Man tagging Canada goose, Kingsville. November 1954. Chris Lund. Credit: Library and Archives Canada. Copyright: Expired
The latest in blog posts, news, and podcasts from the world of Canadian history.
Missed last week’s roundup? Check it out here.
Halloween 2018
- Frank Klaassen has written a new piece for The Conversation on witchcraft laws in Canadian history.
- Retroactive looked at spiritualism in Central Canada.
- Have you ever heard of Gate Night?
- The Chilliwack Museum and Archives shared spooky stories from Williams Street.
- Is Mackenzie House Toronto’s most haunted home?
- Our Digital World shared some spooky stories from their collection of Ontario newspapers.
- The hosts of The Secret Life of Canada put together a list of the most haunted locations in Canada! For more info, check out their latest podcast episode on the same topic!
- The UBC Digitizer’s Blog shared some spooky images from their collection!
- Do you know what ectoplasm is, and what it was doing in Winnipeg? If you answered, a Lush bathbomb, I love you, and not that kind of ectoplasm.
- I am highly skeptical of this one, but allegedly there are ghosts haunting the objects at the Western Development Museum in Saskatoon.
- Have you heard of the Etobicoke poltergeist?
- The National Post put together its own list of true spooky stories from Canadian history, though some of these are highly questionable, particular the hooded Thule figurine. Warning: graphic images of dead bodies, bad history.
- And Stephanie Pettigrew was back this week with a new Halloween Special, sharing the story of Charles Havard and the Blasphemed Crucifix.
Environmental History
- The most commonly-used words last week in #envhist, according to Jessica DeWitt, were: “Oil,” “Gas,” and “Climate.”
- Over on NiCHE this week, Greg Kennedy discussed his work with ARTisticc (Adaptation Research, a Trans-disciplinary, Tranational Community, and Policy Centred Approach), and how the seven research sites under study (including Canada’s Cocagne River watershed) are dealing with environmental change.
- Ray Blake provided some background on the recent Supreme Court ruling about Churchill Falls.
Military History
- In the second post of their new series on WW1 Indigenous North Americans’ experiences in Britain, the Beyond the Spectacle blog posted snapshots of some of the individuals they are investigating.This includes: Tsiania Redfeather (Cherokee/Creek, Muscogee Creek Nation), John Shiwak (Inuit), Mike Mountain Horse (Kainai), Alexander Decoteau (Cree, Red Pheasant First Nation), and Francis Pegahmagabow (Ojibwe, Sawanaga First Nation).
- This week the LAC blog shared the history of Canada’s zombie army. No, not the brain-eating kind. 😉
- LAC also posted a new entry in their WW1 Victoria Cross recipients series, for Sergeant Hugh Cairns.
- The Memory Project just released a new DVD including interviews and testimonies from Canadian veterans of WW2, the Korean War, the Cold War, peace missions, and the War in Afghanistan. These are all also available for streaming at the same link (::cough cough:: BecauseNoOneUsesDVDsAnymore ::cough cough:: )
- Lisa Terech profiled WW1 soldier, Albert Frederick Hind.
- This year, the Royal Canadian Legion premiered digital poppies.
- Jack Granatstein published a new piece with Maclean’s this week, on Canada’s last battle in WW1.
Archaeology
- A diver may have located the wreck of the HMS Speedy, which some believe could have changed the shape of Canadian history if it had reached port safely.
- Archaeologist Douglas Stenton has located the burial site of a Franklin Expedition officer, as well as a cache of artifacts, by using modern technology to study old maps.
- Russell Potter has more here.
- Bob Muckle spoke with the Capilano Courier about his work, particularly the discovery of one of the only Japanese bathhouses in North America.
History Education
- I really loved this piece by Rebekah Ludolph about the need for critical thinking about settler self-education and how settlers should approach Indigenous texts in their own right (rather than as tools for settler education), particularly with respect to Maria Campbell’s Halfbreed.
