Hostesses from different countries posing for a group photo at Expo 67. Library and Archives Canada, e000990931. CC BY 2.0
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Daughters of two fishermen (The girl on the right has been identified as Susie Etok, here aged 14). Circa 1960. Rosemary Gilliat. Library and Archives Canada, e010835968. CC by 2.0.
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Two young women in front of flags at Place des Nations, Expo 67, on opening day. April 27m 1967. Library and Archives Canada. 3198220
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Two travellers – one man and one woman – consult a road map before the trans-Canada highway sign at the intersection of highways 15 and 17, Ottawa, Ontario (July 1952). Chris Lund. National Film Board. Library and Archives Canada 4292880. Copyright expired.
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Family making a shore dinner on Stony Lake. Mother, Father, and two little girls around fire in the foreground. August 1951. Photo by Chris Lund. National Film Board of Canada. Photothèque / Library and Archives Canada. 4312118 Copyright expired.
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Chris Lund. “Betty Dixon (left) and Barbara Coutts select Indian souvenirs at St. David’s, Ontario. At left is Chief Sky of the Six National Indian Reserve, Brantford, Ontario. At right is Warrior Running Deer.” 1949. Office National du Film du Canada. 4312260. Copyright expired.
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“Piscines de l’île Saint-Hélène, 10 juillet 1965.” Archives de la Ville de Montréal. VM94-Ud-27-017. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
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“Betty Chan, a Chinese Canadian, admiring Pipe Major Bill MacLeod’s tie, made from the MacLeod tartan at the festival in Winnipeg’s Kildonan Park. Winnipeg, Manitoba.” Photo by Chris Lund and Gar Lunney. 1960. Office national du film du Canada. Service de la photographie. R1196-14-7-F. Library and Archives Canada. Copyright expired.
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Massif de fleurs, virevent géants et le Paratrooper, at La Ronde Amusement Park. 1970. Archives de la Ville de Montreal. VM94-EX276-1182 CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
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If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I was recently talking about the Louis Riel podcast episode from Stuff You Missed in History. This blog post is based off of that original Twitter essay.
Special thanks to Krystl Raven, Catherine Ulmer, and Melissa Shaw for their help reviewing this blog post, and also to Krystl Raven and Adam Gaudry for reading recommendations on this subject! Finally, a big thank you to my friends on Facebook, who insisted that I needed to write this post.
As I was getting ready for bed the other night, I received a notification that a podcast that I occasionally listen to, Stuff You Missed in History Class, had a new episode. I clicked over to see what it was, and immediately felt uneasy. The subject was Louis Riel. Not that there is a problem with the subject, but in most cases, the history of Louis Riel is handled poorly.
I do want to make it clear here that I’m not trying to pick on Stuff You Missed in History Class. To be fair, the hosts of the show do not claim to be historians. And the show is not intended to be academically rigorous. It is for entertainment value, though the hosts do try their best to be accurate and provide a list of their sources.
However — and it is a big however — I believe that they failed in their due diligence to ensure that they accurately and fairly represented this particular subject, especially given the sensitive and political nature of it. And I know they can do better; I’ve listened to some great and well-sourced podcast episodes from this show (like their series on Redlining or their “Unearthed” episodes!) But, if you’re using a public platform to explain and disseminate information about history, the onus is on you to present your information accurately and fairly.
This blog post is not a re-telling of the history of Louis Riel. Rather, I focus on some of the major errors in the podcast episode and the ramifications of these mistakes. You may think that this is just another historian griping about some non-historians being inaccurate about random obscure facts that no one else cares about, but perpetuating certain dominant historical narrative can do great harm.