Book and Media? Well, maybe I guess...
(And I could - dare I hope? - get it stickied.)
Just ask those in charge.
Professor Zyzzyva's Canadian History 101
- Thread starter Zyzzyva
- Start date
Just ask those in charge.
Was the term "Maritimes" used in this sense then? I know that today one must be careful because the "Atlantic Provinces" are those mentioned above and the "Maritimes" refer only to those in Canada pre-WWII.
1) totally irrelevantly, half of my ancestry (Dad's dad and Mom's mom - they were first cousins were 'Scots' who came from Ireland (mostly) in 1820 and immediately following)
2) One thing I HATE about alt-Canadian histories is when people try to set up colonies on the Shield!! Solid igneous rock, a layer of moss and jackpine and birch.
Charter of the HBC gave it 'all the lands draining into Hudson's Bay' - which is why the boundries look so odd.
Note that BC had recently been TWO colonies, but the mainland and island were merged.
The explanation I heard was "Newfoundlanders will resolutely tell you they don't live in the Maritimes. They live in Atlantic Canada. Where is Atlanitc Canada? The Maritimes."
I just call it all the Maritimes.
Damn straight - and believe me, I'll be telling you lots more about the gawdafulness of the Shield.
Yeah, I know; I just can't mention every little factoid.
This is really quite good--but I suggest you send a PM to Ian and get him to sticky this.
Kinda funny this happen thread as I start Canadian history II at University
Oh just wait till someone decide to do a Polish-Armenian thread like this
may not go as smoothly as this oneIII
Building a Nation
Building a Nation
The new Dominion of Canada now shared a few things – a parliament, a flag, a currency, a few other odds and ends. But the differences between the colonies joined together loomed all the larger now that they were a single country. The new Conservative government’s first goal, therefore, was to try and forge a new Canadian nationality, to help hold the country together. Their policies to do this, not entirely coincidentally, were conservative ones.
The first goal, somewhat counter-intuitively, was geographic expansionism. With the problems a small, four-province Canada was having, why make it larger? But there were advantages: western settlement would relieve the population pressures of Ontario and the Maritimes; new territories with different concerns would help balance out the numerous two-way contests of eastern Canada; and finally, and most importantly, the settlement of a common frontier would bring Canadians together in a common goal. Besides, if Canada didn’t get the Northwest – and fast – the United States might move in.
Rupert’s Land and the Northwest Territory joining Canada was widely seen as being inevitable; in the event, it only took two years for this to happen. In 1869 the HBC finally returned its vast North American domains to the British government, who in turn turned it and the NWT over to Canada as the new Canadian (as opposed to British) Northwest Territories. The Canadian government lost little time in trying to get it settled; in 1872 the Dominion Lands Act was passed, granting 160 acres of NWT farmland, totally free, to anyone who was willing to settle them. They also began advertising in Britain and the US in an effort to get as many (Anglo-Saxon) immigrants as possible to settle the new frontier. But – this being Canada – the settlement of the west was above all to be orderly: in 1873, the Northwest Mounted Police, the forerunner of the famous RCMP, was founded. The settlement of the Canadian frontier would look nothing like the American Wild West.
PEI, along with Newfoundland, had opted out of Confederation in 1867, but the pressure to join had been building since then. The British government had seen the chance to liquidate as many expensive North American colonies as it could, and PEI was nothing if not unprofitable – by the 1870s the colonial government was literally bankrupt from its railway-building efforts. The absentee landlord problem – the rich British landholders who owned practically the entire island, and had almost to a man never visited it – was also beginning to tell on the colony. So, in 1873, with what amounted in essence to a huge, one-time cash payment, the Canadian government bought out every single absentee landlord and the entire colonial government’s debt, and in exchange for this clean slate PEI joined Canada. Newfoundland, with its more independent economy and total lack of railroad debt – the idea of building railroads in poor, rocky, unsettled Newfoundland was so patently ridiculous that even in the railroad-crazy 19th century almost none was built; the total linage on the island is still less than 1000 km – managed to remain independent for another three-quarters of a century, becoming the last British colony in North America. Last, because BC – even before PEI had – had joined Canada.
British Columbia, in the 1860s, was easier to reach from Washington DC than from Ottawa. Crossing the NWT was practically impossible for anyone not a professional explorer or fur-trader; the best way to get to Vancouver was to take the US transcontinental railway, and then a boat. Nevertheless, with the purchase of the NWT, BC was in some sense now “adjacent” to Canada, and a union of all BNA was looking plausible now; so, in 1871, in exchange for assumption of its debt, BC joined Canada. Well, assumption of its debt and a real connection to Canada; BC wouldn’t join unless it had a wagon-road to eastern Canada within 15 years.
Prime Minister MacDonald, full of the boundless prospects of his new country (and whiskey), promised them a railway line within ten.
The idea was moderately crazy. The new line would have to be (at least) 25% longer than the US transcontinental, in a much smaller country. It would be, in fact, the longest rail line ever built - by some estimates, the largest engineering project of all time. Nevertheless, it wasn’t totally impossible – and it would open the west, and tie the country together, in a way that nothing else could. So, a transcontinental railway it was. But the thing would be huge and, at least initially, would be hugely unprofitable, so the federal government had to throw out some major incentives: the company willing to do it would get a monopoly on western railways, and 50% of the land within a 150 mile corridor around the rail line. It ended up going to the Canadian Pacific Railway of Hugh Allan, who – not coincidentally – was a good buddy of MacDonald.
