i can give you the quick history of lemmy.ca. kinetix started this instance back in 2020 i believe. around January, 2022, he was asking if anyone wanted to take over the site. so i volunteered, and around the beginning of February 2022 it had been transferred over.
it's been pretty quiet here since then, until the whole reddit fiasco recently, and it's great to see all the new users and increased activity!