# 1883 in Canada

Events from the year 1883 in Canada.

## Incumbents
### Crown

* Monarch – Victoria

### 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 24 – William Henry Fenton, Ontario politician (d. 1972)
* 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
Haida story of The Man in the Moon repeated by ethnographer James G. Swan and illustrated by Johnny Kit Elswa
Routing CPR line away from more fertile prairie land will hinder settlement
Sandford Fleming's contributions to establishing standard time
Mounties return stolen horses, but deny U.S. Army claim that Cree will wage war in Montana
One cattle hand shoots another, then outraces Mounties to U.S. border