Canadians don’t spend a lot of time bragging, but as this collection shows, our country has a lot to be proud of—the many amazing firsts that have come from this country and its people and their impact on our culture and the world:
• In 1974, Dr. Joseph MacInnis established Sub-Igloo, the world’s first polar dive station and led the first scientific expedition into the waters of the North Pole
• Alexander MacKenzie was the first recorded explorer to complete the transcontinental crossing of North America
• Greenpeace was founded in Canada as the “Don’t Make a Wave” committee in 1971
• In 1885, Banff National Park was the first patch of land ever recognized as a national park
• The first woman to graduate with a university degree in the British Empire was Grace Annie Lockhart from Mount Allison University
• Canadian-born Gideon Sundback was the first to patent a “separable fastener,” a.k.a. the zipper, in 1913
• The first kidney transplant performed between identical twins took place at Montréal’s Royal Victoria Hospital in 1958
• Montréal’s Maurice Richard was the first hockey player to record a 50- goal season in 1944–45 and the first to score more than 500 goals in his career
• The Hudson’s Bay Company, established on May 2, 1670, is the oldest, continuously operating company on the continent
• The 12.9-kilometre-long Confederation Bridge between mainland Canada and Prince Edward Island is the world’s longest uninterrupted
span
• Curling was first organized in Canada in 1807, but the game was played in Québec City in 1759–60 with cannonballs melted into curling stones
• In 1962, at just 15 years old, Petra Burka became the first woman figure skater in the world to complete a triple Salchow.
And so much more…