History of the Union Jack and Flags of the Empire

by Barlow Cumberland

Again, when Fenian hordes and restless soldiers, who had been disbanded from the armies of the American Civil War, were assembled and drilled under the protection of the United States, and launched in raids against Canadian homes, the Canadian volunteers mustered around their Union Jack, and along the Niagara frontier, in 1866, and at Eccles Hill, in the Province of Quebec, in 1870, again drove the southern invader back, and held their native soil inviolate beneath its three-crossed folds.

"Since when has a Southerner placed his heel On the men of the northern zone?

"Shall the mothers that bore us bow the head And blush for degenerate sons? Are the patriot fires gone out and dead? Ho! brothers, stand to the guns! Let the flag be nailed to the mast, Defying the coming blast! For Canada's sons are true as steel, Their metal is muscle and bone, The Southerner never shall place his heel On the men of the northern zone.

"Oh, we are the men of the northern zone, Where the maples their branches toss; And the Great Bear rides in his state alone, Afar from the Southern Cross. Our people shall aye be free, They never shall bend the knee, For this is the land of the true and leal, Where freedom is bred in the bone— The Southerner never shall place his heel On the men of the northern zone."[149]

Such was the British patriotism of which the flag was the Union signal, and now another parliamentary union is to be included in the career of the Union Jack in Canada.

Up to 1867 the Eastern British Provinces in North America had remained under separate local governments, such as had been established in the previous century; but in this year Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Upper and Lower Canada were all united in the one "Dominion" of Canada, then extending only as far as Lake Superior. This "Act of Confederation" was passed in London, at Westminster, by the Parliament of Great Britain, and thus again the Union Parliament of the Union Jack was parent to a new Union Parliament established in united Canada. Each Province continues to have its own "Provincial Assembly," in which legislation is conducted on matters pertaining to its own local or home rule, but all general powers are centred in the Dominion Parliament of Canada. Hitherto the spirit of the flag had been solely that of union with the Motherland; thereafter it had an added and local meaning, for it became also the symbol of Canadian union, the patriot flag of the new daughter nation which had thus been brought into existence in the outer British American realm. Inspired by this union, the older Provinces thus combined began to extend their borders, and soon Manitoba and the Hudson Bay Territories of the central prairies[150] were added, in 1869, and British Columbia joined in 1871, followed by Prince Edward Island in 1873, to make the enlarged Dominion of Canada, now stretching across the continent of America from sea to sea.

64. The North-West Canada Medal.

Difficulties, of course, were met in this consolidating of the territories, but the sign of Union was flying from the flagstaff, and the new-born patriotism surmounted them all. In March, 1885, when the spirit of discontent arose among the Metis of the North-West, and a rebellion broke out, the courage of the united Canadians was aroused with electric flash, and the volunteer battalions from the Maritime Atlantic shores, from French-speaking Quebec, from the great Ontario lakes, and from all parts of the Dominion, vied with one another in bearing the privations of forced marches across the frozen lakes, or over the pathless prairies, to reach the scene of action, and join in maintaining the supremacy of their native union. The rebellion was quickly suppressed; but the events at Fish Creek, Batoche and on the banks of the Saskatchewan left gaps in the loyal ranks.

"Not in the quiet churchyard, near those who loved them best, But by the wild Saskatchewan we laid them to their rest; A simple soldier's funeral in that lonely spot was theirs, Made consecrate and holy by a nation's tears and prayers. Their requiem, the music of the river's singing tide; Their funeral wreaths, the wild flowers that grew on every side; Their monument, undying praise from each Canadian heart That hears how, for their country's sake, they nobly bore their part."