CANADA.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 654, 25 March 1914, Page 6

CANADA.

♦ ITS RISE AND PROGRESS. The derivation of the word Canada is obscure, but it is believe;! to have its origin in an Italian word "'kannnlha," meaning a Tiling" 1 , or collection of huts! The supposition is that Jacques Cartier, the term used by the Italians in connection with their settlements, applied it to the whole of the co:ntry. Canada originally comprised the extensive range of territory &s far west as the Mississippi, including the great lakes, which was ceded to Great Britain by France in 1763. Subsequently, at the termination of the War of Independence, it was limited' to the region now occupied by the provinces of Ontario: and Quebrc. cicjcribcd prior to 1867 as Upper and Lower Canada respectively. What is known as the Lon'nionof

Canada is a confederation of the colonies of British I'Tor-h America, constituted in 1867 by the L'rltish North America Act of that year (30

Vict. chap. 3). Upper and Lower Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick were the first to imite under

the provisions of that statute

The Hudson Bay territory was acquired from the comrany of . that name, a portion of it formed into the province of Manitoba, the re- , mainder designated the North west Territories, and both were admitted into the confederation in IS7O. Part of the North-west Territories was subsequently divided into districts as follows :—ln 1876 Keew'atin; in 1882 Assiniboa. Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Athabasca, snl in 1905

these four were re-divid-.d into the two provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

In 1871 British' Columbia, in 1873 Prince Edward Island, became parties to the Union.—'"Chambers's Encyclopaedia"