Canadian History Roundup – Week of February 19, 2017

Dorchester Street, Montreal, St. James’ Club on the other side of the Portico. 1881-1882. Arthur Elliot. Peter Winkworth Collection. Library and Archives Canada, e000996428. 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.

• Earlier this week, Dene tanner Melaw Nakehk’o (@mlala_mson) wrote a Twitter essay on Moosehide Tanning as Resistance over on the ‪@Resistance150. Jessica Dunkin has storified the awesome essay!
• The Nova Scotia Archives has just updated its guide to its holdings regarding the history of the Mi’kmaq nation.
• Sabina Trimble has been awarded the 2016 BC Studies Prize for the best new article! You may remember that this article was also featured in a previous Best New Articles post, so I think the prize is well deserved! Check out the article for yourself here.
• This week is an exciting week over on NiCHE! In honour of the recent launch of the edited collection, Animal Metropolis: Histories of Human-Animal Relations in Urban Canada (University of Calgary Press, 2017), NiCHE has organized a series of blog posts from some of the contributors!
  • First up is a blog post by Darcy Ingram about animal rights movements, comparing Victorian initiatives to recent work by PETA.
  • Christabelle Sethna compares the journey of Jumbo, an African bull elephant who became a circus attraction, with the experiences of Raphael Padilla, an Cuban man who had been born into a Black slave family, exploring the historical relationship between animalization and racialization.
  • Joanna Dean examines the use of guinea pigs in medical experimentation and the history of the expression. Poor little guinea pigs.
• Beyond Borders is back with another blog post, this time by James Hill, following the journey of a group of Creek and Cherokee Nation diplomats from their home territories in the South-East US, to the Bahamas, to Quebec, to Nova Scotia, to London. Hill shows how Canada played an important role in an interconnected transatlantic world.
• This past week was Reading Week at UBC, so the UBC Digitizers’ blog celebrated with a look at images of reading and books from their collection.
• Monique Woroniak shared a list of fantastic resources on Métis History on her Twitter feed, ‏‪@mworoniak . To see them, simply scroll down to February 20^th. There are 21 recommendations in total.
• This week on Black Perspectives, Keisha N. Blain interviews Erik S. McDuffie about his recent work on Louise Langdon Norton Little. Little is known principally as Malcolm X’s mother, but was a civil rights activist in her own right who also happened to have spent time living in Canada.
• This week on Unwritten Histories, I posted my guide to online resources for the teaching and learning of Black History in Canada!
• The latest Ben Franklin’s World podcast episode focuses on the British and Loyalists during and after the American Revolution.
• The Acadiensis Blog has a new post in their series featuring Jerry Bannister’s students. This post, by Randy Westhaver, asks the question: “What is Canadian?” and what it means when there is no real answer. He also makes a larger argument about the use of jargon in historical writing and the duty of historians to make their work publicly accessible.
• Joanne Hammond has yet another must-read Twitter this week, looking at the history of stolen land in Canada, and unpacking the term “preemption.”
• This week on Histoire Engagée, Christine Chevalier-Caron interviewed Aly Ndiaye, also known as Webster, about how rap and hip-hop have important roles to play in rewriting the history of Quebec to be more inclusive and representative, particularly with respect to Black history.
• Sean Kheraj has written a new blog post for Active History about using virtual reality to teach, represent, and analyze the past. I’ve used virtual reality in several of my classes to great effect, so I definitely think more historians need to check this out.
• And on a similar note, Sarah King reviews a virtual reality exhibit by Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, entitled “Inherent Rights, Vision Rights,” and discusses how a virtual reality scenario that forces viewers to be present in and engage with a scene can be a tool to dismantle settler colonialism.
• This week’s post from the BAnQ blog, Instantanés, looks at the archive’s collection of fur trade permits from 1721 to 1752, and discusses what historians can learn from these types of documents.
• The CHA has released the preliminary program for their 2017 annual meeting! You may even spot a certain someone listed…. 😉
• Christopher Moore asks some important questions about how historians should handle the sexual orientation of historical individuals.
• Krista McCracken has an update from the SCCA Response to the Report on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Task Force, which discusses how the archival community is responding to the calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report.
