Canadian History Roundup – Week of September 10, 2017

Canadian Pacific Railway Company. 1920. “Spend Your Vacation in the Land of Evangeline.” Posters. Chung Oversize and Graphic Materials. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0216284.

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

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

• This week’s most frequently used words in #envhist, as determined by Jessica DeWitt are: “Och,” “Will,” and “History.”
• The Canadian Museum of History blog posted a photograph of this absolutely stunning quilt made by Mary Morris in 1825, at age 14.
• Borealia is back from their summer vacation with this post by Jeffers Lennox on how to turn your dissertation into a book, including how to find a publisher.
• NiCHE has a brand new look!
• Beyond Borders is also back this week with their first official blog post of the season. This latest post, by Oleksa Drachewych is a preview of the Wilson Institute’s upcoming Transnational Leftism symposium, to be held on September 21^st and 22^nd.
• Once again, it has been a fabulous week for Twitter essays!
  • Tina Adcock initiated a really fantastic discussion about content warnings in courses that is a must-read for all educators.
  • Joanne Hammond posted several this week
    • First, she took a look at how cities depict their own histories, and how they have largely failed when it comes to reconciling these colonial narratives with Indigenous history.
    • Next she talked about the importance of salmon to the Indigenous peoples of the Fraser and Thompson river basins.
    • Next she talked about how colonial boundaries have resulted in a lack of access to safe drinking water in Indigenous communities.
    • And finally she discussed the history of the “location ticket.”
  • While not specifically Canadian, this essay by Jessica Meyer is an important look at the emotional impact of WW1 on soldiers, and how they coped.
  • Kristina Llewellyn has shared some of her student’s responses about the meaning of equity in education. Super important read for educators!
  • Several historians and educators talked about teaching about #SirJAM in this thread. It’s worth looking through the entire conversation!
    • Especially Linsday Gibson’s contribution, Tom Peace’s contribution (roasting JAM), and Sean Carleton’s contribution, which is also included in the same section as Peace’s.
  • Hayden King talks about the myth that Indigenous peoples in North American didn’t understand the concept of “land ownership.”
  • Kisha Supernant has a fantastic thread about the knowability of the past, and the problematic assumption that science is the only way to truly understand history in such cases, particularly Indigenous history.
  • She also talked about the importance of community collaboration in archaeology, and how some Indigenous communities use archaeology are an important political tool.
  • Paul Seesequasis reflects on the history of Treaty 4, and its broken promises.

• The war is over, and Olivar Asselin is making friends with the people of Belgium.
• Pierre Lizée has reviewed Robert Teigrob and Colin McCullough’s latest book, Canada and the United Nations: Legacies, Limits, Prospects.
• There are two new research guides now available for the archives of the University of Saskatchewan College of Nursing. One focuses on outpost nursing in north-west Canada from 1880 to 1960, and the second focuses on the history of Saskatchewan Hospital from 1837 to 1960.
• Russell Potter had three new posts this week:
  • He talked about his experiences visiting Inuit communities during research trips. Not quite sure what to think about this one…
  • He also talked this week about his recent visit to Beechy Island, and what the island has revealed about Franklin’s Expedition.
  • He also talked about the history of Fort Ross from the Franklin Expedition into the 1930s.
  • And finally, he talks about the mysteries of Radstock Bay, and what it can teach us about the Franklin Expedition.
• Ben Bradley posted some awesome images from 1927 advertising BC to Torontonians.
• And Andrew Watson shared this really cool note he found in his closet, featuring a one-dollar donation to the WW1 POW fund.
• LAC shared an image of the only surviving journal by Catherine Parr Traill, from 1837.
• Claire Campbell has a fantastic new post on NiCHE this week on curriculum requirements, and the problems and benefits of having non-history majors take history courses as degree requirements. It’s an absolutely wonderful post that I wholeheartedly agree with.
• Sean Graham is back with another episode of the History Slam Podcast! This week, he visits the new Canada Hall at the Canadian Museum of History with Aaron Boyes and Madeleine Kloske.
