Flag of Canada
The flag of Canada referred to as the Canadian flag, or unofficially as the Maple Leaf and l'Unifolié, is a national flag consisting of a red field with a white square at its centre in the ratio of 1:2:1, in the middle of, featured a stylized, red, 11-pointed maple leaf charged in the centre. It is the first specified by law for use as the country's national flag. In 1964, Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson formed a committee to resolve the ongoing issue of the lack of an official Canadian flag, sparking a serious debate about a flag change to replace the Union Flag. Out of three choices, the maple leaf design by George Stanley, based on the flag of the Royal Military College of Canada, was selected; the flag made its first official appearance on February 15, 1965. The Canadian Red Ensign was unofficially used since the 1890s and approved by a 1945 Order in Council for use "wherever place or occasion may make it desirable to fly a distinctive Canadian flag"; the Royal Union Flag remains an official flag in Canada.
There is no law dictating how the national flag is to be treated, but there are conventions and protocols to guide how it is to be displayed and its place in the order of precedence of flags, which gives it primacy over the aforementioned and most other flags. Many different flags created for use by Canadian officials, government bodies, military forces contain the maple leaf motif in some fashion, either by having the Canadian flag charged in the canton, or by including maple leaves in the design; the flag is horizontally symmetric and therefore the obverse and reverse sides appear identical. The width of the Maple Leaf flag is twice the height; the white field is a Canadian pale. In heraldic terminology, the flag's blazon as outlined on the original royal proclamation is "gules on a Canadian pale argent a maple leaf of the first"; the maple leaf has been used as a Canadian emblem since the 18th century. It was first used as a national symbol in 1868 when it appeared on the coat of arms of both Ontario and Quebec.
In 1867, Alexander Muir composed the patriotic song "The Maple Leaf Forever", which became an unofficial anthem in English-speaking Canada. The maple leaf was added to the Canadian coat of arms in 1921. From 1876 until 1901, the leaf appeared on all Canadian coins and remained on the penny after 1901; the use of the maple leaf by the Royal Canadian Regiment as a regimental symbol extended back to 1860. During the First World War and Second World War, badges of the Canadian Forces were based on a maple leaf design; the maple leaf would adorn the tombstones of Canadian military graves. By proclaiming the Royal Arms of Canada, King George V in 1921 made red and white the official colours of Canada; these colours became "entrenched" as the national colours of Canada upon the proclamation of the Royal Standard of Canada in 1962. The Department of Canadian Heritage has listed the various colour shades for printing ink that should be used when reproducing the Canadian flag. 0-712. No. 4T51577. 62539/0 Rieger Inks, No. 25564 Sinclair and Valentine, No.
RL163929/0. The number of points on the leaf has no special significance; the image of the maple leaf used on the flag was designed by Jacques Saint-Cyr. The colours 0/100/100/0 in the CMYK process, PMS 032, or PMS 485 in the Pantone colour specifier can be used when reproducing the flag. For the Federal Identity Program, the red tone of the standard flag has an RGB value of 255–0–0. In 1984, the National Flag of Canada Manufacturing Standards Act was passed to unify the manufacturing standards for flags used in both indoor and outdoor conditions; the first flag known to have flown in Canada was the St George's Cross carried by John Cabot when he reached Newfoundland in 1497. In 1534, Jacques Cartier planted a cross in Gaspé bearing the French royal coat of arms with the fleurs-de-lis, his ship flew a red flag with the French naval flag at the time. New France continued to fly the evolving French military flags of that period; as the de jure national flag of the United Kingdom, the Union Flag was used in Canada since the 1621 British settlement in Nova Scotia.
