Canadian History Roundup – Week of August 13, 2017

Red Star Line. Southampton-Canada via Cherbourg. Poster advertising travel between the US and Canada by ship. 1936. Sterne Stevens. Marc Choko Collection. Library and Archives Canada, e010780453. CC BY 2.0

The latest in blog posts, news, and podcasts from the world of Canadian history.

Missed last week’s roundup? Check it out here.

• This week the St. Catharines’ Museum posted Walk M, which takes you on a tour of telegraph poles!
• Did you know that Connecticut also celebrates St. Jean Baptiste?
• It’s been another fantastic week for Twitter essays!
  • Zoe Todd responded to the past week’s horrors by reminding us that Canada is no better than the United States when it comes to racism.
  • Matt McLean reminded us of Winnipeg’s problematic history.
  • Paul Seesequasis reminded us about the long history of the KKK in Saskatchewan.
  • Following the publication of this article on Hector-Louis Langevin from CBC, Sean Carleton responded with a Twitter essay providing important context and explaining that our knowledge of residential schools is still incomplete because the federal government continues to withhold information.
  • Sheila Laroque (@SheilaDianeL) was hosting IndigenousXca this week, and she posted a really great Twitter essay on how classification systems, like the Library of Congress Subject Headings for History, reinforce the systemic oppression of BIPOC.
  • Adele Perry reminded us about Constance Backhouse’s amazing work on racism in the 1920s and 1930s.
• Active History has published the introduction written by Jon Weir in the latest issue of Monitor, from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. The introduction talks about the difference between celebration and commemoration, and summarizes the other articles contained within this issue.
• The latest blog post from BC Heritage Fairs featured an essay by Peter Seixas about the difference between history and heritage, particularly in relation to Canadian history.
• Olivar Asselin encounters the US army and writes to his wife, Alice, about it!
• This week’s most common words in #envhist, according to Jessica DeWitt are: “Said,” “Climate,” and “People.”
• This week the Archives of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto talks about issues of provenance and Archbishop Walsh’s episcopal ring.
  • Also from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto blog this week is a short profile of the first bishop, Michael Power, who was ordained 190 years ago this week.
• Check out these super cool images from the Provincial Archives of Alberta showing primarily female technicians at the Alberta Dairy and Food Laboratory in June 1970.
• This week on Unwritten Histories saw the return of our regular series, Best New Articles, featuring my favourite articles published in July 2017. There were some real gems this month, especially the article on blogging (not that I’m biased….).
• LAC has posted their update on the digitization of the CEF Personnel Service Files. They have reached the last name — Rasmess.
• The Beyond 150 Twitter conference schedule has been posted! Special thanks to Krista for putting this together while I’ve been super busy teaching! Don’t forget we’re less than a week away from the conference, which starts August 24^th!
• Find out about Daniel Broyld’s work on Black identity and the Canada-US border!
• The latest NiCHE CHESS reflection comes to us from Trycia Bazinet this week. She reflects on the relationship between our bodies and the land, the past and the present, settler responsibilities, and how acts that we believe are “unsettling” can serve to reinforce settler colonialism.
• Dennis Molinaro has written a guest post for the UofT Journals blog this week. In it, he talks about the PICNIC wiretapping program, the subject of an upcoming article in the Canadian Historical Review!
• This week Instantanés profiled Paul Provencher, a noted Quebec forester, explorer, and photographer who worked in the Côte-Nord in the 1930s.
• Leah Grandy has written a new blog post for the Atlantic Loyalist Connections blog about the challenge of correlating historical sites in the modern landscape, especially when you get directions like “five chains from the small butternut tree.”
• You can now access the private papers of former Montreal mayor Camillien Houde from the Archives of Montreal!
• The dates and location for NAISA 2018 have been announced! The conference will take place from May 17 to May 19 at the University of California, Los Angeles, on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Tongva.
• Bill Waiser’s latest column on Saskatchewan history looks at reactions to the selection of Regina as the new capital of the North-West Territories, and the city’s search for water in the 1880s.
• The Dictionary of Canadian Biography’s latest biography is for John Culverwell Oland, a Nova Scotia brewer and politician.
• LAC’s latest Flickr album features the Queen Mum. Check out the album itself here.
• The latest blog post from the Retroactive blog focuses on clovis points, and what they can tell us about Alberta history and the Clovis people who might have lived in this area.
• Histoire Engagée has posted a news update! Welcome to all of the new editors!
• UofA’s Garneau Tree has reached the end of its life cycle. Find out about the tree and why it is so important here.
  • And find out more about this from CBC here.
• There were two blog posts this week from Unwritten Histories! The second featured upcoming publications in Canadian history that will be coming out in August and September 2017.
• Orange Shirt day is coming up! Find out about the occasion and pre-order your shirt here!
• The Nova Scotia Archives have shared this amazing image of a child’s handkerchief that survived the Halifax Explosion.
• While most Canadians won’t be able to see the full eclipse this weekend, we have seen many before. McGill library has posted a new piece about Sir Arthur Currie’s correspondence with premier Louis-Alexandre Taschereau regarding the August 31^st, 1932 eclipse, visible in Montreal and the St. Lawrence Valley, and whether or not the occasion should be a public holiday.
