Early Uses of the Name “Canada”

Jacques Cartier referred to theSt. Lawrence as the “rivière de Canada” and the name was ingeneral use until the end of the century. But on 10 August 1535 he had given the nameSaint Laurent to a bay north ofÎle d'Anticosti, and the name spread graduallyto the gulf and river. In 1603, on his first voyage to Canada,Samuel de Champlain spoke of the “river of Canada,” but by 1613 usedSaint Laurent for the gulf.The name Canada was used loosely, even in official correspondence, as a synonym forNew France, which included all French possessions. However, it was always understood, as FatherPierre Biard pointed out in the Jesuit Relation for 1616, that “Canada…is not, properly speaking, all this extent of country which they now call New France; but it is only that part, which extends along the banks of the great River Canada, and the Gulfof St. Lawrence.” In 1664 François Du Creux, in his workHistoria Canadensis, drew the same distinction.

Conquest of New France

As French explorers and fur traders pushed ever westward and southward, the area to which the name “Canada” applied increased rapidly. However, its extent seems never to have been defined officially. In March 1762, after theConquest of New France,GeneralThomas Gage informed GeneralJeffery Amherst that the limits between Canadaand Louisiana had never been clearly described. He could only state “what were generally believed... to have been the Boundaries of Canada & give you my own Opinion.” He judged “not only the [Great] Lakes, which are Indisputable, but the whole Courseof the Mississippi from its Heads to its Junction with the Illinois” had been considered by the French to be part of Canada. This may be one reason why Britain temporarily abandoned the name and called the colony theProvince of Quebec.

Constitutional Act–Confederation

Canada came into its own in 1791 when theConstitutional Act (orCanada Act) divided theProvince of Quebec,then considerably enlarged, into the provinces ofUpper Canada andLower Canada. In 1841 they were joinedto form theProvince of Canada. In 1867 theBritish North America Actunited the Province of Canada (divided intoOntario andQuebec) withNova ScotiaandNew Brunswick to form “One Dominion under the name of Canada.” The new area was relatively small, but it expanded rapidly. The purchase ofRupert’s Landin 1870 extended it to theRocky Mountains and theArctic Ocean. The addition ofBritish Columbia in 1871 created a Canada extending from sea to sea;Prince Edward Island was added in 1873 and Britain handed over title to the Arctic islands in1880. This gave Canada substantially the present boundaries, except forNewfoundland and Labrador, which joined the federation in 1949. In a striking comment,the distinguished American historian Samuel Eliot Morison remarked that “never, since the Roman empire, have two local names received such a vast extension as Canada and St. Lawrence.” (See alsoExploration;Territorial Evolution.)