Canadian History Roundup – Week of August 21, 2016

Makeshift bath in Prairies, Audrey James washing up, Portage-la-Prairie, Manitoba (August 5, 1954). Rosemary Gilliat. Rosemary Gilliat Eaton Fonds. Library and Archives Canada, e010975221 CC BY 2.0

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

• This week on NiCHE, Claire Campbell recaps her experiences at the North East and Atlantic Region Environmental History Group, which met earlier this month in Halifax. This is a workshop group, rather than a conference, where participants discuss pre-circulated papers. They also got to go on amazing field trips.
• Stephanie Ann Warner takes a fascinating look at costumes and culture at masquerade balls in Victoria in the early 1900s. She looks specifically at the Victoria West Amateur Dramatics Society, established around 1890, and representations of the East as well as Indigenous peoples and individuals from ethnic minorities (“Jews, Negroes, and Klootchemen”). There are some great photographs of her great-grandmother in costume as well!
• This also talks talks about how she found some of her ancestor’s graves in the Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria.
• Teaching this semester? Take a look at these tips for making your classroom trans-inclusive.
• Active History is on hiatus for two weeks! So rather than posting new content, they are revisiting some of the most popular posts from the last year. Here’s a look at this week’s offerings:
  • Veronica Strong Boag discusses the stigma faced by young male refugees, often depicted as untrustworthy and dangerous.
  • Leanne Betasamosake Simpson takes a critical (and prophetic) look at relations between the Canadian government and Indigenous peoples under Justin Trudeau.
  • Stacey Zembrzycki looks at the irreversible damage that slag dumping west of Sudbury has done to the landscape and the bodies and memories of local inhabitants.
  • Beth A. Robertson and Dorotea Gucciardo present the first online Active History exhibit, on the topic of “Science, Technology and Gender.”
  • Finally, Lynn Gehl tells the story of her great grandfather, Joseph Gagne, who served in WW1, and how this service resulted in them being stripped of their treaty rights by the Canadian government.
• Though parts of it have been available for a while, the complete Eugenics Archive website had just launched! This website looks at the history of eugenics in Canada. It’s really an amazing resource, with interactive maps of institutions, interviews with survivors, and much more.
• Mike Commito has compiled a syllabus of material devoted to using the Tragically Hip as a lens through which to view Canadian history. What a cool idea!
• This week on Unwritten Histories, I created a guide to online resources for teaching and learning in higher education. This list contains the sources that I’ve found to be the most helpful in improving my teaching skills. While most of these are not field specific, there are resources specifically on teaching history and Canadian history as well.
• The latest Journal of the Canadian Historical Association has just been released! I can’t seem to find an online version, but I will let you know when it’s available.
• As soon as I got my copy, I live-tweeted my reading of the article, “Still Working in the Shadows of Men: An Analysis of Sex Distribution in Publications and Prizes in Canadian History,” by Elise Chenier, Lori Chambers, and Anne Frances Towes. You can check out my thoughts here and you can download your own copy of the article here.
• Daniel MacFarlane takes a look at models of the Niagara and St. Lawrence Megaprojects on NiCHE this week. He approaches these models from the perspective of both environmental and technological history. Central to a design process that combined the natural and the artificial, these models provide important insights into understandings of modernity during the Cold War. This article follows an exploration of a similar model of the Mississippi basin in an episode of the 99% Invisible Podcast (which I highly recommend!).
• The Champlain Society is back with their latest article in Findings/Trouvailles. This article, by Elizabeth Jewett, looks at the history of golf advertising at Jasper Park. By looking at a tourist booklet produced for the park, Golf at Jasper Park, she examines the construction of golfscapes (golf course landscapes) as spaces of nature and play for white upper-middle-class golfers. Two fun facts: I come from a family of golfers but have no desire to play the game, and Elizabeth Jewett and I took classes together at McGill during our undergrads.
• Kami Fletcher, writing for the African American Intellecutal History Society, talks about the struggle to get American students to connect their country/continent to the African Diaspora. One solution she has pioneered has been a field school of sorts, where she takes students to visit historical sites in the Maritimes.
• Mariam Lafrenie, on the Discover Blog from LAC, takes a look at the legacy of Sir Charles Tupper, who spent only 69 days as Prime Minister.
