By Thomas Blampied For those following the Canadian railway industry, 2020 was supposed to be a year of celebration. Canadian National Railway (CN), was continuing with its CN100 celebrations to commemorate the 100th anniversary of being bailed out and nationalized by the Canadian government in 1919 (it wasn’t privatized until 1995). The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) was to mark the… 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 »
Daniel R. Meister Given that Canada is a settler colonial society, it is unsurprising that the lasting metaphor used to describe sociological diversity in the country – that of a mosaic – was popularized by a settler and child of empire: John Murray Gibbon (1875-1952). Gibbon was born in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to parents of Scottish descent. Prior to… Read more »
Sean Carleton To mark the 30th anniversary of the siege of Kanehsatà:ke and Kahnawá:ke, commonly known as the 1990 “Oka Crisis,” I have been interviewing a number of non-Indigenous musicians about the music they made in solidarity with the Mohawk land struggle. I’ve spoken with Chris Hannah from the thrash punk band Propagandhi and hip hop artist Maestro Fresh-Wes about… 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 »
Tamara Gene Myers Amidst the call to “Defund the police,” it bears thinking about removing police from our schools as well. “Defund the police” has become the rallying cry of anti-Black racism protests following the public murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. Relentless police violence has generated heated discussion about how decades of policies intended to “reform”… 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 »
Evan Habkirk When the Conservative government under Doug Ford came into power in June 2018, they immediately began rolling back curriculum revisions by the Ontario Ministry of Education. Two subject areas affected by these actions were the new sexual education curriculum and the addition of increased Indigenous content to the social studies, history, geography and civics curricula. Although parents, educators,… Read more »
Hochelaga: Not a Real Thesis Defence Scott Berthelette A Ph.D. thesis defence is at the centre of the narrative in Hochelaga, terre des âmes (Hochelaga, Land of Souls), a Canadian historical drama film released in 2017. The film’s portrayal of the process hardly meets my expectations for how a defence normally unfolds. The story of Hochelaga is told through a… 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 »
