Canadian History Roundup – Week of October 23, 2016

Hallowe’en greetings (1900). Toronto Public Library, Special Collections OSB-CARDS-N-148 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.

• Genealogist Paula Dumas, who writes at the Isles Abroad blog, discusses her experiences using Loyalist records. While they are often great sources of information, that information is not always easily accessible.
• Gail Denver talks about her first cousin three times removed, Annie Young. Young’s time sitting for the famed Notman Studio, where she worked prior to her marriage, has resulted in an astounding and rare collection of images about a working-class woman and her family from childhood to elderhood. Images such as these are very rare, and it is especially unusual to be able to follow the life of a working-class woman through photographs in the late nineteenth century.
• Eve Lazarus talks about the sinking of the SS Princess Sophia, which struck Vanderbilt Reef on October 23, 1918, and sank, killing 350 passengers and crew.
• Greg Marquis talks about policing in New Brunswick from 1972 to 2013 in the latest Acadiensis blog post. While some think of New Brunswick as a quaint and relaxed place, it has been home to a significant number of protests over the last forty years. Marquis explores this history and how the policing of public order developed in the province.
• October is Women’s History Month in Canada, so to celebrate, I put together a list of my favourite scholarship on women’s history in Canada for Unwritten Histories. These are the works that inspired me as a student, and later as a scholar, and ones that I truly enjoy reading. Warning: lots of squeeing, but dignified squeeing.
• Meredith Leonard talks about pop-up museums in Active History’s Tuesday blog post. These small and temporary collections are great tools for increasing community engagement, and Leonard discusses some of her experiences working with these installations.
• Zoe Todd wrote a Twitter essay this week about the problems that arise when settler Canadians single out individual Indigenous voices (particularly celebrities) to speak on behalf of all Indigenous peoples. It’s a definite must-read. Follow her on Twitter @ZoeSTodd.
• LAC has launched a new database for the service files of WW1 soldiers. The new database is called Personnel Records of the First World War, and now collects records from the Canadian Expeditionary Force, Imperial War Service Gratuities recipients, Non-Permanent Active Militia, Rejected CEF volunteers, Royal Newfoundland Regiment and Forestry Corps. This is great! You can play with the new database here, but be aware that lots of these new files are still being migrated over.
• Bill Waiser has won the Governor General’s award for his book, A World We Have Lost: Saskatchewan Before 1905! Congrats!
• Borealia is back this week with a new post by Oana Godeanu-Kenworthy about the definition of “Early Canada,” particularly with respect to the notion of borders, both national and methodological/disciplinary. Godeanu-Kenworthy encourages us to think beyond our own biases and the limits we place upon ourselves. It’s a really wonderful blog post.
• Ian Mosby has undertaken the enormous task of verifying how many of the TRC’s 94 Calls to Actions have been completed. The grand total: 5. After 513 days. Sigh. Sarah Shepherd has kindly storified them, so you can read them all together here.
• Sean Carleton speaks about his experiences watching Gord Downie’s The Secret Path, and about some of its strengths and problems. While Downie and other’s work to make Chanie Wenjack a household name are great and important, it simplifies and disconnects Wenjack’s experiences from the wider colonial history of Canada, while also offering a problematic vision of reconciliation. It’s a great piece and an absolute must-read for all Canadians and Canadian historians.
• It’s almost Halloween, and so a number of really interesting spooky posts have been popping up lately. The latest comes from the Atlantic Loyalist Connections blog, and talks about the “ghostly” activities around the Chase Vault at Christ Church Parish Church, Barbados.
• Last week I mentioned that Allyson Stevenson is this year’s recipient of the Arrell M. Gibson Award. This week, the UofT Press blog interviewed her by email about her work.
• Brian Gettler is embarking on a new research project to show just how involved Indigenous communities were in the process of Confederation. He will be examining more than 40,000 documents produced by the Department of Indian Affairs from the 1860s and 1870s. I can’t wait to see what he finds.
• Check out Daniel Rück’s Twitter essay about the romanticization of white “pioneers,” like Reverand John Fergus O’ Grady, president of the Kamloops Residential School in 1948.
• There is a new biography on the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, this time on cattle merchant Robert Miller.
• Check out the Canadian Archaeological Association’s (‪@can_arch‪ )Twitter timeline this week, where they are spotlighting the work of Canadian female archaeologists, with the hashtag   ‪#TrenchesFullOfWomen.
• The Journal of the American Revolution reviewed Hector Maclean: The Writings of a Loyalist-Era Military Settler in Nova Scotia by Jo Currie, Keith Mercer, John G. Reid.
• Simon Tremblay-Pepin reviews Le Québec emprunte. Syndicats financiers et finances gouvernementales, 1867-1987 a recent book from Marc Vallières, for Histoire Engagée.
• The Nova Scotia Archives blog takes a closer look at family recipes from the Uniacke collection (a well known Loyalist family from the area, whose members include James Boyle Uniacke, first Premier of Nova Scotia. NBD). Many of these recipes and “life hacks” have been digitized and are available for viewing on their website.
