Oh boy... here we go.
Okay, so about 20,000 years ago, some people went across a land bridge and came into Modern Canada and everywhere else. Ever heard of the Bering Strait? That's what that was. They got a lot of wood and killed a whole bunch of animals to survive.
The Inuit came across the same land bridge and merged with the other people. 985 A.D. or C.E. Some Norwegians came to Greenland. He saw some Inuit's, wrote about it, made two settlements, made it to Canada, and then dipped. Some Europeans went back 400 years later and said, "We like this" (very oversimplified) and decided to go their once again. They wanted to get to Asia, so this dumb guy Colombus goes east, but he wasn't the only guy trying to find a dumber way to get to India, because a guy named John Cabot wanted to get to Asia by going through the north. The freaking arctic. But he landed in Canada, and said it was England now. Canada made England lots of money, and so many more countries went to America to get some fish. King Francis I sends a French guy to Canada, and he goes up the Saint Lawrence and said a bit more land was now France. (The natives didn't like this, understandably and said that the land was theirs) The settlements weren't permanent, but they didn't care, they still stayed there. When there is a bigger power and two smaller powers are fighting and competing against each other, it won't end well. cough cough Iroquois and Huron. I don't have much time, so I am going to try to tell you as much as I can in a fast amount of time. Okay so, fur=money now, and the French were getting that mula. The French also tried making Indians believe their religion, so they essentially had control of them. The British and the French... they are like the LA clippers and LA Lakers of history. (I don't know any basketball teams I just looked that up.) They really hated each other. so much to the point where they began fighting each other everywhere. One of those places was Canada. Oh, and quick note the Europeans screwed the Indians up with diseases and killed like... so many that now they are barely recognized. The British and Iroquois kept on fighting the French, making them not waning them to go there. The French hated that, and so made a law that said some company had to increase the population by 300 every year. Still not enough to combat everyone else there.
In 1627, a big war broke out between Britain and France, and so the British kicked the French out of land they took from someone else (We know who.) and so they owned them for a couple of years. The French got it back in 1632. Over the next 30 years and onwards, the French were kicking the Iroquois out. The French and British continued to keep fighting each other all around their colonies, and relations stayed in the hot zone. Queen Anne's War happened during the reign of most of Queen Anne and had happened between--you guessed it! The French and British.
The French got their butt kicked during the 7 years' war, and due to this, the British essentially made Canada theirs. A couple of French stayed there, but they were now being dominated by the British. The British still allowed the French to follow their own religion and laws. Most British colonials stayed loyal during the Revolutionary War. A whole bunch of Loyalists made their way north to Quebec and Nova Scotia, which led the British to make a new colony-- New Brunswick. The stuff continued getting bad, so the British made two Canada's-- one being Lower Canada which was dominated by French people, and Upper Canada which was dominated by British people. Upper Canada was more near the Great Lakes while Lower Canada was somewhere near the Saint Lawrence which is more Quebec-ish. While the Indians kept losing a ton of land, the British kept expanding, and making their way west. They even began settling there. Small patches of land were given to the Indians so that they could live there.
Development. Upper and Lower Canada began getting rich. Roads, Canals, and Farmland began growing. Roads and Canals= better communication. But the more people that lived there and the more money they made, the more it was criticized. People thought that the small amount of British people were in so much control, while the French Canadians barely had any. They felt that they were being threatened. The British liked having the big banks. (Just money, not actually banks) Wanting to reform this dumb system, the French led two revolutions, but they sucked and didn't do much. After these revolutions, the British sent an earl there. He said, "Give them more power, or idk unite them." (Oversimplified once again) in 1841, Upper and Lower Canada were officially united. During the 1840s, Canada and it's Atlantic Provinces (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island) would ask for a little bit of control of their elections. The British decided to let them have some authority. This allowed Canada to trade with the United States. After the USA won the civil war, they were wanting to make their economy BIG, which caused the Canadians to fear of themselves getting absolutely destroyed by America. A whole bunch of representatives came together to pass an act to make a big federation. They gave it to the British, who then agreed and passed the act. That act right there, made modern Canada (sort of, technically Canada became an actual independent country in 1981, look into it more if you're interested.) It made Ontario (Upper Canada), Quebec (Lower Canada) Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick new provinces now. Prince Edward Island and New Foundland and Labrador refused and said no. The Dominion of Canada was officially created in 1867, and the guy in charge? John A. Macdonald. Other provinces joined the country, The Northwest Territories and the Province of Manitoba was created from land that was bought from the Hudson Bay Company. British Columbia also became a province because of a promised railway that was completed in 1885. Prince Edward Island had joined in 1873.
