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

By The Champlain SocietyHistory

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

June 11, 2021 The historical geography of Canada as a bounded land
In this podcast, Greg Marchildon interviews Cole Harris, the author of A Bounded Land: Reflections on Settler Colonialism in Canada published by the University of British Columbia Press in 2020. This books brings together some of the major chapters and articles written by Harris in his long career as one of Canada’s most prominent historical geographers. These essays cover Indigenous pre-contact history, early European settlement in a highly limited, and bounded, environment, as well as the diverging perceptions between settler colonialism and Indigenous peoples in Canada. Cole is currently professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of numerous books on historical geography and holds the Order of Canada in recognition of his contribution to Canadian scholarship.
If you like our work, please consider supporting it: https://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.
35 min
June 03, 2021 How First Nations became marginalized in the Canadian Prairies
In this podcast episode, Greg Marchildon interviews James Daschuk, the author of Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Indigenous Life, a new edition of which was published by the University of Regina Press in 2019. Daschuk’s book focuses on the pre- and post-contact history of Indigenous peoples in the Great Plains of North America, focusing on the Canadian portion of the Plains in the 19th and 20th centuries. In particular, he documents how Macdonald’s government used food and the threat of starvation to pressure First Nations into accepting treaties and their relocation to reserves. Combining this human history with climate and environmental history, he produced a book that has won multiple prizes including the Canadian Historical Association’s Sir John Macdonald Prize and was named Book of the Year by the Globe and Mail, Quill and Quire, and the Writer’s Trust. Daschuk is currently an associate professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Studies with a cross-appointment to the Department of History at the University of Regina.
If you like our work, please consider supporting it: https://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.
37 min
May 27, 2021 Beauty Contests and Settler Femininity
Greg Marchildon interviews Patrizia Gentile on her book Queen of the Maple Leaf: Beauty Contests and Settler Femininity published by UBC Press in 2020. An associate professor of human rights, social justice and gender studies at Carleton University, Gentile has written a cultural history of beauty contests in Canada that pays attention to the evolving perceptions of femininity among contest organizers, participants and audiences. In particular, she examines the patient paradox when there is an explicit display of the feminine figure on the one hand and an insistency by pageant officials on the other to vehemently deny that their particular pageant was a “beauty contest.” She also described the racial dimensions of these beauty contests and the “while settler codes of feminine respectability.”
If you like our work, please consider supporting it: https://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.
32 min
May 20, 2021 John Lennon in Canada
Patrice Dutil talks with about the visit to Canada of John Lennon and Yoko Ono with Greg Marquis, Professor in the Department of History and Politics at University of New Brunswick at Saint John and the author of John Lennon, Yoko Ono and the Year Canada was Cool, published by Lorimer. Among the topics discussed are John Lennon’s politics in 1969 as well as his relationship with Yoko Ono and the Beatles. John Lennon’s ideas about Canada are examined as well as his key contacts in the country. Although the visit is best remembered for the “Bed In” at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, the reality was that this trip involved many different people and was shaped by the American politics of the late 1960s. This podcast was produced by Jessica Schmidt.
If you like our work, please consider supporting it: https://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.
39 min
May 14, 2021 A History of Law in Canada from the beginning until Confederation
In this podcast, Greg Marchildon interviews Philip Girard, the co-author, along with Jim Phillips and Blake Brown, of A History of Law in Canada, Volume 1: Beginnings to 1866 published by the University of Toronto Press in 2018. Girard explains the ways in which Canadian legal culture historically draws upon Indigenous, French and British legal traditions. He also discusses the historical pathways that led to the legal pluralism that so marks the development of law in Canada. Philip Girard is one of Canada’s most accomplished legal historians and is currently a law professor at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. Among his many other books is his outstanding biography of Supreme Court of Canada Justice Bora Laskin for which the Champlain Society awarded him the Floyd S. Chalmers Award.
