Active History

An Open Letter to Canadians from an Undergrad Student

November 20, 2017 No Comments

By Emma Stelter

For generations, settler governments have been trying to break and remake Indigenous families in what is now known today as Canada.[1] We must acknowledge historic wrongdoing. Regardless of whether our ancestors were immigrants during pioneer times or immigrants today, many Canadians benefit from the state’s division of land and resources.

There is a lot of work to be done on reconciliation. Over the past three decades, there have been 1,181 Indigenous women reported as murdered and 164 reported as missing. But, the real numbers are estimated to be as high as 4,000. Indigenous women are disproportionately targeted and victimized in Canada. Indigenous women face victimization rates three times higher than that of non-Indigenous women. To make matters worse, violence against Indigenous women is infrequently reported to or examined by the RCMP.

Collectively, generations of Canadians have neglected missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW). Continue reading →

Russia 2017: The Centenary of a Global Revolution

November 16, 2017 No Comments

“V.I. Lenin making a speech at a meeting dedicated to the laying of the foundation stone for a monument to K. Liebknecht and R. Luxemburg, in Dvorstsovaya Square. Petrograd,” 19 July 1920, Wikimedia Commons.

Oleksa Drachewych

On November 7, 2017, the centenary of the Bolshevik Revolution passed. One hundred years ago, in Russia, the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, formed the world’s first communist regime.[1] Bolshevik Russia survived a bitter and violent civil war, including invasion by Entente forces seeking to replace a government that was antagonistic to them. By the end of the Second World War, the Soviet Union was a superpower, an ideological, economic, and military counterweight to American ascendency. Other communist nations formed during the Cold War, including Maoist China, Kim Il-sung’s North Korea, Ho Chi Minh’s Vietnam and Fidel Castro’s Cuba. The Cold War dominated international diplomacy for four decades. When the Soviet Union collapsed, dissolving in 1991, some declared Communism dead, but with current references to the broad left, it is clear that some of the ideas encapsulated by the Bolshevik Revolution and Marxism-Leninism thrive.

Many highlight that the Bolshevik Revolution and its results clearly show communism’s failing as a legitimate form of government. It led to one of the most violent and brutal authoritarian regimes in history, the USSR, with millions of victims of repression instigated under the guise of defending the revolution. It inspired other similar regimes, which also governed with violence, most significantly exemplified in Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward, when over 60 million people died. Other Communist regimes perpetrated great human rights violations and limited political freedoms.[2] These legacies remain relevant today as exemplified by the closed society of North Korea or the poverty of Venezuela.

Many nations have built tributes to the victims of communism. Most famously, in the United States, the Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington is one such symbol, supported by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation which continues to condemn the horrors of communism, arguing that the ideology inherently leads to authoritarianism. In many former Soviet satellite states, there are museums, such as the House of Terror in Hungary, which include exhibits reflecting life and repression under communism. Currently, in Canada, initiated in 2015 with the support of the Harper government, the Tribute to Liberty project in part aims to memorialize the victims of communist repression, while also reflecting Canada’s position as a place of refuge for those fleeing communist persecution.

However, this focus on the Revolution’s negative consequences, while justified, ignores the genuine inspiration the principles behind the revolution provided to many around the world. Continue reading →

History Slam Episode 108: The Magnificent Nahanni

November 15, 2017 1 Comment

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By Sean Graham

This year, Parks Canada offered free admission to parks across the country to commemorate Canada 150. As visitors flocked to take advantage of the opportunity, however, there was not much reflection in the media about the process through which national parks are determined and operated.

In his recent book The Magnificent Nahanni: The Struggle to Protect a Wild Place, Gordon Nelson looks at the process through which Nahanni National Park Reserve was established in 1972. The park, which is over 30,000 square kilometres, is in western Northwest Territories in the Dehcho region, with its western boundary edging to the Yukon border. In addition to its natural beauty, the park also includes an old mine and has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In this episode of the History Slam, I talk with Gordon Nelson about The Magnificent Nahanni. We talk about his geography background, the physical landscape in the North, and the process of establishing a national park. We also discuss Indigenous communities in the North, their involvement in the process, and the traditional ways in which the land has been used. We conclude by talking about Canadians’ affinity for natural landscapes and whether we do enough to protect those landscapes.

