You Named it After What Now? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Toronto, Ontario

The area now occupied by the city of Toronto was originally home to the Huron people, who were displaced around 1500 by the Iroquois. The area may have been named for the Iroquoian word "tkaronto", meaning "place where trees stand in water", and referring to the northern end of Lake Simcoe, which lies as part of the route between Lake Ontario and Lake Huron.

However, Lake Simcoe was referred to as "Lac Taronto" on French maps on the seventeenth century, which comes from the Huron word "toronto", meaning plenty.

In 1750, the French established a presence in the area, calling the settlement Fort Rouillé. This was abandoned in 1759 when it was taken by the British during the Seven Years War, with the settlement incorporated into the colony of Quebec.

In 1793, the British purchased 1000 square kilometers of land in a transaction called the "Toronto Purchase", with the town of York established in 1793. In 1834, York was incorporated as a city, reverting to its original native name of Toronto. Toronto rapidly grew to become one of the major cities in British North America, twice serving as the capital of the Province of Canada before the establishment of Ottawa as the national capital upon the foundation of Canada in 1867, at which point Toronto became the capital city of the Province of Ontario.

Answer: Québec City, Quebec

Québec City is one of the oldest European settlements in North America, having first been settled in 1541 by the explorer Jacques Cartier who, with 400 others, founded the settlement of Fort Charlesbourg-Royal, although this was abandoned after just a year.

In 1608, a new settlement was founded by Samuel de Champlain on the site of an old Iroquois settlement. de Champlain chose this new settlement to be the administrative seat of the colony of New France, and called it Québec, from the Algonquin word "kébec", meaning "where the river narrows", as the St Lawrence River narrows in the area into a cliff-lined gap. Québec remained the seat of the French colony until it was captured by the British in 1759, after which New France was ceded to Britain.

Although it was eventually surpassed in terms of population, it remained the capital of New France, and then the colony of Lower Canada, before becoming one of a number of cities that served as the capital of the province of Canada until 1867. The city itself was incorporated in 1832, and became the capital of the Province of Quebec upon the foundation of Canada in 1867.

Answer: Halifax, Nova Scotia

The area now occupied by Halifax is within the traditional lands of the Miꞌkmaq people, who call the area K'jipuktuk. The first European settlement in the area was founded in 1749 on what was called the Halifax Peninsula. The town was similarly named Halifax after George Montagu-Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax, who served as First Lord of Trade, a minister in the British government, between 1748 and 1761.

It was in this position that Lord Halifax aided in the establishment of the town that was named for him, and which, the same year, saw the capital of Nova Scotia moved from Annapolis Royal to the newly established town. Halifax was incorporated as a city in 1842, while in 1996 the city was amalgamated with the cities of Bedford and Dartmouth, as well as Halifax County, to form the new Halifax Regional Municipality.

Answer: Fredericton, New Brunswick

There is archaeological evidence that the Maliseet people lived in the area around what is now Fredericton some 12,000 years ago. The first European settlement came in the late 1600s, when Fort Nashwaak was established on the north bank of the Saint John River.

In 1713, the settlement was renamed Pointe Ste-Anne by refugees escaping the British takeover of Nova Scotia. The settlement was eventually destroyed in 1758. Twenty-five years later, a new settlement was established in the area following the partition of New Brunswick from Nova Scotia, and was named "Fredericston" after Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, the second son of King George III and younger brother of the future King George IV.

The new town was subsequently made capital of the new colony, and was incorporated as a city in 1848.

Answer: Winnipeg, Manitoba

The area around what is now Winnipeg is believed to have been occupied for around 11,500 years, sitting as it does at the confluence of two rivers, which served as a crossroads of canoe routes for various First Nations peoples. The first European settlement was established as a fur trading post in 1738 by Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, who called it Fort Rouge. Following the Seven Years War, the British took over the area, with the Hudson's Bay Company assuming control of activities.

The Hudson's Bay Company established Fort Douglas in 1812, while the rival North West Company built their own settlement, Fort Gibraltar (later renamed Fort Garry), in 1809, which led to conflict between the two until they merged in 1821, with the two forts, together with the Red River Colony established in 1811, assuming a closer relationship with each other that saw them, together with other small settlements that were established in the area, begin to coalesce into a single community.

In 1866, the local newspaper, the "Nor'Wester", began including the name "Winnipeg", after nearby Lake Winnipeg, on its masthead.

This name, from the Cree word for "muddy water", had originally been adopted by the French, with it used by the local population of the Red River Colony to differentiate themselves from the Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Garry. The settlement was named as the capital of the new province of Manitoba upon its entry into Canada's federation in 1870, and was incorporated as the City of Winnipeg in 1873.

Answer: Victoria, British Columbia

The area of southern Vancouver Island occupied by what is now Victoria was originally inhabited by various communities of the Coast Salish peoples, including the Songhee. Exploration of the region by Europeans began in the 1770s, with the Spanish navigator Juan Pérez arriving in 1774, and the British James Cook in 1778.

