Resources

Heritage

Living abroad makes Canadian history harder to come by, and it makes it matter more. This is where we keep the sources worth your time.

Some of our members are raising children who have never lived in Canada and will never catch a Heritage Minute between periods. This page is partly for them.

CIPA is an independent association and not an official commemorative body. For official records and ceremonies, start with Veterans Affairs Canada.

Start here

The historical record

The institutions that keep it. Free, well sourced, and safe to hand a curious ten year old.

Short film

Heritage Minutes

Historica Canada

More than one hundred one-minute films. The ones you already have memorised, plus forty you have never seen.

Reference

The Canadian Encyclopedia

Historica Canada

The national reference work. Edited, cited, and the fastest way to check something before you repeat it.

Museum

Canadian War Museum

Ottawa

Collections, teaching material, and research guides, most of it online and open.

Archive

Library and Archives Canada

Government of Canada

Service files, census records, photographs. Where a family history search actually starts.

Keep up

Follow along

Independent Canadians telling these stories well, on the platforms you already open. Reviewed quarterly.

Documentary

Canadiana

Adam Bunch

Award-winning mini-documentaries on the strange and overlooked corners of Canadian history. Used in classrooms across the country.

Podcast

Canadian History Ehx

Craig Baird

Seven hundred episodes and counting, weekly since 2018, covering everything up to about twenty-five years ago.

Short video

Professor Poutine

Trevor

Fast, funny, surprisingly rigorous history reels. The gateway for anyone who thinks Canadian history is dull.

Remembrance

They were the first Canadians abroad

Canada was not attacked. It was three thousand miles away, a young country of fewer than eight million people, under no obligation to send anyone. It sent more than six hundred and fifty thousand, most of them volunteers, and tens of thousands of them never came home.

First World War
650,000+
Canadians and Newfoundlanders served
1914 to 1918
66,000+
gave their lives, from a country of fewer than 8 million
Second World War
1,000,000+
served in uniform, at home and around the world
1939 to 1945
45,000+
gave their lives; another 55,000 were wounded

They lie in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, and Hong Kong. Many of our members live within a few hours of them. If you are one of them, go.

Canada Remembers Guide

Kimberley Walker

Free, downloadable, self-guided itineraries to Canadian war cemeteries and memorials in northern France, Belgium, Italy, and the Netherlands.

Figures from Veterans Affairs Canada. They include Newfoundlanders, who did not become Canadian citizens until 1949.

How this list is kept

Sources are included when they are grounded in primary research, focused on history rather than current politics, freely accessible, and appropriate for all ages. CIPA's Canadian Heritage Committee reviews the list every quarter. Know one we are missing? Write to contact@canipa.org.