Wherever they landed in northern North America in 1497, on behalf of the English monarch, Henry VII, John Cabot and the small crew of the Matthew met no other human beings. In 1501 a Spanish expedition visited Labrador, and “claimed to have acquired from the natives with whom they came into contact a fragment of […]
One sign of the continuing influence of Harold Innis’s more than 90-year-old local classic, The Fur Trade in Canada, is that it remains in print today. And the first date it still points to in modern Canadian history is 1497. Innis says nothing specific about the date. His first detailed reportage jumps to Jacques Cartier’s […]
A recent poll on the pride Canadians place in more than a dozen symbols and achievements found that the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 this year came in near the bottom – even though the federal government has budgeted more than $28 million to mark the occasion. The 175th anniversary of the so-called […]
This past Saturday, June 30, 2012, marked “25 years since Canada ditched its one-dollar bill in favour of a gold-coloured coin.” Every time I go to the United States, I still remember the alternative convenience of having several lightweight $1 bills in your pocket. I nonetheless agree that “while the move was somewhat controversial at […]
The first entry on TV Ontario’s Saturday Night At The Movies this past weekend was Geronimo : An American Legend – “directed by Walter Hill from a screenplay by John Milius” and first “released on December 10, 1993 by Columbia Pictures.” According to its Wikipedia entry this movie “had a mixed reception from critics,” and […]
Considering that we admire and support the Middle Eastern rebels fighting to oust corrupt, undemocratic governments, it’s odd that we don’t give greater recognition to the Canadian popular uprisings which tried to achieve the same thing. In the 1830s the governments of Upper and Lower Canada – what are now Ontario and Quebec, respectively –Â […]
Today – the third Monday in February – is President’s Day (aka Washington’s Birthday) in the USA, Family Day in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario, Islanders’ Day in Prince Edward Island, and Louis Riel Day in Manitoba. (And the BC Federation of Labour has recently renewed “its call to create a statutory holiday in February for […]
Yesterday marked the 125th anniversary of the hanging of the Canadian Métis leader, Louis Riel, shortly after 8:15 AM, local time, in what is now Regina, Saskatchewan. The preceding summer he had been tried for treason to the then 18-year-old Dominion of Canada, for his role in the so-called North West Rebellion of 1885. And […]
Mostly, the historian Jill Lepore wrote in a New Yorker article a few months ago, “we’re bankrupt of history.” And in the wake of General Motors’ April 27, 2009 decision to discontinue the manufacture of Pontiac automobiles (and the still more recent GM filing for US bankruptcy protection on June 1), the historian Gordon Mitchell […]
Just for the record, the former Governor General’s consort, John Ralston Saul, is not one of my favourite authors. And I haven’t exactly read his new book, A Fair Country: Telling Truths about Canada. But I have bumped into a few of its key messages in the mass media. The other night I saw him […]
