History
Coat of Arms of Nova ScotiaThe history of heraldry in Canada began with the raising of the Royal Arms of France by French explorer Jacques Cartier in 1534, when he landed on Canadian soil at what is now known as the Gaspé Peninsula. From the beginning of the settlement of Canada until the Treaty of Paris in 1763, armorial bearings were largely either brought from France or awarded by the French crown. A notable exception is the Coat of Arms of Nova Scotia, awarded in 1625 by Charles I (making it the oldest coat of arms in the Commonwealth outside the United Kingdom), in use until 1868, when it was replaced by a new achievement. The original was later rediscovered, and replaced the 1868 version in 1929. The present-day Coat of Arms of Newfoundland and Labrador was granted to a private company shortly after that of Nova Scotia, although it did not enter use as the region's arms until the 1920s. The Coat of Arms of the Hudson's Bay Company was first used in 1671 (although no record of the original grant exists, and it was not registered with the College of Arms in London until 1921), and has been in continual use with minor cosmetic changes to the official depiction ever since.
Upon ratification of the Treaty of Paris, the British Crown confirmed the French awards of arms. Between 1763 and 1867, the year of Canadian Confederation, there is little evidence of much heraldic activity. After Confederation, however, heraldry in Canada became more widespread, including grants of arms to the provinces, various educational institutions, municipalities, and individuals. In the immediate post-Confederation period, arms were granted to New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, and Quebec, although not to the country as a whole. In the period between the Treaty of Paris and Confederation, the Arms of the United Kingdom had served as the emblem of authority within Canada.
From 1763 until 1988, heraldry in Canada was under the authority of the College of Arms in London and the Court of the Lord Lyon in Edinburgh. In the late 1980s, the Queen issued Letters Patent creating the Canadian Heraldic Authority.
Read more about this topic: Heraldry In Canada
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“Regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized—the question involuntarily arises—to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“No matter how vital experience might be while you lived it, no sooner was it ended and dead than it became as lifeless as the piles of dry dust in a school history book.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1874–1945)