• This week on Unwritten Histories I had a list of my favourite films and clips for teaching about Canadian History. Many of my fellow historians also gave their suggestions, which are included in the blog post!
• On the 10th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples, Karine Duhamel looks back on its history in Canada, and our country’s failure to actually implement it.
• The McGill-Queen’s University Press blog has posted an excerpt from Elsbeth Heaman’s latest book, Tax, Order, and Good Government: A New Political History of Canada, 1867 to 1917.
• The Smithsonian Magazine has an interesting article this week about the ethnical dilemmas of a 3D replica of a Tlingit Orca clan crest hat (Kéet S’aaxw), belonging to the Tlingit Dakl’aweidi moiety. Following its repatriation, collaboration between the Dakl’aweidi and the Smithsonian resulted in its digitization. However, this has raised debates over the ownership of Indigenous culture.
• Florence Provost-Turgeon and Jacques Rouillard discuss why the Conseil du patronat du Québec were opposed to Bill 101, largely due to its requirements that French be the language of instruction for new immigrants.
• Coll Thrush spoke with The Junto blog about his recent book, Indigenous London: Native Travelers at the Heart of Empire, which does include Canada.
  • And later in the week, Sara Georgini reviewed the book!
• You may remember that last week I posted an image from Ian Mosby of a pass. Well, it turns out that it was a fake. Find out about it here.
• Check out these cool pictures of the Calgary Stampede from 1970.
• Acadiensis is also back this week with a new book review. Graeme Wynn shares his thoughts on Ronald Rees’, New Brunswick Was His Country: The Life of William Francis Ganong.
• And also back this week is NiCHE’s podcast, Nature’s Past, with a new episode on why we should study Canadian environmental history.
• Gregg Watts has written the latest post for the Atlantic Loyalist Connections blog. In this post, he looks at the 1854 Cholera Epidemic in Saint John, New Brunswick.
• Not only has Samantha Cutrara been appointed as one of Active History’s new editors (congrats!), but she also premiered a new blog series this week on the history curriculum of each province.
• Greg Evans is studying the history of commercial beer brewing in BC from 1858 to 1982, and he is relying on the Royal British Columbia Museum and the UBC Library’s BC Digital Newspapers collection as his main sources. Find out a bit of what he’s learned!
• There are some updates on The Canadian Encyclopedia this week, including for the entries on The Handmaid’s Tale and the Canadian Census.
• Following the publication of this article on linguistic divisions in Canada, Sarah Shulist talks about how these kinds of projects are often based on problematic data and often serve to reinforce the idea of regionalism in Canada.
• The latest blog post from Instantanés is on Quebec folklorist Alexis Lapointe dit le Trotteur, whose life and death were just as interesting as his studies.
• UBC Science spoke with Alejandro Yoshizawa about his recent film, All our Father’s Relations, about the relationship between Chinese immigrants and the Musqueam.
• Sara Deter shared this colourized image of a couple walking across Lions Gate Bridge.
• Cory Verbauwhede interviewed Donald Fyson in a new post for the Centre d’histoire des régulations sociales blog! This interview focused specifically on Fyson’s debates with Jean-Marie Fecteau on how social change happens.
• Olivette Otele has a great blog post about the history of the transatlantic slave trade, and the role it played in Europe’s economic and cultural development, as well as on the ongoing legacies of slavery.
• Christo Aivalis’ latest blog post for Active History looks at the role that historians can play in providing accurate information as well as critical analysis of both the “real” and “fake” news.
• LAC is back this week with another instalment in their series, Who Do We Think We Are. In this post, guest curator Shane McCord focuses on two portraits, one of Jon Norton/Teyoninhokarawen, and one of William Claus.
• The Toronto and Region Conservation Authority has posted a fascinating blog post about a mysterious object they discovered while exvacating at Lewis Site in 2007.
• Eric Spalding has shared a playlist that you can listen to when reading about his latest article on the history of Canadian content regulations for commercial radio in the 1970s.