• Harold Berubé has a new blog post out this week about his experiences attending the “Pouvoir et territoire au Québec : acteurs, enjeux et processus, de 1850 à nos jours” conference. He included the introduction of his talk, “S’approprier les outils, s’approprier le territoire : des cultures politiques locales en mutation (1855-1939)” for your reading pleasure.
• Retroactive, a blog about Alberta’s history, brings us another blog post about abandoned ghost towns from the province. I don’t know why, but I’ve always been fascinated by ghost towns, the way they seem to capture moments that are frozen in time.
• Most stories about the history of AIDS point to Québecois flight attendeant, Gaétan Dugas as “patient zero.” Well, a new study refutes this. Scientists studied blood samples from AIDS patients in the 1970s and discovered the virus was already present in the US in 1971, way before Dugas was infected. The article also points to the problems around the idea of identifying anyone as a “patient zero,” since not only does this demonize individuals, but diseases change and mutate to such an extent that there can’t even be a “patient zero” in most cases.
• Matt Jennings, writing for Process, the blog of the American Historical Association, argues that survey courses on North American history need to include ancient American history. I absolutely agree, since that’s what I end up doing anyways. He also offers from practical suggestions on how to incorporate this into your classes. If you’d like to know how I do it, let me know in the comments!
• The City of Vancouver Archives has just reached 100,000 digitized objects available online for members of the public to use. This blog post talks about some of their holdings, spotlighting some of their favourites. Oooh… shiny new toys…..
• Rachel Nadon, writing for Histoire Engagé, looks at the literary and intellectual legacy of the Quiet Revolution by focusing on the discourse presented in the journal, Liberté.
• Also on Active History this week is a post by yours truly! This blog post is part of my ongoing Historian’s Toolkit, where I spotlight online resources for teaching Canadian history. This blog post looks at the CBC Digital Archives, and provides tips for using the collection. In a move I find a bit amusing, CBC Digital Archives responded almost within the hour, explaining why their search function is so difficult to use and providing some suggestions to make your searches more effective.
• There is now a searchable database of Canadian volunteers who served in the Spanish Civil War.
• Just in time for Halloween, check out this great image of a newspaper report of grave robbing in Kingston in the 1880s.
• In addition to being part of the SSHRC grant I mentioned, Daniel Rück, has been awarded a grant from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ottawa for a digital history project on European settler colonies. It sounds so cool!
• The always amazing Adam Barker has a new blog post this week all about the relationship between Indigeneity and carcerality. He looks specifically at how reserves and prisons acted in similar ways to contain Indigenous peoples in the service of settler colonialism.
• Stephen Bocking has posted part three of his introduction to Ice Blink: Navigating Northern Environmental History.
• The Museum of Vancouver has posted another five of their favourite photos from the 1970s. These were all taken in 1972.
• Harold Bérubé has also posted a memorial to the late Jean-Pierre Kesteman.
• This week, the Canadian Centre for the Great War spotlights the Dumbells, Canada’s most famous military band. The Dumbells were known for satirical music about life in the trenches, covers of  popular soldiers’s songs, and cross-dressing shows.
• Find about the new genealogical books that have just been acquired by LAC.
• The Canadian Historical Studies in Education Association conference was this weekend! Check out some of the papers by following the hashtag: #CHEAACHE2016
• Canadian History in the News
  • A few late additions from Maclean’s. First is the introductory post in a new series called The Runaways Project. Inspired by Chanie Wenjack’s story, this project is designed to draw attention to the other children who died while running away from residential schools. Including Wenjack, the TRC uncovered evidence of 33 such children. Maclean’s is asking members of the public to submit any information they have about these children.
    • Wenjack was already profiled in 1967.
    • The names and ages of the children who died are as follows:
      • Duncan Sticks, 8
      • Percy Ochapowace, 15
      • Allen Patrick, 9
      • Andrew Paul, 8
      • Justa Maurice, 8
      • John Jack, 7
      • Andrew Gordon, 11
      • John Kioki, 14
      • Michael Sutherland, 13
      • Michel Matinas, 11
      • Albert Nepinak, Age Not Listed
      • Tom Ombash, 12
      • Charles Ombash, 11
      • Beverly Joseph, 12
      • Patricia Marilyn Joseph, 14
      • Three Girls From Gleichen, Alberta, Names Not Listed.
      • Chanie Wenjack
      • Phillip Swain, 12
      • Roderick Taypaywaykejick, 12
      • Lawrence Jack Elanik, Age Not Listed
      • Dennis Dick, Age Not Listed.
    • The first post in this series is already out, and looks at Philip Swain and Roderick Taypaywaykejick.
    • Also, Maclean’s published their semi-monthly feature on WW1 — a look at the newly discovered letters belonging to a Winnipeg soldier who survived a POW camp. The article talks about the conditions that POWs endured within the camp and the long-lasting effect they had on the health and lives of survivors.
    • Joanne Jenkins is fighting to be recognized as a victim of thalidomide. The government claims she doesn’t qualify because she doesn’t have any surviving medical records from the 1960s.
    • CBC spoke with Pearl Achneepineskum, Chanie Wenjack’s sister, about her lifelong mission to ensure that each First Nation has its own school, allowing Indigenous children to be educated within their own communities.
