Formerly Known as British North America Quiz

Answer: Sir Humphrey Gilbert

On August 5, 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert arrived at St. John's Harbour and formally claimed Newfoundland for Queen Elizabeth I. However, England's road to colonizing North America had already seen several false starts. In the 1570s and 1580s, Martin Frobisher's expeditions attempted to establish a mining settlement on Baffin Island, but the venture collapsed when the supposed gold ore proved worthless. Sir Walter Raleigh's famous Roanoke Colony (1585-1587), in present-day North Carolina, also disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Gilbert himself hoped to establish a permanent settlement in Newfoundland, but his expedition was underfunded and short-lived.

It was not until 1610, when John Guy founded Cuper's Cove (Cupids), that Newfoundland became England's first successful permanent colony in what is now Canada. Gilbert perished on the return voyage in September 1583 when his ship, the Squirrel, was lost at sea.

Answer: True

Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe named both the settlement of London and the Thames River in 1793, deliberately modeling the community on London, England. The borrowing of names went beyond just the city and river. London, Ontario, also contains Westminster, Lambeth, and Chelsea Green, while nearby Middlesex County takes its name from the historic county surrounding London in England. Early plans even envisioned roads and districts named after famous London, UK landmarks. Simcoe hoped the community, located on the Thames River, would eventually serve as the capital of Upper Canada, giving it a distinctly British character from the outset.

Answer: Alexander Graham Bell

Although Alexander Graham Bell is usually remembered as a Scottish-born inventor and largely associated with Boston, Massachusetts, he always insisted that the idea for the telephone first came to him while visiting his family home near Brantford, Ontario. At the dedication of the Bell Memorial in Brantford in 1917, Bell famously stated that "the telephone was conceived in Brantford in 1874 and born in Boston in 1875." He later recalled working through the idea while walking near the Grand River on July 26, 1874, at a favourite spot he called his "dreaming place."

The race to invent the telephone was remarkably close. Bell's chief rival was American inventor Elisha Gray, who had independently developed a similar concept for transmitting speech electrically. On February 14, 1876, both men arrived at the U.S. Patent Office with competing claims. Bell's lawyer submitted a patent application, while Gray filed a caveat, essentially a notice of intent to patent. Bell's paperwork arrived first by only a matter of hours, leading to one of the most famous patent disputes in history. Bell ultimately received Patent No. 174,465 on March 7, 1876, securing his place in history.

For Canadians, however, the key point is that Bell himself credited Brantford as the place where the concept was born. Today, the Bell Homestead National Historic Site preserves the family home, while Brantford proudly promotes itself as "The Telephone City."

Answer: Alberta

The province of Alberta owes its name to Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, the fourth daughter of Queen Victoria. The name first appeared in 1882 when the District of Alberta was created within the Northwest Territories, and it was retained when Alberta entered Confederation on September 1, 1905.

The connection to Canada runs deeper than many people realize. Princess Louise was married to John Campbell, the Marquess of Lorne, who served as Governor General of Canada from 1878 to 1883. During their time at Rideau Hall, the couple travelled extensively across the young Dominion and became one of the most visible viceregal couples in Canadian history. In fact, the district was named in 1882, while her husband was still serving as Governor General.

Answer: Governor General

When Lord Stanley of Preston served as Governor General of Canada from 1888 to 1893, ice hockey was still an amateur sport played largely in local leagues. After becoming captivated by the game, Stanley donated a silver bowl in 1892 to be awarded to Canada's champion hockey team. That trophy became the Stanley Cup, now the oldest professional sports championship trophy in North America.

Today's Stanley Cup looks very different from the trophy Lord Stanley originally donated. The first trophy was only about 18 centimetres tall and looked more like a decorative punch bowl than a modern sports trophy. As winning teams increasingly engraved players' names onto it, additional rings had to be added beneath the original bowl over the decades.

The Stanley Cup stands about 90 centimetres (35 inches) tall and contains the names of more than 3,500 players, coaches, and team officials. However, there isn't room to keep every name forever. Once a ring is filled, the oldest ring is removed and sent to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, where it is preserved and displayed. New rings are then added at the bottom, meaning the Cup literally rotates its history.

Answer: Shakespeare

The Stratford Festival actually began life as the Stratford Shakespearean Festival. Founded in 1952 by local journalist Tom Patterson, it staged its first season in 1953, featuring Shakespeare's "Richard III" starring British actor Alec Guinness under a giant canvas tent. As its repertoire expanded beyond Shakespeare to include musicals, classical drama, and contemporary works, the organization became known as the Stratford Festival of Canada, before eventually adopting the simpler name, the Stratford Festival.

