Canadian History Roundup – Weeks of November 11 and 18, 2018

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

 

Missed the last roundup? Check it out here.

Week of November 11, 2018

Environmental History

• The most commonly-used words in #envhist from the last week, according to Jessica DeWitt, were: “Asthma,” “Patients,” and “Data.”
• This week on NiCHE, James Murton, Andrew Watson, and Sean Kheraj  put together a list of their favourite recent research from the fields of Canadian environmental history and historical geography. 
• Heather Green posted a call for participants for the upcoming New Scholars December meeting. This month’s theme will be the environmental history of animals.
• Crawford Killian reviewed Daniel Marshall’s latest book, Claiming the Land: British Columbia and the Making of a New El Dorado for The Tyee this week.

 

WW1 and Remembrance Day

• Library Matters at McGill put together a short look at their exhibit on the armistice centenary, and McGill’s role in the war.
• The St. Catharines Museum posted part four of their We Did Our Bit series, looking at the local impact of WW1. 
  • And later in the week, they published part five, on Olive Weller’s travel diary.
• Find out how the death of one man in WW1, changed the landscape of Three Arms, Newfoundland.
• While many of us are aware of the Diné (Navajo) code talkers from WW2, Nehiyaw (Cree) code talkers from Alberta  also played an important role. 
• The Durham Region Area Archives Group described the formation of the Brooklin Legion, the local Royal Canadian Legion establishment.
• On the Watson this week, Don Finalyson shared his  mother’s, Elizabeth Agnes Smith, experience as a WREN (Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service) in WW2. 
• Jessica Dunkin shared the fascinating war history she learned while investigating the history of the house she lived in while in Ottawa.
• Shawn Micallef shared these fascinating images, showing just how much the geography of France and Belgium has impacted Canadian cities.
• Radio Canada published an article by Stéphane Parent on how Quebec’s involvement in WW1 and WW2 is often overlooked. 
• As part of their annual tradition profiling a random WW1 veteran, the Ottawa Citizen profiled George Jameson. 
• Sean Kheraj found out that a 1928 silent Canadian film on soldiers in WW1 and infidelity is available online! It’s apparently been up since 2015, but I still think it’s pretty cool. See it for yourself here.
• The South Peace Regional Archives posted a new map that allows visitors to learn about the various places South Peace WW1 soldiers died and were buried. 
• Bill Waiser shared the story of his great-uncle,  Private William Stuart Ritchie, and the history of the Vimy Memorial.
• This week on Histoire Engagée, Mathieu Arsenault profiled French Canadian WW1 soldier, Arthur-Joseph Lapointe, who was one of the few to have kept a personal daily diary of his experience. The diary was published, and this blog post features some heart-wrenching excerpts.
• Students from Saint Mary’s University honoured Canadian WW2 soldiers who fought and died in West Africa, in the area now known as The Republic of Gambia. Around ten servicemen who were stationed in the region died there, part of an effort to supply troops in North Africa and combat German U-Boats.
• The Royal Alberta Museum opened a new exhibit dedicated to WW1. 
• While the history of German POW camps is fairly well-known, fewer people know about the Canadian POW camps, like this one in Amherst, that held 850 German prisoners during WW1. 
• Max Dagenais was interviewed for this piece in the Montreal Gazette, on the history of the Van Doos, the only French-speaking battalion in WW1. 
• Patrice Dutil wrote the latest Findings/Trouvailles blog post from The Champlain Society, showcasing Cecil Grey Frost’s experience of armistice. 
• This week, Instantanés shared the history of the Joan of Arc statue on the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery, a memorial to all Francophone Montrealers who served at the Battle of Verdun. 
• Find out about the amazing women who worked at the Gulf of Georgia Cannery during WW2, right here in Richmond. 
• We must also remember the many Muslim soldiers who fought during WW1. 
• And I wrote a new blog post looking at the complicated histories and meanings of poppies in Canada.

 

(Other) Military History

• Did you know that a ceremonial key to the town of Amherst ended up in a military museum in Moscow? Find out how here.

 

Archaeology

• Robyn Lacy was back this week with a new edition of her series on Curious Canadian Cemeteries. In this blog post, she profiled the Brick Street Cemetery, in London, Ontario. 
• More than 100 years after dying in the wreck of the Princess Sophia, the gravesite of the last person recovered, Sarah O’Brien, is now marked with a headstone.
• Dave Noël explored the long quest for Samuel de Champlain’s gravesite. 
• A map of Halifax created by a French spy in 1755 may be able to help archaeologists find the locations of the Halifax Citadel’s original walls and forts.
• Joanne Hammond posted images of some of the amazing finds she’s made this season at the toolstone workshop.