Its use continued after Canada's independence from the United Kingdom in 1931 until the adoption of the current flag in 1965. Shortly after Canadian Confederation in 1867, the need for distinctive Canadian flags emerged; the first Canadian flag was that used as the flag of the Governor General of Canada, a Union Flag with a shield in the centre bearing the quartered arms of Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick surrounded by a wreath of maple leaves. In 1870 the Red Ensign, with the addition of the Canadian composite shield in the fly, began to be used unofficially on land and sea and was known as the Canadian Red Ensign; as new provinces joined the Confederation, their arms w
Port Phillip
Port Phillip, is a port in southern Victoria, Australia. It is nearly surrounded by the city of its suburbs. Geographically, the port covers 1,930 square kilometres and the shore stretches 264 km. Although it is shallow for its size, most of the port is navigable; the deepest portion is only 24 metres, half the region is shallower than 8 m. The volume of the water in the port is around 25 cubic kilometres. Before European settlement the area around Port Phillip was divided between the territories of the Wathaurong and Boonwurrung Nations, its waters and coast are home to seals, dolphins and many kinds of seabirds and migratory waders. The first Europeans to enter the port were the crews of HMS Lady Nelson, commanded by John Murray and, ten weeks HMS Investigator commanded by Matthew Flinders, in 1802. Subsequent expeditions into the bay took place in 1803 to establish the first settlement in Victoria, near Sorrento, but was abandoned in 1804. Thirty years settlers from Tasmania returned to establish Melbourne, now the state's capital city, at the mouth of the Yarra River in 1835 and Geelong at Corio Bay in 1838.
Today Port Phillip is the most densely populated catchment in Australia with an estimated 4.5 million people living around the bay. Port Phillip formed between the end of the last Ice Age around 8000 BCE and around 6000 BCE, when the sea-level rose to drown what was the lower reaches of the Yarra River, vast river plains and lakes; the Yarra and other tributaries flowed down what is now the middle of the bay, formed a lake in the southern reaches of the bay, dammed by The Heads, subsequently pouring out into Bass Strait. The Aboriginal people were in occupation of the area long before the bay was formed, having arrived at least 20,000 years ago and 40,000 years ago. Large piles of semi-fossilised sea-shells known as middens, can still be seen in places around the shoreline, marking the spots where Aboriginal people held feasts, they made a good living from the abundant sea-life, which included seals. In the cold season, they wore intricate feathered head-dresses. A dry period combined with sand bar formation, may have dried the bay out as as between 800 BCE and 1000 CE.
In 1800, Lieutenant James Grant was the first known European to pass through Bass Strait from west to east in HMS Lady Nelson. He was the first to see, crudely chart, the south coast from Cape Banks in South Australia to Wilsons Promontory in Victoria. Grant gave the name "Governor King's Bay" to the body of water between Cape Otway and Wilsons Promontory, but did not venture in and discover Port Phillip; the first Europeans to discover and enter Port Phillip, were the crew of the Lady Nelson, commanded by John Murray, which entered the bay on 15 February 1802. Murray called the bay Port King after the Governor of Philip Gidley King. On 4 September 1805, King formally renamed it Port Phillip, in honour of his predecessor Arthur Phillip. About ten weeks after Murray, Matthew Flinders in HMS Investigator found and entered the port, unaware Murray had been there; the official history of Nicholas Baudin's explorations in Le Géographe claimed they too had sighted the entrance at that time but this is certainly a embellishment or error, being absent from the ship's logs and Baudin's own accounts.
As a result of Murray's and Flinders' reports, King sent Lieutenant Charles Robbins in HMS Cumberland to explore Port Phillip fully. One of his party, Charles Grimes, became the first European to walk right round the bay, thus to discover the mouth of the Yarra, on 2 February 1803. King decided to place a convict settlement at Port Phillip to stake a claim to southern Australia ahead of the French. On 10 October 1803 a convoy of two ships HMS Calcutta and Ocean led by Captain David Collins carrying 402 people entered Port Philip Bay. After some investigation it was decided to establish the settlement at a spot known as Sullivan Bay close to where Sorrento now exists; the expedition landed at Sullivan Bay on 17 October 1803, the first of the "orders" issued by Collins bears that date. On 25 October, the King's birthday, the British flag was hoisted over the tiny settlement and a little salvo of musketry celebrated the royal occasion. On 25 November the first white child was born in Victoria and was baptised on Christmas Day, receiving the name of William James Hobart Thorne.
