Joe Beef and the Invention of Culinary Tradition

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By Ian Mosby

Charles McKiernan, the original Joe Beef ca. 1875. McCord Museum, UAPT5014

As countless Canadian undergraduates have learned after reading Peter DeLottinville’s classic 1982 article, “Joe Beef of Montreal: Working-Class Culture and the Tavern, 1869-1889,” Joe Beef’s Canteen was more than just your ordinary tavern. Described as the “Great House of Vulgar People” by its larger-than-life proprietor Charles McKiernan – or Joe Beef as he was popularly known – a nineteenth century visitor to this ramshackle Montreal institution would likely have seen a brown bear named Tom drinking ale in the corner, two human skeletons hanging behind the bar, and piece of beef that had caused the death-by-choking of an unfortunate customer on display for all to see. For middle class Montrealers, it was a source of drunkenness, criminality and moral hazard. But, as DeLottinville argues, McKiernan’s working class patrons saw Joe Beef’s Canteen as more than just a place to find food, alcohol and sociability. McKiernan’s support for the unemployed, hungry, and sick – as well as for striking workers – saw the tavern become a kind of makeshift safety net for Montreal’s workers during hard times and, partly as a result of this function, a “stronghold of working class values and culture.”[1]

Although the recently published The Art of Living According to Joe Beef: A Cookbook of Sorts (2011) begins with selections from DeLottinville’s article – albeit with the discussions of working-class politics and culture noticeably absent – it quickly becomes clear that the form of living described within would be much more recognizable to the educated leisure class that makes up today’s ‘foodie’ universe than the original Joe Beef or his clientele of “sailors and longshoremen, unemployed men and petty thieves.”[2] Written by the founders of contemporary Montreal restaurant Joe Beef – which has been described by celebrity chef and tastemaker David Chang as his “favorite restaurant in the world” – the ‘cookbook’ establishes its distance from this world of unskilled labourers and thieves by presenting the reader with the decadent “Fois Gras Parfait with Madeira Jelly” as its first recipe and by including an entire chapter dedicated to fine French wines. Continue reading →

The History of Oil Pipeline Spills in Alberta, 2006-2012

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May 2012 clean-up of oil spill near Rainbow Lake, Alberta

By Sean Kheraj

Late Thursday evening on June 7, 2012, the Sundre Petroleum Operators Group, a not-for-profit society, notified Plains Midstream Canada of a major oil pipeline failure near Sundre, Alberta that spilled an early estimate of between 1,000 and 3,000 barrels of light sour crude oil (~159-477 cubic metres) into Jackson Creek, a tributary of the Red Deer River. The river is one of the province’s most important waterways, providing drinking water for thousands of Albertans.
This recent spill occurred just weeks after another oil pipeline burst in Alberta in late May, spilling an estimated 22,000 barrels of oil and water (~3,497 cubic metres) across 4.3 hectares of muskeg in the northwest part of the province near Rainbow Lake. According to the Globe and Mail, this rupture, which occurred along a pipeline operated by Pace Oil & Gas, Ltd., “ranks among the largest in North America in recent years,” and certainly in the province of Alberta. A couple of weeks after the accident, the company downgraded the estimate to 5,000 barrels of sweet crude oil with no water (~795 cubic metres).

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Reclaiming History Through Photographs

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King Family, Gull Bay, Nipigon, Ontario.

By Krista McCracken

Historical photographs can be used to serve a variety of research, personal, and community interests.  Images can be used for genealogy, legal testimony, supplementing written historical accounts, and providing windows into the past. Photographs can also be used as important tools in healing, reconciliation, and in the reclamation of lost history.The use of photographs in the reclamation of history resonates most frequently with minorities and repressed peoples.  Historically many underrepresented groups simply did not have access to the means to take photographs.  This does not mean that photographs were not taken of them by other groups. Continue reading →

Remembering an Extraordinary Struggle for Sexual Equality in Ontario

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By Christine McLaughlin

Cliff Pilkey and Bev McCloskey, UAW Local 222 Executive Board, 1955.

Sometimes ordinary people can do extraordinary things. I had the pleasure of witnessing an example of this recently when I attended a tribute luncheon in honour of the 23rd annual Agnes Macphail Award winner, Beverly McCloskey.

Agnes Macphail was the first woman in Canada elected to the House of Commons and first woman sworn into the Legislative Assembly of Ontario where she played a leading role in passing Ontario’s first equal pay legislation in 1951.

Despite this first legislative step, it was still legal in Ontario to employ “girls” in segregated workspaces, enforce separate seniority lists for men and women, and to negotiate very unequal collective agreements on their behalf. For a group of seven women from UAW Local 222 in Oshawa who were capable of doing the same jobs as their male coworkers, this was grossly unfair. More importantly, they set out to change it. Continue reading →

Above and Below: Manipulating the Niagara Waterscape

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By Daniel Macfarlane

Niagara River Remedial Works.

