Important Dates in Canada s Past

LEIF ERICSON 1000 AD Born in Iceland 970AD Father was Eric the Red who founded colonies in Greenland Became a Christian during visit to Norway 1003 set out on a discovery voyage that probably took him to Baffin Island which he called Helluland (land of the flat rocks) Later travelled to Labrador (Markland/woodland) and then to Newfoundland which he called Vinland

LEIF ERICSON 1000 AD During the 1950 s archeological evidence proved Europeans (Leif Ericson s explorers) had been in North America prior to Columbus.

LEIF ERICSON 1000 AD

MARCO POLO AND SILK ROAD 1264 Born 1254 in Venice (now Italy) His merchant family traded many goods that came from the east. Marco Polo s family travelled east under the safety of the Mongolian Empire established by Genghis Kahn. Kublai Kahn requested Christian Missionaries to train him about Western culture. Marco Polo spent 17 years in China working as a diplomat. His story telling skills entertained Kublai Kahn. Marco Polo travelled back to Europe passing through Sri Lanka and India.

MARCO POLO AND SILK ROAD Marco Polo returned to Venice Many people enjoyed hearing him tell about his travel adventures. Eventually, he wrote about his travel experiences in the popular book Milone also known as The Travels of Marco Polo The book was written after Marco Polo had been captured during a war between the Italian city states of Genoa and Venice.

SILK ROAD AND MARCO POLO S TRAVELS

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 1492 Born 1451 in Genoa (now in Italy) Safe and reliable access to India and China by land ended at the time Columbus was born after hundreds of years of safe travel Many people did not believe the world was flat but they did think that it was impossible to survive at sea long enough to circle the world from east to west to reach Asia from Europe by a direct route. Proposal to find a route to Asia by sailing west was turned down by king of Portugal in 1485 and again in 1488 as they believed his distance was too short. Also turned down by nations of Genoa and Venice (now both in Italy).

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 1492 Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile married and formed the kingdom of Spain. They defeated the Moors, Muslims who controlled part of western Europe. England offered to sponsor the voyages (which were half paid for by wealthy merchants from Venice and Genoa) but the offer came after Columbus committed to sailing for Spain. Ferdinand and Isabella did not expect Columbus to return from his voyage. Columbus was captain of the three ships Santa María Pinta (the Painted) and Santa Clara, nicknamed Niña (the Girl).

THE VOYAGES OF COLUMBUS Voyage One 1492 Voyage Two 1493 Voyage Three 1498 Voyage Four 1502

JOHN CABOT 1497 Giovanni Caboto was born 1450 in Genoa (now in Italy. Raised in Venice Appealed to British king to find a trading route to Asia Sailed on five ships in 1496 but only travelled as far as Iceland due to difficulty with sailing crew. 1497 Cabot sailed with only one ship Matthew Arrived in Newfoundland on June 24, 1497 Sailed from England again in 1498 with five ships but only one ever returned. The rest of the ships including the one Cabot was on were never heard from again.

NOTABLE EXPLORERS - AMERICAS 1497, June Amerigo Vespucci landed in South America. He claimed the area not to be Asia but a previously unknown continent. The new continent was later named after him by German writer Martin Waldseemuller. 1498, May Portuguese Explorer Vasco da Gama reaches India for the first time by sailing around Africa 1513 Spanish Explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa crosses the Isthmus of Panama and is the first European to see the Pacific from the Americas.

NOTABLE EXPLORERS - AMERICAS 1519, Cortez defeats Montezuma with some help with smallpox. 1520 Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan reaches the Pacific by sailing around the South of South America. He names the ocean the Pacific because it is peaceful compared to his experience on the Atlantic Ocean. One of the five ships he is travelling on become the first to ever sail completely around the world but Magellan is killed in a battle with tribal groups in the Philippines. 1528 Francisco Pizarro defeats the Incas

