Glasstry news

I've meaning to draw attention to -- well, I've been meaning to watch -- the new Heritage Minute on LGBTQ history.  Well, now I have and there it is above, if you have not yet. Nice. But I cannot help but note again that during the Harper government years, Historica's Heritage Minutes tended to be about hockey or war, or hockey AND war. Under the Trudeau government, they tend to be about Chanie Wenjack, refugees, multiculturalism, and gay rights.  Well, I prefer the greater diversity of the recent ones, for sure. But the Minutes are principally funded by the federal government nowadays, and it's troubling to see how closely the Minutes' editorial choices track the political priorities of the parties in power. What happened to the arm's length principle? Can't help thinking the minute-makers had more freedom of expression years ago, when the money came from the Bronfman Foundation. Government direction of popular media treatments of history: "Another p...

The blog of the Champlain Society has been cross-posting me every so often lately, which is extremely nice of them, and the least I can do is counter-plug, I'm not an earbuds guy, and don't follow podcasts much. Audio is so slow! And so linear! In the time it takes a couple of podcasters to clear their throats and introduce themselves, I can skim scores of blog posts and stop on the interesting ones. But for you with your ears on, the Champlain Society's CanHist podcast "Witness to Yesterday" must be pre-eminent in the field of talking Canadian history.  There is lots to choose from at the site, the production quality is high, and the people doing it are both knowledgeable and enthusiastic about what they do. And they range widely across Canadian history from new research to classic publications of the Champlain Society. Substantial too. I broke my rule today and listened to Greg Marchildon and Patrice Dutil, together the backbone of "Witness to Yesterday,...

At the blog Crooked Timber , John Holbo laments " The world needs more blogs. "  The bloggers, it seems, have gone to Twitter everyone.  Or Instagram, or podcasting, or...  The internet does eat its children.  Holbo writes: Remember when there were blogs? Ah, those were the good old days. Whenever I see we haven�t been watering CT properly with fresh posts, I feel ashamed. and solicits suggestions for blogs still worth following.

J.D.M. Stewart, quietly renowned as the most prolific correspondent the  Globe & Mail  has had since Eugene Forsey retired from the field, goes long-form: he has published a book. The  praise from the Globe's John Ibbitson that the back jacket gives to  Being Prime Minister  -- "a trove of trivia treasures," it says -- seems sort of accurate and also slightly diminishing. When it comes to PMs, Stewart wants the human dimension: "How did they travel?  What pets did they have? How did they treat others?  What was life like at home? What were their pastimes?" From Borden's love of golf to Mackenzie King's love of dogs, Stewart delivers a chatty 300+ pages looking deeply into the private avocations, daily habits, and personal inclinations of the prime ministers. Anyone needing to lighten up a monograph with a vivid characterization of a prime ministerial quirk should keep Being Prime Minister at hand. Stewart also asked each ex-prime minister he interv...

Visitors in the History Hall central rotunda, on the giant Canada map We made a quick trip to Ottawa earlier this week, partly social, partly to see the "new" (well, new since last July) History Hall at the Canadian Museum of History. I think I like it.  It is pretty serious, more rewarding to those who like to read text and scrutinize the contents of exhibit cases than those who like a full-size stuffed mammoth or a recreated fortress wall looming up ahead of them at every corner.  But what the hell:  when you go to the National Gallery, you don't expect endless showbiz to make it fun for the kiddies; you expect to look at Impressionist masterworks or the best of the 19th century Royal Canadian Academy painters, with serious text panels talking about brushwork and colour sense.  Why shouldn't our historical galleries also be able to be thoughtful and challenging to adults? Well, because museum bean counters concerned with visitor stats and length-of-stay data drop d...

As if this were not a depressing enough morning in Canadian politics, here comes the June issue of The Literary Review of Canada with an essay by Paul Wells explaining why the friendly dictator is just fine and really it's what we all want and need, and in any case hallowed by centuries of tradition.  Wells is reviewing a new book by Ian Brodie, political scientist and former chief of staff to Stephen Harper.  Brodie opens his book with a commonly heard claim about prime ministers, one I heard many times before Harper held the position and still hear about his successor: �Canada�s prime minister is a dictator.� To that claim Brodie, citing Liberal apparatchik Eddy Goldenberg, mostly says, Sure. To the claim that the PM is a dictator, the three possible responses are, �I agree, and it�s awful;� �No he�s not;� and �Sure he is, and what of it?� In these early chapters, at least, Brodie leans heavily on the third response. Well, Brodie and Goldenberg would, wouldn't they? When y...

A couple of years ago, a condominium construction dig in the high density neighbourhood at the intersection of Bathurst Street and Fort York Boulevard in downtown Toronto unearthed the remains of an early 19th century cargo ship sunk or buried at that site when it was wharfside Lake Ontario. Since then the remains of the hull have been stored at nearby Fort York, and now a team of marine archaeologists from Texas A&M University are in town to analyze them . Carolyn Kennedy, a nautical archaeologist from Texas A&M and team leader, said the cargo ship likely would have moved goods across Lake Ontario as the Town of York, as Toronto was then known, grew in size. ...It tells us about the very beginnings of the city of York, the city of Toronto. These merchant vessels probably would have been the bread and butter of trade at that time. They would have been like the trucks that we have now," she said. Update, June 16 :  Fort York will host a presentation by the archeological tea...

The Yellowhead Institute, which declares itself to be the first fully indigenous think tank in Canada, launches today in Toronto. The Institute is a First Nation-led research centre based in the Faculty of Arts at Ryerson University in Toronto, Ontario. .... Outside of First Nation political organizations, activists, or academics, there is no national entity bringing an evidence-based, non-partisan, and community-first perspectives to the discussions. This is a glaring absence in First Nations ability to organize and mobilize to protect their rights and jurisdiction. The Yellowhead Institute aims to address this gap. The Institute takes its name from William Yellowhead, an 18th and 19th century Ojibwa leader in what is now Ontario ( DCB biography here ), but it proposes to have national reach. Indeed, one of the talking points of executive director Hayden King is how commentary on indigenous matters in Canada continues to be dominated by non-indigenous experts.  Calling up a think...

The Canadian Historical Association Book Prize has been awarded at the CHA Annual Meeting in Regina.  The CHA website  is still calling it the John A. Macdonald Prize, but you can make your own edits of that if you wish. Anyway it's an stellar list this year, topped by a book that historians are going to continue to read and grapple with for a long time.  Here's the full shortlist, and then the winner.  From the link you can also find all the other prizes -- kudos to Eric Adams and Jordan Stranger-Ross for two awards on a single article! The Sir John A. Macdonald Prize is awarded to the non-fiction work of Canadian history judged to have made the most significant contribution to an understanding of the Canadian past: SHORT LIST in alphabetical order E.A. Heaman, Tax, Order, and Good Government: A New Political History of Canada, 1867-1917 . Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen�s University Press, 2017. Susan M. Hill, The Clay We Are Made Of: Haudenosaunee Land Tenure ...