However, the first permanent settlement did not arrive until 1843, when James Douglas set up a trading post on the southern tip of Vancouver Island. The site, operated by the Hudson's Bay Company, was initially known as Fort Albert, before being renamed as Fort Victoria after the Queen.

The colony of Vancouver Island was established in 1849, with Fort Victoria as its capital; this saw the settlement begin to be expanded as a result of agreements with the local Songhee, leading to the development of a larger town.

The discovery of gold on the mainland of British Columbia in 1858 saw Fort Victoria become the primary port and supply hub for those arriving to exploit the discoveries, and Victoria was incorporated as a city in 1862, while in 1866, upon the union of Vancouver Island with the mainland, the city became the new colony's capital, remaining as such when, in 1871, it was admitted to Canada's Confederation as the sixth province.

Answer: Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island

What is now Charlottetown was first settled by Europeans in 1720, when men from Fortress Louisburg in Nova Scotia founded a settlement called Port La Joye on the island that was then called Île Saint-Jean. In 1758, the British took control of Île Saint-Jean, removing the French, and building a new settlement called Fort Amherst on the site of Port La Joye.

In 1764, the area was chosen as the site of a new town by Captain Samuel Holland, which he named Charlottetown after Queen Charlotte, the wife of King George III.

A year later, Charlottetown was named as the colonial capital of the new colony of St John's Island, as Île Saint-Jean had been renamed (and which was renamed again as Prince Edward Island in 1798). In September 1864, Charlottetown played host to the Charlottetown Conference, which saw representatives of the various British colonies in North America meet to discuss a potential union into a single nation or dominion, the result of which was the Canadian Confederation of 1867. Prince Edward Island joined the confederation in 1873 as Canada's seventh province, with Charlottetown, which had been incorporated as a city in 1855, retaining its status as the new province's capital.

Answer: Regina, Saskatchewan

The city of Regina was originally founded in 1882 as a result of the Canadian Pacific Railway's construction of its route across the country. Ten years previously, the Dominion Lands Act had been passed by the Canadian government to encourage settlers to the prairie regions of the country, with 160 acre parcels of land available for purchase for the cost of $10.

The city established in 1882 was initially named as 'Pile-of-Bones', a translation of the Cree name "oskana kâ-asastêki", which referred to the piles of buffalo bones on the banks of the nearby Wascana Creek.

The same year however, Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, the wife of the Duke of Argyll, who at the time was serving as the Governor General of Canada, requested that the new town be renamed as Regina, after her mother, Queen Victoria ('regina' being the Latin word for queen).

The following year, thanks to its location on the route of the Canadian Pacific, Regina was named as the capital of the North-West Territories. Regina was incorporated as a city in 1903, while, in 1905, an area of the North-West Territories was formed into the new Canadian province of Saskatchewan, with Regina named as its capital.

Answer: Edmonton, Alberta

In 1754, Anthony Henday became the first European to explore the area of what is now the city of Edmonton, when, working for the Hudson's Bay Company, he sought out contacts among the local indigenous populations to open up fur trading opportunities. By 1795, the company had established a trading post on the north bank of the North Saskatchewan River, which it named Fort Edmonton.

The post was named by William Tomison, the company's local officer, after Edmonton, a district in Middlesex near London.

The name was chosen in honour of the Lake family, five of whom had served the Hudson's Bay Company in senior positions since 1696, and who had originated in Edmonton. Fort Edmonton was later moved upstream, with it being established as a permanent settlement by 1813.

In 1885, the Canadian Pacific Railway came to the area, allowing the growth of the settlement significantly, as did the building of the Calgary & Edmonton Railway and the establishment of a settlement on the other bank of the river. Edmonton was incorporated as a city in 1904 and, a year later, when the Province of Alberta was admitted to Canada, Edmonton was named as its capital.

Answer: St John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

St John's is the oldest European settlement in North America, with the Venetian explorer Sebastian Cabot writing in 1545 that he and his father, John Cabot, had first entered the harbour on 24 June 1494, the feast day of St John the Baptist, after whom Cabot named the location.

The earliest documentation of the area is on a map of 1519 by the Portuguese explorer Pedro Reinel, while the Englishman John Rut, who arrived in 1527, reported ships from France and Portugal in the harbour. The area was claimed by Humphrey Gilbert as England's first overseas colony in 1583, with a permanent population in place by the 1620s, and the town of St John's established in 1630.

The town was increasingly fortified throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as attacks by first the Dutch and then the French came about as a result of England's wars.

In 1832, St John's became the capital of the Newfoundland Colony, before being incorporated as a city in 1888. In 1907, Newfoundland achieved independent status as a self-governing dominion, the same status as its larger neighbour, Canada, with St John's becoming the new nation's capital.

In 1949, when Newfoundland's population voted in favour of becoming a Canadian province, St John's was retained as the new province's capital.