Canadian History Roundup – Week of March 19, 2017

White Star Line – Canada’s Call to Women (1920-1930). Credit: Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1990-119-1. Public Domain.

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

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

• A little while ago, Jessica Dunkin put out a call for publications on the Geological Survey of Canada. She’s finally compiled this information into this great bibliography!
• A new-to-me podcast is Sean Munger’s The Second Decade, all about the second decade of the 19^th century. His latest episode is Part 3 is a series on the War of 1812!
• Jessica DeWitt is back with week 3 of her wordcloud analysis of #envhist posts! The top words from this week are “extinction,” “EPA,” and “people.”
• I’m not sure what the deal is with March Madness, since I’m not really a sports girl unless we’re talking hockey (and pretty much only the Habs). But the Junto is currently having their 5^th annual March Madness tournament on books about early American history, which sometimes includes Canada (sort of)!
• Clayton Thomas-Müller has a great piece about the problem of corporate redwashing.
• LAC has released their 2017-2018 Departmental Plan. Check it out here, and one analysis here.
  • Also in LAC news is the announcement that their “block review,” a process for speeding up access to federal government documents, has just reached 25 million pages released for use by the public.
  • I don’t know who’s idea this was and/or what they were thinking, but LAC has uploaded a Flickr Album of images of clowns. Omg, I can’t even look. If you are braver than I, you can see them here.
  • Also from LAC this week is a guide to using railway accident records in their collection.
• The Wilson Institute’s Beyond Borders blog has a new post this week! This post comes from Oleksa Drachewych about the racial policies of the Canadian Communist Party during the Interwar Period.
• This week on the University of Toronto Press blog, Robert Vipond discusses his upcoming book, Making a Global City: How One Toronto School Embraced Diversity.
• This article by Jean-Pierre Morin about what it means to do the real work of reconciliation is a must-read. Need convincing? Here’s my favourite line: “As an Anishinaabe elder from Treaty 9 once told me, there is no “right” or “wrong” history – only incomplete history that will remain so until we put all the histories together. We need to tell the “complete history”, a history that makes us understand the mistakes of the past; a history that helps us understand the challenges we face right now; and a history that helps us plot out our future together.”
• This week on Unwritten Histories, I had a new resource guide developed in collaboration with the Atlantic Loyalists Connection blog, all about teaching and learning Loyalist history!
• This could go either way on the Canadian history thing, but this is a really cool article from The Recipes Project on the early-modern European and Indigenous culinary connections in chocolate.
  • Also, check out this Youtube video on the subject.
• The latest episode of the Ben Franklin’s World Podcast features an interview with Rebecca Brannon on the subject of the South Carolina Loyalists who stayed behind.
• This week’s new biography from the DCB is of Charles-David Hébert, a prominent 19^th century Acadian nationalist.
  • Also new from the DCB this week is a themed gallery all about Sir John A. Macdonald.
• Allan Downey has uploaded a paper from Chronos McGill about Indigenous Self-Determination and Lacrosse. Check it out here.
• BAnQ has a guide this week to search their collection of public inquiries or Commissions from the Quebec government, like the one launched into the cost of the Montreal Olympics.
• Radio Canada has a cool interactive map of Montreal’s historic buildings.
• The Virtual Museum of Canada has launched a new exhibit! Developed in collaboration with Miguasha National Park, this exhibit showcases the park’s 380 million year old fish and plant fossils.
• Friend of the blog Adam Montgomery’s dissertation won the Bill Waiser Award from the University of Saskatchewan History department Congrats!!
• Check out this cool interview with Jenny Ellison on the new Canadian Museum of History exhibit, “Hockey.”
• Heather Read is back with another post in her Canada150 series on the ROM’s blog. This week she looks at a beautiful Michael Massie Teapot in the shape of an ulu knife.
• This week, Retroactive takes on the topic of how to date archaeological sites. Insert your own dating joke here. 😉
• This week on Histoire Engagée, Anne-Valérie Zuber discusses the recent trend of doing Wikipedia edit-a-thons, particularly with respect to women’s history and the meaning of historical work.
• The CCGW has just uploaded episode 6 of their Dear Bessie podcast.
