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Places and geography

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The Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, photographed in 2013.
CA-K237Places & geography

Waterton-Glacier, the world’s first international peace park

In 1931, the Rotary Clubs of Alberta and Montana proposed uniting Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta and Glacier National Park in Montana as the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, the first such park in the world. It was meant to promote peace and goodwill between nations and to underline the international nature of wilderness; it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995.

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Photo: Royalbroil · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
Part of the Lunenburg waterfront, Nova Scotia, photographed in 2011.
CA-K236History

Old Town Lunenburg, a British colonial model town

Old Town Lunenburg, on Nova Scotia’s south coast, is the best surviving example of the British colonial policy of founding settlements on a pre-designed “model town” plan, with straight streets and square corners. Of at least 21 North American settlements laid out this way, none survives in such pristine condition; it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995.

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Photo: Dennis G. Jarvis · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 · Credit & context
Porte Saint-Louis, a gate in the walls of Old Québec, photographed in 2017.
CA-K235History

Old Québec, a walled city

The Historic District of Old Québec, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985, covers 135 hectares, and close to half its buildings were built before 1850. Québec has retained almost all its fortifications, a defining feature of the historic district.

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Photo: DXR · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
The badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, photographed in 2025.
CA-K234Places & geography

Dinosaur Provincial Park’s Cretaceous fossils

Dinosaur Provincial Park in eastern Alberta, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979, preserves fossils from about 75 million years ago, when the area was a coastal plain where about 35 species of dinosaur lived. Its badlands are outstanding for the number and variety of high-quality specimens representing every known group of Cretaceous dinosaurs.

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Photo: Hirgax · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Mina Hubbard in northern Labrador in 1905.
CA-K233Places & geography

Mina Hubbard mapped Labrador in 1905

In 1905, explorer and surveyor Mina Hubbard (1870–1956) led an expedition across Labrador, travelling 900 kilometres from North West River to Ungava Bay. Her continuous latitude measurements established the positions of the Naskaupi and George rivers, and her map was immediately recognized by the American and British geographical societies.

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Photo: Unknown authorUnknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
General Currie, commander of the Canadian troops in France, in June 1917.
CA-K232History

Sir Arthur Currie, commander of the Canadian Corps

Sir Arthur Currie (1875–1933), who trained with the militia at Fort Rodd Hill in Victoria, commanded one of Canada’s first overseas infantry brigades in the First World War. Promoted to lieutenant-general after Vimy Ridge, he became commander of the entire Canadian Corps, the first and only Canadian to hold that position, and after the war served as principal of McGill University.

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Photo: Unknown photographer · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Dr. Hans Selye at the Université de Montréal in June 1956, photographed by Chris Lund.
CA-K230History

Hans Selye, father of stress research

Dr. Hans Selye (1907–1982), working in his laboratory at the Université de Montréal, is considered the father of stress research. His view of stress as a biological reaction was at first controversial but gained general acceptance, and his work greatly expanded understanding of the causes of illness, especially heart disease, and of endocrinology.

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Photo: Chris Lund · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
The commemorative plaque in Loring Wyle Parkette, Toronto, photographed in 2026.
CA-K228Culture & sport

Frances Loring and Florence Wyle, sculptors

Sculptors Frances Loring (1887–1968) and Florence Wyle (1881–1968) were important in the development of Canadian sculpture, creating works from portraits to First World War memorials. For nearly 50 years they shared a Toronto home and studio known as “The Church,” a gathering place for artists; both were founding members of the Sculptors Society of Canada in 1928.

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Photo: JRB76D · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Mazo de la Roche photographed by M. O. Hammond on 18 December 1927 (Archives of Ontario).
CA-K227Culture & sport

Mazo de la Roche and the Jalna novels

Mazo de la Roche (1879–1961), born in Newmarket, Ontario, won the Atlantic Monthly prize in 1927 for Jalna, the first of sixteen novels about the Whiteoak family. Translated into many languages and adapted for stage, screen and television, the series made her one of the most widely read Canadian authors of her time.

