Canadian History Roundup – Week of October 1, 2017

“Thanksgiving — Here they come! Let’s give ’em a great welcome.” 1910. Toronto Reference Library. 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.

• This week’s most frequently-used words in #envhist, according to Jessica DeWitt, were: “Said,” “Falls,” and “Ahsanis.”
• There is new content related specifically to Indigenous history, as well as new interactive resources on the Canadian Encyclopedia’s article on Ontario.
• There is a fantastic thread by Katherine Crocker on settler allyship as a hobby.
• Robyn Lacy wrote about her recent participation at a community event in New Perlican, Newfoundland, where she spoke about her work and then embarked on mapping expedition of the local burial ground with some volunteers/students!
• This week on Histoire Engagée is a new post by Camille Robert on the history of financial aid for families with pre-school children in Quebec, specifically with relation to the idea that it should only be awarded to families with at least one stay-at-home parent.
• Michael Akladios has written a new piece for Active History this week on transnational kinship networks and the history (and present) of Egyptian immigration to Canada. I’m not so sure about the methodology of interviewing Uber drivers, but it’s interesting…
• Nathan Sentance is back with a great post about the need for information literacy programs that deal specifically with material relating to Indigenous peoples. While he is writing specifically in reference to Indigenous peoples in Australia, much of this applies equally here in Canada.
• Lindsay Gibson has written an important Twitter essay on why students should learn about scales of historical time. I absolutely agree, especially since I recently saw a comment online about when we should stop calling French Canadians “settlers,” since they’ve been here for 5 to 10 generations.
• This week the Toronto Public Library blog was by two of the members of First Story Toronto, Sarena Johnson and Megan Davies. This is the first in a new series of blog posts by the project, where they ask some of their fellow members about their thoughts on a question. For the autumn edition of this series, they asked “What should Torontonians know about the Indigenous history of this land?”
• It was Mid-Autumn Festival this week! The Toronto Public library has posted two riddles and some history about families and family reunions in honour of the holiday.
• This week Heritage Winnipeg profiled the New York Life Insurance Building! I just love this kind of modernist design… Also, is it just me, or do insurance companies often seem to have really beautiful buildings?
• This week on Unwritten Histories, we had a special guest post from Krista McCracken, with help with Jessica Knapp, about their upcoming Canadian History Wikipedia edit-a-thon! I’m totally doing this with my third-year students at UBC.
• On October 3rd, Ryan McMahon wrote an important Twitter essay on the history of Treaty 3, which was signed on this day in 1873.
• Leah Grandy is back this week with another new post for the Atlantic Loyalist Connections blog. In this post, part of an upcoming story mapping project, she looks at the life of Lieutenant Samuel Richard Wilson.
• Laura Brandon has a new post at Active History about one particular painting known as “The Bolshevik,” and what it can teach us about Canadian perceptions of the Bolshevik Revolution.
• Binesi Morrisseau has an important Twitter essay on residential schools as modern-day projects and the impact of inter-generational trauma.
• Geneviève Susemihl has written a new piece for NiCHE this week, as part of their CHESS reflections series. In this post, Susemihl discusses what we can learn about Indigenous culture heritage, involvement and self-representation from heritage sites like the Crawford Lake Conservation Era, the Woodland Culture Cente, and the Mohawk Institute Residential School.
• Also on Active History this week is a post by Edward Dunsworth about the Temporary Foreign Worker Program in the 1960s and 1970s, and some of the problems they foresaw in (their) future.
• Wednesday was #AskAnArchivist day! There were lots of discussions, but I particularly liked this knitting pattern from Elgin County Archives; this ancient slice of processed cheese from LAC; and this 99 year old poppy from the Canadian Museum of Flight.
  • Emily Lonie has a recap here.
  • The Society of American Archivists created a Storify of all of the tweets.
  • Also, check out this whole thread about knitting in the archives…
• In more cool museum finds, the Canadian War Museum posted this lucky talisman carried by a Canadian airman from WW1.
• In their latest blog post, Instantanés profiled their digital collection of 19^th century newspapers.
• The Archives of Montreal has a fantastic new post all about fire insurance plans and what historians can learn from them, including some examples from their collection.
