Each province and territory has its own Francophone history
| Yukon, whose francophone community has grown in recent years, is today home to some 1,500 native French speakers. Most live in the capital, Whitehorse, which has a wide range of French-language services. More information |
A little over 1,000 Francophones live in the Northwest Territories. They represent around 2.7% of the total population. French is one of the 11 official languages of the Northwest Territories, along with English and 9 Indigenous languages. More information |
Nunavut is a vast Northern region that separated from the Northwest Territories in 1999 to give more autonomy to the Inuit who make up 85% of the population. Nunavut’s francophone community consists of some 500 people. More information | For a long time, the French language and Francophones went unnoticed in British Columbia. French-Canadian and Francophone Métis founding pioneers, who constituted the majority for the first 50 years of European colonization. More information |
| When Alberta became a province in 1905, Francophones had been using this land for at least 127 years. In fact, they were the first to arrive and had dominated its fur trade since 1778. The history of the European settlers primarily begins in northern Alberta. More information |
Before European fur traders arrived in what is now Saskatchewan, many Indigenous nations roamed around this territory. They were the Chippewyan, the Cree, the Assiniboine, the Saulteaux, the Blood Tribe and the Blackfoot all looking for berries, fish and small and large game. More information |
In 1738, Pierre Gaultier de La Vérendrye reached the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, where the Indigenous nations had been meeting for centuries. He built a first fort on the site of what is now the City of Winnipeg in Manitoba. More information |
Ontario has the largest number of Francophones outside Quebec, somewhere between 500,000 and 600,000, depending on whether mother tongue or first official language spoken is used as the criterion to estimate their numbers. They represent approximately 4% of the province’s total population. More information |
| The Province of Quebec is the hub of French culture in Canada and North America. Quebec’s six million or so French speakers represent 80% of the province’s population. The first French immigrants began to settle in present-day Quebec in 1608. More information |
Today, the largest Acadian community lives in New Brunswick, in the only Canadian province that is officially bilingual. Some 233,000 people whose mother tongue is French—the great majority of whom are Acadians—represent one third of the province’s population. More information |
The French founded the first permanent colony on what is now Canadian territory in 1604, on the shores of the Bay of Fundy, in Nova Scotia. These pioneers came to be known as the “défricheurs d’eau.” More information |
Picturesque Prince Edward Island is the smallest but the most densely populated province in Canada. At the time of the 2016 census, it had 141,015 residents, 2,910 (2.1% of the population) of whom reported speaking French regularly at home. More information |
| Newfoundland and Labrador was the first region of the North American continent to be visited by Francophone fishermen at the beginning the 16th century. Their presence was only seasonal, limited to the summer months. They came ashore and constructed modest facilities to salt and dry their fish. Then they returned to Europe More information |
