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Wilfrid Laurier, about 1890 (Topley Studio, McCord Museum).
CA-K642Institutions

Sir Wilfrid Laurier, first francophone prime minister

Wilfrid Laurier of Saint-Lin, Quebec, was Canada’s first francophone prime minister, an MP for 45 years and Liberal leader for 32. As prime minister from 1896 to 1911 he presided over the settlement of the West, created Alberta and Saskatchewan and founded the Canadian Navy, and he worked to win greater autonomy for Canada and common ground between English and French Canadians.

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Photo: Topley Studio · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Prime Minister John G. Diefenbaker, 1957 (Gar Lunney).
CA-K616Institutions

John Diefenbaker, 13th prime minister

John Diefenbaker, a charismatic orator raised in Saskatchewan, was a defence lawyer and MP for some 40 years and Canada’s 13th prime minister from 1957 to 1963. He revived the Progressive Conservative Party, winning a landslide in 1958, and his government extended social programs, promoted Northern development and championed human rights at home and abroad.

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Photo: Gar Lunney · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
William Hall, VC, photographed after 1857 (Nova Scotia Museum).
CA-K593History

William Hall, first Black recipient of the Victoria Cross

William Neilson Hall of Hantsport, Nova Scotia, serving with the Royal Navy in India in 1857, became the first person of African descent and the first Nova Scotian awarded the Victoria Cross. He became a source of pride for Black Canadians.

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Photo: Unknown photographer · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
J. E. H. MacDonald (Archives of Ontario).
CA-K579Culture & sport

J. E. H. MacDonald, painter of the Group of Seven

J. E. H. MacDonald, painter, designer and poet, was a founding member of the Group of Seven and a key figure in creating a national style of landscape painting. A talented graphic designer of Canadian motifs, he painted southern Ontario farmland, Algoma’s autumn colours, Nova Scotia shores and the Rockies, and inspired students at the Ontario College of Art.

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Photo: Unknown photographer; Archives of Ontario · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
A. Y. Jackson, 1930 (Archives of Ontario).
CA-K574Culture & sport

A. Y. Jackson, painter of the Group of Seven

A. Y. Jackson, born in Montréal, studied painting there and in Paris, served overseas in the First World War and was a member of the Group of Seven from 1920 to 1933. His simple, rounded forms in wilderness landscapes gave a powerful image of Canada, and he greatly influenced a generation of Canadian artists.

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Photo: Unknown photographer (1930); Archives of Ontario, I0007815 · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Samuel Leonard Tilley, February 1869 (Topley Studio).
CA-K568History

Sir Leonard Tilley, New Brunswick Father of Confederation

Samuel Leonard Tilley of Gagetown led New Brunswick’s government and was a delegate to the Charlottetown, Québec and London conferences, an architect of the British North America Act and leader of the province’s pro-Confederation forces. As federal Minister of Finance he drafted the National Policy, and he twice served as lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick.

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Photo: William James Topley · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Captain Angus Walters with the International Fishermen’s Trophy on the deck of Bluenose, 1921 (W. R. MacAskill).
CA-K566Culture & sport

Captain Angus Walters of the Bluenose

Captain Angus J. Walters of Lunenburg, a legendary sailor and fisherman, won five consecutive International Fishermen’s Races at the helm of the schooner Bluenose between 1921 and 1938, a great source of pride during the Depression. A top fishing captain, he brought international attention to the Atlantic Canadian fishery.

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Photo: W.R. MacAskill (1890-1956) · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Charles Edward Saunders, portrait published in 1927.
CA-K555Economy & trade

Charles Saunders and Marquis wheat

Charles Edward Saunders of London, Ontario, was Dominion Cerealist at the Experimental Farm in Ottawa from 1903 to 1922. There in 1904 he developed the famous Marquis wheat, first grown by farmers in 1910, along with other varieties suited to the Prairies such as Ruby, Garnet and Reward.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal (Wellcome Collection).
CA-K554Economy & trade

Donald Smith, Lord Strathcona, and the CPR

Donald Smith, born in Scotland, joined the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1838 and rose to be its governor in Canada. An MP for Selkirk who broke with the government over the Pacific Scandal, he joined his cousin George Stephen in the Canadian Pacific Railway syndicate and risked his fortune to see the line completed in 1885; he became Baron Strathcona in 1897.

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Photo: Unknown photographer; Wellcome Collection, L0040025 · Photo licence: CC BY 4.0 · Credit & context
Louis-Philippe Hébert, around 1898 (Wm. Notman & Son).
CA-K538Culture & sport

Louis-Philippe Hébert, sculptor

Louis-Philippe Hébert was a Canadian sculptor known for public monuments. After carving wood figures for churches in Ottawa and Montréal, he made bronze statues such as Cartier on Parliament Hill and won renown for the sculptures on the façade of the Quebec legislature, his Maisonneuve monument in Montréal and the Macdonald monument in Ottawa.

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Photo: William Notman & Son · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Marshall McLuhan in 1945 (Library and Archives Canada).
CA-K491Culture & sport

Marshall McLuhan, “the medium is the message”

Marshall McLuhan, a University of Toronto professor and pioneer of media studies, became famous in the 1960s for his theories about how print and electronic media shape human perception and behaviour. His ideas of the “global village” and “the medium is the message” made him one of the most celebrated scholars in the Western world.

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Photo: Josephine Smith · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Frederick Varley, probably in Vancouver, 1927 (John Vanderpant).
CA-K484Culture & sport

Frederick Varley, painter of the Group of Seven

Frederick Varley, a founding member of the Group of Seven, helped establish a national style of painting the Canadian landscape. A masterful portraitist and an official First World War artist, he moved to teach on the West Coast in 1926, and his unconventional use of colour to convey emotion is a singular contribution to Canadian art.