  • Also this week from the CCGW is a new blog post about the development of the Canadian Tank Corp. Armoured cars were already in use in WW1 when the tank was introduced by the British in 1916.
• This week on the UBC Digitizer’s Blog is a digital tribute to the Irving K. Barber Centre, their “home away from home.”
• Brock University premiered a new course in January devoted to the history of fraternalism and the Freemasons. One aspect of the course is that students get to work in an actual archive, which I think is pretty cool.
• This week, Christo Aivalis has a new blog post on Active History looking at the recent controversy regarding Bill Kinnear and the Canadian Labour Congress. He considers this in the larger context of Canadian and American labour relations.
• The latest blog post from LAC’s Who Do We Think We Are guest curator series is from Tania Passafiume, who talks about the importance of photographs and photography in the archives.
• LAC has announced that it will be switching over from its AMICUS catalogue to a new one developed by OCLC, a non-profit library co-operative. You can see the official press release here, along with more information about the change. I’m curious to see what kind of changes will result.
• Though the Threshold Podcast is new to me, the final episode in season 1 has been highly recommended on Twitter and NiCHE. This episode looks at the history of bison in Montana, and definitely has Canadian applications.
• Speaking of podcasts, Ian Mosby was interviewed this week on the Denendeh Sunrise show about nutritional experiments on residential school children.
  • Ian Mosby also posted an image from an Indian Affairs document in 1946, from a doctor who commented that “any language that has not a literature is dead.” Mosby also added some additional information in the form of replies to the original post, so don’t forget to scroll down.
• Russell Potter has a new post on his Visions of the North Blog, about what it means to “abandon ship,” particularly in relation to the HMS Resolute. I don’t know why, but there is something haunting and compelling about abandoned ships, at least to me.
• This week on the Laurier Centre blog is a review by Caroline D’Amours of Jack Granatstein and J.M. Hitsman’s book, Broken Promises: A History of Conscription in Canada.
  • Also on the Laurier Centre blog this week is part 1 of a two-part series by Alan McLeod on the war memorials of George Hill and Emanuel Hahn. The first post looks at their memorials in Charlottetown, Summerside, and Saint-Lambert.
• This week on NiCHE is a must-read post by John Belshaw about how he dealt with the subject of environmental history when writing the Pre and Post Confederation Canadian History textbooks for B.C. Open Textbooks. Also, you need to check out these textbooks, because they are fantastic, free, and can be edited.
• Emily Lonie talks about the AtoM, or Access to Memory application, the software that is used by most online archival portals in Canada, for provincial, university, and other archives. She recently attended an AtoM camp, and shares what she learned.
• The Vancouver as it Was blog has posted another post regarding the subject of lost artwork at Hotel Vancouver. This post concerns Valentin Shabaeff’s work that is known as “indigenous women,” which could be seen in the hotel from 1942 until the 1950s or 1960s. Its location and state are unknown.
• Western University asked some of its Indigenous Studies students: “What do you wish your professors knew about you?” This video was the response. If you are an educator in Canada, please watch and share.
• There are a couple of new articles in the Canadian Encyclopedia to tell you about!
  • This one, on Indigenous politician Gloria George, written by Paul Tennant.
  • This one, on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada, by Jennifer Brant.
  • And this one of Indigenous human rights activist Mary Two-Axe Earley, by Amanda Robinson.
• Tina Loo has a new article out in Environmental History about Barren Ground Caribou management from the 1940s to the 1980s.
• The City of Vancouver Archives has a new blog post this week looking at some of the architectural photographs of the Art Grice fonds.
• Check out this really cool article about “the Fruit Loop,” Calgary’s Gay Prostitution Stroll.
• Amanda Graham, an instructor at Yukon College, has created a new blog for her course, Research in the North. This website will explore the history of the Yukon in 100 objects. I think it looks amazing! Check it out for yourself here.
• The St. Catharines Museum has posted Walk C from their 1856 walking guide this week.
• This week, my former English teacher Robert Wilkins has posted an account from 1903 of the burning of the R&O Steamship Montreal.
• The Canadian Network on Humanitarian History has just released their fourth newsletter.
• I’ve recently discovered the Dartmouth Heritage Museum Blog, which features some great posts about items in their collections, their provenance, and what we can learn from them. Their latest post explores the Dartmouth connection to the Bluenose.
