Canada Day!

[northcode]

The Northcode offices will be empty on July 1st so we can enjoy the day with friends and family celebrating Canada's 137th year since Confederation! If you can't be in Ottawa to celebrate with us then you can watch it all on the Parliament Hill webcam.



On June 20, 1868, a proclamation signed by the Governor General, Lord Monck, called upon all Her Majesty's loving subjects throughout Canada to join in the celebration of the anniversary of the formation of the union of the British North America provinces in a federation under the name of Canada on July 1st. The July 1st holiday was established by statute in 1879, under the name Dominion Day. On October 27, 1982, "Dominion Day" officially became "Canada Day".

The origin of the name "Canada" comes from Jacques Cartier's expedition up the St. Lawrence River in 1535. The Iroquois pointing out the route to the village of Stadacona, the future site of Quebec City, used the word "kanata," the Huron-Iroquois word for village. Jacques Cartier used the word Canada to refer to both the settlement of Stadacona and the land surrounding it.

By 1547, maps were showing the name Canada applied to everything north of the St. Lawrence River. The St. Lawrence River was called the "rivière du Canada" by Cartier, and the name stuck until the 1600s. The name Canada was often used loosely to refer to New France, and as land opened up to the west and south in the 1700s, the name Canada was applied to what is now the American midwest and as far south as present day Louisiana!