Hidden by mist, the towering Welsh mountains of Snowdonia have captured the imagination of storytellers throughout the ages. The legends of King Arthur and Merlin the Magician were born from Welsh folk tradition. However, the story of Wales as a nation is filled with battles and many hardships.
The first Welshman to arrive in Canada is believed to have been Sir Thomas Button, who led an expedition to find the Northwest Passage in 1612. Welsh mapmaker David Thompson was one of the great explorers of the North West Company in the late 1700s and early 1800s, and is often called "Canada's Greatest Geographer." He covered 130,000 kilometres on foot and surveyed most of the Canada-United States border in the early days of exploration.
In 1902 Welsh immigrants arrived from Patagonia, which had been incorporated into Argentina in 1881. Military service and a series of floods that ruined Welsh farmers' crops led to the resettlements of the emigrants in Bangor, Saskatchewan, where they once again took up farming. A community of Welsh farmers was also established at Wood River near Ponoka, Alberta.
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