Canadian History Roundup – Weeks of December 17th, 24th, 31st, 2017 and January 7, 2018

J.T. Henderson, “A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year: Tobogganing.” 1884. Toronto Lithographing Company. Library and Archives Canada, Arch. Ref. No. R11648, album 9, item 34 ; Copyright: Expired.

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

Missed the last roundup? Check it out here.

Because I realize this is a monster of a roundup, here’s a shortcut to each week:

• Week of December 17, 2017
• Week of December 24, 2017
• Week of December 31, 2017
• Week of January 7, 2018

Week of December 17, 2017

• Find out about the construction of the Harrison Hut in Whistler.
• This week’s most commonly used words in #envhist, according to Jessica DeWitt, were: “People,” “history,” and “History.”
• Nathan Sentence posted some important questions to help researchers assess if their research on Indigenous peoples is collaborative or exploitative. If you work in this area, and are not Indigenous, you should definitely check this out!
• The YYC Legacy Project, dedicated to documenting Calgary’s LGBTQ2S+ history, launched their brand new Story Map, based on testimony from 400 individuals and documenting the queer history of the city over the course of the twentieth century. New stories are welcome!
• Benjamin Bryce has a new blog post on Active History about his recent experience teaching a group of UNBC students a condensed experiential and serving learning course at the North Pacific Cannery. This sounds so cool!
• Louise Bienvenue has a new blog post on Histoire Engagée about the first woman admitted to the Montreal Historical Society, Marie-Claire Daveluy.
• LAC looks back at Lady Susan Macdonald, and how she experienced Canada in the late 1860s.
• Maude Flamand-Hubert reviewed Ben Bradley’s British Columbia by the Road: Car Culture and the Making of a Modern Landscape for NiCHE this week.
• Krista McCracken collected responses to the TRC’s Calls to Action from various provincial and territorial archival organizations in a Twitter essay.
• Joanne Hammond has a new Twitter essay on Pípsell, the erasure of Indigenous land ownership, the relationship between Indigenous rights and environmental concerns, and (uncomfortable) opportunities for decolonization.
• Shannon Stettner has written a new blog post for Notches this week, about the importance of telling, collecting, and listening to stories about access to abortion.
• This week on Unwritten Histories, we looked back on the past year in Canadian History!
• LAC released a new podcast this week, a behind-the-scenes look at the Preservation Centre in Gatineau.
• Check out this video of Valerie Korinek’s recent keynote address, “’The Prairies Coming Out Strong’: Western Canadian Queer Communities, 1969-1985.”
• Carley Bower has written a new blog post for Active History about the continuing influence of Victorian and British cooking traditions on modern Canadian cuisine, particularly with respect to Christmas. Am I the only person in the world who doesn’t watch any of the Great Bake-off shows?
• Robynne Mellor and Meredith Denning have a recap of the most recent NiCHE New Scholars meeting on “Canada and the World,” and information on the upcoming January discussion on “Writing Environmental History.”
• Allison Jones takes a look at some of the best archival projects that have ethical approaches to handling Indigenous history, including work by Krista McCracken!
• And speaking of Krista, she also released the latest episode on her Historical Reminiscents podcast, the conclusion of her mini-series on “Demystifing Archival Labour.”
• Chelsea Vowel has compiled a specific list of instructions about how you can contribute to making reconciliation a reality by assisting students in the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta.
• The Toronto Public Library blog takes a look back at the 1917-1918 season of the Toronto Arena Hockey Club.
• The Archives of Montreal look back at the 1998 Ice Storm this week.
• In his latest blog post, Bill Waiser looks at the important role that pets played in helping to ease the isolation many individuals faced on their homesteads.
• Jessica DeWitt live-tweeted her reading of Bison and People on the North American Great Plains, and kindly compiled the posts into a Twitter moment for everyone to read!
