Thursday, March 26, 2009

Behind the Canadian Pacific Railway

This is a response to assignment #10 on the workers of the Canadian Pacific Railway

"The most important step in the development of British Columbia after joining Confederation in 1871 was the construction of Canadian Pacific Railway."


This railway was so important because it connected this province to the rest of Canada's trade and economy. It was one of the largest projects that the young country of Canada took on. This was of course a very tough task so the main contractor of this project, Andrew Onderdonk, decided that instead of having Canadians do the work, he would bring in about 15, 000 Chinese immigrants to do the hard work. The following will be a diary entry from the perspective of a son of a railway worker.

-----------------------------------------------

Dear Diary,

Today is another day in this new country. Another work day for papa, another pair of the same meals, and another afterschool diary entry. This place is much different from home, but we seem to be with many people that we knew.

Papa is treated better here, but some of his friends who work with him have disappeared, whenever I asked my dad why they're gone, he just ignores me but I think that they have died on the job. That only makes me wonder, if people who work with my dad die at work, what if my dad dies, too?



Papa keeps reassuring us that he won't get hurt but I can tell that mama is worried every day. We are lucky this week because papa is working near, alot of the time papa will be working very far away for a very long time. We live in a hut and some others live tent.



Life is better here, but I feel like it can be even better because the way that the other people of this land are treated and how they live. We have to pay for food and material for cooking while the white men don't. As for the food, it is usually the same-rice, fish and tea.

My father feels very strongly that I should have an education so I go to school with other Chinese kids. Mama learns a language that they call "English". She goes to the language school at night.

I don't play very much but I like school because I can be with my friends, we all talk alot and they feel how I feel because their fathers are doing the same thing that my father is. But I am worried about some of my friends because they seem to be getting sick. I will keep them in my prayers.

Tomorrow-mama is calling me to supper, but i will finish writing tomorrow.


These sites proved to be useful in researching the CPR, check them out:

cpr.ca



ccn.ca


BC Archives

Collections Canada

http://archives.cbc.ca/society/immigration/topics/1433/

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/settlement/kids/021013-2031.4-e.html































Sunday, March 1, 2009

The Real Riel

Hello again everyone, this is a response to assignment #8-The Real Riel

Alem: Good morning/afternoon everyone. I am privileged today to be the first to interview Mr. Louis Riel after he was unfrozen-thanks to modern science. Mr. Riel was the eldest of eleven children and as many of you probably know, is a figure in Canadian history that most would consider controversial. He was born in what is now Manitoba from a Métis leader and a French-Canadian mother. The Métis people in Mr.Riel's time were scared that their homeland would no longer be in their control when English-speaking Canadians arrived in their land so my guest, Louis Riel, began a "provisional government". This government would discuss with the Canadian government. After a few incidences, Louis Riel was charged with high treason. After a two week trial, he was found guilty and hanged. Quite some background,eh? Hello Mr. Riel, how are you today?

Louis Riel: Hello, I am fine and much warmer now, thank you.

Alem: Alright (chuckle). Well let's get right to it, I'm sure that there are many things that you would like to clear up with the Canadian people.

Louis Riel: Yes! Let's get to the interview.

Alem: I am sure that you know you are a very controversial figure in Canadian history and some of us just don't know whether to call you a traitor or a hero. To start, how would you classify yourself?

Louis Riel: Alem, I am none of those things. I am a prophet, sent by God.

Alem: When did you come to this conclusion?

Louis Riel: Around the late 1870s and the early 1880s.

Alem: Okay. Now why did you do all those rebellious things?

Louis Riel: I did all these things for my people, the Métis. The Canadian government at the time did not care about my people so I had to help them, what was I supposed to do? Watch them suffer? Then they banished me to the US for FIVE years. I did not agree with this the least bit but there was not much that I could do about it so I started a family in Montana. Then they, the Canadian government, asked me to negotiate for Saskatchewan Métis- I was excited to have an opportunity to create a Métis homeland - but they tricked me, sending soldiers not negotiators. I had to surrender! I had to. Then they hanged me, you see this scar around my neck?

Alem: Yes, a painful scar isn't it, not only physically painful but the feeling that you tried so hard only to be hanged to your death.

Louis Riel: Of course.

Alem: When you were doing all these things for your people, did you care what others would think of you?

Louis Riel: Looking back on it now, I did not really care as much as other people would, I knew that I was doing the right thing for the Métis and knew that God was having me do what he thought needed to be done so I did not worry about what others thought.

Alem: Well, thank you for taking your time to speak with me today, I do beleive that you have clarified your point of view and why you did what you did to the Canadian people.

