Witness to Yesterday (The Champlain Society Podcast on Canadian History)

Nicole O’Byrne speaks with Keith Mercer about his book, Rough Justice: Policing, Crime, and the Origins of the Newfoundland Constabulary, 1729–1871.

In Rough Justice, Keith Mercer examines the history of policing and crime in early Newfoundland. It focuses on the period between the appointment of the first constables on the island in 1729 to the establishment of the Newfoundland Constabulary in 1871, now known as the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. This makes the Constabulary the oldest continuous police service in Canada. These early policemen, mostly untrained amateurs, were officers of the court, but they also played important roles in some of the most notable historical events and social crises of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The establishment of the Constabulary in 1871 built upon that strong foundation of community service. Rough Justice weaves that narrative into the larger history of Newfoundland.

Keith Mercer was born in Gander and holds graduate degrees in history from Memorial and Dalhousie Universities. He works for Parks Canada as the Cultural Resource Manager in Mainland Nova Scotia. He lives in Bedford, Nova Scotia, with his wife, Amy, and children, Abby and Sam.

If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.

Greg Marchildon speaks with Steven High about his book One Job Town: Work, Belonging, and Betrayal in Northern Ontario.

There’s a pervasive sense of betrayal in areas scarred by mine, mill and factory closures. Steven High’s One Job Town delves into the long history of deindustrialization in the paper-making town of Sturgeon Falls, Ontario, located on Canada’s resource periphery. Much like hundreds of other towns and cities across North America and Europe, Sturgeon Falls has lost their primary source of industry, resulting in the displacement of workers and their families.

One Job Town takes us into the making of a culture of industrialism and the significance of industrial work for mill-working families. One Job Town approaches deindustrialization as a long term, economic, political, and cultural process, which did not begin and simply end with the closure of the local mill in 2002. High examines the work-life histories of fifty paper mill workers and managers, as well as city officials, to gain an in-depth understanding of the impact of the formation and dissolution of a culture of industrialism. Oral history and memory are at the heart of One Job Town, challenging us to rethink the relationship between the past and the present in what was formerly known as the industrialized world.

Steven High is professor of History at Concordia University and co-founder of the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling.

If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.

On the Ground (2023 reissue) by The Champlain Society

Greg Marchildon speaks with Dimitry Anastakis about his book Re-Creation, Fragmentation and Resilience: A Brief History of Canada since 1945

This book is an engaging survey of post-Second World War Canada, exploring ten themes key to the Canadian experience since 1945. An accessible narrative brings together recent scholarship to show how Canadians first re-created the nation following the Second World War, then experienced the fragmentation of the Canada that had emerged, and ultimately remained committed to Canada as a nation-state and community.

DIMIRTY ANASTAKIS is Professor and L.R. Wilson/R.J. Currie Chair in Canadian Business History at the University of Toronto in the Department of History and the Rotman School of Management, where he teaches about business, the state and politics, globalization, and automobility. He has published twelve books and edited collections, including five books on aspects of the Canadian auto industry in North America including Dream Car: Malcolm Bricklin’s Fantastic SV1 and the End of Industrial Modernity.

If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.

Nicole O’Byrne speaks with Joan Sangster about her book Demanding Equality: One Hundred Years of Canadian Feminism.

In Demanding Equality, Joan Sangster weaves together various moments of women’s activism over a 100 year period to explore what feminism is in Canada. Sangster delves into the riches of Canadian feminism, beginning with nineteenth-century tracts and continuing beyond the recent intersectional turn. Challenging the popular “wave” theory of feminist history, she argues for the movement’s surprising continuity amid decades of social transformation. This comprehensive study revitalizes a wider public conversation about the diverse movement of Canadian feminism past, present, and future.

Joan Sangster is Vanier Professor Emeritus at Trent University, and past president of the Canadian Historical Association. She has written countless articles about working women in the labour movement, the history of the left, feminist theory and historiography, the criminalization of women and girls, and Indigenous women and the law. She's the author of several influential books, including One Hundred Years of Struggle: The History of Women and the Vote in Canada, Transforming Labour: Women and Work in Postwar Canada and The Iconic North: Cultural Constructions of Aboriginal Life in Postwar Canada. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, she's held a Killam Fellowship as well as visiting professorships at Duke, Princeton, and McGill Universities.

Joan Sangster is Vanier Professor Emeritus at Trent University and a past president of the Canadian Historical Association/Société historique du Canada. She is the author of One Hundred Years of Struggle: The History of Women and the Vote in Canada; Transforming Labour: Women and Work in Postwar Canada; and The Iconic North: Cultural Constructions of Aboriginal Life in Postwar Canada.

If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.

Greg Marchildon speaks with Peter Russell about his book Canada’s Odyssey: A Country Based on Incomplete Conquests. 150 years after Confederation, Canada is known around the world for its social diversity and its commitment to principles of multiculturalism. But the road to contemporary Canada is a winding one, a story of division and conflict as well as union and accommodation.