• Kate Rennard has a new blog post for the Beyond the Spectacle blog about Nora Gladstone, a Kainai student, who was among the 200 Canadian school children who attended the 1937 coronation of King George VI. Gladstone documented her trip, revealing important insights into how Indigenous women looked back at Empire.
• Thanks to Shawn Graham, you can now listen to a Cape Breton fiddle song in the style of a steel-comb and cyclinder music box on your very own computer.
• This week Instantanés also showcased the Eugène Mackay-Papineau fonds, and its amazing collection of photographs of Canadian soldiers during WW1.
• In the latest episode of the 99% Invisible podcast is a short feature on Project Habakkuk, or the time the British government built an iceship on Lake Patricia, Alberta. That would be a ship made out of ice, not a ship that transports ice. You can’t make this stuff up, people.
• Go behind the scenes and find out about the McGill Library Digitization lab and some of the most recent digitization projects.
• Check out the transcription of a recent talk by Guy Berthiaume at the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario about the need for interdisciplinary collaboration and a grounding in the personal when it comes to digitization, accessibility, and the democratization of history.
• Bashir Mohamed shared this important story about the banning of Black Edmontonians from swimming at a city pool in 1924 and how the Black community, under the leadership of Ms. Poston, fought back.
• I’m glad to see that the Nova Scotia Museum, Daniel Joseph Samson, and Ben Bradley share my love of dioramas.
• McGill Librarian Michael David Biller is working with the Café des saviors libres, Wikipedia Canada, and the Bibliothèque à livres ouverts to organize monthly Wikipedia edits-a-thons to increase content on Wikipedia on LGTBQ+ history in Quebec.
• In a new blog post for the Osler Library at McGill’s blog, Sophie Ientile looks at their collection of booklets of announcements from the Medical Faculty of McGill College, from 1852 to 1986.
• The Canadian Centre for the Great War looks back on the Christmas Truce of WW1.
• You need to watch this animated short showing Chief Robert Joseph’s (Kwakwaka’wakw) experiences at residential school.
• Coll Thrush spoke with UBC History about his recent book, Indigenous London: Native Travellers at the Heart of Empire.
• Find out how the Archives de la Congrégation des Sœurs des Saints Noms de Jésus et de Marie conserve and preserve archival documents.
• Stephen Hay has a fantastic post on Borealia this week about the celebration of Yule in 18^th century Newfoundland and Labrador, and the traditions of misrule, fires, and firearms. This totally sounds apocalyptic!
• Joanne Hammond just got a new copy of 126 Stops of Interests in Beautiful British Columbia, and live-tweeted some of the more egregious examples of bad public history that reinforce white settler colonialist narratives of Canadian history.
• I’m not sure if this counts as Canadian history, but the University of Toronto interviewed Natalie Zemon Davis about why publicly-funded academic research is so important. I just hope they divide the money equally between science and the humanities. The author of the article kinda skates around the distinction.
• Tina Adcock went to Greenwich, and posted a Twitter essay containing her thoughts on the Maritime Museum’s exhibit on the Franklin Expedition.
• Rare Books and Special Collections at McGill Library have just finished restoring their copy of Sir John Franklin’s (of the Franklin Expedition) book, Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1891, 20, 21, and 22. This edition is particularly special because it’s a signed presentation copy.
• The Canadian Encyclopedia published two entries this week on
  • Orphan Black
  • Anishinaabemowin
• Canadian History in the News
  • In attempt to demonstrate to Canadians the impact of the Halifax Explosion, the CBC created these graphics, showing the damage it would have caused in present-day Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Charlottetown, St. John’s, and Kingston.
  • CBC looks back on the history of the coolest Christmas gifts of years past. Doesn’t everyone need a battery-powered back scratcher?
  • In the latest Dig It Column, Phoebe Murphy takes a look at ancient trail networks and trail markers in Kamloops.
  • Angela Sterritt (Gitanmaax band of the Gitxsan Nation) takes on the Indigenous history and knowledge that is included in the current citizenship guide. A petition asking for revisions received enough signatures to be considered by the House of Commons.