• The latest blog post from the Canadian Network on Humanitarian History is by Nicholas Hepner, about his work researching the history of Cuso International during the 1980s and 1990s.
• The latest blog post from Retroactive focuses on the excavation of Hummingbird Creek Site, which is located in the Central Rockies, and what the site can tells us about the ancient Indigenous peoples who lived there.
• Lachlan MacKinnon has written a new blog post for Acadiensis, all about the New Waterford Colliery Explosion of 1917. The blog post focuses mostly on how the event has been commemorated and positioning the explosion in the larger history of New Waterford.
• Earlier in the week, the Windsor Star published an pretty terrible op-ed about General Jeffrey Amherst, and in his place in history. Robert Jago posted a really great response on Twitter, calling out the author and the publication for the piece’s gross inaccuracies. He does link to the original if you’re curious.
• The latest blog post from LAC showcases some highlights from the diaries kept by Sir Sandford Fleming. On my way to teach this semester, I happen to pass by a school named in his honour. I find that rather amusing.
• Lindsay Gibson, Adele Perry, and others participated in an interesting discussion on the evolving definitions of “immigrants” in Canadian history.
• The latest biography from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography is for Georges-Raoul Brunet, a union activist who started out as a pressman (I had to look this up, but it’s basically a person who operates printing presses).
• Also on Active History this week is a post by Matthew Sears, contextualizing the recent “monuments wars” by looking at memorials in Ancient Greece. My only quibble: they only invented the western concepts of history and historical thinking.
• The St. Catharines Museum spoke with Paul Litt for their latest Museum Chat Live podcast, which is also all about the “monument wars.”
• The Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections has shared some amazing photographs from behind the scenes of the National Ballet of Canada.
• Xavier Gélinas has written a new blog post for the Canadian Museum of History on the October Crisis, and how the museum chose to handle this subject in the new Canadian History Hall through a focus on the personal experience of Robert Côté,  head of the Montreal bomb squad during the 1960s.
• The Chilliwack Museum and Archives has posted some really cool stereoscopic cards from their collection featuring cats!
• The South Peace Regional Archives has a list of 10 individuals from WW1 that every Canadian should know about. Most of these individuals are Canadian, and some are well known, but several are not and their stories are fascinating.
• The UBC Digitization Centre is wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving, and has shared some relevant images from their collection.
• The Smithsonian Magazine profiled the sunken ghost town of Lake Minnewanka, Alberta. A popular resort in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Lake Minnewanka was flooded during the construction of a new dam.
• LAC has a new Flickr album, featuring images of turkeys. Words fail me. See the pictures (if you dare) here.
• Asa McKercher also wrote a new post for Active History, looking at how Canadians have reacted to free trade agreements with the US, including NAFTA.
• In their look back at Expo 67, the Archives of Montreal have reached the first week of October.
• Also in honour of Thanksgiving, the Archives of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto is featuring some invitations to previous Thanksgiving celebrations.
• The Watson is back for a new semester, and this week they have a #TBT post all about the Summit Series.
• Joanna Hammond reflects on writing a heritage plaque... after her #rewriteBC campaign.
• The Virtual Museum of Canada has just released a new exhibit on Wilfrid Laurier!
• Joanne Hammond has written a great Twitter essay on the history of the Indian Child Caravan.
• For her course on Canadian Social History, Tina Adcock has put together a thread of links on residential schools that is super helpful!
• The Beyond Borders blog has posted a video of Elizabeth Ellis’s recent talk about her work with the Standing Rock water protectors!
• The Calgary Gay History Project blog will be posting articles about Everett Klippert all month long, in honour of the upcoming 50th anniversary of the decriminalization of homosexuality in Canada! This first piece takes a look at Everett’s early life.
• Twas the night before the exhibition, and all through the ROM in 1971, not a creature was stirring, not even a curator…
• The St. Catharines Museum blog has posted Walk Q, which includes the story of a fishing excursion.
• Jennifer Anderson has written a guest post for the University of Manitoba Press blog about her new book on Soviet propaganda in Canada during the Cold War.
• A new project will soon be underway at York University to create linked open data relating to the Indigenous history of North America. In English, this means information that is freely available online and can be more easily searched.
