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Canada & Canadian Culture Geography Posters & Prints
for geography, social studies classrooms; home schoolers.
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geography > North America > CANADA & CANADIAN CULTURE < social studies
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Canada, as the world's second-largest country by total area, occupies most of northern North America. Canada extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean. Canada's land borders are with the United States along the south and to the northwest with Alaska. The name Canada comes from a Iroquoian word for “village” or “settlement” and was adopted by Jacques Cartier for the land he was exploring for France in 1535.
Passage along the northern Canadian coastline is ground for international dispute. The search for a northern commerical sea route, the goal of explorers between the end of the 15th century and the 20th century, were thwarted because of the pack ice blocking a clear water passage. One of the results of climate change and the rising global temperatures is that as of September 2007 the Northwest Passage pack ice has melted and opened the sea route through the Arctic Ocean along the northern coast of North America for the “first time since records began in 1978” according to the European Space Agency.
Canada is divided into ten provinces - Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia; and three territories - Nunavut, Northwest Territories, and Yukon Territory.
The federal capital of Canada is Ottawa; Toronto is the largest city (also the fifth largest city in North America after Mexico City, NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago), and Montreal is one of the largest French speaking cities in the world.
The federal constitutional monarchy of Canada was founded as a union of British and former French colonies in 1841. Beginning in 1867, gradual independence from the United Kingdom was achieved in 1982. Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, is also the Canadian Head of State. Canada Day is celebrated July 1. Canada uses both English and French as official languages.
There is evidence of Aboriginal peoples habitation from more than 25,000 years ago in the Yukon area and 9,500 years in the Ontario area. Above the Arctic Circle the stone landmarks called inuksuk were built in an environment with few natural features.
The first European settlers were Vikings c.1000 AD at L'Anse aux Meadows on the island of Newfoundland; the British and French explorers lead to permanent settlements between 1605 and 1610 in Nova Scotia and Quebec.
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Satellite image of Canada shows Hudson Bay and its southern offshoot James Bay; Baffin Bay, between Atlantic & Arctic Ocean, usually filled with ice (Greenland is to the east); the Saint Lawrence River drains the Great Lakes into the Atlantic Ocean at the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Sixty percent of the world's freshwater lakes are in Canada, many in the area of rock known as the Canadian Shield that had been scoured clean by the last ice age.
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Jacques Cartier
b. 12-31-1491; St. Malo, Brittany, France
d. 9-1-1557; St. Malo
France based its claims to the rich lands of Canada on the exploration of Jacques Cartier. He lead the first European expedition up the St. Lawrence River, which became an important passageway into the interior of North America. He detailed accounts of his geographical discoveries, the Indians, and the plants and animals of the New World were published in French, English, and Italian. They stimulated many later voyages to North America.
In 1534, King Francis I sent Cartier to North America to search for the fabled Northwest Passage to China. Many Europeans hoped they could reach the Orient by sailing north of North America. Cartier's expedition landed on the Gaspé Peninsula in Canada. He claimed the peninsula for France. There he met a group of Iroquois Indians who told him of precious jewels and metals farther northwest, which whetted his appetite for exploration. Cartier established friendly relations with the Indians on this expedition, finding natives who would later serve as interpreters.
Cartier returned to Canada the next year. Sailing along the northern coast of the Gaspé Peninsula, he entered a bay, which he named for St. Lawrence because the expedition arrived there on the saint's feast day. From the bay, he sailed up the great river to the foot of a mountain he called Mont Réal, or “Mount Royal.” The city of Montreal was founded on this site. Because Cartier claimed the region for France, Montreal grew into the second-largest French-speaking city in the world. Later explorers named the great river that flowed by Montreal the St. Lawrence. Winter stopped Cartier's exploration on this second expedition. He and his crew returnd down the river to what is now Quebec City, where their ships were trapped by ice and they had to spend the winter. The Frenchmen suffered greatly from cold and hunger during the long Canadian winter. Most of them became ill with scurvy, a disease caused by lack of vitamin C. Before Cartier learned that a brew of white cedar bark would cure the disease, 25 men died.