  • Sheelah McLean has a fantastic post about the myth of the pioneer, particularly the idea of “building a life from nothing,” and how it reinforces white settler colonialism in Canada.
  • Some people believe that archaeology can reveal information about how to survive in an era of climate change. NPR takes a look at the information being revealed at the Rising Whale site in Alaska, and the lessons that it holds.
  • The CHA will be renaming the Sir John A. Macdonald prize, which is fantastic! But it is frustrating to see that, with the exception of a couple of short mentions of Adele Perry, the National Post only spoke with male historians.
  • Kyna Hamill, a Canadian historian at Boston University, has been under attack by the far-right for revealing the racist origins of the song, Jingle Bells. Hate the history, don’t hate the historian!
  • The CBC museum in Toronto has shut its doors.
  • Joanne Truskoski and Peter Spurling were reunited with letters they wrote to Santa in the 1960s. Wait, why were letters to Santa delivered to the Archives of Ontario???
    • Inside Toronto also features some letters from the Archives of Ontario collection.
  • Do you remember that last Trappist monk who made cheese and was retiring? Well, he found a new apprentice!
  • Wanuskewin Heritage Park has been added to Canada’s tentative list for World Heritage, making it eligible for designation as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
  • Landscapes of Injustice was profiled at NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster.
  • On the latest episode of “Ask an Elder,” find out about the Cree traditions around the Winter Solstice.
  • Lila Pine has written a great op-ed for The Globe and Mail about gender fluidity in Indigenous cultures prior to the arrival of European explorers and settlers.
  • Check out this really amazing piece about the Makokis family from Saddle Lake Cree Nation, and how they have worked to decolonize Christmas with Indigenous ceremony.
  • A new plaque honouring the history between the Mohawk Nation and Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue has just been installed.
  • You may not be in Montreal right now, but that doesn’t mean you can’t (vicariously) experience Montreal Jewish food history!
  • CBC looked at some of the technology that is being used to understand what happened to the Franklin Expedition.
  • CTV profiled the work being done at the Provincial Archives of Alberta.
  • Some people believe that Rose Prince, a victim of the residential school system, should be nominated for sainthood.
• Better Late than Never
  • Pam Palmater (Mi’kmaw from the Eel River Bar First Nation) has a really fantastic piece in Canadian Dimension on the need to move beyond just acknowledging our shameful history, by actually confronting it.
  • Check out this very rare inside look at Saint John’s Masonic Temple.
  • In this editorial, The Globe and Mail calls on the Canadian government to stop hindering the process of reconciliation.
  • Find out how a group of filmmakers helped the people of Fogo Island, in Newfoundland, remain in their homes after a resettlement order.
  • The University of Regina Press has announced the creation of the first Black Studies series in Canada, which will be edited by Afua Cooper. This is so awesome!
  • You may or may not know this already, but there is a strange part of Youtube where people review military rations. And at least one guy does historical ones, including this review of the 1955 Royal Canadian Air Force Food Packet Survival MRE. He actually eats the food! Although you will likely find his comments about books hilarious, I still think this is a great video.
• Calls for Papers
  • The McGill Indigenous Student Alliance and SSMU Indigenous Affairs have issued a CFP for presentation proposals by self-identified Indigenous individuals to present at the Our Home on Native Land: Exploring Indigenous Land Connections Past, Present, and Future conference in March 2018. Presentations can be in a number of formats. Proposals are due February 9, 2018.
  • The Centre d’histoire des régulations sociales has issued a CFP for an upcoming international conference on La Grande Transition, on the global dominance of neo-liberalism and capitalism, to take place in May 2018. Proposals are due January 26, 2018.

