OTTAWA - The first polls have closed on Canada's 41st general election -- the country's political fate neatly boxed in cardboard Elections Canada containers with only the counting left to be done.

A fractious campaign that began slowly in the last week of March turned into a ground-churning, two-horse race to the finish.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper appears poised to join Sir John A. Macdonald and John Diefenbaker as the only Conservatives ever to win three consecutive terms in office.

But the nature of his government -- lock-tight majority or vulnerable minority -- remained in the hands of voters with the surprising NDP led by Jack Layton charging into election day.

The counting has begun in Newfoundland and Labrador, where the first seven seats are to be determined.

Polls elsewhere in the country are scheduled to close at various times over the course of the evening. Under the Canada Elections Act, a blackout on results will keep Canadians at large from seeing the emerging landscape until 10 p.m. ET.

A buoyant Harper cast his ballot at an elementary-junior high school in his Calgary Southwest riding, with wife Laureen and their two children at his side.

Layton and his Liberal rival, Michael Ignatieff, both voted in their Toronto ridings earlier in the day, reflecting what is expected to be the most significant dynamic of the national ballot.

Ignatieff, the subject of more than a year of negative Conservative advertising going into the 36-day race, proved to be a game campaigner but his anti-Harper call for change appeared to benefit Layton.

The NDP surged to unprecedented levels in Quebec after the leaders' debate and appeared to gain momentum across Canada in the last two weeks of the campaign.

If Harper had any doubts, he wasn't showing it.

"It's a great day," he declared. "It's a great democracy. The sky is blue."

Layton voted in his Toronto Danforth riding accompanied by his wife, incumbent New Democrat Olivia Chow, along with his mother-in-law, daughter and granddaughter.

"We're feeling optimistic," Layton said. "The future of our country, our wonderful country, lies in the hands of Canadians today and I think many will choose change."

He said he gets the sense Canadians "will break out of the old patterns and the old habits" of voting for either the Conservatives or the Liberals.

Ignatieff shook hands as he arrived at a polling station in a junior high school in suburban Etobicoke, trailed by news media. He appeared a bit on edge and after slowly inserting his ballot in the box, he got on the bus and waved to the cameras.

Later, he and wife Zsuzsanna Zohar visited a nursing home. The Liberal leader said it "feels great" to vote after the rigorous campaign.

"It's an important moment for every citizen, it's an important moment for me, so I was delighted to vote today... I am getting reports of good turnout today so that's terrific."

Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe cast his ballot in the morning in the Montreal riding where he's believed to be fighting for his own seat.

And in the British Columbia riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands, Green Leader Elizabeth May was looking to defeat Tory cabinet minister Gary Lunn.

May focused virtually her entire campaign on the riding in her attempt to gain a voice inside the House of Commons. Insiders suggest the race is too close to call.

Depending largely on those vote splits, the Conservatives appeared to be on the cusp of their first majority since Harper initially took power in January 2006.

Just 58.8 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot in the 2008 federal election, the lowest in Canadian history.

However, voters turned out in record numbers for early balloting on Easter weekend, leading some to speculate that an election derided as unnecessary by the governing Conservatives has generated amply public interest.