NOTABLE EXPLORERS - CANADA Jacques Cartier 1534 Jacques Cartier Commissioned by the King of France to find a passage to Pacific Ocean, somewhere beyond the Newfoundland. Explored PEI, New Brunswick and encountered Iroquois in Gaspe 1535 Cartier second voyage to present day Quebec City, learned about cure for scurvy. Heard rumours of kingdom rich in precious metals 1541 Cartier third voyage attempt to settle colony east of Quebec City, travelled with 800 people

NOTABLE EXPLORERS - EASTERN CANADA Samuel de Champlain 1604 Attempt to create a settlement at Croix River failed. 1605 Samuel de Champlain explored areas for an Acadian settlement in the Bay of Fundy 1607 Port-Royal settled but was abandoned the following summer

NOTABLE EXPLORERS - EASTERN CANADA Samuel de Champlain 1604 Port-Royal is the earliest European settlement in North America north of Florida. 1608 1608 Champlain was sent to establish a settlement at Quebec (City) to improve better improve the fur trade 1939-1941 Port-Royal became the first reconstruction of a National Historic Site in Canada.

Important Dates in BC s History

CAPTAIN JAMES COOK 1778 A British explorer born 1728 Mapped Newfoundland and the St. Lawrence River. His maps helped the British defeat the French in North America in 1760. Cook became captain and sailed to the Pacific to map the region for Britain. He discovered many Pacific island including Hawaii. He saw action in the Seven Years' War, and subsequently surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River during the siege of Quebec. This allowed General Wolfe to make his famous stealth attack on the Plains of Abraham, and helped to bring Cook to the attention of the Admiralty and Royal Society. This notice came at a crucial moment both in his personal career and in the direction of British overseas exploration, and led to his commission in 1766 as commander of HM Bark Endeavour for the first of three Pacific voyages. He searched for a continent at the South Pole and when he could not find one in 1774, most geographers did not believe one existed until it was spotted in 1820. Cook mapped the western shore of Australia, all of New Zealand, many Pacific Islands and the west coast of North America from Mexico to Alaska.

CAPTAIN JAMES COOK 1778 Cook spent a month Nootka on Vancouver Is. making repairs to the ships. They traded European goods for furs, especially sea otter pelts. Cook thought he was on North America not an Island and disagreed with the Spanish explorer Juan de Fuca that a strait existed in the region creating Vancouver Island. George Vancouver was with Captain Cook during this time. Cook sailed around Alaska to the Arctic Ocean but sea ice prevented him from finding a Northwest Passage. Cook died in a battle with Hawaiians the following winter. Cook s crew attempted to find the Northwest Passage one more time before returning to England in 1779 Cook left England in the Resolution and Discovery in July 1776, sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, crossed the Pacific by way of New Zealand, Tahiti, and the Sandwich Islands, and so on to the northwest coast of America. On 7 March 1778 the coast of what is now Oregon was sighted in latitude 44 33 N, but the weather was misty and stormy and only tantalizing glimpses of the shore were caught through the rain. Cook s main concern was to find a harbour where he could take on wood and water and repair his vessels. He had hopes of finding such a spot inside an opening which appeared on the far side of a headland in latitude 48 15 N, but as the ships drew nearer he decided that the opening was too small to afford shelter and renamed the point Cape Flattery (Wash.), adding in his journal, It is in the very latitude we were now in where geographers have placed the pretended Strait of Juan de Fuca, but we saw nothing like it, nor is there the least probability that iver any such thing exhisted. Although it was unusual for Cook to be dogmatic without good reason, he had not seen enough of the coast at close quarters to justify this pronouncement, for Cape Flattery forms the southern tip of the entrance to the strait now named after Juan de Fuca. During the night Cook headed away from the strait, intending to close again with the land at daybreak, but severe gales prevented the expedition from approaching the coast for nearly a week. When the vessels sighted land again on 29 March they were off the densely wooded oceanic shores of Vancouver Island (B.C.), supposed by Cook to be part of the mainland. Here the vessels anchored in Ship Cove, King George s Sound (now Resolution Cove, Nootka Sound), where they were to remain almost a month. The crews saw a good deal of the local Indians (Nootkas), physically unalluring to them with their faces and bodies heavily decorated and smeared with grease and filth, but a people skilled in handling their heavy dugout canoes and in constructing long wooden buildings with intricate totemic carvings. Considerable quantities of furs, mostly the thick, lustrous pelts of the sea otter, were obtained from them. The Nootkas dexterity in trade and their possession of two silver spoons and some iron tools led Cook and his officers, Charles Clerke among them, to guess that they had already been in direct or indirect contact with Europeans: perhaps Spaniards from the south, Russians from the north, or even Canadians or Hudson s Bay Company men from the east. The first of these possibilities was the most likely, for Spaniards had sailed along this coast on reconnaissance in 1774 and 1775, and one probe, under the command of Juan Josef Pérez Hernández, had anchored off Nootka Sound. News of these ventures had reached England two months before Cook sailed, but in abbreviated and misleading form. Just as misleading were some of the rumours about Cook s expedition which reached Madrid in 1776. Spanish authorities were alarmed by these reports because they feared the establishment of a British presence along the Pacific coast of America, which had been claimed by Spain as early as 1493. Instructions were issued by Madrid to the viceroy of New Spain (Mexico), Antonio María Bucareli y Ursúa, to hinder Cook if he reached California; the viceroy protested in vain that these instructions could not be carried out, and he managed to delay the sending of Spanish ships in search of Cook until

