Tag Archives: Oral History

A Century of Petroleum Extraction at Norman Wells

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[Editor’s note: We have slightly altered the original text because our website does not yet support Dene orthographies. For a .pdf version of this post in which Dene words and place names are displayed correctly, click here.] Petroleum Histories Project Team Norman Wells in the Northwest Territories is the site of the first oil and gas operation in the Canadian… Read more »

Modern Curling History – What’s Old is News

By Sean Graham Modern Curling History | RSS.com In between games at the 2019 Continental Cup, Brian Chick stopped by to talk about his book Written in Stone: A Modern History of Curling. We talk about the sport’s inclusion in the Olympics in 1998, the professionalization of curling, and it’s current place within the sporting landscape. Historical Headline of the… Read more »

Epidemic at 30,000 feet: Historical Detachment during a Pandemic

A smiling girl stands on a path, wearing a long white dress. She has one foot in a cast and is using crutches.

Tyler Britz For the past 2 years, I have been living through a pandemic, while researching a historical epidemic. In mid-2020, I had just finished up my third year of undergraduate studies at Wilfrid Laurier University when Dr. Tarah Brookfield recruited me into an undergraduate research project. The idea was to interview the generation that experienced the last major outbreak… Read more »

History Slam 217: Storytellers, Colonialism, and Community in the Chilcotin Plateau

https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/History-Slam-217.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham For every strong, thriving community, there are people actively keeping it alive at its centre. Whether that’s hosting events, checking in on others, or sharing the living memory of the place, these individuals build an environment where stories are shared and passed to the next generation. But when they’re gone, what… Read more »

History Slam 198: Atacama

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https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/History-Slam-198.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham In the 10 years that we’ve been doing the History Slam Podcast, I’ve learned that there is no correct way to tell historical stories. Over the years we’ve talked with playwrights, musicians, and literary authors about the ways in which they tell accurate (and moving) stories from the past within their respective… Read more »

Finding History on Wilberforce Street

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In March 2020, education in Ontario was delivered “virtually.” In an effort to learn more about local story and places of significance the author and his daughter decided to learn more about a story related (to the author) in the late 1970s. This paper jointly authored, explores the legacy of “oral” story whether it be passed on through generation or the “physical” story, that of what is left of built heritage and what it can tell us. Interwoven and brought to the forefront, within the two different types of story is the Wilberforce street settlement (Oro Township), a very important part of African Canadian history with contributions to local, provincial and national heritage.

History Slam Episode 178: The People of Social Work

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https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/History-Slam-178.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham In this episode of the History Slam, I share the second segment of the 5-part documentary series How We Helped: Stories from Eastern Ontario Social Workers. Using first-hand accounts, the episode looks at who becomes a social worker and delves into their stories. From social workers enlisting in the army during… Read more »

History Slam Episode 173: How We Helped

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https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/History-Slam-173.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham In 1935, a group of Ottawa social workers came together to form the Eastern Ontario Branch of the Canadian Association of Social Workers. Over the next 85 years, the group underwent a number of changes, including becoming part of the Ontario Association of Social Workers, but its role in representing the… Read more »

Deep listening and remote interviews with military families

Isabel Campbell In the midst of the Covid 19 pandemic, blogs, webinars, and posts with expert advice about remote interviewing in oral history have blossomed. For example, three experts at Baylor University in the United States put together a webinar which is available on YouTube.[i] It is particularly aimed at Americans; Canadians will quickly realize that our legal environment is… Read more »

Stories of Bottomless Pond

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By Isabelle and Ian McCallum Starting the summer vacation at the Simcoe County archives, museum and the Barrie library may seem as a different approach to welcoming the holidays. My 11 year old daughter, Isabelle, and I, however, were on a research mission to uncover the story about “Bottomless pond.” Having completed a ghost story project for her class, highlighting… Read more »