• Bill Waiser looks at the broken promises of Treaty Six.
• As climate change impacts our environments, Joseph Taylor III argues that we need to discuss the meaning of the term “wild,” and whether that requires that it is free from human intervention.
• LAC has a new Flickr album up this week, showcasing medical therapies and treatments. You can see the image themselves here. But I am a little uncomfortable about the fact that these images do not come with accompanying context, since many of these medical technologies have problematic histories.
• Also back this week is our regular look of upcoming publications in Canadian history. Find out about the new books coming in October. And this post is particularly special, since it is the first post by our new editorial assistant, Stephanie Pettigrew!
• Active History has republished an article by Mary Jane Logan McCallum, Julie Nagam, James Hanley, Anne-Laurence Caudano and Delia Gavrus on Indigenizing their history department at the University of Winnipeg. The article originally appeared in the latest Journal of the Canadian Historical Association issue.
• The South Peace Regional Archives reminds us that once upon a time, strawberries were not available in January.
• Students at UofT are excavating King’s College Circle, and turning up some cool finds!
• Liz Otero shares some of the UBC’s Special Collections documents on death this week on the Digitizer’s Blog.
• In this week’s #tbt from the ROM, Dorothy Burnham approaches the end of exhibit preparations.
• McMaster’s Bertrand Russell Archive is going to have a new home.
• Also from NiCHE this week is a new post by Maude Flamand-Hubert, focusing on place-names as a legacy of the symbolic appropriation of Quebec’s forests by French Canadians in the first half of the twentieth century.
• And speaking of which, find out about the naming of Thrums and Timville, both towns in BC.
• LAC has released its monthly update on the CEF digitization process. They have reached the last name “Robertson.”
• Merle Massie shared this amazing photo of a warning about poison bait traps for wolves, written in three different languages!
• The Archives of Ontario has just digitized this video of workers making a shirt in the Caledon Shirt Company Factory from 1963.
• The Calgary Gay History Project blog talks about the Imperial Sovereign Court of the Chinook Arch, a member of the International Court System.
• The Archives of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto is taking us to Egypt this week.
• The latest biography from The Dictionary of Canadian Biography is for George Woodhouse Culverwell Oland, a Nova Scotia brewer with a fantastically long name.
• This image of Newfoundland resettlement from 1961 is jaw-dropping.
• Éliane Laberge has written a new blog post for the Canadian Museum of History about Gallery 3 of the Canadian History Hall, featuring an interview with Jamie Trepanier, as well as object conservator Jennifer Ann Mills. This section of the exhibit focuses on diversity in Canada, and features an art installation by Laila Binbrek called Mirror, Mirror.
• Eve Lazarus shows off some images that her readers sent in of other buried houses in Vancouver.
• Black Perspectives has republished the excerpt from the introduction of Andrew T. Fede’s Homicide Justified: The Legality of Killing Slaves in the United States and the Atlantic World. This excerpt tells the story of Maria, an enslaved woman who was murdered in 1847, and the search for her killer.
• This week there was also a special Saturday post from Active History! This post, by Mercedes Peters, is a commentary on Senator Lynn Beyak’s most recent comments (which I refuse to link to here), and the importance of actually learning history, and then doing something about it.
• The Vancouver as It Was blog looks at the “Cowboy Evangelist,” Reverend James B. Kennedy.
• Whistorical has a great post discussing their efforts to name the individuals portrayed in photographs in their collection. 
• Canadian History in the News
  • Ok, this is kinda cute: in 1955, a group of 3^rd-graders took a field trip on a tram from the BC Electric Railway, that particular car’s final trip before being retired. However, it was recently restored, and that same group of students were asked to come back for its first trip. Some of them even sat in the same seats!
  • Remember that story from last week about the University of Calgary professor who is using 3D to preserve Alberta’s heritage sites? Well, there’s some more information about his work, as well as photographs, here.
  • I am super envious of these students who are taking a course in Reconciliation Studies at the Haida Gwaii High Education Society.
