Patchwork of Care: Midwifery in Canada

My most recent post, "Patchwork of Care: Midwifery in Canada" can be seen over at the Active History site.  The post looks at the history and regulation of midwives in Canada and the current differences in access to midwife care across the country.

Volunteering and Service Projects

During the month of December I am participating in #reverb14 as a means of getting my writing habits back on track. I will be altering the prompts as needed to fit within the scope of this blog. Today's prompt: The Plank: It has been said that you must learn to take care of yourself before you can be effective at taking care of others.  How did you take care of yourself in 2014?  How will you take care of yourself in 2015?

One of the most rewarding personal things I've done this year is to continue being engaged in projects that matter to me.  Taking on extra projects outside of work might seem counter intuitive to self care.  But working on history projects that are intellectually challenging and interesting is something I greatly enjoy. I find engagement in this type of project rewarding and something that helps lift my mood.

Projects I've continued to be a part of this year:

• Volunteering with the Multicultural History Society of Ontario's digital archive project.  This project has focused on making oral history interviews conducted by the MHSO accessible online.  It's been great to be able to volunteer with this meaningful project from a distance and be able to help out with interview transcription, research/writing of biographies, and indexing of interviews.
• Serving on the membership committee of the National Council of Public History.  NCPH is a great organization that I've enjoyed contributing to.  Serving on the membership committee has allowed me to become more engaged in the organization and connect with a number of public historians from both Canada and the United States.  
• Active History Website.  I've continued to be a co-editor at Active History.  I've been involved with this project for a number of years now and it is something I have continued to enjoy participating in.  The site promotes the dissemination of historical knowledge and often focuses on the intersection of history and everyday events.

Bringing the Legacy of Residential Schools into the Classroom

My latest post, "Bringing the Legacy of Residential Schools into the Classroom" can be seen over on Active History.  The post focuses on resources that can help teachers integrate residential schools into their lessons. I look a handful of education tools which can be accessed digitally and are good starting points for teaching the history of residential schools.

Community Driven: Thirty Years of Science North

My most recent post, "Community Driven: Thirty Years of Science North" can be seen over on Activehistory.ca.  The post looks at the history of Science North, its connection to Northern Ontario and the community roots of the organization.  

Community Engagement in Commemoration

My latest post, Community Engagement in Commemoration, can be seen over on the Active History site.  The post discusses my recent involvement in Walking With Our Sisters project and the role communities can play in commemoration and memorial.

Digital Libraries and National Digitization Programmes: How Does Canada Compare?

My most recent post, Digital Libraries and National Digitization Programmes, can be seen over on ActiveHistory.ca.  The post looks at digitization initiatives in the United States, Norway, and the United Kingdom in comparison to recent efforts by Library and Archives Canada to begin a large scale digitization project.

Archival Digitization and The Struggle to Create Useful Digital Reproductions

My most recent post, "Archival Digitization and The Struggle to Create Useful Digital Reproductions" can be seen over on the Activehistory.ca site.  The post focuses on the way that digitization has changed traditional archival research, common problems with digital archival surrogates, and efforts archives are making to improve digitization. 

“Hurry Hard!” Community Connections to Curling in Canada

Approximately 653,000 Canadian's are curlers and many more have connections to the sport.  My most recent Activehistory.ca post looks at the history of curling in Canada, the community driven nature of curling, and curling's impact on Canadian identity.

Sudbury: The Journey from Moonscape to Sustainably Green

I have a new post over on Activehistory.ca, "Sudbury: The Journey from Moonscape to Sustainably Green." The post looks at the impact of mining on the environmental landscape in Sudbury and the ongoing efforts to repair the industrial damage to the land.

Active, Digital, Public History

Friday morning at NCPH I presented as part of the "Reaching the Public through the Web: The Practice of Digital Active History" panel with Ian Milligan, Devon Elliott, Tom Peace, and Nathan Smith as the facilitator.  I won't rehash our panel as a lot has already been written to summarize our presentations.  Prior to the conference Ian wrote a great high level summary of our panel.  Following the session Clarissa Ceglio posted her rapid fire notes of the session in google docs and Jim Clifford provided a summary of the Active History panels at NCPH.