• This week the Retroactive blog takes a look at the history of arts organizations in Alberta.
• The McGill Library digitization team has just made available 141 issues of The Civilian from 1913 to 1920. The Civilian was a journal on the Canadian civil service.
• Kisha Supernant also has a great Twitter essay this week about the problems inherent in the new genetic study regarding the Chaco people. Here is the first post, and you can see the rest on her Timeline by scrolling down to February 22^nd.
• Archives Montreal has just digitized some new historical documents from New France, particularly those relating to the administration of the colony. You can even see the documents on the blog post!
• Vintage Everday has posted some great images of Vancouver youth in the 1970s.
• The Nova Scotia Archives blog has a new post this week about J.A.D. McCurdy, the first person to successfully fly an airplane — The Silver Dart — in the British Empire. The Nova Scotia Archives happens to hold his archival collection, and you can see some of it at the link above!
• I’m always excited when I see the The Champlain Society’s blog Findings/Trouvailles has posted a new blog post! Their latest, by Janet Friskney, looks at the battle between competing forms of embossed-type (which enabled the blind to read) in Canada. While some schools preferred British Braille, others preferred New York Point, leaving Canada caught between two of its closest allies.
• This week’s new biography from the DCB is that of Gérard Raymond, a man so saintly that his reputation lasted long after his death.
• Canadian Heritage Matters examines memorials to the Great War in Canada, and their continually shifting meaning.
• Also on Active History this week is a post by Jonathan McQuarrie about the regulation of marijuana in Canada, as compared to the regulation of tabacco.
• Jenny Ellison has written the latest blog post for the Canadian Museum of History. In this post, she explores the history of women’s hockey leagues in Canada, and several attempts to get the players to wear pink jerseys. I would also be pissed, because I absolutely hate the colour pink.
• The Toronto Dreams Project blog features Miriam Rosenthal, a Holocaust survivor who was forced to give birth in Dachau. Though separated from her husband during the war, she was able to reunite with him afterwards, and they eventually chose to settle in Canada, with baby Leslie. This was especially meaningful for me to read because my best friend’s grandmother was also a Holocaust survivor, who gave birth to a son in Hungary before moving to Canada.
• BC Studies is calling on the public to donate digital postcards of “monuments” from all over the province. Find out more here.
• The LAC Discovery blog has a new post in its guest curator series. This latest featured Vasanthi Pendakur, who talks about images of Canada published in travel encyclopaedias as well as historical fashion plates.
• LAC has also released its latest podcast episode about William James Topley, a noted photographer of Ottawa.
• Houda Asai has written a blog post for the Ideas/Idées blog of the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences about the long history of Middle-Eastern immigrants in Canada (since at least 1880), their absence from the historiography, racism, and the shifting meaning of “Arab” identity in Canada. It’s absolutely fantastic.
• The St. Catharines Museum blog has reprinted an excerpt from ““Walk A” in “St. Catharines A-Z” by Junius, originally published in the St. Catharines Journal on May 15th, 1856, on the Welland Canal.
• Library and Archives Canada has made some updates to the Library Search function.
• Active History has posted their second poster from the Graphic History Collective. This latest features Chloe Cooley.
• Jean-Pierre Morin discusses the place of history and historical thinking in public policy development, drawing on his work as the staff historian for the Canadian department of Indigenous and Northern Affairs.
• The Canadian Centre for the Great War talks about expectations for Canadian Expeditionary Forces personnel with respect to Officers.
• The Canadian Museum for Human Rights explores the history of Africville, from its establishment to its demolition.
• An Indigenous student — Tarene Thomas from the University of Alberta — speaks about the backlash she has experienced from efforts to Indigenize the academy, and why it is so important.
• Jessica DeWitt has posted her editorial comments for the Spring 2017 issue of Folklore. This issue’s theme is “Family Roots.”
• The Archives of Ontario have just posted a new Flickr album, on families. Check it out here.
• The Alberta Museums Association has just posted their latest podcast episode, “When the Floods Came to Calgary.”