 

History Education

• Stéphane Lévesque published part two of his look at new approaches to teaching debates about John A. Macdonald and other monuments in Canada, over on Active History. In this post, he delves more deeply into the concept of historical consciousness. 
• Following a recent talk with Tom Peace on making an Open Textbook in Canadian history, Sean Kheraj posted some links to relevant resources. 

 

Transnational History

• Guest blogger Patrick Lacroix published a new piece on Prosper Bender and transnational and cross-cultural lives for the University of Toronto Press Journals blog. 

 

Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration History

• Canada Post has announced plans to issue a stamp commemorating the first Black postal worker in Canada, Albert Jackson.  You know what would also make a fantastic tribute? Acceding to the union’s demands for safer working conditions. Just a thought….
• Martin Crevier interviewed Laura Madokoro over on the Toynbee Prize Foundation blog, about her work on the history of refugees, and her award-winning book, Elusive Refuge: Chinese Migrants in the Cold War. 
• Mary E. Hicks reviewed Sharla Fett’s Recaptured Africans: Surviving Slave Ships, Detention, and Dislocation in the Final Years of the Slave Trade  for the Black Perspectives blog.
• Ted Rutland spoke with The Signal about the relationship between urban planning and systemic racism in Halifax, particularly with respect to Africville.

 

Indigenous History

• So I was pretty horrified to learn that the mortar used to build the original Parliament buildings almost certainly contains human remains, since it used sand from a communal Indigenous burial ground. Talk about a metaphor.
• Ian Mosby was back with his annual review of the status of the TRC Calls to Action. The results are not promising, though I doubt you’ll be surprised to hear that.
• The Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre is looking for help identifying students in these photographs of the Cecilia Jeffrey Residential School from 1950 to 1975.
• The Canadian Museum of History shared an image of this beautiful flute, but didn’t provide any information about where it is from, beyond explaining that flutes are an important element of Indigenous ceremonial practices. 
• Find out about a new exhibit on the history of Kanien’kehá:ka ironworkers from Kahnawake and Akwesasne who built New York City’s famous skyline, particularly the World Trade Centre. 
• CTV spoke with Vera Slippery about her experiences at the Muscowequan Indian Residential School, and why the Muskowekwan First Nation is trying to preserve it.

 

New France/British North America

• Borealia published the latest essay in their series on cartography and empire. This post, by S. Max Edelson, looks at the Board of Trade survey and plans for PEI, and the role that these maps played in colonizing the island.  Don’t miss the live maps!
• The latest biography from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography is for business person Sir Hormisdas Laporte. 

 

Political History

• Ed Dunsworth has written a new blog post for Active History, featuring a conversation with three colleagues as they worked through whether it is possible to have hope in times like these, particularly in the wake of Steve Bannon’s talk at the Munk School.
• Tanya Zenobio wrote a new piece for The Watson on closet spiritualist, William Lyon Mackenzie King. 

 

Social History

• Steve Clifford shared how the Spanish Flu epidemic impacted his family.
• Apparently, Tina Adcock is some kind of history ninja, since she also encouraged  Regan Eby to put together a publicly-accessible playlist of historical songs on the theme of “On Peril on the Sea.” Check out the playlist itself here.
• This week LAC, explored juvenilia in their collection. The term “juvenilia” refers to works produced by authors while they were still young, with a particular focus on Jane Urquhart’s early works.

 

The History of Gender and Sexuality

• Speaking of postal workers, you must read this piece by Mikhail Bjorge and Kassandra Luciuk on Active History, about how we owe maternity and parental leave to the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. 
• This week on the Acadiensis blog, Lisa Pasolli reviewed Laurel Lewey, Louis J. Richard, and Linda Turner’s new book, New Brunswick before the Equal Opportunity Program: History Through a Social Worker Lens. 
• So I’m not used to being part of the roundup myself, but check out this piece that Donica Belisle and I co-wrote, responding to the Historica Canada poll on the history of women in Canada. It was also republished in the National Post!
• Over on the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives blog, Mandy Byron looked back on the history of The Body Politic and associated items in their collection.

 

Local History

• Join Chris Ryan on a walk to visit the Todmorden Developments and Park Road Manor Ltd. 
• Did you know that UBC used to have a temporary campus on the current site of the Vancouver General Hospital?
• And speaking of BC university history, Georgia Twiss has written the latest post for the Scots in BC blog, on the invented and contested Scottish traditions of SFU.
• This week Heritage Winnipeg looked back at the history of the Robert R. Scott House.
• And Whistorical looked back at the history of their saunas. 
• Join Eve Lazarus on part seven and the last leg of the Spirit Trail!
• Like many other Montrealers, I loved seeing the Ogilvy Christmas window, and was sad when they retired it last year. But fear not, because now it is on display at the McCord Museum!