In Canada’s Odyssey, renowned scholar Peter H. Russell provides an expansive, accessible account of Canadian history from the pre-Confederation period to the present day. By focusing on what he calls the "three pillars" of English Canada, French Canada, and Aboriginal Canada, Russell advances an important view of our country as one founded on and informed by "incomplete conquests." It is the very incompleteness of these conquests that have made Canada what it is today, not just a multicultural society but a multinational one.

Featuring the scope and vivid characterizations of an epic novel, Canada’s Odyssey is a magisterial work by an astute observer of Canadian politics and history, a perfect book to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Confederation.

Peter H. Russell is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Toronto.

If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.

Nicole O’Byrne speaks with Monika Gagnon and Brandon Webb about their book Concordia University at 50: A Collective History, which celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the merging of Loyola College and Sir George Williams University in Montreal in August 1974. Distinct from traditional institutional histories, this volume approaches Concordia University’s history from the ground up by sharing a plurality of voices from across the university over time. Fifty contributions from faculty, staff, students, and alumni, present stories of a vibrant community and its activities in a multilayered collection of professional and personal reflections, essays, and oral histories conducted with participants and observers of key events.

Providing insights into the early political pressures that inspired Concordia’s formation and the growing pains of the merger among its four faculties, as well as the development of new programs such as dance, theological studies, and études françaises, this book is a testament to an urban university formed by its many constituents and by the multilingual city and the complex province that is its home.

Enriched with copious and colourful archival documents, photographs, and public artworks that grace these urban campuses, Concordia University at 50 highlights the great range of activities, causes, innovations, and debates that emerge from educational institutions but extend well beyond the classroom.

Monika Kin Gagnon is professor of communication studies at Concordia University.

Brandon Webb is a PhD graduate of the Department of History at Concordia University. 

If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.

Larry Ostola speaks with Don Abelson about his book History Has Made Us Friends. Separated by the world’s longest land border and engaging in over three billion dollars in trade daily, Canada and the United States share security concerns, cultural interests, and a history spanning more than 250 years. Alan Rock, former Canadian ambassador to the United States, has said that this special relationship represents “a bond that is beyond practical. It borders on mystical.” The rise of nativist sentiment, however, has raised concerns over preserving this relationship.

History Has Made Us Friends illuminates the nature and dynamics of Canada-US relations, examining their history, attributed meaning, and conceptualization. Contributors consider many angles and perspectives, including the impact of geopolitical change, to determine whether the relationship warrants the moniker “special.” They explore whether shared values and demographic similarities continue to cement the relationship, and if it still matters whether presidents and prime ministers get along.

While things look different today from when President Kennedy declared, “What unites us is far greater than what divides us,” History Has Made Us Friends argues that the Canada-US relationship – often narrowly understood or dismissed as a relic of the past – continues to be unique and resilient.

Donald E. Abelson is academic director of the Wilson College of Leadership and Civic Engagement and professor of political science at McMaster University.

If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.

Image Credit: McGill Queens University Press

James Stewart (J.D.M.) speaks with Charlie Feldman about his book, Unparliamentary: Tales from Canada’s Colourful Parliamentary Past.

From fistfights to scandals, Unparliamentary provides a sourced account of unexpected events that have marked the history of Canada’s Parliament. It offers an intriguing look into surprising moments that occurred on Parliament Hill, highlighting the unpredictable nature of human behaviour – especially among legislators.

Charlie Feldman is the former president of the Canadian Study of Parliament Group with professional experience in Canada’s Senate, House of Commons, and Library of Parliament.

If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.

Donald Wright speaks with Carman Miller about his book The Black Box: Lady Bessie Borden’s Family, 1863–1956.

In a remarkable tale of tragedy, war, family conflict, and imperial diplomacy, The Black Box presents a collective biography of four generations of women in an elite Nova Scotia family during the late-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century. These intelligent, educated, artistic women were pragmatic and autonomous persons who contributed to the development, maintenance, defence, and management of the Borden family’s material resources.

Illustrating the changing nature of the time, the book explores the adventurous and curious lives of women who moved at the highest levels of society. It examines how the synergies of their private and public lives redefined their place in society during an era when the state and religion became more active and private lives more public. It also demonstrates the role and importance of the material components of social power, such as dress, residence, clubs, and travel.

Drawing on archival material retained by the family, the book reveals how the Borden family defined, secured, and sustained its status in society. The Black Box is a unique record of an elite family’s response to the changing political economy of imperial Canada.

Carman Miller was born in Nova Scotia and educated at Acadia University (B.A., 1960; B.Ed., 1961), Dalhousie (M.A., 1964) and University of London (Ph.D., 1970). In 1967, he joined the History Department at McGill as a Lecturer; he became Assistant Professor in 1971 and Associate Professor in 1977. He also served as Chairman of the department from 1978 until 1981. Miller's research interests are primarily in Canadian military and political history of the late 19th and early 20th century.

If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.