On his third voyage ot America, Cartier searchd for gold and spices that Indians said existed to the west. The Indians became hostile when they realized the French intended to stay in Canada. They killed many of Cartier's men, and he returned to France after spending another hard winter in Canada. (text from no longer available poster in series)
• North American Continent poster
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Samuel de Champlain
b. 1567; Brouage or La Rochelle, Aunis, France
d. 12-25-1635; Quebec City
Samuel de Champlain, the “father of New France,” founder of Quebec City, opened North America to French fur trade. Champlain was born in the seaport town of Brouage on France's west coast and naturally became a salior, progressing to navigator and mapmaker. Champlain would spend several months or years exploring North America in the area of present day Quebec and the area of the US where Lake Champlain, named for him, in 1609; and then return to France to find investors for more exploration.
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David Thompson
b. 4-30-1770; London, England
d. 2-10-1857; Montreal, Canada
Fur trader, surveyor, and map-maker, David Thompson explored North America west of Hudson Bay and Lake Superior, across the Rocky Mountains to the source of the Columbia River, and followed the length of the Columbia to the Pacific Ocean. He has been described as the “greatest land geographer who ever lived” and known to some native peoples as “Koo-Koo-Sint” or “the Stargazer”.
FYI ~ Thompson apprenticed to the Hudson Bay Company at age 14, clerking in present day Manitoba; Thompson was the creator of maps used by Lewis and Clark.
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Up to 5000 Acadians were deported from Acadia, present day Canadian Maritime provinces of Nova Scotia (renamed in honor of Scotland by the British), New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, and some of the American state of Maine, by the British in 1755.
The Acadians were the descendants of 17th-century French colonists; many settled in Louisiana where they became known as “Cajuns”.
American author Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem Evangeline (1847) is a fictional account of the expulsion.
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Newfoundland and Labrador consists of the island of Newfoundland in the Atlantic and Labrador on the mainland. St. Johns is the capital and largest city.
The earliest European contact was probably made over a thousand years ago by Leif Ericson; he called the place Vinland and the settlement is known as L'Anse aux Meadows.
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Prince Edward Island, the smallest Canadian province, is made up of an island of the same name and other islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The island was named after Prince Edward, the father of Queen Victoria; Jacques Cartier claimed the island as a part of the French colony of Acadia.
Charlottetown is the capital and largest city.
• Lucy Maud Montgomery, author of Anne of Green Gables
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Nova Scotia, the second smallest Canadian province, is made up of the Nova Scotia Peninsula and several islands. Much of the current population are descendents of Loyalists who left the new United States the end of the American Revolutionary War.
Halifax is the largest city and capital of Nova Scotia.
• Ruby Keeler, actress
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New Brunswick, a maritime province, gets its name from the city of Brunswick (Braunschweig in German) in northern Germany, the ancestral home of the Hanoverian King George III of Great Britain.
New Brunswick is bounded by Gaspé Peninsula and Chaleur Bay of Quebec on the north, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence on the east, the Bay of Fundy on the south and the US state of Maine on the west.
Fredericton is the capital, and Saint John (not to be confused with St. Johns in Newfoundland Labrador) the largest city, in the province.
• Edward Mitchell Bannister, artist
• Walter Pidgeon, actor
• Donald Sutherland, actor
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Quebec, Canada's largest province by area, is also the only province whose official language is French.
The French explorer Samuel de Champlain chose the name Québec, which was originally derived from an Algonquin word kébec meaning “where the river narrows”, as the name for the colonial administrative seat of New France.
FYI - in 2006, the Canadian House of Commons passed a symbolic motion recognizing the “Québécois as a nation within a united Canada.”
• Geneviève Bujold, actress
• Celine Dion, singer
• Glenn Ford, actor
• Mario Lemieux, hockey player
• Oscar Peterson, jazz pianist
• Mack Sennett, director
• Norma Shearer, actress
• William Shatner, actor
• Pierre Elliott Trudeau, politician
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Ontario is the most populous province and second largest in total area in Canada. Ontario's Toronto is Canada's most populous city and Ottawa, the national capital of Canada, is in Ontario. Ontario shares Great Lake borders with the U.S. states of Michigan, New York (Niagara Falls), Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and a land border with Minnesota.