Like London, Ontario, Stratford was deliberately given British-inspired names. The town was named after Stratford-upon-Avon in England, the birthplace of William Shakespeare, and the river running through it was named the Avon River after England's River Avon. The names were chosen in the 1830s by Thomas Mercer Jones, an administrator with the Canada Company who had originally come from Stratford-upon-Avon. Legend has it that Jones was so reminded of his hometown when he saw the local river that he bestowed both names on the settlement.

Patterson's original goal was to boost Stratford's economy after the decline of the railway industry. More than seventy years later, the festival remains the city's signature attraction and one of the largest repertory theatre companies in North America.

Answer: New Brunswick

When Canada adopted the Maple Leaf flag in 1965, several provinces chose to retain visible reminders of their British heritage by incorporating the Union Jack into their provincial flags. Today, only Ontario, Manitoba, and British Columbia continue to feature the Union Jack.

Ontario adopted its present flag on May 21, 1965. It was deliberately modelled on the former Canadian Red Ensign, with the Union Jack in the canton and the provincial shield on the fly. Premier John Robarts supported the design as a way to preserve Ontario's British traditions following the retirement of the Red Ensign as Canada's national flag.

Manitoba adopted a nearly identical Red Ensign-style flag on May 12, 1966. The Union Jack occupies the upper-left corner, while the provincial coat of arms appears on the right. Like Ontario's flag, it was chosen partly in response to the replacement of the Red Ensign by the Maple Leaf.

British Columbia adopted its current flag a tad earlier on June 14, 1960. Instead of using the Red Ensign pattern, it places the Union Jack prominently across the top of the flag, beneath a royal crown. Below are blue-and-white wavy stripes representing the Pacific Ocean, with a setting sun.

By contrast, New Brunswick, whose flag was adopted in 1965, chose not to include the Union Jack. Instead, it features a golden lion derived from England's royal arms above a medieval ship, reflecting both the province's Loyalist roots and its historic importance in shipbuilding and maritime trade.

Answer: Felt hats

For more than two centuries, fashionable Europeans could not get enough beaver-felt hats. By the late 1600s, demand for high-quality pelts had helped create one of the largest commercial networks in North America. The fur trade drove exploration across the continent, led to the establishment of trading posts by both the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company, and forged alliances with Indigenous nations whose knowledge and trading relationships made the entire system possible. Beaver pelts were so valuable that they often served as a form of currency in the fur trade, with merchants pricing goods in "made beaver" units.

Answer: False

Many Canadians assume that "God Save the King/Queen" was once Canada's official national anthem, but that was never formally the case. For much of Canada's history, it served as the royal anthem and was commonly performed at official occasions, while several other patriotic songs competed for popular support.

"O Canada" was originally written in French for Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day celebrations in Quebec City on June 24, 1880. The music was composed by Calixa Lavallée, while the French lyrics were written by Sir Adolphe-Basile Routhier. The song was commissioned specifically for the annual celebration of French-Canadian culture and identity, not as a national anthem.

The English lyrics most Canadians know today came much later. Several unofficial English translations appeared over the years, but the best-known version was written by Robert Stanley Weir in 1908. Weir's lyrics were revised several times before the version adopted by Parliament in 1980 was finalized.

"O Canada" was far from the only patriotic song in contention. One of its principal rivals was "The Maple Leaf Forever," written in 1867 by Toronto school principal Alexander Muir to commemorate Confederation. For decades, English Canadians were more likely to sing "The Maple Leaf Forever" than "O Canada." Other songs, including "The Song of Canada" and "Canada First," also enjoyed periods of popularity.

In practice, Canada spent much of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries with no officially designated national anthem at all. It was only on July 1, 1980, exactly 100 years after its first performance, that Parliament officially adopted "O Canada" as the country's national anthem.

Answer: Queen Victoria

The Victoria Cross was created by Queen Victoria in 1856 following the Crimean War and was intended to recognize extraordinary bravery regardless of rank. For more than a century, Canadian recipients received the British version of the medal before Canada established its own distinct Victoria Cross in 1993 as part of the Canadian honours system.

Canadians earned 94 Victoria Crosses under the British honours system, including 70 during the First World War. Among the recipients was Lieutenant Robert Shankland of Winnipeg, whose Victoria Cross is displayed at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.