  • The town of Kentville, Nova Scotia, has covered up the name Cornwallis on the sign for a new bridge, in response to a petition requesting a name change. Yay!
  • It turns out that the Baffin Island Dewey Soper Migratory Bird Sanctuary owes its existence to local Inuit knowledge, specifically a 1928 map drawn by an individual named Saila which indicated the location of the breeding grounds of the blue goose. And then of course, Dewey Soper claimed to have “discovered” it.
  • Janis Thiessen is all over the news this week with the release of her new book, Snacks: A Canadian Food History.
    • In this interview for 49^th Shelf, she shared some of her favourite books on food history in Canada.
    • She was also interviewed on the Shadoe Davis Show.
    • And finally, an excerpt of her book was published in the Winnipeg Free Press!
  • The Lower Similkameen Indian Band has succeeded in winning the right to remove the remains of their ancestors — remains which were unearthed during an excavation on private property in February 2016.
    • Joanne Hammond commented on this here.
  • Adele Perry has written a must-read piece on the #SirJAM debates, and as usual, she hits the nail on the head.
  • And later in the week, Azeezah Kanji wrote a thoughtful commentary on this subject, arguing that JAM must be assessed from the perspectives of the targets of racial and colonial violence.
  • Stephen Lewis is calling on the Canadian government to release the information it has on the treatment of Inuit with tuberculosis in the 1950s and 1960s. Individuals with TB were routinely removed from their homes, and forced to live in terrible conditions much further south. But we still don’t know exactly what happened to the individuals who were taken for treatment.
  • Eve Lazarus has written a new piece for Spacing Vancouver about her work on forensic investigator, John F.C.B. Vance.
  • Montreal has revised its official flag to include the symbol of a white pine, to acknowledge Indigenous history in Montreal. Mayor Denis Coderre has also announced that Amherst Street will be renamed as part of their reconciliation efforts.
    • More on the Amherst Street renaming here.
    • And there is more on this issue in this article, as well as Amherst’s legacy and the Town of Amherstburg.
  • Find out about some of the cool stuff being unearthed during an archaeological excavation in Stellarton, Nova Scotia, next to the Museum of Industry.
  • CBC spoke with Meghan Burchell about her research into Atlantic mussels and what this can tell us about the history of Indigenous peoples along the Labrador coast.
  • Louis Kamookak thinks he knows where the body of John Franklin lies.
  • Take a look at some of the historical machines/treasures that lie within the vault of Ian MacGregor’s family ranch.
  • And now Malcolm Gladwell is sharing his thoughts on the monuments debate. I totally agree with his position, but I am still confused by the fact that people seem to treat him like he is a historian.
  • While not specifically Canadian, this article by Nathan J. Robinson emphasizes the importance of facing the horrors of colonialism. This is largely in response to a disgusting article saying that colonialism was positive, an article that is currently making the rounds and which I refuse to link to.
  • Rabble.ca profiled the Graphic History Collective’s Remember | Resist | Redraw poster series!
  • CBC spoke with Charmaine Nelson about her research on fugitive slave” ads in Canada, and how they are so important for both teaching the history of slavery in Canada, as well as providing sources of information about the history of enslaved peoples in Canada.
  • So the Royal Canadian Navy is ditching the War of 1812 names that were selected for their two new ships by the Harper government. Tee hee hee.
  • A Canadian expedition has, by chance, discovered a letter left in a cairn in 1986 in the Arctic by a tugboat captain waiting out a storm.
  • Find out about one of the biggest bank heists in Canadian history, as told by one of its masterminds!
  • And because it’s apparently crime history week and no one told me, CBC has a new feature on the mysterious disappearance of four seniors from Muskoka in 1998/1999.
  • A group of residential school survivors are visiting the Canadian Museum of History to see how the artwork they had made while at the Alberni Indian Residential School on Vancouver Island is being displayed. These paintings were only recently returned to their creators as part of a repatriation project, and are currently being displayed in the Canada History Hall.
  • Remember the New York Times collection of photographs of Canada was that recently donated to Ryerson? Well, you can see some of the photos here.
