Restricted Records: How Hong Kong Communities Lose Out When Archives Stay Closed

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Some of the files released to the author under the FOI Act (image by author).

Matthew Hurst

Access to sources determines what can and cannot be researched. Outside of academia, access also affects the public’s capacity to maintain a tangible link to the past. Collections are especially important for expatriate communities. In this post, I describe how Hong Kong’s diasporic communities are being denied access to 88,000 records created during the colonial era.

In a recent Active History contribution, June Chow wrote about a successful collaboration between academics and archivists that resulted in a positive outcome for the Chinese Canadian community. Chow submitted an Access to Information and Privacy request to Library and Archives Canada, which in turn suggested that a block request would be more appropriate. This block request led to the opening of a significant number of files relating to the 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act and revealed hitherto unknown stories of injustice, activism and family reunion. In Chow’s case, researchers and information professionals worked together to unlock records that have brought insights to the Chinese Canadian community. This was a success story; however, not all attempts to access information end in this way.

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Queering Mi’kma’ki: Sharing the Story of the Puoinaq

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Emily Pictou-Roberts and Jess Wilton

An Indigenous artistic interpretation of the 1950 census from the Shubenacadie Agency (image 251) created by Emily Pictou-Roberts.

In the Mi’kmaw language, puoin (boo-oh-in) refers to a shaman or witch. In Mi’kmaki — the area we now call Atlantic Canada and parts of Maine and Québec—these puoinaq (plural of puoin) are sacred figures who possess the ability to shapeshift and to convoke the spirit world. In recent years, Queer and Trans Indigenous communities within Mi’kma’ki have refocused the term as a culturally specific concept of Two-Spirit identity. Compared to other Indigenous cultures across Turtle Island, the Mi’kmaq have experienced one of the longest colonial histories. As a result, there remain few traces of gender nonconformity or queerness in traditional records on the East Coast. However, with care, we can find and reclaim traces of Queer and Trans Indigenous identities across these records and narratives. Inspired by Mi’kmaw History Month, this installment of Queering Atlantic Canada troubles our understanding of region with Indigenous methodologies; it also offers a method to queering Indigenous history and culture through the Mi’kmaw language and storytelling alongside our own against-the-grain readings of the colonial record.  

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Russ Moses’ Residential School Memoir – What’s Old is News

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By Sean Graham

This week, I talk with John Moses ahead of his November 3 Shannon Lecture entitled ‘This is not my story, but yours: The Russ Moses residential school memoir.’ We discuss his father’s experiences at the Mohawk Institute, his military service, and Reconciliation. You can hear John talk about the memoir on Monday November 3 as part of the Shannon Lecture Series.

Historical Headline of the Week

Justin Chandler, ‘Woodland Cultural Centre, Ex-Residential School Turned Museum, Draws Hundreds Aiming to Learn and Share Truths,’ CBC, September 30, 2025.

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Jell-O Comes to Canada: “America’s most famous dessert” and the Politics of Place

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Michael Dawson

Since its creation in 1897, Jell-O has been synonymous with the United States. Early Jell-O dessert booklets featured George Washington’s visage.1 American entertainment icons ranging from Jack Benny to Bill Cosby have pitched it to consumers. American astronauts shared it with their Russian counterparts on the Mir space station. And several online commentators were quick to suggest that Canadians boycott the wobbly stuff in response to Donald Trump’s tariff threats. Jell-O is clearly an enduring symbol of Americana.2 And yet its history is more transnational and complicated than one might think. Indeed, Jell-O’s reception and significance has been shaped not simply by its country of origin but by where (and how) it is promoted and consumed.

Figure 1. America’s most famous president sells America’s most famous dessert. Source: University of Guelph Archives & Special Collections [UGASC], Jell-O: America’s Most Famous Dessert (LeRoy, NY; Jell-O Co., 1926), cover. [Public Domain]

Canada is part of that story. We don’t know when the first package of Jell-O made its way into a Canadian kitchen, but we do know that by 1905 a Jell-O branch plant had been established in Bridgeburg, Ontario. A flurry of Canadian-based promotional material followed. For example, the Jell-O Company of Canada immediately tempted Canadians with a booklet offering “New Jell-O recipes” while a booklet titled Jell-O the Dainty Dessert championed Jell-O as a “Made in Canada” product.3 Indeed, by the mid-1920s a product that had first been marketed as “America’s Most Famous Dessert” was being advertised north of the border as “Canada’s Most Famous Dessert.”

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Métis Kinship in Northwestern Ontario: A Tale of Two Families

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Julia Grummitt

Map showing the Hudson's Bay Company's Lac la Pluie district, located in present-day northwestern Ontario and parts of Minnesota.


In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Métis communities emerged across a region of North America known as the historic North-West. These communities were formed by Indigenous descendants of the fur trade—the children of European fur traders and Indigenous women—who over generations of endogamy (intermarriage) developed a distinct identity as Métis with a shared culture, political consciousness, and way of life.[1]

Kinship provided the foundation upon which distinct Métis communities grew.[2] Bonds between parents, children, spouses, godparents and friends were the social and economic structure that facilitated trade, ensured survival, and established a distinctly Métis identity. As Métis travelled throughout their homeland—the lands and waterways of the historic North-West, which stretched well beyond the borders of present-day Manitoba—they lived out kinship on a daily basis. They worked together in the fur trade, raised their families alongside each other, and travelled to hunt, trade, and visit relatives.  When Canadian colonization encroached on their lands, Métis families united to defend their rights and their freedom.

