Canadian History Roundup – Week of May 7, 2017

Exposition annuelle du printemps du Jardin botanique, intitulée “Harmonie et fleurs de Suisse”. (Annual spring expo at the botanical gardens,, entitled ‘Harmony and The Flowers of Switzerland.’)– Avril-Mai 1966. VM94-Ad-057-004. Archives de la Ville de Montréal. CC BY-NC-SA 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.

• Check out this really cool sock knitting machine from the early 1900s! Although the accompanying blog post has one error: an accomplished hand-knitter can make a pair of socks in about two days, not a week. I would know. 😉
• The CHA’s Annual Meeting is fast approaching! This week, Active History featured a blog post by Stacy Nation-Knapper and Kathryn Labelle about their special event, “Decolonizing 1867: Stories from the People,” which will he held on May 28^th. I’m totally going.
• This week on Beyond Borders, Maxime Dagenais unveiled the shortlist for the Wilson Book Prize and the Viv Nelles Essay Prize! I don’t envy the Wilson Institute for having to pick between such fantastic books and articles!
• Did you know that in the 19^th century, little boys wore dresses until they entered school? Check out this adorable one, from the ROM. Why, you may be asking? Two words: easier clean-up.
• Robert Jago had a great twitter essay on how Vancouver erases its Indigenous history through its historical plaques.
• Alan MacEachern has a new blog post on NiCHE this week, exploring the history of the concept of the anthropocene era.
• According to Jessica DeWitt, the three most common words in last week’s most popular articles on environmental history were: “rule,” “said,” and “changed.”
• Instantanés had another new blog post featuring the experiences of WW1 soldier Olivar Asselin. This week, he talks about the cost of outfitting an officer.
• Paula Dumas is back with Part 3 of her look at Canadian webcams. This week, she focused on Ontario.
• Tuesday was a crazy busy day for me!
  • First up, Notches published a blog post that I wrote! This blog post looks at interracial sex and adoption in the Jewish community of Montreal.
  • I went on a mini-rant on Twitter about the myth that Canada is a peaceful country. For those of you who are not on Twitter, I made my rant into a blog post.
  • And I also had a special guest post this week on Unwritten Histories, by Dennis Molinaro on the process of filing Access to Information requests! If you do research at LAC or with any other government organization, you need to read this post!
• This week on Black Perspectives, Matthew Teutsch reflects on the life of Jackie Robinson, playing particular attention to his activism and how he is remembered.
• Jim Clifford has a new blog post on Active History looking at the role that historians should play with respect to preventing climate change and the extent to which environmental history is reflected at this year’s CHA Annual Meeting.
• The Lost Stories Project has announced the premiere dates for some of its public history events.
• McGill University’s Archives is looking for help in transcribing more than 150 years of meteorological data from Montreal’s history. Go here to learn more.
• LAC is back with another provincial/territorial Flickr Album. This week’s addition: Nova Scotia! Let’s see if I can redeem myself next week with my prediction of Nunvaut.
• The Canadian Legal History Blog has profiled a new online exhibit from the UofT Library on the American legal case Pierson v. Post judgement roll. You can see the exhibit itself here. If you’re like me and you have no idea what this court case is about, it turns out this was a dispute over a dead fox and whether chasing the fox (or any wild animal) gives you property rights over it. This case is apparently used in legal education. Ok then.
• The Archives of Lesbian Oral Testimony have posted the second episode of their podcast, featuring an interview with Ma-Nee Chacaby, a lesbian two-spirit, Ojibwa-Cree elder.
• Kelly Black has posted a recording of his paper presentation from the BC Studies Conference. The paper is entitled, “Unsettling the Settlement Act: Land Conflict in the Past and Present on Vancouver Island.”
• Joanne Hammond has another fantastic Twitter essay this week about the uglier sides of archaeology and anthropology in Canada, particularly with respect to Indigenous history.
• On the latest History Slam podcast episode, Sean Graham takes us to the University of Ottawa’s Digital History Open House and speaks with organizer Jo McCutcheon.
• The Atlantic Loyalist Connections Blog has a new post by Annabell Babineau on Hannah Ingraham. Ingraham was a Loyalist who came to Canada as a child, and recorded her experiences in her diary.
