Canadian History Roundup – Week of December 11, 2016

“Compliments of the Season,” (1870s-1900?) Kenneth Rowe fonds 2006-00269-4, Library and Archives Canada

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

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

• Kicking off this week’s roundup is a roundup from NiCHE! This week, the editors of NiCHE have put together a list of their favourite recent publications in Canadian environmental history, along with short reviews.
  • Easter egg: Jessica DeWitt even mentions one of my blog posts!
• Active History’s first post of the week comes from Skylee-Storm Hogan and Krista McCracken and is a absolute must-read. They reflect on how historians and academics have worked to facilitate the Indigenization and decolonization of universities, while also offering some really great practical suggestions.
  • Like, don’t do this.
• Cédrik Lampron, writing for Histoire Engagée, discusses the recent workshop/conference, “Pouvoir et territoire au Québec : acteurs, enjeux et processus de 1850 à nos jours,” held in November in Sherbrooke. The conference explored the history of spaces and landscapes in Quebec, with respect to resource development and scientific exploration, the relationship between rural and urban areas, and Montreal as metropolis.
• Emily Lonie is back this week with another blog post on the role of archives, this time with respect to interactive and digital outreach projects. She looks at several global examples, and they just look so cool!
• Jeff A Webb has an evocative post over at Acadiensis this week. Reflecting on his personal experiences and his research on James Howley, he talks about how historians imagine the past when they are handling documents and artefacts. My suspicion is that all historians are at least a little bit romantic.
• The Queen’s Alumni Review is out this week, and this latest issue is all about the history of Queen’s University. Check it out!
• The latest issue of Histoire Sociale is out!
• The new Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique française is also out, but it’s not available online yet.
• In keeping with the journal theme, this week on Unwritten Histories, I posted my monthly review of the best new articles in the field of Canadian history! Because apparently I’m insane, this month I read 10 different journal issues. There were some fantastic articles this month, so definitely check them out!
• And it was a double post week this week too! I also posted my list of upcoming publications in Canadian history for January 2017.
• The Champlain Society’s blog, Findings/Trouvailles, continued their advent calendar this week!
  • Day six, by Germane Warkentin, showcases the Christmas celebration of Sir. John Franklin and his crew in 1825. He apparently combined English, French, and Indigenous customs to create a unique holiday experience.
  • Day seven, by Stacy Nation-Knapper, is about one jerk of a missionary who gave an Indigenous boy clothing for the holiday, and then took it back when the boy left the missionaries.
  • Day eight, by Donald W. McLeod, talks about the New Year’s carrier address custom, where you could give a gift to your carrier boy (who delivered the newspaper).
  • Day nine is by Mairi Cowan, and is a look at one man’s derailed  Christmas courtship plans.
• UBC has just posted its updated guidelines to language use with respect to Indigenous peoples. It is extremely informative and a good guide whether you are just learning about the subject, or want to learn about some best practices.
• This week on the Discover Blog from LAC is a short guide to citing archival sources. I have to say, this isn’t a super helpful post, but the link at the bottom of the page (How to Cite Archival Sources) is very helpful.
• The Haunted Montreal Blog is back with another bilingual post, this time about the Protestant Mount Royal Cemetery. It’s actually quite a beautiful location, and my grandmother is buried on the mountain in the Jewish cemetery.
• The University of Toronto Press blog has a new post about a recent history publication, Sickkids: A History of the Hospital for Sick Children. The post features the personal stories of three generations of one family who relied on the hospital.
• Kristine Kovacevic, writing for the Pier 21 museum blog, talks about their project, which asks visitors to contribute stories about their family traditions. She also shared some of her favourites. They are quite lovely.
• It’s not strictly Canadian, but Active History has been running a series on history in South Africa for several months now. This week, the series’ author, Rachel Hunter, has a great post about “unlearning” history to fight racism. I think there are many lessons here for Canadian historians. You can see the rest of the series here.
• Micheal Egan reviewed Jessica van Horssen’s book, A Town Called Asbestos: Environmental Contamination, Health, and Resilience in a Resource Community for NiCHE this week.
• The Atlantic Loyalist Connections blog is back with part three of their series on 18^th and 19^th century names. This week, they list their top tips for identifying surnames when researching!
• Krista McCracken has a superb article this week about grant writing. As she argues, grant work is largely invisible (and time consuming) work that is almost never paid. Success often depends upon the resources available, and these heavily depend upon your institution. Of course, that’s assuming you even have an institution.
• Jean-Luc Pilon, writing for the Canadian Museum of History blog, talks about his research on the New Severn Post archaeological project, a former HBC trading post in northern Ontario.
• LAC is back with part two of their series, “How much does your collection weigh?” This time, they talk about the challenge of storing nitrate film, which is highly flammable and delicate.
• UofT will be archiving scientific data on climate change in anticipation of the Trump presidency, trying to preserve it “just in case.”
