As the teaching of history in Canadian universities seeks to incorporate decolonization, anti-racism, and truth-telling, the work of how to realize these commitments in practice remains emergent. As a Nuu-chah-nulth and a White settler co-teaching team, we delivered a 12-week undergraduate history course at the University of Victoria (UVic) that focused on these commitments. In so doing, we treated relationship and responsibility as essential parts of the work of teaching history at a Canadian university.
This post is an introduction to the series Tomorrow’s Historians: A Reflection on the Graduate Student Experience By Katie Carson and Tiffany Chénier In a pervasive climate of anti-intellectualism and cuts to humanities programs, the decision to pursue a degree in history is an existential one. It is not uncommon for prospective students applying to PhD programs to receive “The Talk.” It… Read more »
By Sarah Kittilsen As a tour guide, I answer a lot of questions. Some are related to the tour itself, but many are not. Guests ask about my life just as much as, if not more than, they ask about the history of Montreal. I wasn’t surprised, then, when a woman turned toward me one summer morning and asked, “So,… Read more »
Shannon Stettner Exterior of Woodside National Historic Site. Photograph by the author, December 2025. Last December I visited Woodside National Historic Site, the boyhood home of Canada’s tenth Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King (WLMK). It was my first visit to the house since 1998 when I was a public history graduate student at the University of Waterloo. Back then,… Read more »
By Annabelle Penney I did not expect to cry on the way home from the Calgary airport. It had been over a year since my last homecoming, and recently I’d wondered if ‘home’ still fit Alberta. I’d forged newfound allegiances to Quebec, a province embroiled in its own separatist debates. While working on my thesis for some of the flight,… Read more »
By Scott Berthelette On August 27, 2026, President of the United States Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the U.S. federal government to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America.” The order requires the U.S. Board on Geographic Names and federal agencies to use the new name on federal maps, databases, documents, and communications. Immediately after Trump’s executive order, Canadian Prime… Read more »
Cynthia Wright and Franca Iacovetta In November 1926, Emma Goldman, then 57 and beginning a first period of exile in Toronto, enthused over a “radiant” young Italian woman seated at a welcoming dinner for Goldman organized by the city’s Jewish anarchist comrades.[1] Just over six months later, Goldman dubbed Marie Tiboldo “a terrible prude” who did “not feel anything deep… Read more »
Rosemarie Forsberg In 1979, lesbians in Fredericton, New Brunswick, found community not in a dedicated gay bar or a visible neighbourhood, but on the dance floor of the Cosmopolitan Club. On Thursday nights, women quietly gathered with friends, effectively “queering” a predominantly heterosexual venue. In a city without lesbian bars, bookstores, or formal organizations, even a dance floor could become… Read more »
James Cullingham Canada and Mexico approach an historic juncture in their relations with the United States. Both countries face a July 1 deadline over the Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) which replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 2020 under the auspices of Justin Trudeau, Donald Trump and Andrés Manuel López Obrador. CUSMA is due to be formally extended… Read more »
Peter L. Twohig On 16 April 2026, five thousand long-term care (LTC) workers in 56 facilities throughout Nova Scotia began a strike. A tentative agreement ended the labour action after eight weeks, another example of a lengthy labour dispute in a nursing home. Indeed, some of the longest strikes in recent Canadian history have been in LTC.[i] Striking long-term care… Read more »