• Also on Instananés this week is a blog post about Annie MacDonald Langstaff. In 1915, Langstaff became the first woman in Quebec to graduate from law school, but the Bar refused to allow her to sit their exams because she was female and did not have permission from her (ex) husband. She took the Bar to court, but lost to the ruling that specified that women are barred from practicing law. It would take another 27 years before women were permitted to sit for the Bar exams in Quebec.
• The South Peace Regional Archives published a blog post all about the district of Cornwall this week.
• The Vancouver as it Was blog profiled the Elgar Junior Choir and its first leader, Charles E. Findlater.
• This week The Canadian Encyclopedia premiered a new entry devoted to the controversial topic of the letter Z. The letter Z was brought to you by…. 😉
  • They also updated their article on Indigenous education.
• My blog post on Notches earlier in the week was the first in a series on the site on the history of sexuality in Canada. The second blog post in the series, by Valerie Korinek, also came out. It deals with the subject of Gay and Lesbian liberation on the Prairies through an examination of the influential and independent periodical After Stonewall.
• Samantha Cutrara is back with another blog post about historical representation in children’s history books on Active History this week! Her latest examines the portrayal of Chinese labourers, constructed as “others” who were “away from home.”
• The latest “Who Do We Think We Are” series from the LAC blog features Brian Thompson. Thompson explores musical history in Canada through a piece of music composed by Calixa Lavallée, also the author of the Canadian national anthem.
• Ok, who can tell me more about the Manitoba “Put Your Trash into Orbit” campaign?
• Find out how you can participate in the ROM’s The Family Camera exhibit.
  • The ROM also posted a new Throwback Thursday this week, about the Quebec loom and labels.
• Retroactive has posted part three of their examination of the Alberta archaeological survey. This latest one examines archaeological sites in the province.
• The latest biography from the DCB is of Sir George Eulas Foster, a temperance advocate and Canadian minister of finance from New Brunswick.
• Stephen Bocking has written a guest blog post for the Federation of Humanities and Social Science’s blog. In this post, he talks about his book, Ice Blink.
• The Laurier Centre has just premiered a new podcast called On War and Society, hosted by Eric Story. The first episode features an interview with Alex Souchen about munitions dumping in Canada in the 1940s.
• The Canadian Museum of History posted a picture of a beautiful Inuit carving of a European person, dating to around 1350.
• In hounour of Nursing Week, the UBC Digitizer’s blog features some of the documents in its Florence Nightingale correspondence collection.
• Remember that exhibit on the Franklin Expedition that the Canadian government is paying for but is premiering in the UK? Well, you can get a tiny sneak peek of it from the Canadian Museum of History. But you will still need to wait until March 2018 to see it here.
• Also on LAC this week is an article by Judith Enright-Smith about artist Ernst Neumann and his fonds.
• Harold Bérubé has posted his review of Montreal’s tercentennial celebrations on May 11^th to May 15^th.
• Check out the program for the on-going conference, “Social Democracy and the Left in Canada: Past, Present, and Future.” Catch up on the conference itself on Twitter using the hashtag #histcdnleft.
• Bill Waiser has a new blog post this week about Frances McGill, the first female forensic pathologist in Canada.
• The Boston 1775 blog explains the clothing worn by soldiers on both sides of the American Revolution. Though we tend to think of soldiers wearing a uniform, the actual conditions of war made this difficult.
• Whistorical looks at the popularity of spring skiing on the mountain. While skiers were advised to bring sunglasses and sunscreen, bathing suits were not recommended. 😉
• Eve Lazarus remembers the time when Margaret Trudeau, wife to Pierre and father to Justin, came to Vancouver and went dancing at the Daddy Long Legs disco in North Van in 1979. There are pictures….
• The Toronto Public Library Local History and Genealogy Blog looks back at the Toronto landmark, the King Edward Hotel, through a series of snapshots in time.
• The Vancouver as it Was blog features a neat picture by P.T. Timms of the corner of Granville and Hastings in 1909.
• Also happening this week is the Canadian Archaeological Association Conference. You can catch up on the conference on Twitter using the hashtag, #caa2017aca.
  • Russell Potter also helpfully posted a recap of some of the new information on the Franklin Expedition that was shared at the conference.
