The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1967, Page 15

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
13
EDITORIAL
CANADA, OUR HOME AND native land
We celebrate this year our centen-
nial as a nation. The year was ushered
in with pealing bells, thundering can-
non, and symbolic fires, and there have
been countless centennial projects
from coast to coast on an individual,
community, provincial, and national
scale, climaxed by the Pan-American
Games and Expo 67.
Our origins, however, go much
farther back than the term centennial
implies. We remember ithat the Indians
and the Eskimoes, who arrived thous-
ands of years ago, proved very helpful
to the European explorers. We re-
member Bjarni Herjolfsson, who sail-
ed along our Canadian shores in 986
A.D., and Leifr Eiriksson, who a few
years later explored our coasts exten-
sively, and also Thorfinnur Karlsefni
and later the timber-cutters in Mark-
land. We remember John Cabot and
Jacques Cartier and the first perman-
ent settlement at Port Royal in 1605,
and that the first permanent settlement
in the United States was not founded
till Jamestown, 1607. We remember
also that responsible government was
achieved in British North America by
1850.
Canada was founded in 1867, with
four provinces and a population of
not much over three million. The
founders were faced with many serious
problems, including much parish men-
tality, and great distances and a tower-
ing mountain barrier in the way of
westward expansion.
But the founders had a vision of a
Canadian nation and they devoted
themselves to the founding. Theirs was
a large vision and they possessed faith,
courage, and determination.
The following have been some of
the milestones to nationhood. The
other provinces were brought in, one
by one, till they numbered ten. Trans-
continental railways and highways
were built, a tremendous achievement.
Immigrants poured in by the million,
settling the great open spaces. In
World War I the performance of the
Canadian forces won recognition for
Canadian nationhood, more formally
spelled out in the Statute of West-
minster. In World War II there was
a total mobilization of all our resources
and the Canadian contribution was of
great importance to the Allied cause.
In recent years the material develop-
ment of our country has been spec-
tacular. With a population of twenty
million, the gross national product is
approaching the sixty billion dollar
mark. Less than twenty years ago we
imported 90 per cent of our oil; in
1967, Canada will be self-sufficient in
petroleum. Foreign trade, including
exports and imports, amounts to some
twenty billion dollars annually. The
dream of the founders has been
realized.