Canadian History Roundup – Week of September 25, 2016

Betty of Shediac, N.B. with her cocker spaniel at Pointe-du-Chêne (October 1948) George Hunter. Canada. National Film Board of Canada. Library and Archives Canada, e010948805 CC BY 2.0

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

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

• There is a new edited collection in the works! Organized by Edward Macdonald, Brian Payne, and Claire Campbell, the new volume will examine the environmental history of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. If you’re interested in learning more and submitting a paper, please go here.
• Robert Craig Brown, former president of the CHA, has passed away.
• Andrew Stuhl, Bruce Uviluq, Anna Logie, and Derek Rasmussen have a new article this week on Active History looking at new avenues for research into modern treaty history. As they argue, the reason for this research is well established; now we need to consider the practicalities of such research. The authors begin by considering two questions: who is the audience for research on modern treaties and what are the routes and roadblocks in the modern treaties archive. They also offer some suggestions for potential research projects. It’s a great post, and not to be missed. This blog post was cross-posted on NiCHE’s website as well.
• Over on the Acadiensis blog, Tina Loo reviews Ronald Rudin’s latest book, Kouchibouguac: Removal, Resistance, and Remembrance at a Canadian National Park.
• Also on Active History this week is a new post by John Steckley on lessons that can be learned from the Wendat (Huron) language, specifically around absences. Historians can learn a great deal, both historically and personally, by considering language as a cultural mirror.
• Pier 21 has a new online exhibit, Pathways to Toronto, created in collaboration with the Toronto Ward Museum and the University of Toronto, looking at the history of immigration to Toronto. The project originated in Donna Gabaccia’s course on digital history. Stephanie Cavanaugh has a history of the project, and you can check out the exhibition itself here. This seems like a fantastic resource for teachers in Canadian history. Any interest in a Historian’s Toolkit?
• Watch Katie McCullough give a talk about Scottish Studies in the Pacific Northwest.
• The Council of the Haida Nation has a new blog post about a Yellow cedar aal (paddle) that was presented to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge by Christie Clark. This blog post talks about the symbolism on the aal, as well as the role that it plays in Haida culture.
• Andrew Nurse has a review on Jody Perrun’s book, The Patriotic Consensus: Unity. Morale, and the Second World War in Winnipeg, over at the Laurier Centre blog.
• This week on Unwritten Histories, we took a look at some of my own research in the latest “What’s in My….” blog post on Montreal Jewish cookbooks from the 1950s to the 1970s. I talked about family recipes, ethnic cookbooks, and national identity.
• Check out this cool picture of Ottawa in the winter of 1907. Or is this too depressing?
• Robert Wilkins takes a look at the history of Stanley Street, in Montreal. And in fun news, Wilkins was my high school English teacher who also organized history tours to downtown Montreal. If anyone is to blame for inadvertently encouraging me to pursue history in higher education, it’s Mr. Wilkins. 😉
• Wednesday was Right to Know Day, and as part of the project, LAC has launched a new web page which helps researchers gain access to government records through block review. As part of the initiative, they have also compiled a list of nearly 100 projects with newly open records.
• Just for sheer awesomeness, check out this wooden washing machine from 1915!
• BC Studies is looking for donations for the BC Studies Auction! Email them at auction@bcstudies.com
• BC Studies also has some new book reviews this week:
  • George Colpitt’s Pemmican Empire: Food, Trade, And The Last Bison Hunts In The North American Plains, 1780-1882
  • Nancy Townshend’s Art Inspired By The Canadian Rockies, Purcell Mountains And Selkirk Mountains, 1809-2012
  • David Chuenyan Lai and Guo Ding’s Great Fortune Dream: The Struggles And Triumphs Of Chinese Settlers In Canada, 1858-1966
  • Mike Murtha and Charles Helm’s Through An Unknown Country: The Jarvis-Hanington Winter Expedition Through The Northern Rockies, 1874-1875
  • Robert D. Turner’s The Klondike Gold Rush Steamers: A History Of Yukon River Steam Navigation.
•  The Library and Archives Canada blog takes a look at the impact of the British Home Children on Canada’s population, and provides information for individuals interested in finding out more about their British Home Child ancestors.