Week of December 24, 2017

• Check out these cool pictures by photographer Reuben Sallows of everyday life in late 19^th century Ontario.
• Russell Potter posted this transcript of a letter (likely) dictated by Ebierbing (“Joe”), one of the Inuit guides that assisted Charles Francis Hall in his search for the Franklin Expedition, regarding a conflict between the two men.
• This week Instantanés showcased a notebook in which Dr. Jean- François-Régis Latraverse recounted the life around him in Sorel, Quebec, in the late 19^th What a cool find!
• This week’s most commonly used words in #envhist, according to Jessica DeWitt, were: “New,” “GIS,” and “Canadian.”
• The Empire, Trees, and Climate in the North Atlantic blog featured a new post by Kristen Geer about her research into race, geography, and performance with respect to Dokis First Nation, Franz Boas, and the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.
• L. Bell reviewed Sam White’s A Cold Welcome: The Little Ice Age and Europe’s Encounter with North America.
• Find out about the history of winter activities on the frozen surface of Atla Lake in Whistler.
• The latest Walk Around Town post from the St. Catharines Museum blog takes us to Welland Canal.
• In a great post on Histoire Engagée this week, Christine Chevalier-Caron looks historical “fake news” in Quebec, showing the similarities between contemporary Islamophobic news coverage, and anti-semitic news coverage in the 1930s and 1940s.
• In the latest post in LAC’s Who Do We Think We Are Series, guest curator Nicolette Michienzi looks at historical propaganda posters and photographic advertising.
• Also from LAC this week is a blog post about Lester B. Pearson, and the role he played in shaping modern Canada and Canadian culture.
• Joanne Hammond looked back on the ancient relationship between humans, trees, and forests.
• In their fifth annual review of the most important historical event 100 years ago for Active History, Aaron Boyes and Sean Graham picked the most important event of 1917; I won’t spoil it. 😉
• The Canadian Gay and Lesbian Archive has digitized 649 historical LGTBQ+ t-shirts that are now available to view online! Check them out here.
• Krista McCracken put together a great list of reading that changed her thinking this past year. And she kindly included my blog post on student evaluations!
• Zoe Todd wrote a great Twitter essay on the intergenerational impact of inequality and colonialism in Indigenous and minority communities. Our histories still impact our bodies!
• Find out about Bruno De Lorenzi’s work on the water feature at the Toronto Reference Library.
• Heritage Winnipeg looks back at the history of the First Church of Christ, Scientist.
• Christopher Moore published a biography of Edith Sheppard, an early Canadian female lawyer.
• The latest biography from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography is for BC jurist Francis Brooke Gregory.
• The Canadian Encyclopedia has updated its entry for the excavation of L’Anse aux Meadows.
• This week, the Archives of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto takes a look at travel during the holidays.
• Canadian History in the News
  • The new Royal Alberta Museum is set to open in 2018, and will feature considerably more Indigenous history than it had previously. The new Indigenous displays were created in consultation with local Indigenous communities.
    • And here is information about one of the exhibits, on the women of Saddle Lake First Nation.
  • Find out about the work fourteen-year-old Timmy Masso (Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation) is doing to revitalize the Nuu-chah-nulth language.
  • Do you know about the history of the first known Christmas tree in North America? Hint: it has nothing to do with Queen Victoria.
    • More here!
  • After the Halifax Explosion, Christmas brought hope, generosity, discomfort, and grief.
  • CBC profiled the Graphic History Collective’s Remember|Resist|Redraw project, and its aim to showcase disruptive histories.
    • And you can see them featured on CBC Calgary at this link, at the 13 minute 50 second timestamp!
    • And on the CBC podcast, The World, at 23 minutes and 15 seconds.
  • I can’t read it because of a paywall, but Ian Mosby wrote a piece for the Literary Review of Canada on culinary nostalgia.
  • So CBC is putting together a (highly questionable) documentary on a the highly disputed Solutrean hypothesis (where Europeans came to North America 20,000 years ago).
    • Douglas Hunter talks about why this is a really big problem.
  • Chris Andersen wrote a fantastic piece for The Walrus about the confusion around the term ‘Métis’, particularly in relation to the census.
  • CBC looks back on the march from Fredericton to Quebec City, completed 180 years ago this week, by the 43^rd Infantry Regiment as part of the Lower Canada Rebellion.
  • It remains unclear who exactly can be considered the first Indigenous person to play hockey in the NHL. James Milks believes that the title rightfully belongs to Henry “Buddy” Maracle, and also discusses Jim “Jimmy” Jamieson, Paul Jacobs, and Fred Saskamoose, all of whom deserve recognition.
  • On its fiftieth anniversary, CBC looks back at the Yukon Alpine Centennial Expedition.
  • Canadian Geographic looks at how the Sahtuto’ine Dene of Déline created and manage the Tsá Tué Biosphere Reserve.
  • The Record spoke with Danielle Robichaud about her digitization work at the University of Waterloo.
    • And find out about some of their rare books!
  • The Tablet profiled George Benjamin, the first Jew in Canada elected to a municipal office in 1836 and who is considered by some to be the first Jew elected to the Canadian parliament, serving under Sir John A. Macdonald.
  • Archivists and researchers are finding some really neat things in Leonard Cohen’s papers at the University of Toronto.
  • Patty Winsa asks whether or not territorial acknowledgements are empty gestures.
  • Saskatchewan History is no more.
  • Researchers at the University of Toronto are cataloguing the university’s collection of historical scientific instruments and artifacts.
  • What stories does this eighteenth century Great Seal of Upper Canada tell us?

