It has now been almost a decade since Borealia was launched with the intention of amplifying scholarship on northern North America before the twentieth century. We hoped it would be a forum where historians of different sub-fields could make connections, and to bring this great work to educators, non-specialists, and an interested general readership. We are grateful for the community of contributors and readers who have encouraged us and made this a worthwhile venture.
Much has changed in the landscape of digital scholarship and social media since 2015, yet we remain convinced of the ongoing value of an online forum of the sort Borealia aspires to be.
But ten years is a long time, and for a variety of entirely normal professional and personal reasons, we need a break. We have decided to take a year-long sabbatical, until summer 2025. The site will remain accessible, but we will not be accepting, soliciting, or posting new material during the next year. We hope you will continue to read and share some of the great essays in our back-catalogue and to think about using Borealia in your classrooms.
Coming out of the sabbatical, if we remain convinced of the viability and usefulness of Borealia, we would want to expand the editorial team to make the project more sustainable and more representative, and we would want to ask how we should adapt to flourish in the current online and academic environment.
In the meantime, a breather and a period of reflection, and much gratitude for your interest.
Kind regards,
Keith Grant, Denis McKim, and Laura Smith
P.S. There will be an exception to our sabbatical pause this fall. We are only too glad to honour our commitment to support the SSHRC-funded collaborative workshop on The Future of Knowledge Mobilization and Public History Online, with our friends at ActiveHistory.ca, HistoireEngagee.ca, Network in Canadian History & Environment – NICHE, and Acadiensis. You can expect to see some thought-provoking essays here as a result of that workshop. For more information, see https://activehistory.ca/workshop/.
Featured image: Codex Canadensis, page 17 (detail), via Wikimedia Commons.
Borealia 
I totally understand the need for a breather! I just want you all to know that I use the blog all the time in the classroom. I really liked the conversation that my students had with Chris Minty many years ago. I also cite the conversation with Duvall, Tillman and Brannon on Loyalist women all the time in my own work.