If you like our work, please consider supporting it: https://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.
30 min
May 06, 2021 The Black Loyalists of New Brunswick
Patrice Dutil welcomes Stephen Davidson to discuss the origins and experiences of black loyalists in New Brunswick in the late eighteenth century. Davidson is the author of Black Loyalists in New Brunswick: The lives of Eight African Americans in Colonial New Brunswick, published by Formac. Among the topics discussed are the general phenomenon of Loyalism in Canada and the state of historical studies when it comes to the black communities in Canada. The focus is New Brunswick and the lives of few particular black immigrants who experienced extraordinary events. This podcast was produced by Jessica Schmidt.
If you like our work, please consider supporting it: https://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.
29 min
April 27, 2021 The Enigmatic W.P.M. Kennedy: the history of a Canadian academic
In this podcast episode, Greg Marchildon interviews legal scholar Martin L. Friedland on his biography of one of Canada’s most prominent legal and constitutional scholars of the 20th century. His book - Searching for W.P.M. Kennedy: The Biography of an Enigma was published by the University of Toronto Press in 2020. Friedland came into possession of Kennedy’s correspondence and other documents after purchasing the cottage in which Kennedy did so much of his writing. This treasure trove of documentation allowed Friedland to write a detailed biography of Kennedy, the author of The Constitution of Canada (1922) and other works that had a profound impact on legal, constitutional and political scholarship in Canada. Martin Friedland is University Professor and James M. Tory Professor of Law Emeritus at the Univeristy of Toronto, and (like Kennedy) was once Dean of the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law.
If you like our work, please consider supporting it: https://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.
37 min
April 21, 2021 The history of the 1960s scoop of Indigenous children in Prairie Canada
In this episode, Greg Marchildon interviews Allyson Stevenson on her book Intimate Integration: A History of the Sixties Scoop and the Decolonization of Indigenous Kinship published by the University of Toronto Press in 2020. She explores the reasons that the Saskatchewan government – and other provincial governments in Canada – established policies that results in the adoption of thousands of Indigenous children by non-Indigenous families. She also discusses government-initiated child apprehension policies and programs that separated children from their Indigenous parents and siblings. Allyson Steven holds the Gabriel Dumont Institute Chair in Métis Studies at the University of Saskatchewan where she completed her Ph.D. in Canadian History in 2015. Her own family migrated out of Red River in the 1870s to Saskatchewan.
If you like our work, please consider supporting it: https://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.
32 min
April 15, 2021 The Ku Klux Klan in Canada
Patrice Dutil examines the reach and impact of the Ku Klux Klan in Canada from its beginnings to today with Allan Bartley, author of The Ku Klux Klan in Canada: A Century of Promoting Racism and Hate in the Peaceable Kingdom, published by Formac. The topics include its beginnings in the 1920s as it was led by a combination of Americans and Torontonians and its particularly significant impact in Saskatchewan in the 1920s. The KKK is revealed as particularly anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant and anti-French as well as anti-Black. Though the KKK assumed a much lower profile after the Second World War, it has experienced a bit of a revival with the rise of the Internet. This podcast was produced by Jessica Schmidt.
If you like our work, please consider supporting it: https://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.
34 min
April 08, 2021 Historic Sites in Prairie Canada
In this episode, Greg Marchildon interviews former Parks Canada historian Robert Coutts. After his retirements, Coutts did his PhD in history on the meaning and reinterpretation of historic sites. He then turned his dissertation into the book Authorized Heritage: Place, Memory and Historic Sites in Prairie Canada that was published by the University of Manitoba Press in 2021. In the book, Coutts explores the mean of federal and provincial government official historic sites and the meaning of the authorized histories they produce. He covers historic sites focused on pre-contact Indigenous settlements, the fur trade, Euro-Canadian settlements and places of conflict between Indigenous peoples and settlers. Coutts is currently editor of a new journal called Prairie History based in Winnipeg.
If you like our work, please consider supporting it: https://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.
34 min

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

From the publisher's feed

Immerse yourself in Canada’s history! Witness to Yesterday episodes take listeners on a journey to document a time in Canada’s past and explore the people behind it, its significance, and its…