Canadian History Quiz - Part I (1000-1800)

Before becoming a wilderness adventure guide I taught Canadian History in high school. I thought it would be fun to put together a quiz so that you can test your knowledge of basic Canadian history. Answers appear at the end of the quiz.

1. Why is L'Anse Aux Meadows famous?

2. Who is Lake Champlain named after?

3. What is the origin of the word Canada?

4. The Iroquois were not a single tribe but a confederacy of 5 tribes. How many can you name?

5. The man behind bringing the tribes together into this confederacy was immortalized in a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Who was this man?

6. The exploration of Canada was tied to the search for a northwest passage to the east. There was also the hope that wealthy civilizations such as the Inca and Aztecs, with treasures of gold, may be found along the way. The gold did not materialize but an important alternative would drive further interest, exploration, and settlement in Canada. What was that alternative, and what European development was instrumental in maintaining an interest in holding Canada for the French?

7. Who were the "coureurs des bois"?

8. The oldest continually operating company in North America and one of the oldest in the world had its beginning with this trade. What is it called?

9. What religious organization had the monopoly for converting the Indians to Christianity?

10. Which famed British navigator spent a month refitting his vessel in Nootka Sound, Vancouver Island, during an expedition to discover the northwest passage in 1778?

11. After leaving Nootka Sound he was killed by natives from the Sandwich Islands. What are the Sandwich Islands called today?

12. His sailing master on this voyage of discovery would go on to command his own vessel, but not without incident. Many books and movies have covered this captain's problems with his crew. Who was he?

13. Monuments to the victors of an important battle are commonplace. Canada holds an unique distinction by honouring both the victor and the loser in a common monument. Who were these commanders?



Answers:

1. A Norse village of archaeological importance on the northernmost tip of Newfoundland. Its discovery in 1960 offers proof that the Norse came to North America some 500 years before Columbus.

2. Okay, so I gave you an easy one. Samuel de Champlain is known as the "Father of New France", and many places, streets, and structures in northeastern North America bear his name, or have monuments established in his memory. The most notable of these is Lake Champlain which straddles the border between New York/Vermont states and Quebec. Learn more.

3. The word is widely believed to originate from the Iroquoian "kanata" for settlement or village. As was often the case when different cultures met and language was restricted to hand signs, some confusion arose. When Jacques Cartier explored the new world in 1535 he met with local inhabitants. Cartier attempted to find out what the area was called. The Indians didn't name places in the conventional European manner and pointed down river to their village. Cartier interpreted "kanata" as them saying "canada" and he so entered the word in his journal as such.

4. Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca.

5. Hiawatha. Read the poem.

6. The fur trade. From about 1550 until 1850, felt hats were fashionable in much of Europe and the felt hat industry became the driving force behind the fur trade. By the late 1500's, the beaver was extinct in western Europe and was close to extinction in Scandinavia and Russia. The North American fur trade became a new source and kept the fashion going for another 200 years.

7. Translated it means "runners of the woods". These were young men looking for adventure and profit from the fur trade. They did so without the sanction of the French government and were considered to be operating illegally in the fur trade. The right to deal in the fur trade was assigned to companies who were given that monopoly by the king. One of the most famous of these adventurers was Pierre Esprit Radisson. Learn more about his exciting life.

8. Hudson Bay Company. This originally British company, was incorporated in 1670 and was called "The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay".

9. The Jesuits.

10. Captain James Cook.

11. Hawaiian Islands.

12. William Bligh. Cook was very impressed with him and named one of the islands in Nootka Sound after him.

13. James Wolfe and the Sieur de Montcalm in the 1759 Battle for Quebec. The actual battle on the Plains of Abraham lasted but 10 minutes with the defeated French retreating back to the walled fortress of Quebec. Wolfe was killed on the battlefield and Montcalm died the next day from his wounds. The French surrendered the following year.

Charlie Clundaq and Dawson City Gold

Charlie Clundaq was the youngest of seven children born to Preston and Margaret Clundaq of Clayburn, Maine sometime in the 1870s.

Preston Clundaq decided that opportunity lay elsewhere, and he, his wife, and seven children pulled up roots and moved westward. They eventually settled in Winston, Minnesota, where Preston found work as a senior clerk for a local flour mill.

Little is known about Charlie's formative years, but he did eventually marry and have three children of his own. He went to work as a clerk in the same mill as his father. Life was not easy for Charlie and his family, as a clerk's salary was barely sufficient to maintain a subsistence level. His wife Martha, helped the family situation by doing seamstress work and taking in other people's laundry.

