Hello dear readers, welcome to the next stop on our blog train. Today, we will travel back in time to the year 1863 in Canada, where all the major colonies, such as Prince Edward Island, Canada East, Canada West, Nova Scotia, Quebec, and New Brunswick, had the desire to unite and become a big happy family.

Recently, we were assigned a simulation project where we were required to create a board game based on the topics of colonialism, the idea of confederation, and Canada’s history. The simulation lasted for a week, and each of us was assigned to different groups representing different colonies, and we had to decide whether we wanted to join confederation or not. We made sure that everything was historically accurate to make the experience as real as possible, and to put ourselves in the shoes of the colonies during the 1860s.

The driving question of our project was “What did nationalism mean for people around Canada?” I believe that nationalism means a lot to people all over the world, from rednecks wearing Trump shirts in America to people who protest in the streets to get rid of plastic bags. In Canada, nationalism meant going to war in WW1 and WW2, it meant wanting to join confederation to offer up your colony’s materials to make a better country, and it meant going to work every day to make the country better.

In this project, our finished product was a board game, and my partner, Magnus, and I teamed up to create a functioning board game about colonialism, which was also historically accurate. Our game was called “True North: A Canadian Adventure,” and you can read about it in the game rules below.

As we worked on the project, we felt a sense of empathy for the colonies during the 1860s and the difficult decision they had to make. We tried to capture this feeling in our board game, and we hope that it resonates with our audience. Overall, this project was a great learning experience for us, and we appreciate the opportunity to explore Canada’s history in a fun and engaging way.