Episode list

The history of Canada between 15,0000 BC to 1,800 AD.

With the search for the Northwest Passage and the expansion of the Grand Banks fishery, the New World soon becomes a destination for permanent European colonies, in Newfoundland and along the St. Lawrence. Samuel de Champlain begins his legendary journeys, and the precarious beginnings of New France are established. It is an era of unprecedented alliances and devastating conflicts with native people, driven by the merchants' search for furs and the Jesuits' quest for souls. After a half-century of struggle, with the colony on the verge of extinction, Louis XIV takes personal control, sending French soldiers to defend the struggling outpost and eligible young women, the "filles du roi," to become their wives.

A small French settlement in New France builds a flourishing society and stakes a claim to a massive continent between 1660 and 1750. New France's populace includes shop keepers, artisans, farmers and landlords, as well as fur-trading expansionists like Governor Frontenac and his commercial partner, Robert Cavelier de La Salle, who build a network of Indian alliances and extend French trading posts to the Gulf of Mexico. But this fast-paced growth brings New France into ever more bitter conflict with the wealthier and more numerous - but less venturesome - British colonists to the south. The story culminates with the heartrending deportation of more than 10,000 French Catholic Acadians as the struggle to possess North America enters its final, decisive phase.

1754-1775: The British and the French fight over the New World. Who will win?

1775-1815 With the dawn of a new country on the continent, Canadians try to protect their land. Loyalists escaping the American colonies arrive in Canada.

The Canadian west is opened by the great fur-trading empires of the Hudson's Bay and Northwest Companies, the native people who were their indispensable allies, and bold explorers and map makers who ventured from the Great Lakes to the Arctic Ocean and long-sought-for Pacific. Pierre Esprit Radisson defies a governor to take New France's trade far into the continent's interior and later, founds an English trading empire; Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de la Vérendrye, spends a lifetime searching for the Western Sea and pays dearly for it. Tough Dene chief Matonabbee leads Samuel Hearne on a monumental trek into the Barren Lands; Alexander Mackenzie's dash to the Pacific makes him one of the most celebrated men of his age. And David Thompson comes to the forbidding shores of Hudson Bay as a 14-year-old apprentice and eventually unlocks the secrets of the West more than any other man. As the fur trader's day comes to an end, settlers on the prairies and gold miners in British Columbia begin to claim the west for themselves.

By 1830, the struggle for democratic government in the colonies of British North America has reached fever pitch. As the colonies grow in wealth and population, a generation of charismatic reformers -- Joseph Howe in Nova Scotia, Louis-Joseph Papineau in Lower Canada and William Lyon Mackenzie in Upper Canada - confront the appointed governors and their local favorites with one demand: let the citizens' elected representatives run their own affairs. In the Canadas, the struggle leads to bloody rebellion and disastrous defeat for the rebels. Yet within 10 years, the prize of self-government is won, thanks in part to an unexpected alliance between the French and English-speaking forces of reform.

In a few short years, a handful of small and separate British colonies are transformed into a new nation that controls half the North American continent. The story of Confederation, its supporters and its bitter foes, is told against a backdrop of U.S. Civil War and Britain's growing determination to be rid of its expensive, ungrateful colonies. The dawn of the photographic era provides a vivid portrait of the diverse people who make up the new Dominion of Canada: the railway magnates, the unwed mothers of Montreal, the nuns who provide refuge for the destitute, the prosperous merchants of Halifax, the brave fugitives of the Underground Railroad, and the tide of Irish immigrants who flood into the cities.

Confederation is barely accomplished when the new dominion must face an enormous challenge: extending its reach into the vast prairies and beyond, to the Pacific Ocean. But Canada blunders catastrophically in seeking to take over the west without the consent of its inhabitants, especially the Métis of Red River and their leader, the charismatic, troubled Louis Riel. The resistance of 1869-70 lays the groundwork for Manitoba to join Canada, but it also sets the stage for decades of conflict over the rights of French and English, Catholic and Protestant in the new territories. Thanks to an audacious promise of a transcontinental railway in 10 years, the settlers of British Columbia are more easily convinced of the merits of union; by 1873 Prince Edward Island has joined as well, and Canada can boast a dominion that extends from sea to sea.

The 1870s and 1880s are a time of trial for the young Dominion of Canada. The country's first Prime Minister, John A. Macdonald, faces economic depression in the fast-growing factories of the east and a new revolt in the west.

An unprecedented age of prosperity and massive immigration transform Canada at the turn of the 20th century. Canada's first francophone leader, Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier, leads a country marked by Prairie boom times and massive industrialization. Those who shape the new society include peasants from Eastern Europe, in search of free land; socialists who try to mobilize an emerging urban working class; and campaigners for temperance and women's suffrage. The dizzying pace of change also brings ethnic intolerance and racism, particularly against Asian immigrants. As well, growing tensions over Canada's role in the British Empire, foreshadow divisive times to come as the First World War looms on the horizon.

Canada's heavy military role in World War I (60,000 dead in a population of 8 million) transforms its society, its politics and its place in the world. The horror, bravery and sacrifice of trench warfare are evoked in Canada's great battles: Ypres, the Somme, Vimy Ridge, Courcelette and Passchendaele. The domestic consequences of Canada's war effort are also wrenching - the conscription crisis of 1917 marks a low point in English-French relations. After the war ends, labor revolts in Winnipeg and across the country raise fears of a Bolshevik insurrection. The return to stability in the mid-1920s lasts only briefly as the crash of 1929 plunges the country into economic chaos.

Canada plunges into social and political crisis as the Great Depression settles over the world. With little help from Ottawa, thousands of Canadians criss-cross the country desperately seeking work while prairie farmers face the additional devastation of the Dust Bowl. As the crisis drags on, resentment and anger grow, leading to massive social unrest. Meanwhile the world faces an increasingly menacing threat from Europe, as Adolph Hitler draws Canada and the world closer to another world war.

Canada comes of age in the anguish of the Second World War, with soldiers on the beaches at Dieppe and women in the industrial work force back home. The country's military role and the domestic social and political consequences of the war are traced through poignant stories of Canadians on both sides of the Atlantic. The horrific global conflict steals the innocence of a generation...but brings hope for a new future.

The end of Second World War signals the end of years of social, political and economic upheaval in Canada. The post-war baby boom and government economic and social policies give rise to unprecedented prosperity and growth of Canadian communities. But in the midst of plenty, growing fears of the Cold War and nuclear conflict create an unsettled atmosphere. Political leaders - including John Diefenbaker, Joey Smallwood, and Maurice Duplessis - create change and controversy. Saskatchewan's premier Tommy Douglas begins the fight for medicare. And throughout all this, Canada finds itself increasingly absorbed into the American military, economic and cultural orbit.

The 1960s and 1970s are an era of turmoil. Youth movements across North America and Quebec's Quiet Revolution challenge the status quo. Canada raises a new flag and the country shines in the world spotlight with Expo '67. Some events threaten considerable upheaval: growing calls for Quebec sovereignty and the 1970 FLQ kidnappings. An electrifying politician becomes prime minister and Trudeaumania changes the face of Canadian politics irrevocably.

Canada struggles in an era of political, economic and social uncertainties. Debate around Canadian unity continues with the Quebec referendum of 1980, patriation of the Constitution and the Meech Lake Accord. Canadian society continues to be shaped by growing multiculturalism, feminism and native activism. The country also faces new global realities. The world order and economic boom that had taken shape after the Second World War begins to unravel. Free trade, globalization, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the explosion of computer technology helps define Canada in the new era.