Canada's Early Pioneers on Stamps

For the launch of the Stanley Gibbons 8^th Edition Canada & Provinces catalogue release, we have been discovering the history and background of stamp issues showcased in this comprehensive publication through articles from the Gibbons Stamp Monthly Archive.

The following excerpt article was first published in the April 1945 issue of Gibbons Stamp Monthly. A full range of articles can be accessed using a subscription to the Gibbons Stamp Monthl y Archive.

Stamps and The Story of Canada By Eric Glasgow

The Dominion of Canada has grown out of a colony founded by Frenchmen. French seamen seem to have visited the cod fisheries of the Grand Banks, south of Newfoundland, from the latter part of the fifteenth century onwards, but the first noteworthy episode in the story of Canada was the departure from St. Malo in April, 1534, of two ships under a Breton sailor named Jacques Cartier (SG42). Instead of finding a north-west passage to the silks and spices of the East, Cartier stumbled upon the St. Lawrence estuary, as shown on a Canadian stamp issued in 1934, and landed on what is now the Gaspé Peninsula.

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CANADA 1856 SG15 Cover from Cobourg to England with 10d Jacques Cartier

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He claimed the country for Francis I of France. When he returned in the summer of 1535, this time with three ships, he left two of them where Quebec now stands (20 c., 1908), while in the smallest he explored the St. Lawrence as far as the site of Montreal. In his narrative of this second expedition he called the new land "Canada," from an Indian word Kannata, meaning " a town." After a third visit in 1541-2 he retired to St. Malo, his birthplace, where he died in 1557.

For over half a century the Redskins roamed unmolested through the Canadian woods and forgot about the white strangers. It was not until 1603, sixty-one years after Cartier had said farewell to the St. Lawrence for the last time, that Samuel de Champlain paid his first visit to the region.

Champlain, who appears with Cartier on the 1 c. value of the 1908 (SG189) Quebec Tercentenary issue, was an organiser of great energy and ability as well as an intrepid explorer, and he followed up Cartier's work by establishing a permanent colony in the St. Lawrence valley. In 1608 he founded Quebec as his capital, naming it after an Indian word for "narrows," and building a citadel (SG300 12 c., 1930) on the heights nearby. Three years later he visited the site of Montreal and actually had the ground cleared of trees, though the city was not founded until 1642. In 1615, guided by Huron Indians, he explored the triangle contained by the Ottawa River, Lake Huron and Lake Ontario (SG194 15 c., 1908). Unfortunately he made a rod for his own back by supporting the Hurons and thus alienating their enemies, the powerful Iroquois Indians. He died in Quebec on Christmas Day, 1635, after having done more than any other Frenchman to give his country a voice in North America.

It was Canada's wealth in fur-bearing animals, especially the beaver, which attracted the early settlers, and the colony was at first simply a collection of trading stations. The national emblem of Canada, tucked away in the corners of so many of her stamps, is the leaf of the Red Maple tree, which the pioneers regarded as a symbol of fertility and as proof that the new land was not totally different from Europe.

The establishment of British settlers in the Hudson Bay area (under a charter granted by Charles II of England to a fur-trading company in 1670), in Newfoundland, and along the Atlantic coast, made an Anglo-French conflict inevitable sooner or later. In 1713, by the Treaty of Utrecht, France had to pay the price of defeat in Europe by surrendering to Britain Acadia (renamed Nova Scotia) and her claims to the Hudson Bay area and Newfoundland (except the tiny islands of St.Pierre and Miquelon). Nevertheless Britain's position in Nova Scotia became so insecure as a result of French intrigues that in 1755 practically the whole French population there was deported to the southern British colonies, a tragic episode described in Longfellow's "Evangeline." At the village of Grand Pré, as a precaution, the menfolk were imprisoned in a church (SG302 50 c., 1930) for a few days before the deportation.

The event which put an end to the hopes of French Imperialists in North America was the capture of Quebec in September, 1759, by British troops under General James Wolfe, assisted by a fleet under Admiral Saunders.

Wolfe was a young colonel who, in spite of poor health, had served with distinction on the Continent and against " Bonnie Prince Charlie " in Scotland, and who now held the acting rank of major-general. George II's caustic remark when earlier he was told that Wolfe was mad has become legend : " Mad, is he ? Then I wish he would bite some of my other Generals." The 7 c. stamp of the 1908 issue shows Wolfe and his French adversary, the Marquis de Montcalm, a brave , skillful and chivalrous soldier.

The struggle at Quebec, which cost both Wolfe and Montcalm (SG192) their lives, was followed by the fall of Montreal (1760) and the annexation of Canada by Britain (1763).

Wolfe's victory thus presented British statesmen with the problem of governing an alien province. Fortunately the French had never been accustomed to self-government, and being allowed their own customs, religion and legal system, they remained loyal when Britain's thirteen American colonies revolted (1774).

The American War of Independence was a civil war. Nearly half the population in the colonies hated the idea of secession from the British Empire. Over 20,000 of these Loyalists or " Tories " fought for George III during the War; and when Britain recognised the independence of the U.S.A. in '1783, at least 40,000 of them emigrated to Canada, sacrificing their homes and property in order to remain under the British flag. A small number of Indians came with them. Some of these United Empire Loyalists (SG333 10 c., 1934) settled in the Maritime Provinces (i.e., east of Quebec) where they built up New Brunswick (SG334 2 c., 1934), hitherto part of Nova Scotia ; while the rest went to Upper Canada, the modern Ontario. The British Government made grants of land, livestock, tools and seeds to alliviate their sufferings.

