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Renamed Canadian Forces Base Petawawa in 1968, the base has a total population of 5,000. As one of Canada's busiest operational bases, it is economically important to the adjacent town of Petawawa and nearby Pembroke.

Canadian Forces Base Gagetown (or CFB Gagetown) functions primarily as the combat-training centre for the Canadian Army and comprises 111,000 hectares between Fredericton and Saint John, New Brunswick, west of the Saint John River.

8 Wing/Canadian Forces Base Trenton is located 167 km east of Toronto on Lake Ontario's Bay of Quinte. Begun in 1929 on 384 ha of flat farmland adjacent to the town of Trenton.

The 1885 battle was fought north of a prominent hill called Frenchman's Butte, about 45 km northwest of modern Lloydminster.

Steele Narrows Battle, at Loon Lake, 95 km north-east of Lloydminster, scene of the last shots fired in the North-West Resistance on 3 June 1885.

The Battle of Batoche, 9–12 May 1885, was the last major action of the North-West Resistance. Under the leadership of Louis Riel, Métis and their First Nations allies were defeated by government troops.

The First World War of 1914–1918 was the bloodiest conflict in Canadian history, taking the lives of nearly 61,000 Canadians. It erased romantic notions of war, introducing slaughter on a massive scale, and instilled a fear of foreign military involvement that would last until the Second World War. The great achievements of Canadian soldiers on battlefields such as Ypres, Vimy and Passchendaele, however, ignited a sense of national pride and a confidence that Canada could stand on its own, apart from the British Empire, on the world stage. The war also deepened the divide between French and English Canada and marked the beginning of widespread state intervention in society and the economy.

(This is the full-length entry about the First World War. For a plain-language summary, please see First World War (Plain-Language Summary).)

The Seven Years' War (1756–63) was the first global war, fought in Europe, India, America, and at sea. In North America, imperial rivals Britain and France struggled for supremacy. In the United States, the conflict is known as the French and Indian War. Early in the war, the French (aided by Canadian militia and Indigenous allies) defeated several British attacks and captured a number of British forts. In 1758, the tide turned when the British captured Louisbourg, followed by Quebec City in 1759 and Montreal in 1760. With the Treaty of Paris of 1763, France formally ceded Canada to the British. The Seven Years’ War therefore laid the bicultural foundations of modern Canada.

This is the full-length entry about the Seven Years’ War. For a plain-language summary, please see Seven Years’ War (Plain-Language Summary).

Record of Service, a podcast presented by The Memory Project, a program of Historica Canada. In this series, we bring you interviews with Canada’s veterans—their stories of life, loss and service. (Click here to view the entire series.)

The Battle of Beaver Dams took place during the War of 1812. On 24 June 1813, American troops marched from Fort George and intended to surprise the British at Beaver Dams. Laura Secord, a woman living in Queenston where the Americans had temporarily lodged, learned about this plan, and set off on a journey to warn the British. When the Americans resumed their trek to Beaver Dams, they were ambushed by Kanyen'kehà:ka (Mohawk) and other Indigenous warriors. The Americans lost the battle, surrendering to British troops led by Lieutenant James FitzGibbon (also spelled Fitzgibbon). The Battle of Beaver Dams established the importance of professional soldiering, Indigenous warfare and luck involved in British victory.

The Military Service Act became law on 29 August 1917. It was a politically explosive and controversial law that bitterly divided the country along French-English lines. It made all male citizens aged 20 to 45 subject to conscription for military service, through the end of the First World War. As such, the Act had significant political consequences. It led to the creation of Prime Minister Borden’s Union Government and drove most of his French-Canadian supporters into opposition.

The Aroostook War was a confrontation between British and Maine authorities in disputed territory known as Madawaska. During the Napoleonic Wars, Britain was in dire need of wood and the region’s pine forests became an important commodity. Claimed by both Maine and New Brunswick, Madawaska became fertile ground for confrontations between the two. The war peaked in 1838‒39 when the governor of Maine, John Fairfield, sent a group, led by Rufus McIntyre, to stop “provincials” from entering territory that Fairfield believed was Maine’s. McIntyre was captured and accused of invading the colony. The conflict ended in 1842 with the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, which divided the territory along the Saint John River.