• The Canadian Centre for the Great War published episode two in their podcast, Dear Bessie: A Wartime Love Story. Did someone declare this podcast week and not tell me?
• Gail Dever showcases some of the many digitized documents available from the Prairie Immigration Experience!
• The Haida Gwaii Museum has just (like February 25th) uploaded several thousand incredible images from their collection. They are just absolutely gorgeous.
• Whistorical remembers cross-country skiing with the Alta Lake Sports Club.
• Eve Lazarus looks at the history of Switzer House, an experiment in radical architecture, situated on the North Shore of Vancouver.
• Christopher Ryan discusses Ottawa’s Centretown’s Apartments, and the building’s connections to the civil service and the Great Depression.
• Canadian History in the News
  • Jay Odjick is teaching others how to speak Algonquin using great illustrations on Twitter!
  • Denise Balkissoon has a beautifully written and incredibly impactful article about hierarchies of belonging in Canada and the contradiction that is Canada 150
  • Remember how I told you a few weeks ago that St. Boniface Museum was planning to cancel its Louis Riel Day celebrations to cut costs? It’s been saved by the Manitoba Métis Federation! Though apparently the caption under the photo hasn’t been updated since 2016…
  • There is a new initiative to help reconnect families torn apart by slavery through the digitization of “Information Wanted” ads placed in Black publications from around the world. These ads are being compiled into a database, which you can see here.
  • The Douglas Treaties, signed between the British and fourteen First Nations from Vancouver Island from 1850 to 1854, played an important role in shaping the relationship between Indigenous peoples and successive governments in BC. The Times Colonist looks back on the history of the Douglas Treaties, and the impact of these treaties on local First Nations.
    • Check out digitized versions of the original Treaties, made available by the Royal BC Museum and BC Archives. (PDF document)
  • And to add insult to injury, the Douglas Treaties have only just now been translated into the Indigenous languages of Vancouver Island for the first time.
  • Kennewick man is finally at peace.
  • Charmaine Nelson has written a must-read piece for The Huffington Post about the colonial roots of modern racism in Canada, particularly how slavery informs current policing practices. Seriously, go read this. The roundup will wait.
  • Matthew Hayday has written an article for the Ottawa Citizen, arguing the debates about Canada 150 are a sign that this is a health democracy and point to the ongoing negotiation of the meaning of Canadian nationhood.
    • You can also listen to Hayday being interviewed on the same subject here.
    • And here is another article featuring Hayday, as well as Kim Anderson, also about Canada 150.
    • And finally, another one by Doreen Nicoll, which asks the question: “How can I in good conscience participate in a celebration in the face of the continued denial of their treaty claims and basic human rights?”
  • Find out why the Manitoba Museum uses spit to clean its aretefacts. I understand the argument, but I still think it’s gross.
  • Vancouver is trying to figure out how best to preserve its pre-1940s character homes.
  • CBC’s The Current interviewed Debbie Marshall about three of the first Canadian female war correspondents, who served during WW1.
  • The Toronto Star looks back at the history of the Royal Ontario Museum and its collection.
  • The National Post remembers the 1782 smallpox epidemic that devastated Indigenous communities through British Columbia. Author Tristin Hopper is of course referring to Cole Harris’ work, and asks why this history is still relatively unknown in Canada.
  • The Globe and Mail examines how a patent filed in 1992 set the stage for our current opioid crisis.
  • Remember that project to establish a massive statue in Cape Breton called “Mother Canada”? Well, the Toronto businessman behind the idea is sending out strange care packages to public figures in an attempt to revitalize the project.
  • A group of more than 40 journalists and news personalities from Radio-Canada are calling on the government to improve access to their radio and television archives.
  • Check out this great list of 5 amazing Black Canadians you should know about who aren’t Harriet Tubman or Viola Desmond!
  • Christi Belcourt talks to CBC about the #Resistance150 project, what it is, where it comes from, and why it is so important.
  • So it turns out that the earliest known Canadian flim, Back to God’s Country, released in 1919, was actually written by a woman.
  • Hakai magazine has a new article about how scientists are working learn the history of clam gardens along the BC coastline. I do, however, find it odd that there aren’t any mentions of collaborations with local Indigenous communities, since that seems like a pretty obvious flaw in their methodology.