• Histoire Engagée also has a second blog post this week. This one, by Pierre Cras, looks at Black superheroes in the Marvel universe. It’s not really Canadian, but hello, it’s a blog post about comic books!
• Would you like to have your very own Chicago Manual of Style Christmas ornament? Well, their blog has a printable one just for you! I’m dying.
• Shoal Lake First Nation community is, once again, isolated on an island without a working ferry. Check out Adele Perry’s Twitter essay about this, as well as an article she wrote for the Winnipeg Free Press, all about the history of Shoal Lake and how it came to supply Winnipeg’s drinking water.
• Karine Duhamel talks about how the Canadian Museum for Human Rights developed their exhibition on Indigenous Peoples, in connection with communities and individuals. Duhamel describes the process as one of “truth-telling.” It’s a rare and detailed description of how an institution can do the work of reconciliation, recognizing that it is work and takes effort, rather than just being a catch-phrase.
• Check out this storify Adam Barker made of the Carceral Geography conference held at the University of Birmingham. While most of the content deals with other parts of the world, Adam presented some of his great work on Indigenous incarceration in settler colonial North America.
• If you teach any kind of history in any place, you need to read this Twitter essay by Chelsea Vowel. She talks about trauma and the retraumatization of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour) students when discussing certain historical events. It’s an absolute must-read.
• In Ann Little’s regular Teaser Tuesday blog post, she talks about the experiences of women in North American settler colonial wars. She focuses specifically on the Battle on the Plains of Abraham, and the involvement of the Ursuline convent.
• Andrew Nurse has a blog post on Active History this week about the Chignecto Marine Transport Railway Company. You’ll remember that BC Studies had a blog post series on this a while ago. Nurse talks about the importance of studying failure. He argues that both the terms failure and success should be redefined to remove their positive and negative associations.
• LAC is back with their monthly update on the CEF digitization project!
• McGill-Queen’s University Press has a new blog post out this week about domestic celebrations of Christmas in Victorian homes. I just love this kind of history. The post is an excerpt from Family Ties: Living History in Canadian House Museums by Andrea Terry.
• The Nova Scotia Archives blog has a new post by Darlene Brine about her quest to track down the author of an Acadian journal. While solving the mystery, she also discovered new information about her own family history!
• The DCB’s latest entry is up and it is about famed BC artist, Emily Carr!
• Vintage Ever After has posted 40 images of mustachioed Canadian gentlemen from the 1860s to the 1870s.
• LAC is apparently on a roll this week. They have uploaded two new Flickr albums.
  • The first contains images from their Documentary Heritage Communities Program, which is dedicated to documenting Canada’s history in collaboration with local communities. You can see the images here.
  • The second contains images of miners and mining. You can see those images here.
• This week on the Retroactive blog is a look at St. Nicholas Peak, located near the Alberta-BC border. Cause it’s almost Christmas? Get it?
• The Museum of Vancouver has posted their five favourite photos from 1979! Wait, does that mean it’s the last post in this series? 🙁
• This week, the Canadian Centre for the Great War blog looks at WW1 Christmas ornaments. Before the war, nearly all glass Christmas ornaments were made in Germany. The only reason I know that is because Vancouver has a yearly German Christmas Market that I attend with my husband, and the company that made the ornaments in Germany usually attends.
• This week on Twitter, Ian Mosby talked about the systematic destruction of the Department of Indian Affairs documents relating to residential schools. Check out his Twitter essay here.
• Taras Grescoe posted a really neat vintage Toronto public transit poster.
• A whole bunch of Canadian historians, including Colin Coates, Andrea Davis, Sean Kheraj, and more, have been awarded Canada 150 prizes from York. You can read about some of their projects here.
• Also this week on NiCHE is Jessica DeWitt’s monthly roundup of environmental history worth reading!
• Gillian Leitch has posted a fascinating letter written in 1960 by her mother just after she moved to Canada from Britain.
• Histoire Engagée has announced a new member of their team, Adèle Clapperton-Richard! Bienvenue!
• The Canadian Museum of Human Rights is featuring seven artefacts from their new collection for the Rebellion and Confederation exhibit. I especially liked Mercy Coles’ diary.
• This week on the UBC Digitizer’s Blog is a look at tea! It’s not really Canadian, but I love tea and this is my roundup. 😛
• Queen’s University’s history blog, The Watson, is back with another post featuring interviews with faculty members.
• The Winnipeg Heritage blog looks at a heritage home in North Point Douglas this week.
• Christopher Ryan talks about using city directories in his research. He describes the kinds of information that city directories can hold, and also talks about some of their shortcomings.
• The Canadian Museum of History’s museum artefact of the week is this nativity scene crated by Hella Braun. The nativity scene has appeared on several stamps, and you can see one of them here.
• Canadian History in the News
  • Earlier this week on the National, I saw a piece about Carrie Best, who was expelled from the same Nova Scotia cinema as Viola Desmond, only three years earlier. I can’t find the actual article, but here is a blog post from McGill about Best and why she was and is so important. She seems like an extraordinary person!
  • Science meets history as archaeologists use DNA to study the transatlantic slave trade. Hannes Schroeder and his colleagues are collecting DNA from individuals buried in slave cemeteries to learn more about their origins.
