Assignment #5-It's really cold. Brrrr!!!

Immigrants are very important to the population of Canada. Every single citizen either has been an immigrant or has ancestors who were immigrants to Canada, but every one is an immigrant because Canada is one of the newest countries in the world. Without immigration Canada wouldn't have been where they are today. We wouldn't have accomplished everything we have accomplished in the last few centuries, which by far is a whole lot. And we wouldn't be who we are today. In this entry I going to be talking about the c-c-cold and some of the reasons why our families or some of the very first immigrants decided to come and stay in Canada despite the freezing cold.

The first time in recorded history, that anyone entered Canada or North America was probably the Aboriginals. They came and lived here for thousands of years BCE. Aboriginals are the first immigrants of Canada because at one point in time they had left their homeland following the buffalo over the land bridge connecting Asia and Canada. It had of course taken them several generations to walk across the land bridge (what is now the pacific ocean) but they never gave up. They walked and walked and soon spread all over North America, forming many self-sufficient, cultural and linguistic groupings. A few examples of their groups are the Huron, Mik-maq, Algonquian and many more. Without the help of the Aboriginals, the Europeans would have never survived the winter long enough to go back to their homeland and bring other immigrants to Canada. The reason why I think the Aboriginals decided to stay in Canada was that at the time they came to Canada, they were already used to the cold, since it was the ice age when they had first started to walk over the land bridge and when they had finally reached Canada. That explains a whole lot. Other reasons why the Aboriginals would stay in Canada is because there is:

• a lot of trees for shelter and protection
• a lot of wildlife for food
• a lot of wildlife fur and skin for clothing and shelter (tents...etc.)
• a lot of farm land to help them make a living off of farming and selling crops
• a lot of bodies of water for fishing and water
• a lot of land for building houses

So as you can see each one of the points that I have listed up there is basically related to survival and stuff that Canada had plentiful of, while other countries lacked them. Therefore, I think that Aboriginals actually made the right decision, after going through all the pros and cons.

The second important immigrants of Canada are the European explorers. Some of the very first European explorers came from France, or Britain. Most of these European settlers never thought they would find new land, all they were interested in finding was a sea/ocean route to the Asian silk and spices. Soon a competition began between the European countries over the exploration of the new land. So from that time on the exploration time began. Each country would send ship loads of men and explorers to explore the new land and claim it for their country. While these people were experiencing fame, they were also experiencing hardships, failures, and success. Here are a list of examples of what some explorers experienced:

• death of companions and really close friends
• had to survive the many different viruses and diseases that had gone around the ship and the new land.
• they had to survive the freezing cold without blankets, heaters, or warm clothing to keep them warm
• they had to survive the disease the cold and lack of food and water brought (scurvy, frostbites...etc.) killing many of the very first people who stayed in Canada for the winter
• they had to find a way to be successful in building colonies
• they had to find a way to help the immigrants they brought over to Canada through the winters and other hardships they had or faced

So as you can see they had gone through a lot of losses from death of friends to fear of their own death. However each one of these problems were dealt with or else we wouldn't be in Canada today. Here are how they coped with a few of their problems and how the Aboriginals came to the rescue with perfect timing:

• seeing the new settlers dying so fast, the aboriginals showed Jacques Cartier this recipe for a tea made out of boiled white cedar tree to cure the settlers disease
• although Jacques Cartier had failed greatly, 60 years later Champlain came of assistance to form very successful colonies
• he himself went back and forth from Canada to France convincing families to immigrate to Canada unlike Jacques who came and took a shipload of criminals to Canada.
• John Cabot had found the great banks where people then started fished for enough cod to last them a year
• as the fishers fished they also started to trade some of their tools for fur which later helped them keep themselves warm when they decided to stay in Canada for the winter
• after those encounters the little trading gradually ended up becoming huge and the primary reason why people came and immigrated to Canada.
• their winters were no longer harsh ever since they got the cure and because of the fur trade they were warm

The European explorers have done many more for our country but those are a few start up points. Although they faced a lot of hardships, they also did a lot for our country. Without fishing on the great banks the fur trade wouldn't have started. Without the fur trade immigrants wouldn't have a reason to come to Canada. And without the immigrants coming to Canada, Canada wouldn't have come so far as today.

Finally the third most important immigrants of Canada who had to cope with the cold is you and I. A few of us may have ancestors who were here since the beginning but most of us don't. Most of Canada is build up of people and citizens of other countries. Some of the hardships that my family had experienced when they first came was the cold. My family came to Canada in the middle of winter and it was really hard for them because my country is always summer and the coldest temperature in the winter there is probably the warmest temperature in winter here. But it obviously wasn't as hard as it was for the early European explorers because they had nothing with them, and they weren't prepared for they cold. For example, we have heaters, warm clothing, and other stuff that keeps us warm; however, the Europeans didn't have anything to keep them warm until the fur trade began.

Therefore, Canada may be cold but once you look at how much the first people had to suffer to make this a successful country it is actually worth freezing sometimes. I mean what if the early settlers hadn't suffered and had just left the country as soon as they found out how cold it was, then our lives would change completely, each one of us wouldn't be what we are today. Especially the people who left their country because of threats or human rights and came to Canada to lead a normal and safe life here. So forget the cold think about where you might be if Canada hadn't been here. How would you lead your life?

Here are the links to the websites I used for my research:

I used a website about Jacque Cartier, Immigration to Canada, and John Cabot. Each one of these websites talked about how the explorers settled in Canada, and how newer immigrants are now coming to Canada despite how cold it had been and how cold it still is.

To learn more about what I am trying to get out to you visit my teacher's blog.