Young woman wearing an orange coat smells maple sap in a bucket hanging off a maple tree. Shilly Shally Lodge, Gatineau Park. April 1963. Rosemary Gilliat Eaton / Library and Archives Canada, No. R12438
The latest in blog posts, news, and podcasts from the world of Canadian history.
Missed last week’s roundup? Check it out here.
- Laura Ishiguro put together a great Twitter essay on the use of passive voice in state apologies.
- This week’s mostly frequently used terms in #envhist, according to Jessica DeWitt, were: “University,” “One,” and “World.”
- It was a busy week on Active History:
- Krista McCracken and I are extremely proud that the first post in our Beyond the Lecture series on Active history went live this week! In the first of a multi-part mini-series, Andrew Nurse wrote about the scholarship of teaching and learning in higher education, and what historians have to offer the field. And don’t forget to check out the comment section!
- Kirk Niergarth took us on an imaginary tour of Depression-era Soviet Russia, through the eyes of Canadian visitors. This is the first in a series of posts retracing their steps and what remains of the sights they saw.
- Sean Graham posted the latest episode of the History Slam podcast, featuring an interview with Game of Stones podcast co-host, Scott Graham, on the use and abuse of patriotism in sport.
- In the latest post in the MISHI reflection series, Katherine MacDonald wrote about new and old stories of Manitoulin Island on Lake Huron, the figure of Cariboo, and what scientists can learn from Indigenous knowledge keepers.
- Finally, Active History released the latest episode of their History Chats podcast, featuring Mark McGowan’s 2017 talk on “Uncomfortable Pews: British North America’s Religious Groups Ponder Confederation,” again from the “The Other 60s” conference.
- Zachary A. Tingley has written a fascinating new post for Borealia, examining New Brunswick lighthouses as colonial spaces.
- Véronique Dupuis has written the latest post for Histoire Engagée, looking at the experiences of Blanche-Olive Lavallée, WW1 nurse, during the Spanish Flu Pandemic. This is part of a larger series commemorating the outbreak.
- Also on Histoire Engagée this week was a post by Alexander Klein on the history of the Régnier commission (1962-1964), on the relationship between nurses and doctors at the Albert-Prévois Psychiatric Institute.
- I think I have to agree with @brunchproblems: this Québécois woman might be my new hero.
- Carly Ciufo reflects on her work with Ryan Heyden organizing the upcoming Wilson Institute and McMaster History graduate conference on “Historical Innovations: A Conference on Emerging Historical Practices.”
- Rachel Bryant wrote a beautiful reflection on the cover art for Joseph Auguste Merasty’s biography, The Education of Augie Merasty: A Residential School Survivor, and how lost items can be unsettling.
- Adrienne Rempel shared the amazing story of seven women who climbed Lhílheqey, which she came across while researching a new exhibit on Chiliwack’s female mountaineers.
- The always awesome Blair Stein, who turned thirty this month (Happy Birthday!), is sharing thirty publications on the history of science in Canada she loves throughout the month of March!
- While specifically looking at archaeology, this Twitter essay by Katherine Cook on the devaluation of new communication methods in academia is equally applicable to the field of history. Support digital scholarship!
- The St. Catharines Museum podcast released a new podcast this week, called One Hour in the Past. The first episode looks at the official opening of the Welland Canal and the Top Hat Ceremony.
- This week, LAC took a two-part look at the history of baseball in Canada.
- The first post looked at the beginnings of baseball to Jackie Robinson.
- While the second focused on Canadian teams in the major baseball leagues. Fun fact: I absolutely suck at baseball.
- This week on Unwritten Histories, we had a very special guest post by Kesia Kvill on the history of Jell-O, radio ads, and domesticity in Canada! We also learned that Jell-O should never, ever, be put through a ricer.
- This week on NiCHE:
- Daniel Macfarlane examined how engineers and scientists have dealt with the challenge of ice in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Basin, from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century.
- Mark McLaughlin published the second post in the “Soundings” series, jointly published with the Acadiensis blog, on the New Brunswick scientific studies that were cited in Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.
- And finally, Adam Crymble celebrated ten years of the Programming Historians.
- I’m totally enchanted with this post from the UBC Digitizer’s blog on infant feeding devices in their History of Nursing in Pacific Canada collection. The pictures are wonderful. I’m sure you’re all shocked to hear that I love a post on social and material history.