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Photo: · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
The first Ouimetoscope hall in Montréal, 1906 (Cinémathèque québécoise).
CA-K226Culture & sport

Léo-Ernest Ouimet and the Ouimetoscope

Léo-Ernest Ouimet (1877–1972) helped lay the foundations of the Canadian film industry. He founded what is considered Canada’s first film distribution company, opened the luxurious Ouimetoscope in Montréal in 1907, one of the first large theatres built for motion pictures, and produced some of the earliest Canadian newsreels.

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Photo: Léon H. Bélanger · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
The Miramichi River and Centennial Bridge in Miramichi, New Brunswick, in 2025.
CA-K224History

The Miramichi Fire of 1825

In October 1825, the Miramichi Fire burned an estimated 15,500 km² of northeastern New Brunswick, killing hundreds of people, leaving thousands homeless and affecting both settlers and Mi’kmaq. About £50,000 was raised for relief, thought to be the largest disaster relief effort in pre-Confederation Canadian history.

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Photo: Gabriel Picard · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
The Chinese United Church in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, photographed in 2012.
CA-K223History

The Quong Wing legal challenge, 1912–1914

Quong Wing challenged his conviction under Saskatchewan’s 1912 Act to Prevent the Employment of Female Labour in Certain Capacities, which barred him from employing women identified as “white” at his Moose Jaw restaurant. The courts upheld the Act, revealing the judicial system’s limits in the face of institutional racism, but the case exemplified Chinese Canadians’ efforts to fight discrimination in court.

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Photo: Photojw · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
The federal historical marker to Kay Livingstone in Toronto, photographed in 2017.
CA-K221History

Kay Livingstone and the National Black Women’s Congress

Kathleen “Kay” Livingstone (1918–1975) founded the Canadian Negro Women’s Association in Toronto in 1951, encouraging pride and collective awareness in the city’s Black community. She was the driving force behind the first National Black Women’s Congress in 1973, advancing the cause of African Canadian women.

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Photo: Yoho2001 · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
The grave marker for Rose Fortune in the garrison cemetery at Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, photographed in 2017.
CA-K220History

Rose Fortune of Annapolis Royal

Rose Fortune (c. 1774–1864) and her parents, formerly enslaved in Virginia, were among more than 3,000 Black Loyalists resettled in Nova Scotia in 1783–1784. In Annapolis Royal she later ran a successful baggage-carting business and earned respect by informally policing the waterfront, and her story is a long-standing source of pride for African Nova Scotians.

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Photo: Dan Conlin · Photo licence: CC BY 4.0 · Credit & context
The Parks Canada plaque for Railway Porters and their Unions in Montréal, photographed in 2019.
CA-K219History

Black railway porters and their unions

From the late 1880s, Black railway porters emerged as leaders of African Canadian communities in Montréal and other cities. Through unions such as the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and the Order of Sleeping Car Porters, they won recognition for Black workers in the labour movement and, after the Second World War, fought to end discrimination in railway employment.

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Photo: Jeangagnon · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
The Cathedral Church of St. James in Toronto, where a plaque for this designation is to be installed, photographed in 2018.
CA-K218History

Emancipation Day, 1 August

Emancipation Day celebrations mark 1 August 1834, when British legislation abolishing slavery took effect in what is now Canada. Nineteenth-century celebrations in what are now Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and British Columbia became an annual tradition that strengthened Black communities and supported the struggle for equality.

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Photo: Spudgun67 · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Pauline Cove on Qikiqtaruk (Herschel Island), Yukon, photographed in 2025.
CA-K216Places & geography

Qikiqtaruk (Herschel Island), Arctic whaling base

Qikiqtaruk (Herschel Island), off the Yukon coast, became the principal base for American whalers in the western Arctic in 1890. Parks Canada’s commemorative plaque records a community of about 2,000 whalers and Inuit during the peak winter of 1894–1895.

