Snack bars at La Ronde with daffodils in foreground. May 1967. Credit: Library and Archives Canada / Canadian Corporation for the 1967 World Exhibition / e011179978.
The latest in blog posts, news, and podcasts from the world of Canadian history.
Missed last week’s roundup? Check it out here.
Environmental History
- The most commonly used words in #envhist last week, according to Jessica DeWitt, were: “ITC,” “Fire,” and “Climate.”
- While not specifically Canadian, this piece by Keri G. Lambert on Environmental History Now about locating Indigenous knowledge in the colonial archives is a must-read.
- Work by thousands of Nova Scotia schoolchildren and educator Alexander MacKay, done 100 years ago, is proving to be crucial for climate change scientists.
- There is a new entry from The Canadian Encyclopedia on invasive plant species in Canada. Many of these were deliberately brought over by colonists and early settlers.
- Jessica DeWitt was back this week on NiCHE with a look at her favourite #envhist articles from February 2019.
- The latest post in the Unearthed series from NiCHE and Unwritten Histories was posted this week, featuring an interview with Ian J. Jesse.
Military History
- The Canadian War Museum has unveiled a new display of Victoria Cross Medals awarded for actions during the Battle of Hill 70.
- There is a new album of 1,400 photographs available online documenting Victoria, BC, during WW1.
Archaeology
- Kamloops This Week spoke with Tk’emlups te Secwepemc archaeologist, Ryan Dickie, about his current work on West Victoria street.
- The headline on this article is wrong, but it does highlight how the provincial and federal governments are failing the Ts’elxwéyeqw people. Content warning: settler ignorance, problematic language around Indigenous rights, discussion of Ancestor Monuments.
History Education
- Did you know that NFB Education updates its offerings every week? One of their newest features was a mini-lesson accompanying the documentary, “Status Quo? The Unfinished Business of Feminism in Canada.”
- Find out about the wonderful problem-solving project Bryan Banks designed for his World History since 1500 class, on memorializing the trans-Atlantic trade in enslaved Africans.
- John Sandlos spoke with NTV about the new plan to merge history and social studies in Newfoundland. He’s not impressed.
- Find out about the absolutely wonderful experiential learning project that Brittany Luby (Anishinaabe from the Treaty #3 area) and Alison Norman put together with The Ontarian on the history of Treaty #3.
Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration History
- You may remember that a while back I mentioned the discovery of a new portrait of Harriet Tubman. This week the National Museum of African American History and Culture announced that it had acquired the portrait and that it is currently on display.
- Our very own Stephanie Pettigrew and Chantal Richard spoke with CBC about their work on a new exhibit for the Fredericton Regional Museum on the destruction and massacre of the Acadian settlement of Point-Sainte-Anne.Just do yourself a favour and don’t read the comments.
- You may remember that last week I included a reference to a new exhibit on immigrant construction workers who worked to build Toronto. The project organizers responded this week to the racist comments on the piece.
- Ann Hui spoke with the media this week about the release of her new book, Chop Suey Nation, on the history of Chinese-Canadian foods and restaurants. I am really hoping to get my hands on a copy. Here is her interview with the Calgary Herald, and here is her interview with CBC.
- This week Patrick Lacroix previewed an upcoming article on the very first Franco-Americans, along with some information that didn’t make it into the final version.
- Anthony Morgan made the case for financial reparations for the descendants of enslaved Africans in Canada.
- The City of Esquimalt is considering whether to use some new funding to rebuild the Japanese Teahouse at Gorge Park that was destroyed during WW2.
- The organizers of the Tashme Project spoke with the Vancouver Sun about their work collecting interviews with the survivors of Japanese-Canadian internment camps.
- This week the Landscapes of Injustice project launched a new website on the influence of Japanese-Canadians on constitutional law, based on the work of Eric Adams.
- There was another great feature of Paul Yee’s images of Chinatown, this week on The Tyee.
Indigenous History
- I’m not going to repeat the horrific comment made by the PM this week, but I will instead point you to some important resources about the history of Grassy Narrows First Nation and mercury poisoning.
- Check out this interactive news feature from Jody Porter, “Children of the Poisoned River.”
- Ogichidaa Francis Kavanaugh, Grand Chief of Grand Council Treaty #3 and Chief Rudy Turtle, Grassy Narrows First Nation, issued an official statement in response to the remarks.
- Robert Jago explained the rise of the Warrior Society in response to the Grassy Narrows mercury poisoning.