The first marriage took place on 28 November, when a free woman, Hannah Harvey was wedded to convict Richard Garrett. Lack of fresh water and good timber, led this, the first attempt at European settlement in Victoria, to be abandoned on 27 January 1804; when Collins left Port Phillip, the'Calcutta' proceeded to Sydney, the'Ocean' to Risdon Cove Tasmania, where they arrived on 15 February 1804. Prior to abandonment, a group of convicts including William Buckley, escaped from the settlement. Buckley took up residence in a cave near Point Lonsdale on the western side of the bay's entrance, The Rip. Port Phillip was left undisturbed until 1835, when settlers from Tasmania led by John Batman and John Pascoe Fawkner established Melbourne on the lower reaches of the Yarra. John Batman encountered Willia
Torquay, Victoria
Torquay is a seaside resort in Victoria, which faces Bass Strait, 21 km south of Geelong and is the gateway to the Great Ocean Road. It is bordered on the west by Spring Creek and its coastal features include Point Danger and Zeally Bay. At the 2016 Census, Torquay had a population of 13,258. Wathaurong Aborigines lived in the area before white settlement. From the 1860s, picnickers began to frequent the location, known as Spring Creek, after the watercourse along its south-western edge, but it was named Puebla in the 1882 Victorian Municipal Directory. James Follett, who settled there in 1871, came from Torquay, the seaside town in Devon, at his suggestion the name Torquay was adopted in 1892; the Post Office opened on 20 August 1894. On 3 April 1908, the Spring Creek bridge was built. In 1891, the Joseph H. Scammell sailing ship struck the reef near Point Danger in Torquay and subsequently became wedged on the reef and as a result the ship broke up in the heavy seas; the cargo of the Scammell was looted.
The anchors of the Scammell are still on display at the Torquay front beach and the Torquay boat ramp. In 1900, a primary school was opened in the newly built Presbyterian church, moving to the recreation hall in 1901, a permanent school building not opened until 1910. A bowling green, tennis courts and a golf course were opened by the 1920s; the town once had 145 bathing boxes on the main beach. In 1946, the Torquay Surf Life Saving Club was formed, opening their current clubrooms in 1971 after the previous one burnt down. Today, it is the largest club in Victoria. Recent years have seen increased development of the area. With the'old town' between the highway and the beach fully developed, housing spread to Jan Juc, west of Spring Creek, in the 1970s, new estates opened up to the north of the town after the 1980s. There was conflict between long-term residents and those behind some developments, in particular over the former Torquay Primary School site on Bristol and Boston Roads, sold by the government for luxury apartments and an expanded shopping centre, instead of being retained for community uses.
In 2001, The Sands golf club and residential development commenced construction to the north west of the town on the site of the former Torquay Tip, which closed in the early 1990s. The resort opened in 2004; the magazine History Matters produced by Torquay Museum Without Walls continues to document the history of Torquay. The Torquay area is famous for its surf beaches, with Jan Juc and the world-famous Bells Beach located on the town's south-west outskirts. Other popular beaches are Southside Beach, it was home to the popular Offshore Festival in the late 1990s. Many of the world's most famous surf companies have their home in Torquay, including Rip Curl and Quiksilver- all of which make up part of the Surf Coast Plaza, which provides shopping and eating, as well as the Surf World Museum. Torquay's population triples between January and end of February, when the school holidays end. Torquay's local schools are Torquay Primary School, St. Therese Catholic Primary and Surf Coast Secondary College.
Torquay Primary School was once located in the'old town', being moved across from St. Therese in October 2001; the same year a review on the provision of Secondary Schooling in Torquay was commenced, in 2003 it was recommended that Torquay Primary School become a P-9 school doing so in 2009, in 2012 it reverted to a standalone primary school. The secondary years split from Torquay College in 2012 to form Surf Coast Secondary College which moved to a standalone campus in Torquay North at the start of 2014. In October 2007, The new Torquay Police Station opened at the corner of the Surfcoast highway and central avenue; the new Police station was built at a cost of $7.8 million and is considered to be a state-of-the-art facility. Frog Hollow is in the north west of Torquay; the estate has been developed on the site of a water catchment, drained. Ocean Views is in the south of Torquay; the area was developed from 2000. It was a sheep and cattle grazing and farming area, known as Hard Man's land because of its rocky and hilly landscape making it difficult to graze on.