Louis Riel: Thank you for letting me reach the Canadian people.

Alem: Good night everyone and thanks for watching.

______________________________

I used these sites to help me finish this assignment:
Mysteries of Canada
Histori
Biographi
Collections Canada
Province of Manitoba
The Canadian Encyclopedia

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Canadian Personalities

Hello everyone,

This is a response to assignment #7-Canadian Personalities, assigned by my history teacher, Miss. Pollock.


a.) Which category of Canadian Personalities interested you the most? Did you like the "we inspired", "we founded", "we built" or we governed section the best? Why?

All of the categories interested me but I was most drawn to the "we built" category- with David Thompson, James Bernard Harkin, Samuel de Champlain, Francis Rattenbury and Jules Timmins. I liked this category because these unforgettable people shaped and built Canada, from the cities to the countryside, from the waterways to the mountains. They helped build our nation and therefore they need to be remembered.


b.) Which personality interested you the most? Find and image of him/her to embed and write in your own words, a short description of what he/she did and why he/she is your favourite. If you get information from any source, you must credit it by creating a link to it (that includes information from the site that I've asked you to look at).



David Thompson (1770-1857)-Mapmaker, Explorer and Visionary


I chose to do David Thompson because I noticed that his picture was the only drawing and it was one of the few pictures to show the person actually at work. I was also asking myself "What is he holding in his hand?", then I found out that he was a mapmaker and it all made sense.

David Thompson worked for the Hudson Bay Company (a great fur-trading enterprise at the time-now the store called "the Bay"[yes, the Bay, in St. Laurent and Rideau Malls]) at the tender age of 14 years-old. He worked as a clerk.

David Thompson was born in Westminister, England, introduced to the world on April 30, 1770. His father passed away when he was at the early age of two years old. He was enrolled in a school called "Grey Coat School" by his mother. He arrived at the Hudson Bay's Churchill Factory on September of 1784.



During December of 1788, David Thompson fell down a creek bank and severely broke his leg, so severely in fact, that sometime it was said that he could loose his leg. When he trained to navigate, he lost sight in his right eye-believed to be caused by staring at the sun frequently.



Even after developing a limp and loosing sight in his right eye, he became interested and passionate about mapping. When he signed with the Hudson Bay Company for seven more years, he asked that they equipped his uniform with instruments including a compass, watches, thermometers, a sextant and an artificial horizon.



Using these devices, he explored and traded around York Factory and northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba.


After a while, Thompson became unhappy with the great attention that the Hudson Bay Company put on fur trade and left the company after his seven years were over. He then went to work for the Hudson Bay Company's competition-the North West Company and arrived at their headquarters on Lake Superior in July of 1797.




His first assignment was to calculate and find the longitude and latitude of the North West Company's posts...and this was just the beginning of a long series of accomplishments in the history of David Thompson.





He went on to determine the location of Mandan villages on the Missouri River, mapped the east shore and most of the north shore of Lake Superior, and so much more, eventually mapping more of North America than anyone else. It is predicted that he traveled (by horseback, canoe, dogsled and on foot) around 90,000 km, that's equal to circling the globe TWICE! David Thompson has made an amazing contribution to North America and should always be remembered for it, and he has deserved to be remembered as North America's "Greatest Geographer".




c.) In your post, suggest three more influential Canadian personalities that could be added to this site. Why did you choose these people? Which categories would they fit into? Link to information about each of them.





First, I think that Henry Hudson could be added to this site. He would fit into the "We Built" category because he discovered bodies of water in Canada. He was an explorer who was originally looking for a route to the Orient. The English King in 1609, James the First, sent Hudson to sail to the Arctic. Hudson had already been to Greenland and sailed through the northern Russian seas-so he knew what he was doing. He took his ship, the Discovery, along a waterway that he named the Hudson Strait. Along his way, he added names to his mapping charts like "God's Mercy". But his crew members was becoming tense. Hudson entered what is now known as "Hudson Bay", and he kept going south, trying to find another passage to the Atlantic Ocean. His crew members did not agree with his decision, they believed that they should go back the same way that they came, but Hudson ignored. He then lead his ship right into a dead end at what is now called "James Bay"(named after his son). Even after the ice melted in June, Hudson still wanted to find a northwest passage, a nightmare to the crew. So a few of the crew members decided that they would put Henry Hudson and the weaker, sicker crew members in a smaller boat and let them sail for themselves. Hudson was grabbed and put into the smaller boat, along with his son and a few others. There was no trace of Henry Hudson, but there is a bay which will remain in memory of the determined explorer.







Even though Henry Hudson was not a Canadian, he made a large contribution to Canadian History.



