The Story of Canada's Flag
The earliest distinctively Canadian symbol was the beaver. It appeared on the crest of the Coat of Arms granted by Charles I, in 1632, to Sir William Alexander of Nova Scotia. It also appeared on the Coat of Arms granted by Charles Il to the Hudson's Bay Company in 1670. Governor Frontenac of New France also favoured the beaver and suggested to the royal authorities in 1673 that it was a particularly appropriate animal to symbolize Canada, in view of the importance of the fur trade to the economy of the country. In 1690, following the victory over Phips, a medal was struck bearing the inscription, Francia in novo orbe victrix, on one side and a beaver on the other.
The early popularity of the beaver carried over from the French to the British colonial regime in Canada and lasted as long as the fur trade dominated the Canadian economy. After 1821, when the British Hudson's Bay Company absorbed the Canadian North West Company, and the shiproute to the west through Hudson Bay replaced the old canoe-route from Montreal through the Great Lakes, the beaver began to decline in significance as far as Canadians were concerned. It did not disappear at once. People praised its monogamy and its industry, and from time to time beavers appeared on Coats of Arms, commemorative medals, coins, postage stamps, pressed glass, and on crockery made in England for the Canadian trade. But the beaver never regained its early position of priority as a Canadian symbol. It might occasionally appear on unofficial versions of the Canadian red ensign after Confederation, but its day as a major Canadian symbol was pretty well over by 1867.
As the beaver declined another symbol took its place. The hard maple, with its broad leaf, its brilliant autumn colouring and its usefulness to early Canadian peoples, both Indian and white man, made it an acceptable substitute for the drab, little beaver.
In 1806, the French Canadian newspaper, Le Canadien, advanced the claims of the maple leaf as a Canadian symbol. This suggestion was taken up by the St. jean Baptiste Society in 1834. Speaking to the members of the Society in Montreal, Denis Viger said:
This tree-the maple-which grows in our valleys ... at first young and beaten by the storm, pinesaway, painfully feeding itself upon the earth. But it soon springs up, tall and strong, and faces the tempest and triumphs over the wind which cannot shake it any more. The maple is the king of our forest; it is the symbol of the Canadian people.
At first a French Canadian symbol, less than a generation later the maple leaf was adopted by English Canadians. Susannah Moodie wrote in its praise and in 1853 the maple leaf was borne on the banners of the Loyal Canadian Society at the dedication of the Brock monument at Queenston Heights. Several years later, in 1860, during the visit of the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, a public gathering in St. Lawrence Hall in Toronto urged the wearing of the maple leaf. The following motion, put forward by James H. Richardson, was adopted:
Resolved: that all Native Canadians joining in the procession, whether identified with the National Societies or not, should wear the maple leaf as the emblem of the land of their birth.
Thus, by 1860, the maple leaf was looked upon as a Canadian symbol both by French and English Canadians. Ladies wore the maple leaf badge at the great ball given in the Prince's honour, and the Prince's table bore a setting decorated with wreaths of maple leaves surmounted by a crown and the Prince of Wales' feathers. In 1868 the maple leaf was incorporated into the Arms of the provinces of Quebec and Ontario, and in the same year Alexander Muir wrote The Maple Leaf Forever. In 1890 William Chapman published his volume of poems, Les feuilles d'6rable. The emotion evoked by the new symbol is portrayed in the simple words of Bliss Carman:
The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry, of bugles going by.
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