Canada House: A History
Early in 1922, a Canadian tea merchant named Peter Larkin arrived in London. He was a natural marketer who had created Canada’s iconic Salada Tea brand and he set out to put a new face on Canada in the UK. From the time he was appointed High Commissioner to the United Kingdom on 10 February, by Prime Minister Mackenzie King, he was charged with consolidating all of Canada’s activities in Britain → view the story
Story Archive
British Columbia
Queen Victoria named British Columbia when it became a British colony in 1858. In 1871 it reached an agreement to join Canada as a province. Part of that agreement was the establishment of a transcontinental railway → read the story
Alberta
Named after Queen Victoria’s fourth daughter, Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, the province of Alberta was the ninth to join Confederation — just hours after Saskatchewan → read the story
Manitoba
In the language of the Cree First Nation, Manitoba means ‘where the spirit lives’. The province started to take its modern form when Thomas Douglas, the fifth Earl of Selkirk, used his money and political connections to purchase land and settle poor Scottish families in British North America. First, in 1803 he helped settlers from Scotland find homes in Prince Edward Island. In 1804, he focused on Upper Canada → read the story
Ontario
Known as Upper Canada after the Constitution Act of 1791, Ontario is one of Canada’s four founding colonies. Canada’s most populous province, it is the ancestral home of the Ojibwa, Algonquin and Iroquois First Nations, among others. Its name is believed to mean ‘beautiful waters’ in the original Iroquoian → read the story
Welcome to Canada House
Canada House has been the centre of Canada’s presence in the UK from the time it was first envisioned by High Commissioner Peter Larkin almost 100 years ago → read the story
Artist Profile: Emily Carr
For 2015, Canada House presents Carr’s oil-on-canvas painting Wood Interior (1932-35). Graciously on loan from the Vancouver Art Gallery through the Emily Carr Trust, hopefully this is the first of many more opportunities to showcase Carr’s work in the years to come → read the story