February 15 is National Flag of Canada Day

This Canada Day, our country will be celebrating a milestone birthday: the big One Five Zero. 

Officially known as the sesquicentennial, 2017 marks 150 years since Canada's Confederation.  You can learn more about this upcoming celebration here.

While Canada may be well over 100 years old, did you know that our national flag is much younger? In fact, for the first 98 years of Canada's existence, our national symbol was not the beloved Maple Leaf. It was actually the British Union Jack! 

This changed in the 1960s when Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson called for the creation of a new Canadian flag and invited the public to submit their design ideas. Of the thousands of proposals, Dr. George Stanley's suggestion of a red maple leaf on a white and red background was accepted by Parliament.

On Feburary 15, 1965, the new official flag was hoisted for the first time on Parliament Hill. Every year since 1996, when February 15th was declared National Flag of Canada Day, we celebrate our beautiful flag. You can learn more about our flag here. 

This year marks the 52nd anniversary of our national flag. Canadians are invited to celebrate this important symbol of our identity. 

Take part in the “Share your Moment with the Flag Challenge” by posting a picture or video of you with the flag and inspire others to do the same! #canadianflag

On January 11, Canada will celebrate Sir John A. MacDonald Day in honour our first Prime Minister and one of the architects of Confederation.

Sir John A. MacDonald lived a remarkable life - one marked by triumph and tribulation. His political shrewdness, ingenuity, and grit led to the formation of our nation, the construction of the CPR railway, and the protective tariffs which help us to gain economic and political independence from the United States.

His overriding national preoccupations were unity and prosperity. An 1860 speech summed up his lifelong political creed and political goals: "One people, great in territory, great in resources, great in enterprise, great in credit, great in capital." (http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/sir-john-alexander-macdonald/)

MacDonald’s leadership was not without black marks, though, (the Pacific Scandal and the execution of Louis Riel, for example). MacDonald and the Canadian government were also responsible for excluding Asian Canadians from voting and placed a head tax onto Asian immigrants entering the country.  As Prime Minister and as the Indian Affairs Minister, MacDonald’s policies were responsible for the creation of the residential school system.

[The] two primary objectives of the residential school system were to remove and isolate children from the influence of their homes, families, traditions and cultures, and to assimilate them into the dominant culture. These objectives were based on the assumption Aboriginal cultures and spiritual beliefs were inferior and unequal. Indeed, some sought, as it was infamously said, “to kill the Indian in the child.” Today, we recognize that this policy of assimilation was wrong, has caused great harm, and has no place in our country. (Prime Minister Stephen Harper, official apology, June 11, 2008. http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/home/government-policy/the-residential-school-system.html ) 

The celebration of Sir John A. MacDonald is a chance for all Canadians not just to remember our first Prime Minister but also the politics and policies that created this country.  Were it not for Sir John A. MacDonald, there would be no Canada and at the same time there would not have been residential schools. Sir John A. MacDonald and his policies were products of their time.  Since that time, Canada has grown to be a multi-cultural country that includes people from every part of the planet. We still have many challenges to overcome, but as a nation, we need to look back and learn from our past injustices while celebrating our accomplishments and the things that unite us as Canadians. The most wonderful thing about Canada is our democracy and our freedom to change.  For that, we can thank John A. MacDonald, who set us on a path towards national independence. 

The Canada 150 Logo Design Contest

History in the Making

The Government of Canada is getting Canadians involved in developing a logo for the 150th anniversary of Confederation in 2017. If you have a creative spirit and would like to make history, this logo design contest is for you!

Who

The contest is open to Canadian citizens residing in Canada or permanent residents living in Canada, 18 years and older, registered at a Canadian post-secondary institution in December 2014 and/or January 2015.

What

Show your creativity! Submit your Canada 150 logo design and you could win $5,000, a display in one of Canada’s national institutions, and a chance to be part of Canadian history.

How

You can submit your design online at Canada.ca/150. 

When

The contest will end at 11:59 p.m. EST on January 23, 2015.

For more information and to enter please visit http://www.canada150.gc.ca/eng/1407417717020/ 

Canada Day Challenge 2015

What Makes You Proud to be Canadian?

We’re asking youth from 8 to 18 years old across Canada to tell us what makes them proud to be Canadian by submitting their best, most dynamic drawings, photos or pieces of creative writing that represents everything that Canada is as a strong, proud and free nation.

