Canadian History Roundup – Week of October 29, 2017

Mike Eaton standing in the snow with a bird in each hand. Shilly Shally Lodge, Gatineau Park. November 1961. Rosemary Gilliat Eaton / Library and Archives Canada, No. R12438

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

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

• The Algoma University Archives is looking for help learning the history of this beadwork. The beads have been dated to the late 1800s, but little else is known.
• Adele Perry initiated a fantastic discussion about the study of pre-Confederation Canadian history west of the Great Lakes.
• This week’s most popular words in #envhist, according to Jessica DeWitt, were “University,” “American,” and “BACK.”
• Stephanie Halmhofer has a brand new blog post about blown-glass beads from Sexwamin that she found during her research, and how she uses x-rays to study them.
• I’m totally dying from cuteness overload from this picture of children holding a funeral for a doll.
• The Toronto Reference Library continued its series on the history of its building this week.
  • Part 2 examined its east-facing side on Yonge Street.
  • Part 3 focused on its Asquith Avenue frontage.
  • Next they discussed the original architect of the building, Raymond Moriyama and his vision.
  • And finally, they looked back at their grand opening in 1977.
• New this week on the Beyond Borders blog is a post by Maxime Dagenais and Julien Mauduit about their recent roundtable on the relationship between national and transnational histories, specifically in regards to the 1837-38 Rebellions. They commented on the continuing historiographical division between the two rebellions in particular.
• Stephanie Bellissimo and Adam Montgomery co-authored a blog post about Victorian death wreaths in Canada, made out of a deceased loved one’s hair.
• BAnQ has just released a new interactive timeline on the history of Quebec. Entries include basic information about each event, as well as a list of relevant primary and secondary sources.
• There was some more fun Halloween stuff this week!
  • The St. Catharines Museum posted a special podcast episode featuring some spooky stories from their city.
  • The Maple Ridge Museum shared some of their post-mortem or death portraits. Prior to the widespread availability of cameras, families would often take photographs after loved ones had died, particularly if they had no other photographs of the person, as a way to remember them.
  • LAC shared this fascinating picture of WW1 soldiers dressed up in costumes they found in a German truck in November 1918.
  • Of course Unwritten Histories had to get in on this! After all, our editorial assistant is an expert in witchcraft in New France! Stephanie Pettigrew shared some really cool stories, so be sure to check them out!
  • Archives and Special Collections at Carleton completed their spooky series this week!
    • Day 6 featured Rose Gourlay Gosse’s Those Great Stone Walls from 1982.
    • Day 7 featured a spooky 1969 article about Satan and witchcraft from an issue of The Carleton.
    • Day 8 featured two pamphlets on healthcare in Bytown and the 1832 Cholera Epidemic.
    • Day 9 featured H. te Velde’s Seth, God of Confusion (1977) and Paul Carus’ The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil (1899).
  • Historica Canada wins for coolest Canadian history costume, and coolest Canadian symbols costumes!
  • Joanne Hammond wins for being awesome for handing out copies of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to trick-or-treaters.
  • Media Indigena tackles the problem of racist Halloween costumes.
  • Adam Bunch has posted two spooky Halloween Twitter essays this week.
    • The first looks at the Loup-Garou (werewolves) of New France.
    • And the second focuses on Toronto’s Necropolis Cemetery.
• Check out this cool retrospective of previous Olympic hockey jerseys.
• Algoma University Archvies shared these cool printing press plates from the Shingwauk Journal and Algoma Missionary News.
• There is also more about Passchendaele this week.
  • The Vancouver Island World War One Connections blog talked about Joe Harold Grice’s experiences.
  • LAC profiled another Victoria Cross recipient, Major-General George Randolph Pearkes.
• The Laurier Centre has a new blog post this week by Michael Saad, the first in a series about WW1 veteran, Arthur Roy Baxter. This first blog post focuses on his enlistment and the first few months of his service.
• Elizabeth Best has written the latest blog post in Active History’s series of reflections from the Manitoulin Island Summer Historical Institute. In this post, she talks about finding her own history and family as an Indigenous woman.
• Joanne Hammond laid down some hard and important truths for settlers about being better guests in Indigenous territories.
• Valerie Korinek will be giving the keynote speech at the upcoming Queer Localities conference in London. In this blog post for Queer Beyond London, she has a short preview of her talk, based on some of her recent research on queer communities in Western Canada from 1969 to 1985.