Canada, as part of the British Empire, found itself at war on 4 August 1914. Yet Canadians would decide the extent of their commitment to the war. With no air force, a puny navy, and a professional army of a mere 3,100 men, the soon-to-be Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) would consist of citizen soldiers from across the Dominion.

The Tracker was a twin-engine fixed-wing aircraft acquired by the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) to be flown off aircraft carriers for antisubmarine warfare (ASW) as a replacement for the Grumman Avenger. Originally developed for the United States Navy (USN), a Canadian version was manufactured under licence by de Havilland Canada as the CS2F. After unification the plane was redesignated as the CP-121; the Trackers became shore-based aircraft after the aircraft carrier HMCS Bonaventure was decommissioned. The Trackers became fully operational in 1959 and were withdrawn from service in 1989.

The Battle of Hudson Bay took place on 5 September 1697 during King William’s War, the North American theatre of the Nine Years’ War between England and France. Throughout the conflict, French forces tried to capture enemy forts in and around Hudson Bay. One of these was York Factory, a lucrative and important trading post the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) built in 1684. The French captured York Factory in 1694, only to have the English take it back a year later. Then, in 1697, a naval battle ensued in Hudson Bay between English and French forces. Captain Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville succeeded in taking York Factory for the French. The fort was later transferred back to the British after the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713. (See also Fur Trade in Canada.)

The Conquest (La Conquête) is a term used to describe the acquisition of Canada by Great Britain during the Seven Years’ War. It also refers to the resulting conditions experienced by Canada’s 60,000 to 70,000 French-speaking inhabitants and numerous Indigenous groups. French forces at Quebec City surrendered to British forces on 18 September 1759, a few days after the crucial Battle of the Plains of Abraham. French resistance ended in 1760 with the capitulation of Montreal. In 1763, the Treaty of Paris surrendered New France to Britain. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 introduced assimilative policies that ultimately failed. They were replaced by the provisions of the Quebec Act of 1774. Although it helped spark the American Revolutionary War (1775–83), the Act also granted Canadians enviable conditions that resulted in generations of relative stability.

Canadian women have served in all three branches of the Canadian Armed Forces, which includes the Royal Canadian Navy, the Canadian Army and the Royal Canadian Air Force. As early as 1885, Canadian women served as nurses in military hospitals during the North-West Resistance. During the First and Second World Wars, women took on various roles in the military as medical personnel and in clerical and administrative positions. Women served in the Cold War and during peacekeeping operations. In 1989, the majority of military occupations were open to women, including combat roles. Submarine service was opened to women in 2001. (See also Canadian Women and War.)

In 1775 at the start of the American Revolution, rebel forces invaded Canada, occupying Montreal and attacking the town of Quebec. American privateers also raided Atlantic ports, and revolutionary sympathizers in Nova Scotia attempted a rebellion in that colony. Although the rebel forces were defeated in Canada, the 13 American colonies won their war for independence from Britain, sparking another kind of invasion – a wave of Loyalist emigration that would change the make-up of Canada.

Canada's navy has defended Canadian interests in home waters and overseas since the early 20th century — despite often struggling for ships and resources under sometimes neglectful governments. The navy was a vital part of Canada's contribution to the Second World War, including the Battle of the Atlantic and the Allied invasions of Italy and Normandy. In the decades since, the navy has served consistently around the globe with the United Nations and NATO, while protecting sovereignty on Canada's three coasts.

The Victoria class are diesel-electric powered conventional attack submarines, referred to as SSK submarines. The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) acquired four surplus Victoria-class submarines from the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy (RN) in the late-1990s. They were procured as a supposedly cost-effective interim measure to maintain a submarine capability for the RCN pending a permanent replacement for its three Oberon-class submarines. Following a troubled decade-long introduction process, the Victoria class eventually achieved full operational status. The Victoria-class submarines are intended to remain in service until a replacement projected for the late 2030s.