Curious Canadian History

In the Autumn of 1945 a Soviet cipher clerk defected to Canada instead of returning home to the Soviet Union. The information he brought with him shocked officials. It named a certain Sam Carr, a Toronto resident and labour activist, as a key figure in not only helping to establish a spy ring, but being the mastermind behind it all! 

Book recommendations: 

Amy Knight How the Cold War Began: The Gouzenko Affair and the Hunt for Soviet Spies 2005 by Mclelland and Stewart; 

https://www.amazon.com/How-Cold-War-Began-Gouzenko/dp/0771095775

Tyler Wentzell Not for King and Country; Edward Cecil-Smith, the Communist Party, and the Spanish Civil War2020 by UTP 

https://utorontopress.com/9781487522889/not-for-king-or-country/

David Levy Stalin’s Man in Canada: Fred Rose and Soviet Espionage 2011 by Enigma Books

https://www.amazon.ca/Stalins-Man-Canada-Soviet-Espionage/dp/1936274272

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Before there was Justin Bieber, Britney Spears, New Kids on the Block, or the Osmonds, there was Paul Anka. One of Canada’s most important contributors to the landscape of modern pop music. While not the first teen star, he was the first one from Canada and defied the odds by leaving Ottawa for New York to make it big, and make it big he did. His career has spanned decades, his success has been global, his work is iconic, and while today younger listeners might now know much about him, his influence on music and music history is undeniable. 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!!! CCH will return in January of 2023 :)

BOOK RECO: My Way written by Paul Anka and David Dalton published in 2013 by St. Martin’s Press

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250044495/my-way

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If you took a stroll along the banks of Tay River, in Perth Ontario, just on the northeast edge of the town, you would come upon on a strangely named location, Last Duel Park. Certainly, for many, they might just walk on by, chalking it up to just a strangely named location. But the more curious might wonder, how did this park get its name? The name is not a clever one, it’s given to the park because that is the location of the last fatal duel ever fought in Canada. In 1833 two former friends had such a falling out that the only recourse they sought was a pistol duel on a June summer evening. While on the surface it seemed like this dispute was over a betrayal of trust, behind the scenes it seems like there was far more going on, that being a devious plot to secure a love interest. A devious plot that if true horribly backfired and left one young man dead. 

Book recommendation: Susan Code A matter of honour: And other tales of early Perth, General Store Pub. House, January 1996

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=susan%20code&tn=matter%20honour%20tales%20early&sortby=17&cm_sp=plpafe-_-all-_-link

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Henri Bourassa is one of the most famous Quebec journalists in the history of Canada. His writing at Le Devoir, the paper he founded, was embraced by many as the voice of French-Canadians struggling to assert their place in a rapidly changing Canadian nation. He was a complex man, a devout ultramontane Catholic, a French-Canadian nationalist, but also a man who saw a future where English and French Canadians could cooperate and live side by side in harmony as the two “races” of a strong and proud Canadian nation. Yet he was also deeply disturbed by Canada’s attachment to Britain and Britain’s empire, and time and time again his platform at Le Devoir became the voice of many in Quebec who bristled at this long-standing imperial connection. No event put Bourassa on the national stage like the First World War, while he was already quite well known in Quebec prior to 1914, by the end of that war he would be known from coast to coast. 

The book recommendation for this episode is Duty to Dissent: Henri Bourassa and the First World War by Geoff Keelan published by UBC Press in 2019.