• Nathaniel Holly has written a post for the Omohundro Institute blog, based on a recent talk by Robert Morrissey. The talk focused on North American central borderland hide paintings as historical documents for Indigenous-centred history. Again, this isn’t really Canadian, but this post will be of interest to Canadian historians.
• Eve Lazarus spoke with Kate Bird about her new book on the history of Vancouver’s protests, part of the current exhibition at the Museum of Vancouver.
• Whistorical looks back at the history of Whistler’s Interpretive Forest, and its current role in the community.
• Darryl Leroux has written a new blog post for Transmissions, a companion blog to the journal Social Studies of Science. The blog post discusses how The Métis Nation of the Rising Sun and other such organizations, have used DNA tests to “prove” their Indigenous ancestry.
• Jacob Remes has written a Twitter essay on Jagmeet Singh, contextualizing his reception as the new NDP leader with a look at the history of immigration and racism in Canada.
• Jared Milne wrote a Twitter essay reflecting on Canada150 and what we can learn from it.
• The Canadian Museum of History shared this image of the beautiful “Maple Leaf of Canada Dress,” which was worn by Queen Elizabeth at a state banquet during a visit to Canada in 1957.
• Canadian History in the News
  • CBC remembers the BC Martin Mars water bomber, enormous red and white air planes that were used primarily to fight forest fires.
  • A new monument is being unveiled in Toronto to the British Home Children, located on the site of two graves that contains the remains of 75 such children.
  • A new plaque has just been unveiled to commemorate Vancouver’s historic francophone community, centred around the Saint-Sacrement Catholic Church.
  • There was more fun with racist educational materials this week, this time in Ontario. Didn’t you know that Indigenous peoples just “moved out” to make room for European settlers? ::eyeroll::
  • A whole bunch of really cool posters from the early 20^th century were just rediscovered during the restoration of a home in North Vancouver.
  • Before the election of Jagmeet Singh as the new leader of the NDP, CBC took a look back at some previous NDP leadership races.
  • Julie Payette wins for coolest coat of arms ever.
  • I’m sure you’ll be totally shocked by this, but it turns out that the famous “first map” of New France, by Samuel de Champlain, was based on Wendat/Huron navigational knowledge.
  • Yet another WW1 monument to Canadian soldiers is heading off to France. Incidentally, I have a number of French students in my class this year, and after my WW1 lecture, they informed me that they had never learned about Canadian participation in the war.
  • Hurricane Irma has returned a parachute and plane crash debris from a 1958 crash involving a New Brunswick pilot, Lieutenant William Thomas Barry Troy.
  • You need to read this piece by former Art Gallery of Ontario curator, Andrew Hunter, about why he quit. Seriously, read it. Here’s the last line, to give you a taste: “She walks with her ancestors into the future while I plead with mine to stay behind, to give up and give back this space. Undepleted.”
  • Melanie Lefebvre and Alicia Elliot have written a must-read piece on the meaning of Indigenous identity. Go read this one right now too!
  • There is yet another fantastic review of Janis Thiessen’s Snacks!
    • And another one!
    • And here she was interviewed by CBC for Day Six!
  • An important new database, “Searching for Our Heritage,” will soon be opened to the public. The database collects together around 800 Yukon artifacts that have been exported from the territory and are housed in museums around the world.
  • In honour of National Taco Day, Tim Fontain takes a fascinating look into the history of Indian tacos, in conversation with Christa Guenther and Rich Francis.
    • And in the same episode of Unreserved, Rosanne Deerchild featured a discussion with Sixties Scoop survivor Inez Cook on how food has helped her to reconnect with her family and community; and a discussion on the impact of colonialism on Indigenous foods with Lenore Newman.
  • Nehiyaw artist Tashina Makokis has a new exhibition out where she puts Canadian historical figures in a new light.
  •  An elementary school in Ontario has removed a totem pole after learning that the pole was carved in 1974 by grade 6 students as part of a history activity, without any involvement from Indigenous peoples or communities.
    • Not everyone thinks this is a good idea.
  • The federal government has announced that it will provide an $800 million settlement for survivors of the Sixties Scoop.
    • Christi Belcourt has written a Twitter essay providing important context on this.
    • And remember, it is still happening.
    • Here is some additional clarification about who is included under this settlement.
    • Sherri Swidrovich shared her thoughts on the settlement with Global News.
