Canadian History Roundup – Week of August 20, August 27, and September 3, 2017

Hostesses from different countries posing for a group photo at Expo 67. Library and Archives Canada, e000990931. CC BY 2.0

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

Missed the previous roundup? Check it out here.

Week of August 20, 2017

• The catalogue of the archives of the MATCH International Fund , a Canadian aid organization, is now available online through the Carleton University Archives.
• LAC has posted another profile of a Canadian WW1 Victoria Cross winner. This profile looks at Lieutenant Robert Hill Hanna.
  • And later in the week, they also profiled another Canadian WW1 Victoria Cross winner, Sergeant Filip Konowal.
• This week, Olivar Asselin goes on medical leave to England, and writes home to his wife about the Canadian soldiers and hospital personnel he encounters.
• Jan Raska has written a new blog post for the Pier 21 blog about the experiences of teenage immigrants who came through Pier 21. He looks at four different teenagers who came from four different countries at four different times.
• According to Jessica DeWitt, the most frequently mentioned words from this week’s #envhist hashtag were: “Charlottesville,” “Comey,” and “Replace.”
• Harold Bérubé continues with his look at Montreal’s tercentenary by examining the events of May 29, 1942.
  • And then later in the week, he examined the tribute to new Canadians that took place on May 31^st.
• Did you know that Jane Austen’s sister-in-law, Fanny Palmer Austen, spent a significant amount of time in Halifax? I certainly didn’t!
• Check out the Canadian Centre for the Great War’s online exhibition about the Actions at Lens.
• The transcription of Lady Macdonald’s diary is now finished! Check it out here.
• Check out this super cool 1954 breakfast menu from the passenger ship, the S.S. Prince George. Though I will fight anyone who suggests that their waffles are superior to the ones my husband makes every Saturday from scratch. I live for those waffles.
• Instantanés takes a look at the relationship between students Alan Glass and Solange Legendre, and the letters they continued to exchange, even when separated by vast distances, for nearly forty years.
• NiCHE continues with their series of reflections on this year’s CHESS with a new post by Robynne Mellor, reflecting upon the impact of colonization on Indigenous bodies. Mellor focuses specifically on the poisoning of Indigenous peoples with radioactive materials.
• Natasha Henry has a great Twitter Essay on resources for teaching about Black enslavement in Canada.
• This week on Unwritten Histories, I talked about my recent experiences teaching a course on postwar Canadian history!
• Adam Bunch also posted a great Twitter essay, a virtual tour of some of Toronto’s most controversial statues and monuments.
  • which later morphed into a news article!
• The Smithsonian spoke with a dentist about what may have doomed the Franklin Expedition. His proposal: Addison’s disease might have sealed their fate.
• Cecil Chabot reflects upon the idea of the Middle Ground following his participation in a recent ceremony designating Moose Factory Ontario as a National Historic Site.
• Boris Spremo, a noted Canadian photographer, has died. Chris Ryan remembers his work.
• Check out this interview with four of the curators who organized the new Canadian and Indigenous Galleries at the National Gallery of Canada.
• The audio from Steve Penfold and Brian Gettler speaking on confederation at the UofT symposium, “The Other 60s: A Decade that Shaped Canada and the World,” is now available.
• The Royal BC Museum shared an image of this beautiful bodice for #fashionfriday.
• The Vancouver Island WW1 Connections blog remembers how WW1 impacted the Gordon Head Athletic Club, and their contributions to the war effort.
• Stephanie Pettigrew sent me a link to this amazing 1948 video of Cape Breton. Seriously, it’s (unintentionally) hilarious.
• Waubgeshig Rice has an absolutely fantastic and must-read Twitter essay on the impact of government initiatives to erase the cultural identity and history of the Anishinaabe people.
• LAC also posted their most recent addition to their “Who Do We Think We Are Series,” with guest curator Anne Maheux. In this post, Maheux talks about printmaking in Canada and the Dionne Quintuplets.
• In her latest post for the UBC Digitization Centre, Liz Otero talks about some of her favourite items in the UBC Open Collections. I can totally attest to the awesomeness of this collection!
• Sarah Severson has written a new blog post for the McGill Library blog about McGill’s collection on Historypin. I’m hoping to do a Historian’s Toolkit on this tool soon, since I think it’s really cool.
• Russell Potter talks about the mystery about why Francis Croizer, who became the Franklin Expedition commander after Franklin’s death, didn’t use the cache of supplies left on Fury Beach.