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History Will Be Livestreamed

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By Nir Hagigi

In October 2023, as Israeli bombs began to fall on Gaza, something unprecedented unfolded. For the first time in history, the victims of mass atrocity —and only the victims— broadcast their own destruction in real time. Unlike previous conflicts where foreign journalists or outside observers mediated what the world saw, in Gaza the task of witnessing fell almost entirely to Palestinians themselves, because Israel barred international media from entering. Through TikTok livestreams, Instagram stories, and Telegram updates, they documented life under genocide with no outside press on the ground. The crisis in Gaza has been called a “livestreamed genocide” in Amnesty International’s annual report, a label that has been used since the start of the war by pro-Palestinian activists in the West.

While wars and atrocities have always been depicted in the media, the immediacy, intimacy, and sheer volume of testimony coming out of Gaza mark a turning point in the politics of witnessing. To understand what makes Gaza different, it helps to place this moment in historical perspective.

The idea that media changes the way people experience war is not new. In the 19th century, the telegraph allowed near-instant communication from battlefields for the first time, which revolutionized journalism during conflicts like the Crimean War. Yet, even then, reports were filtered through war correspondents and often biased to fit political agendas.

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How the History of the Anti-mask and Anti-vaccination Movements Hang Together

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Thomas Schlich and Bruno J. Strasser

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is best known as a vaccination skeptic, but he is also skeptical about using masks for infection control. At the Libertarian National Convention in Washington, DC in May 2024, Kennedy Jr. recalled being asked during the pandemic whether he was scared of dying of COVID-19 since he wasn’t wearing a mask. His answer at the time was: “There’s a lot worse things than dying,” including “living like a slave”. The audience broke into applause.

Such an opinion is not new. A century earlier, during the influenza pandemic, citizen Frank Bobich told a Sacramento police officer that he would rather “be killed or hanged” than cover his face with a mask. Bobich had a mask in his pocket but refused to comply with the city-wide mask mandate. These blusterous statements reveal that for many people masks mean much more than protection against infectious diseases. They are not about health, but freedom. For this reason, the history of masks – and opposition to mask mandates – offers a unique window into the tense relationships between scientific expertise, medical authority, and state power. 

Book cover of history academic text on the topic of mask. Cover depicts two men, in sits, wearing helmets and gas masks.

Bruno J Strasser & Thomas Schlich’s new book, The Mask, is out now with Yale University Press

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Bridging the Gap: The Legacy of the Soviet “Revisionist Turn” 

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Stan Vassilenko

Historian Sheila Fitzpatrick before the Moskva River during her first visit to Moscow in 1969. Image courtesy of Sheila Fitzpatrick.

Academia continues to face a knowledge gap between scholarship and the public sphere, a fact that is especially prevalent when it comes to how we talk about Russia. In today’s world where headlines and social media tend to be people’s chief information suppliers, the resurgence of Cold War narratives of the Soviet Union as a totalitarian monolith or an autocracy by tradition colour Russia’s identity in public discourse, especially since the invasion of Ukraine. This suggests that changes in disciplinary perspectives occur separately from popular opinion, which calls on the historian to modify their tactics for writing history in the public eye. 

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Call For Contributors: Join the Active History Project This Fall!

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As we head into the fall season, we want to invite new contributors to help build the Active History Project! Activehistory.ca invites proposals for standalone blog posts, thematic blog series, and other contributions, all of which explore new research, innovative historical approaches, and history that matters today.

We welcome submissions from historians and scholars in related disciplines who engage with historical questions and would like to connect with the wider historical community in an accessible and easily digestible format. Whether you’re a graduate student, early-career scholar, or someone working outside of traditional academia, we encourage interdisciplinary perspectives and community-engaged research.

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The Continuing Relevance of Museums in Canada

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Cara Tremain

Group of young university students handle archeological materials in classroom setting.
SFU archaeology students handling materials from the department’s diverse teaching collections. Photograph by Cara Tremain.

This summer, the Government of Canada helped to promote visits to museums through the Canada Strong pass. While initially focused on seven of the country’s nine national museums, other provinces and territories also opted to offer reduced and free admission. Ultimately, 87 museums across the country were part of the initiative, and early data indicates that it helped to boost attendance. While the removal of admission fees increases accessibility, and – in turn – public enjoyment and appreciation of museums, the reality is that museums across the country are suffering from a lack of resources. To be effective stewards of the cultural heritage that they care for, museums need adequate financial support. However, as outlined in the 2023 report concerning renewal of the national museum policy, the majority of the country’s museums (~1500) do not receive funding from the federal government even though there is public support for them to do so.

While it remains to be seen whether a new museum policy will bring improved financial backing, the government are financially stepping up to contribute $50 million to the forthcoming Nunavut Inuit Heritage Center. This support emphasizes the government’s responsibility to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, which includes several articles outlining rights to cultural heritage and associated cultural expressions. While Canada continues to lack a national repatriation policy, the country’s museums have been facilitating access to – and return of – Indigenous belongings for some time. At the Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology (MAE) at Simon Fraser University, for example, repatriation has been an important element of its practice and teachings for decades.

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