Enter the 2015 Canada Day Challenge for a chance to win great prizes, including all-expenses paid trip for two to Ottawa to celebrate Canada Day on Parliament Hill: go backstage, meet some of Canada’s most inspiring people, tour museums, galleries, the iconic Parliament Buildings and be part of a special summer exhibit at the Canadian Museum of History!

Plus, there’s even more to be excited about this year! Winners will also receive the opportunity to work with the amazingly talented team of education specialists from the National Film Board of Canada to create their very own short films about their adventures in Ottawa.

For more information and a list of rules please visit http://www.pch.gc.ca/eng/1292268977681/1292268977684

The deadline is March 20, 2015

Get creative! Get inspired! And, get your entries in for the chance to experience a truly Canadian adventure.

Norm Foster’s latest play, On a First Name Basis, makes its Alberta premiere this Friday, 8pm, at Keyano Theatre. Directed by Claude Giroux and starring Norm Foster and Patricia Vanstone, On a First Name Basis, is a love story, a touching comedy, a social commentary and a mystery wrapped in witty dialogue and vivid imagery about a wealthy novelist and his dedicated housekeeper.    

Norm Foster, known as Canada’s most produced playwright, was born in Newmarket, Ontario. He began his career as a playwright in Fredericton, New Brunswick, in 1983 while he was working as a host of a popular morning radio show. One evening he accompanied a friend to an audition and ended up getting a role as Elwood P. Dowd in Harvey, without ever having even seen a play. Foster quickly fell in love with the stage and swiftly wrote his first play titled Sinners which was an immediate success and ignited his career as a playwright. Since that day Foster has become a prolific writer creating and producing more than forty plays on professional stages. He is frequently compared to American playwright Neil Simon and like Simon Foster’s plays are full of insight into the everyday tribulations of life. He is known for his witty sense of humour and comedic characters that touch a wide range of audiences. His plays have been staged across North America and around the world. Some of his most renowned shows include The Melville Boys, My Darling Judith, The Affections of May, The Motor Trade, Wrong for Each Other, Office Hours,  The Love List, The Long Weekend; Bedtime Stories; Kiss the Moon, Kiss the Sun; Storm Warning; and Here on the Flight Path.

Tickets for, On a First Name Basis, are available at the Keyano Box Office or online at https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?ticketing=kethe. The play opens this Friday and runs Saturday, October 4^th then the following week from October 8^th-11^th at 8pm. For more information please call the Keyano Box Office at (780) 791-4990. 

#Throwback Thursday @ Canada's History

If you are an active Twitter or Facebook user, you've probably seen Throwback Thursday photos of your friends from years gone by.  You've probably even posted one of yourself sporting that rat's tail or mullet hair due wearing an acid washed jean jacket and holding a Sony Walkman with your favorite mixed tape inside. Well, Canada's History Magazine has put a twist on Throwback Thursdays using historical photos of Canadian events and places.  Each week, an archival photo is posted on Canada's History Magazine Twitter account and people can tweet an answer.  One person is chosen weekly as the winner and given a free magazine subscription.  When the winner is announced, details of the photo are also released as well as links to events and occurrences that relate to the photo.  The latest Throwback Thursday photo showcased the CANOL Project at Fort Fitzgerald in 1942.  During the Second World War,  a pipeline and road were to be constructed that spanned from Norman Wells, Northwest Territories to Whitehorse, Yukon that would secure an oil supply during the war.


Although an American Initiative, the CANOL Project has its own place in our local history.  In 1942, American soldiers arrived in Waterways by train and established a military base where Keyano College is currently located.  The base, known as The Prairie, extended to the Clearwater River.  This base became a staging ground to support the CANOL project and every available local boat and barge was used to transport cargo and equipment to Norman Wells from The Prairie.

The Throwback Thursday, Canada's History Magazine contest is a really neat way to share history and have fun at the same time.   Follow Canada's History Magazine on twitter for your chance to win a free magazine subscription.  And while your having fun guessing the photo, indulge in the historical information that's presented with each photo from the week prior.


Twitter.com/Canadashistory   #throwbackthursday

This is the photo that Canada's History Magazine tweeted during Throwback Thursday contest on June 19th 

Heritage Canada accepting nominations for TOP TEN ENDANGERED PLACES

Heritage Canada The National Trust (HCNT) is accepting nominations to Canada’s Top Ten Endangered Places List. The list is released annually to bring national attention to sites at risk due to neglect, lack of funding, inappropriate development and weak legislation. It has become a powerful tool in the fight to make landmarks, not landfill.
HCNT uses three primary criteria to determine the 10 final sites for inclusion on the list:

• Significance of the site 

• Urgency of the threat 

• Community support for its preservation 

Nominations should be received by Friday, May 9, 2014. The 2014 list will be announced in June.
Feel free to contact us if you’re considering a nomination or have any questions.
Carolyn Quinn
Director, Communications
cquinn@heritagecanada.org
613-237-1066 ext. 229; cell 613-797-7206.
If you know a site that should be included on our list, tell us about it today.

