting of the Fathers of Confederation.

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Photo: Unknown photographer; Archives of Ontario · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Edward Blake, portrait.
CA-K832History

Edward Blake, Ontario premier and Liberal leader

Edward Blake, a lawyer born in Middlesex County, Upper Canada, and a leading member of the Canada First movement, was the second premier of Ontario (1871–72). In 22 years in the House of Commons he was Minister of Justice under Alexander Mackenzie and led the federal Liberals from 1880 to 1887. A constitutional authority, he later sat in the British Parliament as an Irish Nationalist.

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Photo: Ewing · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Andrew Archibald Macdonald, 1892 (William James Topley).
CA-K829History

Andrew Archibald Macdonald, note-taker at Quebec

Andrew Archibald Macdonald, a Prince Edward Island merchant and shipbuilder, sat in the Legislative Assembly and Council. He attended the Charlottetown and Quebec conferences of 1864, and his notes from Quebec are one of the few original records of that conference. After the Island joined Confederation he became its Lieutenant-Governor and was later named to the Senate.

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Photo: William James Topley · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Louis St. Laurent, 1948 (George Nakash).
CA-K820History

Louis St. Laurent, prime minister

Louis St. Laurent, born in Compton, Quebec, was a leading corporate lawyer before entering politics as Minister of Justice in 1941. He served as Secretary of State for External Affairs and then as Prime Minister from 1948 to 1957. A strong advocate of national unity, he helped shape the new Commonwealth, signed the United Nations Charter and promoted NATO.

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Photo: George Nakash · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Joseph E. Atkinson, 1910s (City of Toronto Archives).
CA-K818Culture & sport

Joseph Atkinson of the Toronto Star

Joseph E. Atkinson became managing editor of the Toronto Star in 1899 and its majority owner by 1913. He sought to make the paper a tool of social reform, and his innovations changed Canadian journalism and made the Star the country’s largest-circulation newspaper by the 1930s. He left his fortune to the Atkinson Charitable Foundation, which supports cultural, medical and educational institutions in Ontario.

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Photo: Unknown photographer; City of Toronto Archives · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Ernest Lapointe, portrait (J. Russell & Sons).
CA-K817History

Ernest Lapointe, statesman

Ernest Lapointe, born at Saint-Éloi, Quebec, was a federal Cabinet minister from 1921 to 1930 and from 1935 to 1941. He played an important part in governing the country and in its move toward autonomy, and represented Canadians in national, imperial and international affairs. He died in Montréal and is buried in Rivière-du-Loup.

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Photo: J. Russell & Sons · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Albert Peter Low, 1897 (William James Topley).
CA-K816Places & geography

A.P. Low, explorer of Labrador and the Arctic

Albert Peter Low of Montréal joined the Geological Survey of Canada in 1882. In 1884 he made the first scientific survey and map of Lake Mistassini, and in the 1890s explored much of the interior of Ungava and Labrador, noting its iron deposits. He commanded the first Arctic patrol, aboard the Neptune in 1903–04, and became Director of the Geological Survey in 1906.

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Photo: William James Topley · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context