Category Archives: Uncategorized

Sudbury: The Journey from Moonscape to Sustainably Green

By Krista McCracken The image of Sudbury, Ontario has long been associated with mining, smelting, and a barren landscape.  Perhaps most famously, the landscape of Sudbury has been said to be comparable to the landscape present on the moon.  Similarly, the image of the towering Sudbury Superstack is one which holds sway in the minds of many Canadians.  However, since… Read more »

Historians and Digital History: Why Do Academics Shy Away from Digital History?

By  Paul W. Bennett The Internet is finally beginning to penetrate historical practice.  At the recent North American Society for Sports History (NASSH) Conference, held May 24-26, 2013 at Saint Mary’s University, Douglas Booth and Gary Osmond provided a fascinating primer on the impact digital history is starting to exert on a field like the study of international sports history. … Read more »

Ripple Effects: Great Lakes Water Levels

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By Daniel Macfarlane Lake Huron and Lake Michigan recently reached record lows. The other Great Lakes are also below average levels. Headlines such as “Two Great Lakes hit lowest water levels in history” or “Low water levels in Great Lakes cause concern” have been splashed across browsers and newspapers. Docks barely reach water, boats can’t get out of marinas, and… Read more »

Whose Past? A Public Forum on Harper’s Review of Canadian History

Legacy Gallery, June 3rd, 8 pm.  Broad and Yates St., Victoria, B.C. “Whose Past?   A Public Forum on Harper’s Review of Canadian History”  will be a spirited discussion about the Harper Conservatives’ recent moves to review Canadian history through a Parliamentary committee.   The forum will include perspectives from a secondary school educator, an indigenous scholar, a range of generations as… Read more »

Podcast: After the Cuts: The Future of History in Canada

On April 19, the Canadian Historical Association organized a panel as part of the Annual Meeting of the National Council on Public History in Ottawa entitled “After the Cuts: The Future of History in Canada.” The panel was designed to analyze the changes to historical work in Canada stemming from recent federal budget cuts, revised mandates, and institutional reorganizations. Chaired… Read more »

Active(ist)? History on Wikipedia

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By Jonathan McQuarrie Recently, I spent some time with Daniel Sidorick’s fantastic monograph Condensed Capitalism: Campbell Soup and the Pursuit of Cheap Production in the Twentieth Century (Ithica, 2009). Among the timely observations made by the work is the vital point that a managerial effort to enforce efficiency through the threat of outsourcing is hardly new. At the turn of… Read more »

4 Years of ActiveHistory.ca

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We’re proud to announce that ActiveHistory.ca has been blogging about why history matters for more than four years! Ever since our first anniversary back in 2010, we have celebrated the achievements of the past year, and this year is no exception. Our body of contributors and guest writers has grown larger and more diverse, while the number of posts featured on… Read more »

Not All Resource Towns Are Created Alike

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By Kayla Jonas Galvin  Company Towns: Corporate Order and Community Neil White University of Toronto Press, 2012 Cloth $55.00, ebook $54.95 I chose to review Neil White’s Company Towns: Corporate Order and Community because of my recent involvement in an interesting project within a company town, Kapuskasing, Ontario. For those unfamiliar with the term, a company town is one that… Read more »

Archives as Laboratories

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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 »

“The Portuguese in Toronto” Photo Exhibit: An Organizer’s Reflection

From May 13-19, Toronto’s City Hall will feature “The Portuguese in Toronto,” a free photo exhibit. What follows are some reflections on how historians can engage with the public by one of the exhibit’s organizers. Raphael Costa On May 13, 2013, the Portuguese Canadian History Project’s (PCHP) photographic exhibit celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of mass Portuguese migration to Canada will… Read more »