1901

From the big scrapbook of time, here’s a look at Canada in 1901-

January 1: The Dominion Bureau of Statistics counts noses. There are 5,371.315 Canadians stretched out from Cape Breton to Vancouver Island. The Dominion of Newfoundland has 217,037 souls.

January 2: The Merchant’s Bank has a new name and a new look: it is now called the Royal Bank. It will grow to become one of the largest financial institutions in the world.

January 3:  Striking coal miners in Pictou, Nova Scotia return to their jobs after winning a 12-percent wage hike. With production expected to more than double as a result of the recent steel boom, employers pay up rather than risk profits. 

January 7: MPPs at Queen’s Park in Toronto create a 5,800-square kilometre forest reserve near Temagami. 

Swallow Tail, Grand Manam by Jack Weldon Humphrey.

January 12: Jack Weldon Humphrey is born in Saint John, New Brunswick. He will grow up to become a famous landscape artist, best known for his water colours of Saint John harbour. He will die in 1967 after complications from surgery.

January 22: The entire British Empire is plunged into mourning. After 63 years, seven months and two days on the throne, Queen Victoria is dead of a cerebral haemorrage at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. The longest reigning British monarch, Her Royal Highness was 81. To honour the queen’s passing, all of Canada will be draped in purple bunting—not black—at Her Majesty’s request.

January 23: Alphonse Desjardins opens the first Caisse Populaire in Lévis, Québec. The credit union movement, designed to serve the needs of ordinary people, will grow to more than 50,000 establishments in 97 countries and control more than $1 trillion in assets.

January 31: The Winnipeg Victorias beat the Montréal Shamrocks to win the Stanley Cup.

February 2: After two days of public viewing, Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom and Ireland, the Dominions and Empress of India is laid to rest next to her husband, Prince Albert. Her Majesty disliked black and prior to her death ordered subjects to mark her passing with decorations of purple and white.

February 2: The first of four new blast furnaces comes on line at the Dominion Iron and Steel Company, Limited in Sydney, Nova Scotia. The price tag for the quartet of state-of-the-art furnaces is $10 million. Once fully operational, they will produce 500,000 tons of steel annually.

Sir Robert Borden is featured on the $100 bill.

February 6: At their convention in Ottawa, Conservatives vote Nova Scotia native son Robert Borden to be their leader as Sir Charles Tupper steps down. Borden will lead the Tories to victory in 1911 and be Prime Minister until 1920. He will die in 1937 and be remembered with his likeness on the $100 bill.

February 11: A miner in Dawson City, Yukon strikes more than gold as he uncovers the remains of a two-ton mastodon 16 metres beneath the surface of his claim site. 

February 13: Members of the Canadian Manufacturers’ Association are told that Canada must adopt the Metric System if it is to be successful in exporting goods worldwide.

March 2: George Mercer Dawson is dead at the age of 60 after a one-day illness. Born in Pictou, Nova Scotia he taught chemistry at Morrin College in Québec City, but left behind the halls of learning when asked to explore and map western Canada for the Dominion government. For two years he explored from the Red Deer Valley to Kicking Horse Pass. Later he led a geological expedition to the Yukon. Dawson City, YT and Dawson Creek, BC are named in his honour.

March 4: Wilber R. Franks is born in Weston, Ontario. He will grow up to become an important research scientist but will be best remembered for his 1940 invention of the anti-gravity or G-suit used by pilots and later astronauts in outer space. He will be laid to rest in 1986.

Vancouver's Japantown 1901.

March 9: The Law Courts rule that Japanese Canadians have the right to vote in British Columbia elections.

The French Hill School was built last year. It will close in 1936.

March 14: Officials note that school attendance in Ontario is down noticeably as young people dump education and head into the cities for good paying jobs. 

March 20: Canadian General Electric begins construction of a large factory in Toronto. 

The  current Carleton School of Journalism.

March 25: Wilfred Eggleston is born. He will establish Carleton University’s School of Journalism and be Canada’s chief censor during World War Two. The esteemed journalist will be awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1943 and will die in 1985.

