Building a Nation
Although British North America occupied the northern part of the continent, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, it was fragmented into a handful of colonies and territories. In 1867, the Province of Canada (then comprising Ontario and Quebec) united with the colonies of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, thereby creating a new federated country. Manitoba joined Confederation in 1870, after the young nation acquired Rupert’s Land from the Hudson’s Bay Company. A year later, the federation expanded again with the addition of British Columbia on the Pacific Coast. The last province to enter the union before the end of the nineteenth century was Prince Edward Island in 1873.