• The Art Gallery of Algoma is dealing with storage issues relating to vintage animation “cels,” including some from The Raccoons. Am I old when a tv show I watched as a kid is referred to as “vintage”?
  • Krista McCracken provides some important background and additional information.
• Sarah Hunt’s keynote from the 2017 Social Justice, Anti-Racist, Anti-Oppressive Forum on Education is now available!
• Library and Archives Canada has just acquired the first medical book to be published in Canada, a 1785 treatise on the treatment of syphilis.
• Joanne Hammond has also written a Twitter essay this week about Indigenous burial sites in BC and their lack of protections.
• Chris Corrigan has great post about Indigenous Twitter and important people to follow.
• The Smithsonian Magazine delves into the true history of Grace Marks, in Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace.
• Retroactive takes a look at the history of WW2 POW and civilian internment located in Alberta. Though not very well-known today, Canada was home to several POW camps for German soldiers. Alberta’s camps were also home to some of the Japanese-Canadian men who agreed to work on sugar beet farms rather than remaining in the camps in BC.
• Sylvain Raymond has written the latest blog post for the Canadian Museum of History blog, all about their collection of duck and goose decoys.
• Krista McCracken has a new blog post all about her favourite resources for making DIY archival boxes, artifact supports, and enclosures. Now I want to build archival boxes.
• The latest biography from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography is for artist Georges Delfosse.
• Glen Dingwall wrote about his experiences at the recent Society of American Archivists Conference.
• Daniel Macfarlane has written a new blog post for NiCHE about the impact of hydro-electric projects on Canadian politics, particularly with respect to Ontario. This is part of a longer piece he is working on with Andrew Watson for an upcoming issue of Scientia Canadensis.
• The Alberta government is in the midst of revising its educational curriculum. In a new post for Active History, Shawn W. Brackett and Nancy Janovicek explain why the government is coming into conflict with Council of Catholic School Superintendents of Alberta over a sex curriculum that is inclusive of LGBTQ2S students. This post explores the history of public and separate schools in Alberta, as well as the handling of sex education.
• The first five chapters of Terry Copp’s book, Montreal at War 1914-1918, featured in the last War and Society podcast from the Laurier Centre, are now available online.
• LAC has a new blog post this week about their new service centre at Pier 21.
• Tina Adcock wrote a Twitter essay on her recent experiences talking about Canada’s national parks, the forcible exclusion of Indigenous peoples, and the role that “enemy aliens” played in creating much of Canada’s park infrastructure.
• Sophia Jaworski has written a fascinating blog post on “chemical intimacies,” ethnography, and the environmental history of Toronto for the Engagement blog.
• Harold Bérubé has posted a bit of a sneak-peak into an upcoming article on the Montreal suburban dream and economic inequality from 1950 to 1970. You can already see some of his findings here.
• The Calgary Gay History Project has published the finale of their month-long look at Everett Klippert. The conclusion explores the role of the media in Klippert’s case.
  • And they also posted a little recap for anyone who has missed their previous blog posts.
• Karen Dubé, an intern at BAnQ Saguenay has written about her experiences working as an archivist and what she learned about her family history in this week’s Instantanés blog post.
• Adam Coomb has written a new Twitter essay contextualizing the recent controversy about Governor General Julie Payette. As he notes, there is no historical precedent for the idea that the governor general must be neutral, as is evidenced by the King-Byng controversy.
• The St. Catharines Museum blog post posted Walk S of their tour of the city. In this walk, they explore Mineral Springs.
• Genevieve Weber, archivist at the Royal BC Museum and Archives, was interviewed by the Archives Unboxed blog about her work.
• Champion magazine has just launched a new website about the history of Canada’s Olympic athletes from 1977 to 1982. Check it out here.
• Hayden King reviewed Arthur Manuel’s posthumous book, The Reconciliation Manifesto: Recovering the Land and Rebuilding the Economy.
• Sara Spike is spearheading a new research project, the Eastern Shore Islands Heritage Project, on the history of Nova Scotia’s Eastern Shore. She and her research team are looking for stories, pictures, documents, etc..!
• The ROM shared more scenes from Dorothy Burnham’s exhibit in this week’s #TBT, here and here.
• Terrill Tailfeathers shared some amazing pictures of artifacts from the Glenbow Museum, including this 300-year-old Blackfoot shirt, as well as Blackfoot handbags.
