Although most of the people we’ll meet in Canada today are descended from French or British colonists we might also meet some of Canada’s earliest inhabitants — Native Indians and Inuits (in-oo-its; the official name for Eskimos). These people were here centuries before the white man who didn’t arrive until 1497 when a servant of Henry VII of England reached Newfoundland. Then the French arrived and began to settle in what was called New France. In other parts of Canada the English settled and partly because of the valuable fish and beaver fur trades the French and English went to war. England won and took control of French areas and lots more British immigrated to Canada.

In 1867 Canada became an independently ruled country (although the British monarch is still the official head of state) but didn’t get its famous maple leaf flag until 1967. Canada today is one of the world’s richest countries with huge exports of uranium timber and maple syrup. Some provinces like Quebec are still officially French-speaking while provinces such as Ontario are English-speaking. If we pay a visit to the new territory of Nunavut in the Arctic north (a fifth of the area of Canada) we might just get to meet some Eskimos — although most of them no longer live in igloos nor hunt in sleds.