Brewers pavilion – Restaurant. April 1967. Library and Archives Canada /Canadian Corporation for the 1967 World Exhibition / e011195069.
The latest in blog posts, news, and podcasts from the world of Canadian history.
Missed last week’s roundup? Check it out here.
Environmental History
- The most commonly-used words in #envhist last week, according to Jessica DeWitt, were: “University,” “Environmental,” and “History.”
- In her latest blog post, Stephanie Bellissimo explored the history of the Rittenhouse School gardens.
- Heather Green has written the latest blog post in NiCHE’s series on public engagement and environmental history with a discussion of community-based research.
- Jamie Murton wrote the latest blog post in NiCHE’s series on field trips this week, featuring a trip to Cobalt Lake that he took with his second-year environmental history course.
- This is apparently NiCHE’s week for ongoing series, since Sean Kheraj also wrote a new post for their series on nuclear energy with Active History. In this latest post, he looked at energy history historiography.
- A new study has emerged showing that glaciers are shrinking about five times faster now than they were in the 1960s.
- Dagmar Degroot has written a new piece providing further details complicating the scientific study that claimed that the colonization of Turtle Island caused the Little Ice Age in Europe.
Military History
- Roméo Dallaire spoke with CBC’s The Sunday Edition about the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide. Content warning: descriptions of violence, suicide.
- Joseph Gagné shared an excerpt from his dissertation this week about fighting the Seven Year’s War in the winter. Have I mentioned that the cherry blossoms are particularly lovely right now?
- Tristan Hopper looked back at the Battle of Vimy Ridge, and how it came to mean many things to many people. Content warning: descriptions of violence, war, items from archaeological excavations/gravesites, images of ancestors.
- Steve Marti previewed his new edited collection with Will Pratt, Fighting with the Empire: Canada, Britain, and Global Conflict 1867-1947, over on Twitter with a look at the articles in the collection!
- There is a new entry on the Canadian Encyclopedia on the Fraser Canyon War.
Archaeology
- Robyn Lacy was back this week with a new blog post on the non-denominational burials on the south side of the Burial Ground at Ferryland, Newfoundland.
- Russell Potter published several new pieces this week from his visit to the Mystic Seaport relating to the commemoration of the Franklin Expedition and its searchers.
- In this post, he shared some highlights from a talk at the grave of Tookoolito (Hannah)(Inuit). Content warning: discussion of ancestors.
- An account of what is known of the life of Cudlargo (Inuit).Content warning: discussion of ancestors.
- And a description of what it was like eating a lichen known as rock tripe, one of the few food sources available to the Franklin Expedition after they left their ships.
- I’m not sure how I feel about this story: treasure salvagers are claiming that the shipwrecks off the coast of Nova Scotia have become a haven for illegal diving as a result of the lack of regulation regarding a licensing system for commercial explorers. Shipwrecks are currently under the protection of the Special Places Protection Act, which mandates that all items be left in place and that excavation is not permitted without a Heritage Research Permit.
- The latest blog post from the Archaeology Museum of Ontario discussed some of the challenges facing archaeologists seeking to identify and investigate maple syrup harvesting and processing locations. Not mentioned: consultations with local Indigenous peoples.
- Archaeologists recently found an 1880s railroad turntable in Windsor, Ontario. Yes, you heard that right. A turntable for trains.
History Education
- OMG. Krista McCracken and I published a book this week!
- Over on the CHA’s Learning and Teaching blog, Mairi Cowan spoke with Danielle Kinsey about her pedagogical research.
- Tina Adcock combined all of the online discussions that took place around #5DaySyllabusChallenge into one Twitter moment! Thanks Tina!
- Find out about the amazing work that Maddie Knickerbocker’s students did in their Indigenous Digital Humanities course.
