Category Archives: Canadian history

The Complex Truth: Intersections between Day Schools and the Shubenacadie Residential School

On October 24, 2019, Active History commenced a series on education “after” residential schools with an article written by Clinton Debogorski, Magdalena Milosz, Martha Walls and Karen Bridget Murray. The series is open-ended. Active History welcomes additional contributions on related themes. By Martha Walls I am an historian who has studied the impact of Government of Canada policies and actions… Read more »

Stories of Bottomless Pond

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By Isabelle and Ian McCallum Starting the summer vacation at the Simcoe County archives, museum and the Barrie library may seem as a different approach to welcoming the holidays. My 11 year old daughter, Isabelle, and I, however, were on a research mission to uncover the story about “Bottomless pond.” Having completed a ghost story project for her class, highlighting… Read more »

When Historical Time Meets Real Time: Mourning Harry Tanner

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Karen Dubinsky Harry Tanner died November 7 2019 at the age of 85. I’ve only known him a couple of years. However, I’ve known him his whole life. I knew his parents, his father a Bank of Nova Scotia manager stationed in Havana in the 1940s and 1950s, where Harry grew up. I know Harry’s excitement about life in 1960s… Read more »

Not Learning, Unlearning, and Relearning to See Genocide: Part 2

On October 24, 2019, Active History commenced a series on education “after” residential schools with an article written by Clinton Debogorski, Magdalena Milosz, Martha Walls and Karen Bridget Murray. The series is open ended. Active History welcomes additional contributions on related themes. By Karen Bridget Murray …they still kill us [and] take our children… Audra Simpson (2016) Denial I moved… Read more »

Countering White Disbelief with Historical Knowledge: Racism and Racial Profiling in Nova Scotia

Jill Campbell-Miller Racial profiling has lately been in the news in Nova Scotia. In September, Dr. Lynn Jones, a well-known champion of civil rights and a labour leader, was stopped by police while out with friends watching deer. Someone had called the police to report “suspicious people” in the neighbourhood. To add insult to injury, Jones was stopped in a… Read more »

The War-Time Elections Act and Women Voters in 1917

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Editor’s Note: As a follow up to our special election series that ran before 21 October, this post is a focused reflection on elections, politics and gender. Lyndsay Campbell  We heard a lot about concerns and even scandals around voting and the manipulation of the electorate in the lead up to, and aftermath of, the 43rd federal election. As Colin Grittner… Read more »

Not Learning, Unlearning, and Relearning to See Genocide: Part 1

On October 24, 2019, Active History commenced a series on education “after” residential schools with an article written by Clinton Debogorski, Magdalena Milosz, Martha Walls and Karen Bridget Murray. The series is open ended. Active History welcomes additional contributions on related themes. By Karen Bridget Murray Vergangenheitsbewältigung. A friend of mine introduced me to this German word, which refers to… Read more »

A Short History of Reading Disability and Special Education

By Jason Ellis, University of British Columbia When a child does not learn to read, what does the school do? The answer has varied over time, and the history of this topic tells us something about special education as well. In the nineteenth century, if not earlier than that, physicians described “word-blindness” and “alexia.” They considered these rare and peculiar… Read more »

Not Enough Trained Infantrymen: The 1944 Conscription Crisis

This is the tenth post in a series marking the 75th anniversary of D-Day and the end of the Second World War as part of a partnership between Active History and the Juno Beach Centre. By R. Daniel Pellerin In October 1944, while Canadian forces in Northwest Europe were in the midst of bitter fighting to wrest the approaches to… Read more »

Education “After” Residential Schools

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Editorial Note: This article introduces a series of reflections to be published on Active History in the weeks to come. It is also an invitation for additional contributions that relate to the themes sketched out below. By Clinton Debogorski, Magdalena Milosz, Martha Walls, and Karen Bridget Murray We are settler-colonial educators writing to settler-colonial educators against the backdrop of “decades… Read more »