Week of December 31, 2017

• This week’s most commonly used words in #envhist, according to Jessica DeWitt, were: “Air,” “Force,” and “Environmental.”
• John Reid reposted a piece by former LAC archivist and librarian, Ian Wilson, on the issue of the Census Wars.
• The Vancouver As It Was blog takes a look at how Vancouver helped to make B.B. Hilliam a noted composer and producer.
• Check out this New Year’s poem from the January 1^st 1781 issue of The Quebec Gazette, and its slightly shady history.
• If any of you also watched the Royal Canadian Air Farce’s New Year’s Eve special, you know they had a segment on the Monument Wars. Sean Carleton put together this Twitter essay commending the segment and discussing why it is important.
• This week NiCHE highlighted its five most popular posts of 2017!
• You need to read this Twitter thread by Daniel Heath Justice, addressed to residential school apologists who dismiss the testimony of survivors.
• Angela Wright has put together a must-read list of 17 articles from 2017 on race/racism, Black peoples, and Indigenous peoples. History is a huge part of this conversation.
• Tabea Cornel showcases some of the Osler Library’s collection of materials related to handedness.
• Jeanne Carter has returned an ancient arrowhead she discovered at Fort York eighty-two years ago to the city of Toronto.
  • More on this here.
• Andrew King went on the hunt for Ottawa’s first brewery, ironically located in Brewery Bay.
• Music by Roméo Beaudry has been added to LAC’s Virtual Gramophone.
• In the latest episode of the Historical Reminiscents podcast, Krista McCracken talks about self care and communities of care!
• UBC now owns the first item ever printed in Vancouver, an issue of The Vancouver Weekly Herald, which appeared in 1886.
• Bill Fleury has written the latest blog post for The Champlain Society about a letter he found by his great-uncle to Wilfrid Laurier on the trade reciprocity Agreement of 1910.
• The Canadian Encyclopedia has updated its entry on the Rocky Mountain Trench, and published a new entry on Beatrice Worsley.
• Whistorical shares some pictures showing how New Years was celebrated in years past.
• The Toronto Reference Library blog has created this cheeky list of popular New Year’s resolutions, with historical illustrations!
• The Archives of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto highlighted how Matthew O’Connor started 1889.
• Bill Waiser’s latest post focuses on the collision between two trains at the Union stockyards in Saskatoon during WW2.
• Artwork by William Pope, sometimes called the “Canadian Audubon,” is now available online from the Toronto Reference Library.
• Find out about the latest acquisitions at the Centre d’archives de la Grade Zone argileuse.
• This week Instantanés profiled Marcel Portal, a doctor, writer, and artist.
• The Royal Newfoundland Regiment postcard and photograph album collection is now available online.
• The University of Saskatchewan Archives and Special Collections counts down the 12 Days of Archives.
• Canadian History in the News
  • A certain racist senator was in the news again, but I refuse to give her any more attention.
  • Garnet Angeconeg (Lac Seul First Nation), a residential school survivor and noted activist, warned Andrew Scheer several months ago about the letters posted on a certain senator’s website.
  • Jesse Wente has a must-read op-ed on CBC on Canada 150, Indigenous resistance, and speaking truth to colonial power.
  • I include this with reservations: A group of scientists have conducted genetic testing on the remains of a 20,000-years-old Indigenous girl named Xach’itee’aanenh T’eede Gaay (Sunrise Girl-Child in Middle Tanana Athabaskan), and have concluded that this is evidence of a new North American population they are calling the “Ancient Beringians.” This article also states that the land bridge theory is widely accepted, so its conclusions are questionable.
    • Following this news, and the news from last week about the Solutrean Hypothesis, Angela Sterritt has a must-read Twitter essay on why the persistence of this theory, and the Bering Straight Hypothesis, are harmful to Indigenous peoples.
  • Alicia Elliot has written a fantastic piece in The Globe and Mail on the need for the recognition of Indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination and self-government, as well as nation-to-nation dialogue between the Canadian government and Indigenous communities.
  • In news that I am sure is shocking to everyone, people have been complaining about BC real estate assessment for the past forty-three years.
  • The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation is highlighting the story of four boys who ran away from the Lejac Residential School in 1937 and died while trying to cross Fraser Lake.
  • I’m not going to include all of the 1998 Ice Storm coverage, because it’s pretty redundant, but I did like how Canadian Geographic shows the path of destruction that followed the storm.
  • In news that I think is pretty cool, anyone working at smu’q wa ala (Place of the Great Blue Heron), site of the former Riverview hospital, has the option to take a heritage certificate program to help them learn to spot artifacts. The program was developed thanks to efforts by the Kwikwetlem First Nation.
  • Colour film footage of the 1939 visit by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (later, the Queen Mum) to Winnipeg has been found.
  • Because there is no justice in this world, Stephen Harper is getting a tax credit for donating his papers to LAC.
  • Parks Canada is seeking input regarding the future of Rogers Pass.
  • Metro spoke with Robb Gilbert about his work cataloguing the EMI Music Canada collection.
  • Check out these seven surprises from the McMaster Archives.
  • Bob Cameron is restoring a Hiller 360 helicopter that crashed in the Yukon in 1952.
  • The Globe and Mail spoke with Cheryl Foggo about her upcoming film on John Ware.
  • BlogTO tries to determine which year saw Toronto’s worst winter. This seems highly unscientific.
  • Marthe Léger was interviewed several times this week! In this interview, she spoke about the correspondence between Marion Deichmann (a Montrealer) and Hélène Stevens (a Parisian) from 1946 to 1950.
  • Better Late than Never
    • UBC spoke with Tara Mayer about her collaboration with the Museum of Vancouver around the creation of a course on material history and curation around the MofV’s collection of South Asian artifacts. This sounds super cool!
  • Calls for Papers
    • The Thinking Mountains Interdisciplinary Conference has issued a CFP for its upcoming conference in Banff in October 2018. Paper, session, and poster proposals on a wide variety of subjects are welcome, and are due February 23, 2018.
    • The Northeast and Atlantic Region Environmental History Forum has issued a CFP for its upcoming Seventh Annual Workshop, in June 2018. Proposals are due March 3, 2018.
    • The North American Society of Oceanic History is seeking paper and panel proposals for their upcoming annual conference. This year’s theme is “From the Rivers to the Oceans.” Proposals are due February 1, 2018.