• This week Heritage Winnipeg profiled the Royal Alberta Hotel.
• Harold Bérube continues his series on Montreal’s tercentenary with a look at events that took place on May 24, 1942.
• This week Sean Munger has been taking a look at the Oak Island Money Pit, located in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia.
  • In Part 1, he talked about the legend of the treasure.
  • In Part 2, he discussed the physical evidence (or lack thereof) of the treasure.
  • In Part 3, he explained why the historical record does not support the existence of the treasure.
  • And in Part 4, he explains why he believes that there is likely no treasure in the famed Money Pit.
• Vanalogue takes a retrospective look at the 1978 Vancouver Heritage Advisory Committee photos.
• The St. Catharines Museum blog has a new post looking at how archivists and curators handle toxic materials, like arsenic, that might be contained within certain artefacts.
• The City of Vancouver Archives takes a look at the unrealized plans for a leisure complex in English Bay in 1920.
• This week’s TBT from the ROM is all about labels.
• Check out this beautiful ceramic pot, that is more than 2,500 years old, and the oldest pottery found in Canada outside of the Arctic.
• The Canadian Encyclopedia has updated their entry on the Geological Survey of Canada.
• Corey Slumkoski has posted a TBT on Acadiensis to Harvey Amani Whitfield’s “The Struggle over Slavery in the Maritime Colonies,” in response to the events in Charlottesville.
• The Vancouver as It Was blog highlighted forgotten Vancouver maestro, George P. Hicks.
• Sean Kelley has an update on the ongoing research project at the University of Essex, “Uncovering the Forgotten Voices of the Slave Trade.” The project is focused on recovering the testimony of West Africans who were born or sold into slavery from the 17th to the 19th centuries.
• Eve Lazarus looked back on a failed effort to ease Vancouver’s traffic congestion by twinning the Lions Gate Bridge.
• The Vintage Everyday blog has posted these images of Indigenous peoples living in the area we now refer to as Western Canada. The images were taken by Paul Coze in the 1930s, and are from the Provincial Archives of Alberta. As is so often the case, few of the individuals in these photographs are identified, and the images are very much part of the salvage ethnography approach.
• Canadian History in the News
  • Adorable alert: a couple who live on Lake Erie found a message in a bottle that was thrown in nearly 30 years ago! Pollution is bad, but this is just too cute.
  • Heritage Toronto has premiered a new walking tour featuring the history of Toronto’s Korean community.
  • Ian Mosby was kicking ass and taking names this week with the publication of a new article that linked diabetes and obesity in Indigenous peoples with residential schools.
    • CBC talked to him here.
    • Here is the National’s segment on this.
    • CBC Yukon talked about it here.
    • The Star covered this here.
    • APTN also shared the story, alongside an interview with Emma Shorty, a residential school survivor.
    • I would also like to point out that regardless of what these many articles say, Ian Mosby was not and is not being paid by the University of Toronto for his work, and they definitely should not be taking any credit for his work. The fact that I even have to say this is incredibly frustrating. Please support our unpaid and underpaid academics.
  • Everyone knows Vancouver is special, but find out just how special with this new exhibit from the Museum of Vancouver.
  • In advance of the new NAFTA talks, Alex Ballingall reminds us what happened last time, and the fascinating history of trade relations in North America.
    • Here’s another take on the same subject.
  • Stony Mountain Institute, in Manitoba, the oldest penitentiary in Canada that is still in operation, turned 140 this week.
  • Find out about the new piece of public art that Dawson Creek has established to pay tribute to the 75^th anniversary of the Alaska Highway.
  • Researchers are trying to find a Black Loyalist burial ground that might be located in the Algonquin golf course.
  • This week also marked the 50^th anniversary of the Shell Lake Murders, also known as Canada’s “worst random mass murder.”
  • The Cornwallis Military Museum is closing.
  • In honour of the recent 100^th anniversary of Tom Thompson’s death, a group of painters are undertaking a tribute to him.
  • Some amazing finds are being made during archaeological investigation at the former Mohawk Institute grounds. This includes evidence of thousands of years of Indigenous occupation of the site, as well as more recent finds from the school. The barrette is particular striking, at least for me, because I had very similar ones when I was a little girl, though I lived in very different circumstances.
  • A new NFB film is in the works about John Ware, a formerly enslaved Black man who established a successful ranch in what became known as Alberta.
  • So I’m including that news story about a woman who found her lost engagement ring growing around a carrot in the roundup because it’s my roundup, and I’ll summarize if I want to. 😛 And it’s frankly too adorable to leave out.
  • Montreal’s HBC building has removed its own confederate memorial this week, especially after Andrew Papenheim brought public attention to the plaque.
  • I’m not going to extensively cover the events of Charlottesville, simply because it is outside of the scope of this roundup. However, I do want to draw attention to Melissa J. Gismondi’s article about why the idea of Canadian exceptionalism is BS. This article also references Jerry Bannister’s piece on this on Borealia as well!
  • The members of a Burnaby exercise group have been meeting for 40 years.
  • Some jerks have vandalized the monument to the Rideau Canal workers who died during its construction.