 Following our panel I sat in on the "Working Group: Teaching Digital History and New Media" session.  Despite this being a working group session the audience and the working group participants were both involved in the discussion of digital history.  The session participants were broken into three smaller groups for discussion and then reunited for discussion as a larger group.

I felt the session format was interesting but I would have been just as happy hearing some of the working group participants speak about their experiences.  The working group format is ideal for discussions being developed over longer periods of time with sessions being fruits of that discussion--by involving the audience some of that background conversation might have been missed.  That being said, the twitter back channel during this session was full of useful comments about digital history as public history and the teaching of digital history.

My Friday session attendance concluded with the "After the Cuts: The Future of History in Canada" roundtable.  The roundtable featured representatives from prominent Canadian heritage organizations including: Lyle Dick (CHA), Ellen Judd (Canadian Anthropological Society), William Ross (Canadian Archaeological Association), and Loryl MacDonald (Association of Canadian Archivists).  The session was packed and was standing room only.

The participants focused on the impact of recent cuts to government funding and problems communicating with national heritage organizations.  This panel highlighted the widespread concerns professional organizations have with Canadian heritage cuts, the loss of programing, and impending sense of doom surrounding many recent government decisions.  The session was recorded by Sean Graham of History Slam Podcast fame and should be available in some format in the near future.

Graphics in the Archive: History and Comics Unite!

Check out my latest post, "Graphics in the Archive: History and Comics Unite!" over at Activehistory.ca.  The post looks at the prevalence of historically informed comics and the preservation of the comic medium in archives. 

Canada’s Farming Roots: Agricultural Fairs and Education

My latest post can be seen over at Active History.  The post focuses on Canada's farmings roots and looks at the history of community agricultural fairs and large farming events such as the International Plowing Match.  I look at the importance of these events in creating communities and in educating both farmers and the general public.

Fresh, Local, and Financially Sound: Community Supported Agriculture in Canada

My latest post on the rise and history of Community Supported Agriculture in Canada can be seen over on Activehistory.ca.  The post examines Canada's history of community based agricultural efforts, including community gardens and agricultural co-operatives.  Special thanks to my friend and colleague Tracy who operates the Be True Farm and was the partial inspiration for looking into CSA history.

Reclaiming History Through Photographs

My most recent post, "Reclaiming History Through Photographs" can be seen over at the Active History site.  The post focuses on the use of photographs by repressed and minority peoples to reclaim a lost past.  Images can have a pivotal role in healing, reconciliation, and in the reclamation of lost history.  This particular post highlights Residential School photographs as an example of healing and rediscovering lost heritage through photographs.

Active History Celebrating Three Years

Head on over to ActiveHistory.ca to check out a great summary by Jim Clifford on the past three years of the Active History site.  It's hard to believe that it was four years ago, in 2008 when I traveled to York University for the Active History symposium.  Since the symposium and the development of the Active History site, a wide range of conceptions of active history have been shared via Active History. 

I'm constantly being exposed to new ideas and types of history via the group blog. I've went from admiring the site from afar to being fortunate enough to contribute to the site as a blogger and currently as a member of the editorial collective. It has been great to see the Active History website develop, grow, and begin to thrive.  I sincerely hope that things continue as positively in the future!

Engaging Corporate Heritage: Struggling to Cultivate Institutional Memory

My most recent post, Corporate Heritage: Struggling to Cultivate Institutional Memory, can be seen over on the Active History group blog.  My post looks at the reasons why institutional memory is non existent in so many institutions, why organizations should care about institutional memory, and how to foster a culture which cultivates institutional memory.

Tale of a Town: History Meets Theater

This morning CBC played a documentary entitled, "Small Time Stories: From the Tale of a Town - Queen Street West."  The radio documentary was based on the work done to compile the multimedia interactive play Tale of a Town that focuses on the history of the Queen Street West neighbourhood in Toronto.  The radio production provided an interesting look into some of Queen Street West's more prominent buildings and past residents. 

