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People and roles

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407 recordsStructured records (JSON) ↗
Joseph-Adolphe Chapleau, about 1890.
CA-K914History

Sir Adolphe Chapleau, premier of Quebec

Joseph-Adolphe Chapleau, born at Sainte-Thérèse-de-Blainville, was one of 19th-century Quebec’s most prominent figures. A noted criminal lawyer who supported Métis rights, he defended Ambroise-Dydime Lépine at his 1874 trial at Fort Garry. He was premier of Quebec (1879–82), a federal cabinet minister (1882–92) and Lieutenant Governor of Quebec (1892–97), and spoke for Montréal during a key period of its growth.

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Photo: Aegidius Fauteux · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Major Georges P. Vanier, 22nd Battalion, 1918.
CA-K913History

Georges Vanier, soldier, diplomat and Governor General

Georges Vanier helped found the Royal 22e Régiment, served with it in the First World War and commanded it from 1925 to 1928. He represented Canada at the League of Nations, in London and in Paris, becoming Canada’s first ambassador to France in 1944. As Governor General from 1959 to 1967, the first French Canadian in that role since Confederation, he devoted himself to national unity.

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Photo: Canada. Dept. of National Defence. Unknown photographer. · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Plaque commemorating Peter Fidler.
CA-K912Places & geography

Peter Fidler, surveyor of the West

Peter Fidler, born in Bolsover, England, joined the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1788 and founded posts such as Chesterfield House (1800). As a surveyor, he mapped about 5,000 miles of waterways in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba and surveyed the Selkirk settlement and the boundaries of Assiniboia. His maps and journals remain basic historical sources.

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Photo: Andyplummer · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Plaque honouring Douglas at the New Brunswick Legislative Building.
CA-K911History

Sir Howard Douglas, founder of King’s College

Howard Douglas, born in England, was Lieutenant-Governor and Commander in Chief of New Brunswick from 1823 to 1831. He encouraged agriculture, steam navigation and lighthouse building, and in 1828 founded King’s College, now the University of New Brunswick. He dealt firmly with armed incursions from Maine and upheld the province’s rights in the boundary dispute of 1826–28, and wrote important books on military and political subjects.

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Photo: JJonahJackalope · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Edward Whelan, 1864 (William Notman).
CA-K900History

Edward Whelan, journalist and Father of Confederation

Edward Whelan, an Irish-born journalist, came to Halifax about 1836 and became a protégé of Joseph Howe. He founded the Examiner in Charlottetown in 1847. A co-founder of Prince Edward Island’s Liberal Party with George Coles and an advocate of responsible government, he attended the Quebec Conference in 1864 and compiled The Union of the British Provinces (1865).

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Photo: William Notman · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Monument to Philemon Wright, Gatineau.
CA-K895Economy & trade

Philemon Wright, founder of Hull and the Ottawa timber trade

In 1800 the American entrepreneur Philemon Wright founded the farming settlement that became Hull. Turning to the region’s forests for income, he pioneered the Ottawa Valley timber trade, floating his first raft of square timber to Québec in 1806, and later built Canada’s first timber slides to bypass the Chaudière Falls. The Ottawa Valley became a major source of Canadian timber exports in the second quarter of the 19th century.

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Photo: Jeangagnon · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Dr. John McLoughlin, from an 1857 daguerreotype.
CA-K893Economy & trade

Dr. John McLoughlin, “Father of Oregon”

John McLoughlin, born in Rivière-du-Loup, was a physician before joining the North West Company in 1806, becoming a wintering partner in 1814. When the company merged with the Hudson’s Bay Company he became a Chief Factor and was put in charge of the Columbia District, with headquarters on the lower Columbia River. He stayed there after retiring, in what became American territory, and is known as the Father of Oregon.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Pitikwahanapiwiyin (Poundmaker), 1885 (O.B. Buell).
CA-K887Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Pitikwahanapiwiyin (Poundmaker), nehiyaw chief

Pitikwahanapiwiyin (Poundmaker), a nehiyaw (Plains Cree) chief and spokesman, sought better terms for his people and pressed Canada to honour Treaty 6. In 1885 he was drawn into the North-West Resistance when Lieutenant-Colonel Otter’s troops attacked his peaceful camp near Cut Knife Hill. Though he worked to prevent bloodshed and surrendered on May 26, he was imprisoned; he died soon after release and was exonerated in 2019.