It is now residential, backing onto Spring Creek, where a proposed development with capacity for another 20,000 people was rejected in April 2009. It has a golf club backing onto it; the area has a V-line bus stop, the bus running to Warrnambool or to Geelong, three summer bus run stops, a post office box and a park, Spring Creek Play Park. Walking access across the river to the football ground used to be difficult until in 2007 the shire built a footbridge connecting the reserve and the edge of the suburb, only around a 1.5 km radius. Ocean Views have a BMX park; the area is known for its high number of families. Wombah Park is home to about 1000 residents. Once owned by the Catholic Church, The Church Estate is bounded by Spring Creek Reserve, Spring Creek and Torquay Road and was developed in the 1960s. Zeally Bay is east of Torquay; the bay and Zeally Point were named after Richard Zeally, a squatter who lived in the area from 1851 on his property named South Beach. Zeally Bay hosts a yachting club, a fishing club, Fishermans Beach, Taylor Park - a public 4-acre park and the Crowne Plaza Torquay, a multimillion-dollar resort and plaza, built on the site of the old Zeally Bay Caravan Park.
In 2004 the Zeally Bay caravan
Cape Chignecto Provincial Park
Cape Chignecto Provincial Park is a Canadian provincial park located in Nova Scotia. A wilderness park, it derives its name from Cape Chignecto, a prominent headland which divides the Bay of Fundy with Chignecto Bay to the north and the Minas Channel leading to the Minas Basin to the east; the park, which opened in 1998, is the largest provincial park in Nova Scotia. The park's landscape is renowned for spectacular shoreline with extensive backpacking trails and scenic day hikes; the highest cliffs in Mainland Nova Scotia are located along the park's southern coast, measuring 200 metres. The park occupies 42 square kilometres and has 30 kilometres of wilderness coastline with unique geological features such as raised beaches and sea stacks; the complex geology was created by continental collision along the Cobequid fault. The spectacular coastal landscapes of the park make it popular for kayakers, it contains several abandoned logging camps, saw mills and the ghost towns of Eatonville and New Yarmouth.
A secluded ravine named Refugee Cove was the site where Mi'kmaq sheltered fleeing Acadians during the Expulsion of the Acadians. The mixing of warm summer temperatures with the cold tidal waters of the Bay of Fundy create frequent fogs resulting in moist rain forest like conditions which nurture "fog forests" of large red spruce and many unique and endangered species of lichens; the park's high southern cliffs support species of vetch and primrose with Alpine characteristics which are unique in Nova Scotia. Cape Chignecto provides shelter for Nova Scotia's endangered mainland moose herd. Tides rise and fall 12 metres along the Park's coastline, producing rip currents and rapid flooding at certain points. Several hikers have been trapped and had to be rescued when rising tides trapped them against sheer cliffs, including a couple and a dog who had to be rescued from rising waters at Eatonville by a helicopter from CFB Greenwood in July 2014; the park maintains both for day use hikers and overnight backpackers.
An interpretation centre, picnic area and giftshop are based at the trailhead at Red Rocks near the community of Advocate Harbour. In addition to 51 back country campsites and 28 walk-in sites, several overnight cabins and bunk houses on the trail system may be rented by hikers. A mothballed fire tower, closed since 2012, is located at the highest point of the park in New Yarmouth. A new, off-grid interpretation centre and day use trails at Eatonville were constructed in 2008-2009. Funded by a federal-provincial contribution of $350,000 announced in July 2008, the centre's completion was delayed by bad weather but opened on July 30, 2009; the Cape Chignecto Trails are part of the 400 km Cape to Cape hiking trail system under construction to connect Cape Chignecto with Cape George, Antigonish County. The park is one of the features on the Fundy Shore Ecotour; the Government of Nova Scotia purchased the land comprising the park in 1989 and added it to the Crown land reserve, administered by the Department of Natural Resources.
