Having drawn, for the front page of my web site, an image of the flag of Ukraine, due to the current crisis, I thought I would try my hand at drawing the flag of the United States, my country's neighbor to the south.
I despaired at drawing the flag of my own country, Canada, but thanks to some images placed in the public domain at Wikipedia, I am able to show the history of my own country's flag as well, at long last.
Up until 1965, Canada did not officially have a flag of its own; the flag that was officially the one to fly over Canadian soil was the Union Jack, which was also the flag of Great Britain:
However, within a year of Canada's founding on July 1st 1867, through the union of four of its provinces, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, Canadians took a distinctive Canadian flag that did exist, being used as an ensign for the Canadian merchant marine, and flew it unofficially as their country's flag.
The above is the original form of the Red Ensign in 1868. However, this design was not always maintained consistently.
On April 26, 1922, Britain, at the request of the Government of Canada, supplied Canada with a revised coat of arms, and this led to the design of the Red Ensign being changed to what Canadians are most familiar with:
And the Government of Canada formally allowed the use of the Red Ensign as a "distinctive Canadian flag" on September 5th, 1945, so it's really not true to say Canada had no flag of its own until 1965.
In 1957, the Red Ensign underwent some minor adjustments, the maple leaves changing from green to red, and the design of the harp also changing slightly:
Finally, here is the current flag of Canada, adopted on February 15, 1965:
This was designed by Canadian historian George Stanley, and submitted for consideration in March, 1964. During the Parliamentary debate on a new flag for Canada, one of the front-runners had been a similar design, but with thinner blue bars at the side, and three maple leaves in the center.
The Union Jack has a history of its own.
Dating back to the time of the Crusades, England, Scotland, and Ireland each had their own distinctive flags.
Representing England was the Cross of St. George,
and representing Scotland was the Cross of St. Andrew.
When Scotland was joined to Britain (England and Wales) in 1603 to form Great Britain, the first version of the Union Jack followed soon after in 1606:
There was also an alternate version for use in Scotland:
The modern version of the Union Jack was adopted in 1801, for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and when Ireland achieved independence in 1921, the flag was not changed, only the name of the country changed, to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
This final change to the flag involved the addition of St. Patrick's Saltire:
Copyright (c) 2025 John J. G. Savard