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© History Oasis
Look, I know what you're thinking. America and Canada? Best friends, right? Hockey tournaments and shared national parks and all that goodness. But here's the thing, we've invaded them. Multiple times. Not just during the American Revolution and the War of 1812. And not in some distant, murky past. The last time was 1990.
Let me walk you through the weirdest military relationship in North American history.
James Dickson shows up in history books in 1835 with a plan so bonkers it almost deserves respect. This guy decided he'd create an Indian federation across the western half of North America, with himself as president. His first move? Seize Manitoba's fur outposts.
He left Buffalo in August 1836 with 60 volunteers. By the time they stumbled into Manitoba in late December, only a dozen remained. The Hudson's Bay Company didn't even bother fighting them. They just offered everyone jobs. A couple months later, Dickson gave up and wandered into the wilderness. Nobody ever saw him again after February 1837.
Sixty guys. That's smaller than most wedding parties. And they thought they'd build an empire. Boy was it a failure.
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The economic crash of 1837 hit everyone hard. In Canada, it sparked rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada (now Ontario and Quebec). Conservative elites controlled everything, and people were desperate.
When the Canadian rebel leaders fled to America, they became celebrities. Louis-Joseph Papineau and William Lyon Mackenzie started recruiting American volunteers to sign up for their righteous cause.
Mackenzie actually declared himself President of the Republic of Canada from a tiny island near Niagara Falls. He gathered 500 fighters. The British responded by stealing an American steamship called the Caroline and killing an American watchman in the process.
That death nearly triggered a war. President Martin Van Buren had to send General Winfield Scott to cool things down. But Americans kept crossing the border anyway. In November 1838, 400 filibusters invaded. Two weeks of British bombardment left 30 dead and 160 captured.
In the end, there were around 300 dead over the entire conflict. All because Americans thought Canadian rebels were freedom fighters. But some good stuff came out of the whole debacle. These battles pushed Britain to reform Canada's government and settle all the border disputes that had been festering for decades.
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This one's my favorite for sheer logical gymnastics.
Irish immigrants in America were treated like garbage. The Great Famine had pushed hundreds of thousands across the Atlantic, and by the time of the Civil War, Irish-Americans were looking for respect. The Fenians (the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood) had a plan.
Invade Canada, hold it hostage, and force Britain to grant Ireland independence.
Think about that strategy. To free Ireland, attack Canada. It's like punching your neighbor's dog to get back at your landlord.
But they were serious. After the Civil War ended in 1865, they had 10,000 battle-hardened Irish-American soldiers. In April 1866, 400 Fenians gathered in Maine but got watched so closely by U.S. troops they disbanded. The federal government didn't want to crack down too hard and lose Irish votes.
So in June 1866, 1,100 Fenians crossed into Canada near Fort Erie before U.S. forces shut down the river crossings. Brief fighting killed nine Fenians and 15 Canadians. American authorities captured about 850 retreating Fenians. Another 100 got caught by Canadian militia.
A week later, another raid fizzled when federal authorities seized the Fenians' weapons. The movement collapsed.
The weird part? While the raids did nothing for Irish freedom, they terrified Canada into unifying. In February 1867, the scattered Canadian colonies merged into the Dominion of Canada.
The Fenians accidentally created modern Canada.
Some diehards kept trying. In 1870, five Fenians died in an ambushed border raid. In 1871, a few dozen marched toward Manitoba hoping to meet up with Métis rebels. U.S. forces arrested them before they crossed. They even built an early submarine for future invasion attempts, but nothing ever got past planning stages.
Thousands of men, years of plotting, multiple invasions. Result: zero Irish independence, one united Canada.
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The last American invasion of Canada happened during the first Bush presidency.
In July 1990, Mohawk militants at the Kanesatake reservation in Quebec were fighting the expansion of a golf course onto disputed land. Around 30 armed Mohawks who were U.S. citizens traveled north to join the protest.
On July 11, over 100 Quebec police charged the barricades. A firefight killed one officer. By August, 200 militants (including those 30 Americans) faced 4,400 Canadian Army troops. The standoff lasted another month. Dozens were hospitalized.
The government eventually bought the land to stop the golf course development.
Not exactly Normandy. But technically? Americans crossed into Canada with weapons and fought Canadian forces. That's an invasion by the technical definition.
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