Private Rickets will serve in the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. He is seen here, wearing his Victoria Cross medal.

April 15: Thomas Ricketts is born in Middle Arm, White Bay in the Dominion of Newfoundland. He will grow up to serve in the Great War and for bravery, become the youngest person to ever receive the Victoria Cross. The war hero will be given a state funeral when he dies in 1967.

April 19: Jim Caffery, a native of Hamilton, Ontario wins the Boston Marathon.

April 30: David Manners is born in Halifax. He will drop out of the University of Toronto to pursue an acting career in Hollywood. The handsome star will be the lead in many movies until he gets bored. He will leave Hollywood in 1936 to act on Broadway. David will write numerous best-selling novels and paint until his death in 1998. 

May 3: An epidemic of rabies sweeps the Yukon. The fist casualty, a miner, dies today.

May 15: The local paper reports that stovemaker Tom Doherty of Sarnia, Ontario has invented a three-wheeled horseless carriage that runs by winding a clockwork spring. The car can move for several blocks at three to five kilometres per hour and “is a notable feature on the town’s streets.”

May 21: The Ontario government reports that immigration to the United States has dwindled to nearly nothing as ‘New Ontario’ expands. Folks are flocking to the newly created districts of Temiskaming and Port Arthur (Thunder Bay) to farm. 

May 2: John Voss and Norman Luxton set sail from Victoria, BC in a 10.9-metre red cedar dugout Nootka Indian canoe. The Tilikum will take three years, three months and twelve days to make a 65,000-kilometre voyage to London by way of Australia. The Tilikum; reaches England Sept. 2, 1904, after taking three years, three months and 12 days to navigate the 65,000 km, via Australia. The craft will go on display at the Maritime Museum in Victoria, British Columbia on January 8, 1965.

June 8: Prince Edward Island marks its first anniversary as a dry province. Many Islanders will lift a pint when the Temperance Act is repealed in 1948.

June 12: Say ‘good-bye to the old-fashioned biffy! The City of Montréal passes a by-law that forbids outdoor toilets.

Empire Tobacco Limited is located in Leamington, Ontario.

June 16: The Anti-Cigarette league holds a rally in Toronto. More than 1,600 young people come to hear the message.

July 3: W.F. “Billy” Cochrane introduces the first horseless carriage to the good citizens of Calgary as he pilots his steam-powered Locomobile throughout the city’s streets.  The luxury brand will disappear after the 1929 selling season.

August 15: The steamer SS Isander, en route from Victoria, BC to Skagway, Alaska strikes an iceberg and sinks to the bottom of Stevens Passage in less than 20 minutes. Nearly 170 lives are lost, along with $3 million in gold and $400,000 in currency. The main part of the boat will be salvaged in 1934 but the gold will elude treasure hunters until 1996.

August 30: An eleven-week strike at Canadian Pacific Railway comes to an end. The new deal is signed in Montréal. Henceforth, CPR management will recognize the Trainmen’s Brotherhood as the official union and bargaining agent for employees.

September 12: The 3,300-tonne freighter SS Huronic is launched in Collingwood, Ontario with great fanfare. The 248-metre long steel ship is the largest freshwater vessel ever built in Canada. It can carry 250 passengers and boasts electrical power throughout. The Huronic will disappear near Whitefish Point during the Great Lakes Storm of 1913.

October 3: The Japanese Parliament passes a law forbidding its citizens to emigrate to Canada. 

October 11: Toronto has a housing crisis. More than 2,000 families are looking for places to live. There is virtually nothing to rent in the $5 to $25-a-month range. 

The Enfield Mk I is popular with Canadians and the official sidearm of the Northwest Mounted Police.

October 18: Nicholas Flood Davin has committed suicide in his hotel room in Winnipeg. The Member of Parliament for Assinaboia West for the past 13 years, ‘the Voice of the North-West’ founded the Regina Leader in 1883 and served as editor and publisher. Depressed over finances, he holds a gun to his head to end it all.