Politics in Canada were still getting started in the early 1870s. Most of the provincial governments were created straight out of the colonial governments they replaced, but the federal government took a while to settle in. The 1867 election was essentially organized on pro/anti-confederation lines, but after that the only real party was MacDonald’s Conservatives (aka, Tories). His opposition – which ended up being called, somewhat inevitably the Liberals (nicknamed Grits) – needed a while to find a position of its own. In the end, their main position became free-trade to the Tories’ protectionism. This left the Liberals much more popular than the Tories in the Maritimes, and made the 1872 election a lot closer than the 1867 one had been. Nevertheless, the Conservatives won.
Which is to say, they won the vote fairly – the campaigning turned out to have been anything but. Allan and the CPR, it came out, had bankrolled the Tory campaign to the tune of no less than $300,000. The idea of corporate involvement in elections isn’t totally new – but the bluntness of the payment (a telegram came to light in which MacDonald begged Allan for “another $10,000. Will be the last time of calling. Do not fail me. Answer today”) and the fact that it turned out to be largely American money offended people. The CPR was supposed to be a Canadian affair – even its route was supposed to be all-Canadian, leading to the hugely expensive traversal of the Shield of northern Ontario rather than through the flat and easy US – and above all Yankee influence in Canadian politics was viewed with horror.
So, with MacDonald visibly coming apart under the strain (famously, coming to Parliament stinking drunk when he came at all, and at one point responding to a heckler by noting that he “could lick him faster than Hell could scorch a feather” and having to be physically restrained from proving it) the Tory position crumbled. In 1874 he resigned, and in the ensuing election the Liberals roundly defeated the Conservatives. Alexander MacKenzie became the new Prime Minister, and MacDonald’s career seemed to be over.
Nevertheless, he had accomplished much in his term in office, bringing in almost all of BNA and riding out Canada’s first secession attempt, as well as another not-quite secession attempt out in the northwest.
(Canada at the end of MacDonald’s first term of office)
Notice the square province (Manitoba) around Red River? That was not originally to have been a separate province, when the NWT was added. Why it was, only four years later (indeed, only one year later, even before BC or PEI joined), is a story long and interesting enough to deserve its own post.
Last edited:
And the really fun bit is, if you don't know Canadian history, you can treat it like a TL and have suspense and whatnot!
...I want to hear what bits are ASB.
And the really fun bit is, if you don't know Canadian history, you can treat it like a TL and have suspense and whatnot!
...I want to hear what bits are ASB.
Hell--even if you do know Canadian history, you can still have the suspense!
We should have had more PMs like MacDonald -- can you imagine having him in the present? He'll probably punch out a CBC reporter every time he shows up at Parliament...
Thande
Donor
And the really fun bit is, if you don't know Canadian history, you can treat it like a TL and have suspense and whatnot!
...I want to hear what bits are ASB.
Indeed - it's like EdT's bits where you want to say it's ASB and then a footnote says it was taken direct from OTL...
I seem to remember reading once that the entity now known as Canada once had the name "Transatlantea" considered for it, as Canada at the time specifically referred to Ontario and Quebec as opposed to the Maritimes and the Northwest Territories - is this true?
The best part of Manitoba history...no not violent suppression of the Metis, followed by an amicable agreement...followed by violent suppression...followed by an agreement, no, it's the:
Reference re Manitoba Language Rights [1985] 1 S.C.R. 721*
*All Manitoba laws made without French translation (i.e. all laws made in Manitoba since the 1890s) were in fact...of no force and effect!
The Supreme Court Said:
I love Canada.
Reference re Manitoba Language Rights [1985] 1 S.C.R. 721*
*All Manitoba laws made without French translation (i.e. all laws made in Manitoba since the 1890s) were in fact...of no force and effect!
The Supreme Court Said:
I love Canada.
Yup.
[Lecture mode on]
During the years shortly following Confederation, a number of suggestions were thrown around for changing the name of the dominion, on the not entirely unjust principle that it referred only to the central portion of the country. However, none of the names thrown around - the usual list is Albertsland, Albionora, Borealia, Britannia, Cabotia, Colonia, Efisga, Hochelaga, Norland, Superior, Transatlantia, Tuponia, and Victorialand - were particularly inspiring, with most being fairly generic (Albertsland, Colonia, Victorialand), a few rather confusing (Britannia, Transatlantia) and some just outright stupid (Efsiga and Tuponia are both acronyms). In the end, Thomas D'Arcy McGee - the so-called poet of Confederation, and later to become moderately famous as one of only two Canadian politicians to ever be assassinated* - put the whole thing to rest in a speech where he noted: "I read in one newspaper not less than a dozen attempts to derive a new name. One individual chooses Tuponia and another Hochelaga as a suitable name for the new nationality. Now I ask any honourable member of this House how he would feel if he woke up some fine morning and found himself instead of a Canadian, a Tuponian or a Hochelagander." Canada it stayed.
*I mention this here because I don't think he'll ever be mentioned in lecture; the other almost assuredly will be. Bonus points for nonCanadians who can name the who, where, when and why of the second assassination.
[Lecture mode off]
Last edited:
Thande
Donor
Thankee Zyz.
If you think that's bad, in Australia they considered naming Canberra after the first two letters of each state capital, with the result being an unpronounceable mishmash which I can't find on the interweb.
If you think that's bad, in Australia they considered naming Canberra after the first two letters of each state capital, with the result being an unpronounceable mishmash which I can't find on the interweb.
And as a legacy --has a bar in downtown Ottawa that's a few steps away from where he was assassinated named after him.
And as a legacy --has a bar in downtown Ottawa that's a few steps away from where he was assassinated named after him.
Well consider that the american named a comic strip about an obese cat after one president that got shot
And as a legacy --has a bar in downtown Ottawa that's a few steps away from where he was assassinated named after him.
Great bar, though.