This land was redesignated for a provincial park in the mid-1990s and Cape Chignecto Provincial Park opened to the public in 1998 after several years of planning and trail and campsite development. By area, Cape Chignecto is the largest provincial park in Nova Scotia. Ruth Allen, a resident of Port Greville and a former two term Warden and councillor of Cumberland County, was instrumental in the founding and development of the park, she worked for 18 years to gather support for the park through bodies such as the Community Economic development Board and received several awards for her contributions.. Although Cape Chignecto is Nova Scotia's largest provincial park and is owned administered by Nova Scotia's Department of Natural Resources, it was created, until 2012, run by a local community development organization, the Cumberland Regional Economic Development Association; the park was operated by a small seasonal staff based in Advocate and Amherst, Nova Scotia. However, in the spring of 2012 the Department of Natural Resources took over management of the park and brought its fees in line with other provincial parks.
The park is open from mid-May to mid-November. Cape Chignecto Provincial Park and visitor guide, Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources, 2004. Halifax Chronicle Herald, Monday April 16, 2007, p. B7. Cape Chignecto Provincial Park website "Cape Chignecto: Cliffs and the Highest Tides on Earth" Article and Photographs by Scott Cunningham "A Crown Jewell"'Outdoor Nova Scotia' by Ron Robinson "A Photographic Journey Through Cape Chignecto Park" Text & photos by Stu Curtis
Australia
Australia the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area; the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea and East Timor to the north. The population of 25 million is urbanised and concentrated on the eastern seaboard. Australia's capital is Canberra, its largest city is Sydney; the country's other major metropolitan areas are Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians for about 60,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, it is documented. After the European exploration of the continent by Dutch explorers in 1606, who named it New Holland, Australia's eastern half was claimed by Great Britain in 1770 and settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales from 26 January 1788, a date which became Australia's national day; the population grew in subsequent decades, by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored and an additional five self-governing crown colonies established.
On 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated. Australia has since maintained a stable liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy, comprising six states and ten territories. Being the oldest and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils, Australia has a landmass of 7,617,930 square kilometres. A megadiverse country, its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east and mountain ranges in the south-east. A gold rush began in Australia in the early 1850s, its population density, 2.8 inhabitants per square kilometre, remains among the lowest in the world. Australia generates its income from various sources including mining-related exports, telecommunications and manufacturing. Indigenous Australian rock art is the oldest and richest in the world, dating as far back as 60,000 years and spread across hundreds of thousands of sites. Australia is a developed country, with the world's 14th-largest economy.
It has a high-income economy, with the world's tenth-highest per capita income. It is a regional power, has the world's 13th-highest military expenditure. Australia has the world's ninth-largest immigrant population, with immigrants accounting for 26% of the population. Having the third-highest human development index and the eighth-highest ranked democracy globally, the country ranks in quality of life, education, economic freedom, civil liberties and political rights, with all its major cities faring well in global comparative livability surveys. Australia is a member of the United Nations, G20, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, World Trade Organization, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Pacific Islands Forum and the ASEAN Plus Six mechanism; the name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis, a name used for a hypothetical continent in the Southern Hemisphere since ancient times. When Europeans first began visiting and mapping Australia in the 17th century, the name Terra Australis was applied to the new territories.
Until the early 19th century, Australia was best known as "New Holland", a name first applied by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1644 and subsequently anglicised. Terra Australis still saw occasional usage, such as in scientific texts; the name Australia was popularised by the explorer Matthew Flinders, who said it was "more agreeable to the ear, an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth". The first time that Australia appears to have been used was in April 1817, when Governor Lachlan Macquarie acknowledged the receipt of Flinders' charts of Australia from Lord Bathurst. In December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office. In 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known by that name; the first official published use of the new name came with the publication in 1830 of The Australia Directory by the Hydrographic Office. Colloquial names for Australia include "Oz" and "the Land Down Under". Other epithets include "the Great Southern Land", "the Lucky Country", "the Sunburnt Country", "the Wide Brown Land".