 

Digital and Public History

• Newspapers.com has been busy digitizing Canadian newspapers. The entire run of the Vancouver Sun is now available!
  • And the Province is coming soon!
• What’s more, Canadiana will now be available to the public for free! The collection features 60 million pages of early Canadian documents, from books to government documents, to newspapers. Now everyone can get frustrated about how useless their search engine is…. whoops, did I say that out loud?
  • You can take an online user survey here to “help improve the website.”
• There is a brand new walking tour app on Vancouver’s history!

 

Doing History

• This is a pretty cool story about the neat finds and stories that lie within Special Collections. Content Warning: WW1, death of children.
• In a new initiative, the Glenbow Library and Archives will be partnering with the University of Calgary to transfer their material from the Glenbow collection to the University’s collection. This will ensure that the material will be preserved for generations to come, and will be more accessible to the public.
  • More details here.
• Don’t call archives “dusty.” Or else.
• The Beyond the Spectacle blog is in the process of developing a new resource highlighting some of the lesser known collections of UK Institutions of material relating to Indigenous peoples from North America. See the resource for yourself here.

 

Miscellaneous

• Investigators are reexamining the mysterious crash of Canadian Pacific Flight 21, which was downed by a bomb over the BC interior on July 8, 1965.

 

Podcasts

• The latest History Chats episode features a conversation with Douglas Hunter about his two recent books, The Place of Stone: Dighton Rock and the Erasure of America’s Indigenous Past and Beardmore: The Viking Hoax That Re-Wrote History.
• Also on History Chats this week was Dominique Marshal’s talk on “Children’s Drawings and Humanitarian Aid: Transnational Expressions and Exhibitions.”
• And the latest episode of the Secret Life of Canada podcast focused on the history of Private Buckam Singh.

 

Calls for Papers

• The Department of Folklore at Memorial University is seeking proposals for their upcoming Folklore Studies Association of Canada conference. This year’s theme is the idea of “home.” Proposals are due February 1, 2018.

 

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Week of November 18, 2018

 

Environmental History

• The most commonly-used words in #envhist from the last week, according to Jessica DeWitt, were: “New,” “Can,” and “Canadian.” 
• Jessica DeWitt published the latest edition of her comps notes, featuring E.J. (Ted) Hart’s J. B. Harkin: Father of Canada’s National Parks. 
• She also published her monthly look at the best articles in #envhist over on NiCHE!
• The latest blog post from The Mountain Legacy Project explains what the term “oblique photo” means. 

 

Military History

• The latest blog post from the Canadian Museum of History is a special profile of a new travelling exhibit, “Alfred Munnings: The War Years, 1917-1918,”  focusing on the relationship between soldiers and horses.
• This week LAC took a look at how Canadian workers manufactured war materials for France during WW1, and how Canadian factories adapted (or didn’t) to the new challenges.
• The Canadian War Museum has acquired the fourth of six Victoria Crosses that were awarded to Canadians at Hill 70.
  • More on the acquisition here.
• Christine Estima published a piece for the UC Observer on her discovery of WW2 love letters in a Toronto market. 
• Find out about a new exhibit about Acadian soldiers in WW1, featuring Greg Kennedy!
• In the latest entry in Active History’s series on WW1’s centenary, Nathan Smith reflected on his experience during Remembrance Day this year, 100 years of commemoration, and his talk at the Don Heights Unitarian Congregation.  And he kindly mentioned my piece on poppies!

 

Archaeology

• A few weeks ago, Stephanie Halmhofer gave a presentation on social media and pseudo archaeology. You can now see the talk itself here!
  • And you can also see Kisha Supernant’s (Métis) talk on “Good Intentions/Bad Archaeology: Uses and Abuses of Canadian Archaeology Against Indigenous Peoples.” They are both absolutely fantastic presentations!
• Find out how conservators treated a single-handed hatchet (also described as a pipe tomahawk)  at the Museum of Ontario Archaeology.

