Highlights of the day

  • 1623 Champlain builds Canada’s first highway connecting Lower and Upper Towns of Québec.
  • 1840 Rev. James Evans invents a nine-character syllabic alphabet for the Cree and Inuit people.
  • 1913 Last Spike of the National Transcontinental Railway (NTR) from Prince Rupert to Moncton.

List of Facts for November 17

  • 1623 Road - Canada’s First highway is built, connecting the Lower and Upper Towns of Québec. Québec, Québec
  • 1635 Samuel de Champlain signs his last will and testament. Québec, Québec See December 25.
  • 1775 American Revolutionary War - American privateers raid Prince Edward Island. Charlottetown, PEI
  • 1800 David Thompson of the North West Company visits the Piegan (Blackfoot) Indians; to December 3, 1800. Alberta
  • 1831 William Lyon Mackenzie attends the opening of the second session of the 11th Parliament of Upper Canada; meets until January 28, 1832; he will be expelled twice for criticism in his newspaper, The Colonial Advocate. Ontario
  • 1840 Rev. James Evans invents a nine-character syllabic alphabet for the Cree and Inuit people, still in use today; he later prints birch-bark hymn books in Cree; Evans is General Superintendent of the Northwest Indian Missions. Norway House, Manitoba
  • 1856 Rail - Grand Trunk Railway reaches Stratford from Guelph, Ontario. Stratford, Ontario
  • 1874 Rail - Colonial Secretary Lord Carnarvon negotiates the building of the Esquimalt to Nanaimo section of the CPR, to provide the Royal Navy with coal, plus $2 million a year in surveys on the main BC line. Esquimalt, BC
  • 1876 Aboriginal - First Sioux people appear at Wood Mountain at Jean-Louis Légaré’s store. Wood Mountain, Saskatchewan
  • 1879 Police - Constable Marmaduke Graburn murdered in the Cypress Hills; First NWMP policeman to die violently in the line of duty. Cypress Hills, Alberta
  • 1891 Smelting - Galena Mining and Smelting Company granted federal land at Golden upon which to build a smelter, but it is never built; the company, backed by Calgary investors, is led by S. S. Fowler and George Alexander of the Kootenay Lake Trading Company. Golden, BC
  • 1896 Clifford Sifton, Liberal MP for Brandon, appointed federal Minister of the Interior and Superintendent General of Indian Affairs in the Wilfrid Laurier cabinet. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1913 Rail - Last Spike driven at the Québec boundary to mark the completion of Québec division of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railroad (GTPR), the last leg of the National Transcontinental Railway (NTR) from Prince Rupert to Moncton via Winnipeg, Sioux Lookout, Kapuskasing, Cochrane and Québec City started in 1903; only the $40 million Québec Bridge - the largest cantilever span in the world - remains unfinished. Canada now has three transcontinental railways, the CPR, the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) from Vancouver to Nova Scotia, and the GTPR/NTR system. The major cost overruns of the NTR/GTPR construction had led to the downfall of Laurier’s Liberals in 1911. The Borden government amalgamated the lines into the Canadian Government Railways (CGR) in 1915, and the CGR and the bankrupt CNoR merged into Canadian National Railways (CNR) on December 20, 1918. Grant, Ontario Link: National Transcontinental Railway Act (1903, c. 71) – 1907, c. 48
  • 1918 Police - Second RNWMP contingent goes overseas to Vladivostok to guard the Trans Siberian Railway. RNWMP Squadron “B” will play an important role towards the end of the First World War. Russia
  • 1926 Hockey - The NHL Chicago Blackhawks play their First game, beating Toronto St. Pats 4-1. Chicago, Illinois
  • 1938 Trade - US, Canada and UK sign a trilateral trade agreement; make further tariff concessions to ease the Depression. Washington, DC
  • 1961 Medicare - Saskatchewan Medical Care Insurance Bill receives Royal Assent; first plan in North America providing universal coverage will to go into effect July 1, 1962. The Saskatchewan College of Physicians and Surgeons at first refuses to work with a compulsory government-controlled plan, and 90% of doctors go on strike, closing their offices for 23 days, providing only hospital-based emergency services until an agreement is reached July 23, 1962. Regina, Saskatchewan
  • 1962 Arthur Vining Davis dies in Miami at age 95; former CEO, Alcoa aluminum company, from 1910-57; gave his name to the Québec community of Arvida, Québec. Miami, Florida
  • 1968 Golf - Al Balding & George Knudson win the World Cup Golf Tournament in Rome; First victory for Canadian team since Canada donated the Cup; they defeat 41 other national teams . Rome, Italy
  • 1980 Anne Murray has a #1 Billboard hit with her single, Could I Have This Dance. New York, New York
  • 1980 Crime - Mass murderer Clifford Olson rapes and kills his first child victim. Surrey, BC
  • 1981 Manitoba Election - Howard Pawley leads NDP to victory in provincial election, defeating Progressive Conservatives under Sterling Lyon. Manitoba
  • 1981 James Lee sworn in as Premier of Prince Edward Island, replacing Angus MacLean. Charlottetown, PEI
  • 1983 Transport - The Western Grain Transportation Act is passed. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1987 Olympics - Figure skater Barbara Ann Scott and speed-walker Fred Hayward, both former Olympians, carry the Olympic Torch down Signal Hill and hand it off to Maurice Sheppard, the First of 6,620 Canadians who will carry the flame on an 18,000 km trek to Calgary. The Torch arrives 87 days later, on February 13, 1988, to open the Calgary Winter Olympics. St. John’s, Newfoundland
  • 1987 Baseball - Toronto Blue Jays slugger George Bell named the American League’s Most Valuable Player (MVP); First Blue Jay to win the honour, as well as the First player from a Canadian-based baseball team and the First native of the Dominican Republic. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1992 CP Rail asks National Transportation Agency to abandon all lines east of Sherbrooke, Québec, mostly in New Brunswick and Maine; lost $52 million in past 3 years . Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1992 Justice Minister Kim Campbell says Ottawa to pay up to 80 victims of brainwashing $100,000 each on compassionate grounds; experiments by Dr. Ewen Cameron at McGill University in the early 1960s funded by Canada, CIA. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1993 Trade - US President Bill Clinton wins hard fought NAFTA victory as the House of Representatives votes by a margin of 234-200 to approve legislation implementing the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. Washington, DC
  • 1994 Military - Defence Minister David Collenette announces civilian-led public inquiry into the alleged DND cover-up of brutality by Canadian peacekeepers in Somalia. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1997 Energy - Hibernia offshore drilling platform pumps First barrel of oil; 180,000 barrels per day output predicted by year 2000 Newfoundland
  • 1997 Hockey - Pittsburgh Penguins Mario Lemieux admitted to the NHL Hockey Hall of Fame. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1999 Aboriginal - Marshall 2 - Supreme Court of Canada clarifies its September 17, 1999 ruling on Mi’kmaq (Micmac) fishing rights, stating that their Marshall 1 ruling did not guarantee open season on fishing, with no regard for conservation; Donald Marshall had been convicted for fishing out of season and without a licence; he successfully argued in his appeal that he had a right to do so under treaties dating back to the 1760s. But faced with out of control fishing, the SCC decision allowed governments to regulate and control aboriginal fishing for conservation of fish stocks. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 2001 Vancouver resident Aaron Webster killed in what is believed to be a gay bashing attack. Vancouver, BC
  • 2005 Sledding - Paul Boehm wins silver in skeleton in the World Cup at Lake Placid, New York.