Québec

Québec is a province in east-central Canada; the capital of the province is Québec City.  Quebec is Canada's largest province by area and its second-largest administrative division; only the territory of Nunavut is larger. 

At the time of first European contact and later colonization, Algonquian, Iroquois and Inuit tribes were the peoples who inhabited what is now Québec.  The first French explorer to reach Québec was Jacques Cartier, who in 1534 planted a cross in the Gaspé Peninsula and claimed the land in the name of King Francis I.  It was the first province of New France.

Quebec is Canada's second most populous province, after Ontario.  Most inhabitants live in urban areas near the Saint Lawrence River between Montreal and Quebec City, the capital.  English-speaking communities and English-language institutions are concentrated in the west of the island of Montreal but are also significantly present in the Outaouais, Eastern Townships, and Gaspé regions.  The Nord-du-Québec region, occupying the northern half of the province, is sparsely populated and inhabited primarily by Aboriginal peoples.

Québec is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level.  The politics of language has always played against issues of Quebec nationalism and Quebec separatism.  English-speaking Quebecers maintain a strong Canadian identity, with about 90% opposing Quebec sovereignty in 1980 and 1995 referendums.

Sovereignty plays a large role in the politics of Quebec, and the official opposition social democratic Parti Québécois advocates national sovereignty for the province and secession from Canada.  Sovereignist governments have held referendums on independence in 1980 and 1995; both were voted down by voters, the latter defeated by a very narrow margin.  In 2006, the Canadian House of Commons passed a symbolic motion, the Québécois nation motion, recognizing the "Québécois as a nation within a united Canada."

While the province's substantial natural resources have long been the mainstay of its economy, sectors of the knowledge economy such as aerospace, information and communication technologies, biotechnology and the pharmaceutical industry also play leading roles.  These many industries have all contributed to helping Quebec become the second most economically influential province, second only to Ontario.

Montréal

Montréal is the largest city in the province of Québec and the second-largest city in Canada, with an estimated metropolitan area population of 3.9 million, and a population of 1.6 million in the city of Montréal city itself.  French is the city's official language and is also the language spoken at home by 59.9% of the population, followed by English at 19.4%; more than half of the population reports being able to speak both English and French.  Montréal is the second largest primarily French-speaking city in the world, after Paris.

Colonial Period:

In 1642, a French mission named Ville Marie was built.  Ville Marie would later become Montréal (now Old Montréal).  Ville Marie became a centre for the fur trade and French expansion into New France until 1760, when it was surrendered to the British army, following the French defeat of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham.  British immigration expanded the city.  The city's golden era of fur trading began with the advent of the locally owned North West Company.

Montréal was incorporated as a city in 1832.  The city's growth was spurred by the opening of the Lachine Canal which linked the established port of Montreal with continental markets and spawned rapid industrialization during the mid 19th century.  

Montréal was the capital of the United Province of Canada from 1844 to 1849, bringing even more English-speaking immigrants:  Late Loyalists, Irish, Scottish, and English.  However, riots led by Tories led to the burning of the Provincial Parliament, forcing the government to move the capital to Toronto.  The growing city also attracted immigrants from Itally and Eastern Europe.  The economic boom attracted French Canadian laborers from the surrounding countryside to factories in satellite cities, making English and French groups roughly equal in size.  In 1852, Montréal had 58,000 inhabitants and by 1860, Montréal was the largest city in British North America and the undisputed economic and cultural centre of Canada.

Modern Times:

From 1861 to the Great Depression of 1930, Montréal went through what some historians call its Golden Age.  During the 1920s and 1930s the Prohibition movement in the United States turned Montréal into a haven for Americans looking for alcohol.  Americans would go to Montréal for drinking, gambling, and prostitution, unrivalled in North America at this time, which earned the city the nickname "Sin City."  As with the rest of the world, the Great Depression brought unemployment to the city, but this waned in the mid 1930s and skyscrapers began to be built.

Today, Montréal is consistently rated as one of the world's most livable cities, and was called "Canada's Cultural Capital" by Monocle Magazine.  In 2006, Montréal was named a UNESCO City of Design; only one of three design capitals of the world (with the others being Berlin and Buenos Aires).  It is an important centre of commerce, aerospace, finance, pharmaceuticals, technology, design, culture, tourism, film and world affairs.

People of European ethnicities form the largest cluster of ethnic groups in Montréal.  The largest reported European ethnicities in Montréal are:  French (23%), Italians (10%), Irish (5%), English (4%), Scottish (3%), and Spanish (2%).  Some 26% of the population of Montréal, are members of a visible minority (non-white) group.  The most numerous minorities are Blacks (7.2%), Latin Americans (2.1%), South Asians (2%), and Chinese (2%).

Nunavik

Nunavik is a vast territory, larger than the state of California, located in the northernmost part of Québec.  It lies in both the Arctic and subarctic climate zones.  Almost all of the 11,627 inhabitants of the region, of whom 90% are Inuit, live in fourteen northern villages on the coast of Nunavik.  There are no road links between Nunavik and southern Québec.  There is a year-round air link to all villages and seasonal shipping in the summer and autumn.

The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada (Northwest Territories, Nunatsiavut, Nunavik, Nunavut, Nunatukavut), Denmark (Greenland), Russia (Siberia) and the United States (Alaska).  Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language.  An Inuk is an Inuit person.  In Canada, since the Inuit consider the name "Eskimo" pejorative, it has fallen out of favor.  In Canada, the Constitution Act of 1982 recognized the Inuit as a distinctive group of Canadian aboriginals, who are neither First Nations nor Métis.  The Inuit language is grouped under Eskimo-Aleut languages.

The Inuit have traditionally been hunters and fishers.  They still hunt whales (esp. bowhead whale), walrus, caribou, seal, polar bears, muskoxen, birds, and at times other less commonly eaten animals such as the Arctic Fox.  The typical Inuit diet is high in protein and very high in fat—75% of their daily energy intake comes from fat.  While it is not possible to cultivate plants for food in the Arctic, the Inuit have traditionally gathered those that are naturally available.  Grasses, tubers, roots, stems, berries, and seaweed are collected and preserved depending on the season and the location.

In the 1960s, the Canadian government funded the establishment of secular, government-operated high schools in the Northwest Territories and Inuit areas in Québec and Labrador along with the residential school system.  These schools, in Aklavik, Iqaluit, Yellowknife, Inuvik and Kuujjuaq, brought together young Inuit from across the Arctic in one place for the first time, and exposed them to the rhetoric of civil and human rights that prevailed in Canada in the 1960s.  This was a real wake-up call for the Inuit, and it stimulated the emergence of a new generation of young Inuit activists in the late 1960s who came forward and pushed for respect for the Inuit and their territories.

Inuit communities in Canada continue to suffer under crushing unemployment, overcrowded housing, substance abuse, crime, violence and suicide.  However, many Inuit are upbeat about the future.  Arguably, their situation is better than it has been since the 14th century.

Inuit culture is alive and vibrant today in spite of the negative impacts of recent history.  Inuit arts, carving, print making, textiles and throat singing, are very popular, not only in Canada but globally, and Inuit artists are widely known.  Indeed, Canada has, metaphorically, adopted some of the Inuit culture as a sort of national symbol, using Inuit cultural icons like the inukshuk in unlikely places, such as its use as a symbol at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.  Respected art galleries display Inuit art, the largest collection of which is at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.

Some Inuit languages such as Inuktitut, appears to have a more secure future in Québec and Nunavut.  There are a surprising number of Inuit, even those who now live in urban centres such as Ottawa, Montréal and Winnipeg, who have experienced living on the land in the traditional life style.