• York University, in collaboration with Erica Dyck and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, has just launched a new website, “After the Asylum.” The website contains a series of exhibits that explore the impact that de-institutionalization had on former residents of psychiatric facilities.
• UNBC History graduate student Kathryn Louro is interviewed about her work this past summer creating a finding aid for the Northern BC Archives and Special Collections on the Rail Transportation Holdings.
• Kirsten Greer talks about Research Trajectory 3 of the Empire, Trees, and Climate project, looking at the history written in the wood used to build Province House.
• The Dictionary of Canadian Biography has a new entry. This one is about Eliza MacKenzie, the first PEI woman to have practiced medicine in Charlottetown.
• Jessica DeWitt talks about her recent read of a 1971 publication, Why Wilderness: A report on Mismanagement in Lake Superior Provincial Park, its erasure of the presence of Indigenous peoples in the area, and problematic definitions of “wilderness.”
• Also on the Discover Blog, LAC announces that it has uploaded a new album to Flickr Commons, this one on early roads. Check out the images here.
• On BC Studies, Douglas King, with Pivot Legal, argues that Canada needs a “Campaign Zero” just as much as the US. Campaign Zero is a manifesto asking for legal reforms to help combat police violence against Black individuals and systemic racism.
• Also on BC Studies, there is a new book reviews:
  • Playing For Change: The Continuing Struggle For Sport And Recreation
• On Histoire Engagée, there is yet another new interview from the Question sociale et citoyenneté  conference. This interview features Louise Bienvenue and Andréanne LeBrun and looks at reforms to the voting system in Quebec in the 1960s and their relationship to discourses on citizenship in schools.
• Paul Hébert discusses how Canadian immigration policies and the nation’s shared history with the West Indies impacted anti-racism activism. With respect to immigration policies, he is referring to the Domestic Scheme, which was designed to encourage West Indian women to come to Canada as domestic workers.
• Donica Belisle and Kiera Mitchell have compiled a comprehensive list of digitizied Canadian historical periodicals. This list is so amazing!
• Canadian History in the News
  • On Tuesday, a Toronto judge ordered that the hearing on the Sixties Scoop class-action lawsuit by adjourned. It will resume on December 1^st, unless a settlement is reached between the federal government and Sixties Scoop survivors.
    • This Globe and Mail article provides some history of the Sixties Scoop and of the ongoing court case.
    • Here is the National Posts’ take.
    • In a great Twitter essay, Dawn Marie explains the history of the Sixties Scoop in the context of continual attempts to disenfranchise Indigenous peoples through assimilation.
    • And the Media Indigena Podcast talks about the court case and interviews Raven Sinclair, profession of social worker and Scoop survivor.
  • On Backstory, the podcast where CBC reporters talk about the background to their stories, Connie Walker talks about residential schools and their legacy, including the impact the schools had on her own family.
  • CBC looks at a new energy bar produced by an American Indigenous company, Native American Natural Foods, based on pemmican. This is genius.
  • On Wednesday, the British National Archives declassified thousands of documents from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. A number of the documents released relate specifically to Canada, and, as one journalist put it, show what British diplomats really thought about our country, its people, and our politicians. It’s kinda funny, but also depressing.
  • Underwater recovery experts have found CPR 694, a train that derailed on June 9, 1910. After hitting a boulder on the track, it dropped into Lake Superior and sank to the bottom. Though the wreck is too damaged to be raised, archaeologists might be able to recover a few items.
  • Tisdale, Saskatchewan, has finally decided to change the town slogan of “The Land of Rape and Honey.”  The replacement, unveiled on Monday (and not a moment too soon), is “Opportunity grows here.”
  • Long before the British and Canadian explorers arrived, the Inuit already knew what had happened to the Franklin Expedition. Now, Louie Kamookak visited some of the sites mentioned in the stories by his late great-grandmother, Humahuk. This article is a beautiful story of how the present, the past, and the future are all interconnected and of the power of the oral traditions of the Indigenous peoples of this land.
  • An examination of a Nunavut archaeological site likely belonging to the ancient Thule has unveiled evidence of over 3,500 years of continuous occupation. Archaeologists made this discovery while surveying the site for a proposed reconstruction of an ancient Thule homestead as well as documenting previous (unprofessional and half-assed) archaeological excavations that had been going on since the 1940s.
