What is interesting is that community members seem to have responded to the friendlier, more open-ended construction of Stanley in kind. I see the statue as I stroll across town to pick up mail or groceries and started to wonder what this was all about. What did the clothing of the Stanley sculpting say about how at least some community members related to the past? The sculpting is prominently positioned. The hats and masks added anonymously to it are meant to be seen.
The problem I have with these claims is that they often ignore the good work of historians who have taken a different perspective.
Samira Saramo On March 2, 2023, Finlandia University in Hancock, Michigan, announced that it was closing. Since its establishment in 1896 by Finnish migrant-settlers as Suomi College, Finlandia University has been a center of Finnish history and heritage in North America. It has been home to an active Finnish & Nordic Studies undergraduate program and unparalleled archival collections, programming, and… Read more »
(Editor’s note: This is the second of two posts discussing the historical roots of the 2023 controversy over the warm welcome–subsequently retracted–given by the Canadian Parliament to Ukrainian-Canadian and former member of the 14th SS Division Yaroslav Hunka. You can read the first post, by Katelyn Arac, here.) Alvin Finkel William Kelly, the RCMP officer in charge of security screening… Read more »
Katelyn Arac Over the last two weeks, we have seen a lot of news coverage about the scandal in the House of Commons. The Speaker of the House, Anthony Rota, invited 98-year-old Ukrainian-Canadian, Yaroslav Hunka, to sit as a guest in the parliamentary gallery. Rota stated that Hunka was “a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero. And we thank him for… Read more »
By Erin Isaac The thoughts and sentiments shared in this essay are my own and do not represent the Nova Scotia Museum or Shelburne Historical Society. The Ross-Thomson House & Store Museum, in Shelburne, NS, has always been known as a site of enslavement in this community. Most people around here reference this by speaking about a pair of leg… Read more »
ActiveHistory.ca is slowing down our publication schedule this summer, but we’ll be back with more new posts in September. In the meantime, we’re featuring posts from our archive. Thanks as always to our writers and readers! The following post was originally featured on April 9, 2021. As Canadians hike and camp their way through the summer, Erin Isaac and Elisabeth… Read more »
ActiveHistory.ca is slowing down our publication schedule this summer, but we’ll be back with more new posts in September. In the meantime, we’re featuring posts from our archive. Thanks as always to our writers and readers! The following post was originally featured on July 18, 2017 As Canadians mark Simcoe Day and the August long weekend, Elliot Worsfold’s post on… Read more »
by Peter Thompson Pictou is a sleepy town of about 3000 people on the north shore of Nova Scotia. Despite its small size and its place on Canada’s margins, Pictou has been featured twice in the pages of ActiveHistory.ca over the past decade. First in Lachlan MacKinnon’s 2014 piece, “The Power-Politics of Pulp and Paper: Health, Environment and Work in… Read more »
By Samuel Pratt Betty and Melvin Simpson of Amherstburg, ON opened a small history museum in 1975. They “had a dream to illuminate the history of Black people in a dignified manner,” wanting to promote their town’s extensive involvement in the history of Black Canadians. Known as the North American Black Historical Museum, the museum was built in the former… Read more »
![Colonel John Graves Simcoe, [ca. 1881], by George Theodore Berthon. Government of Ontario Art Collection, 694156.](https://i0.wp.com/activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/694156-770.jpg?resize=176%2C176&ssl=1)