October 24: Her life savings wiped out twice, Annie Edson Taylor decides to make a few bucks by becoming the first person to survive a trip over Niagara Falls. In only 18 minutes she rides to fame in a stout oak pickle barrel. The 50-year old schoolteacher is an instant celebrity as a result of her daring-do. 

October 26: The Michigan Lake Superior Power Company canal opens in Sault Ste. Marie. It is the largest water-powered development in the world.

December 12: Guglielmo Marconi receives the first trans-Atlantic radio message from the United Kingdom at his listening station on Signal Hill in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

December 18: In hopes of making better money, western farmers establish the Territorial Grain Growers’ Association at a meeting in the town of Indian Head, NWT.

1907

From the big scrapbook of time, here’s a look at Canada in 1907-

January 21: The Montreal Wanderers lose their bid for the Stanley Cup before a hometown crowd as the Kenora Thistles take home the Holy Grail of hockey.

January 26: Hans Selye is born in Vienna. He will immigrate to Canada, settle in Montréal and become an endocrinologist. The imminent physician will teach at the Université de Montréal. He will be given credit for coining the word ‘stress’ and chart many discoveries about it and human reaction to it.  The Order of Canada recipient will die in 1982.

January 29: Mild Prairie winters have been replaced by a bitter cold that grips Alberta. More than 10,000 cattle have stampeded into Lethbridge, desperate for food and shelter. Another 6,000 cattle have trashed the town of Macleod. 

January 31: Timothy Eaton is dead of pneumonia in his 73^rd year. The founder of the T. Eaton & Company Limited specializes in the sale of dry goods in its nationwide stores and by mail order throughout the Dominion.  Though the retail empire will go bankrupt in 1999, millions will seek good luck by continuing to rub Timmy’s toe, on statues of his likeness erected in Winnipeg and Toronto.

February 1: More than 400 operators have walked off the job in Toronto. The Bell Telephone Company demands that the female workforce put in eight-hour shifts. The women complain that is far too long and claim the five-hour shifts they have now are the maximum a female can handle. The dispute has landed on the desk of William Lyon Mackenzie King, the federal Deputy Minister of Labour.

March 8: The Supreme Court of Saskatchewan comes into existence today. 

March 9: A Hamilton, Ontario man is fined $30 for selling newspapers on the Lord’s Day. 

March 13: The Alberta legislature pledges to establish a university in the newly formed province. There is much speculation that the educational institution will go to Calgary since Edmonton is the capital city. 

March 18: The Railway Commission orders the Grand Trunk Railway and Canadian Pacific Railroad to cut its passenger fares to three cents a mile.

March 29: Hugh MacLennan is born in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. He will grow up to be an author, winning the Governor General’s Award five times. Best known for his 1945 book, Two Solitudes, MacLennan will teach at McGill University, receive the Order of Canada and be made a Knight of the National Order of Québec. He will die in 1980.

The Curve Dash Oldsmobile was built from 1901 to 1907.

March 30: Auto clubs in Hamilton, Toronto, Kingston and Ottawa unite to form the Ontario Motor League. They will become part of the Canadian Automobile Association in 1913.

April 3: Members of the Legislative Assembly in Regina vote to establish an institution of higher learning to be called the University of Saskatchewan. The bill receives Royal Assent the same day.

April 6: William Henry Drummond is dead of a cerebral haemorrhage while visiting Cobalt, Ontario. The 50-year old medical doctor was a delightful speaker and author of several highly successful and popular books of hilariously funny poetry that captured the flavour of French Canada. He will be buried in the Mount Royal Cemetery in Montréal.

April 16: Joseph-Armand Bombardier is born in the sleepy little village of Valcourt, Québec, southeast of Montréal. He will tinker with engines and mechanical things at an early age and become the inventor of the snowmobile. The transportation pioneer will die in 1964 and in 2000 be honoured by Canada Post with a stamp bearing his likeness.

Tom's birth name is Cogwagee. It means 'everything'.