CAPTAIN JAMES COOK

CAPTAIN GEORGE VANCOUVER 1793 George Vancouver worked under James Cook as a mapmaker. In 1791 Captain Vancouver was placed in charge of two ships to survey the Pacific Northwest and find a Northwest Passage. From 1791 to 1795 Vancouver surveyed the regions of North America s west coast in areas not fully investigated by Cook. Captain George Vancouver declared that no access to the Atlantic region was available. Captain Vancouver did not find the Fraser River. George Vancouver died in England 1798. His work was not appreciated at his death.

NORTHWEST PASSAGE

ALEXANDER MACKENZIE 1793 Alex MacKenzie From Canada by land 22 nd July 1793

EXPLORATION OF WESTERN CANADA Longest River in Canada is named after MacKenzie after he travels up it by mistake trying to get to the Pacific.

FUR TRADE Two main companies controlled the Fur Trade Northwest Company (based in Montreal) 1783 Formed after New France is lost to England 1763 Hudson s Bay Company (based in London) 1690

FUR TRADE Two main companies controlled the Fur Trade Northwest Company (based in Montreal) Hudson s Bay Company (based in England)

SIMON FRASER 1808 In the interior of what is now British Columbia, but which Fraser called New Caledonia. Here he established Fort McLeod in 1805, Fort St. James and Fort Fraser in 1806, and Fort George in 1807.

FRASER CANYON Fraser and a company of 23 men set out from Fort George to follow the river to the Pacific. Their harrowing journey, 520 miles in length and 36 days long, revealed both the ruggedness of the British Columbia interior

FRASER CANYON

CARIBOO GOLD RUSH 1858

CARIBOO GOLD RUSH 1858 1857 - Prospecting along the Fraser River find gold. 1858 News of gold in the British Colony of British Columbia reaches gold miners in San Francisco. 30,000 miners travel to the Fraser River.

CARIBOO GOLD RUSH 1858 William Billy Barker, an Englishman, arrived in Victoria in 1858. Formed the Barker Company with seven other Englishmen in 1862. A shaft forty feet deep on Williams Creek struck pay dirt.

CARIBOO GOLD RUSH 1862

CARIBOO GOLD RUSH 1864

CARIBOO GOLD RUSH 1864 Barkerville became the largest city west of Chicago and north of San Francisco.

CARIBOO GOLD RUSH 1864

CARIBOO GOLD RUSH 1868 On September 16, 1868, Barkerville caught fire. Within two and a half hours, only a handful of buildings were left standing. Six weeks later, over ninety percent of the buildings were rebuilt.

JAMES DOUGLAS

BEGBIE THE HANGING JUDGE 1858 Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie was the first judge appointed to the new colony of British Columbia. His first task was to swear in James Douglas as governor.

CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY 1885

W.A.C. BENNET

DAVID BARRETT