Like the territories of the United States, the Dominion of Canada of today represents a part of the Nordic conquest of North America, the sole exception being the French population of Quebec Province.
The country to the west of the Ottawa River constitutes the third major division and was, after the Revolution, known as Upper Canada. Its original population was composed chiefly of American Loyalists who fled there in numbers after the Revolution. The immigration into Upper Canada from Britain was later very largely Scotch, Scotch Irish, and North of England. This is true more or less of all English-speaking Canada, except possibly British Columbia.
In a measure the Dominion is an offshoot of the United States, and its development proceeded along lines parallel to those of the States to the south of the boundary. The character of the population west of Quebec Province is much the same as that of the United States, lacking, fortunately for Canada, some of our immigrant elements. The country was settled without the terrible Indian wars that afflicted our frontier and without the lawless element so conspicuous in the history of our Far West.
The French settlement of Quebec was contemporaneous with the first English settlement in North America at Jamestown. A majority of the emigrants were from northern France. So far as one can judge at the present time by the descendants of this population, the pure Nordic stock must have been rare among them. They are today in general a stocky, short-necked people, rather of the Alpine build, with eyes often rather dark. The blond hair and tall stature of the Nordic are so rare as to attract attention at once. The type suggests the Pre-Norman population of northwestern France, rather than its Nordic conquerors. Some of the seigneurs, the explorers, and the adventurers of the early period apparently were of Nordic stock, but they were probably always in a great minority and have left few descendants.
Very little satisfactory research has been done as to the origin of the Habitants. A recent study of a typical group has given some indication of the general conditions in Quebec. In this group stature was found to be five feet and five inches, which is about the general average of the French. The cephalic index was over 83.0, which is about the mean for Brittany and is higher than that of Normandy. The hair was rather dark brown and straight, this straightness is slightly suggestive of Indian admixture. The eye color was more often brown than mixed blue and brown. Pure blue eyes were present only in 15 per cent. The tall burly build of the Norman peasant was very rare.
The language spoken in Quebec is an archaic Norman patois of the time of Louis XIV. This fact has given rise to the general belief that the Habitants came from Normandy, but the more probable reason is that the Normans were the earliest immigrants and established their patois, which was accepted by later arrivals. The Normans appeared to have been far short of a majority of the total number of immigrants and Brittany supplied still fewer. The balance was divided among the provinces of the northern half of France.
The physical type of the Habitants of today suggestive as it is of the peasants of the interior of Brittany finds confirmative evidence in their subserviency to the church.
Throughout the French period the population consisted to a marked extent of soldiers, traders, administrators, priests, and others who did not bring their families with them. Efforts of the French Government to encourage family life were not always either well directed or successful. Colbert hoped for a large French population in Canada by intermarriage with the Indians. Administrative regulations penalized bachelors, who, for instance, were refused licenses to enter the fur trade, which was the main source of wealth in the country at that time.
Many of these restrictions were directed by the priests, doubtless not so much for eugenic reasons as with the motive of protecting the morals of the young men by giving them wives. At an early date the colony fell under the domination of the Jesuits, and maintained for a long time a religious tone that in its own way was much more stern and uncompromising than that of the Puritan settlements in New England. Much of the wealth and effort that might have gone to strengthen the colony was sunk in sterile monastic foundations. Even today stone churches are a conspicuous feature of the landscape in the midst of poverty-stricken villages.