Friends to the North

Region Paper

I have chosen our friends to the north Canada to study. "Friends to the north," is a very appropriate way to describe our Canadian neighbors considering the United States and Canadian border is the world's largest unfortified border. Each country is the other's primary economic partner on large scale because of tourism and emigration has led to many similarities. Not only are we each other's primary trade partner we are currently the world's largest trading partners. The most significant conflict between U.S. and Canada was from 1812-1815 in "The War of 1812," this was over trade restrictions and repeated attacks from the British on merchant ships. At this time Canada was under British rule, and though they still are under the British crown they have their own government and remain separate from British rule. One problem with these strong ties from the Canadian perspective is that the rest of the world looks at Canadians in the same respect as America. Though Canada has many ties to the U.S. they are their own country that has developed their own unique culture. After World War I Canada witnessed the importance of governments working together and became a member of the League of Nations. After the atrocities during WWII the world realize the League of Nations was a failure, and the United Nations were created with Canada being one of the original members. Through looking at the history of Canada, as well as the economy, geography, and government I hope to shine a new light upon this big beautiful country.

Canada's history from a Western European perspective has been very short very similar to the U.S. Before the European's came the largest group of indigenous people was the Inuit which is an Eskimo tribe. Though the first record we have of Europeans coming to Canada was in 1497 A.D. by an Italian explorer by the name of John Cabot who actually said for the British and King Henry 7th it is widely accepted that in 1000 A.D. a Norse explorer by the name of Leif Erickson was the first to actually come to Canada. The British were the first to discover it, but in 1534 the southeastern part of Canada was claimed in the name of France by a man named Jacques Cartier. In 1604 the settlement of New France was official, and in 1608 Quebec was founded. Due to the growing fish and fur industries and the abundance of just that the Hudson Bay Company was created in 1670. The Hudson Bay Co. was extremely successful which started to cause competition and conflict between British and France (this was going on all over the world). In 1713 the Hudson Bay Co., Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia were lost to England this conflict led to the "Seven Years' War." In 1763 the British prevailed and the Treaty of Paris was signed which gave all control to England. Before this happened majority of the people in what is now