# 1899 in Canada

Events from the year 1899 in Canada.

## Incumbents
### Crown

* Monarch – Victoria

### Federal government

* Governor General – The 4th Earl of Minto
* Prime Minister – Wilfrid Laurier
* Chief Justice – Samuel Henry Strong (Ontario)
* Parliament – 8th

### Provincial governments
#### Lieutenant governors

* Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia – 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 – Oliver Mowat
* Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island – George W. Howlan (until May 23) then Peter Adolphus McIntyre
* Lieutenant Governor of Quebec – Louis-Amable Jetté

#### Premiers

* Premier of British Columbia – Charles Augustus Semlin
* Premier of Manitoba – Thomas Greenway
* Premier of New Brunswick – Henry Emmerson
* Premier of Nova Scotia – George Henry Murray
* Premier of Ontario – Arthur Sturgis Hardy (until October 21) then George William Ross
* Premier of Prince Edward Island – Donald Farquharson
* Premier of Quebec – Félix-Gabriel Marchand

### Territorial governments
#### Commissioners

* Commissioner of Yukon – William Ogilvie

#### Lieutenant governors

* Lieutenant Governor of Keewatin – James Colebrooke Patterson
* Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Territories – Amédée E. Forget

#### Premiers

* Premier of North-West Territories – Frederick Haultain

## Events

* January 20 – About 2000 Doukhobors arrive in Halifax, Nova Scotia, 7400 by year end.
* May 5 – The village of Stirling, Alberta, NWT, is founded as a Mormon colony of 30 American settlers from Richfield, Utah, led by Theodore Brandley.
* May 25 – A fire in Saint John, New Brunswick, destroys 150 buildings and renders over 1,000 people homeless.
* June 21 – Treaty No. 8 cedes 840,000 km$^2$ to the Crown, located in British Columbia and the North-West Territories' districts of Alberta, Athabasca and Mackenzie.
* July 5 – In Brandon, Manitoba, housemaid Hilda Blake shoots her mistress twice; the first shot misses, but the second bullet pierces the mistress's right lung. Blake was later hanged for murder.
* September 18 – The new City Hall building opens in Toronto.
* September 19 – A rock slide in Quebec City kills 45.
* October 4 – First Canadian troops sent to an overseas war (Boer War).
* October 18 – Henri Bourassa resigns from cabinet to protest Canada's intervention in the Boer War.
* October 21 – George William Ross becomes premier of Ontario, replacing Arthur S. Hardy.
* October 30 – Second Boer War: The first Canadian troops arrive in the Cape Colony.

## Births
### January to June

* January 5 – Hugh John Flemming, politician and 24th Premier of New Brunswick (d.1982)
* January 6 – Sonia Eckhardt-Gramatté, composer
* February 27 – Charles Best, medical scientist, co-discoverer of insulin (d.1978)
* March 14 – K. C. Irving, entrepreneur and industrialist (d.1992)
* May 26 – Antonio Barrette, politician and 18th Premier of Quebec (d.1968)
* May 27 – Dov Yosef, Canadian-born Israeli politician and statesman (d.1980)

### July to December

* July 24 – Dan George, actor and author (d.1981)
* August 1 – F. R. Scott, poet, intellectual and constitutional expert (d.1985)
* October 2 – Juda Hirsch Quastel, biochemist (d.1987)
* October 3 – Adrien Arcand, journalist and fascist (d.1967)
* November 5 – Gilbert Layton, businessman and politician (d.1961)
* November 10 – Billy Boucher, ice hockey player (d.1958)
* November 17 – Douglas Shearer, sound designer and recording director (d.1971)
* November 30 – Edna Diefenbaker, first wife of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker (d.1951)
* December 24 – William Van Steenburgh, scientist

## Deaths

* February 10 – Archibald Lampman, poet (b.1861)
* April 29 – George Frederick Baird, politician and lawyer (b.1851)
* July 31 – James David Edgar, politician (b.1841)
* August 29 – Catharine Parr Traill, writer (b.1802)
* October 25
** Grant Allen, science writer, author and novelist (b.1848)
** Peter Mitchell, politician, Minister and a Father of Confederation (b.1824)
* November 19 – John William Dawson, geologist and university administrator (b.1820)
* December 13
** George Airey Kirkpatrick, politician (b.1841)
** Lucius Richard O'Brien, painter (b.1832)

## Historical documents

Missionary persuades Cree leader Yellow Bear to burn his "heathen idols" at Shoal Lake in Saskatchewan (Note: "bad spirit" and other stereotypes)
Southern Tutchone man describes transfer of reindeer to Yukon from Alaska
Official describes Indigenous and Metis people at Treaty 8 signing (Note: "wild men" and other stereotypes)
Old woman in Fort Erie, Ontario tells of escaping slavery in Virginia with her parents and six siblings
Mackenzie King realizes his parliamentary vocation at Westminster in London
Oozing tar and leaking gas on Athabasca River near Fort McMurray
Article on gold strike in northern Ontario
Nurse treats feisty patients under horrible conditions in Dawson City's hospital
Murals provided to new Toronto City Hall to encourage development of wall decoration
Edison film of Whitehorse Rapids, Yukon River