    • CBC spoke briefly the lead plaintiff Chief Marcia Brown Martel here.
      • And in more depth here.
    • And Tasha Hubbard, another survivor, asks the question: “How do you make amends for trying to erase a culture?”
  • The lost portrait and commendation of WW1 Newfoundland soldier Private Herbert Lewis Ryan has been reunited with his family.
  • And in more good news, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that testimony provided by residential school survivors should be destroyed after 15 years unless those survivors decide otherwise.
    • And Sean Carleton has provided commentary on this in a Twitter essay as well.
  • So the new Holocaust Memorial monument was unveiled this week. Too bad the plaque forgot to mention Jews...
  • David Tough has written a new piece for Electric City Magazine about the history of General Electric in Canada.
  • The descendants of Black enslaved peoples in Nova Scotia are calling on the the provincial and federal governments to pay reparations for slavery.
  • The latest Dig It column is out! And, appropriately for Halloween, it’s all about skeletons!
  • So apparently the US government tested chemical weapons in Winnipeg and two towns in Alberta during the Cold War, all without telling anyone. Maybe it’s just me, but this seems kind of important…
  • The City of York’s historical artifacts are homeless.
  • La Presse hosted a four-part discussion on Indigenous lands and territorial acknowledgements in relation to Montreal.
    • Alain Beaulieu argued that it should not be considered traditional Kanien’kehá:ka territory.
    • Denys Delâge argues that Montreal should properly be considered Algonquin territory, but that both should have treaty rights.
    • Allan Greer talked about about the lack of a treaty.
    • And I can’t find part 4, so I don’t think it’s out yet.
  • Canadian Geographic has posted an excerpt from an upcoming book on the 10 most important maps in Canadian history, at least according to the author.
  • The Royal Canadian Mint has released a new $2 coin in honour of Vimy Ridge.
    • They’ve also released a special commemorative coin for the Leafs, but this Habs fan is not impressed.
  • Halifax has created a committee to find a solution to the Edward Cornwallis statue issue.
  • This week, Kaslo, BC is remembering the 1,100 Japanese-Canadians who were interned there during WW2 with events designed to help the community reflect on and learn from the past.
  • The Saskatoon Star Phoenix has published an excerpt from Jim Miller’s Skyscrapers Hide the Heavens. 
  • There may be as many as 200 unmarked graves  in a burial ground next to the Moncton Museum.
  • The remains of those individuals who were unearthed in Ottawa at the former Barrack Hill’s Cemetery, mentioned in previous roundups, have been reinterred this week.
  • The official plans for a new memorial for Irish immigrants who died of typhus in Montreal in the mid-1800s have been unveiled.
  • Human remains were discovered this week in Saint John that are likely connected to the former Saint John Tuberculosis Hospital.
  • This weekend is Canadian Thanksgiving. In addition to my blog post from last year, you can also check out Peter Stevens’ interview about the occasion with Time.com!
    • And this piece from CBC feature an interview with Brian Rice about the origins of thanksgiving in Indigenous communities.
• Better Late than Never
  • I’m not sure how I missed this, but I did. Last month, Robert Jago wrote an obituary for Conrad Black. Then Christine Blatchford responded.  And then Jago brought it home. And special thanks to my husband for the tip!
  • The Montrealer Memories website now has pages looking at the Italian community in Ville-Émard and the Peruvian community as well!
  • Did you know that First Blood (better known as Rambo I) was filmed in Hope, BC? I didn’t. Not that I’ve seen the movie.
  • Last month marked the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Quebec Bridge.
• Calls for Papers
  • The Central European Association for Canadian Studies has issued a CFP for their 2018 Annual Meeting. This conference will focus on the theme of “transnationalism,” and paper proposals are due December 15^th.
  • The Departments of English and Theatre, History and Classics, and Politics and Sociology at Acadia University have issued a CFP for the 2018 Atlantic Canada Studies Conference. This year’s meeting will focus on water-based  and land-based transportation networks. Paper proposals are due November 10^th. And registration fees have been waived for graduate students, which I am super happy to see!

That’s all for this week! A bit quiet, but that’s to be expected with the holiday. 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 blog post, where we will be unveiling a new feature! Have a Happy Thanksgiving, and I’ll see you then!

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