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 December 22, 2022. As the film Oppenheimer hits the big screen and renews discussion of Canada’s role… 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 »
Elizabeth McKenzie A few weeks back, I was presenting at a conference in Niagara Falls on some of my research that looks at the Haudenosaunee Confederacy’s longstanding, continual sovereignty, and the failure of the League of Nations in 1924 to uphold the rights of the traditional governing council in the wake of a Canadian military coup at Six Nations of… Read more »
https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/History-Slam-205.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham As a child, William Dumas’ father told him the story of European fur traders arriving on what is now commonly referred to as Hudson Bay. The encounter between the Asiniskaw Ithiniwak (Rocky Cree) people and the Europeans resulted in an endemic, greatly reducing the local population. In telling the story, Dumas’… Read more »
https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/History-Slam-192.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham In 1994, Lynn Gehl applied for registration as an ‘Indian’ with the federal government. Unable to provide evidence as to the identity of her paternal grandfather, meant that, under the terms of the Indian Act, she was not entitled to registration, despite her paternal grandmother having status. What followed was a… Read more »
Donald Wright Archive stories are stories about, well, archives, the things that we find in them, and the things that we know we will never find. They are also invitations to reflect on how and why archival evidence – from a routinely-generated source to a single photograph – was created and what it can and can’t tell us about the… Read more »
Earlier this month, the Graphic History Collective released Remember/Resist/Redraw poster #23 by Gord Hill and Sean Carleton. The poster looks at the Shut Down Canada movement and the long history of police violence and Indigenous resistance in what is currently Canada. We hope that Remember | Resist | Redraw encourages people to critically examine history in ways that can fuel… Read more »
https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/History-Slam-149.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham June 4 is Tom Longboat Day, which recognizes the life and career of one of the best distance runners to ever represent Canada. Winner of the 1907 Boston Marathon, Longboat is remembered for both his athletic achievements and innovative training methods. From the Six Nations of the Grand River Reserve near… Read more »
With summer in full swing and many people enjoying the outdoors, the Graphic History Collective has released RRR Poster #20 that looks at the history of national parks, colonial dispossession, and Indigenous resilience in what is currently Canada. The poster, by Nancy Kimberley Phillips and Wacey Little Light, illustrates how many Indigenous peoples experience the “conservation” of Canada’s national parks… Read more »
Editors at Active History have been discussing the conclusions of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Women and Girls since they were released earlier this month. In thinking of the best way to amplify the findings laid out in the report, “Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Women and Girls,”… Read more »