  • I’m not sure if this counts as history, but Google has identified the most popular types of jokes in different parts of Canada.
  • Elmer Lakata, a US Air Force veteran, has spent his life creating more than 80 models depicting parts of Labrador’s history, after being stationed there in 1954. Some of these models are just amazing.
  • Want to play a game about Montreal archaeological artefacts?
  • Find out about Toronto’s Black Creek and the failed Highway 400 extension.
  • John’s Presbyterian Church in Cornwall, Ontario, tried to bulldoze its own cemetery without permission.
    • Find out why here.
  • Adorable monks have resurrected the heritage Oka melon.
  • Toronto Life showcased some amazing image of Toronto’s Centennial celebrations.
  • There are plans to tear down the Italian-Canadian cultural centre in North York, an important symbol of the Italian community in this country.
  • The Whistler Museum is almost finished with their project to digitize their collection of archival photographs. The new exhibit showcasing these images will be available soon!
    • More info on this here.
  • This article form The Guardian looks at the history of communal Indigenous bison hunts in North American, including several important sites in the area we now call Canada.
  • The Canadian Museum of History and Acadia First Nation are working hard to save Mi’kmaq artefacts before they are washed into the ocean.
  • Find out about the legend of Sgt Bill. Spoiler alert: he is a taxidermied goat.
  • With all of the news going on right now, there is not one, but two articles out about the history of the KKK in Canada.
    • Christine Sismondo looks back on the expansion of the KKK in Canada for Maclean’s.
    • While Kendall Latimer talks about the KKK is Saskatchewan.
  • TV5 talked with Yvonne Boyer and Judith Bartlett about their report, released in July, about the forced sterilization of Indigenous women from in and around Saskatoon, and the lack of concrete action in response.
  • Find out why four school children who sent syrup across Canada in 1983 were so scary.
  • The race is on to preserve Chilliwack’s history.
  • The archivist in charge of the University of Calgary’s EMI Music Canada collection, Robb Gilberts, spoke with CBC this week about the collection and music in the 90s.
  • CBC spoke with Jane Ledwell about her new book with Andrea McKenzie about L.M. Montgomery and WW1.
  • Find out about the accidental discovery of 710 individual envelopes containing medical records from 100 years of the Holy Family School of Nursing.
  • Find out about the Lacombe Community Memory Project and its efforts to find photographs to showcase the community’s history.
  • And WEDigHistory is another project looking for pictures, this time documenting the history of the Windsor-Essex region.
  • CBCSports remembers the 1983 University Games and the triumph of the Canadian men’s basketball team.
  • Parks Canada has a new press release about the next phase of research into the Franklin Expedition as well as the establishment of the Inuit Guardians Program, to protect the wrecks and share their stories. Though the article is long on text, it is short on actual information.
  • There are some fascinating discoveries being made at the current archaeological excavations at Mashteuiatsh, a First Nations reserve in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region of Quebec.
  • Get out your tissues to read these love letters from a husband to his future wife while serving overseas in WW2.
  • CBC has posted a new piece featuring an interview with Jack Granatstein talking about why we shouldn’t be removing all of our memorial statues. I fundamentally disagree with his perspective, but I include the link for the sake of completeness.
    • Ian Mosby does a great job of explaining what is wrong with this perspective.
  • Peter Zimonjic looks back several efforts over the past year or so to more accurately represent the history of Canada, including the renaming of Langevin Block and the Trutch Residence, as well as the removal of the statue of Matthew Begbie from the Law Society of BC.
    • However, as @GwitchinKris reminds us, we’ve still got a long way to go, especially given that in the same month that Begbie came down, a statue to Allan McEachern went up.
  • Crystal Fraser was interviewed by L’aquilon about her #150Acts of reconciliation!
  • These adorable campers, originally made in Manitoba, are becoming increasingly popular. And I can see why!
  • Dennis Duffy has written the latest Historicist column, on the subject of Toronto geologist and mountaineer, A.P. Coleman.
  • The Mayor of Montreal and the Police Chief have issued an official apology for the treatment of LGTBQ+ individuals in the city from the 1970s to the 1990s. They have also announced a new diversity policy to prevent this from happening in the future.
  • The Lost Stories project is moving ahead. CBC spoke with Keith Carlson and Chief Terry Home about their work to tell the story of the kidnapping of boys from the Stó:lō Nation in the early 20th century.
  • Find out about an ongoing project from the Royal BC Museum to preserve and digitize the songs of the First Nations communities who live in the area we now refer to as BC.
  • Archaeologists are collaborating with representatives from local First Nations communities, including Walpole Island First Nation, Caldwell First Nation, and Wendake, on an excavation in the west-end neighbourhood of Sandwich in Windsor.
  • Better Late than Never
    • Christopher Ryan tells the story of the battle of Norm’s Open Kitchen.
    • Find out more about the ongoing efforts to learn about what happened to the St. Lawrence Iroquois.
  • Calls for Papers
    • The organizers of the 58^th Annual Conference of the Western History Association are seeking paper submissions for their upcoming meeting in October 2018. Submissions are due September 1^st for individual papers, and December 1^st for organized panels.

