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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) ↗
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.

Factual accuracy review: No recorded challenge

Contributor: Citizen.ca

Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
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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Contributor: Citizen.ca

Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
Photo: Famous Studio, Montréal · Photo licence: Public domain · 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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Contributor: Citizen.ca

Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
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.

Factual accuracy review: No recorded challenge

Contributor: Citizen.ca

Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
Photo: U.S. Embassy and Consulates in Canada · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
The former Montréal Forum building on Sainte-Catherine Street, where Game One was played, photographed in 2014.
CA-K143Culture & sport

The 1972 Summit Series

The 1972 Summit Series, eight games played in September 1972, was the first encounter between top Canadian professional hockey players and the Soviet Union’s national team. Team Canada won the series in Moscow with a come-from-behind victory, scoring the winning goal with 34 seconds left in the final game.

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Contributor: Citizen.ca

Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
Photo: Jeangagnon · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
Prince of Wales Fort at the mouth of the Churchill River, Manitoba, in 2012; a later Hudson’s Bay Company fort, not the 1717 post.
CA-K141Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Thanadelthur, Dene interpreter and peacemaker

Thanadelthur, a young Dene woman and skilled interpreter, guided a Hudson’s Bay Company expedition from York Factory into Dene territory in 1715–1716. Her diplomacy brought peace between the Dene and the Cree and opened direct trade, leading to a post at the Churchill River in 1717; her story is honoured in Dene oral tradition.

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Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
Photo: Peterfitzgerald · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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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Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
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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Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
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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Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
Photo: Marius Barbeau · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Fort Anne National Historic Site at Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, from a drone in 2023.
CA-K137Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

The Peace and Friendship Treaty of 1726

On 4 June 1726, Mi’kmaw, Wəlastəkokewiyik and Peskətəmohkatewey leaders gathered at Annapolis Royal to ratify a treaty with the British Crown. It affirmed peaceful coexistence and was the first treaty between the Crown and these Nations, the basis for all their later treaties.

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Contributor: Citizen.ca

Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
Photo: WayeMason & John Van Gurp · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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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Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
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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Contributor: Citizen.ca

Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
Photo: ExTrance · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
The Stanley Cup in 2015.
CA-K134Culture & sport

The Stanley Cup was announced in 1892

In 1892, Governor General Lord Stanley’s donation of a challenge cup for Canada’s best hockey club was announced. First awarded to amateur teams, the Stanley Cup has been the exclusive prize of the National Hockey League’s playoff champion since 1927.

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Contributor: Citizen.ca

Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
Photo: Alex Goykhman · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
The west entrance of the Festival Theatre in Stratford, Ontario, in 2025.
CA-K132Culture & sport

The Stratford Festival began in 1953

In 1953, Tom Patterson launched an annual festival of Shakespearean theatre in his hometown of Stratford, Ontario. First artistic director Tyrone Guthrie and designer Tanya Moiseiwitsch created the Festival Theatre’s thrust stage, surrounded by the audience on three sides.

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Contributor: Citizen.ca

Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
Photo: Chris Woodrich · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
The renewed entrance and façade of the National Arts Centre, Ottawa, photographed in 2019.
CA-K129Culture & sport

The National Arts Centre opened in 1969

Canada’s National Arts Centre in Ottawa opened on 2 June 1969, two years after the centennial that inspired it. Built to produce and present music, opera, theatre and dance, it was designed to be bilingual, reflecting Canada’s linguistic duality.

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Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
Photo: Thelongdarkteatimeofthesoul · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
A bilingual road sign in New Brunswick pointing to Dieppe and the airport, photographed in 2012.
CA-K127Language & names

New Brunswick, Canada’s only officially bilingual province

New Brunswick’s first Official Languages Act, enacted on 18 April 1969, made it Canada’s first and only officially bilingual province. The Act made English and French the province’s two official languages and recognized the right to receive provincial government services in either.

Factual accuracy review: No recorded challenge

Contributor: Citizen.ca

Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
Photo: Doug Kerr · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 · Credit & context
A bilingual STOP/ARRÊT sign in Rouleauville, photographed in 2020.
CA-K126Language & names

18% of Canadians are English–French bilingual

In the 2021 Census, 18.0% of Canadians could speak both English and French; in Quebec, the rate was 46.4%. English is a minority language in Quebec, while French is a minority language in the other provinces and territories and in Canada as a whole.

Factual accuracy review: No recorded challenge

Contributor: Citizen.ca

Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
Photo: WCL20 Lycée Louis Pasteur Justemila · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
A Toronto street sign with an added Chinese translation, photographed in 2011.
CA-K125Language & names

One in four Canadians has a mother tongue other than English or French

In the 2021 Census, one in four Canadians had at least one mother tongue other than English or French, and one in eight spoke mainly another language at home, both the highest proportions on record. That year, 41.2% of Canadians could hold a conversation in more than one language.

Factual accuracy review: No recorded challenge

Contributor: Citizen.ca

Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
Photo: Steve Harris from Toronto, Canada · Photo licence: CC BY 2.0 · 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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Contributor: Citizen.ca

Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
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.

Factual accuracy review: No recorded challenge

Contributor: Citizen.ca

Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
Photo: Peter Van den Bossche · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 · Credit & context