• Heather Read’s latest blog post for the ROM’s Canada150 series focuses on Ontario’s Blue Mountain Pottery. The images of the pottery are just gorgeous.
• The Canadian Museum of History has a new blog post by Matthew Betts and Janet Young about the repatriation of remains belonging to an Inuit man who lived and died 800 years ago. This first post in a series focuses on what we can learn from this man’s remains and how he recorded his own lifestory, while future posts will talk about collaboration with Indigenous partners.
• Find out about this really neat project by Brock MA student John Raimondo. Raidmondo created a virtual 3-D deep map of the Willowbank Estate in Queenston.
• Robyn Lacy has collected all of her blog posts from the 2017 field season together in one place for your reading convenience!
• The Richmond Archives takes a look at the history of early aviation in the area, including the racetrack where I run on Sundays.
• The University of Waterloo Special Collections and Archives takes an amusing look at romance novels set in hospitals. Because nothing quite says sexy-times like disinfectant.
• Eve Lazarus takes a look at the Buntzen Power Stations on Indian Arm this week, as well as the community that spring up around them.
• Canada’s History Museum has just received a significant donation from the Weston family.
• Chris Ryan recounted the story of the 1911 Great Fire of South Porcupine.
• Find out what it’s like to be a Archival and Curatorial Assistant at the Chilliwack Museum and Archives.
• The South Peace Regional Archives has profiled ten different books that were published during WW1, including several by Canadians.
• Rachel Weary has written the latest blog post from the Scholarship and Activism blog, which features an interview with Eric Adams about the role of constitutional and legal history in today’s world, as well as his work with the Landscapes of Injustice project.
• This week’s #TBT from the ROM blog is all about padding and adjustments.
• The St. Catharines Museum has posted their latest Walk Around Town. In Walk N, we get to visit the circus.
• The Archives of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto blog celebrated 200 posts by talking about Toronto’s Catholic Palace, which is located at 200 Church Street.
• The Calgary Gay History Project honoured the work of Lois Szabo, who dedicated her life to fighting for the rights of lesbian women to have children.
  • And there’s more here!
• Though they are speaking specifically about the US example, Kesia Kvill and Sandy Barron have written a great piece about public history and monuments for the Laurier Centre that applies equally to Canada.
• Andrew Stuhl has a must-read piece about colonialism and environmentalism, and why we focus so much on the impact of climate change on polar bears, while ignoring its impact on Indigenous communities in the Arctic.
• Heritage Winnipeg profiled a really cool project called the Heritage Wall, at Upper Fort Garry, which uses technology to shine a light on the area’s history from 6000 years ago to today.
• Matthew Wiseman reviewed Tim Cook’s The Necessary War: Canadians Fighting the Second World War, and Fighting to the Finish: Canadians in the Second World War for the Laurier Centre. And as a side note, where does Tim Cook find the time to write so many books?
• The Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives took a look at the records in their collection documenting police raids of queer spaces in the early 2000s.
• Sarah Toye has written a hilarious must-read piece about being a historian working outside. As in, the outdoors! My hat is off to her. Outside is scary. I’d rather stay inside with my books and computer. 😉
• The Dictionary of Canadian Biography‘s latest biography is of Frances Dalrymple Byron, a noted Vancouver nurse.
• There is a new Community Stories website out from the Virtual Museum of Canada. This latest one looks at Hamilton’s Nine-Hour League, a working-class organization that advocated for a shorter working day, and the Nine-Hour League Parade of 1872.
• Summer jobs are not a new phenomenon. Find out about Vera Merchant’s experiences working at Whistler’s Rainbow Lodge for three summers in the mid 1930s.
• Canadian History in the News
  • A section of the Provincial Road 391 Highway in Manitoba will be named after Tom Cochrane’s “Life is a Highway.” Yup, the Life is a Highway Highway. You can’t make this stuff up.
  • A ceremony was held this week in London, Ontario to honour Private Hasan Amat, the only Canadian Muslim soldier who died during WW1.
  • CBC spoke with Janis Thiessen about her new book, Snacks!
  • There is a new study out by Emily Milne showing that many history educators avoid the subject of residential schools because they are nervous about making a mistake
  • The Hill 70 Memorial Park was officially opened this week in France.
    • And here is some more coverage of this from the BBC.