• Whistorical shines a light on “weasels,” volunteers who prep the slopes in advances of major competitions.
• Huron has just premiered its new minor in Africa and African Diaspora! Yay!
• The Museum of Vancouver has a new blog post about their latest Glory Days panel, featuring sport legends of days past.
• Canadian History in the News
  • Christine Sismondo at Maclean’s reflects on the “Yellow Peril” and the lessons it has for the current immigration crisis in Canada and the US.
  • In response to Senator Beyak’s asinine remarks from last week, the Anglican Church of Canada issued a statement that “there was nothing good” about residential schools.
  • The latest issue of British Columbia History Magazine has been released.
  • UPEI has just announced a new chair in Montgomery Studies.
  • Check out this awesome article about the oldest sugar maple in Canada. It’s just beautiful.
  • Apparently there is a law requiring that the federal government print every new law on paper. Bureaucrats are urging the Liberals to get rid of this rule.
  • A bronze plaque is being erected in Barkerville, BC honouring the experiences of 19^th century Chinese and Chinese-Canadian pioneers and the harsh treatment they endured.
  • This is totally awesome: The Royal Canadian Geographical Society is working with a number of Indigenous organizations to create a new map of Canada as Turtle Island. And the best part, at least for me, is that there will be a teaching guide!
  • Unexploded ammunition is about to be removed from the wreck of the HMCS Thiepval, after lying under water in Barkley Sound for nearly 80 years.
  • A ghost town in BC is trying to crowdsource enough funding to reopen its museum.
  • Check out these really cool images of what the Toronto waterfront used to look like in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries.
  • A family from Ottawa has made an agreement with the National Capital Commission to transform and run a pioneer farm built in the 1850s as it was originally designed.
  • Paul Watson, a journalist who was part of the crew of archaeologists searching for the Franklin Expedition, was interviewed this week on NPR about how the ships were located.
  • The West Coast Environmental Law Firm has initiated a project to give Indigenous laws more legal power. So cool!
  • Tom Hopper, at the Torontoist looks at the history of policing gay sex in parks in Toronto in the 1970s and 1980s. An earlier version of the piece previously appeared on Active History.
  • Just in case you missed this, you must read Maren Wood’s recent article in University Affairs about recent trends in hiring in the fields of History and English in Canada. They are sobering, and extremely depressing.
    • Don’t miss Sarah Shulist’s remarks on this subject and conversation with Adele Perry.
    • As well as Khelisilem’s Twitter essay in response to the original article.
  • There was a news article earlier in the week examining the question of whether or not all children should learn Indigenous languages.
  • This article from CBC talks about the mixed feelings about celebrating the relationship between Acadians and the Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia for Canada150.
  • The Graphic History Collective posted a link on Facebook this week to this short documentary called Four Faces of the Moon by Amanda Strong on her journey to uncover the history of her family and her connection to her Métis, Cree, and Anishinaabe ancestors. It’s haunting and beautiful.
  • Winnipeg has signed their first Indigenous Accord.
  • The Manitoba Museum has been collaborating with elders from the Norway House Cree Nation and Garden Hill First Nation to create new educational kits that focus on oral history and historical artefacts from both communities. Love this!
  • The Joseph Schenider Haus, an historical home in Kitchener, Ontario, has been renamed the Scheider Haus, in recognition of the fact that both Joseph and his wife Barbara lived there. I also love this, but, predictably, some people are upset, because history must never change.
  • The City of Calgary has raised the Treaty 7 flag at City Hall, where it will have a permanent home. This is fantastic! As mayor Naheed Nenshi noted, it’s a small gesture, but one that matters.
  • A new children’s book that shows the history of Chinese and Chinese-Canadian railway workers has just come out.
  • Two universities were in the news this week for their innovative teaching approaches.
    • The first is the University of Manitoba, where Sarah Elvins is teaching a food history class that actually involves cooking in order to talk about the work of food preparation. Why couldn’t they have had such cool courses back in my day?
    • And the second features Guelph’s Rebecca Beausaert, who helped her class organize an exhibit of historical cookbooks for Canada150.