- The Métis National Council is meeting with Métis Sixties Scoop survivors to discuss negotiations with the federal government.
- Find out how artist Hannah Claus, a member of the Tyendinaga Mohawk Community of the Bay of Quinte in Ontario is taking inspiration from historic Haudenosaunee beadwork and the archival collections of the North West Company.
- The Canadian Museum of History shared an image of a beautiful Algonquin birchbark basket that was used to collect maple sap. Unfortunately, there is no additional identifying information, including the time period that this piece dates to.
- They also shared this charming soapstone turtle amulet that was found in the Ottawa Valley, from an unknown culture and date of origin.
- I can’t tell if this is new or not, but it’s worth a look regardless: check out CBC’s interactive map on Residential Schools, created using information from the Shingwauk residential School Centre at Algoma University. The map also includes interviews with residential school survivors. Content warning.
- Canadian Geographic spoke with Sylvia Maracle (Kanienʼkehá꞉ka)about the fiftieth anniversary of the Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres.
- Find out about Rebecca Belmore’s art installation honouring Neil Stonechild, a Saulteaux First Nations teen who died after being picked up by police in Saskatoon in 1990, the victim of a practice that is known as a ‘starlight tour.’ Unfortunately it has since been removed due to vandalism.
- Ken (Gitxsan First Nation) and Margaret (Cree) Harris are being inducted into the National Dance Hall of Fame for their work preserving traditional North Coat Indigenous dance styles despite government bans.
- LAC has announced that the 1970s Indian Claims Commission documents have now been digitized and are available to the public.
- Check out this beautiful mural of the historical and present communities of the Mohawk Valley, created by Teiowí:sonte Thomas Deer ((Kanienʼkehá꞉ka).
- In a new piece for CBC, Marcia Anderson (Cree-Saulteaux) and Michael Champagne explained the colonial origins of the crystal meth crisis in Manitoba, particularly among Indigenous folks.
- Check out this coverage of a recent session at the University of Manitoba on “Indigenous Storytelling: An Alternative Path to Understanding Truth and Reconciliation.” The coverage features discussions with Elders Fred Shore (Métis), Martha Peet (Inuit), and Wanbdi Wakita (Dakota) about the importance of Indigenous storytelling.
New France/British North America
- This fantastic thread by Jared A. Walker explained the historical connections between the HBC and the trans-Atlantic trade in enslaved Africans.
Political History
- This week Christopher Moore shared his thoughts on the new book from Raymond Blake and Melvin Baker, Where They Once Stood: Newfoundland’s Rocky Road Towards Confederation.
- The Archives of Manitoba shared nine new images of the Winnipeg General Strike that have just been digitized.
- This week Greg Marchildon spoke with Vox about the 1962 doctor’s strike in Saskatchewan that almost killed Medicare.
- Harold Bérubé looked back at l’Union des municipalités du Québec’s work over the past 100 years.
- The latest entry from The Dictionary of Canadian Biography is for farmer and politician, James Ironside Davidson.
Social History
- This week Milan Busic and Caroline Robert spoke with Thierry Nootens over on Histoire Engagée about his research on bourgeois marriage in Quebec around the turn of the last century.
The History of Gender and Sexuality
- Also on Histoire Engagée this week, Shawn McCutcheon examined the international historiography to explore possible transformations in the Quebec history of sexuality, particularly with respect to critiquing heternormativity.
- Another new entry from The Canadian Encyclopedia this week is for birth control advocate, Dorothea Palmer.
Local History
- This week’s new entries from Historic Nova Scotia include:
- Nicholas Fowler on The Capitol Theatre.
- And John Reid on the history of cricket in Pictou County.
- Vancouver As It Was guest blogger, Neil Whaley, provided information this week on Vancouver phone exchanges, including some really cool anecdotes.
- This week the UBC Digitizer’s Blog profiled the Tremaine Arkley Croquet Collection.
- Whistorical remembered the history of Whistler’s Downhill World Cups.
- This week is apparently Opening Day for Baseball. So there have been a number of relevant threads on Twitter.
- RIP Montreal Expos.
- The TO Dreams Project looked back at con artist and Toronto Baseball club player, Harry Decker.
- Even though I hate the team on principle, I will still include Adam Bunch’s Twitter thread on the history of the Toronto Blue Jays.
- This week on Intantanés, BAnQ looked at the 1832 Cholera Epidemic in Gaspésie.