  • A Canadian media company is preparing to relaunch a classic 1980s Canadian game show, Just Like Mom. The series involved moms and kids facing off in baking challenges. This new edition will include both mothers and fathers.
  • In a curious twist, a new monument dedicated to the 40,000 Canadians who fought in the American Civil War is being erected. This includes both soldiers who fought for the North and the South, though I am dubious about some of the organizer’s claims about not representing either side…
    • More on this here.
  • A village in Quebec is refusing to remove an anchor with a swastika painted on it that as recovered 25 years ago, because it has “historical significance.” An explanatory plaque will soon be added. And yes, my facial expression is probably exactly what you think it is right now.
  • Shirley Tillotson was interviewed about the history of white supremacy in Canada.
  • A history buff in Manitoba has built a WW1 trench in his backyard. Sure, why not.
  • In anticipation of the eclipse, APTN spoke with Wilfred Buck, a Cree constellations expert, about the history of eclipses among the Cree.
  • Medals belonging to Lt.-Col David Currie, including his Victoria Cross, are being auctioned off. Some people are upset about this.
    • More on this here.
  • William Parenteau was interviewed about the potential impact of the collapse of the New Brunswick marketing board system for private woodlots.
  • The latest Dig It column is by Joanne Hammond, who talks about the meaning of the past and the potential for heritage to serve as a tool of healing.
  • Ellen Scheinberg has written a fantastic piece for the Historicist about the history of the first Jewish deli in Toronto! Nothing could ever compare to Schwartz’s, but the Harris Delicatessen sounds amazing! And Ellen does really fantastic work on the public history of Toronto and Jewish Toronto in particular.
  • Check out these really cool colourized images of Canadian troops on D-Day.
  • Graeme Hamilton has written a really fantastic article about how Canada’s National Parks were created by forcibly evicting the Indigenous peoples who had lived there for centuries. Because nothing says “fun summer vacation” like colonization.
  • In addition to the controversies around confederate monuments and places named after JAM, there are also calls from the Papaschase Cree Nation to remove Frank Oliver’s name from his eponymous neighbourhood, considering the role that Oliver played in forcing the local Indigenous peoples off their lands.
    • Paula Simons disagrees.
    • And there is more info here.
  • Get your tissues out for this look at a WW1 solider, Sergeant Wilfred Shaughnessy, who has finally been laid to rest this week.
  • Roughly 60,000 artefacts have been returned to Metepenagiag First Nation in New Brunswick this week.
    • More on this here.
  • CBC spoke with professional genealogist Colleen Murray about her work.
  • Find out about some of the neat treasures that have been found during an archaeological investigation in the backyard of the Niagara Apothecary.
  • Ontario and the Métis Nation of Ontario have identified six additional historic Métis communities.
  • Apparently the City of Ottawa has proposed to add three of Carleton’s buildings to their city heritage register. And Carleton is confused.
  • While the rest of us were arguing about monument wars, artist Jay Soule, from Chippewas of the Thames First Nation, has been confronting representations of Canada’s history on our currency.
  • CBC takes a look at the impact of Bill 101 forty years after its implementation. This is me not saying anything! Nope. All I’m going to say is that thank god my dad went to an English high school.
  • Hereditary chief Janice George and Buddy Joseph, from Squamish First Nation, talked with the host of North by Northwest about their work to preserve and revitalize Salish traditional weaving.
    • There’s more on their work here.
  • Mike Commito’s latest piece for Sudbury.com looks at the 1970 Sudbury tornado. I will take a blizzard over that any day.
  • Find out about the history of Toronto’s Friar Tavern and the Toronto music scene in the 1950s and 1960s.
  • Historic Indigenous remains have been discovered in Simcoe County, but there are no official policies about what happens in these instances.
  • A memorial in Resolute Bay to the forced relocation of Inuit from the area remains unfinished.
  • A new plaque is being unveiled honouring the site formerly known as the Mantle site, which is a 500-year-old Wendat settlement.
  • There is a new project ongoing to preserve the history of the Ross Memorial Hospital in Lindsay, BC.
  • An important part of the Calgary Stampede’s history is up for auction.
  • Gold nuggets that once belonged to “Skookum Jim” Mason have just been donated to the MacBridge Museum. Mason is credited with being one of the men who discovered the vein of gold that started the Yukon Gold Rush.
• Better Late than Never
  • The Globe and Mail had a really fascinating piece about a Canadian citizen, Julius Kuhl, who saved countless lives during the Holocaust, but was never recognized for his heroism during his lifetime.
