The Alberta Heritage Fund

Abstract

If you look at it on a globe, Canada is a big country, one of the biggest in the world. Most of it is, however, hardly inhabitable; the bulk of the Canadian population lives within a couple of hundred miles or so from the border with the United States. In a sense, therefore, Canada is a thin stripe of land along a border stretching thousands of miles across the American continent. Extraordinary historical circumstances are probably needed to shape a country like that, and if it had not been for the might of the British Empire in its heyday today’s Canada would probably not have existed. It seems highly appropriate, therefore, that Queen Victoria’s birthday is still celebrated in Canada.