  • Archaeologists are set to return to the site of the HMS Erebus and continue excavations beginning at the end of August. The team will continue its search for the HMS Terror in a new expedition expected to last nine days.
  • Ottawa has officially requested the return of two Beothuk remains taken from a Newfoundland gravesite in 1828. The remains are currently located in a Scotland museum, and belong to Nonosabasut and his wife Demasduit, two of the last Beothuks. Demasduit was kidnapped by a fur trapper in March 1819, in retaliation for an alleged left by the Beothuk. Her husband was killed trying to rescue her. Her captors renamed her Mary March, and she lived with them for nearly a year before dying of tuberculosis. Her body was returned for burial at Red Indian Lake. Later, a Scottish explorer dug up the remains of Demasduit and Nonosabasut, and took their skulls and some grave goods.
  • DNA tests have confirmed that there was a second case of two babies switched at birth in Manitoba. The switch took place in the same year and in the same hospital, Norway House Indian Hospital. The first was uncovered in November, and it’s possible there are even more switches waiting to be uncovered.
  • A souvenir hunter found a mortar round at the site of the former Camp X. Just in case you need the reminder, Camp X was the notorious spy camp located outside of Oshawa, Ontario, where British, Canadian, and Americans, including Ian Fleming (creator of James Bond), trained in espionage.
  • Nova Scotia archaeologists are excavating the first known foundry in the province at the Museum of Industry in Stellarton. 100 lucky members of the public get to participate!
  • The Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nationals executive is calling for more Indigenous history in classrooms to help end racism against Indigenous peoples. I absolutely agree!
  • In related news, The Guardian takes a closer look at the required Indigenous Studies courses offered at the University of Winnipeg.
  • Cristina Tessier, marketing manager of the D’Aoust & Cie department store in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, has established a museum in the store’s basement exploring its 116-year history.
  • The ashes belonging to Freeman Barber, an Ontario man who died in New York in 1883 are finally being returned to Canada after lying unclaimed for 40 years.
  • The National Council of Canadian Muslims has created a guide to combating Islamophobia in schools. While designed for elementary and high schools, the guide also offers great advice for universities and college instructors.
  • Heritage BC is asking for nominations of historic Japanese-Canadian sites. Proposals are being accepted until September 9^th.
  • Brenda Macdougall, chair of Métis research in the Department of Geography at the University of Ottawa talks about the recent death of Colten Boushie, killed by a white farmer when he approached his car to ask for help. This is a not-to-be-missed piece that talks about the incident, as well as how the narrative of White victimhood has permitted or even celebrated the tragedy.
  • Alexandra Pope, writing for Canadian Geographic, looks at Soviet tourist advertising to Canada in the Depression. Did you know that the U.S.S.R was a new vacation land? Hehehe.
  • Jamie Bradburn, with the Torontoist, looks at the early career of the founding publisher of the Daily Telegraph, John Ross Roberston (who would go on to establish the successful Telegram).
  • Jennifer Keesmaat, Chief Planner for the City of Toronto, responds to concerns about the fate of the archaeological discoveries from The Ward, including the remains of the historically Black British Methodist Episcopal Church.
  • Following the current concerns over rising water levels in Edmonton, CBC takes a look at the 1915 Edmonton Flood, the worst in its history.
  • The Vancouver Sun interviews local historian, Daniel Francis, on his latest book about North Vancouver.
  • Scarborough is hosting it’s annual Tamilfest right now. This year, the festival includes the lifeboat that carried Tamil refugees to Newfoundland thirty years ago.
  • Steven Ewen, from The National Post, asks: Is Phil Esposito’s 1972 Summit Series rant the greatest Canadian speech?
  • Edmonton archivists are preserving a collection capturing the music and voices with Alberta Indigenous peoples through digitization. This collection was created in the 1940s for the Folkways Alive Project, created by Moses Asch to capture North American music.
  • Graeme Voyer reviews J.L. Granatstein’s latest book, The Weight of Command. TL;DR: He doesn’t like it.
  • John Allemang takes a look back to a time when Kitchener, Ontario, was known as Berlin, and how celebrations of German heritage are returning to the city.

That’s it for this week! Don’t forget to check back on Tuesday for a brand new post. This week, we have a new What’s in My Bag!

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