Canada Day Quiz by Will Ferguson

Test your historical knowledge with this year's Canada Day quiz written by Will Ferguson, author, humourist and 2005 Pierre Berton Award winner! Your score will be revealed when you click the Submit button at the end.

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1. Nokomis, Saskatchewan (pop. 436) is the hometown of which iconic Canadian figure?

Leacock-winning humourist Max Braithwaite of Why Shoot the Teacher?

Montreal Canadiens Hall of Famer Elmer Lach

Rock legend Kenny Shields of Streetheart fame

All of the above

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2. Who was the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel?

Showman and tightrope walker the Great Farini

A Seagram’s whisky distiller as a publicity gimmick

A retired schoolteacher named Annie Taylor

Boer War veteran Sam Steele (on a dare, no less!)

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3. What is the oldest newspaper in Canada—and North America?

The Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph

The Montreal Gazette

The Kingston Whig-Standard

The Globe & Mail

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4. The self-proclaimed “polar bear capital of the world” is located in which province or territory?

Yukon

Nunavut

Northwest Territories

Manitoba

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5. Why on earth is there a statue to Jumbo the Elephant in St. Thomas, Ontario?

Jumbo was born in St. Thomas

Jumbo died in St. Thomas

Jumbo performed in St. Thomas

St. Thomas is the hometown of famed animal trainer Barney Bailey, whose memoir, Jumbo & Me, was turned into a popular children’s TV show

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6. Rosebud, Alberta (pop. 112) welcomes as many as 40,000 visitors every year for what event?

Year-round live theatre

An annual Passion Play in the Badlands

The International Festivals of Roses

The Running of the Bulls

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7. Sable Island, little more than a sandbar off the coast of Nova Scotia, is known for what?

Moving! It crawls across the map

Being a Graveyard of the Atlantic as the site of more than 300 fatal shipwrecks

As the home of wild horses

All of the above

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8. As part of their “screeching in” ceremony, the cruel inhabitants of St. John’s, Newfoundland & Labrador, torment visitors by forcing them to do what?

Kiss a cod

Cuddle a caribou

Recite a ballad in full Newfoundland dialect whilst standing on one foot

Eat seal flipper pie without gagging

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9. In Dawson City, Yukon, an equally cruel initiation involves what?

Drinking a glass of whisky with a severed human toe in it

Reciting the Cremation of Sam McGee whilst balancing a bottle of hooch on your head

Catching a jackalope blindfolded

Panning for gold in a bathtub

Question Title

10. In Meanwhile, Back in Nokomis, Will Ferguson describes which early job of his as being as easy as “selling water to someone whose hair is on fire”?

Manning a flood-watch station in the Carcross Desert

Selling Anne of Green Gables tours to Japanese tourists

Working as a tour guide at Toronto’s CN Tower

Selling tie-dye hippie shirts at the Denman Island artist market