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Social Studies 5: The Birth of Canada 199 Views
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Description:
Being born out of multiple wars doesn't quite seem to fit the peaceful, polite Canadians we know and love today...oh wait, they were called The Beaver Wars? Never mind, that makes sense.
Transcript
- 00:04
[Coop and Dino singing]
- 00:13
The Birth of Canada...
- 00:15
No, it didn't happen when a Beaver and a Bottle of Maple Syrup fell in love and got married... [Beaver and maple syrup at a wedding altar]
- 00:19
It was actually very similar to the way America was born.
- 00:22
Which no, didn't happen when a Bald Eagle and a Bottle of Barbecue Sauce fell in love
Full Transcript
- 00:26
and got married...
- 00:27
Come on, guys. In the 1500s, the French and several other
- 00:31
European countries jumped on the bandwagon – or should we say boatwagon? - and tried [French and European men on a boat]
- 00:35
to sail around the world to Asia.
- 00:37
How’d that work out for them? Eh….not very well.
- 00:41
They ended up stumbling into a big ol’ rock we like to call the Americas. You know, North, [European ship appears in America]
- 00:46
South, etc. But unlike the Dutch and English, who wanted
- 00:49
to get their hands on what’s now called the U.S.A., the French set their sights a
- 00:53
little further north...
- 00:54
…and in the 1600s, they established settlements throughout eastern Canada.
- 00:58
They were led by a man by the name of Samuel de Champlain… Could it get any Frencher?
- 01:03
Huh. Looks like it can.
- 01:05
Anyway, Samuel and his pals made buddy-buddy with the Huron tribe of Natives, who helped [Samuel with tribesman of the Huron tribe]
- 01:09
make sure every other tribe didn't kick Samuel and his buddies' butts.
- 01:12
It pays to have friends, huh? But not every tribe made peace with Samuel
- 01:16
– especially not the Iroquois.
- 01:18
So there was a scuffle between Samuel, the Hurons, and the Iroquois, which seems like [Samuel, Huron and Iroquois arguing]
- 01:23
a bit of a fair fight, right? That is, if fights can be fair.
- 01:26
But then the English saw what was going on and…well. See, the English and the French
- 01:30
weren't exactly the best of pals at the time, so the English decided to step in and side
- 01:35
with the Iroquois.
- 01:36
These two sides fought in a series of conflicts which were called the most Canadian thing
- 01:40
ever...
- 01:41
Well, no, they weren’t called the Maple Beaver Hockey Winter Wars, Eh? [Beaver on a TV screen]
- 01:45
But they were called the Beaver Wars, because they were fought over control of the fur trade.
- 01:50
Yep, we weren’t kidding. So Canadian. [Man wearing a fur jacket]
- 01:52
Anyway, the Beaver Wars never fully settled the score – and in fact, they led to many
- 01:57
other wars.
- 01:58
But this initial conflict over Canadian land between the French and the English is the
- 02:02
reason why Canada is divided into parts that speak English, French, or sometimes even both.
- 02:07
Those fancy Canadian overachievers… [Woman holding trophies on stage]
- 02:08
And, of course, just to make it a little bit more confusing, Canadian French grew to have
- 02:13
some major differences from French French.
- 02:16
All colonies have to leave the nest sometime, eh? [Bird flies into a window]
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