• Preview: Early Canadian History at Congress 2016, Part 2

    Denis McKim The annual meeting of the Canadian Historical Association will take place next week, in Calgary, from May 30th to June 1st as part of the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences. Drawn from the preliminary program available on the CHA’s website, the following is a preview of panels with content that may… Continue Reading

  • A Conversation about History Blogging in Canada

    Keith Grant At this year’s Canadian Historical Association, we’re going to have a face-to-face conversation about history blogging in Canada. If you’ll be in Calgary for Congress 2016, you’re invited to join us on Monday morning, 8:30 – 10:00, for CHA session 9 in Science B-142. Sharing their thoughts will be the editors of five… Continue Reading

  • Early Canadian Environmental History: A Forum

    Editor’s note: This is the final post in a joint series of posts on early Canadian environmental history by The Otter~La loutre and Borealia. The entire series is available here. After providing posts for the early Canadian environmental history series, the three participants – Colin Coates, Jason Hall, and Anya Zilberstein – sat down at… Continue Reading

  • Preview: Early Canadian History at Congress 2016, Part 1

    Keith Grant Next week—May 28 to June 3—academics from across Canada and beyond will gather at the University of Calgary for the annual Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, the country’s largest scholarly gathering. To help you get as much “early Canada” as possible into your Congress 2016 experience, we will be posting two previews this week. Today,… Continue Reading

  • Who was the King of the Beasts in New France?

    Colin M. Coates Some species are better to “think” with than others. Environmental activists often draw attention to their causes through reference to “flagship” or “charismatic” species. Invocations of the threatened habitat of the marbled murrelet helped galvanize opposition to logging in the Pacific Northwest in the 1990s, just as the Kermode bear subspecies has… Continue Reading

  • The Environmental and Cultural History of the St. John River

    Jason Hall Rivers have been foundational to the development of historical thinking since the Greek philosopher Heraclitus coined the expression “no man can cross the same river twice,” 2,500 years ago. Many scholars have subsequently encouraged students to “think like rivers” to recognize the inherently transient nature of the world. My dissertation, River of Three… Continue Reading

  • Jamaican Maroons in Nova Scotia: The politics of climate and race

    Anya Zilberstein Not long after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau handed winter coats to Syrian refugees arriving in Toronto this past December, reports about the immigrants’ problems began appearing in the press. Rent gouging by dishonest landlords. Frustration at delays in receiving permanent housing and full access to medical care. And, of course, that obligatory storyline:… Continue Reading

  • Early Canadian Environmental History Series: Introduction & Essential Reading

    Sean Kheraj and Denis McKim Welcome to a series on early Canadian environmental history, jointly hosted by Borealia and The Otter ~ La Loutre, the blog of The Network in Canadian History and Environment (NiCHE). This joint series provides environmental historians of Canada the opportunity to reflect upon the state of so-called “pre-Confederation” history in the field. As was evident… Continue Reading

  • Empire by Collaboration: A Collaborative Review

    Robert Englebert Robert Michael Morrissey, Empire by Collaboration: Indians, Colonists, and Governments in Colonial Illinois Country (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015). I recently had an opportunity to discuss Robert Michael Morrissey’s new book Empire by Collaboration: Indians, Colonists, and Governments in Colonial Illinois Country with my senior level seminar on French-Indigenous relations in colonial… Continue Reading