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Photo: Prof. Buell, O.B. · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
John Clarence Webster, portrait.
CA-K885Culture & sport

John Clarence Webster, surgeon and historian

John Clarence Webster, born at Shediac, trained in medicine and held posts at Edinburgh, McGill and Chicago, becoming chief obstetrician and gynecologist at Chicago’s Presbyterian Hospital. After retiring he turned to history, writing many articles on New Brunswick and helping found museums at Saint John and Fort Beauséjour. He served on the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada.

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Photo: New York : J. T. White Company · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Charles Marega, 1929 (Archives of Ontario).
CA-K880Culture & sport

Charles Marega, sculptor of Vancouver

Charles Marega, an Italian-Canadian sculptor, created many notable monuments in British Columbia after arriving in 1909, first in the Beaux-Arts style and later in Art Deco. He helped found both the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts. The lions of the Lions Gate Bridge, his last public work in the city, are among Vancouver’s best-known icons.

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Photo: Unknown photographer; Archives of Ontario · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine, about 1863.
CA-K879History

Sir Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine, architect of responsible government

Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine, a jurist and reformer born at Boucherville in 1807, was one of the architects of responsible government in Canada. With Robert Baldwin he led the reform governments of the Province of Canada in 1842 and 1848. He left politics in 1851, became Chief Justice of Lower Canada in 1853 and was made a baronet in 1854.

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Photo: Indéterminé · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
W.R. Motherwell, 1913 (Bain News Service).
CA-K878Economy & trade

W.R. Motherwell, champion of the western farmer

William Richard Motherwell, born in Perth, Ontario, settled at Abernethy and advocated for western farmers. In 1901 he helped initiate the Territorial Grain Growers’ Association, which sought better grain inspection and shipping. As Saskatchewan’s agriculture minister from 1905 to 1918, he supported agricultural education and co-operative grain handling; he later served as Canada’s agriculture minister.

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Photo: Bain News Service, publisher · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Susan Louisa Moir Allison, portrait.
CA-K876Culture & sport

Susan Allison, memoirist of the BC interior

Susan Allison wrote a memoir of settler life in the interior of British Columbia, describing the experiences of women, children and Indigenous people. As an amateur ethnographer, she also recorded Similkameen and Okanagan stories. Her writings are historical sources that should be read in the context of European settlement and colonial relations.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Plaque honouring Wilmot at the New Brunswick Legislative Building.
CA-K874History

Lemuel Allan Wilmot, reformer and Lieutenant-Governor

Lemuel Allan Wilmot, born in Sunbury County, entered politics as a Reformer and represented York County from 1835 to 1851. As Attorney General he was in effect the head of New Brunswick’s first government under responsible government. Named to the Supreme Court in 1851, he resigned in 1868 to become Lieutenant-Governor until 1873.

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Photo: JJonahJackalope · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
James L. Ralston, 1921 (Harris & Ewing).
CA-K873History

J.L. Ralston, Minister of National Defence

James Layton Ralston, born in Amherst, Nova Scotia, was a lawyer, provincial legislator and decorated First World War veteran. He became Minister of National Defence in Mackenzie King’s government in 1926 and again in 1940. His support for conscription for overseas service was opposed by King, and he was forced to resign from cabinet in 1944.

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Photo: Harris & Ewing · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Alfred Ernest Cross, 1920 (Curlette).
CA-K872Economy & trade

A.E. Cross, rancher, brewer and Stampede founder

Alfred Ernest Cross, born in Montréal and trained in agriculture and veterinary medicine, came west in 1884 and took up ranching. In 1892 he founded the Calgary Brewing and Malting Company, and he was an early investor in Turner Valley oil and gas. He sat in the North-West Territories Assembly from 1898 to 1902 and was one of the founders of the Calgary Stampede.

