Like many other types of high school romances, I fell in love with history in my parents’ backyard. A series of trails behind their house opened the door to worlds decades and centuries past. These trails at the Head of the Lake (Dundas, Ontario) introduced me to Aboriginal canoe routes, Ontario’s nineteenth-century industrial heritage, and the area’s transportation history. The places I visited on these trails are places with a deep connection to the past that people pass by daily, often without notice. As summer days begin to wane, I thought that it might be interesting to compile a list of under recognized everyday places that have awakened our historical imagination. Below, I’ve included a few of the places that cultivated an interest in the past among my friends and family. I would like to add more places to this list.
If you have an everyday place that has helped you to engage with the past more deeply or more critically, send an e-mail to tspeace[at]gmail.com and I will add it to this post. Continue reading
The Lower Lea Valley, currently undergoing a massive redevelopment project in preparation for the next Summer Olympics, underwent a number of equally remarkable transformations as London’s heavy industry migrated to the city’s eastern periphery in the second half of the nineteenth century. In this talk, Jim Clifford explored some of the findings of his PhD dissertation on the environmental problems created by half a century of urban-industrial development, and the challenges this history poses for redevelopment.
