Here is a short history of Canada. We are ten provinces living in a commonwealth . As of July 2008 the Canada population is 33, 212, 696. Canadians are multicultural and the vast majority of the population are immigrant or of immigrant descent. Perhaps all Canadians were at one time from other continents but that is a debate with no end. Canada borders the USA on the south, the North Pole on the North, Alaska and Russia on the West, and Europe and England on the East.

John Cabot was the Italian sea voyager Giovanni Caboto. He is often credited as the first man to explore what would later become Canada. Caboto was born in Venice Italy when it was one of the busiest merchant trading centers in the Mediterranean. He was a merchant trader and a navigator able to work the trading ports. His passion for exploration led him on voyages further and further away from his homeland. He was committed to finding a passage to Asia and the far East where he could open trading routes that would allow for the expansion of trading partners.

By 1483 he was living in England. The Spanish empire with the blessing of the pope and of Rome had Columbus conquering new land and the new world of America was becoming their prize.

In England Cabot convinced King Henry VII to sponsor him in order to sail towards this new land and to mark some territory for England.

On a ship called MATTHEW Cabot sailed in 1497 to reach the New Found Land. He touched the shores across the Atlantic Sea, and continued oaring the frozen sea to map the passage of the North West in the hope of finding that elusive passage to Asia.

Before Cabot there were Viking voyages but not many archeological artifacts are found that can expand on those missions.

After Cabot came by the Sea

• Miguel and Gaspar Corte Real from Portugal who claimed Terra Nova (Newfoundland)
• Joào Fernandes Labrador (c.1500)
• Joào Alverez Fagundes (c.1500)
• Jacques Cartier (c.1534)
• Samuel Champlain (c.1608)

The French were also looking to conquer new land and they sent out Jacques Cartier who sailed his ship - la grande hermine - into the St Lawrence Gulf and up the St Lawrence River where he met up with some of the aboriginals. Jacques Cartier claimed the land for France, traded some goods with the aboriginals and returned to France to tell the King about the Country of the Canadas. Kanata is a term for settlement in the aboriginal Iroquois language. Canada, New France was the name of the settlement set up by Jacques Cartier.

By 1603 Samuel de Champlain, another explorer for France began his explorations of the new land. He followed the maps of Jacques Cartier and by 1608 he had founded the city of Quebec, New France. From here grew a large establishment where merchant fur traders exchanged guns, foods, tools, and, whiskey, and coins, with any man willing to sell their pelts. The aboriginal took to the idea. However as the furs became harder to find men took their traps and guns inland to find better hunting grounds. This gave rise to a breed of people called "les coureurs de bois" and they are the Metis of this day. These men took on aborinal wives and their offspring were mixed blood.

From these beginnings other explorers sponsored by Kings or Queens moved inland and along with the Metis, every lake, river, and mountain was eventually mapped.

The Province of Canada along with the British colonies of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia was the new found land.

By 1867 the provinces of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia joined league to become the Confederation or the Federation of Canada. New additions were added to the league with the passing of time.

John A. MacDonald became the first Prime Minister of Canada.

July 1, 1867

• Quebec
• Ontario
• New Brunswick
• Nova Scotia

July 15, 1870

• Manitoba
• North West Territories

July 20, 1871

• British Columbia

July 1, 1873

• Prince Edward Island

June 13, 1898

• Territories of Yukon

September 1, 1905

• Saskatchewan
• Alberta

March 31, 1949

• Newfoundland

April 1, 1999

• Territory of Nanuvut

From whiskey trade and fur trade we have come to be known as Canucks. We live in a land that is personified by seasons with extremes of cold and heat, of white blankets and mountains of snow at one end of the scale and with forests of evergreens and poplars, birches, elms, oaks, and other trees, that grow on floors covered with wild berries and flowers of all colors. These northern forests are home to the moose, the black bear, the grizzly bear, the otter, the turtle, and to birds of a thousand names. These creatures of the woods drink from thousands of pools of freshwater which keep filling themselves with the run off of snow melt from mountains and from rivers that run their serpentine course wherever they can. We have pike, pickerel, bass, and perch, along with a thousand other aquatic mammals who live in those lakes and we have people.............

Stop the show.....already.

What???

The Canadian Beer Country was doing just fine without the last characters. Where did it all go wrong.

Well it is what it is and we are who we are. We are the people who gave the world a game called Hockey. And Wayne Gretzky was the man who likely put Canada on the map while John Candy made the rest of the world laugh and Neil Young made the hippies peace out.

And that my good friend was a short history and a look at a Country called Canada.

Visitors are still welcomed.