Canadiana: The Word That Predates the Country
- Canafete
- May 14
- 3 min read
Updated: Jun 7
The word "Canadiana" first appeared in print in 1837, as the title of a book about politics in Upper Canada. At that time, there were two British colonies, Upper and Lower Canada. People living there called themselves Canadians, so the place was unambiguously Canada. It just wasn't a single nation yet, not until Confederation in 1867.
The suffix "-ana" has long been a familiar bibliographic convention, used for collections of writings about a person or place. So "Canadiana" was a fitting word in 1837 to title the book in question: Canadiana, Containing Sketches of Upper Canada, and the Crisis in its Political Affairs, by William Benjamin Wells. It was a contemporary account of a political crisis as it was unfolding. Clearly the author believed there was such a thing as Canada that warranted the "-ana" suffix. Americana was in circulation by then. Victoriana would come later.
The timing is striking. 1837 was the year of the Rebellions in both Upper and Lower Canada, the political crisis that would force the union of the two colonies four years later and set Canada on the path toward Confederation. The word "Canadiana" arrived precisely when Canadian identity was being argued over with weapons.
What's interesting is that Canadiana, as we use it today, has split into two parallel definitions.
The first definition adheres to the bibliographic meaning of the "-ana" suffix. It's an institutional meaning that almost no one outside the publishing world thinks about. Since 1953, Canadian publishers have been legally required, under what is now the Library and Archives of Canada Act, to send copies of every publication to Library and Archives Canada. The program is called legal deposit. The collection it builds is called Canadiana.
Most countries archive their published heritage in some form. What's distinctive about Canada is that we have institutionalized Canadiana. In the United States, for example, Americana stays casual, a vernacular term for diner mugs and roadside motels. Canadiana has been pulled into law and given a formal job to do.
The second definition is, of course, the everyday vernacular term we use to describe Canada as a culture. Ask a Canadian what Canadiana evokes and you'll get a quick, confident answer: Tim Hortons, hockey, Hudson's Bay stripes, the Group of Seven, a canoe on a quiet lake, a grain elevator against an enormous prairie sky, a dory pulled up on a Maritime shore. Some of these are national, and some are deeply regional. Together they form a constellation of diverse images. Canada is large and old and made of pieces that were never meant to flatten into one tidy aesthetic. The beauty of Canadiana is in the richness and the range of those pieces.
Canadians feel the cultural version of Canadiana every time they pull on a wool sweater or lace up skates.
Both definitions for Canadiana have been with us, in their own way, longer than the country itself. And they converge on the back of every Canadian book, where the ISBN and cataloguing information sit. That's Canadiana in action, doing the unglamorous bibliographic work the word was originally invented to describe.
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Further Reading
Library and Archives Canada – Legal Deposit Program
Oxford English Dictionary. Search "Canadiana"
Canadiana: containing sketches of Upper Canada and the crisis in its political affairs, by W.B. Wells. Courtesy of HathiTrust
Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles (DCHP-3)
Souvenir of Canada and Souvenir of Canada 2, by Douglas Coupland
Canadian Research Knowledge Network – Canadiana Canadiana.ca
(1) Ink and watercolour on paper – Lithography from sketches by Lord Charles Beauclerk (1813 - 1842). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