- Steven Paikin hosted a discussion on education in the “Reconciliation Era,” featuring Susan Dion (Potawatomi-Lenapé), Pam Palmater (Mi’kmaw citizen and member of the Eel River Bar First Nation), Tanya Senk (Métis/Cree/Saulteaux), Gerri Nakirigya Lutaaya, and John Moscowitz. Warning: Steven Paikin, the comment section, and John Moscowitz (SMH)
Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration History
- Laura J. Smith has written a new piece for Borealia this week on the religious and financial relationship between Irish Rideau Canal workers and the Roman Catholic Church.
- As part of their ongoing mystery series, this week Our Virtual World is asking for help identifying some of the individuals from St. Catharine’s Black community in these late 19thcentury studio portraits.
- This week Patrick Lacroix focused on another major American centre for French-Canadian immigrants, New Hampshire.
- Over on Histoire Engagée, Philippe Néméh-Nombré published his remarks from the Maintaining Post-Colonial (Dis)Order conference, on race, racialization, identity and politics in Quebec.
- In Ed Dunsworth’s latest post for Active History, he shared the story of thirteen Jamaican men who came to Canada as part of a pilot program for seasonal farm workers in 1966.
- Do you know about the Punjabi Legacy Project in BC?
- Alyssa Tobin-Leier shared the story of the person behind the name of Ahbau Street in Prince George, Ah Bau, a Chinese-Canadian miner.
- Cheryl Thompson spoke with NowToronto about her new book, Beauty in a Box: Detangling the Roots of Canada’s Black Beauty Culture.
- With the play Angélique currently being performed in Toronto, here are five things you should know about Marie-Joseph Angélique’s life.
Indigenous History
- Remember how I mentioned embroidery work by Labrador Inuit made between 1940 and 1970 last week? Here’s more info!
- The Supreme Court ruled that judges can intervene in adjudication cases regarding residential school survivors if there is a failure to apply the terms of the settlement agreement. This is particularly important since in many cases, survivors have been denied compensation because they couldn’t prove that certain instances of abuse were sexually motivated. In these instances, judges can now send cases back for readjudication. Content warning: descriptions of sexual violence, residential schools, the Canadian government attempting to deny residential school survivors proper compensation.
- An art installation honouring residential school survivors — “The Witness Blanket,” by artist Carey Newman (Kwagiulth and Coast Salish) — at the Canadian Museum of Rights has been recognized as a living entity under Indigenous and Western law. The installation consists of more than 800 items collected from the sites of residential schools and from survivors, and this recognition will invest the installation with legal rights.
- The Archdiocese of Grouard-McLennon in Grand Prairie is planning to open their photographic archives, including 3000 photos from six different residential schools, to the public. Content warning: residential schools, images of ancestors.
- Find out about Kanienʼkehá꞉ka lacrosse legend, Gaylord Powless, aka the Magnificent Mohawk.
- Doug Cuthand has written a new piece for the Saskatoon StarPheonix on why exonerating Poundmaker should only be the first step.
New France/British North America
- Eric Walker reviewed Matthew R. Bahar’s Storm of the Sea: Indians and Empire in the Atlantic’s Age of Sail for the Global Maritime History blog. Content warning: American language about Indigenous peoples.
- This week, LAC profiled their records relating to the French colonial period, specifically in relation to Plaisance, the French fishing colony in Newfoundland.
- In the latest Findings/Trouvailles blog post, Arthur J. Ray shared a journal entry on the deluge at York Fort on Hudson’s Bay that took place in May 1715.
- There was a new piece published this week on how European science was made possible due to the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans. However, Rae Wynn-Grant does a great job explaining why the language in this piece (which I will not link to) is harmful and irresponsible.
Political History
- The latest biography from The Dictionary of Canadian Biography is for newspaper publisher and politician, Alex Parsons.
- The latest blog post on the History in the Public Interest blog looked back at the Royal Society and its role in the signing of Treaty Eight.
- In his latest piece for Le Devoir, Jean-François Nadeau looked back at the Quebec Referendum of April 10, 1919, the only referendum in the province that ever returned a “yes” majority. It was about alcohol. You draw your own conclusions.
