Portal:Canada

Franklin's lost expedition was a failed British voyage of Arctic exploration led by Captain Sir John Franklin that departed England in 1845 aboard two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, and was assigned to traverse the last unnavigated sections of the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic and to record magnetic data to help determine whether a better understanding could aid navigation. The expedition met with disaster after both ships and their crews, a total of 129 officers and men, became icebound in Victoria Strait near King William Island in what is today the Canadian territory of Nunavut. After being icebound for more than a year Erebus and Terror were abandoned in April 1848, by which point two dozen men, including Franklin, had died. The survivors, now led by Franklin's second-in-command, Francis Crozier, and Erebus's captain, James Fitzjames, set out for the Canadian mainland and disappeared, presumably having perished. (Full article...)

Frieda Fraser (30 August 1899 – 29 July 1994) was a Canadian physician, scientist and academic who worked in infectious disease, including research on scarlet fever and tuberculosis. After finishing her medical studies at the University of Toronto in 1925, she completed a two-year internship in the United States, studying and working in Manhattan and Philadelphia. Afterward, she conducted research in the Connaught Laboratories concentrating on infectious disease, making important contributions in the pre-penicillin age to isolation of the strains of streptococci likely to lead to disease. From 1928, she lectured in the Department of Hygiene at the University of Toronto on preventive medicine, working her way up from a teaching assistant to a full professor by 1955. In college, around 1917 Fraser met her life partner, Edith Williams, and though their families tried to keep them apart, their relationship spanned until Edith's death in 1979. The correspondence between the two has been preserved and is an important legacy for the lesbian history of Canada. (Full article...)

Totem poles (Haida: gyáaʼaang) are monumental carvings found in western Canada and the northwestern United States. They are a type of Northwest Coast art, consisting of poles, posts or pillars, carved with symbols or figures. They are usually made from large trees, mostly western red cedar, by First Nations and Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast including northern Northwest Coast Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian communities in Southeast Alaska and British Columbia, Kwakwaka'wakw and Nuu-chah-nulth communities in southern British Columbia, and the Coast Salish communities in Washington and British Columbia. (Full article...)

Healthcare in Canada is delivered through the provincial and territorial systems of publicly funded health care, informally called Medicare. It is guided by the provisions of the Canada Health Act of 1984, and is universal. The 2002 Royal Commission, known as the Romanow Report, revealed that Canadians consider universal access to publicly funded health services as a "fundamental value that ensures national health care insurance for everyone wherever they live in the country." (Full article...)

June 19, 2024 – Canada–Iran relations

Canada adds Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to its list of terrorist entities. (Bloomberg)

June 12, 2024 –

The Royal Canadian Geographical Society announces that a Canadian-led team has located the wreckage of Quest, the polar exploration ship of the Shackleton–Rowett Expedition off the coast of Labrador, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. (Reuters)

May 31, 2024 –

Canadian serial killer Robert Pickton dies in prison after being attacked by another inmate earlier this month. (AP)

May 21, 2024 –

Canadian serial killer Robert Pickton is reported to be on life support after being physically attacked in a prison in Port-Cartier, Quebec. (Vancouver Sun)

May 18, 2024 –

Three people are killed and five others are injured in a boat collision on Bobs Lake in Ontario, Canada. (CBC News)

May 17, 2024 –

A child in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, dies of measles, the province's first such death since 1989. (CBC News)

• ... that the Canadian Night Watchman was the first operational radar system in North America?
• ... that Michelle O'Bonsawin is the first Indigenous person appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada?
• ... that George Allsopp was arrested three times for not carrying a lantern?
• ... that in one year, a team of Canadian All-Stars twice played against the U.S. college football national champion and came within one point of winning each game?
• ... that jazz singer Judi Singh's mother and father were, respectively, among the earliest Black and Sikh settlers of Alberta, Canada?
• ... that Theo Benedet is the first offensive lineman to be named the best Canadian university football lineman two years in a row?
• ... that Lyle Bauer continued to attend Canadian Football League executive meetings despite being unable to speak due to his treatment for stage four throat cancer?

The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest award of the United Kingdom honours system. It is awarded for gallantry "in the face of the enemy" to members of the British armed forces. It may be awarded posthumously. It was previously awarded to Commonwealth countries, most of which have established their own honours systems and no longer recommend British honours. It may be awarded to a person of any military rank in any service and to civilians under military command although no civilian has received the award since 1879. Since the first awards were presented by Queen Victoria in 1857, two thirds of all awards have been personally presented by the British monarch. These investitures are usually held at Buckingham Palace. (Full article...)