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407 recordsStructured records (JSON) ↗
The Peguis monument in Kildonan Park, Winnipeg, erected in 1923, photographed in 2011.
CA-K176Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Chief Peguis and the Selkirk Treaty of 1817

Chief Peguis (1774–1864), a skilled hunter and diplomat, worked to protect the rights and interests of the Anishinaabeg of Red River and stepped in to save lives when fur trade hostilities threatened the Selkirk Settlement. He was one of five First Nations negotiators of the Selkirk Treaty of 1817, the first agreement permitting limited farmland access to settlers in western Canada.

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Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
Photo: Wtshymanski · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
The sign at McCrae House, John McCrae’s birthplace in Guelph, Ontario, on Remembrance Day 2018.
CA-K174Culture & sport

John McCrae and “In Flanders Fields”

John McCrae (1872–1918), a physician born in Guelph, Ontario, joined the Canadian Army Medical Corps in 1914 and served overseas until his death. His poem “In Flanders Fields,” published anonymously in 1915, became one of the most celebrated poems of the First World War and made the poppy a lasting symbol of the Allied soldiers who died.

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Photo: Peter K Burian · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Bobbie Rosenfeld with trophies and medals, around 1928.
CA-K172Culture & sport

Bobbie Rosenfeld, athlete of the half-century

Fanny “Bobbie” Rosenfeld (1903–1969), an all-round athlete who excelled in hockey, basketball, tennis, softball and track, won gold and silver medals at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics. In 1949 she was chosen Canada’s outstanding female athlete of the half-century, after a later career as a Toronto sports columnist.

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Photo: Unknown authorUnknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Portia White photographed by Yousuf Karsh in January 1946.
CA-K171Culture & sport

Portia White, contralto

Contralto Portia White (1911–1968), from the Black Nova Scotian community, was the first African-Canadian woman to win international acclaim as a singer. Between 1940 and 1948, her debuts in Toronto and New York and recitals across the Americas and the Caribbean became a source of pride for Canadians.

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Photo: Yousuf Karsh · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
A bust of Mary Ann Shadd Cary by Artis Lane in BME Freedom Park, Chatham, Ontario, photographed in 2025.
CA-K164History

Mary Ann Shadd and the Provincial Freeman

Mary Ann Shadd (1823–1893) became a prominent activist in the Underground Railroad refugee communities of Upper Canada in the 1850s. In 1853 she established the Provincial Freeman, an influential newspaper that argued for the rights of Black people and women and became the leading voice of refugees in Canada.

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Photo: Chris Woodrich · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
The statue of John Graves Simcoe at Queen’s Park, Toronto, photographed in 2008.
CA-K162History

Upper Canada’s 1793 Act against slavery

Upper Canada’s 1793 Act against slavery, passed under Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe, prohibited the importation of enslaved people. It did not free people already enslaved, but provided that children subsequently born to enslaved mothers would become free at age 25. Slavery in Upper Canada ended in 1834.

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Photo: User:Saforrest · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
Peter Pitseolak in 1968, photographed by Charles Gimpel.
CA-K160Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Peter Pitseolak, Inuit photographer and historian

Peter Pitseolak (1902–1973), an Inuit artist, photographer, hunter and historian, recorded both the old customs and beliefs of his people and their adjustment to a new life as Inuit culture underwent momentous change. His carvings, prints and photographs are acclaimed for their historical and artistic value, and he left an account of the history of Sikusuilaq (southern Baffin Island).

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Photo: Charles Gimpel · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Sergeant Tommy Prince (right) with his brother, Private Morris Prince, at Buckingham Palace, 12 February 1945.
CA-K159Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Tommy Prince, Anishinaabe veteran and activist

Tommy Prince (1915–1977), an Anishinaabe veteran, was a founding member of the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion and the First Special Service Force (Devil’s Brigade) in the Second World War, and served in the Korean War. He represented Manitoba First Nations’ interests nationally, and his story illustrates both First Nations soldiers’ contributions and their poor treatment on returning home.

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Photo: Christopher J. Woods - Canada. Dept. of National Defence · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
pīhtokahānapiwiyin (Poundmaker), around 1884 (Library and Archives Canada).
CA-K158Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

pīhtokahānapiwiyin (Poundmaker), nēhiyaw chief

pīhtokahānapiwiyin (Poundmaker, ca. 1842–1886), a nēhiyaw (Plains Cree) chief, sought better terms for his people and called on Canada to fulfil its obligations under Treaty 6. In 1885 he repulsed Lieutenant-Colonel Otter’s attack on his reserve at Cut Knife but restrained his followers; imprisoned as a rebel, he died after his early release.

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Photo: Unknown authorUnknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
The National Aboriginal Veterans Monument in Confederation Park, Ottawa, photographed in 2019.
CA-K156Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Indigenous soldiers in the First World War

During the First World War, Indigenous people volunteered in significant numbers, even though many were denied the right to vote; it was the first time Canada’s forces integrated a substantial number of Indigenous men as individual soldiers. As veterans, they were an active force behind the League of Indians of Canada, the first organization to give their communities a national voice.