  • Postcards from André Dédé Fortin, singer and musician from the band Colcos, have just been discovered, and Radio-Canada interviewed his brother about them.
  • James Capes speaks about what it is like to relocate the bodies of the dead from four of Sarnia’s earliest cemeteries.
• Calls for Papers
  • Acadiensis is seeking submissions for the David Alexander Prize 2017 competition. This completion is for the best essay written by an undergraduate student on any aspect of Atlantic history. Submissions are due September 15.
  • The 49^th Northeast Modern Language Association Convention has just released a call for papers for their upcoming meeting on the subject of: “Performing Francophonie: Music and Text in Modern North American Franco Identities.” Abstracts are due September 30^th.

Week of August 27, 2017

• The Congress of Black Women of Manitoba fonds just got some new additions!
• According to Jessica DeWitt, this week’s most used words from the world of #envhist are: “People,” “Mercury,” and “Can.”
• The Canadian History Museum has posted a picture of a wonderful Oceti Sakowin doll (Dakota/Lakota), dating from the late 19^th to the early 20^th centuries. The detail is just amazing.
• LAC has posted a new Flickr album, dedicated to cattle hands in western Canada. Check out the pictures themselves here.
• For the next 100 days, the 100years100stories project will be sharing stories about the Halifax Explosion, leading up to its 100^th anniversary on December 6^th. Find out more here.
• Find out about the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection at the Toronto Public Library.
• Do you remember how, in a previous roundup, I talked about a table-setting riddle challenge from McGill Library Matters? Well, now you can find out about some of the solutions!
• Olivar Asselin prepares to return to the front, and writes to his son about his preparations, the wounds suffered by soldiers, and anti-German sentiment.
• Find out about the scandalous life of William James Cavanagh, a Vancouver realtor who was accused of bigamy. And, predictably, his second wife seems to have taken most of the blame.
• Merle Massie has a great new blog post about how she uses the concept of place as a methodology, or place-based inquiry. It’s really fantastic and highly recommended.
• Stephanie Halmhofer has written a new blog post with some really helpful advice for anyone writing a master’s thesis in archaeology!
  • And, so has Robyn Lacy!
• Canada’s History Museum has posted part 2 of their look at the repatriation of the remains of an Inuit man who lived and died 800 years ago. In this post, authors Matthew Betts and Janet Young talk about how they worked to ensure that his story was told from an Indigenous perspective.
• This week Instananés takes a look at Michel Brunet, a medical doctor who provided abortions to women more than a hundred years ago, and spent 5 years in prison as a result.
• Martin Heavy Head has written a great Twitter essay about how teachers can teach students about residential schools, largely in response to an article about how educators feel intimidated about teaching this subject.
• Jamie Murton has written the latest blog post for NICHE about his experiences at CHESS. This post is a meditation on what we leave behind and what we choose to remember.
• In their latest post, the Chilliwack Museum and Archives takes a look at a trumpet that belonged to Bobby Hales, and what we can learn from historical objects.
• This week the Heritage Winnipeg blog takes a look back at the St. Boniface Fire Hall No. 1, and how it is being re-imagined in today’s landscape.
• bakeryandsnacks.com spoke with Janis Thiessen about her new book!
• Find out what the FBI had to say about a number of different countries during the Cold War, including Canada.
• The latest blog post for Findings/Trouvailles comes to us from Jenny Ellison! In this piece, Ellison looks at women’s hockey in Canada and the case of Justine Blainey.
• Bill Waiser’s latest column looks back on the folk band, Humphrey and the Dumptrucks, and their first performance at the 1967 Blackstrap Folk Festival. Holy facial hair.
• The Retroactive Blog takes a look back at the history of one-room schoolhouses in Alberta and the origins of public education in the province.
• Nerd alert: LAC has released the 1921 census returns! Jenny Ellison, Heather Battles, Kristine Alexander, and I had fun looking up our family members one evening.
• The CHA and the Film Studies Association of Canada have released a new letter to the NFB about their archival practices. Follow the conversation here.
• The Dictionary of Canadian Biography’s latest biography is about John Stewart, a Nova Scotian doctor and professor.
• Keith Grant defended his dissertation!
• Caroline Robert, Amélie Grenier, and Martin Robert interviewed Marcel Martel for Histoire Engagée this week. The interview focused on Martel’s recent book on the history of vice in Canada.
