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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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804 recordsStructured records (JSON) ↗
John Carling, Minister of Agriculture, December 1885 (Topley Studio).
CA-K604Economy & trade

Sir John Carling and the Experimental Farms

John Carling of London, Ontario, succeeded his father as president of Carling Brewing and Malting and sat as a Conservative in the provincial and federal legislatures for decades. His most significant contribution came as federal Minister of Agriculture from 1885 to 1892, when he founded the system of Dominion Experimental Farms.

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Photo: William James Topley · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Gustave Francq, portrait published in 1924.
CA-K601Economy & trade

Gustave Francq, labour leader

Gustave Francq, a typographer and journalist, was a key figure of international unionism in Quebec and Canada, campaigning for a minimum wage for women, better workers’ compensation and free compulsory education. In 1916 he founded Le Monde ouvrier/The Labor World, which became the official newspaper of the Quebec Federation of Labour.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Frederick W. G. Haultain, May 1884 (Glenbow Archives).
CA-K589Institutions

Sir Frederick Haultain, premier of the North-West Territories

Frederick Haultain, a Fort Macleod lawyer, sat in the North-West Territories council and assembly from 1887 to 1905 and led the push for responsible government and provincial status. He was premier of the Territories from 1897 to 1905, then opposition leader in Saskatchewan and chief justice of Saskatchewan from 1912.

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Photo: Sproule, G. B. · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Peter Mitchell, April 1883 (Topley Studio).
CA-K587History

Peter Mitchell, New Brunswick Father of Confederation

Peter Mitchell of Newcastle, New Brunswick, attended the Charlottetown, Québec and London conferences and, as premier in 1866–1867, negotiated New Brunswick’s entry into Confederation. He was Canada’s first Minister of Marine and Fisheries from 1867 to 1873 and later owned the Montreal Herald.

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Photo: William James Topley · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Stephan G. Stephansson, before 1909.
CA-K583Culture & sport

Stephan G. Stephansson, Icelandic poet of Alberta

Stephan G. Stephansson, born in Iceland, settled near Markerville, Alberta, in 1889 after living in the United States. A pioneer farmer and self-taught scholar of Scandinavian literature, he published seven volumes of poetry from 1900 to 1920 and was ranked among the greatest Icelandic poets since the Middle Ages.

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Photo: Unknown photographer · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
J. E. H. MacDonald (Archives of Ontario).
CA-K579Culture & sport

J. E. H. MacDonald, painter of the Group of Seven

J. E. H. MacDonald, painter, designer and poet, was a founding member of the Group of Seven and a key figure in creating a national style of landscape painting. A talented graphic designer of Canadian motifs, he painted southern Ontario farmland, Algoma’s autumn colours, Nova Scotia shores and the Rockies, and inspired students at the Ontario College of Art.

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Photo: Unknown photographer; Archives of Ontario · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Charles William Jefferys, 1930 (M. O. Hammond, Archives of Ontario).
CA-K578Culture & sport

C. W. Jefferys, illustrator of Canadian history

Charles William Jefferys, who came to Canada from England in 1879, was a writer, artist and illustrator of historical novels and textbooks and taught drawing and painting at the University of Toronto from 1912 to 1939. He is best known for his carefully researched historical drawings, such as those in his three-volume Picture Gallery of Canadian History.

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Photo: Melvin Ormond Hammond · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
David Mills, January 1899 (Topley Studio).
CA-K577Institutions

David Mills, minister and constitutional scholar

David Mills of Oxford, Upper Canada, was a school superintendent before representing Bothwell in the House of Commons from 1867 to 1896. He was Minister of the Interior in 1876–1878 and Minister of Justice in 1897–1902, taught constitutional law at the University of Toronto, and was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada in 1902.

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Photo: William James Topley · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Alexander James McPhail (University of Saskatchewan Archives).
CA-K575Economy & trade

A. J. McPhail and the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool

Alexander James McPhail, who came west from Ontario in 1899, worked to organize Prairie farmers politically and economically. As secretary of the Saskatchewan Grain Growers’ Association he worked tirelessly to create the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, becoming its first president in 1924, and helped form the Central Sales Agency for the three Prairie provinces’ crops.

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Photo: University of Saskatchewan · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
A. Y. Jackson, 1930 (Archives of Ontario).
CA-K574Culture & sport

A. Y. Jackson, painter of the Group of Seven

A. Y. Jackson, born in Montréal, studied painting there and in Paris, served overseas in the First World War and was a member of the Group of Seven from 1920 to 1933. His simple, rounded forms in wilderness landscapes gave a powerful image of Canada, and he greatly influenced a generation of Canadian artists.

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Photo: Unknown photographer (1930); Archives of Ontario, I0007815 · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
John Hendry, around 1910 (BC Archives).
CA-K572Economy & trade

John Hendry, British Columbia lumber pioneer

John Hendry built a lumber empire in western Canada. In 1891 his mills and logging operations, including the Hastings Mill, became the British Columbia Mills, Timber and Trading Company, the province’s first forestry conglomerate, which led the way in mechanized logging and integrated lumber production, transport and marketing.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Captain Angus Walters with the International Fishermen’s Trophy on the deck of Bluenose, 1921 (W. R. MacAskill).
CA-K566Culture & sport

Captain Angus Walters of the Bluenose

Captain Angus J. Walters of Lunenburg, a legendary sailor and fisherman, won five consecutive International Fishermen’s Races at the helm of the schooner Bluenose between 1921 and 1938, a great source of pride during the Depression. A top fishing captain, he brought international attention to the Atlantic Canadian fishery.