• Theresa Kaminsky interviews Ann M. Little about her new book, The Many Captivities of Esther Wheelwright, about a woman from New England who ended up becoming an Ursuline nun in Quebec City.
• The Atlantic Loyalist Connections blog from UNB has a new blog post out this week about parish officers in New Brunswick’s history. I particularly liked how the title of “hog reeve,”(responsible for catching hogs that could damage property if they were not “ringed and yoked”) was often given to newly married men. LOL
• There is a brand new Nature’s Past Podcast episode featuring a follow-up interview with Jennifer Bonnell on her work on the history of the Don River Valley. The interview looks at how she made the transition from dissertation to book.
• Joseph Gagné has another book excerpt this week about a captured spy from H. R. Casgrain’s Voyage au Canada dans le nord de l’Amérique septentrionale fait depuis l’an 1751 à 1761 par J.C.B. (1887).
• John-Henry Harter, writing for Active History, talks about using film to teach North American labour history, and includes some suggestions for possible organizational frames.
• Library and Archives Canada also takes a look at the enduring popularity of Glenn Gould and his collection of materials.
• The Canadian War Museum has this amazing image from the “Deadly Skies” WW1 exhibit of part of a pilot’s femur embedded in a fuel gauge.
  • And from now until November 11, they are displaying the names of the Canadian soldiers who died in WW1 in 1916 in the museum lobby.
• Active History seems to be knocking it out of the park this week. Among the new blog posts this week is one from Mark Leier on using roleplaying games to teach students about tariffs in his first year Post-Confederation survey. He has also helpfully included the exercise! Woo hoo! More please!
• The Vancouver City Archives has just announced they’ve finished digitizing almost 5000 photographs and graphic materials form the Vancouver Centennial Commission fonds.
• For Throwback Thursday, the ROM looks back on the personal journal kept by the first Curator of Textiles, Dorothy K. Burnham, about her life and work.
• The UBC Library explores the Fisherman Publishing Society collection, which was originally formed to publish The Fisherman newspaper about the industry. The photographs are amazing!
• LAC has a new Flickr album! This one features photographs from French naval officer, Paul-Émile Miot, who became known for his photographs of Newfoundland taken between 1857 and 1862. Check them out here.
• Lianne Charlie has kindly let me repost some remarks she made on her Facebook page in a special guest blog post! She talks about the visit by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to Whitehorse in relation to the recent announcement about the LNG pipeline.
• Kisha Supernant reflects on her experiences at the Second Annual Building Reconciliation Forum at the University of Alberta, and how universities can better respond to the TRC Calls to Action.
  • I storified the live-tweets form the forum on the blog. Day 1 is here, and Day 2 is here.
• The Canadian Centre for the Great War takes a look at the Canadian Memorial Cross in the context of mourning rituals. The blog post also talks about the moral evaluation of the recipients.
• Christopher Moore briefly discusses Treaty Day in Nova Scotia (October 1^st), and mentions Marie Battiste’s edited collection, Living Treaties: Narrating Mi’kmaw Treaty Relations.
• The Junto, the American counterpart of Borealia, interviews Ian McKay and Maxime Dagenais on the role of the Wilson Institute at McMaster University.
• Check out Krista Mccracken’s reflections on reconciliation and archival practice on Twitter, with additional input from Allison Mills.
• Changing wills, mysteries mothers, Private Robert Mitchell Armitage, and the 18th Battalion in WW1.
• Canadian History in the News
  • In more f-ed up news about the HMS Terror, apparently a team of private researchers had access to the site for a full week before Parks Canada because they were apparently not notified the ship had been found.
    • Russell Potter comments on this over on his blog, and also discusses what we do and don’t know about the HMS Terror.
  • The Regina Indian Industrial School has been declared a municipal heritage site!
  • CBC looks at the sale of Indigenous children to American couples during the Sixties Scoop and speaks with survivors. One survivor mentioned how her adoptive parents purchased her for $30,000, and received her brothers as “freebies.”