Social History
- Lindsay Bilodeau has written a new blog post for the Canadian Museum of History on the creation of one of the most famous portraits of Wayne Gretzky, painted by Andy Warhol.
- The Museum also shared this stunning Quebec folk-art duck decoy.
- The latest Flickr album from LAC featured images of parking. See the images yourself here.
- Ian Mosby wrote a lovely Twitter thread about his experience cooking his mother’s Doukhobor borscht from their family cookbook.
Local History
- If you happen to have $730,000 lying around and a deep and abiding love for all things Ernest Hemingway, well, you’re in luck. You can now buy his Toronto apartment.
- Find out about some of the lesser known traces of Montreal baseball history.
- Check out these newly digitized images from Burnaby’s history.
- I love stained glass windows. I am also strangely into art conservation videos on Youtube lately.
- You may remember that a couple of weeks ago I included Maddie Knickerbocker’s live-tweeting of a talk by Laura Ishiguro on the story of Sam Greer. Well, you can now listen to and watch the talk yourself here!
- The Khyber Building is getting a new name to reflect its queer history.
Digital and Public History
- McGill University has changed the name of their men’s varsity sports team after months of protests. The new name is TBD.
- Thanks to a collaboration between Western University and the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, anyone walking in downtown London, Ontario, can hear stories recounting their local history through a new phone app.
- Also on Histoire Engagée this week, Guillaume Vallière provided a critical review of the “Grand tableau” installation, on the history of Montreal, and discussed the problem with presenting a sanitized view of history to the public.
- While not specifically Canadian, this piece by Joseph M. Adelman on The Junto speaks to the ways in which digital databases have changed the way that we research.
- This week the UBC Digitizer’s blog featured some of the maps in their collection.
- The H.T. Coutts Education Library is working with the Internet Archive to digitize a collection of Alberta textbooks from 1885 to 1985.
Doing History
- Also from Sean Kheraj this week was a post about how he planned to participate in this week’s ASEH conference remotely.
- And you can find out how it went here!
- This week on Active History, Allan Greer responded to the recent news article by J.D.M. Steward, asking for more biographies of prime ministers. Make sure you read the comments. Can we just all agree that the history wars issue is dead yet?
- The Canadian Society for the History of Medicine and the Canadian Association for the History of Nursing have released the preliminary program for their 2019 meeting.
- BAnQ has announced that it has acquired the photographic archives of historian Pierre Lahoud.
- This week on Unwritten Histories, I spoke with Tina Adcock and Edward Jones-Imhotep about their new edited collection on modernity, science, and technology in Canadian history, Made Modern: Science and Technology in Canadian History!
- Archivists at Memorial University are doing some fantastic work restoring the names of women.
- Allan Downey (Dakelh (Nak’azdli Whut’en))’s The Creator’s Game: Lacross, Identity, and Indigenous Nationhood, won this English-language Canada Prize this year!
Miscellaneous
- This week, Ingenium shared images from their collection of the Avro Arrow, and, randomly, a disassembled vending machine.
- This is a pretty adorable look at what one Québécois teen in 1934 thought the year 2000 would look like.
Podcasts
- In this week’s episode of the Ben Franklin’s World Podcast, Liz Covart spoke with Gwenn Miller about her book, Kodiak Kreol: Communities of Empire in Early Russian America.
- Eve Lazarus released episode three of the Blood, Sweat, and Fear podcast, on the death of Stewart Ashley. Content warning: descriptions of violence.
Calls for Papers
- The Marta Danylewycz Memorial Fund 2019 competition is now accepting applications!
So some of you may have received a notice about a blog post on Saturday. Turns out I can’t tell what date it is, since I accidentally published the roundup a day early, unfinished and uncorrected. Whoops! So you did not imagine things. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, then forget I said anything. 😉 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! We’re heading back to Montreal for a food-related adventure. See you then!
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