Elegant Boreal Illumination

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Do you know February is Black History Month in Canada and it is celebrated with readings, lectures, film screenings, and museum exhibits many of which highlight:

The arrival of navigator/explorer and multilingual interpreter Mathieu Da Costa, the recorded first Black person in what is now Canada (1604);

Olivier LeJeune, the first recorded enslaved African to live in what was then New France, now Canada (1628);

King Louis XIV of France, who permitted colonists to enslave Pawnee Native Americans and Africans (1689);

The Black Loyalists, the formally enslaved Africans in America who enlisted into the United Empire Loyalists during the War of American Independence and founded settlements throughout Nova Scotia (1775-1783);

Chloe Cooley, the enslaved African woman who resisted transportation and sale into the United States, and inadvertently emboldened the Anti-Slavery Movement (1793);

The introduction of An Act to Prevent the Further Introduction of Slaves and to limit the Term of Contracts for Servitude, which freed enslaved people aged 25 and over and made it illegal to bring enslaved people into Upper Canada (1793);

The arrival of approximately 30,000 Black people via the Underground Railroad (1800 – 1865);

Viola Desmond, the businesswoman who refused to move from her seat in the “whites-only” section of Roseland Theatre (1946), and who later became the first Black person and the first Canadian woman to be featured on a regularly circulating Canadian banknote (2018);

Willie O'Ree, the first Black player in the National Hockey League (NHL) (1958);

Lincoln Alexander, the first Black Member of Parliament in the House of Commons (1968), and later the first Black person to hold a vice-regal position by serving as the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario (1985 – 1991);

Michaëlle Jean, the social activist, journalist, and documentary filmmaker who served as the first Black Governor General of Canada (2005 – 2010); and/or

Donald Oliver, the first Black man appointed to the Senate (2008) and the person responsible for introducing the Motion to Recognize Contributions of Black Canadians and February as Black History Month (Canada).