Browse "Industry"

In 1858, around 30,000 gold seekers flooded the banks of the Fraser River from Hope to just north of Lillooet in British Columbia’s first significant gold rush. Although it dissipated by the mid-1860s, the Fraser River Gold Rush had a significant impact on the area’s Indigenous peoples and resulted in the Fraser Canyon War. Fears that the massive influx of American miners would lead the United States to annex the non-sovereign British territory known as New Caledonia also resulted in the founding of British Columbia as a colony on 2 August 1858 (see The Fraser River Gold Rush and the Founding of British Columbia). By the mid-1860s, the Fraser Rush collapsed, and British Columbia sank into a recession.

After William Durant lost control of GENERAL MOTORS for the second time, he started Durant Motors, and a Canadian branch was established in the Toronto suburb of Leaside.

This important sector of Canada's FOOD AND BEVERAGE INDUSTRIES is made up of companies that process fruits and VEGETABLES.

Fruit growing is an important part of Canada’s food industry. Growing is usually restricted to areas where winter temperatures do not go much below -20°C.

Starting in the late 1880s a new industry developed in Canada, as animals of various species began to be bred in captivity for their fur. Foxes were first farmed on Prince Edward Island. In 1913, the Island counted 277 fox farms and by 1923, there were 448.

The Canadian fur industry consists of companies that buy raw furs from trappers, dealers or fur-marketing companies (eg, Hudson's Bay Company raw-fur auctions), send them to fur dressers and dyers in Toronto, match the skins and cut and sew them into garments.

The fur trade was a vast commercial enterprise across the wild, forested expanse of what is now Canada. It was at its peak for nearly 250 years, from the early 17th to the mid-19th centuries. It was sustained primarily by the trapping of beavers to satisfy the European demand for felt hats. The intensely competitive trade opened the continent to exploration and settlement. It financed missionary work, established social, economic and colonial relationships between Europeans and Indigenous people, and played a formative role in the creation and development of Canada.

Throughout the period of the historical fur trade, water routes were the natural “highways” of the voyageurs and coureurs des bois. Canoes (later boats — principally York boats) were the principal vehicles. The location of trading posts depended on the presence of Indigenous peoples willing and able to trade, and on the ease of transportation to and from them.

The trapping of animals for fur occurs in almost every country of the world. In Canada, trapping is done primarily for the cultivation of animal pelts, though some may trap for food.

Canadian furniture originated with the first settlers and consisted of simple, handmade, utilitarian products. Later, local carpenters made furniture for others. The first Canadian furniture company was established in Berlin [Kitchener], Ontario, in 1830; the next, in Toronto in 1834.

Motor vehicle registration figures appear for the first time in The Canada Year Book for 1916-17. It was in this year that the Year Book accorded motor vehicles a new status as the most important means of transportation in Canada.

General Motors of Canada Limited, with headquarters in OSHAWA, Ontario, is a major manufacturer and distributor of cars and trucks.

For picketing Canadian autoworkers, it was a symbolic gesture. With the strike against General Motors of Canada Ltd. dragging into its third week, tempers flared at a cavernous GM plant in Oshawa, Ont.

It was like a scene from Traders, Global TV's popular drama about life in Bay Street's fast lane. Only this time, the star of the show was Izzy Asper in the role of the shrewd and stubborn chief executive.

Goats (family Bovidae, genus Capra) areruminant mammals with backwardly arching hollow horns, short tail and usually straight hair; they are related to SHEEP but are of slighter build.

There are approximately 120 000 grain-producing farms in Canada. Yearly production varies substantially, depending on climatic conditions. Grain production has doubled since the 1950s, with wheat making up a large percentage of production. In 1997-98, total Canadian wheat exports were 15.

Harvest Excursions Before the introduction of the combine, prairie harvests required large numbers of labourers for short periods of time. Harvest excursion trains, 1890-1930, brought workers west - about 14,000 in 1908.

John Cabot could never have imagined anything like this. When the Anglo-Italian explorer arrived at the Grand Banks in 1497, the schools of codfish were so thick, they literally stopped his ships in the water.

Technology, along with labour, capital, resources and management, is one of the essential components of industrial production. Most classes of industry require some technological input, but the amount varies widely among industrial sectors.

Fisheries drew the first Europeans to what is now Canada, and still sustain large coastal and inland regions.