• Canadian History in the News
  • Chris Dummitt’s new book on Mackenzie King has just come out, and it’s generating a lot of media attention! McGill-Queen’s Press also compiled a roundup of all of the significant news coverage on their blog.
    • The National Post featured Dummitt’s work in an article, and revealed that CSIS believed that one of Mackenzie King’s diaries may have been stolen by a Soviet spy.
  • John Borrows won a prestigious award for his work on Indigenous law!
  • This week was the anniversary of the Battle of the Atlantic. Its anniversary is usually celebrated on May 8^th, though the battle itself lasted from September 1939 to May 1945. It was the longest continuous military campaign of WW2.
    • CBC interviewed veteran Ron Waddleton about his experiences.
  • Chelsea Vowel was interviewed on the CBC’s The Next Chapter, about her work, particularly related to stereotypes about Indigenous peoples.
  • Karen McCallum wrote a sharp review of Ken Coates’ latest book #Idle No More and The Remaking of Canada. In the review, she talks about the power of knowledge and scholarship, authorship and perspective, and the need to “centre Indigenous experiences and voices.”
  • Do you know the origin of this random stone ruin at Bayer’s Lake in Halifax? We are apparently close to finding out.
  • The Adventures in Historyland blog has posted a really neat story about one of the heroes of the Siege of Louisbourg, Marie Anne Aubert de Drucourt née Courserac, also known as “La Bombardier.” Drucourt was the wife of the governor of Île Royale. During the seige, she directed three of the larger cannons each day. Apparently, though she was his enemy, General Amherst greatly admired Drucourt, and regularly sent her pineapples to apologize for the inconvenience of the seige.
  • There have been quite a few discoveries this week relating to WW1 and WW2
    • A genealogist in Toronto helped a Scottish family find the grave of a relative who served in WW1. The relative in question, Ian Hector Steven, who came to Canada in the early 20^th century, died shortly after being wounded. Authorities were unable to locate any relations at the time, so he was buried in an unmarked grave in Toronto.
    • The remains of a Manitoba soldier were unearthed during construction in France. Private Regional Joseph Winfield Johnston was only 22 when he was killed at the Battle of Hill 50.
    • Also, a watch belonging to Rifleman Ray Donald Jackson was recovered from the area where he died during the Battle of Hong Kong in 1941. His family don’t even have any photographs of Jackson, so the watch his being returned to them.
    • A group of Belgian grave-hunters found the graves of three Canadian airmen who were shot down behind enemy lines during WW1. Incorrect records and poor communication meant that their families were never informed of their whereabouts.
  • Erika Dyck wrote an article for The Globe and Mail on the past, present, and future of mental health care, particularly in relationship to poverty.
  • Another anniversary this week was the Westray Mine Explosion, which occurred on May 8^th, 1992. It killed 26 miners working underground, and was the result of criminal negligence.
    • The CBC spoke with the brother of one of the victims about the legacy of the explosion.
    • They also spoke with the daughter of one of the victims about how the explosion impacted her life.
    • The Acadiensis blog also posted a link to an article by Robert McIntosh on boys in the Nova Scotia coalmines in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.
  • The CBC is in the midst of airing a series of live roundtables featuring Canadian historians talking about history. This latest one dealt with the subject of women’s history in Canada, and featured three fantastic scholars: Pamela Sugiman, Funke Aladejebi, and Tarah Brookfield.
  • Analysis of DNA retrieved from the remains of Franklin Expedition crew members is ongoing, in the hope of finding modern descendants. Previous studies were unable to collect any useful information from the remains about what happened to the sailors before they died. Does anyone else find this kinda creepy, or just me?
  • So apparently Ireland forgot that they kinda accidentally-on-purpose tried to invade Canada. Or at least, some Irish nationalists launched a series of raids in order to pressure the British government to give Ireland independence. But you know, these are just minor details. 😉 You said invade, I said raid.
  • Lawrence Hill is working on a new book that will involve the Alaska Highway, which connects Dawson Creek, BC, to Delta Junction, Alaska. American soldiers built the highway during WW2, and roughly one third of them were African-American.
  • Buzzfeed posted a neat little feature of photographs of badass historical women. Included in the article is a photograph of two young women wearing shorts that bared their legs in Toronto in 1937.