Click here for the 2014 Top Ten Endangered Places ListForm. 


By email: heritagecanada@heritagecanada.org or phone: (613) 237-1066.

Contact:

To explore past listings of Canada's Endangered Places, please click here. 

Visit www.HeritageCanada.org for more informaton on this and other exciting heritage initiatives.  

Creative Cities Network of Canada Membership Extension

Have you ever heard of the Creative City Network of Canada?  well, its an online community of everything culture.  From public art policies, heritage revitalization plans, culture mapping and more, this online portal has an endless amount of shared documents and examples from cities and towns all across Canada. Up until this year, this wonderful cultural resource was only available to Municipalities and Town Administrators. The Creative City Network team has just announced an extension of their membership to include organizations and individuals that work within the cultural industry. There is a membership fee to use this portal but the fee is actually very minimal compared to the wealth of information that can be shared, used and studied.  The purpose of Creative Cities is to promote the cultural achievements of communities, cities and towns across Canada as well as to share information to assist you in your cultural initiatives; why re-invent the wheel so to speak. There are plans, policies, strategies, site studies, mapping projects, and even comparisons, all written by and for towns across Canada that have or are in the process of creating and sustaining cultural initiatives.  The following information was taken from the Creative City Network website announcing the membership expansion.

CCNC is Expanding its Membership Opportunities!

The CCNC is pleased to announce a new membership category! In addition to continuing to offer voting membership to municipalities across the country, any individual or organization involved in the growing field of local cultural development will have the opportunity to become a non-voting member.

Organizational Membership:

*This membership includes on contact from your organization.  Each additional member will receive a 5% discount.
 

Membership Type	2014 Membership Fee
Organization	$145 + tax

Individual Membership:

Membership Type	Membership Fee
Individual Membership	$145 + tax
Full-Time Student Membership	$30 + tax
Artist Membership	$75 + tax
The 4th Act Membership (ages 60+)	$90 + tax

*Full-Time Student, Artist and 4th Act memberships are individual memberships offered at a discounted rate.
*Please Note: both the Organizational and the Individual membership categories are non-voting.

For more information, or if you have any questions, please contact the Membership Services Coordinator Anna Whelan, at anna@creativecity.ca or visit www.creativecity.ca

Have Your Say About Canada's 150th Birthday Celebrations!

The Government of Canada would like to hear how Canadians across the country want to celebrate Canada's 150^th anniversary. Contribute to the national dialogue and share your thoughts by completing this five-minute questionnaire. Have your say!

 Click here to complete the questionnaire. 

Have You Seen the New Heritage Minutes?

Historica Canada has released two new Heritage Minutes! 

Click here to watch the newest Heritage Minutes about Confederation: Sir John A. Macdonald at the Charlottetown Conference, which launched Confederation; and Sir George-Étienne Cartier’s incredible contributions to bringing our country together.

The first Government of Canada History Awards

The new Government of Canada History Awards is a new program that will honour outstanding students and teachers who show an interest in celebrating Canadian history. The Awards will be administered by Canada's History, an independent national organization with a mandate to make our nation's past relevant and accessible to all Canadians.

The Awards consists of up to 225 awards for secondary school students and up to 30 awards for secondary school teachers. Award winners will be selected from across Canada, with fair distribution for all provinces and territories. They do not interfere with provincial and territorial educational systems, but rather promote an appreciation of Canadian history by rewarding excellence from teachers and students who choose to compete.

Recipients of Government of Canada History Awards for students will include secondary school students who demonstrate outstanding achievement in undertaking projects on Canada’s history. The Government of Canada History Awards for teachers will be awarded to secondary school teachers for their innovative teaching plans on Canada's history. Canada’s History will be responsible for screening applicants’ submissions and for choosing the assessors to evaluate those submissions.

The first Government of Canada History Awards will be presented in 2014. Please visit www.pch.gc.ca for information regarding the Awards and visit the site often as more details of the awards process will be posted.

Have you seen the new $50 polymer bill?

Have you seen the new polymer $50 bill? It features Arctic research icebreaker CCGS Amundsen, which was named after Captain Roald Amundsen, an explorer of the polar regions.