- Lynn Gehl (Algonquin Anishinaabe-kwe from the Ottawa River Valley) and Kim TallBear (Enrolled Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate. Descended from the Cheyenne & Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma) spoke with the Broad Science podcast about DNA and Indigenous identity.
- Maddie Knickerbocker was awesome and live-tweeted Audra Simpson’s recent talk on “Savage States.”
- As Instantanés shows this week, notarial records can hold hidden treasures for historians.
- Bethany Langmaid has written the latest blog post from Atlantic Loyalist Connections on the top seven most ridiculous “evil instances” in eighteenth century Saint John County.
- Here are this week’s updated entries from The Canadian Encyclopedia:
- Vicky Ellen Szabo looked back at the history of North Atlantic Right Whales from the Medieval period to the present.
- Did you know that SFU students were involved in creating documentary videos featuring Haida artists, such as Jim Hart, Corey Bulpitt, and Evelyn Vanderhoop, for the Museum of Vancouver?
- The Yukon Archives has put together a bibliography of material it holds related to the 1918 Sinking of the SS Princess Sophia.
- Check out the summary report from the LAC Forum on Exploring Decolonization on the Road to Reconciliation. The forum, which involved over 150 participants from universities, Indigenous communities, government departments, GLAM, and the public, was convened to explore methods to advance reconciliation through academic and memory institutions.
- Louise Portal was interviewed by BAnQ about donating her archives, including personal diaries, to the institution.
- The Toronto Workers’ History Project’s has just posted a new video commemorating the history of women’s unions. Featured in the video is a re-enactment of the November 1977 Annual OFL convention, authored by the cast and a certain Craig Heron. Contemplating a second career, perhaps?
- Several new guides regarding Indigenous history were published this week:
- The University of Calgary’s Werkland School of Education has just published a new guide to help educators create inclusive learning environments for Indigenous students. The guide was developed under the guidance of Vicki Bouvier (Métis). This includes information on Indigenous history.
- Historica Canada published their Indigenous Perspectives Education Guide for use in middle and high school history and social science classes.
- Canada’s History will be publishing a special issue on Treaties and the Treaty Relationships in May.
- The National History Center (in the US) has also published their Teaching Decolonization Research Collection, to help the broader academic community decolonize their teaching and cover various aspects of colonialism around the world. Check it out here.
- And the website for the Institute of Critical Indigenous Studies at UBC also just launched.
- Find out about some of the cool holdings at UNB’s HIL Archives and Special Collections.
- The Jacques Poirier fonds are now available at the Centre d’archives de la Grande Zone argileuse.
- Check out these really cool photographs of the Canadian punk scene from the early 1980s!
- Whistorical looked back at the week of March 22 in years past.
- And then remembered the 1988 Vancouver Symphony Orchestra outdoor performance!
- Are you lucky enough to be attending to the upcoming National Council on Public History Conference? Jean-Pierre Morin has compiled a guide to all things Canadian!
- Joanne Hammond exposed the racism and misogyny of Stephen Leacock, who was also a noted anti-Semite. Fun fact: the history building at McGill is named after Leacock. You know, where I did my undergrad. That was fun.
- Kristine Alexander was live-tweeting from a University of Lethbridge Institute for Child and Youth Studies event, “Discussions Across Disciplines: How Do We Teach Children About the Past?” Included in the thread are talks by:
- Benoit and Ashley Henrickson about working with and representing children at the Galt Museum
- Amy von Heyking on Then/Hier’s history education for children
- And Rachel Lindemann’s talk about children as the “unicorns of the archaeological record”
- Casey Burkholder wrote a fantastic reflection on her experience using the Remember/Resist/Redraw project in her elementary school classroom.
- Robyn Lawson (Cree and Metis Nations, Treaty 8) put together a short history of the Métis in Canada, and the meaning of Métis identity, for her blog this week. Can we take a moment to appreciate this fantastic collection of upcoming publications in Canadian history for April 2018 that Stephanie Pettigrew put together? Apparently everything is coming out next month.
- The Toronto Public Library published several “Snapshots in History” this week, including:
- And they also premiered a new exhibit on Chinese-Canadian history. You can see some of the items displayed here.
