Canada – from First Nations homelands to a bilingual federation
For thousands of years, the lands that are now Canada were home to many First Nations and, in the Arctic, to the Inuit, with a wide variety of languages, economies and systems of governance. Around the year 1000 Norse seafarers briefly settled at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, the earliest known European presence in North America.
From the sixteenth century French and English explorers, fishermen and fur traders arrived. France founded Quebec in 1608 as the heart of New France, while Britain expanded around Hudson Bay and along the Atlantic coast. Their rivalry was decided in the Seven Years' War, after which New France passed to Britain in 1763. The Quebec Act later protected French civil law and the Catholic faith, laying a foundation for Canada's dual heritage. After the American Revolution many Loyalists moved north.
In 1867 Confederation united several colonies into the Dominion of Canada. The country expanded westward, built a transcontinental railway and attracted immigrants from around the world, while Indigenous peoples lost much of their land and many children were forced into residential schools – a painful legacy Canada is still confronting. Canada fought in both world wars, gained full legislative independence with the Statute of Westminster in 1931 and patriated its constitution in 1982, adding a Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Today Canada is shaped by bilingualism, multiculturalism, its relationship with Indigenous peoples and its vast landscapes.
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