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The Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History in Halifax traces its roots to 1868, when it opened as the Provincial Museum in rooms in the Post Office Building. Its present site at 1747 Summer Street was established in 1970.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Hal peridol · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
In 1768 the Hudson’s Bay Company sent two British astronomers to Prince of Wales Fort, on Hudson Bay, to observe the 1769 transit of Venus. It began more than forty years of HBC cooperation with the Royal Society of London in astronomy, meteorology, cartography and natural history in the North, with Indigenous collaborators sharing their deep knowledge of the land, plants and animals.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Peterfitzgerald · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
The University of King’s College was founded in Windsor, Nova Scotia, in 1789. The institution is now based in Halifax.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Samsmachado · Photo licence: CC BY 4.0 · Credit & context
The University of New Brunswick, founded in 1785, offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in more than 60 disciplines, as well as continuing education.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Blazingluke at English Wikipedia · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
Joseph Frederick Wallet DesBarres, a military engineer of Huguenot descent, took part in the capture of Louisbourg in 1758 and Quebec in 1759. From 1763 to 1773 he surveyed and charted the coasts of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, contributing to marine surveying. He was the first Lieutenant Governor of Cape Breton and founder of Sydney, and later governed Prince Edward Island; he died in Halifax at 102.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Hantsheroes · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
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.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Andyplummer · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Pierre Gaultier de La Vérendrye of Trois-Rivières, soldier, trader and explorer, founded with his sons between 1731 and 1743 a series of posts beyond Lake Superior that became bases for French exploration of the West. They included Forts Saint-Pierre, Rouge and La Reine, at today’s Fort Frances, Winnipeg and Portage la Prairie.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: sculpteur:Jean Bailleul / photo: Jean Gagnon · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
John Strachan, born in Scotland, came to Kingston in 1799, taught at Cornwall and became rector of York in 1812 and first Anglican Bishop of Toronto in 1839. A central figure of the Family Compact, he promoted public schooling and in 1827 secured a charter for King’s College; when it became the secular University of Toronto in 1849, he founded the Anglican Trinity College in 1851.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Louis-Guillaume Verrier, born in France, was attorney general of New France and a member of the Council of Quebec for 30 years from 1728. He founded the first school of law in Canada, and from 1735 many future lawyers took his courses; he also assembled a library of some 4,000 volumes.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Jeangagnon · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
The de Gannes-Cosby House in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, built in 1708 for French officer Louis de Gannes de Falaise, is a rare surviving house in Acadia from before the Deportation. After 1727 it was home to British officer Alexander Cosby, lieutenant-governor of Annapolis Royal, and it keeps original features such as wattle-and-daub infill and a fieldstone foundation.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: CanadaContributor · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Park House in Amherstburg, Ontario, an 18th-century combined dwelling and warehouse, is considered one of the oldest houses in the region. It has long been said that its Loyalist owners floated it down the Detroit River to Upper Canada when the British handed Detroit to the Americans in 1796. Its grooved-post construction is a rare survival of a once-common French-Canadian colonial building type.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Crisco 1492 · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
The Hôpital-Général de Québec monastery is associated with the Augustinian sisters’ hospital work from 1693. The convent complex escaped the bombardments of the 1759 siege and preserves buildings that illustrate the history of religious hospital care in Quebec.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Jstremblay · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
Fort Lennox, on Île aux Noix in the Richelieu River, guarded one of the gateways to Canada along the Hudson–Champlain–Richelieu route. Fortified by the French in 1759, captured by the British in 1760 and used by American revolutionary forces in 1775, the island was repeatedly fortified and held a garrison until 1870.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Photographer unidentified; Archives of Ontario · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
The Fortress of Louisbourg, on Cape Breton Island, was established by France as a critical fishing, trans-shipment and supply port and served as administrative capital of Île Royale, with a government, garrison and civilian population. Between 1713 and 1768 it was a place of profound significance in the struggle between France and Britain for empire.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: KenCLeBlanc · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Skmaqn–Port-la-Joye–Fort Amherst, on Prince Edward Island, was the seat of colonial government from 1720 to 1768, first under the French and then the British. It was a port of entry and a place where Mi’kmaq and French leaders renewed their alliance. In 1758, British authorities used Fort Amherst to organize the forcible removal of more than 3,000 Acadians from the island.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Larry from Charlottetown, PEI, Canada · Photo licence: CC BY 2.0 · Credit & context
Jeanne Dugas (1731–1817) and her family fled Île Royale (Cape Breton) to escape the 1758 deportation but were captured and imprisoned in Halifax. A midwife and keeper of Acadian stories, she co-founded Chéticamp around 1785; having lived through eight dislocations, she embodies the resilience of Acadian women through 50 years of upheaval.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Michael Sprague from Candler, North Carolina · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 · Credit & context
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.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Dan Conlin · Photo licence: CC BY 4.0 · Credit & context
Richard Pierpoint (c. 1744–c. 1838), born in Bundu in present-day Senegal, was captured and sold into slavery in the Thirteen Colonies around 1760. He fought as a free man with Butler’s Rangers in the American Revolution, settled in Niagara, and during the War of 1812 contributed to the creation of the Colored Corps; afterward he asked for passage to West Africa but was given land in Upper Canada instead.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Chris Woodrich · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
After the Maroon War of 1795–1796, Britain exiled more than 500 Maroons of Trelawny Town, Jamaica, to Nova Scotia. They kept a strong sense of community despite pressure to assimilate and demands for their labour, including at the Halifax Citadel; most were resettled in Sierra Leone in 1800, while a few remained.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Moneywagon · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
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.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: User:Saforrest · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
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.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Peterfitzgerald · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
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.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: WayeMason & John Van Gurp · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
The British Parliament’s Quebec Act of 1774 restored French civil law in the Province of Quebec while British criminal law remained. It also allowed Roman Catholics to practise their faith.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Diliff · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 2.5 · Credit & context
The deportation of the Acadians began in 1755. Grand-Pré National Historic Site commemorates both Acadian settlement in the area and the forced dispersal of Acadian communities.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: E.walker · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context