Week of January 7, 2018

• This week’s most commonly used words in #envhist, according to Jessica DeWitt, were: “Collapse,” “Maya,” and “Environmental.”
• Borealia is back this week with a new post by G. Patrick O’Brien about the Robie Women in Loyalist Halifax, displays of empathy, social visits, public expressions of grief, and the “misery’ of refugee life.
• Colleen Burgess and Thomas Peace have a must-read piece on Active History this week about how 19^th century research and archival practices continue to impact 21^st century research, particularly with respect to the problem of categorization. And I really want to do this kind of exercise with my students.
• The Acadiensis blog is also back from winter break this week with a new post by Heidi MacDonald on the presidency of Sister Catherine Wallace at Mount Saint Vincent University, between 1965 and 1974, and how she worked to transform it into a modern, feminist institution.
• First up from NiCHE this week is a review by John Baeten of Arn Keeling and John Sandlos’s edited collection, Mining and Communities in Northern Canada: History, Politics, and Memory.
• This week The Recipes Project blog interviewed Kathryn Harvey and Melissa McAfee, from Special Collections at the University of Guelph Library, about their amazing collection of cookbooks and books about food.
• Charlie Hall looks back on the accomplishments of the Beyond the Spectacle blog over the course of the past year.
• All this week the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Law Faculty Blog (we need an acronym!) looks at treaties in Canada, including posts on
  • The history of treaties and treaty-making in Canada
  • What Elders know about the meaning and intent of Treaty 6
  • Cross-cultural translation and the signatories of Treaties 6, 7, and 8
  • A close reading of Treaty 6
  • Land claim agreements, self-government agreements, and the modern treaty process, particularly in BC.
• The Maple Stars and Stripes podcast has a new episode on the filles à marier, women who came to New France to marry long before the filles du roi and without the involvement of the French government.
• Robyn Lawson wrote this really important blog post on the damage done to Indigenous individuals and communities by the Sixties Scoop, particularly with respect to her own experiences.
• Joanne Hammond has a new Twitter essay this week on why we need to teach better Canadian history. Hear, hear!
• LAC profiled their collection of materials relating to artist Yves Baril.
• Daniel Heath Justice has an absolutely epic take-down of a certain racist senator’s remarks.
• This week on Unwritten Histories, I looked back on my memories of the 1998 Ice Storm, and how we use the past to make sense of the present. I have to say that Andrew Watson’s title, “Frozen in Time,” is way better.
• Also from Active History is a new post about touring Canada’s WW1 battlefields, based on a conversation between Sarah Glassford and Ady King.
• In the latest episode of the Ben Franklin’s World podcast, Liz Covart speaks with Andrea Smalley about her book, Wild by Nature: North American Animals Confront Colonization.
• Sylvain Raymond has written the latest blog post from the Canadian Museum of History, on the role of snow with respect to Canadian identity. The horse snowshoes are killing me.
• Michigan State University has received a $1.5 million Mellon Foundation Grant to create a new database on the Atlantic slave trade.
• Erin Millions’s dissertation, “’By education and conduct:’ educating trans-imperial Indigenous fur-trade children in the Hudson’s Bay Company Territories and the British Empire, 1820 to 1870s,” is now available online!
• The Canadian Encyclopedia has posted a new entry for Plains Cree Chief Peyawiw-Awasis (Thunderchild).
• Cynthia Wallace-Casey has written a new post in Active History’s History curriculum series on New Brunswick’s approach to teaching history and social science at the elementary and high school levels.
• Sarah Shulist has written a great blog post explaining the power of language and the meaning of words, particularly with respect to Indigeneity and Métis identity. And the meme is just perfect.
• Paul Seesequasis has a powerful thread on Twitter this week about the Gordon Indian Residential School, which closed in 1996. As he puts it, the abuses suffered there are “not ancient history.”
  • @Indigenia shared the story of his amazing father’s escape from Pierre Indian School in response.
• Also on Active Histoiry this week is a new piece by Christo Aivalis responding to the Tim Horton’s minimum wage controversy by looking back on the history of capitalism and the need of demand-side economics.
• Laura Ishiguro wrote a fascinating Twitter thread on representations of history in Canadian passports and the citizenship guide.
• The Acadiensis blog remembered the late Murray Young.
• In the latest post in LAC’s Who Do We Think We Are Series, guest curator Scott Dickinson talks about historical photographs, including daguerreotypes and candid snapshots.
• The City of Vancouver Archives has an update on which of their holdings have just entered the public domain.
  • And here is some more information about other works entering the public domain in Canada.
• Whitney Larratt-Smith has a new blog post on Engagement about tailings ponds, naturecultures, and the Alberta oil sands, particularly with respect to a mass die-off of waterfowl at the Syncrude Canada’s Aurora tailings pond.
• Krista McCracken has published the latest episode of the Historical Reminiscents podcast, a look at creating a healthy writing practice.
• Chris Ryan demonstrates how to use OnLand, a new database for searching Ontario Land Property Records.