The latter two both derive from Dorothea Mackellar's 1908 poem "My Country". Human habitation of the Australian continent is estimated to have begun around 65,000 to 70,000 years ago, with the migration of people by land bridges and short sea-crossings from what is now Southeast Asia; these first inhabitants were the ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. Aboriginal Australian culture is one of the oldest continual civilisations on earth. At the time of first European contact, most Indigenous Australians were hunter-gatherers with complex economies and societies. Recent archaeological finds suggest. Indigenous Australians have an oral culture with spiritual values based on reverence for the land and a belief in the Dreamtime; the Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, obtained their livelihood from seasonal horticulture and the resources of their reefs and seas. The northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited s
Canada
Canada is a country in the northern part of North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering 9.98 million square kilometres, making it the world's second-largest country by total area. Canada's southern border with the United States is the world's longest bi-national land border, its capital is Ottawa, its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto and Vancouver. As a whole, Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its land area being dominated by forest and tundra, its population is urbanized, with over 80 percent of its inhabitants concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, many near the southern border. Canada's climate varies across its vast area, ranging from arctic weather in the north, to hot summers in the southern regions, with four distinct seasons. Various indigenous peoples have inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years prior to European colonization. Beginning in the 16th century and French expeditions explored, settled, along the Atlantic coast.
As a consequence of various armed conflicts, France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces; this began an accretion of provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy from the United Kingdom. This widening autonomy was highlighted by the Statute of Westminster of 1931 and culminated in the Canada Act of 1982, which severed the vestiges of legal dependence on the British parliament. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy in the Westminster tradition, with Elizabeth II as its queen and a prime minister who serves as the chair of the federal cabinet and head of government; the country is a realm within the Commonwealth of Nations, a member of the Francophonie and bilingual at the federal level. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, education.
It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries. Canada's long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture. A developed country, Canada has the sixteenth-highest nominal per capita income globally as well as the twelfth-highest ranking in the Human Development Index, its advanced economy is the tenth-largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources and well-developed international trade networks. Canada is part of several major international and intergovernmental institutions or groupings including the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the G7, the Group of Ten, the G20, the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. While a variety of theories have been postulated for the etymological origins of Canada, the name is now accepted as coming from the St. Lawrence Iroquoian word kanata, meaning "village" or "settlement".
In 1535, indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona. Cartier used the word Canada to refer not only to that particular village but to the entire area subject to Donnacona. From the 16th to the early 18th century "Canada" referred to the part of New France that lay along the Saint Lawrence River. In 1791, the area became two British colonies called Upper Canada and Lower Canada collectively named the Canadas. Upon Confederation in 1867, Canada was adopted as the legal name for the new country at the London Conference, the word Dominion was conferred as the country's title. By the 1950s, the term Dominion of Canada was no longer used by the United Kingdom, which considered Canada a "Realm of the Commonwealth"; the government of Louis St. Laurent ended the practice of using'Dominion' in the Statutes of Canada in 1951. In 1982, the passage of the Canada Act, bringing the Constitution of Canada under Canadian control, referred only to Canada, that year the name of the national holiday was changed from Dominion Day to Canada Day.
The term Dominion was used to distinguish the federal government from the provinces, though after the Second World War the term federal had replaced dominion. Indigenous peoples in present-day Canada include the First Nations, Métis, the last being a mixed-blood people who originated in the mid-17th century when First Nations and Inuit people married European settlers; the term "Aboriginal" as a collective noun is a specific term of art used in some legal documents, including the Constitution Act 1982. The first inhabitants of North America are hypothesized to have migrated from Siberia by way of the Bering land bridge and arrived at least 14,000 years ago; the Paleo-Indian archeological sites at Old Crow Flats and Bluefish Caves are two of the oldest sites of human habitation in Canada. The characteristics of Canadian indigenous societies included permanent settlements, complex societal hierarchies, trading networks; some of these cultures had collapsed by the time European explorers arrived in the late 15th and early 16th centuries and have only been discovered through archeological investigations.
