Canada's massive territory stretches from the icy waters of the North Atlantic (around Newfoundland, Labrador, and Nova Scotia) to the icy waters of the North Pacific (in British Columbia), and from the extensive (and often icy) southern border with the United States to the (you guessed it) icy waters of the Arctic Ocean and the mammoth Hudson Bay. Much of the center of the country is characterized either by expansive plains and forested regions interspersed with lakes and rivers, or by the towering mountains of the west. Canada is a sparsely populated federation of ten provinces and three territories, with nominal deference to the British Crown (most strongly recognizable via the Monarch's head on the country's coinage, and its membership in the Commonwealth). While Canada may seem closely aligned with Britain, and to some extent culturally akin to the United States, the earliest European interventions in Canada were largely a French endeavour.

Long before European explorers arrived in what is today Canada, a wide variety of indigenous societies already inhabited the landmass. These included the Inuit of the Arctic zones, the Iroquois of the riverine southeast, the Ojibway, Blackfoot, and Cree of the central plains, and the Salish of the Pacific coast region. Excluding the Inuit and the Métis aboriginal group, the original inhabitants of Canada are collectively referred to in contemporary society as the First Nations. Many of the First Nations peoples also inhabited what became the United States, though the term is not used in that country. Today, many First Nations people live in a series of government-mandated reserves, and altogether they constitute roughly 2 percent of the Canadian population.

European exploration of what is now Canada began around 1000 CE, when the Viking Leif Eriksson is believed to have reached the eastern coast near Nova Scotia. Over 400 years later, John Cabot visited the same region while sailing for the English, and in 1535 the French explorer Jacques Cartier navigated up the St. Lawrence River, coming into contact with the Iroquois. Permanent European settlements were created in present-day Canada by another French explorer, Samuel de Champlain, who founded both Port Royal (on Nova Scotia, or Acadia as the French called it) in 1605 and, inland up the St. Lawrence, Québec in 1608. The latter became an important base for further French penetration of the Canadian interior that eventually included navigating all the way down the Mississippi River—exploration that laid the groundwork for the creation of the Louisiana Territory which was later ceded by France to the United States. The French colony of New France did not have free reign for long in Canada, as the English soon took interest in the lands north of their settlements in what would become the United States. England's Hudson Bay Company began trading in the region in 1670, putting the French and English imperialists on a collision course over Canada.

During the 18th Century, England and France fought a series of wars over the lands of modern-day Canada. French power in the region first collapsed on the eastern coast in 1713, when Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and the Hudson Bay region were all ceded to England in the Treaty of Utrecht. England took further control, effectively ending New France, during the Seven Years War (1756-1763) when Québec was overrun, despite its hefty fortifications, in 1759. While the colony had collapsed, many ethnic French remained in the now English territories. Mimicking the model they used in Ireland, the English flooded the region with Protestant settlers in an attempt to anglicize the French, but the operation did not succeed. The English rulers soon deemed it wise to offer numerous concessions to the ethnic French in an effort to retain their loyalty (especially as revolution began to stir in England's colonies to the south), and the roots of Canada's French-English biculturalism had been laid. In 1791, the Canada Act created Upper and Lower Canada, two zones with distinct legal systems (the former English and the latter French), but this arrangment was mostly a stop-gap measure until a more permanent solution could be reached.

In the settlement of the War of 1812 (fought by Britain and its former colony, the United States), the southern border of what would be Canada was clearly demarcated at the 49th Parallel. But proto-Canada was anything but a modern state just yet; rather, it was a set of fairly distinct British colonies which saw periodic influxes of new migrants and which continued to confront challenges related to the historic division between French and English settlers. To begin rectifying these issues, the British government unified Upper and Lower Canada via the Act of Union in 1840, creating a single legislature for the different ethnic groups. This arrangement was strengthened by the 1867 British North America Act, which created a confederation of the constituent colonies and effectively established the Dominion of Canada. Though there were some outliers (notably Newfoundland, which remained outside the confederation until 1949), the Dominion of Canada was the first modern, self-governing incarnation of Canada, with its capital at Ottawa and Ontario and Québec as its two predominant provinces.

