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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
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 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
Walter Allward in July 1913 (Archives of Ontario).
CA-K225Culture & sport

Walter Allward, sculptor of the Vimy Memorial

Walter Allward (1876–1955), sculptor of some of Canada’s finest public monuments, is best known for his masterpiece, the Canadian National Vimy Memorial in France. A leading figure in the shift from Victorian sculptural conventions to 20th-century forms, he combined expressive classical figures with dramatic settings in works such as the Bell Memorial.

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Photo: · 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
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
Salem Chapel British Methodist Episcopal Church in St. Catharines, Ontario, a centre of 19th-century abolitionist activity, photographed in 2012.
CA-K217History

Harriet Tubman led freedom-seekers to Canada

Harriet Tubman (c. 1822–1913), who escaped slavery in Maryland, was the most famous “conductor” on the Underground Railroad, leading many people on dangerous journeys to freedom in Canada and helping them settle. She became the public face of the Underground Railroad in British North America, drawing attention and funding to the abolition movement.

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Photo: Gr82c · 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
A photograph of C.H. “Punch” Dickins, Canadian First World War pilot.
CA-K214History

“Punch” Dickins, pioneering bush pilot

C.H. “Punch” Dickins (1899–1995), a distinguished First World War airman, became a pioneering bush pilot in the 1920s and 1930s, flying vast distances in Canada’s North and proving flight possible in remote areas and extreme cold. In the 1940s he contributed to the design of the de Havilland Beaver, helping make Canada a world leader in frontier aviation.

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Photo: Bzuk at English Wikipedia · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Ethel Catherwood training at the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam.
CA-K213Culture & sport

Ethel Catherwood, 1928 Olympic high jump champion

Ethel Catherwood (1908–1987) set national and world records in high jump and javelin between 1926 and 1930 and won the high jump gold medal at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics, the first Games to allow women in track and field. With her “Matchless Six” teammates she earned Canada four medals, helping secure women’s place in Olympic track and field.

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Photo: Unknown authorUnknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Governor General Jeanne Sauvé with her husband Maurice Sauvé in Ottawa, 1984.
CA-K212Institutions

Jeanne Sauvé, first woman Governor General

Jeanne Sauvé (1922–1993), a Fransaskois journalist and commentator from 1952 to 1972, was elected to the House of Commons in 1972 and served as minister of several departments. She became the first woman Speaker of the House of Commons and the first woman appointed Governor General of Canada.

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Photo: proacguy1 from Montreal, Canada · Photo licence: CC BY 2.0 · 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
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 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
A vein of waste rock in the former iron ore mine on Bell Island, photographed in 2013.
CA-K206History

U-boat attacks at Bell Island, 1942

In 1942, German submarines U-513 and U-518 made two deadly torpedo attacks on Bell Island, Newfoundland, a vital iron-ore mining and shipping centre. The attacks damaged the Scotia pier, sank four ships and killed Allied sailors, bringing the war home to Newfoundlanders.

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Photo: The Tedster · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 · Credit & context