By Sean Graham In 2011, a section of Bank Street in downtown Ottawa was designated The Village to commemorate the city’s LGBTQ2+ history. To denote The Village, there are street signs, pride flags, and a permanent rainbow intersection at the corner of Bank and Somerset. In addition to the designation, the Bank Street Business Improvement Association commissioned a project to... Read more »

By Sean Graham Located on Vancouver Island, Strathcona Provincial Park was established in 1911 by the British Columbia government. Covering 250,000 hectares, the park’s architects had an initial vision of it drawing tourists escaping the stress of modern urban living. Using Banff as a model, there were discussions of how to best create an appealing natural setting that wasn’t too... Read more »

By Sean Graham On January 1, 2015, Rita Shelton Deverell landed at Miami International Airport from Santiago, Chile for what was scheduled to be a brief layover on her way back home to Toronto. When US border agents scanned her passport, they noticed that it listed her birthplace as Houston, Texas. A Canadian citizen who had lived in Canada for... Read more »

By Sean Graham Shelter has its World Premiere tonight as part of the Toronto Jewish Film Festival. If you’re in Ontario, you can buy tickets to the virtual screening here. In the decade following the Second World War, the population of Toronto doubled, in large part because of a steady influx of immigrants. By 1971, the population doubled again to... Read more »

By Sean Graham I’m one who believes that, at its core, history is about storytelling. Historians tell the stories of those who came before – and the best historians do so in a way that is both engaging and meaningful to the audience. For some, that has included telling their own stories and using their life experiences to illuminate larger... Read more »

By Sean Graham In 1897, as news that gold had been found in the Klondike spread, over 100,000 of people rushed into the region in search of fortune. Unfortunately for many of them, the press typically didn’t highlight the harsh winter conditions in the Klondike, meaning thousands arrived completely unprepared. As the population grew, the situation on the ground continued... Read more »

By Sean Graham Every May, the City of Ottawa hosts the annual Tulip Festival to celebrate the relationships built between Canada and the Netherlands during the Second World War. Following the war, the Dutch Royal Family gifted tulips to Canada as a symbol of friendship, in part to commemorates the birth of Princess Margriet in Ottawa in 1943, the only... Read more »

By Sean Graham In this episode of the History Slam, I share the second segment of the 5-part documentary series How We Helped: Stories from Eastern Ontario Social Workers. Using first-hand accounts, the episode looks at who becomes a social worker and delves into their stories. From social workers enlisting in the army during the Second World War to leading... Read more »

By Sean Graham Being in Ottawa, there are unique opportunities for engaging with Canada’s past. One of my favourite is to head to Parliament Hill to explore how the federal government has decided to commemorate Canada’s history. The monuments that surround the parliament buildings offer a pretty clear sign of what those in the halls of federal power have determined... Read more »

By Sean Graham The first time I came to Ottawa to do research at Library and Archives Canada, I was walking back to the hotel at the end of the day and decided to stop at Parliament Hill with a specific goal – to find the statue of William Lyon Mackenzie King. I had spent the day going through Mackenzie... Read more »