History of Canadian Inventions

The history of Canadian inventions dates back 14,000 years ago, when the native people had to come up with innovative idea’s to over come harsh winters and vast wilderness. From this era the igloo, snowshoe and canoe were born, allowing us to discover more and more of this huge country. Over time Canadian inventors created the snow blower, and snow mobile to tackle winter time challenges.

Canadian inventions are not limited to our climate and terrain, but span from agriculture to warfare, from feeding our young with pablum to assisting the American shuttle program with the Canadarm. Canadian inventions have molded who we are and some have changed the course of human development. Its astonishing to think that there are over a dozen Noble Laureates in the field of science, given the size of our population and the relative infancy of our country.

As Canadians we are a proud bunch; proud of our National Hockey League teams, we are proud of our National Basketball Association team and proud of all our Olympic athletes, because most Canadian sports fans, know that we invented ice hockey, we invented basketball, and we should kick some butt at the winter Olympics, but I am always surprised by how many Canadians can’t name five inventions native to our great land. Oh sure, everyone can name five Canadian movie stars, and it’s funny that they are all related to Jim Carey in one way or another. The fact that there are over one million inventions registered at the Canadian Patent office make’s this even more surprising.

For every invention there is always a story behind it’s creation, and we will try to cover as many Canadian triumphs as possible, but with a staggering one million inventions you know they can’t all be gems. The automatic potato digger of 1868 must have been ingenious for it’s time, but where is it now ?  Canadian Norman Breakey has saved us millions of man hours with his invention, the paint roller, but poor Norman died, well poor! Ask any American who invented the telephone and they will tell you Alexander Graham Bell, the American. Bell, was born in Scotland and emigrated to Canada in his youth, but came up with many of his idea’s while teaching in Boston. The name Ski-Doo is synonymous with the snow mobile, but the name is a type -o, and maybe the Ski-dog wouldn’t be as popular as it is today. Yes, there are over a million great stories but we’ can only cover the tip of the iceberg here.

No one knows when the next great Canadian invention will come along, but hopefully some of these story stories will inspire you, and you could be the next great Canadian Inventor.