• Jim Clifford initiated a fantastic discussion about the oft-repeated trope that “the past is the past and you just need to move on.” And it was picked up by Ian Mosby and others as well.
• Whistorical described the construction and history of the UBC Varsity Outdoor Club Cabin.
• Herb Emery reviewed Vincent Geloso’s Rethinking Canadian Economic Growth and Development since 1900: The Quebec Case for EH.net.
• Eve Lazarus remembers Vancouver’s King Edward High School, which was destroyed by fire in 1973.
• LAC has published a new Flickr album (sans blog post) with photographs from a 1981 guide to handling fragile archival documents.
• Canadian History in the News
  • Ian Mosby, Holly Moore, and Gerald McIvor participated in a livestreamed episode of APTN InFocus about the history of Indian and Inuit tuberculosis sanatoria where Indigenous peoples were sent for “treatment.”
    • This comes on the heels of a documentary by Moore on Indian and Inuit Tuberculosis Sanatoriums, produced by APTN Investigates.
  • UNESCO has just added the papers of Marshall McLuhan to their Memory of the World Register. This includes documents held both at LAC and the University of Toronto Library. This is basically the archival equivalent of a UNESCO World Heritage site.
  • Parks Canada released new images from the search for the Franklin Expedition, including 3-D scans.
  • There are new Kanien’kéha signs going up in Kahnawake!
  • Kevin Broadbent, a Sixties Scoop survivor, is reunited with his biological family. Although be warned that the language around how the Sixties Scoop is framed is a little problematic in this story.
  • David Alexander Robertson won the Governor General’s Award for young people’s illustrated books for his book on residential schools, When We were Alone.
  • Nibinamik First Nation in Ontario is embarking on a new project building homes for their community. They will replace the many “Indian House type 5” houses, which were designed by the government in the 1960s. Building materials, and instructions on building the homes, and living within in them, were included.
  • Darryl Leroux and Jessie Thistle were interviewed on The Current about Métis identity this week. Their portion starts at 23 minutes. They follow an interview with one of the self-styled “chiefs” of the “Eastern Métis,” so be careful.
  • Workers who helped to clean up accidents at the Chalk River Nuclear Reactor in the 1950s were never compensated for all of the radiation they were exposed to.
  • Sean Graham has released the latest History Slam podcast episode! This episode features an interview with the City of Ottawa archivist P,aul Henry, about the re-interment at Barrack Hill Cemetery, featured in several previous roundups.
  • The latest Dig It column is out! The latest is by Nola Markey and Tess Toma on the importance of Indigenous oral history when it comes to archaeological work and connecting with Indigenous youth.
  • Sheila Cote-Meek has written a new article for University Affairs about how university administrators should be supporting the TRC’s Calls to Action.
  • According to the Supreme Court of Canada, Indigenous sacred sites do not qualify for protection under the religious freedom section of the Charter. This ruling was in regards to a proposed ski resort that would be built on ground that was sacred to the Ktunaxa Nation.
    • Here is what Ktunaxa Nation had to say about this ruling.
    • @Skink00ts has an important Twitter essay on the ruling as well.
    • Joanne Hammond apologized and promise to keep supporting the Ktunaxa Nation.
    • And @GwitchinKris explains the context and background.
  • Some historians believe that Kelowna’s Mission Creek could be home to one of the largest unmarked burial grounds in the area.
  • The new monument to the Winnipeg General Strike was unveiled this week.
  • Heritage Toronto has a new plaque commemorating a pay phone. It includes a description of how pay phones worked. I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry.
  • Tony Houghton wants the interpretive panels on the historic dry dock in Kingston returned to their original location.
  • Municipal officials, lawyers, and community members are trying to have the Battleford Industrial School’s cemetery designated as a heritage site.
  • The RCMP recently donated Louis Riel’s walking stick to the Manitoba Museum, but Jesse Donovan believes it should be returned to the Métis.
  • Harold Bérubé spoke with Radio Canada about the history of Montreal’s Golden Square Mile. Totally unrelated, but who else always giggles at the Square Victoria metro stop?
  • Heiltsuk First Nation and archaeologist Kira Hoffman are resurrecting centuries-old techniques of preventative forest burnings on Hecate Island, using fire-scarred trees that have survived.