 

History Education

• Do you know the history of the Commission scolaire de Montréal, formerly the Commission des écoles catholiques de Montréal? In case you’re wondering, my school was part of  the Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal, because the rule back then was, if you weren’t Catholic, you were considered Protestant.
• So apparently this week was Canadian History week? Whoops. This year’s focus was on science, creativity, and innovation. As part of the celebration, they’ve produced new videos on:
  • Joey Angnatok (Inuit)
  • Ursula Franklin
  • Frederick Banting and Charles Best

 

Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration History

• A few weeks ago, Patrick Lacroix published a list of important monographs on Franco-American history. He followed that up this week with a list of important scholarly articles on the same topic.
• Shauntay Grant has just written and published a children’s book about the history of Africville. 
• The new $10 bill featuring Viola Desmond has finally entered circulation!
• Do you know the history of Jews in PEI? Scratch that, did you know there were Jews in PEI? (hehehe)
• Christopher Cannon Jones reviewed Katharine Gerbner’s new book, Christian Slavery: Conversation and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World  for the Black Perspectives blog this week.
• Elise Chenier sent me a link to this awesome story from Keith Lock about the work his parents did as part of Operation Oblivion, and their struggle to move to Canada after the ware was ended.
• The United Church of Canada will compensate a Vancouver Japanese congregation for the loss of its church during WW2. 

 

Indigenous History

• This week the UofA Faculty of Law blog discussed the history and cultural significance of totem poles, with a particular emphasis on the story of the G’psgolox totem pole, stolen from the Haisla community of Misk’usa in 1929.
• I’m really happy to see that the Royal Ontario Museum will be returning the ancestors and artifacts that they removed from burial mounds to the Rainy River First Nation, after being in storage for thirty years. The ancestors and artifacts were removed from the mounds that are known as the Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung “The Place of the Long Rapids.” This follows years of work by Elders and representatives from the Rainy River First Nation.
• Joanne Hammond provided some important context to Ian Mosby’s examination of progress on the TRC Calls to Action, noted above.
• There appears to be some disconnect or miscommunication between the UBC Indian Residential History and Dialogue Centre and the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation regarding access to archival holdings about BC’s Indian residential schools. I’m not sure that I understand exactly what is going on here, but it is troubling to hear.

 

New France/British North America

• This week’s blog post on Borealia comes from Michael Borsk, writing on the transatlantic correspondence between Irish merchant Richard Popham and Upper Canadian acquaintance, John Large, specifically with respect to the language of emotion and affect.
• Michel Thévenin premiered a new blog called Tranchées et Tricornes, on the history of war in the 18th century! I’ve missed the first few posts, which I recommend you go back and check. This week he explored the challenge of defining the term “siege” in this period, and the involvement of the “Royal Syntaxe” during the 1759 defense of Quebec City. 
• Leah Grandy has written a new piece for the Atlantic Loyalist Connections blog post, the first in a multi-part series looking at Irish Catholic Loyalists in the military. 
• A new document signed by Governor Frontenac in 1693 has just been discovered!
• In response to the publication of a problematic list of books on the Atlantic World, Vanessa M. Holden and Jessica Parr have put together a list of much better (and more diverse) book to check out.
• The Canadian Museum of History also posted an image of this prisoner’s box, made by a participant in the 1837 Rebellion while in prison in Toronto.

 

Political History

• A question about teaching political history in Canada by Antony Anderson spurred a fascinating discussion about the field by Shirley Tillotson, Matthew Hayday, and Ray Blake. Be sure to click through all the replies to see the full conversation!
• I’ve already mentioned above that postal workers were instrumental in passing legislation requiring maternity/parental leave. But that is far from the only thing that postal workers have contributed to the overall well-being of workers across the country. 
• Crawford Kilian reviewed Christo Aivalis’ new book, The Constant Liberal: Pierre Trudeau, Organized Labour, and the Canadian Social Democratic Left for the Tyee this week. 
• The latest biography from The Dictionary of Canadian Biography is for politician Edward Mortimer Macdonald.

 

Social History

• In their annual Movember post (sigh), Chilliwak Museum and Archives published a list of famous historical goatee-wearers, including Captain John Swalis (Soowahlie First Nation), Louis William Paisley, and Willian Knight.
• Caroline Robert was interviewed by Benoit Marsan over on the Centre d’histoire des régulations sociales blog this week, regarding her work on the regulation of alcohol consumption in Quebec.
• Canadian Geographic published an excerpt from a new book by Anne Budgell, We All Expected to Die: Spanish Influenza in Labrador, 1918-1919, specifically relating to the arrival of the Moravian supply ship Harmony, which brought the pathogen to the area.
• This week on the Canadian Museum of History blog, John Willis explained why William Notman is such an important figure in Canadian history.  And for my fellow Montrealers: yes, that William Notman.
• The latest Flickr album from LAC featured images of cars. See the pictures themselves here.