- The Laurier Centre has uploaded a video recording of Alex Souchen’s recent talk, “Unexploded Legacies: Canada’s Underwater Munitions and the Environmental History of Disarmament.”
- University Affairs looked back on the history of full-time faculty in Canada, from 1970 to 2016. And yes, it is more depressing that you can believe.
- Pamela Rose Toulouse (Sagamok First Nation, Ojibwe-Odawa) has published a list of important resources for teachers (at all levels) on Facing Canada who want to learn to be conscious allies of Indigenous students in the classroom.
- I highly recommend that all people who research Indigenous histories on Turtle Island read this blog post by Christine DeLucie about the importance of creating long-term and reciprocal relationships with Indigenous communities and knowledge keepers, and why academics need to push back against “fast scholarship.”
- Catherine Hogg has written a new post for the Scots in BC blog profiling pioneering educator, Agnes Deans Cameron.
- The latest episode of the Witness to History podcast features Greg Marchildon’s interview with Erika Dyck on her book, A Culture’s Catalyst: Historical Encounters with Peyote and the Native American Church in Canada.
- This adorable church is one of my favourite parts of the new Canadian History Hall.
- Do you know about Vancouver’s Monkey Puzzle trees? Yes, that is a real thing.
- Canadian History in the News
- In more news that Indigenous peoples have been telling settlers for centuries, scientists have located evidence of democratic societies in ancient Mesoamerica.
- Last week, National Geographic was in the news for a new (and problematic) issue where they publicly apologized for their racist portrayals of Black, a Indigenous, and Peoples of Colour. This has promoted Canadian Geographic to launch their own investigation into their archives. Trigger warning: really racist depictions of BIPOC folks.
- Two retired administrators at the Regina Miller High School are working to preserve their institutions’ historical memorabilia and documents.
- Some Indigenous leaders like Max FineDay (Sweetgrass First Nation), believe that revisiting the treaties, among other things, should be central for reconciliation.
- Some Toronto residents are working to commemorate the site of the first Upper Canada parliament. I do have to say that the article does a decent job of acknowledging that this building is just one part of the history of the site, which was home to Indigenous peoples for more than 12,000 years.
- You need to check out this fabulous article by Lenard Monkman (Anishinaabe, Lake Manitoba First Nation, Treaty 2 territory) on Anne Thomas Callahan (Peepeekisis First Nation). Callahan, a residential school survivor, went on to become one of the first Indigenous nurses in Manitoba.
- A group of Indigenous students, led by Mitch Walking Elk, from Minnesota are planning to travel to the Vatican this May to ask officials to rescind the historic papal decrees that formed the basis for the Doctrine of Discovery.
- CBC launched a fantastic new project which will monitor the progress of the implementation of the TRC’s 94 Calls to Action. I do wish to point out that Ian Mosby originated this idea on Twitter, though he has stated that he is pleased to see that CBC is taking on this project. Check out the special site here. Spoiler alert: it’s depressing.
- And in the same week, they also launched another new interactive news site, In Their Own Words, featuring video clips where residential school survivors speak about their experiences.
- Larry Kwong, the first person of colour to play in the NHL, has died.
- Everyone loves a shipwreck story: the wreck of the Margaret Olwill, which sank in Lake Erie in 1899, has been found.
- And work is underway to raise a WW2 Canadian Halifax bomber that has been lying on the bottom of the Baltic Sea for more than 73 years.
- Young historians at Burnaby North Secondary created a wonderful art and history project, bringing to life the history of Canadian immigrants through individually packed suitcases.
- In a bit of a ‘holy crap’ moment, CBC spoke with the creator of the Adopt Indian Métis program (which led to the Sixties Scoop), Otto Driedger, who claims that the intent was never to remove Indigenous children from their homes and place them with white families.
- Do you know the history of the French dialect, paw-paw, which survives in the Great Lakes area of the US?
- Find out about this neat open-source and open-data mapping tool of Old Toronto, which allows you to basically Google street maps of the city at different times in the past. See it for yourself here.
- And Kaitlin Wainwright wrote about her experiences using the platform here.
- There is a new video game that brings a traditional Tlicho folktale, “How Fox Saved the People,” to life as part of a language revitalization program.
- A painting of BC’s Emerald Lake by some guy named Winston Churchill just sold at auction for a lot of money…
- Louie Kamookak has passed away. Here are several tributes:
- The NFB has just launched a new website collecting together all of their films by Indigenous directors, from 1968 to 2017. There are over 200, and they are all free to stream.
