Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) a derog. term for a Canadian, esp. a French Canadian.

1835		H.C. Todd Notes 92: Jonathan distinguishes a Dutch or French Canadian, by the term Kanuk [DA].
1835		N. Wyeth Journal 235: I today dispatched Capt Thing to Fort Hall having 19 men viz 4 Kanackas, 10 white men, and himself a fur man and three Nez Perces in all [DA].
1840		Boston Transcript 7 Feb. 2/1: The French-Canadian — or Conuck, as Her Majesty’s provincial subjects of English and American extraction sometimes call him [DA].
1843		Montreal Transcript 29 Apr. 2/5: The Editor of the Statesman calls the Editor of the Chronicle & Gazette ‘A useless, good-for-nothing, leaden headed mock genteel loafer, who is 1-2 Yankee, 3-8th Scotch, 1-16th Canuck, 1-32nd English, and the other part of the fraction, which it takes to make up the whole, nondescript mongrel;’ and immediately afterwards professes ‘a strict desire not to fall into the vice of personality.’.
1846		W.G. Stewart Altowan I. vii. 191: The Canackers, as they were commonly called, set themselves quietly about reviving the fire [DA].
1848		Bartlett Dict. Americanisms 101: cunnuck. A name applied to Canadians by the people in the Northern States.
1855		Knickerbocker (N.Y.) xlv Apr. 341: [We gave] our donkey into the keeping of a lively Canuck.
1857		Knickerbocker (N.Y.) xlix Jan. 40: My grandfather got fifty [French crowns] at once from a Kanuck in trading.
1860		J.G. Holland Miss Gilbert’s Career (1870) 29: I’ll [...] try legs with that little Kanuck of his.
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 589: Canacks, Canucks, and even K’nucks, are slang terms by which the Canadians are known in the United States and among themselves.
1884		G.W. Peck Peck’s Boss Book 237: You are a daisy, and no Canuck wants to forget it.
1887		G. Davis Recoll. Sea-Wanderer 67: 'Boat-race be d — d,' said he gruffly; 'just like a b — y Kanuck to think that' .
1887		G. Devol Forty Years a Gambler 283: In a short time [...] he had downed several of the Canucks for a few hundred.
1891		M.D. Landon Eli Perkins: Thirty Years of Wit 284: Those Canucks may have big potato bugs; I don’t doubt it.
1900		Punch 24 Jan. 64/1: While we proudly tell of TOMMY’S pluck, / And of JACK the handy man of war, / Of Cornstalk ready, and keen Canuck.
1905		‘Central Connecticut Word-List’ in DN III:i 7: Cunnuck, Canuck or Knuck, n. A Canadian.
1914		D. Malloch Amer. Lumberman in Botkin (1944) 33: But Joe the Cook, a French Canuck.
1916		‘Anzac’ On the Anzac Trail 5: [T]he Canadians [...] nobly seconded our efforts [...] Those Kanucks were a hefty lot.
1919		J. Buchan Mr Standfast (1930) 697: The Canadians live over the fence from us, but you mix up a Canuck with a Yank in your remarks and you’ll get a bat in the eye.
1920		F.S. Fitzgerald ‘The Ice Palace’ in Bodley Head Scott Fitzgerald V (1963) 135: She caught snatches of conversation [...] ‘this Canuck who built it’.
1922		E. Murphy Black Candle 242: ‘Uncle Sam’ as well as ‘Jack Canuck’ has also a fair share of half-baked blunderers in the shape of public officials.
1926		Wood & Goddard Dict. Amer. Sl. 10: Canuck, Kanuck. A French Canadian.
1932		P.G. Cressey Taxi-Dance Hall 179: The trouble was started by a sailor known as Kanaka Pete.
1936		(con. 1920s) Dos Passos Big Money in USA (1966) 987: The chauffeur [...] was a sourlooking Canuck Gladys had hired.
1943		M. Curtiss Letters Home (1944) Aug. 223: I was speaking to the above mentioned ‘Canucks’ as they’re called.
1953		Mad mag. June–July 23: Nanuk the Canuk is selling slot machines to the Eskimos.
1953		F. Paley Rumble on the Docks (1955) 156: Alphonse Moulin [...] French-Canuck just down from the Michigan woods.
1962		Kerouac letter 9 Oct. in Charters II (1999) 350: All they are, is, after all, the ‘tough guys’ of the Canucks pushed north by ‘self respecting Canucks’.
1972		Union Leader letter to publisher 24 Feb. n.p.: We don’t have blacks but we have Cannocks [R].
1978		Maledicta II:1+2 (Summer/Winter) 154: Canuck Any Canadian, probably after ‘Johnny Canuck,’ an 18th- and 19th-century cartoon character similar to Yankee Doodle and John Bull.
1984		(con. WW2) T. Jones Heart of Oak [ebook] The waters off Newfoundland, where the Canucks took and handed over the escort.
1986		S. King It (1987) 873: Let the crazy Canuck hide out in the woods all winter, if that’s what he wants.
1991		(con. 1920s) O.D. Brooks Legs 178: I was there waiting for a highway job to break and holding the town down with another Canuck called Blackie.
2000		G.V. Higgins At End of Day (2001) 29: They go to Canada — unions aren’t so strong there [...] Canucks up there may work for less, but you still gotta hire ’em.
2009		J. Stahl Pain Killers 237: An ex-addict and prostitute with some Canuck in her blood.
2014		Pando Qly Spring 50/2: That epicene Canuck.