Let's Find Out

Edmontonians take a lot of pride in our parks and natural areas. But how did they come to be the way they are, and how well do they make space for humans and other species? On September 29, Let’s Find Out hosted a live podcast recording at the Aviary, with short talks and activities about parks. At the end, listeners had a chance to submit a question for our upcoming season about parks and natural areas in and around our city.

Guest speakers on the episode include Marilyn Dumont, Tara Russell, and Sarah De Lano.

As Chris wraps up year one of his history master’s degree, Chris and Trevor do one last regular check-in about the pile of essays, grantwriting, and paddling. After this episode, we’ll be back to doing another season of listener questions! Send us your questions about parks and natural areas around Edmonton. What are you curious about? Email us at [email protected] or drop us a line on social media.

In this episode, we travel to the Burgess Shale: a set of incredible fossil beds in Yoho National Park, preserving 500-million-year-old soft-bodied sea creatures. Today, it is part of a huge World Heritage Site: it has expanded to encompass all of Yoho National Park here in BC, Jasper and Banff, Kootenay, and three BC provincial parks. But back in 1980, the Burgess Shale sites at the Mount Stephen Trilobite Beds and the Walcott Quarry became the first little nucleus of that World Heritage site.

We find out how these fossil sites ended up on that list, what kind of information and evidence and argument were used to lobby for a spot, how it changed this space, and what it all means.

This episode is a recording of a short talk Chris gave on March 25, 2022, called Making Space for Fossils: How the Burgess Shale Claimed a Spot on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The presentation was part of the History, Classics, and Religion Graduate Students Association’s annual conference. This year’s theme was Recovery: Promises and Pitfalls.

In this episode, Chris tells Trevor about some of the comic (and cosmic) roadblocks on the road to learning about paleontology and power in Yoho National Park, and just generally the challenges facing students right now. Trevor offers some advice (and a hug). Guest co-host Eliot joins us for hot tips about the best songs from Encanto.

What’s the difference between a library and an archive? Why might you want to go into one versus the other? In this episode, Chris talks about some heartbreaking and complicated diary entries he read in the City of Edmonton Archives, what it’s like getting into libraries and archives right now with Omicron, and why it matters that it’s so tough.

This December, Dr. Andrew Woolford delivered the Western Canadian Lecture, presented by the University of Alberta’s Department of History, Classics, & Religion the 2021 Western Canadian Lecture. Dr. Woolford is a prominent scholar in Genocide Studies who has worked on the history of Indian Residential Schools in Canada. His talk was titled: “With intent to destroy a group: Genocide’s past and present in Canada.”

In this episode, Chris and Dylan Hall ask Dr. Woolford about his work, about defining genocide in Canada, and about some of the innovative ways Indigenous scholars and communities are moving beyond settler colonial definitions of group destruction. This interview was recorded the day after the lecture.

If you listen and you find yourself needing support, consider calling the National Indian Residential School Crisis line at 1-866-925-4419. You can also reach the National Indian Residential School Text Line for free by texting 68 68 68. 24/7.

You can also call the Canadian Mental Health Association, toll free, 24/7, at 1-833-456-4566 (In Quebec: 1-866-277-3553) or visit crisisservicescanada.ca.

How do you form a good historical question? In this episode, Chris and Trevor talk about trying to do that for a very specific reason: a Canada Graduate Scholarship grant application.

Chris just started a masters in history at the University of Alberta. In this episode we wanted to give you a peek into his day to day life studying to be a historian. Hopefully you’ll understand a little more what it’s actually like in the fall of 2021 to go to grad school when the pandemic’s still on, the university’s open, and most of your classwork and job are actually in person on campus.