The prehistory of Canada can be viewed as a long period of human cultural adaptation to moderating post-Pleistocene environmental conditions. By the time conditions stabilized around 4000 to 2000 bce, the landʹs resourceful inhabitants had developed intricate relationships with their environments, based on an intimate knowledge of the biotic setting and reinforced by spiritual bonds.

There is undisputed evidence that the first human beings crossed on a land bridge from Siberia to the unglaciated parts of Alaska sometime before 12 000 bce. As the continental glaciers melted back, an ice-free corridor developed, about 10 000 bce, along the eastern flanks...

Throughout Canadaʹs history there have been episodes that, in the reflective light of subsequent generations, we recognize now as landmarks along the path to modern nationhood. Some have involved the relocation of people or boundaries, others concern our stature in the world. All stand out as moments when the course of Canadaʹs development took a new direction.

Migration from France to Canada began as the 17th century opened. It proceeded by fits and starts, in response to varying circumstances in the homeland, and stopped suddenly and permanently almost exactly 150 years later (Plate 34). This was one of historyʹs most...

Canadaʹs vast extent dictated that regionalism would become one of the countryʹs most deep-seated and most persistent features. In a place of such immensity, the formation of smaller groupings with which people can identify is inevitable. In Canada, regions have come into focus over successive generations, only to fade into new arrangements in response to changes in population, economics, and technology. One centuryʹs core region dissolves into the periphery of somewhere else in the next century. The most stable regions – the Prairie grasslands or the St Lawrence River valley, for example – are defined by physiography. As we enter...