- If you’ve ever spent Christmas in Montreal, then you know about Ogilvy’s Christmas window displays. From this year forward, they will now only be displayed at the McCord Museum. ::sadface::
- There is a new exhibition at the Canadian War Museum on the St. Louis, and the so-called Voyage of the Damned.
- More here.
- CBC spoke with Merelda Fiddler-Potter (Métis) about how she uses beadwork to connect with her heritage.
- Find out a little bit on the history of the West Vancouver Fire Department.
- Tom Power spoke with curator Julie Crooks and artist Bushra Junaid about their work with the new ROM exhibition, “Here We Are Here: Canadian Contemporary Art,” which looks at the history of Black Canadian identity.
- The Times Colonist spoke with Aaron Devor and Andrea Jenkins about their involvement with the 2018 Moving Trans History Forward Conference, held this past week at the University of Victoria.
- People keep stealing bronze plaques around Hamilton, so they’re switching them out for aluminum and polyvinyl.
- Mammoth tusks that were stolen from Canada in the 1960s by an American collector have just been returned. Funny that.
- More here.
- Larry Payton is on a mission to photograph all of Nova Scotia’s lighthouses.
- There is a really cool exhibit going on in Toronto right now about the historical relationship between the Jewish and Chinese communities. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, google “Chinese food at Christmas.”
- As I noted above, the federal government has announced that Justin Trudeau will officially exonerate the Tsilhquot’in chiefs that were wrongfully hanged in 1864 for the death of fourteen settlers during the Chilcotin War.
- I’ve been debating whether or not to include this really fantastic piece by Robert Jago (Nooksack/Kwantlen First Nation) about Jordan Peterson’s assertion that he is a member of the Kwakwaka’wakw people of British Columbia. This issue doesn’t really deal with history, but I do still think it is relevant since it touches on issues of belonging, the difference between being given an name and being adopted into a community, and the appropriation of Indigenous identity by white settlers. The piece has also sparked additional conversations on Twitter:
- Jago wrote a follow-up here.
- Maddie Knickerbocker wrote about the subject as well.
- And @Hayatsgan wrote a powerful Twitter essay about the traditions of adoption among her people, the Gitxsan Nation and the Wilp Sakhumhiigok, an eagle house.
- The Robinson-Huron Treaty annuity case is ongoing. Catherine Murton Stoehr continues to provide impressive coverage of the event. Other online discussions included:
- An op-ed by Dorothee Schreiber that featurd a stunning indictment of the Crown’s Loyal Witness, Alexander von Genert.
- Ian Mosby skewered Tom Flanagan, and initiated a really important discussion about why he continues to be taken seriously as a scholar by some people.
- Billy Armagh picked up on this, and asked some really pointed questions.
- Michèle Dagenais spoke with Arnaud Decroix on Radio Canada this week about the role of water in Canadian history.
- Vancouver City Council will apologize to the Vancouver Chinese-Canadian community for historical discrimination at an upcoming meeting on April 22.
- Do you know the history of the D’Arcy Island Leper colony in BC? Trigger warning: there are some photographs that are really hard to look at.
- AMC is premiering their new series on the Terror. Because of course they are.
- And of course a group of enthusiasts are building a replica of the Avro Arrow.
- Better Late than Never
- The Thinking Indigenous podcast, on best practices in Indigenous education, just released all of Season Three’s episodes.
- Calls for Papers
- Études canadiennes/Canadian Studies has issued a CFP for an upcoming special issue entitled “Canada, a refuge from the United States,” drawing from a range of disciplines. Proposals are due June 1st. The special issue will be published in December 2018. NB: This is not the Journal of Canadian Studies.
- The Maamwizing Indigenous Research Institute at Laurentien University and the University of Sudbury has issued a CFP for an upcoming conference on “Pursuing Indigenous Research ‘In A Good Way.’” Proposals are due May 1.
You know, I think this is the longest roundup I’ve done in a while! Maybe we were all twitter-pated by the springtime (see what I did there…). Anyways, I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s roundup! If you did, please consider sharing it on the social media platform of your choice! And don’t forget to check back on Tuesday for our special celebration of Unwritten Histories’ second anniversary!