1897 in Canada

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Events from the year 1897 in Canada.

Incumbents

Crown

• Head of state (monarch) – Queen Victoria (consort – Vacant)

Federal government

• Governor general – John Hamilton-Gordon (viceregal consort – Ishbel Hamilton-Gordon, Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair)
• Prime minister – Wilfrid Laurier

Provincial governments

Lieutenant governors

• Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia – Edgar Dewdney (until November 18) then Thomas Robert McInnes
• Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba – James Colebrooke Patterson
• Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick – Jabez Bunting Snowball
• Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia – Malachy Bowes Daly
• Lieutenant Governor of Ontario – Casimir Gzowski (acting) (until November 18) then Oliver Mowat
• Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island – George William Howlan
• Lieutenant Governor of Quebec – Joseph-Adolphe Chapleau

Premiers

• Premier of British Columbia – John Herbert Turner
• Premier of Manitoba – Thomas Greenway
• Premier of New Brunswick – James Mitchell (until October 29) then Henry Emmerson
• Premier of Nova Scotia – George Henry Murray
• Premier of Ontario – Arthur Sturgis Hardy
• Premier of Prince Edward Island – Frederick Peters (until October 1) then Alexander Warburton
• Premier of Quebec – Edmund James Flynn (until May 24) then Félix-Gabriel Marchand

Territorial governments

Commissioners

• Commissioner of Yukon - James Morrow Walsh (from August 17)

Lieutenant governors

• Lieutenant Governor of Keewatin – James Colebrooke Patterson
• Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Territories – Charles Herbert Mackintosh

Premiers

• Chairman of the Executive Committee of the North-West Territories then Premier of North-West Territories – Frederick Haultain (from October 7)

Events

• January 29 - The Victorian Order of Nurses is founded in Ottawa
• February 2 - Clara Brett Martin becomes the first woman to practise law in Ontario
• February 19 - World's first Women's Institute founded in Stoney Creek, Ontario
• May 24 - Félix-Gabriel Marchand becomes premier of Quebec, replacing Edmund Flynn
• May 24 - Lion of Belfort (Montreal) unveiled
• September 6 - The federal government gives the CPR a grant to allow it to reduce freight rates through Crowsnest Pass
• October - A.B. Warburton becomes Premier of Prince Edward Island
• October 7 - Responsible government is introduced in the North-West Territories: Frederick Haultain becomes the first premier
• October 29 - Henry Emmerson becomes premier of New Brunswick, replacing James Mitchell

Full date unknown

• Klondike Gold Rush rages in the Yukon
• Lord Grey proposes that Canada create a navy to protect its west coast; Prime Minister Laurier does not act on the recommendation
• 1897–1912 - 961,000 people enter Canada from the British Isles, 594,000 from Europe and 784,000 from the United States.
• The first Canadian movie, Ten Years in Manitoba

Births

Lester Bowles Pearson in 1944

• January 23 - William Stephenson, soldier, airman, businessperson, inventor and spymaster (d.1989)
• January 27 - Charles Stephen Booth, politician and barrister
• March 9 - Sidney Earle Smith, academic and 7th President of the University of Toronto (d.1959)
• April 23 - Lester B. Pearson, politician, 14th Prime Minister of Canada, diplomat and 1957 Nobel Peace Prize recipient (d.1972)
• September 23 - Walter Pidgeon, actor (d.1984)
• September 29 - Graham Towers, first Governor of the Bank of Canada (d.1975)
• November 30 - William Murdoch Buchanan, politician (d.1966)
• December 7 - Gordon Graydon, politician (d.1953)

Deaths

• January 2 - Thomas McGreevy, politician and contractor (b.1825)
• February 27 - James Austin, businessman (b.1813)
• July 4 - Amor De Cosmos, journalist, politician and 2nd Premier of British Columbia (b.1825)
• September 19 - Frederick Cope, 3rd Mayor of Vancouver (b.1860)
• October 21 - Philip Francis Little, 1st Premier of Newfoundland of the colonial (b.1824)
• December 14 - Robert Simpson, businessman and founder of Simpsons (b.1834)
• December 15 - James Mitchell, politician and 7th Premier of New Brunswick (b.1843)
• December 31 - David Oppenheimer, entrepreneur and 2nd Mayor of Vancouver (b.1832)

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