• Margaret Atwood, author
• Frederick Banting, physician
• Robertson Davies, author
• Marie Dressler, actress
• John Charles Fields, mathematician
• Frank Gehry, architect
• Glenn Gould, musician
• Graham Greene, actor
• Walter Huston, hockey player
• Farley McGill Mowat, conservationist & author
• Lester Pearson, statesman
• Mary Pickford, actress
• Barbara Ann Scott, figure skater
• Tecumseh, Shawnee Chief, voted 37th Greatest Canadian
• Jacob “Jack” Warner, film executive
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Manitoba is the easternmost “prairie province”, the name means “strait of the spirit" or “lake of the prairies" and is thought to be from the Cree, Ojibwe or Assiniboine language.
Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba.
The Red River of the North flows northward from the U.S. into Lake Winnipeg, which then drains into the Hudson Bay through the Nelson River.
• Adam Beach, actor
• Louis Riel, leader
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Saskatchewan is the middle prairie province, its name derives from the Cree word meaning “swift flowing river” for the Saskatchewan River.
Saskatchewan's largest city is Saskatoon, the provincial capital is Regina.
• more food posters
• Grey Owl
• Buffy Sainte-Marie
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Alberta is the westernmost of the prairie provinces with the southwestern portion rising to the Rocky Mountains and the Continental Divide.
The capital of Alberta is Edmonton; Calgary is the site of the famous rodeo the Calgary Stampede.
FYI - Alberta is named after Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Lake Louise is also named after the princess.
• more national parks posters
• Marshall McLuhan, author
• Joni Mitchell, musician
• Jamie Salé, figure skater
• Fay Wray, actress
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British Columbia is the westernmost province. Victoria is the capital, Vancouver is the largest city and the 2010 host of the Winter Olympics.
• David Suzuki, ecologist
• Pamela Anderson, actress
• Michael Bublé, singer
• Raymond Burr, actor
• Kim Cattrall, actress
• Yvonne De Carlo, actress
• James Doohan, actor
• Chief Dan George, actor
• June Havoc, actress
• Sarah McLachlan, musician
• Joni Mitchell, musician
• Jamie Salé, figure skater
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Yukon (founded 1898), North West Territories (1870) and Nunavut (1999) are territories with no inherent jurisdiction or powers. The territories consist of mainland Canada north of 60º latitude and west of Hudson Bay, including islands north of the Canadian mainland to the Artic. Whitehorse, Yellowknife and Iqaluit are the capitals and largest cities respectively.
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Royal Canadian Mounted Police are famous for “always getting their man” and the distinctive scarlet ceremonial uniform and Stetson hat.
• horse posters
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Beaver, the largest rodent in North America (and the third largest rodent in the world, after the South American capybara and the Eurasian beaver) is also an emblem of Canada. The beaver fur was prized in Europe and brought trappers and traders to North America.
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The modern game of ice hockey was first organized by McGill University students in 1875.
The 2010 Winter Olympics were hosted by Vancouver, BC.
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The game of la crosse (the stick), a team sport of Native American origin, is considered the national summer sport of Canada.
FYI- Zebulon Pike saw Indians playing a game like la crosse in an area of current day Wisconsin and called the place Prairie La Crosse. And Chief Pontiac set up a la crosse game outside Fort Michilimackinac to celebrate the King George III's birthday - the players gradually played their way close to the open gates and then rushed in to massacre the British soldiers and traders.
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The polar bear, a semi-aquatic marine mammal, is adapted for life on a combination of land, sea, and ice.
Scientists project climate change and the resulting decrease in polar sea ice will significant decrease the polar bear population and may lead to its extinction within the 21st century.
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Canada Geese flying in V-shaped formation are a familiar signal of the seasonal transitions into spring and autumn.
• bird posters
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Jean Paul Lemieux (1904–1990) is one of the foremost painters of twentieth century Québec.
• winter posters
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