______________________________________




Another person that I believe could have been added to the site was Mathieu Da Costa. There is not very much information that has been discovered about Mathieu Da Costa and some information is just theories but of things that we do know, Mathieu Da Costa is a pretty historical individual. Mathieu Da Costa was a translator in the early 1600s. He was hired by both Dutch and French Europeans to be a translator on travels to North America. I read that it is a strong possibility that Mathieu Da Costa was of African and European descent. It is also said that he was the first free black man in Canada.


I think that he would belong in the "We Founded" category because he translated and helped Europeans make trade deals which helped mold the economic and social characters of Canada.

______________________________________




Last but certainly not least, I would suggest an Italian explorer, John Cabot. John Cabot would fit right into the "We Built"category because he was the first European explorer to discover the mainland of North America.



John Cabot was born in Genoa, Italy and was originally named Giovanni Caboto but he is known by his English name, John Cabot.














5. Vote on your favourite Canadian personality. (Click on the link to vote)





6. Turn the volume down on your computer, and play the Mystery History-Maker Match-Up. Find out which personality you have the most in common with.




Clue #1. I spoke English but my original rules of basketball have been translated into dozens of languages.




Clue #2. I played all sorts of sports inculding football, rugby, wrestling, gymnastics, swimming and skating. My favourite was lacrosse.




Clue #3. I was pressured to call my new game "Naismithball", but I preferred to call it basketball.




Clue #4. I earned degrees in philosophy, physical education, medicine and theology.




Clue #5. I belonged to many sports teams, the university choir, debating team and the literary society.




Clue #6. I travelled and lived in many parts of Canada and the United States. I served in France during the first World War.




Clue #7. Schools and streets have been named for me.




Clue #8. The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall Of Fame bears my name.




Clue #9. Athletic awards have been given in my honour.




Clue #10. Postage stamps and coins have celebrated my invention.






7. Go back to your post and answer the following question:
d.) Which History-Maker did you have the most in common with? Were you able to figure it out from the clues given? What do you share with that person? What are some things that are different between you and that person?






I was matched up with Dr. James Naismith- inventor of basketball. I did figure it out through the clues and the sound in the backround as I read the clues.









Similarities between Dr. James Naismith and I:




-we both belonged to school teams/clubs




-we both took multiple courses at the YMCA




-we were both born in Ontario, Canada





Differences between Dr. James Naismith and I:




-He lost both his parents at a tender age, only twelve years after his birth-having lost his grandmother, he went and lived with his uncle. Both my parents are alive.




-His ancestors were of many Scottish immigrants, who came to Ontario many decades ago. My parents are the first in their families, aside from siblings, to come to Canada altogether.




-He had farm duties, since he lived a while back. I don't have farm duties because I don't live on a farm, like most Canadians today.




8. Think long and hard about this part and then post an answer to this question on your blog:
e.) One hundred years from now, (in 2109!) imagine that students are learning about Canadian History Makers and they discover you. What will you be remembered for? How were you a Canadian History Maker? You are using your imagination, so think about some things that you would like to accomplish in your life and imagine that you have all the accomplishments of your life to look back on. Write a short profile of yourself, imagining the contributions you have made to the future of Canada. (Write this as though you've lived your whole life. You may have been a phenomenal athlete, the first black Prime Minister, cured cancer...use your imagination!)

The Profile of Alem Gebeyehu


Alem Gebeyehu was born on December 8th,1995. She was born from loving parents, who had immigrated to Canada without their parents, left to work hard on their own. Her father came before her mother. She grew up in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Her parents discontinued residing in the same home(around the age of 10-her brother was 7), which is seen as a tragic situation by many but to Alem and her brother, Wondu, this was more of a blessing because now their parents didn't always have to argue and they could love them more and be better parents when they were less stressed. Most people think that kids don't understand these kinds of things, but they sure did. She went to public schools from kindergarten to grade twelve. During junior high school, she excelled in her studies. She moved on to high school, where she continued to excel, earning herself a degree to the prestigious McGill University, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.



Alem received a PhD in medicine at McGill. She continued to pursue her education, at Yale and Harvard universities. She received an MBA at Harvard and her Masters in law at Yale universities.



She became very good at buying, selling and building beautiful buildings, her accomplishments oddly similar to Donald Trump's. She bought and built hotels in Dubai, New York, Saudi Arabia, Berlin, Tokyo, Ottawa(of course) and Africa. She also bought diamond mines in South Africa and gold mines all over Africa.



She helped discover a cure to aids and raised awareness all over the world, in order to slow down the epidemic to help find a cure. The cure Alem helped discover, was first released in Africa, where the epidemic killed those staggering amounts of people.