    • In addition to all the f-ed up crap going on with Muskrat Falls, and the potential damage the project would do the food sources of the local Inuit and Innu, we can’t forget the irreversible destruction of the cultural landscape and potential archaeological sites.
    • Joshua Ostroff, writing for the Huffington Post, talks with Ryan McMahon about his new film, “Colonization Road,” which challenges settlers to remember Canada’s colonial past and talks about the ways in which Indigenous peoples have been systematically erased from the history and collective consciousness of Canadians. You can also see a trailer of the film. It looks great.
    • Two residential school survivors, Joe Ginger and Cyril Pierre, led students on a tour of St. Mary’s Residential School in Mission, which they attended. The goal is not only to teach students about what happened; there is also a hope that hearing first-hand accounts will spur action towards reconciliation.
    • Were you freaked out by the story of the nurse in Woodstock that has been charged with killing 8 people? Well, The Globe and Mail has uncovered some more stories about nurses killing people, including some Canadian examples.
      • On a related note, check out the episode “Jolly Jane,” from the Criminal podcast, about Jane Toppan, a nurse who killed 33 (and likely more) people in Massachusets in the 1880s and 1890s. But maybe not right before you go to sleep…
    • Canadian Geographic interviews Philip J. Hatfield, author of Lines in the Ice: Exploring the Roof the World, which looks at the history of arctic exploration by settlers.
    • Historian Norm Christie is raising money to repatriate the bodies of 44 Canadian soldiers from WW1. These soldiers fought at Vimy Ridge, and were missed when other Canadian bodies were exhumed after the war.
    • Check out this leaflet by BC politician and alderman, Harry Rankin, called “A Program for Vancouver.” Issued as part of his political campaign, it lays out Rankin’s vision for the city, including what he thought the city would be like in 1985.
    • Again, it’s not strictly Canadian, but the Not Even Past website has posted an article by Kelli Mosteller about the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the land. She is speaking specifically about the protests against the Dakota Access pipeline, but much of what she says is definitely applicable to Canada, especially given protests against Muskrat Falls and Site C.
    • It remains unclear what will happen to the Royal Alberta Museum. The building which used to house the museum needed a massive amount of money to pay for repairs that have been deferred for years, in addition to a $2 million per year operating cost. The museum closed last year, and its collections were put into storage.
    • The Globe and Mail speaks with Mark Garner, who is trying to preserve the old neon signs on Yonge Street in Toronto. While some consider neon signs to be eyesores, they are incredible works of art that are fast disappearing.
      • Check out this 99% Invisible podcast on neon lights, how they are made, and why we should be trying to preserve them.
    • The Canadian Museum of History has just acquired the William James Roué Collection, who built a ship that you may have heard of, the Bluenose.
    • With the opening of a new terminal in Calgary’s airport, CBC has put together an article about the history of airports in Calgary. I’ve been stuck in the Calgary airport more times that I can count, including one eight hour stretch overnight, so I’m not terribly fond of it. It’s a frequent stop for Westjet flights from Vancouver to Montreal.
    • There is a new exhibition at the Canadian War Museum, all about the secret caves where soldiers lived while preparing for the Battle of Vimy Ridge. The caves are home to amazing artwork and carving done by the soldiers, including whole messages.
    • Radio-Canada has uncovered some absolutely amazing stories about Indigenous parents who hid their children in order to prevent them from having attend residential schools. I can’t even imagine what these parents went through and the kind of inner strength it took to hide their children.
      • I would highly recommend reading the article and watching the news coverage as well.
    • So the Supreme Court will be ruling on the date of the documents from the TRC. If you remember from a few months ago, the federal government wants to preserve the testimony of residential schools survivors in archives indefinitely, regardless of the wishes of the interviewees. Cause re-victimizing survivors is part of the government’s “reconciliation” efforts.
    • Remember that blog post from Active History about pop-up museums? Well, check out this one at Acadia that commemorates the contribution of Black Nova Scotians who fought in WW1.
    • Canadian celebrities are partnering with the Canadian Letters and Images project to read aloud letters from WW1.
    • Find out about the history of Halloween celebrations on Church Street in Toronto. When I was a kid, there was this one street in Hampstead (Montreal) that we all went to. All the homes were decorated for the occasion. It was pretty awesome. Especially for a Jewish kid, since few people celebrated Halloween in my neighbourhood.
    • This week on the Historicist is a spooky story about fraud. After his death, a Toronto lawyer promised a large amount of money to the local woman with the most children within ten years of his death. I’ll give you three guesses how that one turned out.
    • CHEK News’ This Week in History series showcases an amazing painting of a bird’s eye view of Victoria, painted in the late 1800s.
    • There is a new podcast episode from This is Lotusland all about the Rolling Stones riot in Vancouver in 1972.

If you like the image at the top, don’t miss some of the other cards in the Toronto Public Library’s collection, which you can see here. That’s all for this week! Don’t forget to check back on Tuesday for a brand new blog post. I’ve been working on it all week, so I’m really excited to see what you think! And of course, have a Happy and Safe Halloween! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some Halloween candy to hoard….

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