Portal:Canada
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 The land that is now Canada was inhabited for millennia by various groups of Aboriginal peoples. Beginning in the late 15th century, British and French expeditions explored, and later settled, along the Atlantic coast. France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763 after the Seven Years' War. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. This began an accretion of provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy from the United Kingdom. This widening autonomy was highlighted by the Statute of Westminster of 1931 and culminated in the Canada Act of 1982, which severed the vestiges of legal dependence on the British parliament. Canada is a federation that is governed as a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy with Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state. It is a bilingual nation with both English and French as official languages at the federal level. One of the world's highly developed countries, Canada has a diversified economy that is reliant upon its abundant natural resources and upon trade—particularly with the United States, with which Canada has had a long and complex relationship. It is a member of the G8, G-20, NATO, OECD, WTO, Commonwealth, Francophonie, OAS, APEC, and UN. Selected article - The city is located between the Strait of Georgia and the Coast Mountains. Its economy has traditionally relied on British Columbia's resource sectors: forestry, mining, fishing and agriculture. It was first settled in the 1860s as a result of immigration caused by the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, and developed rapidly from a small lumber mill town into a metropolitan centre following the arrival of the transcontinental railway in 1887. The Port of Vancouver became internationally significant after the completion of the Panama Canal and reduced freight rates in the 1920s made it viable to ship export-bound prairie grain west through Vancouver. It has since become the busiest seaport in Canada and exports more cargo than any other port in North America. The economy of Vancouver has become more diverse over time, however. Vancouver has a growing tourism industry, for example, and has become the third largest film production centre in North America, after Los Angeles and New York. Selected biography - Nicknamed "The Great One," Total Hockey: The Official Encyclopedia of the NHL calls Gretzky "the greatest player of all time." He is generally regarded as the best player of his era and has been called "the greatest hockey player ever" by many sportswriters, players, and coaches. He set 40 regular-season records, 15 playoff records, 6 All-Star records, won four Stanley Cups with the Edmonton Oilers, and won 9 MVP awards and 10 scoring titles. He is the only player ever to total over 200 points in a season (a feat that he accomplished four times in his career). In addition, he tallied over 100 points a season for 15 NHL seasons, 13 of them consecutively. He is the only player to have his number, 99, officially retired by the National Hockey League. Selected picture -
Symbols of Canada -
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Selected panorama -Woody Point, Western Newfoundland. Panorama of the Gros Morne National Park with the Tablelands, overlooking Bonne Bay Template:/box-footer Template:/box-header
What are Portals? · List of Canadian portals
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