• LAC has added some new comedic sketches and songs to their Virtual Gramophone.
• Sean Graham has kindly shared his syllabus for a new course on radio in history!
  • And one on cultural traditions in Canada
• Happy 97th birthday to BAnQ!
• This week Eve Lazarus takes us back to the 1957 PNE and the PNE Prize House!
• Find out how one museum is working to subvert the ideas of nostalgia and heritage. This piece is highly recommended!
• The Toronto Public Library blog looks back on the history of the Toronto Transportation Commission, which I had the privilege of using during the CHA. I still like the Montreal Metro and the Vancouver Skytrain better though. 😉
• This week’s #tbt from the ROM is all about hanging cotton.
• The latest blog post from the Archives of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto looks back at a fascinating conflict about what (not) to wear in 1841.
• Janis Thiessen gave us a small preview of her new course on rail and food history!
• Charmaine Nelson has just been appointed the William Lyon Mackenzie King Chair for Canadian Studies at Harvard, and will be teaching a course on the history of slavery in Canada.
• There are several new encyclopedia entries from The Canadian Encyclopedia, including one on Eaton’s, and several by Maxime Dagenais on the 1837-1838 Rebellions!
• The Whistler Museum has just gotten the chance to record two new oral histories about what it was like to ski on Whistler, before the resort was built.
• The South Peace Regional Archives investigates a mystery in the Archives relating to the 1820 will of John Davis. It looks like someone was doing something they weren’t supposed to….
• The Archives of the City of Quebec celebrates the history of the Boswell Brasserie.
• Check out these photographs from when the Kilties (a 1908 Belleville-based band) toured the world!
• University Affairs took a look at the Lost Stories Project.
• The PAMA Archives blog has a new post that looks at some creative excuses for speeding from early drivers.
• Canadian History in the News
  • There is a new petition to change the name of Moricetown, BC, back to its traditional Wet’suwet’en name, Witset. The petition is spearheaded by Wanda Nikael, who spoke with CBC about her work.
  • The wonderful Leah Dorion was interviewed by the CBC about her amazing artwork. Dorion, if you remember, created the artwork for the UofA’s Native Faculty course, Indigenous Canada.
  • Joe Nasogaluak is calling for the new Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk highway to be renaied after three boys who fled Inuvik’s residential school, Stringer Hall in 1972. Of the three boys, Bernard Andreason, Lawrence Jack Elanik, and Dennis Dick, only Andreason survived, after walking 150 km over two weeks in the North-West Territories.
  • Another unknown WW1 Canadian soldier has been laid to rest.
  • Vice has covered Ian Mosby and Tracey Galloway’s research into the long-term impacts of the food served at residential schools on the bodies of Indigenous children.
  • Find out what the Canadian Space Agency has in common with Star Trek. Aside from the fact that William Shatner is a Jewish Montrealer.
  • Check out these really amazing drawings by more than 150 Inuit from the North Baffin area that recently went on display in Iqaluit. The drawings date back to the 1960s, and show the turmoil experienced by the Inuit during this period.
  • Check out this amazing collection of ten images of Canada geese made out of ink and rice paper. The collection is by artist Shawn Zheng and created it in honour of Canada150.
  • Find out about the Centennial Building Murals, commissioned for the Centennial Building in Fredericton in the 1960s.
  • A new film has come out that focuses on  the more than 11,000 WW2 conscientious objectors.
  • Shannon Sampert has written a lovely editorial about the politics of ordinary history.
  • Natasha Henry is being honoured for her work promoting Black history in Canada.
  • Remember how I mentioned that the film Dunkirk “edited” out a Canadian war hero? Well, here’s another news piece about this controversy.
  • The University of Regina’s streets are getting new Indigenous names.
  • Don’t miss this fantastic video about how Trans-Canada Airlines hired its first air hostesses. Retro sexism alert!
  • A genetic analysis of the bacteria that causes lyme disease has revealed some fascinating insights, though as Shannon Murray has thoughtful pointed out, the story does claim that Indigenous peoples came to North America via the Bering Land bridge.
  • The Star looks back on the history of the Toronto House of Industry, first established in the Ward in 1837. FYI, these places were uniformly horrifying hell-scapes, though the articles does not get into that…
  • The BC government is stepping into to protect the remains of First Nations individuals who were unearthed near Keremeos in February 2016. The province plans to use the Heritage Conservation  Act to force the property owners to properly excavate and later restore the site. This is the first time the Heritage Conservation Act has been used this way.
