Canada’s transition to an urban, industrial wage working economy took place from 1850 to 1921. In the 1850s Canada was an overwhelmingly rural place dependent on the harvest and export of resources, mostly fish and lumber, but increasingly agricultural as Canada became one of the world’s leading dairy and wheat exporters by 1900. Over time new minerals like silver and nickel and energy resources like coal and hydro were also exported, reorienting the export economy from Europe to the United States.