This week also marked two important anniversaries, the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Hill 70 and the 75th anniversary of the Raid on Dieppe. Since there were several blog posts and news articles on each of them, I have given them each their own section. Please note that many of these articles are accompanied by graphic images that may not be suitable for all readers.

On the Battle of Hill 70

• LAC discussed the experiences of the Canadian Corps at the Battle.
• The Canadian Centre for the Great War reposted a link to their exhibit on the Battle of Hill 70 at the Google Cultural Institute.
  • And, later in the week, they devoted a whole blog post to the “forgotten battle.”
• LAC also honoured a number of Victoria Cross recipients who fought at Hill 70, including:
  • Private Michael James O’Rourke
  • Private Harry W. Brown
  • Sergeant Frederick Hobson and Major Okill Massey Learmonth
  • The remains of Pte. Regional Joseph Winfield Johnston, who fought at the Battle of Hill 70, will be buried with full honours this week in France.
  • And in more Hill 70 news, Dean Broughton remembers his grandfather, Burton Lawrence Broughton, and his service in WW1. The younger Broughton is also hoping to learn from his grandfather’s experiences with shell shock.

On the Raid at Dieppe

• The Canadian War Museum has a new display on the Dieppe Raid, focusing on the individual stories of soldiers who fought there.
• And newly released archival documents suggest that Canadian General John Hamilton Roberts, who is widely blamed for the Disaster at Dieppe, was doomed to failure from the very beginning, largely due to the machinations of the British Combined Operations Command. This is a fascinating read, though I would like to see this information published in a peer-reviewed journal.
• LAC created a guide to their records relating to the Raid on Dieppe.
• Spencer Keys wrote a Twitter essay about the actions of Cpl. Herman Cyril Keys, his grandfather, at Dieppe.
• And the Vancouver Sun covered the story of one of the two men who were awarded the Victoria Cross that day, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Ingersoll Cecil “Cec” Merritt.
• CBC News Montreal covered the contributions of the French Canadian soldiers of the Fusilier Mont-Royal at the Raid on Dieppe.

I have to say, this has been an unusually depressing week, and I think this roundup very much reflects that. However, it is great to see so many scholars speaking out about what has happened. That said, I hope you enjoyed this week’s roundup. If you did, please considering sharing it on the social media platform of your choice. And don’t forget to check back in on Tuesday for a brand new blog post about my experiences teaching a six-week course on Canada since WW2. See you then!

Addendum: Don’t forget that this Thursday and Friday, Active History, Unwritten Histories,  Canada’s History Society, and the Wilson Institute will be presenting our first ever history Twitter conference, “Beyond 150: Telling Our Stories”! For more information on how to participate and to find the schedule, please visit our website. And I’ll see you then!

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