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Chéticamp, Nova Scotia, seen from the water in 2009.
CA-K260History

Jeanne Dugas, Acadian co-founder of Chéticamp

Jeanne Dugas (1731–1817) and her family fled Île Royale (Cape Breton) to escape the 1758 deportation but were captured and imprisoned in Halifax. A midwife and keeper of Acadian stories, she co-founded Chéticamp around 1785; having lived through eight dislocations, she embodies the resilience of Acadian women through 50 years of upheaval.

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Contributor: Citizen.ca

Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
Photo: Michael Sprague from Candler, North Carolina · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 · 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
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
Inuit women and children at Fullerton (Qatiktalik), Nunavut, photographed by Geraldine Moodie in 1906.
CA-K209Culture & sport

Geraldine Moodie, photographer of the North-West and North

Geraldine Moodie (1854–1945), an entrepreneur in a male-dominated field, owned and operated at least three commercial photography studios. As the wife of a North-West Mounted Police officer she had unprecedented access to Indigenous communities, and her photographs are valued historical records of First Nations and Inuit lifeways around 1900.

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Photo: Geraldine Moodie · 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
A portrait of James Isbister, taken before 1915.
CA-K196Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

James Isbister, English Métis leader

James Isbister (1833–1915), an English Métis leader, founded the Isbister Métis settlement at Prince Albert, where he and Margaret Bear began farming in 1862. He helped unite English and French Métis in seeking recognition of their land rights, and in 1884 was one of four delegates who travelled to Montana to invite Louis Riel to lead the Métis protest movement.

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Photo: Unknown authorUnknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
The Six Nations Sports & Cultural Memorial Centre in Ohsweken, Six Nations of the Grand River, in 2024.
CA-K179Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Edith Anderson Monture, nurse and veteran

Charlotte Edith Anderson Monture (1890–1996), a Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) woman from Six Nations of the Grand River, was among the first generation of hospital-trained professional nurses from First Nations in Canada. After nursing with the American Expeditionary Force in the First World War, she was among the female veterans granted the federal vote in 1917, and returned home in 1919 as a nurse and midwife.

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Photo: JFVoll · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
The Port Credit lighthouse in Mississauga, Ontario, near the Credit River, photographed in 2011.
CA-K178Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Nahnebahweequay (Catharine Sutton) appealed to Queen Victoria

Nahnebahweequay (Catharine Sutton, 1824–1865), a Mississauga (Ojibwe) advocate raised at the Credit Mission, fought for Indigenous land title and against the loss of First Nations women’s status through marriage to non-Indigenous men. In defiance of colonial officials, she travelled to London and appealed directly to Queen Victoria in 1860.

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Photo: ^ Missi ^ from Mississauga, Canada · Photo licence: CC BY 2.0 · Credit & context
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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Photo: Wtshymanski · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
Kenora, Ontario, on Lake of the Woods, from the air in 2026; the photo does not show the former school.
CA-K175Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Chanie Wenjack (1954–1966)

Chanie Wenjack was an Anishinaabe boy from Marten Falls First Nation who lived for three years at Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School near Kenora, Ontario, and died after escaping. His story represents thousands of children driven by loneliness, abuse and desperation to run away from residential schools, and was amplified at the time by official procedures and national news coverage.

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Photo: Quintin Soloviev · Photo licence: CC BY 4.0 · 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
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
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
A jingle dress dancer at a community powwow in Helena, Montana, in 2007.
CA-K136Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Shiibaashka’igan, the jingle dress

The shiibaashka’igan, or jingle dress, is a sacred Anishinaabe women’s dress and dance tradition, and each step of the dance is understood by some as a healing prayer. Its origins include Naotkamegwanning First Nation (Whitefish Bay) in northwestern Ontario and the Mille Lacs Ojibwe community in Minnesota.

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Photo: Montanabw · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
A Cowichan sweater with a Thunderbird design, handmade by Cowichan artisan Dora Wilson, photographed in 2017.
CA-K135Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Coast Salish knitters and the Cowichan sweater

In the late 19th century, Cowichan knitters drew on generations of Salish wool-working knowledge to create the Cowichan sweater, a distinctive weatherproof garment. Skills and patterns are passed along family lines, and the handmade sweater is a globally recognized symbol of the Cowichan First Nation and of Canada.

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Photo: ExTrance · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
A beaded Métis sash and a ceinture fléchée (woven sash) on display at a museum in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, in 2024.
CA-K123Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

The Métis Nation emerged in the historic Northwest

The Métis Nation emerged in the historic Northwest during the fur trade as a distinct Indigenous people with its own culture, traditions, language (Michif) and nationhood. The Métis Nation Homeland includes Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta and parts of Ontario, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and the northern United States.

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Photo: Fungus Guy · Photo licence: CC BY 4.0 · Credit & context
The entrance to the underground Robert-Bourassa generating station, part of the James Bay hydroelectric development, in 2000.
CA-K122Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

The James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, 1975

The James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement was signed on 11 November 1975 by the Cree Nation of Eeyou Istchee, the Inuit of Nunavik, Canada, Quebec and Hydro-Québec, after Cree and Inuit court challenges to the James Bay hydroelectric project. The Cree Nation Government describes it as the first modern Indigenous land claim agreement and treaty in Canada.

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Photo: Peter Van den Bossche · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 · Credit & context
Natan Obed, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, in 2016.
CA-K121Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami was founded in 1971

Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the national Inuit organization formerly called the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, was founded in February 1971 by seven Inuit community leaders. It grew out of shared concern about land and resource ownership in Inuit Nunangat.

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Photo: U.S. Department of the Interior · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 · Credit & context
Nachvak Fjord in the Torngat Mountains, Labrador, photographed in 2008.
CA-K112Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

The Torngat Mountains, an Inuit homeland

The subarctic Torngat Mountains of northern Labrador are an Inuit homeland, rich in stories and traditions. Torngat Mountains National Park protects a landscape of glacier-carved fjords and some of Earth’s oldest rocks.

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Photo: Paul Gierszewski · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
The church and rectory at Batoche National Historic Site, Saskatchewan, viewed from the cemetery in 2007.
CA-K104Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Batoche and the Northwest Resistance of 1885

Batoche, a Métis settlement on the South Saskatchewan River north of Saskatoon, was the scene of Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont’s last stand during the Northwest Resistance of 1885. Parks Canada describes it as a symbol of Métis resilience and cultural renewal.

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Photo: Dave Bonser · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
A wood bison in Wood Buffalo National Park, photographed in August 2007.
CA-K091Places & geography

Wood Buffalo, Canada’s largest national park

Wood Buffalo National Park, spanning the Alberta–Northwest Territories border, is the largest national park in Canada. It protects the world’s largest herds of wood bison and vital whooping crane habitat, in the traditional territory of the Dene, Cree and Métis.

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Photo: Naturedata · Photo licence: CC0 · Credit & context
Discovery Claim on Bonanza Creek, photographed in August 2009; the site today, not an 1896 image.
CA-K082History

Gold found on Bonanza Creek, 16 August 1896

Gold was discovered at Discovery Claim on Bonanza Creek, Yukon, on 16 August 1896, triggering the Klondike Gold Rush. Accounts vary, but Parks Canada notes it is generally held that Keish (Skookum Jim Mason) of the Tagish First Nation discovered the gold.

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Photo: JKBrooks85 · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context