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 »
By Samantha Cutrara Trigger Warning: This article discusses the residential school system. The National Residential School Crisis Line is 1-866-925-4419. When the news came out about the mass grave at Kamloops Indian Residential School located on the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation – or the news from this past weekend which identified 104 ‘potential graves’ as part of the Brandon… Read more »
By Catherine Larochelle Trigger Warning: This article discusses the residential school system and the Roman Catholic Church. The National Residential School Crisis Line is 1-866-925-4419. With the Quiet Revolution, identity in Quebec shifted from an association with French Canada to one more tightly bound by the province’s political borders. Quebec’s so-called national history similarly refocused to emphasize histories of Quebec… Read more »
Kristine Alexander and Mary Jane Logan McCallum While – as shown in our previous post – Guiding and Scouting were inextricably linked to British imperialism and settler colonialism, some Indigenous students in Canadian Indian residential schools also found that these organizations provided a refuge in an alien environment and a short break from labour and strict routine. It was an… Read more »
Kristine Alexander and Mary Jane Logan McCallum As we documented in our previous post, looking more closely at the history of Scouting and Guiding reveals that the divide between colonialist violence, fascist discipline, and peaceful pedagogy was not quite as stark as Baden-Powell and his supporters would have us believe. Instead of insisting on the ideological opposition between Scouting and… Read more »
Kristine Alexander and Mary Jane Logan McCallum 2020 has been intense. Living in lockdown, uncertain about the future, watching the body count from Covid-19 and police violence continue to rise. Time, shaped by anger, grief, and fear, moves differently, as the pandemic – like other disease outbreaks before it – exposes and deepens socio-economic divisions and inequalities. Despite the best… Read more »
