Canada
(1995)
In stormy weather, Leif Eriksson missed the
southern edge of Greenland at 9xx.
The Vikings landed by the Labrador coastline and established a
settlement in Northern Newfoundland. Their settlement did not
last many years, partly since they did not succeed very well in
living peacefully with Indians who had arrived 15 thousand years
before. Anyway, this story fascinates us Scandinavians...
Five hundred years later, John Cabot arrived to the shore of Nova Scotia, and soon fishermen from Britain, France, Portugal and Basque country were exploiting these waters. 1534 Jaques Cartier sailed into the gulf of St. Lawrence, but no permanent settlement was established. 1583 some British colonies were established at Newfoundland.
At 1605, Samuel de Champlain established a fur trading settlement in Nova Scotia, and three years later he moved to the place of today's Quebec City. The Frenchmen made friends with the Algonquin and Huron Indians, and joined a raid against the Iroquois. They explored the region of the Great Lakes, and Montreal was founded 1642. This time there were about 3000 Europeans in Canada, subject to France.
Simultaneously, there were expanding British colonies in New England. Henry Hudson discovered Hudson Bay at 1610, and started the fur trade from that end. A conflict was unavoidable, and the first war was fought 1689-97. However, the situation remained unresolved.
In the beginning of the eighteenth century,
there were 80 000 French settlers in North America, against about
two million English-speaking people. At the peace of 1763, France
lost all North America except Louisiana. The province of Quebec
was isolated as the settlement of French-speaking residents.
During the American Revolution 1775-1783 the regions south of the
Great Lakes isolated and formed the US, and the rest of the
British North America is the origin of Canada.
James Cook sailed across the pacific and arrived to the West Coast of North America at 1778. Fourteen years later, George Vancouver explored the area in more detail. 1793 Alexander Mackenzie was the first white man traveling overland to the pacific ocean.
1812-13 there was a war between the US and Britain (an extension of Napoleonic wars), and as the result, 49th parallel was agreed as the border between the British North America and the US.
The Atlantic provinces were joined to the
province of Canada (Quebec and Ontario) at 1867, and the Dominion
of Canada was established. British Columbia joined 1871, hoping
to receive a trans-continental railway connection. The railway
was ready to operate at 1885. The latest province to join Canada
was Newfoundland in 1949, being previously a British colony.
The above history does not clarify us what Canada is. Canada was established as a federal state at 1867. That year, the British Parliament passed the British North America Act, which federally united three colonies, Canada (Quebec and Ontario), Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, as one dominion under the name of Canada. The dominion was divided into the four provinces named above. 1870, the parliament of Canada created Manitoba; B.C. joined 1871, and Prince Edwards Island 1873. 1905 the parliament of Canada created Saskatchewan and Alberta, and Newfoundland joined 1949. Each province has a government and provincial legislation for its internal businesses like schooling and healthcare.
The BNA Act of 1867 gave Canada internal self-government. In external affairs, the nation has reached independence gradually, so that in the world war I Canada joined automatically as a member of the British Empire, but in the case of the World War II Canada entered as an independent country. The executive government is vested in the Queen. For most purposes, she is represented by the Governor General, whom she appoints from the advice of the Canadian Cabinet.
The parliament of Canada consists of the Queen, the Senate and the House of Commons. The Senate of 104 members is appointed by the Cabinet. The prime minister appoints the Cabinet, and the prime minister in turn is appointed by the Queen (Governor General). However, the Cabinet is responsible to the House of Commons of 264 members, elected every fifth year. In the name of the Queen, the Cabinet declares war and peace, appoints Lieutenant Governors of the provinces and it has the right to annul any provincial law within one year of passing. Well, there still is quite a lot I do not understand, for example how constitutional legislation is made...
The Cabinet declaring war and peace in the name of the Queen, I just wonder if it still is possible that the Queen of Canada would declare war to the Queen of Australia or New Zealand...
I arrived to Toronto on Friday, Sept. 8. Toronto was too large a City. I took a bus to Berrie, a town about 100 km North of Toronto.
When arriving to Berrie, I was very tired, suffering the Jet Lag. Unfortunately, all the hotels were fully booked - there was to be a flee-market the following day.
I was waiting for another bus to take me further North, but fortunately Marianne, a waiter in a restaurang, saved me and told me to spend the night in her place. I did. They had a very nice large new house.
In the morning, I took the bus to Orillia from platform 9 (but first I had to walk straight into the bus station hall, since Marcel made sure I will not get lost).
As Marianne told me that I have to rent a car if I want to see something else but the highway, this was the first thing I did in Orillia. After renting the car I continued to the Algonquin provincial park.
Algonquin logging museum was very fascinating to me. I am a subscriber of a Canadian scientific Journal which is often illustrated with photos from the gone century logging operations. Now I was able to see the real equipment.
In the Algonquin visitor center, I suddenly met a large moose, a wolfpack on a spruce bog and a pretty Indian girl in the camp. After briefly studying the exhibition, two hikes in the wilderness, a few hours each. The spruce bog environment was not so different from the boggy areas of Finland. As well, the coniferous ecosystems of Algonquin are quite similar to many Finnish forests. He sugar maple stands are seldom found on this side of the 60th parallel, neither do we have much hemlock. Maybe it is due to the more southern location, all over in the Algonquin area there are more tree species than commonly in Finland: we have only one species of spruce and one of pine, there is no fir, maple and oak are not common. This of course changes when you travel 1000 km south to Poland or Germany.
From Algonquin I drove to Dorset and then to Bracebridge, where I finally found a motel with free rooms. In the morning, back to Orillia, a bus to Toronto and another one to St. Catharines. A taxi to Niagara-on-the-lake, and registered in Queen's Landing.
The program of the conference was of high quality, I am very satisfied with that. New friends and useful contacts. Wednesday, Sept. 13 there was some time to briefly visit Niagara Falls. Too briefly, since my company was too busy to have beer in the reception; neither was there no time to explore the Queenstown heights. However, I decided to have the beer a little faster and thus I had time to study the fort of St. Georges. The Fort Niagara on the other side of the river was clearly visible and I do not doubt that the British North American troops did feel uncomfortable in the fort at 1812. Some Canadian conference delegates even told that they had difficulties in sleeping since the cannons of Fort Niagara were just opposite to them.
From Queen's landing, a safe and fast airport transportation to Pearson airport, a flight to Frankfurt and then to Helsinki. At home, a new record of continuous sleeping: 19 hours, one hour more than the previous one.