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Photo: Curlette · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
William Francis Ganong, April 1913.
CA-K871Places & geography

William Francis Ganong, scholar of New Brunswick

William Francis Ganong, born in Saint John, was a scientist, cartographer, geographer and historian. During 38 years as professor of botany at Smith College in Massachusetts (1894–1932), he gathered and published historical and scientific material on New Brunswick and became a leading authority on the mapping of North America’s east coast. He died in Saint John in 1941.

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Photo: White · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Reverend George McDougall, before 1876.
CA-K867Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Reverend George McDougall and Methodist missions in the West

George McDougall was an influential Methodist missionary in the Prairie West from 1860 until his death in 1876, founding the Victoria mission in 1862 and leading others as part of colonization efforts. He urged First Nations to abandon traditional ways, removed the sacred stone Manitou Asinîy in 1866 with damaging results, and carried word of the coming Treaty Six talks in 1875. Missions linked to him at Norway House and Morley later developed residential schools.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Maurice Cullen, R.C.A., 1931 (Archives of Ontario).
CA-K866Culture & sport

Maurice Cullen, painter of the Canadian winter

Maurice Cullen, born in St. John’s, studied sculpture in Montréal under Philippe Hébert and painting at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Returning in 1895, he taught at the Art Association of Montreal and in the First World War served overseas as an official war artist. His international reputation rests mainly on his impressionist views of the Canadian winter.

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Photo: Unknown photographer; Archives of Ontario · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
David Laird, 1894 (The Canadian Album).
CA-K864Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

David Laird, the Indian Act and the Numbered Treaties

As Minister of the Interior from 1873 to 1876, David Laird helped shape policies that treated First Nations as wards and sought their assimilation, and was the main figure in consolidating earlier laws into the Indian Act of 1876. He negotiated Treaties 4, 7 and 8, whose meaning remains disputed. As Indian commissioner he restricted ceremonies and at times worked to dispossess First Nations of promised reserves. He also founded the Charlottetown Patriot.

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Photo: Unknown photographer · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Arthur G. Doughty in his office.
CA-K863Institutions

Sir Arthur Doughty, Dominion Archivist

Arthur Doughty became the second Dominion Archivist in 1904 and saw the Archives as vital to Canadians’ sense of their history. He collected every form of documentation, served both historians and the public, and through energetic acquisitions at home and abroad and the publication of documents greatly expanded the Archives and Canadian historical writing. He was knighted in 1935.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
William Henry Steeves, portrait.
CA-K857History

William Henry Steeves, New Brunswick merchant and Father of Confederation

William Henry Steeves, born in Hillsborough, was a leading merchant and lumberman before entering politics. He sat in New Brunswick’s Assembly and Legislative Council and was almost continuously in cabinet from 1854 to 1865. Bringing a reform-minded business outlook, he supported the Intercolonial Railway and Confederation to aid the province’s economy, and was named to the Senate in 1867.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Vilhjálmur Stefánsson (Bain News Service).
CA-K855Places & geography

Vilhjálmur Stefánsson, Arctic explorer

Vilhjálmur Stefánsson, born at Arnes, Manitoba, in 1879 to an Icelandic family, made three expeditions to the Canadian Arctic between 1906 and 1918 and wrote widely about the land and its Indigenous Peoples. Inuit support was essential to his success; his Iñupiaq partner Panigavluk worked as informant, hunter and seamstress, yet he abandoned his family. A controversial figure, he promoted the idea of a “friendly Arctic”.

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Photo: Unknown (Bain News Service, publisher) · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Charles Sherwood Noble, 1918.
CA-K845Economy & trade

Charles Noble and the Noble Blade

Charles Sherwood Noble, farmer, inventor and entrepreneur, showed the farming potential of the drought-prone Palliser Triangle. During the Great Depression he worked with the Dominion Experimental Farm to promote dry-land farming methods, and in 1936 invented the Noble Blade, a cultivator that cut weeds at the roots without disturbing the soil, greatly reducing erosion. His company became Alberta’s largest maker of such implements.

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Photo: unknown (Life time: 1910s) · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context