Travis Novitsky
Canada 150
The Sea Lion in 1867 was very different from today (in this picture). A stone “head” has fallen off the landmark in Sleeping Giant Provincial Park.
When Canada came into being as a country on July 1, 1867, it was a subdued affair with no parades and few parties or fanfare.
Even the Minneapolis Daily Tribune noted the quiet mood of the new country, reporting on July 7, 1867, “Inauguration day for the new Dominion of Canada passed off very quietly at Ottawa. The people didn’t seem to care about anything about it.” Two days later, the newspaper noted, “They expected the people to throw up their caps and express unbounded enthusiasm, but the people did nothing of the kind. It was a very cool affair.”
Fast forward to 2017 and it’s a totally different story. Canadians are enthused, pumped up and ready to celebrate their 150th anniversary. Across Canada, plenty of Canada 150 legacy projects are under way, special events planned and a strong pride in saying “I am a Canadian!”
Although today’s Canada has 10 provinces and three territories, 150 years ago it was only three British North American colonies – Province of Canada (which split into Ontario and Quebec at Confederation), Nova Scotia and New Brunswick – that became four provinces to form the Dominion of Canada.
They created a country the “Canadian” way: no revolution, no battles, not even a nationalist movement. Instead, there were negotiations and three conferences – Charlottetown in 1864, Quebec in 1864 and London, England, in 1866 – where Canada’s 36 “Fathers of Confederation” and British leaders negotiated an agreement that became the British North American Act of 1867 declaring July 1 “Dominion Day” and the birth of a new country, Canada. It was approved by British Parliament and given Royal Assent by Queen Victoria.
What fueled the nation building? Besides economic factors and the need for political restructuring, there were concerns about U.S. influence and possible annexation by that country (it had just bought Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million). There was also a belief that Britain was losing interest in its North American colonies and might not defend them. England’s London Times reported on April 2, 1867, that “the aspiration of the United States to absorb the whole of North America is no secret.” The Canadian union would give the colonies strength through unity and perhaps a path to becoming a sea-to-sea country.
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Courtesy Sault Ste. Marie Museum
Canada 150
William Armstrong painted Colonel Garnet Wolseley’s Red River Expedition in 1870 camped by the St. Marys River (at the foot of today’s Huron Street) in Sault Ste. Marie.
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Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society 983.29.46
Canada 150
Shops along South Water Street in Prince Arthur’s Landing in 1875.
Ontario and Lake Superior in 1867
Ontario around Lake Superior 150 years ago looked quite different.
Travel in the area of today’s Thunder Bay was limited to paddling waterways or going by steamship. There were no major east-west roads or railways – the first rail service arrived in 1882. The area was still a wilderness hinterland with fur-trade posts, missions and surrounding small settlements, including Hudson’s Bay Company’s Fort William post on the Kaministiquia River, and a few European families in what would become the pioneer city of Fort William. On the river, two Jesuit priests had established the Mission of Immaculate Conception in 1849 and located in the Ojibwe village, now part of Fort William First Nation.
Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society 977.1.862A
Canada 150
Workers at Silver Islet during its heyday in the 1870s.
Three miles northeast was the Depot (also known as the Station), which would become Port Arthur. This was the landing spot for unloading steamers anchored offshore, their passengers, animals and cargo brought in by barge. In 1868, the only structure was a log cabin built by the government. There was no lumbering, no sawmills or agriculture. But the silver mining boom was getting under way, gaining momentum with the launch of several mines, including the Silver Islet Mine that spanned 1868-1884 and for a time became the world’s richest silver mine.
Port Arthur evolved from Prince Arthur’s Landing, which got its name in spring 1870 when it was still a tent community of miners known as The Landing. Colonel Garnet Wolseley’s Red River Expedition – sent west from Toronto to confront Métis forces during the Riel Rebellion – camped there. The British officer renamed the site for the British prince, according to North of Superior: An Illustrated History of Northwestern Ontario by Michel S. Beaulieu and Chris Southcott.
To the east, Nipigon was home to the HBC Red Rock House fur-trade post, and was a premier North American fishing spot for the wealthy. One writer recalled half barrels being filled with 800 pounds of trout when he fished the Nipigon in 1867.
Michipicoten, headquarters for HBC’s Lake Superior trading district, lay 483 kilometres (300 miles) east of Fort William. At the junction of the Magpie and Michipicoten rivers, it had postal service and was the hub of fur trading and nearly everything else, says Johanna Rowe, a local historian in Wawa.
