Confederation and the Railroad

Unit 8 is about the Confederation and the Railroad region.  

Targets


Read the I Can  statements to see what you will learn in Unit 8.

I Can…

  • recognize the effects of Confederation on citizenship and identity from multiple perspectives
  • recognize the historical significance of French and English as Canada’s official languages
  • tell how John A. Macdonald and George-Étienne Cartier contributed as partners of Confederation
  • tell how the circumstances surrounding Confederation led to French and English becoming Canada’s two official languages
  • tell how the building of Canada’s national railway affected the development of Canada
  • tell why Aboriginal peoples were excluded from the negotiations concerning Confederation

Introduction


Look at these pictures (click on them for a larger view).


The Fathers of Confederation by Rex Woods, 1968

Do you know who these people are? 

This painting was made of them while they were at some meetings to discuss one of the most important events in our history. 





This photo shows an almost equally important event. 

Have you seen it before? 

If you have driven into British Columbia through Banff and past Revelstoke, you likely drove by this site.
Donald Alexander Smith (Lord Strathcona), director of  CPR Railway,  taps in the Last Spike on the Canadian Pacific Railway at Craigellachie, British Columbia, at Eagle Pass in the Gold Range. Also in the photo are (left to right) William Cornelius Van Horne (CPR General Manager), Sir Sandford Fleming, and Edward Mallandaine (teenager). 7 Nov 1885 Alexander J. Ross - National Library and Archives of Canada na-1494-5.

In this lesson, you will find out what the meetings were about, and why the hammering of this particular railway spike is an important moment in our history.

Library Books


Check out the library books for this unit.

Click here to download a PDF version of the Library List of Books.

If you are not able to find these library books, look for others about confederation and the railroad.

Skill Builder


Click here to learn how to search for books in the library.

Notebook


Throughout this unit, you will keep a Notebook. The PDF downloads are the pages of your Notebook.

  1. Create a folder on your computer or in the cloud titled “Unit 8 Notebook ”.
  2. Save all of the PDF downloads to this folder.

Whenever you see this icon you will be directed to use the “ Unit 8 Notebook ”  folder you created.