- There is a brand new resource for educators who want to teach about the history of the Wabanaki Confederacy, created by David Perley (former chief of the Maliseet nation at Tobique). See if for yourself here.
Transnational History
- In his latest Active History post, Jim Clifford shared some really cool visualizations on British imports from 1856 to 1906, which also reveal some important insights about British-Canadian relations. Also, there is tea.
Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration History
- One of the new Canadian Encyclopedia entries this week is on the racial segregation of Asian Canadians.
- The Tree of Life Synagogue shooting last Saturday will apparently influence the Prime Minister’s upcoming apology for the MS St. Louis.
- And the shooting also prompted a special mid-week blog post from me, on antisemitism and being Jewish in Canada in both the past and the present.
- Bashir Mohamed shared stories of KKK campaigns for PC candidates in Alberta.
- And as he noted in this Twitter thread, history tells us how we should deal with white supremacists.
- The Huffington Post has a new piece covering the racial origins of Canada’s marijuana laws.
Indigenous History
- Joanne Hammond put together a Twitter thread on the excuse of “overlapping territories” as a challenge to decolonization.
- Peter Turner (nohtawī, James Smith Cree Nation, nehīyaw, Métis) also wrote a Twitter thread on how the national park system denied Indigenous access to traditional foods while also guaranteeing settlers the ability to overharvest, particularly with respect to Prince Albert National Park.
- Chris Andersen (Métis) wrote a pretty awesome Twitter thread on the problem with lazy and cynical Indigenous land acknowledgements, and the tremendous potential they hold when done properly.
- The Algoma University Archives is looking for help identifying students depicted in a group of images from the Fort George Residential School in the 1950s.
- Catherine Murton Stoehr has an update on the Robinson Huron Treaty Trial, particularly with respect to a panel on the damage done to Indigenous peoples when the resolution of legal issues is excessively delayed.
- While most of the UofA Faculty of Law blog’s posts on racism towards Indigenous peoples this week have dealt with contemporary issues, they did also discuss the history of Starlight Tours.
- While speaking to American Indigenous history, this Twitter thread by Alyssa Mt. Pleasant raised some important points about how historians can reinforce settler colonialism and discourage Indigenous youth from studying history.
- On the latest episode of APTN Investigates, Martha Troian (Ojibwe from Lac Seul First Nation) examined a strap that was used at the St. Margaret’s Indian Residential School in Couchiching First Nation, Ontario between 1951 and 1952. The strap was found during the demolition of the school by a former student, Rudy Bruyere. Content warning: residential schools, graphic descriptions of violence and abuse.
- The Canadian Encyclopedia also has a new entry this week on Indian Agents in Canada.
- Justin Trudeau has apologized in person to the Tsilhquot’in people for the hanging of the six chiefs in 1864.
- This week marked the twentieth anniversary of the signing of the Nisga’a Treaty.
New France/British North America
- Alan MacEachern always has the best titles for blog posts, and this latest entry in Borealia’s Cartography and Empire series is no exception. Does PEI really exist? Where is it located? Nobody knows…
Political History
- CSIS has released new papers from the investigation of a Russian spy ring that was uncovered after the defection of Igor Gouzenko. This includes Gouzenko’s handwritten testimony, which you can see here.
Social History
- Another of the new entries from The Canadian Encyclopedia this week is for the professional basketball team, the Toronto Huskies.
- Until the 1950s, Quebecers celebrated Mardi Gras with costumes, since Halloween was considered an American Protestant holiday.
- There is a new mural in Montreal dedicated to Daisy Peterson Sweeney, Oscar Peterson’s sister and musician and educator in her own right.
- This week on the Acadiensis blog, Greg Marquis shared the story of Strawberry Fields, the largest pop festival in Canada in the 1970s, and why we need more histories of all forms of popular music.
- Thalidomide survivors will be proceeding with a class action lawsuit in their fight for compensation.
The History of Gender and Sexuality
- Also new from The Canadian Encyclopedia this week is a new entry on Michelle Douglas, who was discharged from the Armed Forces in 1989 for being a lesbian.