April 19: Tom Longboat wins the Boston Marathon in two hours, 25 minutes and one-fifth of a second--in front of a 100,000 spectators. The 19-year old youth is an Onandaga Indian, hailing from the Six Nations reserve outside of Brantford, Ontario.

April 20: Situated at the head of Lake Superior, the towns of Port Arthur and Fort William incorporated as cities. On January 1, 1970, they will merge to become the City of Thunder Bay.

The Chatham was built in Chatham, Ontario.

April 28: The Motor Vehicle Law comes into effect in the province of Nova Scotia. Mechanics and chauffeur-drivers must now pay a one-time $2 fee to register with the provincial Secretary. They pay an additional $5 to register a plate and affix the black plate with white numbers that measure 7.6 centimetres in length. In addition, the driver must wear a badge on his clothing.

The Stock Exchange building will open in 1929.

May 7: The Vancouver Stock Exchange is incorporated. The VSE will supply roughly 25 percent of the world's total mineral exploration funding before being folded into the Canadian Venture Exchange in November of 1999.

The 1907 Oldsmobile Model A.

May 8: The government of Nova Scotia issues license plate No. 1 to Mr. William Black of Wolfville.  He will bolt it onto his Oldsmobile. The province will issue a total of 62 plates during the calendar year.

May 8:  In front of a Los Angeles crowd, Canadian boxer Tommy Burns beats American Jack O’Brien in 20 rounds to win the world’s light heavyweight boxing championship.

May 30: King Edward VII grants the Coat of Arms of Alberta by Royal Warrant. St. George’s cross tops blue skies, mountains and wheat fields. In 1980, Queen Elizabeth II will grant a crest, supporters and a motto. 

June 16: The Edmonton, Yukon and Pacific Railway begins operation. Its track runs from Edmonton to Stony Plain, Alberta

June 22: It’s divorce for William and Anna Roeper. A Michigan judge gives one on the grounds of desertion. The proud Canadian refuses to live in the United States, telling reporters she would “never have children on American soil,” while her husband swears he would never want his “children born under the British flag.”

A 1907 Rambler Touring Car.

June 25: Speed limits in Nova Scotia are as follows: 12 kilometres in eight minutes in a town, 19 kilometres in five minutes in a village, and 24 km/h in four minutes in the country.

July 6: George Stanley is born in Calgary. He will grow up to be a renowned professor of history at Mt. Allison University, the University of British Columbia and the Royal Military College. His books and lectures will pale in comparison to his contribution to this country as the creator of our flag. Believing the design should be simple enough that school children could draw it the simple red maple leaf with its two red bars will be chosen from thousands of entries and be presented to Canadians by Queen Elizabeth II on February 15, 1965. The father of our flag will die in 2002 and be laid to rest in Sackville, New Brunswick.

Barney Oldfield behind the wheel of his 1907 Christie V-4 race car. 

July 20: World famous auto racecar driver Barney Oldfield sets a Canadian record in Winnipeg as his car does the mile in 1:19:5. The new benchmark shaves 1.5 seconds off the old record. Oldfield’s machine is clocked at 45 miles per hour.

August 3: Legislators in Regina have passed an act that changes the legal system substantially. Juries will now be composed of a dozen, not six citizens. The new law gives Saskatchewan its own Supreme Court. Five justices will hear cases in Regina and the province is now divided into eight District Courts.

August 29: Tragedy strikes in Québec City as the unfinished Québec Bridge collapses into the St. Lawrence River at 5:45 pm. The final count is 75 construction workers killed and another eleven wounded in the disaster.

In 2017, Vancouver will be home to the nation's largest Chinatown.

September 7: Federal Member of Parliament R.G. MacPherson warns in a public meeting that with increasing immigration from Asia, British Columbia could easily become ‘yellow.’ Should that happen, the MP declares that BC would no longer be “part and parcel of the Dominion.” This prompts hundreds of angry white men to storm through Vancouver’s Chinatown district destroying property and beating up local residents.