Alem was surprisingly humble, even after this fortune that she worked to build. Before she bought herself a new home, she purchased homes and first class plane tickets (to their place of choice) for the rest of her family, starting with her mom. She donated generously, to many charities and worked with homeless people were willing to work and turn their lives around.She also helped people in developing countries to help their countries prosper and even bring some of them to promising and welcoming countries like Canada and the United States. She also ran very strong campaigns to promote free trade, especially in poorer contries.

She had her wedding ceremony in Athens, Greece, her reception in Ethiopia and honeymooned skydiving in the Czech Republic and in Italy.


She never "retired", she did take breakes but she loved what she did and did not retire beleiving that:


"To retire, is to expire" -Frederick C. Trump


She made sure that she lived life to its fullest, not forgetting those who made her who she is and taking them on an amazing ride with her.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

It's Really Cold

IT'S REALLY COLD

It is really freezing outside, but we are starting to have some warmer days-like -7 degrees Celsius. Anyways, it seems that as the years progress, we get even colder weather and even more snow. So we begin to think about how unfortunate it is that people have to leave 15-30 minutes early to start and warm their cars up and just to get through traffic-no help from the OC Transpo strike that has ended. And while we complain about our hands, toes and faces freezing, some people think of how people many, many years ago survived with the limited things that they had.
I'm talking about the first European settlers-or pioneers. How did they survive? Why would they stay? What did they use? All these questions filled my head as I read the next assignment that was due. Using the website suggestions that were provided and some of my own research , I found out some things...



Different people in those times came to Canada for different reasons.
Here were some:
"-some wanted to own their own land
-some wanted to live in a democracy
-job opportunities
-some poorer people thought that they may be able to prosper in "the new found land"
-some people left their over crowded, dirty and polluted cities for Canada"

Most didn't ask for much-just basic living conditions and a country to call home for their children to grow up and succeed in.
The Atlantic provinces were where the settlers first settled. They went to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland. This makes a lot of sense if you think about it. The Atlantic provinces are the closest Canadian provinces to Europe.

HOMES: The pioneer homes were more modern than many people would think. They were usually 1 room homes made of logs, field stone, spruce poles or prairie sod. At the end of pioneer times, brick houses with glass windows and even shingles on roofs began to be built. These homes had to be built to survive the long, cold Canadian winters. Pioneers did work hard to stay warm they had to constantly had to gather wood and constantly burned wood during winter time.



FOOD: The food that the pioneers ate was actually nutritious and good but lacked variety. Food was made, grown or [meat] was slaughtered locally. Diets usually consisted of meats-like pork, fruits-like dried apples, and root vegetables-like potatoes and carrots. But meals became more balanced when fish, wild birds, home gardens and dairy cattle (like cows and goats) began to be used. But most of the fruits and vegetables had to be stored because you can't really plant things during the winter time, especially without the irrigation technology that we have today.


One of the things that the pioneers struggled with was scurvy. Scurvy is a disease that is caused by deficiency or lack of vitamin C-that you can get from citrus fruits (oranges,lemons) and many vegetables. Scurvy gives you swollen, bleeding gums and previously healed wounds would open. As I mentioned before, it is very hard to grow crops during the winter time so scurvy would occur a lot more often during the winter time. Scurvy didn't take mercy on Canada's early settlers,killing many.












When you think about how hard these pioneers tried to survive, it really does make us grateful that we have all the things that we do. We should think more about these kinds of things when we complain about anything from the weather to what you have for lunch.


_______________________________________________

My parents were the first in their families to move and live in Canada. They moved to Canada, from Ethiopia in east Africa, to live in a free country. They wanted to be able to make a good living and live a free life, with their own voices heard. Canada was "the land of opportunities".

My father and many other Ethiopians didn't come straight to Canada. My father was in a group when he waked the long journey to Sudan. It was very hard to get out of Ethiopia as a refugee so they went to Sudan (a neighbouring country) and claimed refuge there. This was quite a path but it was harder because this had to be done over night, if the government found you, you could be imprisoned or worse.

My mother was a nurse in Ethiopia and met my father when she treated his father. After my dad came to Canada, he was able to bring my mom to Canada after they got married.

Most of my parents' friends from Ethiopia moved to Washington DC or Virginia. So it was kind of lonely but in the end, it was worth it.


