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While they may not have had access to the battlefields, a number of Canadian women artists made their mark on the visual culture of the First World War by representing the home front. First among these were the women affiliated with the Canadian War Memorials Fund, Canada’s first official war art program. Founded in 1916, the stated goal of the Fund was to provide “suitable Memorials in the form of Tablets, Oil-Paintings, etc. […], to the Canadian Heroes and Heroines in the War.” Expatriates Florence Carlyle and Caroline Armington participated in the program while overseas. Artists Henrietta Mabel May, Dorothy Stevens, Frances Loringand Florence Wyle were commissioned by the Fund to visually document the war effort in Canada.

Laurent-Olivier David, lawyer, journalist, newspaper owner, writer, politician (born 24 March 1840 in Sault-au-Récollet (Montréal), QC; died 24 August 1926 in Outremont, QC). David was responsible for founding the Monument-National and was the author of a number of biographies of famous Canadians.

The Second World War forever altered Canada. Among those most affected were young Canadians. The war had a profound impact on their lives and families.

As the threat of another world war loomed ever larger, Canadians, far from the conflict, would face a difficult choice of whether to stand again with Britain or remain isolated and safe in North America.

Hiawatha is an important figure in the precolonial history of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) of present-day southern Ontario and upper New York (ca. 1400-1450). He is known most famously for uniting the Five Nations—Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida and Mohawk—into a political confederacy. In 1722, the Tuscarora, a tribe from much farther south, joined the Confederacy, forming what we now know as the Six Nations. The story of Hiawatha should not be confused with the popular poem by Henry Wordsworth Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha (1885). While Longfellow references Hiawatha, the poem’s focus is actually an Algonquian cultural hero, Nanabozho. Whether this was an intentional or accidental error, Longfellow’s poem confused the history of Hiawatha.

Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King guided the country through six painful years of conflict, oversaw a massive war effort and made surprisingly few errors in a period of tremendous turmoil, change and anguish.

Oliver Hazard Perry, American naval officer, known as the hero of Lake Erie (b at South Kingston, Rhode Island, 23 Aug 1785; d at sea near Trinidad and Tabago, 23 Aug 1819).

Born in the backwoods of the Carolinas, Jackson was the son of Scottish Irish colonists. At the young age of 13, Jackson served in a local militia as a courier during the American Revolution. It was a dangerous job.

Charles-Michel d'Irumberry de Salaberry, British army and Canadian militia officer, military figure in the WAR OF 1812 (b at Beauport, Qué 19 Nov 1778; d at Chambly, Lower Canada 27 Feb 1829). At age 14, de Salaberry enlisted as a volunteer in the 44th Foot.

“Let me tell you, my fellow countrymen, that all the signs point this way, that the 20th century shall be the century of Canada and Canadian development.… For the next 100 years, Canada shall be the star towards which all men who love progress and freedom shall come.” — Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier speaking at Toronto’s Massey Hall on 14 October 1904.

Robert Duncan Wilmot, senator (1867–80), lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick (1880–85), politician, businessman (born 16 October 1809 in Fredericton, NB; died 13 February 1891 in Sunbury County, NB).

Hariot Georgina Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava, viceregal consort and diplomat (born 5 February 1843 in Killyleagh, [Northern] Ireland; died 25 October 1936 in London, England).

Anne Brown, née Nelson, wife, mother (born 1827 in Edinburgh, Scotland; died 6 May 1906 in Edinburgh).

Abraham Ulrikab (born 29 January 1845 in Hebron, Labrador; died 13 January 1881 in Paris, France) was one of eight Labrador Inuit to die from smallpox while travelling through Europe as part of an ethnographic show (now called human zoos). In 2011, his skeleton, along with that of four other Inuit, was uncovered in the reserves of the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle (National Museum of Natural History) in Paris. The Nunatsiavut government (See Labrador Inuit) is studying the possibility of having them repatriated.

Sir David Kirke, trader and privateer, first governor of Newfoundland (born at Dieppe, France c1597; died near London, England 1654). Kirke, with Sir William Alexander, Earl of Stirling, formed the Company of Adventurers, which was granted patents by King Charles I. It gave them the right to trade and settle in Canada. Kirke was the owner of the first recorded Black chattel-slave in New France, Olivier Le Jeune. 

The Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF), of some 630,000 men during the Great War of 1914–18, consisted almost entirely of civilian soldiers. Pre-war farmers, clerks, students, and workers voluntarily enlisted to serve King and Country, although close to 100,000 were conscripted for service in the last year of the war. Most of the Canadian senior officers were drawn from the middle class — lawyers, engineers, professional soldiers, businessmen, farmers, and even a dentist.

The First World War forever changed Canada. Some 630,000 Canadians enlisted from a nation of not yet eight million. More than 66,000 were killed. As the casualties mounted on the Western Front, an expatriate Canadian, Sir Max Aitken (Lord Beaverbrook), organized a program to document Canada’s war effort through art, photography and film. This collection of war art, made both in an official capacity and by soldiers themselves, was another method of forging a legacy of Canada’s war effort.

Sir Arthur William Currie (changed from Curry in 1897), soldier, educator (born 5 December 1875 in Adelaide (near Strathroy), ON; died 30 November 1933 in Montréal, QC).

Susan Agnes Macdonald (née Bernard), Baroness, writer (born 24 August 1836 in Spanish Town, Jamaica; died 5 September 1920 in Eastbourne, England). Lady Agnes Macdonald was the second wife of Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald. The couple married on the eve of Confederation (16 February 1867), as the British North America Act was making its way through the House of Lords in England. A talented diarist and a published travel and political writer, Lady Macdonald offers a feminine perspective on the evolving cultural landscape of a new country.