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Photo: John Vanderpant · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Sir William Edmond Logan in Montréal, 1865 (William Notman).
CA-K470History

Sir William Logan, first director of the Geological Survey

Sir William Edmond Logan of Montréal, a mapmaker and geologist in the mining districts of Wales, became the first director of the Geological Survey of Canada in 1842. He led much of the early scientific mapping of the province, built the mineral collection that became the basis of the National Museum, and earned international recognition for his geological work.

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Photo: William Notman · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Dr. Healey Willan in 1930 (Archives of Ontario).
CA-K457Culture & sport

Healey Willan, composer of sacred music

Healey Willan came to Canada in 1913 to teach at the Toronto Conservatory of Music, now the Royal Conservatory. As organist and choirmaster of St. Mary Magdalene in Toronto from 1921 to 1968, he composed the sacred music for which he is particularly remembered.

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Photo: Unknown photographer (1930); Archives of Ontario, I0001735 · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Laura Secord in her later years, around 1865 (McCord Museum).
CA-K443History

Laura Secord’s walk in 1813

On 22 June 1813, during the War of 1812, Laura Secord set out from her home in Queenston to warn the British of a planned American attack at Beaver Dams. She walked alone more than 30 kilometres behind enemy lines to the De Cew farmhouse and told Lieutenant FitzGibbon of the plan. Later in the 19th century, the first generation of women historians championed her deed to make women’s contributions to Canadian history known.

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Photo: Anonymous (photographer unidentified) · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Stephen Leacock, portrait published in 1913.
CA-K440Culture & sport

Stephen Leacock, humorist

Stephen Leacock spent most of his career at McGill University teaching history and political science, but he is chiefly known as a humorist. Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912) made his reputation across the English-speaking world, and his work finds humour in ordinary people in everyday situations through exaggeration and incongruity.

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Photo: The Arts & Letters Club of Toronto · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Sir Sandford Fleming with his grandchildren, July 1893 (Topley Studio).
CA-K436History

Sir Sandford Fleming, engineer and champion of standard time

Sir Sandford Fleming, born in Scotland, came to Canada in 1845 and became survey and construction engineer for the Intercolonial Railway and the Canadian Pacific. A man of wide interests and an ardent imperialist, he advocated the Pacific telegraph cable, designed the first Canadian postage stamp in 1851, and was an early champion of standard time.

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Photo: William James Topley · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Joseph-Armand Bombardier at the wheel of a Bombardier military snowmobile, March 1943.
CA-K435Economy & trade

Joseph-Armand Bombardier and the snowmobile

Joseph-Armand Bombardier of Valcourt, Quebec, developed snow vehicles that helped reduce winter isolation in rural areas of Canada and elsewhere. He patented the snowmobile in 1937 and the smaller Ski-Doo in 1960, both designed and built in Valcourt, and after his death the company he founded became a world leader in transportation.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Wilder Penfield as a student at Princeton University, 1911.
CA-K425History

Wilder Penfield and the Montreal Neurological Institute

Wilder Penfield founded the Montreal Neurological Institute and directed it for over 25 years, becoming a world leader in neurosurgery and neurology. His pioneering work on epilepsy led to a new surgical procedure and advanced understanding of how the human brain works, and his institute became a renowned centre for research and treatment of nervous system disorders.

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Photo: Bain News Service · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Portrait of Crowfoot, head chief of the Siksika, around 1885.
CA-K409Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Isapo-Muxika (Crowfoot), Siksika peacemaker

Isapo-Muxika (Crowfoot), born Kainai and raised among the Siksika (Blackfoot), became a leading chief known as a warrior, orator and peacemaker. Convinced that peace served his people best, he made peace with the Plains Cree, adopting Poundmaker as his son, and persuaded the Siksika to sign Treaty 7 in 1877.

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Photo: Alex Ross · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Alexander Morris in Ottawa, December 1869 (Topley Studio).
CA-K386Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Alexander Morris and the Numbered Treaties

Alexander Morris, a supporter of Confederation and lieutenant-governor of Manitoba and the North-West Territories, negotiated Treaties 3, 4, 5 and 6 with First Nations from 1873 to 1876. First Nations sought a reciprocal relationship that safeguarded their autonomy, while Canada’s main goal was territorial expansion for settlers; Morris pressed the government to keep its spoken promises.

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Photo: William James Topley · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
West Pender Street in Vancouver’s Chinatown, photographed in 2011.
CA-K281History

The exclusion of Chinese immigrants, 1923–1947

The Chinese Immigration Act (Chinese Exclusion Act), which took effect on 1 July 1923, imposed discriminatory restrictions on Chinese immigration and replaced the head tax. All Chinese people in Canada, including those born here, had to register or risk fines, detention or deportation. Chinese Canadians challenged the law until its repeal in 1947.

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Photo: Kyle Lawrence · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
A portrait of George Brown, Father of Confederation.
CA-K277History

George Brown, The Globe and the Great Coalition

George Brown (1818–1880) founded the influential newspaper The Globe in 1844 and became a leading reformer and head of the “Clear Grit” party. In 1864 he was a key figure in the Great Coalition that made Confederation possible, and he co-founded the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada.

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Photo: Hunter & Co. · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
The Manoir-Papineau in Montebello, Quebec, photographed in 2018.
CA-K258History

Louis-Joseph Papineau, leader of the Patriotes

Louis-Joseph Papineau (1786–1871) strove to reform Lower Canada’s political institutions and strengthen democracy. As Speaker of the House of Assembly and leader of the Parti canadien, later the Parti patriote, he became the leading political figure of the 1837–1838 uprisings; in 1850 he settled at his manor in Montebello.

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Photo: Marc-Lautenbacher · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context