1883 in Canada

Events from the year 1883 in Canada.

← 1882 1881 1880 1883 in Canada → 1884 1885 1886
Decades:	1860s 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s
See also:	History of Canada Timeline of Canadian history List of years in Canada

Incumbents

Crown

• Monarch – Victoria^[1]

Federal government

• Governor General – John Campbell, Marquess of Lorne (until October 23) then Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne
• Prime Minister – John A. Macdonald
• Chief Justice – William Johnstone Ritchie (New Brunswick)
• Parliament – 5th (from 8 February)

Provincial governments

Lieutenant governors

• Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia – Clement Francis Cornwall
• Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba – James Cox Aikins
• Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick – Robert Duncan Wilmot
• Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia – Adams George Archibald (until July 4) then Matthew Henry Richey
• Lieutenant Governor of Ontario – John Beverley Robinson
• Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island – Thomas Heath Haviland
• Lieutenant Governor of Quebec – Théodore Robitaille

Premiers

• Premier of British Columbia – Robert Beaven (until January 29) then William Smithe
• Premier of Manitoba – John Norquay
• Premier of New Brunswick – Daniel Lionel Hanington (until March 3) then Andrew George Blair
• Premier of Nova Scotia – William Thomas Pipes
• Premier of Ontario – Oliver Mowat
• Premier of Prince Edward Island – William Wilfred Sullivan
• Premier of Quebec – Joseph-Alfred Mousseau

Territorial governments

Lieutenant governors

• Lieutenant Governor of Keewatin – James Cox Aikins
• Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Territories – Edgar Dewdney

Events

• January 23 – Manitoba election
• January 29 – William Smithe becomes premier of British Columbia, replacing Robert Beaven
• February 27 – Ontario election: Sir Oliver Mowat's Liberals win a fourth consecutive majority
• August 31 – The Calgary Herald publishes its first issue
• November 18 – Canada adopts Standard Time
• December 1 – Regina officially declared a town.

Full date unknown

• Andrew Blair becomes premier of New Brunswick, replacing Daniel Hanington
• Augusta Stowe, daughter of Emily Stowe, is the first woman graduated by the Toronto Medical School.
• The Toronto Women's Suffrage Association replaces the Literary Club of 1876.
• Nickel-copper ore is discovered at Murray Mine in Sudbury during construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR).
• Medicine Hat is settled by European Canadians when the CPR crosses the South Saskatchewan River.

Births

January to June

• January 30 – Mountenay Du Val, conservationist
• February 28 – Fernand Rinfret, politician (d.1939)
• March 4 – Sam Langford, boxer (d.1956)
• March 5 – Marius Barbeau, ethnographer and folklorist (d.1969)
• March 25 – Talbot Papineau, lawyer and soldier (d.1917)
• April 18 – Isabel Meighen, wife of Arthur Meighen, 9th Prime Minister of Canada (d.1985)
• June 22 – John Bracken, politician and 11th Premier of Manitoba (d.1969)

July to December

• August 7 – Gordon Sidney Harrington, politician and Premier of Nova Scotia (d.1943)
• October 2 – Robert Boyle, physicist
• November 30 – James Garfield Gardiner, politician, Minister and Premier of Saskatchewan (d.1962)
• December 27 – Cyrus S. Eaton, investment banker, businessman and philanthropist (d.1979)

Deaths

• June 18 – François Norbert Blanchet, missionary (b.1795)
• June 26 – Sir Edward Sabine, soldier and scientist (b.1788)
• June 30 – Albert James Smith, politician and Minister (b.1822)
• August 14 – James Cockburn, politician (b.1819)
• August 16 – Richard Alleyn, lawyer, judge, educator and politician (b.1835)

Historical documents

Destitute Cree insist government live up to its treaty obligations^[2]

Haida story of The Man in the Moon repeated by ethnographer James G. Swan and illustrated by Johnny Kit Elswa^[3]

Routing CPR line away from more fertile prairie land will hinder settlement^[4]

Sandford Fleming's contributions to establishing standard time^[5]

Mounties return stolen horses, but deny U.S. Army claim that Cree will wage war in Montana^[6]

One cattle hand shoots another, then outraces Mounties to U.S. border ^[7]

References

1. "Queen Victoria | The Canadian Encyclopedia". www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
2. Excerpt of letter from Bobtail, Ermine Skin, Samson and others, in John Douglas Belshaw, Canadian History: Post-Confederation (2016), pgs. 52-3. Accessed 19 October 2019
3. "The man in the moon. Haida mythology. Pen-and-ink drawing[...]," Franz R. and Kathryn M. Stenzel Collection of Western American Art, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University. Accessed 11 August 2020
4. "A Consequence of the Diversion of the C.P.R." The (Toronto) Globe (March 3, 1883). Accessed 6 October 2019
5. Proceedings of the American Metrological [sic] Society; Vol. IV; May 1883, December, 1883 (1884), pgs. 6-8, 9-13, 27, 36, 101-7. Accessed 12 October 2019
6. United States Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States[...] (1883), pgs. 511-12 Accessed 6 October 2019
7. John Roderick Craig, Ranching with Lords and Commons[...] (1903), pgs. 97-101. Accessed 6 October 2019