David Wilson This article originated as a paper given at the Canadian Association for Irish Studies annual conference at Quebec in June 2018. Think of this as an essay on the three sins of recycling history, reading history backwards, and misusing evidence. It concerns Jim McDermott, a Fenian firebrand from New York who enters Canadian… Continue Reading
Latest in: Atlantic Colonies
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S. Max Edelson [This is the eighth essay of the Borealia series on Cartography and Empire–on the many ways maps were employed in the contested imperial spaces of early modern North America.] This essay examines the Board of Trade’s survey and plan for St. John Island (renamed Prince Edward in 1798). It is part of a larger study… Continue Reading
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[This is the sixth essay of the Borealia series on Cartography and Empire–on the many ways maps were employed in the contested imperial spaces of early modern North America.] Alan MacEachern The following post may not suit a scholarly discussion on cartography and empire. You’ve been warned. Here be dragons, and all that. This summer, I curated… Continue Reading
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Claire Campbell I like maps. A lot. I used to study the Rand McNally Road Atlas on long car trips. Sometimes when I’m homesick I’ll meander through Halifax on Google Streetview. And this year I’m team-teaching a new course on “The Politics and Meaning of Maps.” The Premise This is an Integrated Perspectives course,… Continue Reading
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Zachary A. Tingley Lighthouses, once a lifesaving beacon of hope for mariners facing the elements, are themselves now in need of rescue. In communities up and down the Atlantic coast, local communities have organized to preserve lighthouses that, while being in need of a great deal of repair because of federal neglect, remain iconic in… Continue Reading
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Stephen Hay When we think of Christmas in Newfoundland and Labrador, mumming comes to mind, the famous tradition of visiting in disguise.[1] Yet, this is just one of many Christmas customs that Newfoundlanders and Labradoreans enjoyed. Newfoundland and Labrador holiday customs during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century included burning the Yule log and… Continue Reading
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Christopher C. Jones Harvey Amani Whitfield, North to Bondage: Loyalist Slavery in the Maritimes (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2016). The lone Canadian student enrolled in my course on “Slavery and the Slave Trade in Africa and the Atlantic World” this semester expressed some surprise last week when I mentioned that the class would cover the history… Continue Reading
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Elizabeth L. Jewett Time and a Place: An Environmental History of Prince Edward Island, edited by Edward MacDonald, Joshua MacFadyen and Irené Novaczek (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016). As I read Time and a Place: An Environmental History of Prince Edward Island, my mind cast back to a scene from Anne of Green Gables,… Continue Reading
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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
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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
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