- Steven High has written a new piece for The Montreal Gazette on gentrification along the Lachine Canal, and how it is displacing and erasing the working-class neighbourhoods that used to be there. Random fact: my mother likes to tan on her balcony in Montreal, which she still refers to as ‘Balconville.’ Yes, I have told her this is a good way to get skin cancer. No, she doesn’t care.
- The McGill Library blog looked back at the history of the McGill français movement in honour of its 50th anniversary
- This week Heritage Winnipeg profiled the Archbishop’s Residence.
- This Jewish girl finds the idea of cemetery maple syrup super creepy.
- Vancouver is Awesome looked back at five iconic moments from BC’s most powerful artists, musicians, and writers.Their words, not mine.
- The Toronto Public Library shared these cool vintage maps from Digital Archive Ontario.
- This week Laura Ishiguro gave a talk on Sam Greer and the history of Kits Beach. I wasn’t able to go, but thankfully Maddie Knickerbocker live-tweeted it!
Digital and Public History
- Our Digital World profiled a new local digital history project from the West Vancouver Memorial Library on the 100thanniversary of Armistice called “Research to Remember: In Their Own Words. The project involved three new video interviews with veterans, which have now been edited into segments and fully transcribed. The interviews, and their transcripts are now available online here.
- Our Digital World also looked back on what they accomplished in 2018.
- A new elementary school in Brampton will be named after Sikh-Canadian soldier, Private Bukkan (Buckham) Singh.
- Meanwhile a new theatre in Cow Head, Newfoundland, will be named after Nurse Myra Bennett, who delivered around 5,000 babies in the course of her career in Newfoundland and Labrador.
- Find out about the work that the University of Alberta Libraries is doing with the Internet Archive to make their collection of Master’s and PhD theses available online.
- The UBC Library has announced that it has acquired the personal archives of Hanne Wasserman Walker, a Viennese socialist, Nazi survivor, and fitness leader who settled in West Vancouver.
- The BC Coroner’s Service has released a new interactive map hoping to find new information about 200 unsolved cases from the past sixty years. Content warning: image of replicas of the skulls of the children from the Babe in the Woods case, descriptions of violence, human remains, and ancestors.
- Kerry Stevenson posted this absolutely amazing visualization of population growth in Canada’s biggest cities from 1867 to 2018.
- Check out these new resources for BC’s Sikh Heritage Month.
- Find out about the work that Stephanie Ann Warner is doing with Tofino Clayoquot Heritage Museum on WW1 experiences.
Doing History
- Alan Barnes and Westley Wark spoke with The National Post this week about Barnes’ petition to transfer Cold War documents from the Privy Council to LAC.
- This week Christo Aivalis remembered the late Richard Allen.
- In the latest piece on the Pier 21 blog, Alex Cherry discussed what we can learn when we closely examine family lore, and verify information.
- The Women’s Book History Twitter account profiled the work of Canadian children’s librarian, Lillian H. Smith, who pioneered a new classification system for children’s books.
- Have you ever wondered how archivists can mount a panoramic photograph? Now is your chance to find out!
- Check out the program for this year’s Canadian Business History Conference.
- These are just preliminary work, but Mica Jorgenson posted some absolutely amazing visualizations from a course on the digital humanities, based on data from The Daily Twitter, a daily family newsletter created by members of the Crombie family. For more work on this class, check out the hashtag #HUM2DH3.
- Rosemary Anderson, who sued Reverend Erlindo Molon from the Kamloops Diocese for sexually abusing her for a period of several months beginning in September 1976, is calling on the Diocese to release their full archive documenting abuse complaints.
- This week on Unwritten Histories, I was back with my monthly look at the best new Canadian history scholarly articles. Find out about my favs, which coincidentally are all about Newfoundland. Hmm…
Podcasts
- NiCHE published a new episode of the Nature’s Past podcast, where Sean Kheraj spoke with Jonathan Peyton about his new book, Unbuilt Environments: Tracing Postwar Developments in Northwest British Columbia.
- The latest episode of the Secret Life of Canada podcast is all about how Winnipeg became a hub for queer life.
- Eve Lazarus has announced that she will be producing a podcast based on her books!
Calls for Papers
- Are you a historian of women, gender, or sexuality? Did you publish a new book within the last year? Then the Canadian Committee on Women’s History wants to hear from you!
- The CCWH is also looking for nominations to fill a number of positions.
I know that the picture in this week’s roundup was actually taken in May, but I just couldn’t resist it, since daffodils are some of my favourite flowers and they are blooming over here right now. Anyways, I hope you 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 a very special blog post. See you then!
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