Krista McCracken My work at the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centrecurrently includes a Canada History Fund funded project to create education modules connected to Residential Schools and colonialism. These modules are geared toward high school aged students and will be used as part of ongoing educational programming. When I wrote the grant proposal I included the idea that the modules would… Read more »
By Brett Liem and Michael Robertson Last year we published a short article in Active History where we described optical techniques for recovering the contrast from faded documents. A range of light sources from ultraviolet (UV) to near-infrared (NIR), filters, and a camera adapted to form images with light outside or the normal visible spectrum were used to reveal residual… Read more »
Andrea Eidinger Anyone who has searched the internet for videos to use while teaching Canadian history has run into one big problem: the overwhelming dominance of American media online. Adding “Canadian” or “Canada” to your Google search doesn’t necessarily solve this problem. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t great Canadian videos, soundbites, and films available. You just have to know where… Read more »
By Timothy Humphries Before 2009, the Archives of Ontario had been housed in five different locations. Remarkably, not one of them provided an exhibit space. This became a must-have when a sixth location was sought in 2006. Now onsite exhibits can be created regularly to showcase the Archives’ many rich and varied collections. This requires investing significant amounts of time… Read more »
By Jenny Prior Meet Shannon Coles, a conservator at the Archives of Ontario. Shannon’s been stabilizing archival records and preparing them for digitization and reproduction for our on-site World War I exhibit, Dear Sadie, launching this summer. Q: Shannon, what led you to your unique and interesting occupation? A: Going to museums as a kid always frustrated me because I wanted… Read more »
By Jenny Prior So you’re hard at work, creating a World War I exhibit based on hours and hours of archival research. Or maybe you’re not. But doesn’t it sound like a fascinating and daunting task? Just ask Stewart Boden at the Archives of Ontario. As our in-house curator of three interconnected World War I exhibits highlighting our collections, Stewart’s… Read more »
By Jay Young As the cold weather sets in southern Ontario, I’m reminded of the fun activities I enjoyed during warmer days of months past. This year I had the opportunity to design and lead a handful of historical walking tours of downtown Toronto. These tours were based on particular themes within or approaches to the city’s history, and they… Read more »
By Merle Massie Over the past two years, I lurked in the halls and wandered wide-eyed through the conferences of my social and natural science colleagues. An interdisciplinary institutional postdoctoral fellowship, funded by MISTRA (The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research) and routed through the University of Saskatchewan, ensured my place at the lunch table and at the front of… Read more »
By Kevin Colton We’re a visual species, we humans. History is often learned best when its words are accompanied with charts and maps, diagrams and photos. I love looking at these pictures to get different perspectives about the events they document. I’m a software developer rather than an historian, but I think the simulation software I’ve developed can provide another… Read more »
By Ian Milligan Do you have a unique collection in your basement that you wish you could share with others? An amazing shrine to your favourite sports team? A unique mason jar collection? Some military memorabilia? What if you could take pictures, catalogue it, and suddenly have a website that’s the equal of many professional museum websites? You can do… Read more »
