Residential school denialism may have its origins in Canada, but it is increasingly circulating and being used around the world as part of a wider matrix of imperial apologetics – a transnational network of discourse that aims to defend the legacy of the British Empire in the metropole and former colonies
[Editor’s note: We have slightly altered the original text because our website does not yet support Dene orthographies. For a .pdf version of this post in which Dene words and place names are displayed correctly, click here.] Petroleum Histories Project Team Norman Wells in the Northwest Territories is the site of the first oil and gas operation in the Canadian… Read more »
That unceded Mi’kmaw Land was occupied by a chief framer of the 1763 Royal Proclamation must give us pause. Although the Proclamation established a set of principles for good relationships with North American nations, on-the-ground military strategies and the use of Indigenous Land as reward for imperial service made it easy to ignore these principles, even by the framers themselves.
By Karen Froman, Leah Kuragano, Aileen Friesen, Cathy Mattes, Mary Jane Logan McCallum On Sept 25, 2023, the University of Winnipeg’s History Department Indigenization Committee presented a panel engaging with the Interim Report of the Office of the Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools, entitled Sacred Responsibility: Searching for… 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 3, 2012. This summer, learn whose land you vacation on. Editor’s note: Several outdated links throughout… Read more »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 February 22, 2018. Since then, Drew Hayden Taylor has released Cottagers and Indians in print and directed… Read more »
Jennifer Bate Indigenous peoples have used their deep-rooted understanding of the land and wildlife to feed their families and communities for generations. However, by the end of the 19th century, First Nations communities in Northwestern Ontario found their traditional way of life threatened by encroaching settlement and new government-imposed hunting legislation. Although early game laws contained clauses exempting First Nations… Read more »
Owen Griffiths “Dear brothers and sisters! I have been waiting to come here and be with you!” With these words, Pope Francis began his long-awaited apology for the Catholic Church’s role in more than a century of abuse and marginalization of Indigenous Canadians, what the Truth and Reconciliation Report called “cultural genocide.” Reactions to the Pope’s July 2022 visit and… Read more »
This article is reposted, in slightly edited form and with permission, from the fourth issue of Syndemic Magazine: “The Colours of Covid-19.” Syndemic Magazine is a project of the L.R. Wilson Institute for Canadian History at McMaster University. Brandon J. Cordeiro In Thunder Bay, Ontario, the city’s prison battled a Covid-19 outbreak through winter 2021. Overpopulated and faced with growing cases, the… Read more »