Continue reading →

#Canada150: How to Celebrate Freedom

November 14, 2017 No Comments

By Shirley Tillotson

This essays is being published jointly on ActiveHistory.ca and Borealia and appeared in an earlier version as a Letter to the Editor in the National Post (Oct. 26, 2017)

Fundraisers love anniversaries. They’re like birthdays, right? Presents can’t be far behind. But when it’s the anniversary of a death, it’s not so much fun. For me, as an historian (and an old person), most dates on my calendar are full of births and deaths. Every celebration evokes at least a tinge of grief among the memories.

So, this summer, when I read in a National Post op-ed (July 10, “Dalhousie Student Union’s ban on Canada Day celebrations was shameful”) that “Canada Day celebrates Canadians’ freedom from oppression,” I had one of those moments of mixed memories.

July 1st – and #Canada150, for that matter – reminds me of so much more than just contemporary Canada’s goodness.

Confederation, whose anniversary we mark on July 1, wasn’t about freeing anyone from oppression. Continue reading →

Witnessing and Unwitnessing Ontario’s Treaties

November 13, 2017 3 Comments

By Thomas Peace

Last week was the second annual Treaty Recognition Week in Ontario. Organized by the provincial government, this is a time for Ontarians to acknowledge and learn about the treaties upon which the province was developed. This year, Ontario’s Ministry of Education announced that Indigenous history and culture would become part of the K-12 curriculum by fall 2018.

A Wampum Belt Marking the 1764 Treaty of Niagara

In southern Ontario, treaty recognition is sorely needed. Here, the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth-century treaties that enabled settlement on Indigenous lands remain poorly understood. Continue reading →

Commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the Spanish Flu Pandemic: Testaments.ca

November 10, 2017 1 Comment

By Neil Orford and Blake Heathcote

In January 1920, Stan McVittie was a fit and robust electrical engineer working at a hydro-electric generating plant on the Wahnapitae River in Northern Ontario. Just six years out of university, he loved his work and the outdoor life he’d known all his life. The future was brilliant.

Stan McVittie, Sudbury, Ontario with daughter, Maggie – undated Circa 1919 Private Collection, Blake Heathcote, Toronto.

While his young wife and daughter were visiting her parents in St. Marys, Stan developed a mild cough and a fever, but nothing to worry about for a healthy 6’ 2” outdoorsman in his prime. A few days later while visiting his father and sister in Sudbury, his symptoms worsened slightly, so he paid a call on the family doctor ‘just to be safe.’ Nine days later Stan was dead from the Spanish Flu, like 50,000 other Canadians who’d died since the Pandemic first appeared eighteen months earlier.

In a stunningly short span of time, the Spanish Flu took almost as many Canadian lives as had
been killed during the four years of the Great War. Indiscriminate and horrific in its proportions
and the speed with which it spread and killed, the Pandemic profoundly impacted the history of
Canada.

In the long recent sweep of historical commemorations in Canada, recognizing the 100th
Anniversary of the Spanish Flu Pandemic seems odd – perhaps even a little bit
macabre. Continue reading →

Local Tragedy or National Disaster? Commemorating the Halifax Explosion Centenary

November 9, 2017 No Comments

By Claire L. Halstead

Canada’s sesquicentennial has been contentious. Both historians and the broader public have discussed and debated the commemoration and celebration of the “birth of the nation”. Although less feted and expectantly less controversial, this year also marks the centenary of the Halifax Explosion. With our senses heightened from tuning into (or out of) Canada’s sesquicentennial, the 100^th anniversary of the Halifax Explosion provides another opportunity to witness the creation of commemoration and the continuation of memory. On the eve of the Explosion’s anniversary (just over a month away), we can keep our ears perked for ways in which the Explosion will be remembered. Is the Explosion going to be subsumed under the Canada 150 umbrella, or will it be an outlier? Will it be cast as a local tragedy, or as a national disaster?

