1899 in Canada

← 1898 1897 1896 1899 in Canada → 1900 1901 1902
Decades:	1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s
See also:	History of Canada Timeline of Canadian history List of years in Canada

Events from the year 1899 in Canada.

Incumbents

Crown

• Monarch – Victoria ^[1]

Federal government

• Governor General – The 4th Earl of Minto
• Prime Minister – Wilfrid Laurier
• Chief Justice – Samuel Henry Strong (Ontario)
• Parliament – 8th

Provincial governments

Lieutenant governors

• Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia – Thomas Robert McInnes
• Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba – James Colebrooke Patterson
• Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick – Jabez Bunting Snowball
• Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia – Malachy Bowes Daly
• Lieutenant Governor of Ontario – Oliver Mowat
• Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island – George W. Howlan (until May 23) then Peter Adolphus McIntyre
• Lieutenant Governor of Quebec – Louis-Amable Jetté

Premiers

• Premier of British Columbia – Charles Augustus Semlin
• Premier of Manitoba – Thomas Greenway
• Premier of New Brunswick – Henry Emmerson
• Premier of Nova Scotia – George Henry Murray
• Premier of Ontario – Arthur Sturgis Hardy (until October 21) then George William Ross
• Premier of Prince Edward Island – Donald Farquharson
• Premier of Quebec – Félix-Gabriel Marchand

Territorial governments

Commissioners

• Commissioner of Yukon – William Ogilvie

Lieutenant governors

• Lieutenant Governor of Keewatin – James Colebrooke Patterson
• Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Territories – Amédée E. Forget

Premiers

• Premier of North-West Territories – Frederick Haultain

Events

• January 20 – About 2000 Doukhobors arrive in Halifax, Nova Scotia, 7400 by year end.
• May 5 – The village of Stirling, Alberta, NWT, is founded as a Mormon colony of 30 American settlers from Richfield, Utah, led by Theodore Brandley.
• May 25 – A fire in Saint John, New Brunswick, destroys 150 buildings and renders over 1,000 people homeless. ^[2]
• June 21 – Treaty No. 8 cedes 840,000 km² to the Crown, located in British Columbia and the North-West Territories' districts of Alberta, Athabasca and Mackenzie.
• July 5 – In Brandon, Manitoba, housemaid Hilda Blake shoots her mistress twice; the first shot misses, but the second bullet pierces the mistress's right lung. Blake was later hanged for murder.
• September 18 – The new City Hall building opens in Toronto.
• September 19 – A rock slide in Quebec City kills 45.
• October 4 – First Canadian troops sent to an overseas war (Boer War).
• October 18 – Henri Bourassa resigns from cabinet to protest Canada's intervention in the Boer War.
• October 21 – George William Ross becomes premier of Ontario, replacing Arthur S. Hardy.
• October 30 – Second Boer War: The first Canadian troops arrive in the Cape Colony.

Births

January to June

• January 5 – Hugh John Flemming, politician and 24th Premier of New Brunswick (d.1982)
• January 6 – Sonia Eckhardt-Gramatté, composer
• February 27 – Charles Best, medical scientist, co-discoverer of insulin (d.1978)
• March 14 – K. C. Irving, entrepreneur and industrialist (d.1992)
• May 26 – Antonio Barrette, politician and 18th Premier of Quebec (d.1968)
• May 27 – Dov Yosef, Canadian-born Israeli politician and statesman (d.1980)

July to December

• July 24 – Dan George, actor and author (d.1981)
• August 1 – F. R. Scott, poet, intellectual and constitutional expert (d.1985)
• October 2 – Juda Hirsch Quastel, biochemist (d.1987)
• October 3 – Adrien Arcand, journalist and fascist (d.1967)
• November 5 – Gilbert Layton, businessman and politician (d.1961)
• November 10 – Billy Boucher, ice hockey player (d.1958)
• November 17 – Douglas Shearer, sound designer and recording director (d.1971)
• November 30 – Edna Diefenbaker, first wife of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker (d.1951)
• December 24 – William Van Steenburgh, scientist

Deaths

• February 10 – Archibald Lampman, poet (b.1861)
• April 29 – George Frederick Baird, politician and lawyer (b.1851)
• July 31 – James David Edgar, politician (b.1841)
• August 29 – Catharine Parr Traill, writer (b.1802)
• October 25
  • Grant Allen, science writer, author and novelist (b.1848)
  • Peter Mitchell, politician, Minister and a Father of Confederation (b.1824)
• November 19 – John William Dawson, geologist and university administrator (b.1820)
• December 13
  • George Airey Kirkpatrick, politician (b.1841)
  • Lucius Richard O'Brien, painter (b.1832)

Historical documents

Missionary persuades Cree leader Yellow Bear to burn his "heathen idols" at Shoal Lake in Saskatchewan (Note: "bad spirit" and other stereotypes) ^[3]

Southern Tutchone man describes transfer of reindeer to Yukon from Alaska ^[4]

Official describes Indigenous and Metis people at Treaty 8 signing (Note: "wild men" and other stereotypes) ^[5]

Old woman in Fort Erie, Ontario tells of escaping slavery in Virginia with her parents and six siblings ^[6]

Mackenzie King realizes his parliamentary vocation at Westminster in London ^[7]

Oozing tar and leaking gas on Athabasca River near Fort McMurray ^[8]

Article on gold strike in northern Ontario ^[9]

Nurse treats feisty patients under horrible conditions in Dawson City's hospital ^[10]

Murals provided to new Toronto City Hall to encourage development of wall decoration ^[11]

Edison film of Whitehorse Rapids, Yukon River ^[12]

References

1. "Queen Victoria | The Canadian Encyclopedia". www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
2. The American Monthly Review of Reviews (July 1899), pp. 25-29
3. John Hines, The Red Indians of the Plains: Thirty Years' Missionary Experience in the Saskatchewan (1916), pgs. 296-300 Accessed 22 December 2019
4. Jimmy Kane, "The Reindeer Drive from Alaska" (Catharine McClellan, oral historian), My Old People's Stories; A Legacy for Yukon First Nations; Part I Southern Tutchone Narrators (2007), pgs. 131-7. Accessed 29 March 2020
5. Charles Mair, Through the Mackenzie Basin: A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 (1908), pgs. 53-5 Accessed 22 December 2019
6. Frank H. Severance, Old Trails on the Niagara Frontier (1899), pgs. 241-2 Accessed 24 February 2020
7. Diaries of William Lyon Mackenzie King, pg. 183 Accessed 22 December 2019
8. Charles Mair, "Chapter IX; The Athabasca River Region," Through the Mackenzie Basin: A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 (1908), pgs. 121-2, 127, 130-1 Accessed 22 December 2019 (See also photographs of oil derrick and tar banks along Athabasca)
9. "Seine River Wealth; The Golden Star Makes a Fabulously Rich Strike(....)" Rainy Lake Herald (March 9, 1899). Accessed 22 December 2019
10. Georgie Powell, "Report from Miss Powell, District Superintendent in the Klondike," What Is the Use of the Victorian Order of Nurses for Canada? (1900), pgs. 39-40 Accessed 22 December 2019
11. "Mural Decorations in the New Municipal Buildings, Toronto," The Canadian Architect and Builder, Vol. XII, Issue 5 (May 1899), pg. 98 Accessed 22 December 2019
12. Thomas Crahan, production; Robert K. Bonine, camera; Thomas A. Edison, Inc. [sic], "White Horse Rapids" Accessed 22 December 2019