Staple Trades

One day, a french man named Jacques Cartier was exploring a new continent and claiming some of its land on behalf of the french king. He was looking for some gold and diamonds, but he couldn't find any. However, he did find many beavers, and he really liked their fur, so he went and told his king all about them.

Once upon a time, an italian navigator named John Cabot was going about his sailing business on orders from the King of England. When all of a sudden, he found some new land.

In the early 1800s, after the American Revolution, England was starting to run low on timber. This was because America, now being its own country, no longer provided wood to England, and England didn't have much wood of it's own. Because of this, England asked its other North American Colonies (Canada) to supply it with wood, and they did so. The high demand of wood placed on Canada caused them to start producing timber at a very high rate, tearing down various forests to do so

When John's friends and their followers got to this new land, they started fishing right away. Some of John's friends got off their boats and unto the land to package most off the fish they caught, and so did their followers. They were packaging the fish so they could send it back home to the rest of their friends. Many of John's friends ended up living in the houses they made to package their fish. Until, they eventually started to create a town of sorts. They continued fishing and expanding their fishing area all across the land known today as the Atlantic coast of Canada. The first place John ran into is known as Newfoundland

As John got closer to the land, he realized something. This land was surrounded by lots and lots of cod fish! John knew that all his friends in England loved fish, so he told them all about this wonderful land. When John told them about this wonderous land of fish, they were very excited and wanted to fish there as soon as possible. So they got on their own boats and drove all the way to this new found land. Some other people overheard about this wonderous land of fish, so they joined John's friends on their trip.

Most of this wheat farming took place in central canada because of its healthy land. As the wheat industry grew, the population in these areas also grew, and new settlements were created to farm wheat. These settlments grew and evolved through the construction of infrastructure like roads. This population and economic increase started the development that made Central Canada our nation's economic heartland today.

The king's people liked the beaver fur's because it could be used to make great clothing, especially hats. Beaver fur was in high demand, and france delievered, making them lots of money. England also wanted to join in on the fur trade, so they made their own fur trading post in a part of the continent called Hudson Bay. Hudson Bay was very succesful. So succesful that they over took France's fur trading and are still in business today. Unfortunately though, England and France brought diseases with them to the new continent whenever they went fur trading. These diseases didn't do much damage to the English and French themselves, but it really hurt the indegenous people.

At first the king wasn't too intrested in the beavers fur, but after learning about the indegenous people in the continent (North America) who made good use of the fur, the king realized how valuable the beavers where. The king and his people couldn't catch beavers on their own, so they partnered with the indegenous people and started to set up fur trading posts. The indegenous people helped them catch beavers, and in turn France gave them all sorts of goods.

The Fur Trade

As Canada grew and evolved, we started to gain more materials that created various staple industries in our economy. Our main staple industries nowadays include: Energy products (Oil, Natural gas), and cars / car parts. This is mostly due to technological advancments and demand changing all over the world. The fur trade that was extremely prominent in the early stages of Canada is no longer any where near as prominent due to lack of demand. However, fishery in Atlantic Canada, wheat trade, and wood production are all still fairly relevant trade industries in our Canada today

<a href="https://www.ibisworld.com/canada/industry-trends/biggest-exporting-industries/">https://www.ibisworld.com/canada/industry-trends/biggest-exporting-industries/</a>

In Atlantic Canada, during this period of timber production, the ship building industry also began to grow. They used some of the timber they produced to start building wooden ships. Their industry grew so big that they became respected all over the world. However, when technology started to advance, iron and steel ships became more popular, and the popularity of wooden ships started to die down.

Once again, In the early 1800s after the American Revolution, Britain was in need of a reliable source of wheat, so Britain turned to its North American Colonies (Canada) to act as this source, and they provided. Britain then created a status known as the Preferential Trade Status. They placed this status on wheat, timber and much more. This status practically made a resource have taxes when imported from foreign countries, except Canada. This caused Canada to gain a lot of money and focus on production of resources with this status.

Atlantic Canada's Cod fishery ............................................................................ 3 The Fur Trade ....................................................................................................... 7 The Timber Industry ............................................................................................ 11 Central Canada's Wheat Trade ........................................................................... 14 Staple Industries of Today .................................................................................. 17