  • Do you remember how last summer I talked about how there was a collection of Pearson’s artefacts that needed a home? Well, they may be going to Manitoulin Island. Maybe….
  • Check out this article that also looks at the segregation of Black Canadians in Nova Scotian cemeteries, complimenting the one I included in last week’s roundup.
  • The diocese of Chicoutimi is assuring the public that their “secret archives” don’t contain any information about Paul-André Harvey, priest and pedophile, who is before the Quebec Superior Court regarding compensations for his victims. Sure.
  • This is kinda cool. A historical house in Vancouver hosted an Unwelcome Dinner this past Friday to commemorate the 1887 Anti-Chinese Riot, featuring the kinds of foods that would have been eaten by Anglo-Scottish, German, and Chinese settlers from the era.
  • If you read my resource guide mentioned above, you may remember me talking about Hogan’s Alley, a historic black neighbourhood in Vancouver that was demolished to built viaducts. Well, those viaducts are coming down, and advocates want to build a black cultural centre in their place. I think that’s a fantastic idea. Also, thanks to my husband for finding this story.
  • Check out this behind-the-scenes view of the oldest archives in Montreal, belonging to the Vieux Séminaire de Saint-Sulpice
  • A one-hundred year old Mi’kmaq hockey stick has just been donated to Membertou Heritage Park in Cape Breton.
  • Maison Alcan in Montreal has just been designated a provincial heritage site.
  • The hockey sweater worn by Paul Henderson during the 1972 Summit Series is going on display at the Canadian Museum of History. CBC covers the story, and interviews Jenny Ellison!
  • Check out some of the artefacts excavated from the site where Toronto’s new courthouse will stand, including a 19th century Black doll, old nail polish bottles, and mor
  • The Toronto Star interviewed Tracey Gorman about her work as a costume technician for the city of Toronto. I need this job.
  • The CBC explores how a 1968 NFB program that was launched to help marginalized communities launched a new new of Indigenous filmmaking.
  • The National Gallery is offering a sneak-peak at the new Canadian and Indigenous Galleries, set to launch on June 15th. This article has some incredible images.
  • This week marked the 75th anniversary of Japanese-Canadian internment. Some of us still need to learn important lessons about why this is wrong.
  • This article, by Henry Louis Gates Jr. (!!!) is in response to an inquiry from a Canadian man trying to determine if his wife’s ancestors were runaway slaves from the US.
  • The “failing” New York Times has an article featuring three Canadian museums that focus on the history of slaves fleeing from the US to Canada.
  • They also have this interactive article from Ron Stodgill, who traces Harriet Tubman’s journeys along the Underground Railroad.
  • Paula Simons, of the Edmonton Journal, tells the story of Joseph Lewis, the first black voyageur in Edmonton.
  • Karolyn Smardz Forst speaks with The Agenda about her recent book on the life of Cecelia, an escaped slave who eventually made her way to Canada, while painting a correspondence with her former white  mistress. This is a 20-minute video.
  • So Joseph Boyden’s been in the news lately, claiming that no one can own Indigenous oral histories. Check out this Twitter essay by Christi Belcourt and this one by Binsei Morriseau to learn why Boyden’s claim is not only wrong, but damaging.
• Better Late than Never
  • This article by Gillian Kiley-Brown, discuses recent research by Lindford D. Fisher on the widespread capture and enslavement of Indigenous peoples in New England. Many of these individuals were subsequently sold, and then sent overseas to the Caribbean and the Mediterranean.
    • There is some more information about this study here.
  • CBC explored the relationship between the Douglas-fir and Vancouver.
  • This one comes courtesy of my husband: late last year, the The World in Words podcast had an episode about the evolution of the Doukhobor-Russian languages in Canada. It’s episode twelve.

That’s a wrap for this week! It seems to have been one organized around podcasts, hockey, the Douglas Treaties, Black History Month, and Canada 150. Interesting… Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this new roundup. If you did, please consider sharing it on your social media platform of choice! And don’t forget to check back on Tuesday for a very special blog post. See you then!

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