  • The search is on for a lily developed by Central Experimental Farm horticulturalist Isabella Preston. The “George C. Creelman” lily has been missing since the 1940s.
  • There is a new public history project going on at the Bill Thorpe Walking Bridge in Fredericton.
  • Canadian Geographic interviewed Ry Moran about a number of issues involving reconciliation, including Indigenous politics, monument wars, and what he would like Canada to look like in 2067.
  • Discussions are ongoing about where to place a new Afghanistan War Memorial. Apparently the National Capital Commission was considering land that is adjacent to the Canadian War Museum, but the CWM was opposed to this idea.
  • Mike Wilson, the “Ultimate Leaf Fan,” has sold most of his collection to the Canadian Museum of History! Do I detect the hand of Jenny Ellison?
    • More here!
    • Though of course, not everyone s happy about this.
  • Jessica Botelho-Urbanski reflects on the lack of Indigenous history as presented on Via Rail.
  • Jesse Thistle spoke with The Globe and Mail about TIFF’s land acknowledgement, and why the idea that Toronto is Indigenous land is often seen as contentious.
  • Fifty years of mercury-poisoned  water near Grassy Narrows First Nation has had devastating consequences for the First Nations community.
  • Dieter Buse and Graeme Mount are on the trail of northeastern Ontario’s wartime contributions.
  • Adriana Craciun talks about historical perceptions of the Franklin Expedition from the 19th century to today.
  • Explorations are ongoing on Putulik (Shannon Island) in Nunavut, retracing Roger Hitkolok’s experiences there as well as the island’s ancient history.
  • Jeremy Milloy spoke with Global about the history of workplace violence in North America.
• Better Late than Never
  • Unhappy with the lack of pictures for Wikipedia articles on Canadian history? Here’s your chance to do something about it!
  • Terry Seguin of CBC spoke with Amy Scott about the archaeological excavations happening at Louisbourg.
  • Cecilia Keating talks about the plaque dedicated to Jefferson Davis that was recently removed from a Montreal HBC store, and the larger problem of Montreal’s monuments to its own colonialism.
  • The Vancouver As It Was blog talked about two images (and the history) of Vancouver print shop Cowan & Brookhouse.
  • The First Nations Tax Commission has shared information from Ed Jenson on the importance of arrowheads to the pre-contact Secwepemc trading economy.
• Calls for Papers
  • The Second Public Archaeology Twitter Conference is happening, and has issued a call for papers! The theme of this conference will be “An Equitable Archaeology?” The deadline to submit proposals is October 2^nd, 2017.
  • NAISA 2018 has issued its call for papers! This year’s theme is “’Aweeshkore xaa, ‘ekwaa’a xaa (We are happy you are here).” Proposals are due November 1^st.
  • The CHA has released its CFP for the 2018 Annual Meeting! The theme of this year’s conference, which will be held in Regina, is “Gathering Diversities.” Paper, panel, and poster submissions are due November 1^st.
  • Canada’s History Society is seeking proposals for papers on why history matters for the 10^th Canada’s History Forum. Submissions are due October 3^rd.
  • The Association for Canadian Studies has also released a CFP for their upcoming conference on “Canadian Culture(s) at a Crossroad? Heritage, History, and Cultural Expression. Proposals are due October 16^th.
  • The McNeil Center for Early American Studies has issued a CFP for an upcoming conference on “Coming to Terms? Confronting War and Peace through the Visual and Material in the Atlantic World, 1651-1865.” Proposals are due September 30^th.
  • A number of professors at Brock are organizing a conference called “Refusing to Fight: Reimagining War in Global Perspectives.” Paper proposals are due December 31^st.

Holy CFPs! It’s like everyone decided they needed to issue them all at the same time. Of course the one that many are the most interested in is the CHA’s, though I’m betting 90% of us will procrastinate on this one until at least mid-October. 😉 I hope you enjoyed this (regular-sized!) 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 blog post featuring my favourite articles on Canadian history published in the last month! See you then!

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