The indigenous population at the time of the first European settlements is estimated to have been between 200,000
Shipwreck
A shipwreck is the remains of a ship that has wrecked, which are found either beached on land or sunken to the bottom of a body of water. Shipwrecking may be accidental. In January 1999, Angela Croome estimated that there have been about three million shipwrecks worldwide. Historic wrecks are attractive to maritime archaeologists because they preserve historical information: for example, studying the wreck of Mary Rose revealed information about seafaring and life in the 16th century. Military wrecks, caused by a skirmish at sea, are studied to find details about the historic event. Discoveries of treasure ships from the period of European colonisation, which sank in remote locations leaving few living witnesses, such as Batavia, do occur as well; some contemporary wrecks, such as the oil tankers Prestige or Erika, are of interest because of their potential harm to the environment. Other contemporary wrecks are scuttled in order to spur reef growth, such as Adolphus Busch and Ocean Freeze. Wrecks like Adolphus Busch and historic wrecks such as Thistlegorm are of interest to recreational divers that dive to shipwrecks because they are interesting to explore, provide large habitats for many types of marine life, have an interesting history.
Well known shipwrecks include the catastrophic Titanic, Lusitania, Empress of Ireland, Andrea Doria, or Costa Concordia. There are thousands of wrecks that were not lost at sea but have been abandoned or sunk; these abandoned, or derelict ships are smaller craft, such as fishing vessels. They may be removed by port authorities. Poor design, improperly stowed cargo and other human errors leading to collisions, bad weather and other causes can lead to accidental sinkings. Intentional reasons for sinking a ship include forming an artificial reef. A ship can be used as breakwater structure. Many factors determine the state of preservation of a wreck: the ship's construction materials the wreck becoming covered in sand or silt the salinity of the water the wreck is in the level of destruction involved in the ship's loss whether the components or cargo of the wreck were salvaged whether the wreck was demolished to clear a navigable channel the depth of water at the wreck site the strength of tidal currents or wave action at the wreck site the exposure to surface weather conditions at the wreck site the presence of marine animals that consume the ship's fabric temperature the acidity, other chemical characteristics of the water at the siteThe above - the stratification and the damages caused by marine creatures - is better described as "stratification and contamination" of shipwrecks.
The stratification not only creates another challenge for marine archaeology, but a challenge to determine its primary state, i.e. the state that it was in when it sank. Stratification includes several different types of sand and silt, as well as tumulus and encrustations; these "sediments" are linked to the type of currents and the type of water, which implies any chemical reactions that would affect potential cargo. Besides this geological phenomenon, wrecks face the damage of marine creatures that create a home out of them octopuses and crustaceans; these creatures affect the primary state because they move, or break, any parts of the shipwreck that are in their way, thereby affecting the original condition of amphorae, for example, or any other hollow places. In addition to the slight or severe destruction marine animals can create, there are "external" contaminants, such as the artifacts on and around the wreck at Pickles Reef and the over-lapping wrecks at the Molasses Reef Wreck, or contemporary pollution in bodies of water, that affect shipwrecks by changing the chemical structures, or further damaging what is left of a specific ship.
Despite these challenges, if the information retrieved does not appear to be sufficient, or a poor preservation is achieved, authors like J. A. Parker claim that it is the historical value of the shipwreck that counts as well as any slight piece of information or evidence, acquired. Exposed wooden components decay quickly; the only wooden parts of ships that remain after a century are those that were buried in silt or sand soon after the sinking. An example of this is Mary Rose. Steel and iron, depending on their thickness, may retain the ship's structure for decades; as corrosion takes place, sometimes helped by tides and weather, the structure collapses. Thick ferrous objects such as cannons, steam boilers or the pressure vessel of a submarine survive well underwater in spite of corrosion. Propellers, condensers and port holes were made from non-ferrous metals such as brass and phosphor bronze, which do not corrode easily. Shipwrecks in some freshwater lakes, such as the Great Lakes of North America, have remained intact with little degradation.
In some sea areas, most notably in Gulf of Bothnia and Gulf of Finland, salinity is low, centuries-old wrecks have been preserved in reasonable condition. However, bacteria found in fresh water cause the wood on ships to rot more than in seawater unless it is deprived of oxygen. Two shipwrecks, USS Hamilton and USS Scourge, have been at the bottom of Lake Ontario since they sunk during a violent storm on August 8, 1813, during the War of 1812, they are
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Canada