• Steph Halmhofer has a fantastic new blog post about pseudoarchaeology, including (supposed) evidence of 15^th century Chinese settlements in Nova Scotia and the Solutrean Hypothesis.
• Todd Kristensen has written a guest post for Retroactive on the role of ammonite fossils in Blackfoot First Nations culture, particularly how iniskim have been used as ceremonial objects. And, notably, the author discusses the ethics of posting pictures of Indigenous ceremonial objects, and obtained permission to do so from representatives of the Blackfoot community prior to publication.
• Find out about some of the collection practices of the Canadian Gay and Lesbian Archives in this interview with executive director, Raegan Swanson.
• Danielle Robichaud was interviewed by Wikipedia Education about her work to improve Wikipedia’s content.
• Heritage Winnipeg looks back on the history of transportation, particularly with respect to the McLaughlin Carriage Company.
• Aylan Couchi (Anishinaabe) has written a great Twitter thread about some of the TRC’s findings from volume six of the Final Report.
• George Twiss has written the latest blog on the Scots in British Columbia blog, all about the evolution of Burns Suppers in Vancouver, and the creation of the Gung Haggis Fat Choy Robbie Burns Chinese New Year Dinner.
• Eve Lazarus is back with a new blog post, on the 65^th anniversary of the discovery of the Babes in the Wood, one of Vancouver’s most well-known murder mysteries. Content warning: true crime.
• Whistorical highlights the life of Paul Burrow, the founder of The Whistler Question, a publication that will be closing its doors later this month.
• The Canadian Encyclopedia has published new entries on Helen Sawyer Hogg and Heartland, and updated their entry on Shawnadithit.
• The History of Madness in Canada website has just been relaunched with new exhibits!
• Stephen Bocking reviewed Moving Natures: Mobility and the Environment in Canadian History.
• Instantanés shared some pictures showing what life was like in Nunavik for the Inuit in the mid-twentieth century.
• Find out how the Toronto Reference Library is conserving the work of children’s illustrator, Elizabeth Mrazik-Cleaver.
• Find out about the New Brunswick Great War Project, an initiative from the Archives of New Brunswick to preserve and make available to the public a collection of sources regarding the province’s involvement tin WW1.
• This week’s Walk Around Town from the St. Catharines Museum looks at one man’s view on slavery from 1856. Approach with caution.
• The Archives of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto take a look at their collection of relics.
• Look back at the history of Richmond, BC’s town halls!
• Check out this dual Twitter thread by Joanne Hammond and Mariah Gladstone about educators who are interested in putting up totem poles, especially when they don’t come from an area where totem poles are made. In other words, know your local history!
• Joanne Hammond also has another great Twitter thread on residential school trauma.
• The latest biography from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography is for Lucy Maud Montgomery.
• The Canadian Museum of History shared a photo of this Tsimshian mask, from around 1870.
• They also shared a photo of these boots, collected by Diamond Jenness from an (unnamed) Puivlik family on Victoria Island.
• Check out the transcript of Guy Berthiaume’s talk at the Ontario Museums Association conference, on why memory institutions are so important.
• Canadian History in the News
  • Daniel Macfarlane has written a new piece for The Washington Post on the history of engineering of Niagara Falls in an effort to balance aesthetics with practicality.
  • Of course Labrador has a 90-year-old snowmobile that is functional.
  • CTV spoke with Petra Turcotte about the work she is doing to curate an archive of artwork, music, letters, and objects from the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women.
  • CBC spoke with Johnathan Swainger about why Prince George has a reputation as a dangerous city.
  • BlogTO looks back on the winter of 1918 Toronto. Spoiler alert: it was cold.
  • While I disagree with the characterization that “indigenous groups [have grown] more assertive” (ugh), this article in The Economist looks at the movement to replace European place names with Indigenous place names.
  • The Sir John’s Public House in Kingston is changing its name! (the Sir John in this case being Sir John A. Macdonald.)
  • The newly launched Driftscape app, highlighting Toronto’s Indigenous history, and its creator Jon Johnson were profiled by Vice.
  • In the latest Dig It column, Joanne Hammond writes about the archaeology of trees.
  • The Sagkeeng Oldtimers, an Indigenous hockey team made up largely of residential school survivors, are being featured in a new exhibit at Canada’s Hockey Hall of Fame.
  • Barry Cahill reviewed the Champlain Society’s latest volume by David Sutherland, We Harbor No Evil Design, on the Halifax Explosion for Atlantic Books Today.
  • Following a massive petition campaign by Blaine Favel (Poundmaker Cree Nation), Chief Pîhtokahanapiwiyin (Poundmaker) will be pardoned by the Canadian government.
  • Angela Sterritt published a must-read column responding to the Solutrean Hypothesis and the “Ancient Beringians,” noted above. In this column, she spoke with Paulette Steeves (Cree and Metis), Oscar Dennis (Tahltan), Haida elder Woodrow Morrison, and Nisga’a elder Willard Martin about how these migration theories harm Indigenous peoples and communities.
    • Muskrat Magazine also wrote about the problems with the CBC documentary, and interviewed Kisha Supernant.
  • The Globe and Mail profiled filmmaker Raymend Yakeleya (Shotah Dene), and the work he is doing to document history from an Indigenous perspective.
