Browse "History"

Des Sauvages, ou, Voyage de Samuel Champlain (1603) records Champlain's first voyage to Canada as François Gravé du Pont's guest aboard La Bonne Renommée searching for the Northwest Passage.

Diamonds of Canada, mined by Jacques Cartier's men at the mouth of Rivière du Cap-Rouge in 1541.

Dictionary of Canadian Biography/Dictionnaire biographique du Canada is a multivolume, comprehensive reference work on the lives of people who have contributed to Canada's history in every field of endeavour.

The Diggity archaeological site is located at the southeastern end of Spednic Lake, near the entrance to Palfrey Lake, in southwestern New Brunswick.

Catastrophic accidents or natural disasters may be spectacular or tragic, but they seldom have great historical significance.

Discovery, famous ship belonging to the East India Company, which first sailed into the Arctic under the command of George Weymouth in 1602. The same ship was used by Henry HUDSON to explore Hudson Bay in 1610. Hudson was cut

Discovery Day is a statutory holiday in Yukon commemorating the discovery of gold that set off the KLONDIKE GOLD RUSH and led to the formation of the territory.

The First World War forever changed Canada. Some 630,000 Canadians enlisted from a nation of not yet eight million. More than 66,000 were killed. As the casualties mounted on the Western Front, an expatriate Canadian, Sir Max Aitken (Lord Beaverbrook), organized a program to document Canada’s war effort through art, photography and film. This collection of war art, made both in an official capacity and by soldiers themselves, was another method of forging a legacy of Canada’s war effort.

When Canada declared war on Germany on 10 September 1939, tens of thousands of Canadians enlisted to serve in the army, navy,  air force and supporting services. The military scrambled to buy equipment, train recruits and prepare for war. Little thought was given, at first, to documenting the war effort. By 1940, however, the military was recruiting historians, most notably Charles Stacey, to collect records and write accounts of Canadian operations. In the following years, artists, photographers and filmmakers also served with the various branches of the armed forces. Today, their diligent work provides a rich visual and written catalogue of Canada’s history in the Second World War.

As little domestic silver has survived, it is difficult to determine how much was made in the colony. Silver, obtained by melting coins or existing silver articles, was always in short supply.

Dominion of Canada is the country’s formal title, though it is rarely used. It was first applied to Canada at Confederation in 1867. It was also used in the formal titles of other countries in the British Commonwealth. Government institutions in Canada effectively stopped using the word Dominion by the early 1960s. The last hold-over was the term Dominion Day, which was officially changed to Canada Day in 1982. Today, the word Dominion is seldom used in either private or government circles.

The Dominion Lands Act was a federal law that received royal assent on 14 April 1872. It allowed for lands in Western Canada to be granted to individuals, colonization companies, the Hudson’s Bay Company, railway construction, municipalities and religiousgroups. The Act set aside land for First Nations reserves. Métislands were organized by the government outside the Dominion Lands Act, using the scrip system. The Act also set aside lands for what would become National Parks(1883). The Dominion Lands Act devised specific homestead policies to encourage settlement in the West. It covered eligibility and settlers’ responsibilities, and outlined a standard measure for surveying and subdividing land. Some 1.25 million homesteads were made available over an expanse of about 80 million hectares — the largest survey grid in the world. The Act was repealed in 1930, when lands and resources were transferred from the federal government to the provincesof Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. From 1870 to 1930, roughly 625,000 land patents were issued to homesteaders. As a result, hundreds of thousands of settlers poured into the region.

The Dominion Police was originally a small protective force organized by the federal government in 1868 to guard the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa following the assassination of Thomas D'Arcy McGee.

Double Majority, see MACDONALD, JOHN SANDFIELD.

After the George-Étienne Cartier-John A. MacDonald ministry in the Province of Canada was forced to resign on 29 July 1858, a Reform ministry was formed under George Brown and A.A. Dorion.