- This week on the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives blog, Lo Humeniuk profiled the Videofag collection.
- The Centre d’histoire des régulations sociales blog posted part two of Cory Verbauwhede’s interview with Lucie Dagenais about the 1964 labour conflict between the Alliance des infirmières de Montréal (AIM-CSN) and about twenty Francophone hospitals operated by religions communities.
Local History
- This week Winnipeg Heritage profiled the Roslyn Court Apartments, done in the Queen Anne Revival style.
- Eve Lazarus is back this week with part five of her look at the Spirit Trail. This week, we go from Mosquito Creek to Pemberton Avenue.
- Whistorical shared some images of childhood days in Parkhurst in the 1950s.
Digital and Public History
- The Royal BC Museum has embarked on a project to conserve and digitize their collection of BC’s trapline maps from 1909 to the late 1960s.
- The Ha-Shilth-Sa photo archives, containing more than 30,000 images, are being released to the public through digitization. You can see the first images that have been released here.
- BAnQ is digitizing the Montreal Herald’s full run, though this may not be completed for a while. Issues from September 26, 1812 to August 20, 1828 are already available.
- Mount Royal University has recently made available an online database of their archival collection, including 1,400 digitized items. This includes their collection of Canadian Cold War pamphlets.
- The 1926 Census of the Prairie Provinces will be available as an online database in March 2019.
- Allana Mayer shared some slides from her recent talk at the Ontario Women’s History Network on “Digital Storytelling for Ontario’s Multicultural Communities.”
- The University of Manitoba has digitized Czas, the oldest Polish-Canadian newspaper, established in Winnipeg in 1914.
- On his 160th birthday, Google Doodles featured Joseph Burr Tyrrell, the man who made the Badlands dinosaur bones famous. I am kind of uncomfortable about using the term “discovered” here, as the article does, but I don’t really know enough about this to comment.
- Plans are in the works to co-promote four national historic sites in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick that lie on the Chignecto Isthmus: Beaubassin, Fort Beauséjour-Fort Cumberland, Fort Gaspareaux, and Fort Lawrence.
Doing History
- In the latest post in Histoire Engagée’s Chronique d’archives series, Michel Dahan offered some observations on the professions of historian and archivist, particularly with respect to his work in religious archives.
- Alexandra Suthern shared some finds related to Charles Taylor and Expressive Individualism in the McGill University Archives.
- Daniel Samson shared his recent experiences doing historical research in Nova Scotia, and what he learned from community members during the visit.
Miscellaneous
- The latest entry from The Dictionary of Canadian Biography is for physician Joseph-Edmond Dubé.
Podcasts
- In the latest History Slam episode, Sean Graham spoke with Marian Jago about her new book, Live at the Cellar: Vancouver’s Iconic Jazz Scene in the 1950s and ‘60s.
- This week the Maple Stars and Stripes podcast looked at French-Canadian soldiers who fought in the Revolutionary War.
- The latest episode of the Witness to Yesterday podcast featured Patrice Dutil speaking with Ted Glenn about his book, Riding Into Battle: Canadian Cyclists in the Great War.
- The One Hour in the Past podcast looked back at the history of daylight savings this week.
- The latest History Chats episode featured a recording of a roundtable from a previous CHA meeting on the planned memorial to victims of communism in Ottawa.
Calls for Papers
- Rising up: A Graduate Students Conference on Indigenous Knowledge and Research in Indigenous Studies is seeking submissions for its upcoming March 2019 conference at the University of Manitoba.
- Trent University will be holding a special conference celebrating the work of Joan Sangster in late June 2019. They are seeking proposals for panels, roundtables, and individual papers looking at feminism, history, and theory, as well as the connected histories of gender, class, race, and colonialism. Proposals are due December 1st.
- The fourth annual Jean-Marie Fecteau graduate conference at UQAM is seeking proposals, which are due before December 16th.
What a week. Anyways, 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 a brand new edition of Historians’ Histories! See you then!
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