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Nursing Sisters at a Canadian hospital in France voting in the 1917 federal election (photograph by William Rider-Rider).
CA-K246History

Nursing Sisters, the first women with military rank

Canadian military nurses have cared for the sick and wounded in battle since 1885. In 1904, professional nurses joined the Canadian Army Medical Corps as Nursing Sisters, the first women in the British Empire to receive military rank; in the two world wars hundreds were decorated and dozens died from enemy action.

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Photo: William Rider-Rider · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
The Saskatchewan Legislative Building in Regina, photographed in 2025.
CA-K244History

The Saskatchewan doctors’ strike of 1962

When Saskatchewan’s Medical Care Insurance Act took effect on 1 July 1962, most of the province’s doctors went on strike for 23 days. Perhaps the most significant Canadian doctors’ strike of the 20th century, it exemplified conflicts in the development of medicare between state intervention and physicians’ independence, and between doctors as entrepreneurs and patients’ right to care regardless of income.

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Photo: Quintin Soloviev · Photo licence: CC BY 4.0 · Credit & context
Laurier House in Ottawa, Prime Minister Mackenzie King’s home, next to which the unit worked from 1942 to 1945; photographed in 2014.
CA-K243History

The Examination Unit, Canada’s wartime codebreakers

The Examination Unit (1941–1945) was Canada’s secret civilian cryptographic bureau in the Second World War, working within the National Research Council; women made up about 40% of its staff. It helped the Allies decrypt French, German and Japanese messages and paved the way for the Communications Security Establishment, founded in 1975.

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Photo: Suwannee.payne · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
A Silver Dart display photographed in 2017; not the original 1909 aircraft.
CA-K242History

The Silver Dart made Canada’s first powered flight, 1909

On 23 February 1909, more than 100 people watched the Silver Dart lift off the ice of Baddeck Bay, Nova Scotia, and fly 800 metres: the first successful powered flight in Canada. Piloted by J. A. D. McCurdy, the biplane was built by the Aerial Experiment Association, founded by Mabel and Alexander Graham Bell (see CA-K154).

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Photo: Dennis G. Jarvis · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 · Credit & context
Red Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador, photographed in 2017.
CA-K241History

Red Bay, a 16th-century Basque whaling station

From the 1540s to the early 1600s, up to 2,000 Basque men and boys sailed each year from southern France and northern Spain to the Strait of Belle Isle to hunt right whales and render their blubber into oil for European markets. Red Bay, Labrador, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2013, is the most extensive and best-preserved whaling station of its kind.

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Photo: Cephas · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
The Landscape of Grand Pré World Heritage Site, Nova Scotia, photographed in 2018.
CA-K240History

The Landscape of Grand Pré and its Acadian dykelands

The Landscape of Grand Pré in Nova Scotia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2012, bears exceptional testimony to a farming settlement the Acadians created in the 17th century beside some of the world’s highest tides. They reclaimed land from the sea with dykes, aboiteaux and drainage, under a community-based management system still in use today.

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Photo: Mykola Swarnyk · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
The Joggins Fossil Cliffs near Joggins, Nova Scotia, photographed in 2010.
CA-K239Places & geography

Joggins Fossil Cliffs, the “Coal Age Galápagos”

About 300 million years ago, the eastern shore of Chignecto Bay, on the Bay of Fundy, was a tropical wetland forest near the equator. The Joggins Fossil Cliffs in Nova Scotia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2008, hold the best and most complete known fossil record of land life in the “Coal Age,” including the first reptiles in Earth’s history.

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Photo: Gorob · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
A fossil of the lobe-finned fish Eusthenopteron foordi from the Devonian of the Gaspé Peninsula, photographed in 2017.
CA-K238Places & geography

Miguasha and the “Age of Fishes”

Miguasha National Park, on Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula, preserves fossils from about 370 million years ago, when the coast was a tropical estuary. A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999, it is described as the world’s most outstanding fossil site for illustrating the Devonian “Age of Fishes,” including lobe-finned fish linked to the evolution of four-limbed animals.

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Photo: James St. John · Photo licence: CC BY 2.0 · Credit & context
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
A portrait of Carrie Derick.
CA-K231History

Carrie Derick, one of Canada’s first women professors

Botanist and geneticist Carrie Derick (1862–1941) overcame strong opposition to become one of the first women appointed to a full professorship in Canada, at McGill University from 1912 to 1929. A suffragist and reformer, she promoted political and educational equality for women; Parks Canada’s 2024 review also notes that she held eugenic views widely shared in her academic circles.

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Photo: · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
The William Saunders Building at the Central Experimental Farm, Ottawa, photographed in 2014.
CA-K229Economy & trade

William Saunders and the Experimental Farms

William Saunders (1836–1914), an expert in scientific agriculture, became the first director of the federal Department of Agriculture’s new Experimental Farms Branch in 1886. He created many promising varieties of fruit and grain and began the research that led to Marquis wheat, developed by his son Charles.

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Photo: Matti Blume · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
Won Alexander Cumyow in 1910, photographed by Yucho Chow.
CA-K222History

Won Alexander Cumyow, first known Chinese Canadian born in Canada

Won Alexander Cumyow (1861–1955), born at Port Douglas in the colony of British Columbia, was the first known person of Chinese descent born in what would become Canada. Barred from voting and from the legal profession by discriminatory laws, he worked as a court interpreter and community broker, fought racist voting laws, and finally cast his vote in 1949.

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Photo: Yucho Chow · Photo licence: Public domain · 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