  • This is total click-bait, but check out this cute article from the New Yorker about Canadian English. I’m still waiting for the Montreal English one. And I refuse to make the joke you are thinking of. Nope. Not happening.
  • The Montreal Gazette looks back at Sohmer Park this week, a vaudeville theatre/amusement park that lasted for thirty years before burning down in 1919.
  • This is so awesome: Helene Vosters is leading a sewing circle in embroidering the TRC report recommendations on Canadian flags.
  • CBC Ideas had a documentary this week featuring Jesse Thistle. The documentary focuses on Thistle’s family and life story, and discusses the impact of intergenerational trauma.
    • And here is the CBC Campus episode on the same subject.
  • Ok, this one will totally tug on your heartstrings. While visiting Yad Vashem (the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem), a Canadian couple found a silver powder compact that their grandfather (Joseph) had given to their grandmother (Tanya) in 1941. He traded his daily ration of bread for it. They survived the Holocaust by hiding in a bunker in Lodz Ghetto, but Tanya died a year after they were liberated. Joseph then gave the compact to a female friend who helped him set up a business before he moved to Canada. And now I need some Kleenex.
  • Tristin Hopper of the National Post has a fascinating article containing excerpts from letters by immigrants who hated living in Canada. And yes, I totally used one of his images for the roundup this week. It was too awesome not to.
  • The Royal Alberta Museum is heading to the Stones and Bones Weekend in High River for a roadshow, where people can ask experts all about some historical items in their collections.
  • The Royal BC Museum and the Narodni Museum in Prague have signed an agreement to help find and locate artefacts from Pacific North West First Nations that are in museums around the world.
  • Marcelle Partouche Gutierrez and Meara Bernadette Kirwin have written an article for the McGill Daily calling out racism and colonialism in anthropology classes at McGill. There are many lessons here for historians as well.
  • This week The Globe and Mail remembered Barry Lord, a museum planner who changed the way Canadian museums looked.
  • That iconic PEI painting of a schoolmistress before the board of trustees is undergoing conservation and restoration!
  • The remains of a WW1 soldier from Calgary named Sgt. James Alexander Milne have just been identified.
  • I’m not sure if this is new or just new to me, but check out Randy Turner’s (of the Winnipeg Free Press) online exhibition about how architecture shaped the history of Winnipeg.
  • blogTO takes a look back at the history of the women’s movement in Toronto.
  • Lenard Monkman, writing for the CBC, discusses the long-term impact of the banning of the potlatch in BC, particularly for Indigenous women.
  • This Saturday marked the 100th anniversary of the departure of the No. 2 Construction Battalion from Halifax for WW1, the first and only all-Black battalion in Canadian history.
  • Tim Bouma is retracing Tom Thomson’s last few months on his twitter account, @TTLastSpring. Find out more here. 
  • David Wencer at the Historicist remembers William Lyon Mackenzie King back when he was still a wee little journalist.
  • Matt Galloway spoke with Gerald McMaster, an Indigenous scholar who served as a consultant on “Canada: The Story of Us.”
  • Take a tour with Kent Monkman of his new exhibit, “Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience.”
  • Take a behind-the-scenes look at a new exhibit at the Vancouver Maritime Museum about the impounding of the Japanese-Canadian fishing fleet in WW2.
• Better Late than Never
  • I almost forgot about this article from last week. Émile Pigeon has written a hard-hitting and, I think, accurate critique of the new book, Songs Upon the Rivers, particularly in regards to the author’s definition of the term “Métis.”
  • This is also new-to-me, but check out this cool animated map showing the evolution of Canadian historic railways from 1835 to 1995.
  • Lynn Gehl has a great piece on the desecration of Indigenous sacred spaces and how Canada150 is perpetuating the problem.
  • Sheila Watt-Cloutier spoke about Inuit women and the ulu knife for CBC’s What’s Your Story campaign, and which objects Canadians think should be submitted to a collection for national treasures.
  • Also, check out this story from CBC about how an interracial couple married back in the 1940s despite protests from family members. The article features some of the letters written by the family of Vivian Keeler, a white woman who married Bill White, a Black man, which are quite hateful.

That’s all for this week! I hope enjoyed our latest 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 Unwritten Histories’ 1 year anniversary! See you then!

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