From the big scrapbook of time, here’s a look at Canada in 1905-
January 2: Electrification is on its way to citizens of Ontario as the Canadian Niagara Power Company dedicates its new powerhouse, located in Queen Victoria Park.
January 28: Ellen Loucks Fairclough is born in Hamilton, Ontario. She will grow up to be a politician. Appointed to Tory PM Diefenbaker’s cabinet in 1957, she will be the first woman to serve the nation with such distinction—in deed she will be acting Prime Minister in 1958. When Queen Elizabeth II visits, the Honourable member will be permitted to bow along with the other ministers rather than curtsey. Usually reserved for PMs, in 1992 Her Majesty confers the title of Right Honourable upon Mrs. Fairclough. She will die in 2004, just weeks before her 100th birthday.
January 5: The Vancouver School Board has announced that the American poem Evangeline will no longer be taught in English classes. Educators have decided the story of the expulsion of Acadians from Atlantic Canada fosters “an anti-British spirit. “
February 28: Opened for business last July, the first two Canadian-made Fords are sold to Canada Cycle and Motor Company of Toronto. The bill of sale for the pair of horseless carriages is $3,545.
March 9: Coal miners in Nanaimo, BC end a bitter five-month strike with no resolution. They go back to the mines but object to the use of Asian workers in the colliery because their pay is so much smaller than that of Canadian labourers.
March 11: The Ottawa Silver Seven whip the Rat Portage Thistles two games to one, for the honour of holding Lord Stanley’s Cup.
March 24: Newfoundlanders reel in disbelief as the United States Congress refuses to recognize the free trade agreement negotiated between Prime Minister Robert Bond and the US Secretary of State. Today it is announced that American fishermen in Newfoundland waters will be sold no bait until the issue is reexamined.
April 3: William Angus is a rich man. The Windsor, Ontario farmer was ploughing his field when his horse sank into miry pit that turned out to be oil.
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| Cumberland House was designed by Ontario's Chief Architect and Engineer. The home was built in the Romanesque Revival style. |
April 24: Kivas Tully is dead at the age of 85. He was an architect whose designs helped define the City of Toronto. Among his works are the Bank of Montreal, Trinity College and Queen’s Park.
April 30: John Peters Humphrey is born in Hampton, New Brunswick. When he grows up, he will draft the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The distinguished lawyer will teach at McGill University until he is 90 and be laid to rest at the age of 99.
May 2: Members of the House of Assembly in Halifax learn that Nova Scotia has 25 telephone companies with 6,181 subscribers.
May 10: His Majesty, King Edward VII, grants Manitoba an official Coat-of-Arms.
May 27: Police are called to keep the peace in Grand Falls, New Brunswick as angry gun-toting Americans blockade the St. John River in a bid to stop Canadians from milling lumber destined for New England markets.
June 4: Binding the Dominion together with ever stronger ties, the Canadian Pacific Railway begins daily passenger service between Montréal and Vancouver.
June 15: The government of the Dominion of Newfoundland bans the sale of bait and the granting of licenses to Canadian and other foreign fishing fleets.
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| A Rolls-Royce was the first automobile in the Dominion of Newfoundland. |
June 19: The St. John’s Evening Herald reports that “all automobiles in the city were out on Topsail Road yesterday afternoon and some lovely speeding was done.” The number of cars in St. John’s has reached seven. Five prominent citizens have horseless carriages on order.
Dominion Day: Peterborough in Ontario--with a population of 14,000 souls--is granted city status.
July 5: Clarence Sutherland Campbell is born in Fleming, Saskatchewan. He will grow up to graduate from the University of Alberta, be a Rhodes Scholar, serve in World War Two and be president of the National Hockey League from 1946 to 1977. He will die in 1984.
July 12: Ojibway and Cree delegates are signatories to the James Bay Treaty, aka Treaty Number Nine—giving vast parts of northern Ontario to the government.
July 17: Timothy Eaton opens the latest store in his retail empire, a colossal five-storey building in Winnipeg. The 77,000 people who live in Manitoba’s capital city are thrilled and so are the half million folks who live in Western Canada. The store employs 700 people. Before the year is out, a sixth storey will be added to the imposing edifice and there will be 1,100 employees on the payroll.
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| The Canada-USA border runs through the middle of the library. Part of it is in Derby Line, Vermont and the rest in Stanstead, Québec. |
July 24: A joint Canadian-US survey team discovers that the boundary line between Quebec and Vermont is incorrect and some 4,500 people who thought they were Americans actually live in Canada.
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| Gold nuggets. |
July 15: Major James Morrow Walsh has died at home in Brockville, Ontario at the age of 65. He was the Northwest Mounted Police Superintendent of the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush.
July 20: The Governor General gives Royal Assent to the creation of the Provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta.
July 25: James M. Walsh is dead in Brockville, Ontario at the age of 65. He was one of the first officers named to the North West Mounted Police. A personal friend of Sioux Chief Sitting Bull, Walsh was appointed to serve as the first Commissioner of the Yukon Territory.
October 10: More than 100 homes are destroyed by a nighttime blaze that sweeps through Summerside, Prince Edward Island. Firefighters from Charlottetown come to battle the flames. Fearing for their lives, citizens flee their homes and even prisoners are let out of His Majesty’s hoosegow.
October 25: J.J. McLaughlin Limited is incorporated in Toronto. The company will produce Canada Dry, “the Champagne of Ginger Ales.” Next year the company will set up a bottling plant in Edmonton and begin shipping Canada Dry to thirsty neighbours in the United States.
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| Antique Jewels 1956 |
November 1: Paul-Émil Bourduas is born in St. Hilaire, Québec. He will grow up to become a painter, renowned for his abstract works, father of the Automatiste (automatic) style of painting. He will tirelessly campaign for separation of church and state until he dies of a heart attack in Paris in 1960.
November 8: The first Ford automobile is exported to New Zealand.
November 24: It may be cold and rainy but the last spike is driven in Edmonton at 10.30 am, as the Canadian Northern Railway is declared open for business. The direct route heads to Winnipeg and the trip takes only 25 hours.
December 2: Eaton’s Department Store sponsors the first Santa Claus parade in Toronto. The annual event will grow to become the largest on the continent. Hard times will prompt the department store to drop its sponsorship of the parade in 1982.
December 6: An angry crowd of people in Québec City throws eggs at French actress Sarah Bernhardt after she tells the press that Quebeckers aren’t really French—rather descendants of the Iroquois people.
December 31: The automobile is catching on with the public. Ford of Canada has sold $110,114 worth of cars as workers build 114 Model C units and seven Model B units during the calendar year.
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