  • An Edmonton-based charity that honours Canada’s war dead has not expanded into Poland.
  • Riverside-Alberta and the Nature Conservancy of Canada are raising money to preserve one of the few remaining old Acadian forests.
  • It’s inventory time at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library! They’re finding all kinds of stuff. I thought the whole point of a library was to have an inventory of their collection?
  • Melissa J. Gismondi has a must-read piece about the role that historians should play in fighting white supremacy, in Canada and elsewhere.
  • Go behind the scenes at the McCord Museum’s new exhibit on Harry Houdini.
  • Martin Pâquet has written a reflection for Le Devoir about why students should still be studying history today.
  • Jesse Wente was interviewed by Andrew Nichols on Metro Morning about monuments and renaming.
  • Take a look back at the history of Taché Hall at the University of Manitoba.
• Better Late than Never
  • Find out just how many Canadian schools are named after former prime ministers. Just wait until there is a Justin Trudeau School.
  • A company in Regina is creating thirteen small homes that each reflect the character of a different province and territory. This latest one is a grain-elevator style house, for Saskatchewan.
  • This fall, a group of students at the University of Winnipeg will investigate the mystery of what happened to the “Little Britain” settlement in Manitoba.
  • Find out about how WW1 ship’s captains were supposed to dispose of secret documents in the event they needed to abandon ship.
• Calls for Papers
  • Urban History Review is seeking submissions for a future issue on the history of urban planning in Canada. Abstracts are due on October 31^st.

Week of September 3, 2017

• Take a look at paint boxes that once belonged to Tom Thomson and Paul Kane.
• This week’s most frequently-used words in #envhist, according to Jessica DeWitt are: “Natural,” “History,” and “Will.”
• Check out these cool images of the CNE from the Toronto Archives.
• Olivar Asselin visits the ruined villages of Belgium, and reflects on the devastating pillaging of the German army.
• Black Perspectives has a new blog post from Michael Guasco unpacking the myth that the history of African peoples in the Americas began in 1619, and the dangers that this myth holds.
• Joanne Hammond is back with another great Twitter essay about the history of Secwepemc sites at the confluence of the Thompson Rivers.
• Ask a Curator is coming September 13th! Find out more about this event here.
• Robyn Lacy was interviewed for the “Go Dig a Hole” podcast about her work!
• The Canadian Museum of History is celebrating back to school with a picture of some cool lunchboxes!
• Happy 100th birthday to the City of Montreal Library!
• Krista McCracken is celebrating nine years of blogging! Which is amazing. And she has kindly included UH has one of her favourite blogs! We love you too Krista!
• Maxime Dagenais has posted a preview of the upcoming year at the Beyond Borders blog and the Wilson Institute more generally!
• The BC Heritage Fairs blog has a new post this week about resources for teaching Indigenous history. And they have also kindly included the Beyond150 conference as one of their resources! Though I do want to make it clear that the conference was organized jointly between Krista McCracken and I. 🙂
• Liz Otero and the UBC Digitization Centre are wishing everyone a good back to school, and have some helpful problem-solving advice.
• The Museum of the American Revolution has posted a new blog post about Canada’s role in the American Revolution, and why we didn’t become part of the US. This link comes from the not-so-secret (anymore) UH copyeditor, my husband.
• The latest blog post from Histoire Engagée comes from Mathieu Arsenault, who talks about his experiences as an editor and the importance of accessible history.
• Active History is back from its summer hiatus with an excerpt from Sarah Glassford’s latest book, Mobilizing Mercy: A History of the Canadian Red Cross. This excerpt focuses on the prevalence of rumours about donated items being sold to soldiers.
• Angie Bain has written a must-read piece for the BC Studies blog about the downsides to the digitization of archives, particularly in creating the expectation that all information should be easy to access while also de-emphasizing the importance of physically looking through archival documents.
• This week the Instantanés blog is celebrating 50 years of the Festival Western at Saint-Tite en Mauricie. Get ready for a Quebec rodeo…
• NiCHE is back with a brand new blog post from Daniel MacFarlane. This post looks at the role of the environment in Canada-US diplomacy. It will be interesting to see how this will impact NAFTA renegotiations.
• The History Slam Podcast is also back from its summer hiatus with a brand new episode, featuring an interview with me! Find out some of the secrets behind Unwritten Histories, as well as what my voice really sounds like!
