1857 in Canada

Events from the year 1857 in Canada.

Incumbents

 * Monarch — Victoria

Federal government

 * Parliament — 5th

Governors

 * Governor General of the Province of Canada — Edmund Walker Head
 * Colonial Governor of Newfoundland — Charles Henry Darling
 * Governor of New Brunswick — John Manners-Sutton
 * Governor of Nova Scotia — John Gaspard Le Marchant
 * Governor of Prince Edward Island — Dominick Daly

Premiers

 * Joint Premiers of the Province of Canada —
 * , Canada West Premier
 * , Canada East Premier
 * ,
 * Premier of Newfoundland — Philip Francis Little
 * Premier of New Brunswick — Charles Fisher
 * Premier of Nova Scotia — William Young
 * Premier of Prince Edward Island — John Holl

Events

 * March 12 — Desjardins Canal disaster - The bridge over Desjardins Canal, near Hamilton, Canada West, collapses under a Great Western Railway passenger train. About 60 people die.
 * Grand Trunk Railway (Windsor-Montreal) completed, but $7 million in debt.
 * December 31 - Queen Victoria names Ottawa as capital of the Province of Canada.
 * The Palliser Expedition begins its exploration of Western Canada.

January to June

 * February 2 — Alexander Cameron Rutherford, lawyer and politician, first premier of Alberta (died 1941)
 * February 25 — Robert Bond, politician and Prime Minister of Newfoundland (died 1927)
 * February 27 — Adelaide Hoodless, educational reformer who founded the Women's Institute (died 1910)
 * March 17 — Willis Keith Baldwin, politician (died 1935)
 * June 20 — Adam Beck, politician and hydro-electricity advocate (died 1925)

July to December

 * July 27 — Ann Stowe-Gullen, doctor
 * August 15 — Theodore Arthur Burrows, politician and Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba (died 1929)
 * August 15 — John Strathearn Hendrie, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario (died 1923)
 * September 12 — George Halsey Perley, politician and diplomat (died 1938)
 * October 10 — Cassie Chadwick, fraudster (died 1907)
 * October 10 — George Johnson Clarke, lawyer, journalist, politician and 14th Premier of New Brunswick (died 1917)
 * November 25 — Frederick W. A. G. Haultain, politician and 1st Premier of the Northwest Territories (died 1942)

Deaths

 * February 10 — David Thompson, fur trader, surveyor and map-maker (born 1770)
 * March 13 — William Amherst, 1st Earl Amherst, diplomat and governor general (born 1773)
 * September 3 — John McLoughlin, physician, fur trader, and merchant (born 1784)
 * November 3 — William Fitzwilliam Owen, naval officer, hydrographic surveyor (born 1774)

Full date unknown

 * Isabella Clark, first wife of John A. Macdonald, premier of the Province of Canada (born 1811)