OH CANADA
I sit, writing this blog post, with snow bucketing down outside my window.
So very Canadian.
But that’s the present, the now, the today Vancouver. I’m here today to talk HISTORY.
Canadian History.
To start this post off we have a timeline with events leading up to Canada 1812-
The French™ and The English™ were some dominant people back then.
The English thought they were all high and mighty
The French thought that the English were high and mighty too. High and mighty pains in the butt.
In the 1600’s, New France was founded by a man named Samuel De Champlain. He was given a mission, to create a colony on the shores of the Saint Laurence River- or die. Harsh punishment.
I have that information from a bog post I did at the end of last year on Samuel De Champlain.
Alivia
Raina
Melanie
And I, did a comic on Samuel De Champlain. As we were all first introduced to our Canadian history unit at the end of last year, and returned to it when we got back from Winter break.
Link to that blog post in the title of this segment.
UPPER AND LOWER CANADA-
In the 1820’s, Canada was separated into mainly two groups;
Upper Canada– The English™
&
Lower Canada– The French™
Upper Canada was the English, they had more money, and they had the Queen.
Lower Canada was the French, they had less money, they didn’t have the Queen, but they were
there first, and had more land.
The English were unhappy with the fact that the French had more land.
There was a problem in the Canadas in the 1820’s where people were coming to Canada from Britain for cheap land, however when they arrived, there was no more good land left.
“We come with promises of good cheap farm land, yet we arrive and there is minimal farm land left, never the less GOOD farmland”.
REBELLIOUS TEENAGERS… I MEAN CANADIANS-
Throughout the 1800’s, there were a few rebellions.
We learnt about two main ones;
The Rebellion in Lower Canada in 1837
&
The Rebellion in Upper Canada in the same year.
They play a part later I promise.
FIRST NATIONS-
Them French Fries were far from the first people in Canada.
Go back years before, there were the Norse- They died out from Canadas cold winters.
But go back even further, there were the First Nations.
The First Nations who’s land was taken by these rich White Men, who’s land was turned into whatever the Rich White Men wanted.
The First Nations who were put into residential schools where they were abused, beaten and occasionally killed.
They were different, and the English/French didn’t like different. I mean, they didn’t even like each other!
The First Nations had to give up their land, they had to give up a lot actually, all for these ridiculous white men that they never wanted on their land.
There were many treaties signed throughout the years, the treaty of Utrecht in 1713 giving the English land, Treaty 6 in 1874, things like that.
Lets just say that back in the pre-confederation days, the English and the French were none too kind to the First Nations people of Canada.
THE ROAD TO CONFEDERATION-
Back in the day, after the rebellions of 1837, a man named Lord Durham was sent from England to find what issues were in the Canadas and how things could change.
He collected information, and eventually returned to England.
There, Lord Durham reported back to the Prime Minister and the Queen.
He told them about the current issues in the Canadas. The French felt unequal 
to the English, the English felt like they weren’t being treated the way they wanted. Everything was crazy.
Durham said that the Canadas needed to be united, they needed a new form of government. Something Democratic.
Durhams actions made it so that there was an act of union in 1840. By 1841, Upper and Lower Canada were no more. They were united as one.
JOHN A MACDONALD IN 1867-
John A MacDonald was our father of Confederation. He fought for the creation of Canada. He was a drunk, he was english and he is the man who made it all happen.
There was a movie made about him!
Characters from left to right-
George Etienne-Cartier – A politician leader of the French!
John A. Macdonald- The charismatic leader of the Conservative Party
George Brown – Owner and creator of “The Globe” (the Globe and Mail), the opponent of MacDonald who would become the first leader of the Liberal Party.
The movie was (in my opinion) two steps away from being a Monte Python sketch.
I can imagine George Brown standing atop a building looking down at John A and yelling
“I fart in your general direction MacDonald!”
”I blow my nose at you George Brown!”.
For reference- the original scene from Monte Python and The Holy Grail~
Funny thing is, that scene was English vs French.
A PART OF OUR HERITAGE-
During our unit about the history of Canada, we watched and created “Heritage Minutes”.
A Heritage Minute is a one minute video created by the company Historica Canada.
Each heritage minute is a look into events of Canadas past.
My favourite Heritage Minute I’ve seen was the Winnie The Pooh one. I loved Winnie the Pooh as a kiddo, and I never knew he was Canadian until this year. You learn new things every day!
Some people also made a hilarious re-make if it and I think it’s definitely worth sharing-
Our project was to choose an event in Canadas History, of which there was not already a Heritage Minute about, and film our own Heritage Minute.
We were separated into categories-
My group was First Nations Relations.
My group was
–Luca J
–Lucas
–Jamie
We chose the story of Big Bear. A First Nations Chief who fought with ideas instead of violence, who fought for his rights as a human person.
This was our video. We (my group and I) are all reasonably proud of it.
We had one main challenge throughout creating the video.
None of us are First Nation, therefore none of us could actually play the parts of the people in our story.
We worked hard on working out how we could tell our story, without being IN the video as characters from the story. It was difficult, but we did it!
Thanks for reading all about what I’ve learnt about Canadian History surrounding Confederation this unit.
Have a good day Lords and Ladies.
Later!