• Annabelle Babineau has written a new blog post for the Atlantic Loyalist Connections blog all about dueling! Which my computer just tried to auto-correct as dulling. Hmm… Now where’s my gauntlet…
• Erin Spinney has written a fantastic new blog post for Nursing Clio about nursing in the Royal Navy and British Army in the 18th century!
• Did you know that the “Ken Burns Effect” (panning across still images in a documentary) can actually be traced back to Canada?
• Heather Read’s later post for the ROM’s Canada150 series looks at some beautiful, and under-documented pottery.
• This week on Unwritten Histories, I reviewed the new edition of John S. Milloy’s A National Crime.
• In the first post in the Age of Revolution blog series on information networks, Alyssa Zuercher Reichardt looks at the role of information networks and the media in the Seven Years’ War. 
• Also new from Active History is a blog post by Laura Ishiguro and Laura Madokoro on the history of white supremacy and political violence from 1907 to 2017. This blog post contextualizes contemporary white supremacy by comparing it to the 1907 Vancouver Riot.
• This week LAC profiles some of the dramatic works that are contained within their collection.
• Check out this really neat timeline of LGTBQ rights in Canada put together by WorldPride, the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, Pride Toronto, and the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario.
• LAC has also released its latest podcast episode, celebrating 50  years of Expo 67. They’ve also put together a flickr album of relevant images, and of course I had to pick one as the image for this roundup.
• Krista McCracken has a new blog post reflecting on the lack of signage about local Indigenous history in some of the parks she visited over the summer.
• Robyn Lacy has a new blog post about inscribed text on gravestones, and how they can teach us about how the shapes of letters can evolve over centuries. She focuses particularly on the history of the letter W.
• Daniel Francis reviewed Ben Bradley’s latest book, British Columbia by the Road: Car Culture and the Making of a Modern Landscape.
• Chelsea Vowel has written a fantastic Twitter Essay about the relationship between Indigenous people and the land.
• Katherena Vermette has written an important poem about Louis Riel.
• Sean Carleton has written another great Twitter essay about his recent experience seeing Kent Monkman’s exhibit, “Shame and Prejudice.”
• The latest featured article from the CHA is by president Adele Perry. The article was originally published in the latest CHA Bulletin, about transnationalism and making the field of Canadian history more diverse.
• The latest issue of inSight from the Royal BC Museum has been released, and includes a look at their recent pop-up museums.
• The latest blog post by the Canadian Centre for the Great War looks at Canada’s war poets, including, but not limited to John McCrae. Do students still have to memorize “In Flanders Fields” anymore? I can still recite it!
• The latest episode of the On War and Society Podcast from the Laurier Centre is out, and features an interview with Matthew Wiseman about the Arctic and the Cold War.
• Laura Larsen has written the latest blog post for NiCHE’s CHESS Reflections series. In this reflection, Larsen talks about what she learned about the relationship between cultures, communities, and the land.
• The Archives of Montreal is continuing with their revisit of Expo 67 with a look at what happened between the 1st and 10th of September.
• The latest blog post from Histoire Engagée features an interview with Pierre Fournier by Benoit Marsan, about Fournier’s work on working-class music history in 20th century Quebec.
• The first episode of season two of Museum Chat Live! from the St. Catharines’ museum is now available. This episode features a discussion of Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.
• The South Peace Regional Archives is continuing its 1910s top 10 lists this week with a look at trends.
• The latest educational plan from Canada’s History is for Expo 67!
• The Dictionary of Canadian Biography‘s latest biography is for Joseph Versailles, a former mayor of Montreal East.
• The latest blog post from the Archives of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto blog looks at the life of Archbishop Philip Francis Pocock.
• The BC Historical Newspapers collection at the UBC Library is playing a role in preserving Vancouver’s heritage buildings.
• Nathan Sentence is calling on all of us to rethink and reframe how cultural institutions undertake community consultation.
• A new park in downtown Edmonton will be named for one of the country’s first Indigenous police officers, Alex Decoteau.
• We need to remember that the pass system operated in Ontario as well as the Prairies.
• Shawn Graham has written a letter to anyone else considering doing a degree in Canadian archaeology.
• The latest Walk Around Town from the St. Catharines Museum is all about the future.
• Desmond Morton is celebrating his 80th birthday with a special lecture in his honour.
• Eve Lazarus looks back at Victory Square (in Vancouver) before there even was a Victory Square.