  • Do you remember the Haida language film that I mentioned in a previous roundup? Find out more about the production here.
  • Cartographer Morgan Hite is creating an atlas marking the location of every residential school in Canada.
  • Atikokan Centennial Museum has just received the Ontario Museum Association award for Excellence in Community Engagement.
  • Jean-François Nadeau reflects on what is left of René Lévesque’s legacy thirty years after his death.
  • A new cache of documents relating to Acadie, particularly Acadians in New Brunswick during the era of the Grand Dérangement, has just been “rediscovered” in Paris. This consists of about 8,000 mentions, well as 4,554 documents that deal specifically with Acadie. Of these, around 2,000 deal with firewood.
  • In the lead up to Remembrance Day, The Globe and Mail has done a feature on WW1 archival documents relating to Canada, including the archival record that lies within the ground.
  • The Port Hope Archives is looking for help identifying WW1 and WW2 soldiers in some of their photographs.
  • Find out about the tradition of ice boats in Cape Traverse, PEI, which was one of the ways Islanders had to communicate with the mainland in the winter during much of the 19^th century, and into the 20th century.
  • Vélo Québec is celebrating its 50^th anniversary.
  • Nuvo magazine has reviewed Janis Thiessen’s new book, Snacks!
    • And then she was interviewed about her research on CBC’s As It Happens!
  • The Vancouver city council has agreed to issue an official apology for the historical mistreatment and discrimination faced by Chinese and Chinese-Canadians residents in Vancouver.
    • For a recap of the meeting, you can go here.
    • And if you want to read the official report on historical discrimination against Chinese people in Vancouver, go here.
    • The city is also planning on applying for UNESCO World Heritage Site status for Chinatown.
  • Julia Rady shares her list of the three military events that shaped the Canadian nation.
  • You know Canadian history is sexy right now because Snopes.com just put out an entry on the racist textbook that suggested that Indigenous peoples “moved out” for settlers.
  • Check out this new lesson plan for students in grades 6 and 7 based on The Secret Path.
  • One of the oldest (European) grave sites in Manitoba is in dire need of repairs, and the cemetery caretakers are looking to the descendants of the family that established it — HBC Chief Trader Roderick McKenzie, his wife, and their children — for help.
  • A new commemorative sign has been unveiled at the site of a former Japanese-Canadian internment camp, now the Sunshine Valley Tashme Museum, near Hope, BC.
  • Take a look back on some of the pivotal moments in Canadian queer history with the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives and Xtra.
  • Do you remember that bizarre painting an American artist made depicting 450 years of Quebec history? The McCord Museum just purchased it.
  • Jean Becker believes that post-secondary institutions have an important role to play in reconciliation.
  • Chris Dummitt was interviewed about his latest research on William Lyon Mackenzie King on this week’s CBC The Sunday Edition.
  • Last week’s Historicist column looked at Mackenzie King’s dissatisfaction with his grandfather’s grave. This week’s column picks up on the story and talks about his desire for a public Mackenzie memorial.
  • Find out about the efforts of Tom Humphrey to restore and recognize historical burial grounds in Smith Falls, Ontario.
  • The Toronto Star commemorates the Star Library and how it helps its journalists conduct research.
  • CHEK news showcases some of the BC Archives’ historical recordings of Indigenous peoples in BC that make up the Ida Halpern fonds.
  • Do you remember me mentioning WW1 soldier Lt.-Col. George Stephen Cantile’s letters home to his daughter, which contained pressed flowers? Here is some more information about the new exhibit based on these letters, using flowers to tell the history of Canadians in WW1.
  • Forensic analysis is being used to restore antique dolls at the McCord Museum. This is like the most beautiful marriage of science and the humanities ever.
  • Archaeologists are excavating sod houses in Qaummaarviit Territorial Park in Nunavut. Observing these excavations are the descendants of Inuit who lived in these sod houses, like Adamie Naulaq Inookie.
  • Better Late than Never
    • I totally missed the last Dig It column! This one was by Matt Berg, and focuses on archeological sites in alpine environments.

That’s it for this week! Seems rather quiet, but I guess we’re all in the midst of late-semester marking madness. Only one more month to go! I hope you enjoyed this week’s roundup. If you did, please considering sharing it on the social media platform of your choice. And don’t forget to check back on Tuesday for a brand new blog post about our personal connections to historical research. See you then!

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