Looking north toward Pier 8 from Hillis foundry after great explosion, Halifax, Dec. 6, 1917. Reference no.: W.G. MacLaughlan NSARM accession no. 1988-34 no. 14 / negative: N-137 / ACCESSION: 1966-094, REPRODUCTION: Library and Archives Canada / C-019945 (copy negative number)

Continue reading →

Saskatchewan History Curriculum: History curriculum placed in time

November 8, 2017 No Comments

By Samantha Cutrara

As a contributing editor for Active History, this year I will be exploring the Canadian history curriculum across the country. Conceptualized as a series, each post will build and develop off the findings of the others, so that we may conclude in June with some critical ideas about how Canadian history is designed to be taught and learned in public schools. Ideally, these ideas may provide more space for historians and non-traditional history educators to better speak to and understand the needs of classroom history teachers, finding synergies among the different work.

Figure 1: Prelate, Saskatchewan by Dustin Veitch

This month I’ll be focusing on Saskatchewan. In reviewing the elementary (K-8) and secondary (9-12) Canadian history curriculum in Saskatchewan, I found two interesting themes that made me think about history curriculum more broadly: individual- vs state-directed practice and pedagogical trends. In this post, I will outline the K to 12 Canadian history curriculum in Saskatchewan before highlighting how these curricula lead me to these larger themes.

Canadian history is taught in Saskatchewan under the larger organization of “Social Studies.” Continue reading →

Art, Religion, & Iconography in the Vimy Memorial: An Overview

November 7, 2017 1 Comment

In recognition of Remembrance Day 2017, the Canada’s First World War series on ActiveHistory.ca is pleased to publish this article by Laura Brandon, a former curator and historian at the Canadian War Museum. In the year of the centennial of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, Brandon’s piece sheds light on the design and meaning of the enormous monument to that battle in France, which has done so much to keep Vimy, and Canada’s military history, in the imagination of Canadians since it was unveiled in 1936.

By Laura Brandon

This article examines the Canada National Vimy Memorial in France as a work of art.[i] It explores its creator Walter Allward’s background, and the art historical inspirations and symbolic material he included in his monument. This aspect of his creation has not been written about in any detail and is not explored in recent publications that focus on the monument’s history as a battle site and national symbol.[ii]

Introduction

Situated on top of the ridge that overlooks the Douai Plain in northeastern France, the Canadian National Vimy Memorial (1936) commemorates the tragic yet successful April 1917 Battle of Vimy Ridge. It is for many Canadians an important marker of their nationhood and identity. It is also a magnificent monument to Canadian sacrifice during the First World War (1914?1918). Losses were staggering. On the Western Front, one Canadian in seven who served was killed. Overall, more than 60,000 soldiers of the 600,000-strong Canadian Expeditionary Force were killed, which is more than in all of the wars, or military missions, Canada has fought since then.

If the memorial on Vimy Ridge is Canada’s major international First World War monument, it is also the crowning achievement of its designer Walter Allward (1875-1955). By surveying some of its iconographic and artistic inspirations we can perhaps once again understand the monument as he first envisioned it. Freed from the inevitable accretions and losses of meaning that accompany eighty years of history, memory and politics, a number of the original denotations behind its multiple visual elements can be discerned.

An image of the Vimy Memorial from Allward’s design submission, from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_National_Vimy_Memorial#/media/File:Vimy_Memorial_-_Allward_design_submission.jpg

Continue reading →

History Slam Episode 107: Heritage & Human Remains

November 1, 2017 1 Comment

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By Sean Graham

On October 1 at Beechwood Cemetery in Ottawa, a private re-interment ceremony was held for human remains found in 2013 during the construction of the city’s new LRT. The construction project is going right through what used to be Barrack Hill Cemetery, which, before its closure in 1845, was the burial site for around 500 individuals. Despite efforts to relocate those people when the cemetery closed, remains have been found during major downtown construction projects over the past few years.

Once human remains are found, it begins an interesting heritage process. The first step is to ensure that no crime was committed. Once that has been done, then it’s a question of what to do. In this case, it was fortunate that the city is home to a host of historical and heritage resources that could collaborate and, ultimately, provide a new space for these remains.

In this episode of the History Slam, I talk with City of Ottawa archivist Paul Henry about the Barrack Hill Cemetery, the discovery of human remains during LRT construction, and the process of re-interring the remains. We also chat about the effort to identify the individuals, funeral practices before the Victorian age, and how spatial meaning is altered with changes to the physical landscape.

Continue reading →

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