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Photo: Jeangagnon · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
The visitor centre and museum at the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site in Baddeck, Nova Scotia, in 2010.
CA-K154History

Alexander Graham Bell in Baddeck

Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922), best known as the inventor of the telephone, was born in Scotland, became a citizen of the United States and was a longtime resident of Canada. In 1907 he and his wife Mabel co-founded the Aerial Experiment Association, which led to the flight of the Silver Dart; he died at his summer home, Beinn Bhreagh, near Baddeck, Nova Scotia.

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Photo: Skeezix1000 · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
Tom Longboat as pictured in the Boston Post, 19 April 1907.
CA-K149Culture & sport

Tom Longboat won the 1907 Boston Marathon

Tom Longboat (1886–1949), an Onondaga athlete from the Six Nations of the Grand River, became the foremost long-distance runner of his time and won the 1907 Boston Marathon. He competed at the 1908 Olympics and was one of the first Canadian athletes to make a living solely from sport.

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Photo: Unknown authorUnknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
A publicity photograph of La Bolduc from Famous Studio, Montréal, taken before 1942.
CA-K148Culture & sport

La Bolduc, Quebec singer-songwriter

Mary Travers (1894–1941), known as La Bolduc after her husband’s surname, was a singer-songwriter with a tremendous impact on Quebec popular culture. From 1929 to 1939 she recorded close to 100 songs that she composed herself, touching on current events, social conditions and relationships.

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Photo: Famous Studio, Montréal · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Gabrielle Roy’s childhood home at 375 Deschambault Street, St. Boniface, Manitoba, photographed in 2008.
CA-K147Culture & sport

Gabrielle Roy and The Tin Flute

Gabrielle Roy (1909–1983) gained immediate recognition with her first novel, The Tin Flute (Bonheur d’occasion, 1945), as a pioneer of social realism in Quebec. Born in St. Boniface, Manitoba, she drew on the immigrant experience and her years in the Franco-Manitoban community in later works.

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Photo: Miguel Tremblay · Photo licence: CC0 · Credit & context
The statue of Glenn Gould in front of the CBC building in Toronto, photographed in 2014.
CA-K146Culture & sport

Glenn Gould, pianist

Glenn Gould (1932–1982) is recognized internationally as one of the great classical musicians of the 20th century, best known for his renditions of J. S. Bach. He retired from the concert stage at 32 and devoted himself to recording, radio and television, leaving a rich legacy of recordings.

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Photo: Mike from Vancouver, Canada · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 · Credit & context
Willie O’Ree in Ottawa in February 2020.
CA-K145Culture & sport

Players who broke the NHL’s racial barriers

Non-white athletes faced racial barriers to playing in the National Hockey League after its founding in 1917. In the league’s early decades, players such as Paul Jacobs, Henry “Elmer” Maracle, Larry Kwong, Fred Sasakamoose and Willie O’Ree confronted racism on and off the ice and broke through those barriers to reach the NHL.

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Photo: U.S. Embassy and Consulates in Canada · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Kahnawà:ke seen from Lachine, Montréal, in 2016.
CA-K140Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Mary Two-Axe Earley and First Nations women’s equality

Mary Two-Axe Earley (1911–1996), a Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) woman born in Kahnawà:ke, campaigned against the sex discrimination in section 12(1)(b) of the Indian Act, which stripped First Nations women of status if they married non-status men. After the Act was changed in 1985, she was the first person to regain her status.

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Photo: Red Castle · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Chiefswood, Johnson’s birthplace on the Six Nations of the Grand River, Ontario, photographed in 2008.
CA-K139Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

E. Pauline Johnson, Mohawk poet and performer

E. Pauline Johnson (1861–1913), born at Chiefswood on the Six Nations of the Grand River, was the daughter of a Mohawk chief. Beginning in the 1890s she published poems, essays and stories and performed them on stages across Canada and abroad, gaining international fame.

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Photo: Steve Colwill from Ottawa, Canada · Photo licence: CC BY 2.0 · Credit & context
Francis Pegahmagabow in 1945, at a conference in Ottawa, photographed by Marius Barbeau.
CA-K138Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Francis Pegahmagabow, soldier and rights advocate

Francis Pegahmagabow, an Ojibwe Nishnaabe of Wasauksing First Nation, was a highly decorated First World War sniper and scout who received the Military Medal and two bars for bravery. Facing discrimination under the Indian Act after the war, he became a political leader in his community and nationally, fighting for treaty rights from the 1920s to the 1950s.

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Photo: Marius Barbeau · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
The Halifax harbour ferry named Viola Desmond, photographed in 2019; it does not show Desmond or the bank note.
CA-K098History

Viola Desmond and the vertical $10 note

In 1946, Viola Desmond, a successful Nova Scotia businesswoman, refused to leave a whites-only area of a movie theatre; her court case inspired the pursuit of racial equality across Canada. In 2018 she appeared on Canada’s first vertical bank note, the $10 note.

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Photo: Colin Stepney · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context