As was to be expected, this influx led to bad feeling between the British Loyalists and the French. Jealousy was particularly acute between Upper and Lower Canada, which were separated in 1791. The reunion of the two Canadas in 1840, in spite of many defects, ultimately taught the two races to work with one another. British leaders like Sir J. A. Macdonald (1 c., 1927), a very able Scotch lawyer, and Robert Baldwin (SG273 20 c., 1927), learnt that they had much in common with French-Canadians like Sir G. E. Cartier (SG312 10 c., 1931) and L. H. Lafonaine (SG273 20 c., 1927). Cartier, for instance, had played a minor part in a rising in 1837 ; but ere long he repented of" les fautes de sa jeunesse," and from 1858 he co-operated closely with Macdonald. "We are of different races," he said in 1865, " not for strife, but to work together for the common welfare."

A picturesque character was Thomas D'Arcy McGee (SG271 5 c., 1927), a brilliant Irishman, the son of a Carlingford coast-guard. After plotting against British rule in Ireland he fled to the U.S.A. and thence, in 1857, to Canada. There, on the platform and in the Press, he became an enthusiastic supporter of the British connection as opposed to annexation by the United States, and advocated a federal union of all the British colonies in North America. He died in 1868, the victim of a Fenian assassin.

A sign of growing nationalism was the transference of the seat of government in the Canadas from Montreal to Ottawa, where between 1859 and 1865 the Parliament Buildings (SG268 3 c., 1927) were erected in magnificent neo-Gothic style. Used by the Assembly of the Canadas in 1866 and by the Dominion Parliament from 1867, the Buildings were destroyed by fire in 1916 and had to be rebuilt. The Parliamentary Library (SG299 10 c., 1930) is behind the debating chambers in the centre.

Meanwhile economic interests in the matter of railway construction and fear of aggression from the U.S.A. (Kipling's "ties of common funk"), had drawn all the colonies closer together. So, in October, 1864, after a preliminary meeting at Charlottetown, the capital of Prince Edward Island (13 c., 1935), representatives from the Canadas (including Macdonald, Cartier and McGee) met others from the Maritime Provinces and Newfoundland at Quebec (SG267 2 c., 1927).

These thirty-three delegates, known traditionally as the " Fathers of the Confederation," drew up a series of Resolutions which were embodied in the British North America Act, passed by the Imperial Parliament at Westminster in 1867. This Act, which came into force on July 1st ("Dominion Day"), united Upper and Lower Canada (separated again as Ontario and Quebec), New Brunswick and Nova Scotia under the title of the Dominion of Canada. Prince Edward Island entered in 1873 ; Newfoundland alone has persistently stood out.

The Canadian Post Office had at first been administered from Britain, but since 1851 autonomous postal systems had existed in each colony. Postal arrangements under the new constitution were in the hands of the Federal Government, so that when the Maritime Provinces entered the Dominion they ceased to issue their own stamps. In 1898 the Canadian Postmaster-General was largely responsible for the reduction of the letter postage throughout the Empire- except Australia and New Zealand to a uniform rate of 1d. per half ounce, an achievement marked by the issue of a special stamp.

As far back as 1793 a Scotch fur trader, Alexander Mackenzie, had reached the Pacific coast from the interior and had also discovered the great Arctic river which bears his name (6 c., 1938). The dream of a Dominion "from sea to sea"-" a mari usque ad mare "-was realised when British Columbia was admitted in 1871 ; and by that time Manitoba had been organised with its capital at Fort Garry, a little trading station renamed Winnipeg (SG365 20 c., 1938). Development was stimulated by the improvement in trans-Atlantic communications-in 1833 the Royal William ( c., 1933 ) had crossed the Atlantic under steam in 17 days. But not until the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway (completed in 1885), from Halifax (Nova Scotia) to Vancouver, did wheat production become really profitable in the central Prairies (SG283 20 c., 1928). Saskatchewan and Alberta did not become Provinces until 1905.

The North-West Mounted Police Force was created in 1873 to save the western provinces from the lawlessness of the American " Wild West," and it soon earned a world-wide reputation for courage and efficiency. In 1920 this Force was amalgamated with the Dominion Police to form the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (SG347 10 c., 1935).

After the death of Sir John Macdonald in June, 1891, Canada's leading statesman was Sir Wilfred Laurier (SG272 12 c. green, 1927). Laurier was a French-Canadian whose outlook was British rather than French and who spoke English nearly as fluently as his mother-tongue. His interest in the affairs of the British Empire, which many of his countrymen regarded as excessive, was shown when he represented Canada at Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebrations in London (1897). But the clouds gathered towards the end of his career, when Canada adopted compulsory military service in 1917. A true patriot, Laurier had laid the foundations of a Canadian Navy in 1910, but now, with the French-Canadians resolutely opposed to conscription, he felt bound to follow them-into the wilderness. He died in 1919.

The history of Canada between the two World Wars is not well represented on stamps. But in 1932 three stamps were issued to commemorate the Economic Conference held in the Parliament Buildings at Ottawa, as a result of which Britain and the Dominions agreed to adopt a policy of " Imperial Preference " for goods and raw materials. The Silver Jubilee (1935), Coronation (1937) and Royal Visit (1939) stamps are evidence of Canada’s loyalty to the British Crown. Her present war-effort is illustrated by a series of fourteen stamps issued in July, 1942 (G.S.M. for August, 1942, p. 157). True to the tradition of Ypres, Vimy and Passchendaele, Canada again stands at Britain’s side; but she does so as a separate nation more than thirty times the area of the British Isles, stretching 3,400 miles from Atlantic to Pacific, and with a population approaching 12 million people. Champlain’s little acorn has grown into a huge oak tree.

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