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Photo: W.R. MacAskill (1890-1956) · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
William Roper Hull, portrait published in 1903.
CA-K564Economy & trade

William Roper Hull, Alberta cattleman

William Roper Hull, a cattleman, entrepreneur and land developer, was the first in Alberta to combine cattle raising, meat processing and retailing on a large scale in the late 1880s. He built several ranches and city holdings in Calgary and made the Bow Valley Ranch a regional showpiece known for its irrigation and its social events.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Joey Smallwood signing the agreement admitting Newfoundland into Confederation, Ottawa, December 1948 (National Film Board).
CA-K563History

Joey Smallwood, Newfoundland’s Father of Confederation

Joseph “Joey” Smallwood, born at Gambo and a journalist, labour organizer and broadcaster, played a decisive role in bringing Newfoundland into Confederation in 1949. He became a passionate advocate of union from 1946, helped negotiate the terms and dominated the referendum campaigns, then served as premier from 1949 to 1972.

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Photo: NFB · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Édouard Lacroix, 1927.
CA-K560Economy & trade

Édouard Lacroix, Beauce industrialist

Édouard Lacroix, a business leader from the Beauce, built an industrial empire in Quebec, the Maritimes and New England, opening up Appalachian forests and helping integrate the lumber and pulp and paper industries of the Saint John River basin. A rare francophone among interwar industrial leaders, he was also an MP from 1925 to 1944.

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Photo: Philippe Angers · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Dr. Oscar D. Skelton (Lafayette, Library and Archives Canada).
CA-K558Institutions

O. D. Skelton and the Department of External Affairs

Oscar Douglas Skelton, a Queen’s University professor of history and economics, left in 1924 to join the young Department of External Affairs and organized it on an enduring basis. He advised prime ministers Meighen, King and Bennett on foreign policy, advocating an independent Canadian position distinct from Britain’s.

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Photo: Lafayette / Library and Archives Canada · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Charles Edward Saunders, portrait published in 1927.
CA-K555Economy & trade

Charles Saunders and Marquis wheat

Charles Edward Saunders of London, Ontario, was Dominion Cerealist at the Experimental Farm in Ottawa from 1903 to 1922. There in 1904 he developed the famous Marquis wheat, first grown by farmers in 1910, along with other varieties suited to the Prairies such as Ruby, Garnet and Reward.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal (Wellcome Collection).
CA-K554Economy & trade

Donald Smith, Lord Strathcona, and the CPR

Donald Smith, born in Scotland, joined the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1838 and rose to be its governor in Canada. An MP for Selkirk who broke with the government over the Pacific Scandal, he joined his cousin George Stephen in the Canadian Pacific Railway syndicate and risked his fortune to see the line completed in 1885; he became Baron Strathcona in 1897.

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Photo: Unknown photographer; Wellcome Collection, L0040025 · Photo licence: CC BY 4.0 · Credit & context
Norman Bethune’s graduation photo, around 1922 (Library and Archives Canada).
CA-K550History

Dr. Norman Bethune, surgeon and activist

Norman Bethune made significant contributions to thoracic surgery in Canada and was an early advocate of socialized medicine. Embracing communism, he led a Canadian team that pioneered front-line blood transfusions in the Spanish Civil War, then served as a battlefield surgeon with Mao Zedong’s Eighth Route Army; after his death in 1939 he became a national hero in China.

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Photo: Credit: Library and Archives Canada/PA-160708Copyright: Expired · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
James Teit, before 1922.
CA-K547Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

James Teit, ethnographer of the Interior Salish

James Teit, a Shetlander who came to Spences Bridge, British Columbia, in 1884 and married into the Nlaka’pamux Nation, was the leading ethnographer of the Interior Salish. Encouraged by Franz Boas, he recorded oral traditions of the Salish, Dene and Ktunaxa, and as a champion of Indigenous land rights he served as special agent for the Allied Tribes of British Columbia.

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Photo: unknown (self-portrait?) · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Edward Alexander Partridge (Saskatchewan Archives Board).
CA-K546Economy & trade

E. A. Partridge, prairie farm leader

E. A. Partridge, a farmer at Sintaluta, Saskatchewan, led farmers who banded together to defend their interests in the wheat boom. He helped found the Grain Growers’ Grain Company in 1905–1906 and was founding editor of the Grain Growers’ Guide in 1908, championing co-operative grain marketing, wheat pools and farmer–worker co-operation.

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Photo: Saskatchewan Archives Board · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
J. B. Tyrrell (Canadian Press Syndicate).
CA-K545History

J. B. Tyrrell, geologist and explorer

Joseph Burr Tyrrell of the Geological Survey of Canada (1882–1899) surveyed much of Western Canada and conducted scientific fieldwork in the Hudson Bay region and the northern tundra. Later a mining consultant in the Klondike and Northern Ontario, he is recognized for his work on glacial geology and for recovering and publishing David Thompson’s journal.

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Photo: Canadian Press Syndicate · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Louis-Philippe Hébert, around 1898 (Wm. Notman & Son).
CA-K538Culture & sport

Louis-Philippe Hébert, sculptor

Louis-Philippe Hébert was a Canadian sculptor known for public monuments. After carving wood figures for churches in Ottawa and Montréal, he made bronze statues such as Cartier on Parliament Hill and won renown for the sculptures on the façade of the Quebec legislature, his Maisonneuve monument in Montréal and the Macdonald monument in Ottawa.

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Photo: William Notman & Son · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Wilfrid Pelletier (right) with Claude Champagne at the opening of the Conservatoire, 1943.
CA-K537Culture & sport

Wilfrid Pelletier, conductor and founder of the Conservatoire

Wilfrid Pelletier, an internationally renowned conductor, contributed greatly to Quebec’s musical life, especially in opera and through the Montréal Festivals and the Matinées symphoniques for young people. He was first director of the Conservatoire de musique du Québec and artistic director of the Montréal and Québec symphony orchestras; the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier at Place des Arts bears his name.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context