We don't know how the first people
reached Canada, but archaeologists have made educated guesses based
on the clues these first Native Americans left behind. The
evidence indicates that human population expanded from Africa
and the Middle
East, across Asia and into Siberia. People didn't move quickly,
they moved slowly over generations in search of new lands.
Siberia and Alaska are no longer connected,
but a “land bridge” once existed. This narrow passage of land allowed
the human population to move to America.
Most scholars believe the migration into
North America began at least 12,000 years ago and some scholars
suggest that it could have begun as long as 25,000 years ago. We
have evidence of a site in British Columbia that is more than 5,000
years old. By contrast, the civilizations of Greece and Rome
are not much more than two thousand years old. The first civilizations
we've studied are less than five thousand years old. The first
Canadians reached North America in long before the invention of
writing. Archaeologists believe that those first Canadians
fanned out across North and South America and were the people Christopher
Columbus mistakenly called “Indians.”
The
arrival of the Europeans
The first Europeans to reach Canada were
likely Vikings, but the only evidence lefts behind are the legends
of the Scandinavian people. The legends reveal that Eric the Red
left Scandinavia and founded settlements in Greenland and Iceland.
His son, Leif
Eriksson, explored further west and for a short time founded
a settlement in what is now the Maritime Province of Newfoundland
about AD1000. Eriksson and the settlers abandoned the settlement
after about thirty years, probably because they were unable to co-exist
with the native Canadians. Archaeologists have not found any certain
evidence of the Vikings in Canada, but some scholars suggest that
the stories about "Vinland", rather than India and China, prompted
Columbus to sail west.
Five years after Columbus reached the Caribbean
in 1492, another explorer from Genoa, Italy explored Canada. John
Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) sailed for England, and like Columbus, did
not realize that he had reached America. Cabot believed he had reached
northeast Asia. He returned to England and prepared for a second
voyage to find Japan, but the second journey ended when one of his
ships sank off the coast of Ireland. It is unclear if Cabot ever
returned to Canada, but his voyage allowed England to claim Canada
as a British colony.
The French reached and began to colonize Canada
in 1605. The French had a better relationship with the native population
because they were most interested in fur trading. The natives often
helped the French to hunt and trap in exchange for knives, guns
and worst of all, alcohol.
The British were also active in colonizing the
New World and after a series of wars, forced the French out of Canada
by 1760. At the time, most the population of Canada was almost entirely
French. The English mollified the French Canadians by recognizing
both cultures. The arrival of English speaking settlers from the
American colonies swelled the population of Canada but also created
ethnic tensions that continue to exist today.
The British solved the cultural problems
by dividing Canada into two parts. Lower Canada, now called Quebec,
retained French customs while Upper Canada, known today as Ontario,
followed English customs. As Canada expanded east into the fishing
villages of the Atlantic Provinces and west to the Prairie Provinces,
the English languages and culture
dominated. Today most of Canada speaks English, but 80% of the people
of Quebec speak French.
