By Sean Graham In 1994, Lynn Gehl applied for registration as an ‘Indian’ with the federal government. Unable to provide evidence as to the identity of her paternal grandfather, meant that, under the terms of the Indian Act, she was not entitled to registration, despite her paternal grandmother having status. What followed was a long challenge to the Indian Act… Read more »
Donald Wright Archive stories are stories about, well, archives, the things that we find in them, and the things that we know we will never find. They are also invitations to reflect on how and why archival evidence – from a routinely-generated source to a single photograph – was created and what it can and can’t tell us about the… Read more »
Earlier this month, the Graphic History Collective released Remember/Resist/Redraw poster #23 by Gord Hill and Sean Carleton. The poster looks at the Shut Down Canada movement and the long history of police violence and Indigenous resistance in what is currently Canada. We hope that Remember | Resist | Redraw encourages people to critically examine history in ways that can fuel… Read more »
By Sean Graham June 4 is Tom Longboat Day, which recognizes the life and career of one of the best distance runners to ever represent Canada. Winner of the 1907 Boston Marathon, Longboat is remembered for both his athletic achievements and innovative training methods. From the Six Nations of the Grand River Reserve near Brantford, ON, Longboat faced racism and… Read more »
With summer in full swing and many people enjoying the outdoors, the Graphic History Collective has released RRR Poster #20 that looks at the history of national parks, colonial dispossession, and Indigenous resilience in what is currently Canada. The poster, by Nancy Kimberley Phillips and Wacey Little Light, illustrates how many Indigenous peoples experience the “conservation” of Canada’s national parks… Read more »
Editors at Active History have been discussing the conclusions of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Women and Girls since they were released earlier this month. In thinking of the best way to amplify the findings laid out in the report, “Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Women and Girls,”… Read more »
Today, 23 October, is the 52nd anniversary of Chanie Wenjack’s death. Chanie (misnamed Charlie by his teachers) was a 12-year-old Anishinaabe boy who, along with two other classmates, ran away from the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School in Kenora, Ontario in October 1966. Fleeing the school’s abusive environment, Wenjack tried to make it home to Ogoki Post in northern Ontario,… Read more »
Molly Swain James (Jim) Brady (1908-1967) was a Métis communist community organizer active primarily in northern Alberta and Saskatchewan in the mid-20th century.[i] He played an instrumental role in the formation of the Métis Association of Alberta (now the Métis Nation of Alberta) and the Alberta Métis Settlements. Over nearly four decades, Brady was also involved in organizing resource cooperatives… Read more »
This post originally appeared in French on Histoire Engagée on June 7, 2018. Many thanks to Andrea Eidinger for her work translating this post. Catherine Larochelle In the winter of 2018, I had the opportunity to teach HST2444, Autochtones, État et société au Canada at the Université de Montréal. Over the course of the entire semester, I relied extensively on… Read more »
On April 22, 2017, Michel Hogue delivered his talk “Setting the Plains on Fire: How Indigenous Geo-Politics and the U.S.-Dakota War Shaped Canada’s Westward Expansion.” The talk was part of “The Other 60s: A Decade that Shaped Canada and the World,” a symposium hosted by the Department of History at the University of Toronto as part of its Canada 150… Read more »
