1879 in Canada

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "1879 in Canada" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Acts of Parliament, 1879

← 1878 1877 1876 1879 in Canada → 1880 1881 1882
Decades:	1850s 1860s 1870s 1880s 1890s
See also:	History of Canada Timeline of Canadian history List of years in Canada

Part of a series on the
History of Canada
Benjamin West's The Death of General Wolfe
Timeline (list)
Pre-colonization 1534–1763 1764–1867 1867–1914 1914–1945 1945–1960 1960–1981 1982–present
Historically significant
Events Sites People
Topics
Agricultural Cultural Constitutional Economic Former colonies Immigration Indigenous Medicine Military Monarchical Peacekeeping Population Sports Religion Territorial evolution Women
By provinces and territories
Alberta British Columbia Manitoba New Brunswick Newfoundland and Labrador Nunavut Northwest Territories Nova Scotia Ontario Prince Edward Island Quebec Saskatchewan Yukon
Cities
Brampton Charlottetown Edmonton Fredericton Halifax Hamilton Lethbridge Markham Moncton Montreal Northwest Territories capital cities Ottawa Quebec City Saint John Regina Richmond Hill Saskatoon Toronto Vancouver Winnipeg ( Name etymologies )
Research
Bibliography Historiography Historians Surveys
Canada portal
v t e

Events from the year 1879 in Canada.

Incumbents

Crown

• Monarch – Victoria^[1]

Federal government

• John Campbell, Marquess of Lorne
• Prime Minister – John A. Macdonald
• Chief Justice – William Buell Richards (Ontario) (until 10 January) then William Johnstone Ritchie (New Brunswick) (from 11 January)
• Parliament – 4th (from 13 February)

Provincial governments

Lieutenant governors

• Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia – Albert Norton Richards
• Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba – Joseph-Édouard Cauchon
• Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick – Edward Barron Chandler
• Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia – Adams George Archibald
• Lieutenant Governor of Ontario – Donald Alexander Macdonald
• Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island – Robert Hodgson (until July 10) then Thomas Heath Haviland
• Lieutenant Governor of Quebec – Luc Letellier de St-Just (until July 26) then Théodore Robitaille

Premiers

• Premier of British Columbia – George Anthony Walkem
• Premier of Manitoba – John Norquay
• Premier of New Brunswick – John James Fraser
• Premier of Nova Scotia – Simon Hugh Holmes
• Premier of Ontario – Oliver Mowat
• Premier of Prince Edward Island – Louis Henry Davies (until April 25) then William Wilfred Sullivan
• Premier of Quebec – Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière (until October 31) then Joseph-Adolphe Chapleau

Territorial governments

Lieutenant governors

• Lieutenant Governor of Keewatin – Joseph-Édouard Cauchon
• Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Territories – David Laird

• February 4 –
  Conservatives win a third consecutive majority
  .
• March 12 – Sir
  railway, and immigration
  to the west in his National Policy.
• April 25 – Sir
  Louis Davies
  .
• June 5 – Ontario election: Sir Oliver Mowat's Liberals win a third consecutive majority.
• (date unknown) – The Toronto Industrial Exhibition opens for the first time, precursor to the Canadian National Exhibition.
• October 31 – Sir
  Henri-Gustave de Lotbinière
  .
• December 16 – Manitoba election.
• December 19 – Swift Runner is hanged in Fort Saskatchewan, NWT, for murdering and then eating eight members of his own family over the previous winter. He believed he was possessed by Wendigo, a terrifying mythological creature with a ravenous appetite for human flesh.

Births

January to June

• January 15 – Mazo de la Roche, author (d.1961)
• January 17 – Richard Gavin Reid, politician and 7th Premier of Alberta (d.1980)
• January 25 –
  Humphrey T. Walwyn, naval officer and Governor of Newfoundland (d.1957
  )
• February 14 – Eli Burton, physicist
• March 20 – Maud Menten, medical scientist (d.1960)
• May 25 – Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook, business tycoon, politician and writer (d.1964)
• June 12 – Charles Dow Richards, judge, politician and 18th Premier of New Brunswick (d.1956)

July to December

• August 1 – Eva Tanguay, singer and entertainer (d.1947)
• August 16 – Samuel Lawrence, politician and trade unionist (d.1959)
• October 6 –
  Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada (d.1951
  )
• October 9 – William Warren, lawyer, politician, judge and Prime Minister of Newfoundland (d.1927)
• November 3 – Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Arctic explorer and ethnologist (d.1962)
• November 11 –
  Violet McNaughton
  , feminist (d. 1953)
• November 25 – Joseph-Arsène Bonnier, politician (d.1962)
• December 10 – P. L. Robertson, inventor (d. 1951)
• December 24 – Émile Nelligan, poet (d.1941)^[2]

Deaths

• January 4 – Pierre-Alexis Tremblay, politician (b.1827)
• January 16 – Octave Crémazie, poet (b.1827)
• April 4 –
  Father of Confederation (b.1810
  )
• October 7 –
  Father of Confederation (b.1825
  )

• The federal government proposes to provide 100 million acres of Dominion land for the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway for settlement.^[3]

• racial stereotypes)^[4]

• Ottawa memo outlines the "utter destitution" of some Indigenous people in the Northwest Territories^[5]

• Federal commissioner reports on the dependency of Indigenous people at Fort Walsh^[6]

• Visitor fears the Metis on the Assiniboine River will not hold on to their lands much longer^[7]

• Description of Mennonite cooperative farming near Winnipeg^[8]

• All aboard the steamer Waubuno are lost in a gale on Georgian Bay^[9]

• Anti-Irish-Catholic opinion is published in the Irish Canadian^[10]

• "Alouette" first sung as a Canadian folk song.

References