Maligne Lake and Spirit Island are part of the Jasper National Park.

September 14: The Jasper National Forest is established by an act of Parliament. The 10,878-square kilometre treasure, located west of Edmonton, is home to stunning mountain glaciers, steamy hot springs and breathtaking waterfalls. The forest will be accorded National Park status in 1930 and receive nearly two million visitors a year in the 21^st Century. 

September 15: It’s a girl for Elvina Marguerite and Joseph Heber Wray of Cardston, Alberta. Vina Fay will grow up to become a star of the silver screen, best remembered for her 1933 performance as Ann Darrow in the classic film, “King Kong.” When she dies at the age of 96, in 2004, lights on the Empire State Building will be extinguished for 15 minutes in honour of the veteran actress.

On the road to Dawson City in 1948. 

September 23: The Mounties have punched a 2.4-metre wide trail through the wilderness from Edmonton to Dawson City in the Yukon. The new route is all-Canadian, making the transport of goods much simpler than before.

September 26: Britain grants independence to its oldest colony. The Dominion of Newfoundland will falter in the 1930s and become a colony again before choosing to join Canada in 1949. 

October 7: Robert McLaughlin, president of the McLaughlin Carriage Company Limited of Oshawa, Ontario inks a deal with William (Billy) Durant that will see Durant supply Buick drivetrains for 14 years. This contract will put McLaughlin automobiles on the road next year. The popular upscale car will be around as McLaughlin-Buick until the end of the 1942 selling season.

October 12: Prime Minister Sir Wilfred Laurier stands in the House of Commons to tell MPs that a full investigation will be launched into the recent Vancouver riot and promises Asian Canadians they will be compensated for their losses.

Inventor Guglielmo Marconi sends the first telegraph message to Europe, today.

October 17: Several hundred guests are on hand for opening ceremonies and a banquet in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia as the Marconi Wireless Telegraph station begins operations by sending congratulatory messages to the King Edward VII, the King of Italy, Lord Kelvin among other European dignitaries.

October 26: A dial telephone is installed and put to good use by the town of Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia. The clever device will one day replace telephone operators.

November 5: Sir James Hector is dead at the age of 73. He was the geologist and surgeon who accompanied the Palliser Expedition to explore and map western Canada.

November 20: The McLaughlin Motor Car Company is incorporated with 5,000 shares pegged at $100 each. It will build 154 McLaughlins in its first year of operation. The company will become General Motors of Canada, Limited in 1918.

A new movie projector.

December 1: The Archbishop of Montréal forbids Roman Catholics to attend motion picture shows on the Lord’s Day. One enterprising theatre owner immediately announces that people who buy candy in front of his theatre will then be invited in to see the movie for “free.”

December 7: Fred Rose is born in Poland. He will move to Canada with his parents when he is nine. Fred will grow up to be a politician, representing Montrealers as a member of the Labour Progressive Party—a thinly disguised version of the illegal Communist Party. Expelled from Parliament in 1947 for his beliefs, the popular MP will serve four and a half years in prison for being Communist. Stripped of his Canadian citizenship, he will be deported and die in Poland in 1957.

December 16: The Heinz food company of Pennsylvania announces it will open a plant in Leamington, Ontario to bottle horseradish and pickles. Ketchup will be added to the product line in 1910.

, Canada

December 25: Folks who don’t wish to serve alcohol this Christmas season now have a refreshing alternative. Invented by Robert McLaughlin and bottled in Toronto, Canada Dry, “the champagne of ginger ales” is a success with the thirsty public and purveyor of the bubbly beverage to the Royal Household.

Frank Sobey sits on top of his delivery truck in this photograph.

December 31: It has been a good year for Frank Sobey. His new store, Sobey’s Wholesale Groceteria is a success in his hometown of Stellarton, Nova Scotia. The retail food store chain will spread throughout the nation over the next century, operating more than 1,300 supermarkets in all ten provinces under the Sobey’s, IGA and Price Chopper banners. 

© 2009 James C. Mays. All rights reserved.