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There are many ways in which Canadians express their national identity. Through song, poetry, tattoos, pride over historic and international achievements, the celebration of multi-culturalism, the singing of the anthem, voting in an election, and so many other expressions large and small help us define who we are and who we think we are as Canadians. Sport has always played a central role in this search for identity. From cheering for Team Canada at the Olympics, to fanatically following your local sports team, sport has always been a way to unite Canadians. But sport has also played a role in helping to express the Canadian experience, especially when that Canadian experience is one that embraces Canada’s rugged, hostile and beautiful environment. In the 1920s and onwards the famous painting cabal known as the Group of Seven created an international sensation by painting Canada’s landscapes, presenting to the world what has been considered Canada’s first true school of art. At the same time that these great painters were presenting their material to a world fascinated by Canada’s landscapes, Stanley Thompson was doing the same thing...with golf courses. Thompson embraced the Canadian terrain and built golf courses into it that celebrated the unique and rugged nature of the Canadian landscape. In many ways, Thompson too was an artist who was also, like the Group of Seven, celebrating the Canadian experience through expressions of nature.

In this episode we chat with past guest Jordan Goldstein. Jordan has a Ph.D. in Sports History and 7+ years teaching sports philosophy, sociology, and history. He published his first book entitled "Canada's Holy Grail: Lord Stanley's Political Motivation to Donate the Stanley Cup" in 2021 through University of Toronto Press. His book investigates the political motivations of Lord Stanley's donation of the Stanley Cup as an act of Canadian nation building. ​He recently quit academia to build a coaching and consulting business, Phya Academy, and to work on curriculum development at Synthesis School.

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The St. Lawrence River is one of the most important waterways in the western hemisphere. It has been home to a multitude of peoples and has provided both food and commerce for centuries.   It is both a cornucopia and a highway. First Nations have lived along its banks for more than a millennium and when Europeans began arriving I the late 16th century they entered into a diverse and complicated world, patterns that had been shifting and evolving for centuries prior. Two of the main groups thriving in this world were the Algonquin and Innu, and they would see the possibilities that the newly arrived French could bring, but also were very aware of the destabilizing nature that came as a result of the European arrival. 

Book recommendation: Flesh Reborn: The Saint Lawrence Valley Mission Settlements Through the Seventeenth Century by Jean-Francois Lozier, published by McGill-Queen's University Press in 2018

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In the late 19th century a number of Canadian missionaries travelled to China ultimately arriving in the province of Honan, north of the Yellow River. These members of the Presbyterian Church of Canada sought to establish a series of missions in the volatile region. They sought to provide health care to the inhabitants while preaching the gospel. Yet, the years would not prove kind to the intrepid evangelists as illness and violent anti-foreign elements would prove to be a constant threat to the survival of the mission and the missionaries themselves. (pictured Paul and Rosalind Goforth)

Book recommendation this week is Healing Henan: Canadian Nurses and the North China Mission 1888-1947 by Sonya Gripma, published in 2008 by UBC Press.

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From 1864 until 1871 a relatively secret organisation of Canadian police patrolled Canada’s border with the United States. What began as a mission to prevent increasing tension between Britian and the US evolved into a concerted effort to undermine a major threat to Canadian sovereignty. This threat came from the Irish Republican organization known as the Fenians. Through a complex array of informants and spies on both sides of the border the Canadian secret police (known as the Frontier Constabulary) played a central role in defining Canada’s response to the Fenian threat and became the country’s first ever secret police organisation. 

Book recommendation: Canadian Spy Story: Irish Revolutionaries and the Secret Police by David A. Wilson published by McGill-Queens Press in 2022.

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Perhaps no single person in the aftermath of the Second World War aroused so much widespread and continued interest in Canada than that of Nazi officer and war criminal Kurt Meyer. Meyer was a murderer, a die hard Nazi, and a ferocious battlefield commander. He ordered the execution of numerous Canadian soldiers during the fighting for Normandy. Despite being found guilty for his crimes, and becoming the only Nazi war criminal imprisoned outside of Germany, his fate became tied up in larger global events and Canadian opinion shifted to reflect these larger global events ultimately changing Meyers fate forever.

Book recommendations: Tim Cook's "The Fight for History" Allen Lane, 2020 and Howard Margolian's "Conduct Unbecoming: The Story of the Murder of Prisoners of War in Normandy" UTP Press, 1998

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