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A bust of Mary Ann Shadd Cary by Artis Lane in BME Freedom Park, Chatham, Ontario, photographed in 2025.
CA-K164History

Mary Ann Shadd and the Provincial Freeman

Mary Ann Shadd (1823–1893) became a prominent activist in the Underground Railroad refugee communities of Upper Canada in the 1850s. In 1853 she established the Provincial Freeman, an influential newspaper that argued for the rights of Black people and women and became the leading voice of refugees in Canada.

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Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
Photo: Chris Woodrich · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
The statue of John Graves Simcoe at Queen’s Park, Toronto, photographed in 2008.
CA-K162History

Upper Canada’s 1793 Act against slavery

Upper Canada’s 1793 Act against slavery, passed under Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe, prohibited the importation of enslaved people. It did not free people already enslaved, but provided that children subsequently born to enslaved mothers would become free at age 25. Slavery in Upper Canada ended in 1834.

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Photo: User:Saforrest · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
pīhtokahānapiwiyin (Poundmaker), around 1884 (Library and Archives Canada).
CA-K158Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

pīhtokahānapiwiyin (Poundmaker), nēhiyaw chief

pīhtokahānapiwiyin (Poundmaker, ca. 1842–1886), a nēhiyaw (Plains Cree) chief, sought better terms for his people and called on Canada to fulfil its obligations under Treaty 6. In 1885 he repulsed Lieutenant-Colonel Otter’s attack on his reserve at Cut Knife but restrained his followers; imprisoned as a rebel, he died after his early release.

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Photo: Unknown authorUnknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Innu making canoes near Sheshatshiu, Labrador, around 1920; a historical image of canoe-making, not a view of the complete travel route.
CA-K157Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Meshikamau-shipu, an Innu travel route

Meshikamau-shipu, Innu-aimun for “river to Meshikamau,” is a travel route of about 330 kilometres through rivers and lakes in Labrador, from Sheshatshiu to the Meshikamau area. Its camp sites, some dating back 3,500 years, portages and burial places reflect Innu land use and a way of life based on mobility until permanent settlement in the 1960s.

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Photo: Photo by Fred C. Sears. Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada (PA-148593). · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Abenaki basket makers of Odanak, around 1920 (Musée des Abénakis).
CA-K155Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Abenaki basket-making in Odanak and Wôlinak

Abenaki weavers in Odanak and Wôlinak, Quebec, use black ash splints and sweetgrass to make baskets using skills passed between generations. Basket-making was Odanak’s main source of income from 1870 to 1920 and remains a symbol of Abenaki identity.

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Photo: Société historique d'Odanak, Musée des Abénakis, Odanak, Québec, Canada · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
The visitor centre and museum at the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site in Baddeck, Nova Scotia, in 2010.
CA-K154History

Alexander Graham Bell in Baddeck

Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922), best known as the inventor of the telephone, was born in Scotland, became a citizen of the United States and was a longtime resident of Canada. In 1907 he and his wife Mabel co-founded the Aerial Experiment Association, which led to the flight of the Silver Dart; he died at his summer home, Beinn Bhreagh, near Baddeck, Nova Scotia.

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Photo: Skeezix1000 · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
Caraquet, New Brunswick, on the Acadian Peninsula, from the air in 2026.
CA-K153History

The Caraquet Riot of 1875

The riot of the Acadians of Caraquet in January 1875 was the culmination of four years of Catholic opposition to New Brunswick’s Common Schools Act of 1871, which aimed to eliminate denominational schools. After the violent arrest of protesters and the deaths of two men, the law was amended; the riot is an early example of religious and linguistic minorities resisting discrimination.

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Photo: Quintin Soloviev · Photo licence: CC BY 4.0 · Credit & context
Province House in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, photographed in 2012.
CA-K152History

The Charlottetown and Québec Conferences of 1864

In September 1864, the Charlottetown Conference brought together leaders from Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and the Province of Canada, who agreed in principle to a federal union. At the Québec Conference the following month, the delegates drafted the 72 Resolutions, which laid the foundation of the British North America Act.

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Photo: Doug Kerr · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 · Credit & context
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.

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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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Photo: Famous Studio, Montréal · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Gabrielle Roy’s childhood home at 375 Deschambault Street, St. Boniface, Manitoba, photographed in 2008.
CA-K147Culture & sport

Gabrielle Roy and The Tin Flute

Gabrielle Roy (1909–1983) gained immediate recognition with her first novel, The Tin Flute (Bonheur d’occasion, 1945), as a pioneer of social realism in Quebec. Born in St. Boniface, Manitoba, she drew on the immigrant experience and her years in the Franco-Manitoban community in later works.

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Photo: Miguel Tremblay · Photo licence: CC0 · 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.

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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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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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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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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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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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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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Photo: WayeMason & John Van Gurp · 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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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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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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Photo: Thelongdarkteatimeofthesoul · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context