 

The History of Gender and Sexuality

• Find out a little but about why Montreal was a centre for advances in reproductive health. And I do mean little: check out the lapel pin!
• And on a related note, Rare Books and Special Collections, the Osler Library, the Visual Arts Collection, and the McGill University Archives published a new book celebrating women at McGill. In this blog post about the book launch, they also republished a talk given by Hannah Deskin for the occasion. 
• This week on Histoire Engagée, Mathilde Michaud published a new piece about the sudden explosion in the number of nuns in Quebec and Ireland in the 1840s. What might have caused it? Economic necessity, piety, or feminism. I am not responsible for images of exploding nuns.
• Merna Forster published a new piece in the Ottawa Citizen, about the historical Canadian women she’d like to have dinner with. 

 

Local History

• This week Heritage Winnipeg profiled the Union Bank Tower.
• The UBC Digitizer’s blog looked back on the three different iterations of the Hotel Vancouver.
• Lethbridge’s Alberta Meat Market has been donated to the Galt Museum.
• Eve Lazarus was interviewed by Shawn Conner on Inside Vancouver about the murder of Rene Castellani. Content warning.
  • More here! Content warning.
• She also posted a new blog post looking at the history of the Ritz Hotel!

 

Digital and Public History

• Find out about this year’s winners of the Governor General’s Canadian History Award, including the recipient of this year’s Pierre Burton Award, Bill Waiser!
• Also, Canada Declassified went live this week! This digital archive contains government records that have been declassified, relating to the Cold War. Yay!!
• The Canadian Encyclopedia published a new article this week on the history of Artificial Intelligence in Canada.
• Kevin Dawson explained why digital humanities is so important, and some of the many ways that it can help us to learn more about historical human experiences.
• Sean Kheraj has written a new piece for Active History on how digital methodologies connect with meaning making in Canadian history and the role of open-access in the 21st century university.
• While I was at the CHA, I got to listen to a fantastic panel on the history of popular symbols in Canada. Now you too can experience part of that, with John Lutz’s new piece for The Tyee on how the totem pole became a symbol of Canada.
  • And you can read about Colin Coates’ presentation on the beaver here!
• So if you’re spent any time perusing CBC Digital Archives lately, you’ll have noticed that something has changed. This may be because CBC premiered a new show called “From the Vaults,” on historical musical performances. 
• The CHA launched a brand new website!
  • And look at that, my blog post on poppies is the featured article for November 2018!

 

Doing History

• The City of Vancouver Archives will be moving to a new space! Before it can do so, many of the records in their collections will require conservation. Find out how this is done in their latest blog post.
• You absolutely must read Krista McCracken’s latest blog post for Active History, an unexpected finds and repurposed papers in the archives. 
• Earlier this week on Histoire Engagée, the leadership of the l’Institut d’histoire de l’Amérique française published an open-letter protesting Doug Ford’s abolishing the proposed Université de l’Ontario français. The letter also appeared in Le Devoir and in English on Active History. I would urge you to add your name to the letter. I did.

 

Miscellaneous

• Music history nerd alert: a new box of recordings by the Guess Who going back to 1973 have just been discovered in Winnipeg.

 

Podcasts

• This week on History Chats is Dean Oliver’s talk, “Isn’t All History Public? Knowledge, Wisdom, and Utility in the Great Age of Storytelling.”
• The Futility Closet podcast published a new episode this week on the Great Stork Derby of Toronto!

 

Calls for Papers

• Would you like to participate in this year’s CHESS at the CHA? It’s sign-up time!
• Stasis – Groupe d’enquête sur le contemporain has issued a CFP for an upcoming conference on exiles, Quebec, and the formation of the right. Proposals are due January 21.
• Women’s and Gender Studies has issued a CFP for this year’s Congress. This year, the conference will focus on three themes: collaborative conversations, open circles, and conversations across borders. Proposals are due January 3.
• The editors of the Journal of the Canadian Historical Association have issued a CFP for a panel on the Histories of the Senses to be held at Congress. Abstracts are due December 7.

 

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So the big question: where was Andrea all week? Well, I caught a cold last Thursday, and it just wouldn’t quit. And unfortunately, I am not allowed to take decongestants because they don’t play nicely with some other medications that I take. So I had lots of fun. Thank you so much for your patience with me! While I’m back on track with the roundup, obviously our regular blog post schedule was disrupted. So on Tuesday I’ll update you on the schedule for the rest of 2018.

In the meantime, 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 our third annual Gift Guide for (Canadian) Historians! See you then!