• Canadian History in the News
  • Eve Lazarus was interviewed by CBC’s North by Northwest about her recent book!
  • Find out about some of the amazing work that is being done in Canadian classrooms to focus more on Indigenous history. This article features several fantastic educators, including Lindsay Gibson!
  • Gjoa Haven in Nunavut held a weeklong festival honouring the rediscovery of the HMS Erebus and Terror. The festival will also celebrate Inuit oral tradition, and the history of encounters in the Northwest Passage.
  • Alison Norman has written a new article for BlogTO.com about the history of Toronto’s Labour Day parade!
  • Two new shipwrecks have been discovered in Lake Huron, dating back to 1894 and 1915 respectively.
  • Do you know about the 1972 heist at the Montreal Museum Fine Arts?
  • This summer a team of archaeologists at Memorial University started an excavation at the former St.-Pierre’s airport.
  • John Walsh spoke with CBC about a new piece of commemorative public art titled From the North to Ottawa’s Southway Inn. Carleton has helpfully put together all of the news coverage about this event here.
  • Do you think the stories about sasquatch are have any basis in reality?
  • The Canada Council for the Arts has issued a strong statement against cultural appropriation.
  • The City of Montreal Archives is digitizing a whole bunch of their documents, including summary decisions from 1973 to 1989.
  • Hamilton’s Christ’s Church Cathedral is seeking approval to exhume and relocate the remains of around 400 people to build a new condo.
  • Initial results from the search for the Avro Arrow models are in, and it seems that at least one of them has been found at the bottom of Lake Ontario.
  • Seventeen Inuit guardians have been hired by Parks Canada to watch over the wrecks of the HMS Erebus and Terror. This is the first partnership of its kind, and the site will be jointly managed by Parks Canada and the Inuit.
  • Archaeologist Peter Dawson is using 3-D imaging to preserve Alberta’s history, from rock formations to historic buildings.
  • A top hat belonging to John A. Macdonald that was stolen in 1975 has just been found!
  • Vanier College is now home to the Linda and Sheldon Kagan Collection of music.
  • Maison Dumulon de Rouyn-Noranda is cleaning house. See what I did there. 😉
  • Canadian Press is celebrating its 100th anniversary.
  • Kenora is changing the name of its Colonization Road.
  • Do you remember that news story from a while back about the discovery of a Heiltsuk Nation dwelling that was 14,000 years old? Here’s some more details about the excavation.
  • The latest Dig it column is out! The latest is by Ryan Dickie about the archaeobotany, or the study of plant use, in the Kamloops area.
  • Kenneth C. Dewar looks back on the life and contributions of Thomas Kent, who played a central role in establishing the Liberal Party’s social policy in the 1960s.
  • There is ongoing debate about what to do with the abandoned home belonging to a close associate of Louis-Joseph Papineau.
  • I’m not saying you should give money, but there is a kickstarter for a new game on the Lower Canadian Rebellion. 😮
  • There is a new project dedicated to preserving and sharing the history of the Kerrisdale arena.
  • Jesse Wente was quoted in this fantastic article by Stephen Marche about the failure of reconciliation in Canada.
  • Some person thinks we need a Canadian version of Mount Rushmore. The US didn’t need one either.
  • Find out about the new exhibit on the history of Jewish foods in Toronto. Also known as the wannbe-Montreal Jewish foods. 😛
  • While it’s not commonly known, Vietnam draft resisters have played an important role in Canada’s history.
• Better Late than Never
  • Charles R. Riggs has written an important reflection about cultural imperialism in archaeology, and who has the right to tell Indigenous history. While this article deals specifically with the US, it applies equally to Canada.
• Calls for Papers
  • The Archives Association of Ontario has just issued a call for papers for their 2018 conference, to be held in May in Waterloo. This year’s theme is “Celebrations: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.” Submissions are due December 15th.

Short note: I have deliberately excluded all of the conversation, blog posts, and articles about the #SirJAM controversy from this roundup. That is because they are all available, in order and in conversation, in this Storify. This collection is constantly being updated as new material comes out.

I’ll need to check, but I’m pretty sure that this is the longest roundup ever. OMG. If you actually read through the entire thing, my hat is off to you! For those of you who are wondering why I did not include any information about the Beyond 150 Conference, that’s because all of it is available right here. I hope you enjoyed this roundup, regardless of its length. 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! See you then!

Liked this post? Please take a second to support Unwritten Histories on Patreon!