The economic depression of the 1890s placed great hardship on many in the general population. There was talk in town that the flour mill would soon close and workers let go. Charlie, as others in his situation, became desperate to secure a future for their families. It was under mounting pressures that opportunity knocked on Charlie's door. One day Charlie was passing the local newspaper office, when he saw a bold headline posted in the window - "Gold found in the Yukon!" Gold was so plentiful that all one need do, is pick it up from the streams and cart it off in a wheelbarrow. Wealth was there for the taking, for anyone who would make their way north.

Charlie convinced Martha that the north was the answer to their prayers. He would go to the Yukon and return with enough gold to secure the family's future. He used what little money they had saved to purchase passage and goods for his epic journey. And so it was that Charlie joined hundreds of thousands of others in a flood of humanity to retrieve the golden riches of the north.

The cramped quarters aboard the vessel that carried Charlie to Skagway, Alaska, the arduous effort of moving a ton of goods over the Chilkoot Pass in winter, and the blistered hands that came from sawing green timber and fashioning a boat that would carry him on the Yukon River to Dawson City, all tested his resolve. There were times when he was ready to give up, but failure was not an option for Charlie.

Charlie finally reached Dawson City in June of 1898. The streets were abustle with 30,000 gold seekers, all lost in an aimless wandering. Charlie soon learned that the headlines were a sham. All the best sites had been claimed and there was no hope that he could ever realize his golden dream. How would he tell his beloved Martha that he had failed, that he had let the family down?
Charlie began laying his plans to return home. He got what he could for the goods that he had worked so hard to get to Dawson. He purchased passage from Dawson aboard a vessel that would take him to St. Michael's, Alaska, via the Yukon River, and from there to Seattle. He hoped to use his clerking skills to obtain work there and eventually earn his way home to Minnesota.

One day as he was walking the boardwalks of Dawson, waiting his time before his passage home, Charlie met a fellow traveler who had completed the journey over the same period. They decided to have a drink at the Red Garter and commiserate. The saloon was crowded, but Charlie and his companion were waved over to a table where another familiar face from their travels was playing poker.

Charlie was a family man and not a gambler. What possessed him to start playing is not known - was it desperation, boredom, the effects of the liquor? What is known, is that Charlie began a streak of luck that many in Dawson would recount for years to come. The evening culminated in a dramatic final hand. One of the old-timers put up his claim on Eldorado Creek in the poker pot. Charlie's three aces beat the old-timer's three kings! And Charlie now owned a gold claim! He could not believe his luck!

The next day Charlie could not wait to get to the claim and begin working it. And just as Charlie dreamed, he panned gold dust and nuggets from the stream that ran through his claim. Charlie was beside himself with excitement, happiness, and wealth.

The next morning he awoke to a redness that appeared randomly on his skin. As the week wore on, and the gold accumulated, the redness spread and fever set in. By time a doctor was summoned and arrived from Dawson, Charlie was covered in red welts and high fever. The doctor did what he could for Charlie but to no avail. Charlie died in his shack on the creek. The doctor surmised that Charlie was allergic to gold and that it had caused the redness and fever that did Charlie in.

Charlie loss was sadly felt by the people of Dawson. His story of hardship and success was admired and celebrated. That aside, miners, prospectors, and town folks feared that Dawson gold was somehow cursed and that others would suffer Charlie's fate. Local newspapers, never at a loss to find ways to increase readership, presented dramatic headlines to that end. With time, this fear proved to be ill-founded, but this episode left a mark on history - the period would thereafter be referred by the newspaper headlines of the time -
.

Bill Mason - Inspiration Personified

As I enter the fall of my years, I look back at the people who have had a profound influence on my life. It is interesting that the value of their influence is not necessarily evident in the moment, but opens up with reflection. There was my mother and father who worked hard to deliver the opportunities that would forge my adult years. There was my first wife, that showed a strength of love, character, and forgiveness that was lost on me during a very selfish period. There is my present partner who has stuck by me for many years even though I have mismanaged our relationship. And finally, there was Bill Mason.

I never met Bill, nor have I ever conversed with him, in any conventional sense. Bill was a Canadian, born in Winnipeg, Manitoba who died of cancer in 1988. He loved nature and he loved to canoe. He coupled these loves with a creative side that manifested itself in books, art, and film. For over 20 years he produced a multitude of films, on his own terms, for Canada's iconic National Film Board. I met Bill in his film "Waterwalker".

"Anyone who has seen a Mason film can appreciate his ability to convey his great love of nature through his films. You escape the distractions of the city by simply watching one of his films and enjoying the beauty of the wild while being educated at the same time. What a refreshing change from the sterile documentaries of today that barely scratch the surface or seek to shock rather than inform. Mason's films are a celebration of nature devoid of preachy sermons." Albert Ohayon/NFB collections expert

Here is a link to "Waterwalker". Perhaps Bill will have something of importance to say to you.