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Photo: Carina Gsottbauer · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Irma LeVasseur around 1900 (Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec).
CA-K211History

Dr. Irma LeVasseur, pioneer of paediatrics

Because francophone universities were closed to women, Irma LeVasseur (1877–1964) studied medicine in the United States and in 1903 became the first female physician licensed to practise in Quebec. A pioneer of paediatrics in Canada, she initiated Sainte-Justine Hospital in Montréal and the Hôpital de l’Enfant-Jésus and Centre Cardinal-Villeneuve in Québec City.

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Photo: Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec P655,S2,SS6,D8 · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
A statue of Brother Marie-Victorin at the Montréal Botanical Garden, photographed in 2009.
CA-K210Culture & sport

Brother Marie-Victorin and Flore laurentienne

Brother Marie-Victorin (1885–1944), a botanist, author and educator, wrote Flore laurentienne (1935) and founded the Institut botanique de l’Université de Montréal and the Montréal Botanical Garden. His discoveries and new approach to botany were of international importance, and he helped improve science teaching at every level.

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Photo: Jean-Philippe Boulet · Photo licence: CC BY 3.0 · Credit & context
A self-portrait by William Notman, Montréal, 1866–1867.
CA-K208Culture & sport

William Notman, “Photographer to the Queen”

William Notman (1826–1891), born in Scotland, came to Montréal in 1856 and became one of the most successful Canadian photographers of the 19th century. His photographs of the Prince of Wales’s 1860 visit won him the title “Photographer to the Queen,” and his studios eventually extended from Montréal to Ottawa, Toronto, Saint John, Albany and Boston.

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Photo: William Notman · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
The Erland Lee Museum in Stoney Creek, Ontario, the farmhouse where the constitution was drafted, photographed in 2008.
CA-K205History

The first Women’s Institute, Stoney Creek, 1897

In 1897, inspired by domestic science reformer Adelaide Hoodless, Janet Lee drafted the constitution of the Stoney Creek Women’s Institute at her farmhouse in Ontario. The Women’s Institutes spread across Canada and the world, bringing rural women together to learn skills, promote civic reform and break the isolation of rural life.

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Photo: Kristenkerr · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
A North-West Mounted Police trail marker near Glen McPherson, Saskatchewan, on the former route between Fort Walsh and Wood Mountain, in 2021.
CA-K204History

The North-West Mounted Police, 1873

The North-West Mounted Police was established in 1873 by Prime Minister John A. Macdonald’s government as a paramilitary force of 300 mounted constables, to assert Canadian control over the North-West Territories. Arriving in 1874 after a 1,300-kilometre trek from Dufferin, Manitoba, the force set up posts without the consultation or permission of First Nations and enforced laws that disregarded Indigenous laws and ways of life.

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Photo: Awmcphee · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
Wild horses on a Sable Island beach, photographed in 2016; the image does not show the historic rescue establishment.
CA-K203History

The Sable Island Humane Establishment, 1801–1958

From 1801 to 1958, the Sable Island Humane Establishment rescued passengers and crews and recovered cargo from hundreds of vessels wrecked on the shifting shoals of Sable Island, about 290 kilometres southeast of Halifax. Founded long before the Canadian Coast Guard, it marked the beginning of government responsibility for marine safety.

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Photo: Paul Gierszewski · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Pier 21 in Halifax, now the Canadian Museum of Immigration, photographed in 2010.
CA-K202History

Some 48,000 war brides arrived at Pier 21

Between 1942 and 1948, some 48,000 women, mostly from Great Britain, and 22,000 children arrived at Pier 21 in Halifax as the families of Canadian servicemen stationed abroad during the Second World War. The federal government provided their transportation and information about Canada, and war bride clubs across the country helped them adapt.

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Photo: Skeezix1000 · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context