Category talk:History of Canada

First Nations listings

Why are modern-day First Nations peoples (such as Ojibway, Sahtu, Tli Cho) being listed under Canadian History? - Montréalais 15:47, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Hi Montréalais. Saturday I started expanding the Category:Canadian history links from the existing 50 or so, and kept adding links until there were over 300. I was trying to select appropriately, but I'd welcome your thoughts on what is/isn't appropriate to link in this category.

My reason for linking the various First Nations is they've played a large part in Canadian history, just as the Francophone/Anglophone/Allophone peoples have. If there's a reason not to link them, I'd like to hear it.

And further to the discussion: prior to expanding the category I looked for a description of "what belongs in a Category list?" in Wikipedia Help, and I couldn't find it. If a description exists and you could point me to it, I'd be happy to bring Category:Canadian history in line with the Wikipedia conventions. Cheers, Madmagic 22:33, Jun 13, 2004 (UTC)

Okay, fair enough. I'm just asking because oftentimes First Nations peoples tend to get discussed as a historical thing, as if they didn't still exist. - Montréalais

Good call, and I'm very glad you raised the issue. Quite seriously, it went through my mind that linking a number of the articles I added to the Category could well lead to that objection -- "hey, XYZ ain't history yet!!"

Additionally, I was concerned some of the First Nations people -- especially the Innu, given that as the article states they "...have never officially surrendered their territory to Canada" and they appear to have had precious little benefit from Canada and Canadians -- might also be offended by being included within a Category:Canadian History. Equally so, the inclusion of Francophone and Québécois articles. I appreciate some may not wish to see those articles considered part of the history of Canada, as Canada is understood to be today.

What swayed me especially was what Francis Pegahmagabow, Tecumseh, and so many others did for Canada -- fought, risked their lives, and sometimes died. I started the Canadian Tomb of the Unknown Soldier article on Wikipedia; the soldier's body in that tomb could have been from the First Nations and/or a Francophone and/or Québécois. Perhaps all three.

Finally (not wishing to be long-winded here, but I'd like to put this in for possible future discussion) in the articles I selected to link within the Category I was trying to reflect the diversity, width and depth of this country, and hopefully reflect the great variety of the Canadian past, at least insofar as it's been covered to date within Wikipedia. As when I write new articles, I like to imagine giving a curious but uninformed reader some brief but solid starting points for their own further learning and exploration. History, like Canada, is very large. :) Cheers, Madmagic 12:06, Jun 14, 2004 (UTC)

Added Category Canadian military history

The Canadian History category is now well over 400 entries and I thought it would be helpful to start moving entries to sub-categories. So, I've added the Canadian military history sub-category as a starting point.

My own thinking is those articles which are narrow and specifically military (battles, fortifications, military units, decorations, etc.) should be moved to the subcategory. Articles which are military in nature but also had broad political and social impact in Canadian history (ie., major wars, the various Canadian rebellions, the Avro Arrow) will be left on the main History listing.

Is this appropriate? I've tried to read everything I could find in the Help pages on categories, but this doesn't seem to be clearly defined. And the US and British history pages don't provide clear or consistent examples to follow, that I can see. Advice and assistance is invited, and most welcome. :) It would especially be good to have our taxonomy clear before moving stuff around between categories and sub-categories. Madmagic 22:12, Jun 20, 2004 (UTC)

I plan on helping to edit User:Zigger/Categorisation_FAQ and perhaps move that to a regular article status in a bit. For now, just try to keep sub-categories logical. Take a look at Category:World War II for an example of how to break things down. Oberiko 15:19, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the pointer to the proto-FAQ, it's very helpful. Since writing my entry of Jun 20 above, I stumbled on the Category:Categorization page, Wikipedia:Categorization, and the current Wikipedia talk:Categorization. Given the discussions are very much in process and very wide-ranging, I've paused in adding articles to Category:Canadian History and I've also stopped adding subcategories, and moving entries over. Best to let the dust settle a bit, IMO. :) Madmagic 13:45, Jun 22, 2004 (UTC)

Also, try to keep only topics that are directly and prominently Canadian in nature. Large events where Canada played a part is alright, but alot of these articles really don't deal with Canada to any large extent at all. Oberiko 15:23, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I took a quick fast look over the existing links, and I don't see what you mean. When I tried selecting (twice) a random five articles, all of them seemed quite directly and prominently Canuck to me. Care to elaborate? Cheers, Madmagic 13:45, Jun 22, 2004 (UTC)

Cleanup request

This category has too many articles; appropriate subcategories need to be created, and articles moved into them. -- Beland 23:05, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

I've removed the cleancat - since it looks fine as of June 2007 - Ian Cairns 01:28, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Francophone means French people

No it doesn't - it means French-speaking people, whether French or Canadian or another nationality. Ian Cairns 01:28, 11 June 2007 (UTC)