    • Here’s some great background information on the Sixties Scoop.
  • The Maud, the ship belonging to Roald Amundsen that sank near Cambridge Bay, has finally been raised to the surface and cleaned, and is on its way back to Norway.
  • Bill Waiser, writing for the Saskatoon Star Phoenix, discusses the demand for homesteads in Saskatchewan during the early 20^th century. Though in the late 19^th century the Canadian government struggled to find people to settle the land, it was overwhelmed with applications in the first decade of the 20^th 
  • It’s a little late, but check out this fun article from the BBC on Canadian accents.
  • The Globe and Mail discusses how our national discourse on multiculturalism hides deep racial divides in all parts of the country. The article features an interviews Rhonda Britton about her experiences and her new podcast, Colour Code, which looks at race in Canada, in addition to examining some of the dangerous consequences of racial discrimination.
  • Stephen Hume explains the history behind the decision by Grand Chief Stewart Philip to not participate in the formal reconciliation ceremony with Prince William.
  • In more museum news, the Nikkei National Museum in Burnaby will open an exhibition on October 8th honoured the Japanese Canadian soldiers who fought in WW1.
  • I hesitated to post anything related to the royal visit this week that wasn’t critical, but I couldn’t resist this adorable article about them using a telegraph in Whitehorse to send a tweet.
  • The Globe and Mail has a sneak preview of the new look at the Canadian Museum of History, and how curators told a narrative of Canadian history from many different perspectives.
  • A new documentary, Spectres of Shortwave, looks at the strange impact of radio towers in Sackville, New Brunswick. For years, people could hear radio transmissions coming out of nowhere, like the basement and the kitchen sink.
  • A Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court Judge has approved a $50 million dollar settlement for survivors of residential schools.
  • Man pleads guilty to stealing four bronze plaques from the New Brunswick Museum. Sigh.
  • A hand drawn map of Detroit from 1790 has been found in a family home in Ontario. So cool!
  • Manitoba students will also be learning about Indigenous history and culture in their middle and high school courses.
  • The final results of the public archaeological dig at the Museum of Industry are in!
  • Learn about the history behind Orange Shirt Day!
    • Also check out this article where journalist Martha Troian talks with her 5 year old son about residential schools.
  • Barkerville is hosting a symposium on the value of field trips for teachers. The tag line is referring to gold panning, so I’m not certain what anyone is really learning here.
  • A brand new memorial to Indigenous warriors who fought in the War of 1812 will open in Ontario on Sunday. The new memorial is called The Landscape of Nations Memorial, and will be located in Queenston Heights Park.
  • Chelsea Vowel, writing for the Ottawa Citizen, talks about the Liberal government’s failure to engage in the work of reconciliation around the LNG pipeline because it is, in their words, “unworkable” and a “political distraction.”
  • Canada’s Museum for Human Rights has won an award!
  • Check out the latest episode from CBC’s Unreserved, with Rosanna Deerchild, where she talks about the move for mandatory Indigenous content in schools.
  • The Black Coalition of Quebec, a black rights group out of Quebec, is asking the federal government to recognize a Quebec cemetery where black slaves were buried as a national historic site. The goal is not only to recognize the cemetery itself, but to raise awareness of Canada’s history with slavery, which dates back to 1628 in Quebec.
  • A new book is out about Banff’s role in saving the bison herds of North America.
  • The Lheidli T’enneh name for UNBC has been added to the university’s welcome sign! UNBC is called “Nizdeh Nekeyoh Hohudel’eh Baiyoh” ( House of Learning) in the local Indigenous language( Dakehl (Carrier)).
  • Early immigration records from Spirit River, Alberta, have been found inside a John Deere dealership!
  • The Old Wyndham Roman Catholic Cemetery, south of La Salette, was reconsecrated this week, after being inadvertently destroyed in 1966.

It’s a bit shorter this week, I guess to make up from last week’s behemoth. I hope you enjoyed this week’s roundup. Don’t forget to check back on Tuesday for a brand new Best New Articles blog post. And since Rosh Hashanah starts at sundown, I wish you all a sweet new year!

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