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.



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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.

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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.