Nik Wallenda’s impending and controversial tightrope walk across Niagara Falls, set for June 15, is just the most recent in a long line of such spectacles (e.g. actually going over the falls!) at the iconic cataract. Given the banality of the carnivalesque at the Niagara Falls – just think of circus-style attractions –  it has often interpreted as a touchstone of cultural and social history, ranging from the epitome of the North American natural sublime in past centuries, to the cradle of electricity since the late 19th century, honeymoon central since the mid-20th century, and then serving as a symbol of environmental degradation (Love Canal) in more recent decades.

But I would argue that what is going on underneath Niagara Falls, is much more intriguing, and culturally revealing, if not as made-for-TV dramatic as a tightrope walk. Ontario Power Generation, one of the successor organizations to Ontario Hydro, is set to finish a massive 10.4 km mega-tunnel in 2013 which will take water from above the cataract, funnel it underneath the community of Niagara Falls, Ontario to the Sir Adam Beck powerhouses downstream. But this tunnel is nothing new, as it joins similar diversion tunnels and conduits that were built throughout the 20th century  (Canadian Geographic recently featured this tunnel’s construction, including a map of the past and present tunnels, in its April 2012 issue). The soon-to-be-completed tunnel is part of a massive and historic hydro-electric production landscape in which water falling down the Niagara escarpment has been diverted on both sides of the border in order to generate power. Continue reading →

Power and the Questions We Ask about History Education

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By Thomas Peace

In one of her blog posts on THEN/HiER’s Teaching the Past, Samantha Cutrara asked a challenging question that gets to the fundamentals of history education.  Who, she asks, is history education for?  This question is more complex than it seems, because, depending on the answer, it has a variety of implications for historians and history educators.  Implicit in this question is a set of power relations that often remain undisclosed in discussions about history and how it is taught.  By probing the implications that develop from the question of ‘who history is for’, it becomes apparent that we must ask a more basic question that helps us better understand the uses and abuses of the past. What do we mean by history education? Continue reading →

Wednesday: “The War of 1812: Whose War Was It, Anyway?”

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This summer marks the two hundredth anniversary of the United States’ declaration of war on Great Britain and her colonies (including what eventually became Canada). The bicentennial of the War of 1812 this summer will be the starting point for a number of commemorations, restorations, re-enactments and monument building. The Government of Canada, under current Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, reiterated its commitment to supporting commemorations across Canada in its most recent Speech from the Throne. Numerous events planned across the country will serve to “perpetuate the identities of War of 1812 militia units,” as well as to demonstrate, in the words of Heritage Minister James Moore, that “This was the fight for Canada.” A public study conducted recently by the Department of Canadian Heritage, however, points out that many Canadians cannot name the three combatants in the war, and argues that it “may not be something that a lot of Canadians recognize or understand. Continue reading →

The Smokescreen of ‘Modernization’ at Library and Archives Canada

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Is this the new normal? Let's hope not.

By Ian Milligan

The government claims that Library and Archives Canada needs to be modernized so all Canadians can access archival services. Yet the state of Canada’s online collections are small and sorely lacking when compared to their expansive on-site collections. LAC does need to modernize, and the goal of expanding access beyond just Ottawa is actually a laudable one. But what they’re doing here, under the guise of ‘modernization’, is simply cutting services and diminishing our access to Canada’s past. In this post, I want to show you how small and insignificant LAC’s online collections are, why they haven’t taken them seriously, and that if we’re fighting for better on-site access, we might as well fight for better online access too! They are, after all, despite the rhetoric of LAC and the government, not incompatible in the slightest.

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Tuition, Protest and Bill 78: A View from Quebec

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Photo by Gerry Lauzon

At the end of last week, the Quebec government tabled Bill 78 in an effort to end the months of protest over planned hikes to university tuition. The bill sets restrictions on the freedom of assembly and expression, requiring those in protests over 50 people to ascertain that the protest has been officially sanctioned by police and government officials.  The bill also holds student associations, unions and their leaders accountable for the actions of their membership. The biggest problem with the law, like most draconian measures, is that it is vague in its definition of illegal activity and harsh on punishment.  Not surprisingly, countless groups – including some that disagree with the tuition-based protest – have voiced their opposition to it, culminating in a mass demonstration on Tuesday in Montreal.  Below is a translated version of an open letter, written by many of Quebec’s leading historians in reaction to the government’s bill.  It is followed by brief summaries of the posts related to this issue published by our francophone partner site, HistoireEngagee.ca. Continue reading →