  • Christo Aivalis spoke with Global News about the backlash against the new regulations at Tim Horton’s.
  • John Lorinc has written a great piece for The Walrus about how federal and provincial laws deny Indigenous communities their own archaeological heritage, largely due to their emphasis on ownership.
  • I dare you not to make a CBC joke after reading this.
  • Erin Sylvester wonders what makes historical re-enactors tick. Also, what’s the deal with so many good history articles in The Walrus lately?
  • Lawrence Norbert (from Tsiigehtchic, N.W.T.), a residential school survivor, has written a letter condemning the behaviour of a certain senator, and is asking that the letter posted in support on her website be signed with first and last names.
  • The Vancouver Sun and The Province are both donating their photographic negatives from the 1940s to the 1990s to the City of Vancouver Archives. You can see some of these amazing images in the article linked above.
  • It’s not an easy read, but I highly recommend Lindsay Nixon’s (Cree-Métis-Saulteaux) sharp take on the historical relationship between Quebec nationalism and white supremacy, colonialism, and xenophobia.
  • The Royal BC Museum has nominated early Indigenous audio recordings, and related materials, collected by Ida Halpern for the UNESCO world memory program.
  • A number of individuals are raising concerns about the future of the archives from newspapers that were shut down by Postmedia and Torstar.
  • Find out about the role that Judith Merril played in starting The Toronto Public Library’s speculative fiction collection.
  • Canadian Geographic profiles the eight candidates nominated by Parks Canada for designation as a UNESCO World Heritage site.
  • The diaries of Daryl Peters, WW1 veteran from Saint John, have been discovered in Wisconsin.
  • An archaeologist has dated an ancient Indigenous hunting tool found in the Yukon to nearly 1,000 years ago, making it the oldest copper object found in the Yukon. However, this article does mention that this information fits with the stories told by Carcross/Tagish First Nation elders.
  • The façade of the Marshall Brothers Tea Company is preserved inside the Central Library in London, ON.
  • The public inquiry into abuses at the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children has just released their second report, describing how systemic racism allowed for decades of abuse.
  • Check out some of the cool artifacts on display in a new exhibit on the Ward.
  • Kim Christenson has written the latest Dig It column, which highlights some of the important archaeological sites around the Kamloops area.
  • Tom Power spoke with the bassist of ‘B’ Girls, about what it was like to be part of Toronto’s first all-female punk back in the 1980s.
  • Someone thought it would be a good idea to feature the Poundmaker Cree Nation in a video game without actually talking to them first. The fact that it’s the game Civilization just makes this worse.
  • Prince George has added trees to their heritage register for the first time.
  • Doronn Fox spoke with CBC about the history of Dene hand games.
  • Check out this great new project to revitalize the Copper Inuit and Nattillingmiut dialects from the Kitikmeot Inuit Association, Huqqullaarutit Unipkaangit — Stories Told Through Drum-Dance Songs.
  • Climate change is revealing Indigenous history preserved in the ice.
  • Do you know about Saint John’s Fort Dufferin?
  • Benoit Marsan critiques the new Quebec plan to fight poverty through a comparison with social assistance services in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, particularly around the idea of the “deserving” or “undeserving” poor.
  • The Ontario Superior Court has issued a ruling saying that Ottawa can continue to reject police and court transcripts presented as evidence in student-on-student compensation claims from survivors of the St. Anne’s Indian Residential School.
  • While well-intentioned, this proposal for the Cornwallis statue, from a group of students, is very problematic.
  • Eryk Martin was interviewed by the John McComb Show about the history of anarchic activism in BC.
  • So apparently a historic landmark from Maine floated into New Brunswick, and now the Americans want it back.
• Better Late than Never
  • Daniel Francis was interviewed by Sheryl MacKay on the occasion of his recent Pierre Berton Award, and a number of other subjects. The portion of the podcast featuring him starts at 1 hour and 19 minutes.
• Calls for Papers
  • The deadline for the 4^th Black Canadian Studies Association Conference has been extended to February 28^th, 2018.
  • The deadline for the Hilda Neatby Article Prizes and the CCHW Book Prize has been extended to January 19^th, 2018.
  • The CHA is calling for project proposals relating to the TRC that would benefit from funding. The deadline to apply is March 31, 2018.
  • The Canadian History of Education Association has issued a CFP for their upcoming 20^th Biennial Conference, to take place in October 2018. The theme of this year’s conference is: “Cultures, Communities, Challenges: Perspectives on the History of Education.” Paper proposals are due March 1^st, 2018.
  • The Graduate History Association at the University of Buffalo has issued a CFP for its 27^th Annual Milton Plesur Graduate History Conference. This year’s theme is: “Rediscovering Oceanus: 21^st Century Approaches to the Atlantic World.” Paper proposals are due January 26^th, 2018.

If you’re curious, the roundup was 17 pages, single spaced. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to lie down. I hope you enjoyed this (monster) 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! See you then!

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