Having smoothed over several jarring political issues, the Dominion of Canada soon began a westward expansion not unlike the one ongoing in the United States. The discovery of gold in the west, a sense of open space, and a continuing influx of immigrants all contributed to the westbound thrust of the Dominion. In reality, the western lands were often already inhabited by indigenous communities who were repeatedly dispossessed of their lands. In the second half of the 19th Century, a series of indigenous revolts were suppressed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (the well-known Mounties), allowing the extension of the Canadian Pacific Railroad from the eastern metropolis of Montréal to the western coast by 1886. With trains to ease the passage, new settlement exploded across the Dominion, with cities such as Vancouver, Calgary, Regina, and Winnipeg all growing rapidly. Immigrants from Eastern and Central Europe boosted late 19th and early 20th Century settlement in the western half of Canada.

Canada firmly supported the Allies in the First and Second World Wars, and in the interwar period Canada faced a cycle of economic boom and bust similar to that of her closest allies. Wartime productivity helped the country emerge from the Second World War with a heaving industrial sector, and Canada entered a period of stable growth for decades. The 1959 completion of the St. Lawrence Seaway—a series of canals, locks, and channels that linked the Great Lakes with the St. Lawrence River and the Atlantic—added to Canadian and U.S. prosperity, providing sea access to dozens of inland manufacturing and agricultural centers. Canada could also count itself blessed with its huge diversity of riches—from fisheries to mineral wealth to timber to ski resorts and scenic beauty.

As Canada modernized over the course of the 20th Century, the indigenous populations—and to a lesser extent, the ethnic French Québécois—did not always reap as many benefits as the ethnic English population, generally remaining poorer and more marginalized in society. This led to periodic flare-ups of both indigenous and Québécois separatism. These arguably reached their peak in the so-called October Crisis of 1970, when the separatist militants of the Front de la Libération de Québec kidnapped two provinicial government officials (killing one of them) and prompted Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, himself a French-Canadian, to dispatch federal troops to the streets of Montréal to restore order. Unfazed, Québec nationalists in the Parti Québécois used their political clout to push for a referendum on provincial independence in 1980. The motion failed, but Canada's federal system was certainly shaken by the events in Québec. Indeed, Québec was the only province to remain outside the new Canadian constitution of 1982, which reduced legal links to the British Monarchy while retaining the Queen as a figurehead. Independence stirrings continued in Québec well into the 1990s, at times exasperating relations between the rest of Canada and its largest province.

Notwithstanding occasional separatist discord, Canada has also managed to grow out of its colonial past into one of the world's wealthiest and most liberal societies. Canada commonly ranks very highly in indices of development, economic and press freedom, health, and other positive measures of human well-being. Canada has cultivated strong trade relations with the United States, and the two countries have been leading export markets for each other since the 1940s. The duo inked a Free Trade Agreement in 1989, and in 1994 Mexico joined the pair in the controversial North American Free Trade Agreement; both pacts deepened integration between Canada and the United States. In some respects, these links with its much larger southern neighbor have had cultural impacts on Canada's smaller population: for instance, Canadians seem unable to avoid the lure of Hollywood and U.S. infotainment culture, and Canadian sports teams have been subsumed (not without benefit) in the embarassingly misnomered and U.S.-dominated National Hockey League and National Basketball Association. In other areas, Canada has been significantly more progressive and trailblazing: medical marijuana and same-sex marriage are both legal in Canada, while they remain political lightning rods in the United States. Canada's decision not to support the U.S.- and U.K.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003—despite its longstanding alliances and major trading relationships with these two powers—was symbolic of Canada's principled and independent stance in international affairs.

Canada's fortunes have looked up since technology was developed to harness the vast deposits of petroleum interlaced with sand in the western province of Alberta. These reserves are said to be second only to those of Saudi Arabia, allowing Alberta to muscle itself into a position of influence alongside the traditional power provinces of Ontario and Québec. Going forward, Canada has the continuing advantage of its increasingly multicultural society and its experience with diversity to help it thrive in an era of hyperglobalization.

The Monkey is very happy to have had two opportunities to visit Canada, and he hopes to swing out west to Vancouver and the Rockies one day, and he hears Toronto is quite hip. The Monkey and his friends the Schlepp bears are also very keen to meet polar bears in Churchill, too. So, sans doute the Monkey will be back in the biggest country in the Americas quite soon.

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Québec City_8__9__10

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The Monkey admires the vast skies and the maple leaf flag of Canada.

Montréal vista

Montréal's Chinatown

Yummy Montréal

Québec City

Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia

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