_______________________________________________


These websites helped me out-you should take a look at them:
The Canada Page
The Canadian Encyclopedia
Living History Farms;Get Your Grip On History

Photos courtesy of:http://caaneo.ca/about/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/winter-house.jpg and http://images.ctv.ca/gallery/photo/winterstorm_2008_20080305/image10.jpg

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Rita Cox

Dr. Rita Cox

I am doing my assignment on Dr. Rita Cox, a community activist and leader in the black and Caribbean community. Rita Cox joined the Toronto Public Library as a children's librarian in 1960. Then, in 1974 she became the head of Parkdale Branch, another Toronto library. She stayed there until her retirement in 1995.

During her occupancy, Rita Cox started literacy programs and other developments that urged multiculturalism and literacy all through Toronto. Rita Cox and her worked touched the lives of many, especially youth and newcomers.

Rita Cox created the "Black Heritage and West Indian Resource Collection" in 1973. This collection was later renamed "Black and Caribbean Heritage Collection" in 1998. It quickly became one of the most broad collections of its sort in Canada.


Dr. Cox is a distinguished story teller who has delighted and entertained people across North America, in Europe, Brazil and the Caribbean. She has performed on stage, on the radio and on television. She also trained a whole new generation of story tellers so that the library's legacy of storytelling wouldn't die.

Rita Cox has won numerous awards. Among them is the 1996 Canadian Library Association Public Service Award and the Black Achievement Award. In 1997, she was chosen to be a member of the Order of Canada for her amazing work in storytelling and literacy. She has also received honorary degrees from York and Wilfrid Laurier universities.

Dr. Rita Cox is a fascinating woman with the awards to prove it. She is definitely a history making African-Canadian.

Thanks to the following websites for information: http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/uni_bch_who.jsp
http://www.storytellingtoronto.org/Directory_Pages/Dir_RitaCox.html

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Nice Blogs

Hi guys,
If anyone is look for idea or just wants to look at a well done blog, you should take a look at Helena's blog, or the "man with a plan", Zaryab's blog. These blogs both have a lot of info and have been really customized.

History of the Future

History of the Future
Hello again,

So I read this blog by a man named Christopher Moore,click here to take a look at it, and I read a post called "To the Nines-reviewing the centuries". Our third assignment was to think about what will be of Canada 2109. Here's what I thought...

-We will barely be able to identify where a person is from, there are already many immigrants coming to Canada and getting married in Canada so we already have many children come from 2 or 3 or even 4 different backgrounds. I really do think that people believe that racism will end, this seems a very,very long time away and maybe we won't ever get rid of racism and prejudice but we can keep ourselves from saying certain things and open up our minds, as so many of us have already done.

-I also think that the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States will pave the way for presidents of all different races to be elected and provide their amazing ideas to countries.

-Technology will go a long way. We already have iPhones and iPods and with almost every new technological invention or discovery there is a new health concern. I think that technology will advance so rapidly that we won't be able to keep up with it. "Family time" has already become sitting around the television for so many families so what will "family time" be with all this new technology?

-I do believe that there will be more advances in the building of robots. Thinking about robots is kind of creepy for me because I think of parents working long hours to provide for their families and their kids being a little lonely, especially if they don't have siblings, and finding friends in artificial intelligences like robots. But I do believe that robots will be able to help hard working people who don't have time to vacuum or do the dishes. I also think that they will make people a little more lazy than they already are.

-We already see self-scan options in LoblawsTM how much more advanced will those become?
They may even replace other jobs with robots and machinery

-Another thing that I see a hundred years from now is kids in very high-tech class rooms. With voice-activated computers, studying how we lived and pointing out things that we could have done to make our country better, just like most classes do now.

-I see more diseases coming, but cures being discovered for cancer and aids and other diseases. I think that in the future, a huge cause of most of the diseases will be pollution and all the things that we use like CLRTM and LysolTM to get rid of bacteria but pollute our lungs at the same time.

-Cars will become less polluting and maybe even produce clean air, by using substitutes for gasoline/petroleum, and maybe SUVs won't be so wanted because people will see you as a gas guzzler.

-More and more animal and plant species will become endangered and then extinct. Plants that could have been able to cure diseases and animals that balanced the food chain.

Over all the future will bring gadgets that make our lives easier and make us, as human beings more advanced, but there will be dangers to us and our planet with so many advances.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Welcome!


Hello and welcome to my blog everyone. I am a grade eight student in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. As the title may give away, I will be learning and writing about Canadian history here, on my blog. I hope you enjoy this blog and please feel free to comment and share any information.

I, not unlike many of my peers, am excited to be doing the rest of my history course online. I've never done this for a class and it already seems much more interesting and more fun than the regular text-book history that I'm used to.

My history teacher, Ms. Pollock, has her own interesting blog and you can click here to take a look at it.