  • Somebody’s in trouble… LAC recently posted a Tweet about Sitting Bull and the Sioux, saying they sought refuge in Canada. Only they forgot to mention that the Canadian government really didn’t want them there and refused to give them any kind of food or housing, effectively starving them back into the US. Oops.
  • Parks Canada is refusing to remove Jeffrey Amherst’s name from the Port-la-Joye-Fort Amherst historic site, despite calls from John Joe Sark of the Mi’kmaq Nation traditional government.
  • There is big news from CBC/Radio Canada about their archives this week. They are embarking on a new project that will involve the mass digitization of their audio-visual archives. Wow.
  • The Yellowknife United Church congregation just took part in a blanket exercise. Find out about how this was a transformative experience for participants.
  • Radio-Canada profiled Lieutenant-Commander William King Lowd Lore, the first ethnically Chinese person to be an officer in any Commonwealth navy. Lore served during WW2 in the Pacific Theatre and helped to liberate Hong Kong from Japanese occupation.
  • On the 70^th anniversary of the repeal of the Chinese Immigration Act, Lillian Eva Dyck, Victor Oh and Yuen Pau reflect on Canada’s shameful treatment of Chinese immigrants and Chinese-Canadians.
  • There is an amazing new exhibit out from the Canadian Museum of History. In collaboration with the UofT and the shíshálh Nation, they have created forensic reconstructions of a shíshálh family that was buried together, more than 4,000 years ago. They are absolutely amazing. This exhibit will be part of the Canadian History Hall when it opens on July 1^st. For me, the most striking part is that, when you watch the video, the individuals blink and look back at you.
  • Students from Western University have unearthed tombstones dating from the 1850s to the 1870s at the Woodland Cemetery in London, Ontario. These tombstones, belonging to Scottish immigrants, were moved from their original cemetery after it closed, and placed flat on the ground. The bodies were likely so decomposed that they were not reburied as individual graves, and instead interred together in a mass grave.
  • The editors at the Them Days periodical are searching for a volunteer archivist to help preserve their archives and identify individuals and locations portrayed in photographs.
  • Among the stamps being released by Canada Post for Canada150 is one honouring the legalization of same-sex marriage!
  • Also for Canada150, The Globe and Mail looks back at the history of alcohol in Canada. Which is really more like short vignettes than a history, but hey, booze.
  • LAC also acquired more than 80,000 maps and related documents from the Canada Lands Survey Records. Ooooooh.
  • There is a really cool exhibit going in Toronto highlighting the work of Black photojournalists from the 1970s to the 1990s.  You can some of the amazing images here showing Black Canadian life from the period and find out where to see the exhibit.
  • Fashion journalist Jeanne Beker looks back at her family history, and an empty trunk that her parents, Holocaust survivors, refused to part with. It’s a beautiful piece with some amazing photographs.
  • Find out about the new Lytton Chinese History Museum, which opened on May 13th.
  • Global News takes a look back at U2’s 1987 concert in Vancouver.
  • The Yukon Archives are undergoing renovations to address humidity issues.
  • Marie-Odile Junker, a linguist at Carleton University, has created an interactive atlas of 52 Indigenous languages in Canada, in collaboration with Indigenous communities and language speakers. The project has just received the Governor General’s Award for its contribution to Indigenous language revitalization.
  • As part of their coverage of Canada150, the Star takes a look back at the creation of the St. Lawrence Seaway and the role it played in uniting Canada and the United States.
• Better Late Than Never
  • The Nova Scotia Archives Blog has a new blog post in honour of Gaelic Nova Scotia Month. The blog post provides assistance for anyone seeking to research their family’s Gaelic heritage.
• Calls for Papers
  • The Canadian Science and Technology Historical Association has put out a call for papers on the theme: “Innovation or Aberration? Science, Technology and Historical Meanings of Failure.” The deadline to submit is June 30^th.
  • The American Society for Ethnohistoy is meeting at the University of Manitoba this year! The call for papers has been extended to June 30^th.

That’s it for this week! I think that the roundups have been getting a little shorter lately, though that is likely a reflection of the end of the semester and the lead-up to the CHA. Anyways, as usual, I hope that you enjoyed this 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 our regular Best New Articles post! See you then!

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