From May to December each year, the ship is used as an Arctic research vessel by various Canadian universities and research centres. During the winter months, the CCGC Amundsen is crewed by the Canadian Coast Guard and used for icebreaking service in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 

CBC Canada Reads 2013 is Seeking Nominations!

Started in 2001, Canada Reads is CBC's annual battle of the books, where five Canadian personalities each select a book they want Canadians to read. They defend their chosen title in a series of debates, and the books are eliminated one by one until a winner is declared. The debates air on CBC Radio One, CBC TV and are livestreamed online through CBC Books.

To Learn about Canada Reads, past winners, and exciting new developments, visit:

http://www.cbc.ca/books/canadareads/

New for 2013!!!

"Canada Reads is back for its twelfth season. And this time around, we're doing things differently. Canada Reads 2013 is going back to fiction, but that's not all. This year's battle of the books will be divided along geographical lines. After all, we're one great nation but we also have our local pride.

So we decided to tap into that loyalty to regional roots in order to build this year's Canada Reads book list."

 

How will it work?

We divided Canada into the following five regions. (We wish we could have had more, but only five books can vie for the Canada Reads crown.) Each region will be represented by one book in the debates.

• British Columbia and Yukon
• Prairies and North
• Ontario
• Quebec
• Atlantic Provinces

In order to arrive at a Top 10 list for each region, we are inviting public nominations. You can nominate only one title in each region -- but you needn't be from that region to submit a nomination. You can nominate a book in each of the five regions if you wish.

We will also be mining regional book awards and tapping into avid readers from CBC's team from coast to coast for their recommendations. These lists will be put to a vote and the votes each book will receive will count toward their overall total.

In each region, the 10 books with the most votes will move on to round two. So there will be five Top 10 lists in total. These will be revealed on Wednesday, October 24, on Q and on the Canada Reads website.

To learn more about the 2013 process, or to nominate a book, click HERE

(Information found in this post was retrieved from www.cbc.ca/books/canadareads/ on October 11, 2012)

Great Resource for Visual Art Information - Akimbo

Canada's Online Source for Visual Art Information

Akimbo is a Toronto-based company that promotes contemporary visual art, video, new media and film locally, nationally and internationally via the internet. Established in November, 1999, Akimbo has built a large and dedicated subscriber and reader base of Canadian and international visual arts professionals along with a client base of hundreds of the country's most important galleries, museums, art institutions and media, film and video festivals.

Akimbo is focused and selective about the information we distribute, and readers get the most up-to-date and vital information about exhibitions, publications, performances, screenings, talks, lecture series, launches, calls for submissions, and jobs related and relevant to visual culture in Canada. Akimbo clients get better media coverage, more filled seats and bigger attendance numbers.

Content is distributed through email broadcasts to an opt-in subscriber base of more than 8,550 people, plus posted to akimbo.ca, which boasts a readership from all over the world - our site visitors come from Canada, the U.S., Germany, the U.K., France, Japan, the Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Mexico, Brazil, Switzerland, Poland, Spain and many more countries. Every month, the site receives 1M+ page views, and 69,000 unique visitors. Akimbo RSS feeds get 180,000 reads and our Calendar items get 42,500 downloads per month. The Akimbo iPhone App provides event and exhibition information to 1,575 people in an easy-to-use mobile interface and 5,850 social media users follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Akimblog is an independent publishing arm of Akimbo, featuring writers from across Canada and points in the U.S., Europe and Asia. Akimblog gets 40,300 page views per month.

To learn more about Akimbo and to access their resources, visit:

http://www.akimbo.ca/

Note: information in this post is retrieved from: http://www.akimbo.ca/about/

Virtual Museum of Canada (VMC)

Here is a fun resource that allows you to explore Canada's history and culture from the comfort of your home!! (The information presented in this blog post was retrieved from www.museevirtuel-virtualmuseum.ca)

Explore Canada’s rich history and culture in the Virtual Museum of Canada (VMC). You will find virtual exhibits and interactive learning resources on numerous subjects, created by Canadian museums and galleries. You will also discover local history exhibits that capture exciting Canadian community memories, drawn from the collections of small museums and local memories and treasures.

virtualmuseum.ca is your definitive online resource for Canada's museums and their collections. It's a unique space featuring over 600 virtual exhibits, nearly 1 million images, and a wealth of engaging multimedia content. Dive into a world of arts, science, and history and explore our stories as told by Canadian museums.

Enter your Canadian museum space.

http://www.museevirtuel-virtualmuseum.ca/index-eng.jsp