The premise behind the production is very similar to a historical walking tour.  The show takes the audience on a promenade-style tour of Queen West by a fictional condo developer, which allows theater to be intermingled with built history and local memories of the area.

The idea of incorporating theater into history isn't anything new -  reenactments and many living history sites have been doing this for years.  However, Tale of a Town attempts to combine theater, oral history, built heritage, local history, and music.  I'm interested to know if similar productions have been undertaken in other cities or venues. 

Photo credit: rachel in wonderland

December #builtheritage chat

This month's #builtheritage twitter chat focused on preservation and the holidays.  There was an abundance of good festive promotion ideas,  examples of seasonal events, and


First portion of the chat focused on the question, How can you use the holidays to promote your historic site? Some of the proposed activities included:

• Displaying old holiday photos on site or on social media
• Holding seasonally themed events -teas, crafts, tours, etc
• Holiday snacks! 
• Holiday theater stage at the heritage site, eg. the Christmas Carol
• Combine with other local events your activities with other local holiday events
• For example, the distillery district in Toronto christmas market, draws thousands 
• Watson's Mill in Ottawa hosted a Christmas Fair and Art Show this past wknd.
• As a backdrop to other heritage events, or as a venue for private holiday functions
• Family ornament decorating activities

Second question of the chat, what is the most successful holiday program you have been to/organized at an historic site? Favourites included:

• Victorian Christmas at Dundurn Castle in Hamiilton
• The Grand Illumination in Colonial Williamsburg 
• The Candlelight at Dallas Heritage Village. 
• @KyleGonyou recalled being taken to beakfast with Santa at Fanshawe Pioneer Village 
• Alight at Night in Upper Canada Villag
• Advent of Jazz held at St. Paul, oldest black congregation in Dallas, Texas, which was built by freed slaves. 
• Biltmore's candlelit self-guided tours with live music and fires blazing.

Third segment of the chat dealt with, How can we encourage people to shop locally in historic main streets?

• Combine moonlight madness with other activities such as skating, caroling, etc.
• Hold a Christmas festival downtown, and encourage all shops to decorate windows 
• The main streets are just perfect for decorating - light it up!
• Provide more parking
• Ask the community what they want

The chat concluded with a discussion of How do you make sure your holiday activities are as inclusive (and/or multicultural) as possible?

•  Heritage groups, municipalities should encourage all constituencies to celebrate their holiday traditions.
• Having personalized items that can be customizable for any holiday
• The new inclusive is to do lots of niche activities
• Let the historic places speak for themselves. The best places evolve and change with the times if we let them

There was also some discussion about what topics participants would like to see in the 2012 #builtheritage chats.  Some suggestions included focusing on main street design issues, preservation 2.0, or the integration of youth in heritage groups.

Sharing Archival Photographs in a Digital World

Check out my latest post at the ActiveHistory.ca site.  The post talks about options for cultural heritage organizations looking to share photograph collections online through free or low coast image hosting and image sharing sites. 

Living History: Holy Walk

Last week I attended the Bruce Mines "Holy Walk."  The idea behind the event is to tell a non-denominational version of the Christian Christmas story in an interactive way.   Participants are taken on a walk from Nazareth to Jerusalem and experience the sights and sounds of the era during the walk.

The Holy Walk has been going on for almost 20 years and is put together by local volunteers.  Over 150 volunteers take part in the three day performance of the event and work to make the Walk a unique experience. This year's event drew over 2,000 people and raised over $10,000. 

The Walk experience was like being in the middle of a living interactive history.  There were live animals, character actors, and period structures.  Following the Walk I began to consider the potential of using a Walk to depict other historical journeys and events.  Perhaps using a Walk to explore the settlement of early pioneers, the journey of Lewis and Clark, or wartime events.

Have you ever participated in a similar Walk?  

Photo Credit: Tom Keenan, Sault Star