  • The Museum of Vancouver is currently showing a sample of the Major James Matthews collection, on the early history of the city of Vancouver. You can see images of some of these artefacts in the link above.
  • Roundhouse Radio 98.3 Vancouver interviewed Barrington Walker about Viola Desmond! You can replay the recording here. The episode aired on December 12^th, and the show name is Sense of Place with Minelle Mahtani.
  • The Beaton Institute in Cape Breton is working on a new virtual museum about the experiences of Cape Breton nurses and tunnellers from WW1. The exhibit will talk about life for Cape Bretoners both at war and at home.
  • Someone thought it was a good idea to name a new Canadian Coast Guard ship after Sir John Franklin. Larry Pynn talks about the decision and the resulting controversy.
    • Russell Potter also has his own take on the controversy, reflecting on the way in which Franklin has been reimagined by successive Canadian generations.
  • Forbes takes a look at the McCord Museum’s current exhibition, “Notman, A Visionary Photographer.”
  • You need to go read this article about a 47-year old burger in the Alberta Legislature. Just trust me.
  • Cheryl Thompson has a super article about Viola Desmond, and why she needs to be remembered within her historical context. What happened to Desmond was not an isolated incident, and unless we recognize this, we will never learn to do better.
  • We’re big fans of social media here at Unwritten Histories, and in this article for Alaska Highway news, Scott Donovan talks about how social media can help preserve a community’s history.
  • Paula Simons, at the Edmonton Journal has a fascinating article about Edmonton’s “first Christmas,” which, predictably, involved a lot of booze.
  • This week in WTF news, a city councillor in Edmonton complained that the city should choose Indigenous street names that were easier to pronounce and spell.
  • And a city councillor in Winnipeg complained about city staff having to take sensitivity training about residential schools, and then apologized when he was criticized for it. Is it dumb-ass city councillor week and no one told me?
    • And now this.
  • Dennis Molinaro, a sessional instructor at Trent, has found new evidence of RCMP surveillance (wiretapping) programs for suspected communists during the Cold War. However, none of the documents pertaining to this project (code name: “Picnic”) were ever sent to LAC nor were its findings disclosed to Parliament. And there is evidence that the project was still in effect at least until Pierre Elliot Trudeau’s second term as PM. And the Privy Council refuses to confirm that any documents even exist. Interesting…
  • The National Post has collected 19 different images that document the experiences of Japanese-Canadian internees. You can see the amazing images in the article, along with information about their history.
  • Radio Canada talks about the Eatonville Roadhouse in south-western Ontario, where 55 Japanese-Canadian internees were held from 1942 to 1943. It is the last remaining building from the Japanese-Canadian internment, but the structure is badly damaged and is facing demolition.
  • Questions are being raised about the talking sticks displayed in the Terrace City Hall. Their origin is unknown, but city councillor Michael Prevost is speaking with Elders from Kingcome Inlet and Gilford Island to solve this problem. And that’s what city councillors should be doing….
  • The ice road that connects Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk is being replaced with an all-seasons highway. So if you want to drive on this road, you should do it while you still can.
  • The Toronto Star speaks with Ana Maria Gordon, who, at age four, was a passenger on the St. Louis. The ship carried nearly 950 Jewish German refugees, but was denied entry into Havana, the US, and Canada. The ship was eventually forced to return to Germany.
  • Canadian Geographic looks at the rise and fall of asbestos. As many of you are aware, this week the Canadian government announced that it will be enforcing a total ban of the mineral starting in 2018.
  • A local historian in New Brunswick is looking for historical documents belonging to New Brunswick women who served in WW1.
  • This week in Maclean’s, Brian Bethune talks about Vimy Ridge, and argues that Vimy Ridge did not make Canada, but Canada made Vimy Ridge.
  • CBC features some of the discussion from the LAC’s conference, “Taking it to the Streets: Summit on the Value of Libraries, Archives and Museums in a Changing World,” particularly around the public service of libraries, archives, and museums.
  • A Newfoundland man has been reunited with two girls he saved from a burning house in 1951.
  • The city of Kamloops is working to develop a series of interactive maps of the city’s history!
  • Jamie Bradburn, writing for the Torontoist, has a new article about the misadventures of a Toronto cow. Well, no one should ever suggest that Toronto’s history is boring. 😉
  • Check out this neat little article about Christmas cards at the Maple Ridge Museum from the 1920s to the 1950s.
    • You can see more here as well.
  • Learn about the efforts of the Film and Video Arts Society of Alberta to preserve 30 years of Alberta films.
  • Quebec will be cutting their high school contemporary world history course in two in order to introduce financial literacy courses next fall. The contemporary world history course deals with topics like genocide and the environment. Cause finances are waaaay more important.
  • In “oh my god it’s too adorable” news, check out this lovely Lesbian couple who have been together for fifty years. #relationshipgoals
  • Once upon a time, it was possible to skate outside in Vancouver.

That’s a wrap for this week! Don’t forget to check back on Tuesday for a special blog post that you will definitely not want to miss!

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