About 10 Europeans and 40 to 60 First Nations people were living here in the late 1860s, working for the Michipicoten post by trapping, trading and hunting. Yet HBC also was branching into boat building and commercial fishing, sending its fish (whitefish and lake trout) south to Sault Ste. Marie and then on to other cities like Detroit.
Some in Michipicoten worked in blacksmithing and tinsmithing. And although mining wouldn’t take hold on the mainland here until 1898, copper mining got under way in 1867 on Michipicoten Island.
Canada 150
A map shows the original 1867 boundary for western Ontario was not far north of Lake Superior.
Sault Ste. Marie, some 225 kilometres (140 miles) south of Michipicoten, had about 800 residents. Most were logging, fishing, hunting or farming, says Michael Gingras with the Sault Ste. Marie Museum. Others worked in the fur trade. Painter F.J. Falkner arrived four years earlier and observed: “When I first saw Sault Ste. Marie, I thought: In all my life, never have I seen such a lovely spot. There was no Queen Street when I came here, just a road partly through the woods.” (Today Queen Street is a major artery.)
The community had telegraph and postal service. Its “highway” was the St. Marys River, which people traveled by canoe or rowboat. Steamboats would soon be the new method of transportation for people and package freight.
The Hudson’s Bay Company post had been recently abandoned. Built by the North West Company, it switched to HBC’s control after the fur trade competitors merged in 1821. The NWC also had built a small wooden lock on the river in 1798, but it was destroyed by the Americans in 1814. A new lock would be completed in 1898 (long after the first Soo Lock on the Michigan side opened in 1855).
Sault Ste. Marie officially became a village in 1871, population 880 – with 290 French, 178 English, the rest from various ancestry, as well as First Nations people. It would be another decade before trains rolled into town.
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Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society 973.105.216
Canada 150
In 1867, travel around our Ontario shores was by canoe, foot and steamboat. Rail service arrived in the 1880s, here at Prince Arthur’s Landing waterfront.
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James Smedley / Courtesy Algoma Central Railway
Canada 150
Today, the Algoma Central Railway’s Agawa Canyon Tour Train in Sault Ste. Marie offers a wilderness train experience.
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Naturally Superior Adventures
Canada 150
An enduring mode of transportation – today for pleasure – is the canoe, such as the large voyageur canoe.
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Paul L. Hayden / Lake Superior Magazine
Canada 150
Ermatinger-Clergue National Historic Site in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, features two of the oldest buildings west of Toronto that reflect the Confederation era and before – the 1808 Ermatinger Old Stone House (left) and the 1894 Clergue Blockhouse (right). Inside, the stone house depicts the life of fur trader Charles Oakes Ermatinger. The blockhouse was home of industrialist Francis Hector Clergue from 1894 to 1908 and was moved to the site in 1996.
A Quick Expansion
In 1867, the biggest chunk of the present-day Canada wasn’t even part of Confederation – it was controlled either by Hudson’s Bay Company (Rupert’s Land) or by Britain (North-Western Territory and the colonies of British Columbia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland). HBC surrendered its vast land charter to Britain a year later in 1868. Britain then transferred all of its North American lands to Canada in 1869, though not giving possession until 1870 when Canada paid $1.5 million to HBC. It was the biggest real estate deal in Canadian history.
Three provinces quickly joined Canada: Manitoba, 1870, British Columbia, 1871, and Prince Edward Island, 1873. Alberta and Saskatchewan followed in 1905 and Newfoundland in 1949 (split in 2001 into Newfoundland and Labrador). Expansive territories were added – Northwest in 1870, Yukon in 1898 and Nunavut in 1999.
It’s been a long way coming to today’s Canada, and the country is ready to celebrate.
Already under way for the sesquicentennial is the Canada 150 Mosaic. Sault Ste. Marie has joined 150 communities in the project to create a coast-to-coast mosaic of 80,000 one-inch tiles for “an overall image of train cars connecting Canada.” Thunder Bay is participating in Canada 150 Celebration Gardens, having planted tulips (500 red, 500 white) last year to bloom in the spring.
Parks Canada offers free access in 2017 to all national parks and national historic sites, though you still must get a Discovery Pass free online, at the gates or at visitor centres. That means Pukaskwa National Park is free for day use (you still pay for camping) and access is free to the Sault Ste. Marie Canal National Historic Site. You still pay to enter provincial parks.
Yes, in contrast to the first “Dominion Day” in 1867, the 2017 plans for July 1 celebrations are looking to be spectacular.
Elle Andra-Warner of Thunder Bay has written multiple history books covering everything from the Mounties to the Hudson’s Bay Company to the Edmund Fitzgerald.