Age and Athleticism: A Wolfville Rector on Nineteenth-Century Cricket

By John Reid

Recently, my friend Peter Latta was kind enough to share with me a newspaper item – a letter to the editor – drawn from his research on the history of Amherst, Nova Scotia.  Published on 24 March 1921 by the Amherst Daily News, the letter was written by the Rev. Richard Ferguson Dixon, the Anglican Rector of Wolfville.  At the time the president of the Wolfville Cricket Club, Dixon recounted an effort made during the summer of 1920 to restore that sport to the eminence it had enjoyed before the First World War.  Clubs from Annapolis Royal, Bridgetown, Kentville, Windsor, and Wolfville had competed vigorously, and the season had reached a satisfying conclusion when a Valley select team had lost only narrowly to the West Indians of Halifax.  Now, in 1921, Dixon hoped that a team would be organized in Amherst, just as was already taking place in Stellarton, so that the sport could continue its recovery.  At almost 70 years old, and having served the Church of England in the Maritimes since 1894 – born in the north of England, he had moved to Canada in 1872 and spent the intervening years in Ontario – he saw “no reason why, in due time, every town and large village in the Maritime Provinces should not possess, as it did twenty-five or thirty years ago, a flourishing cricket club.”[1]

Rev. Richard Ferguson Dixon

Dixon’s recollection of the late nineteenth century was accurate enough, although his prediction was over-optimistic.  Despite persisting during the 1920s in places such as Stellarton, Truro, and Whitney Pier, cricket never regained its earlier status as Nova Scotia’s pre-eminent team sport.  From a historical perspective, however, by far the most interesting part of Dixon’s letter is the passage in which he compared the significance of available sports for men – the gendered context was explicit – of varying ages:

The decline of cricket in Nova Scotia and elsewhere in Canada during the past ten or fifteen years, in my opinion, is very regrettable.  Baseball cannot take its place, for it is a game for boys and very young men.  No man can successfully play baseball or has any inclination to do so, as a rule, to put it at the latest, after thirty.  Golf is the elderly and old man’s game; tennis, a fine game in its way lacks the camaraderie and, I may add, the spice of danger that keeps a man’s nerves braced up in cricket in “standing up” to a swift bowler.  This is also lacking in quoits, curling, bowls, and other games of the same character.

Jeunesse étudiante acadienne et Corps-école des officiers canadiens, 1941-1964 [2/2]

Philippe Volpé
Institut d’études acadiennes

 Voici la seconde et dernière partie de l’étude de l’historien Philippe Volpé sur les Corps-écoles des officiers canadiens (CEOC) en Acadie. La première partie peut être consultée ici. [hyperlien]

 CEOC d’Acadie et louvoiements d’après-guerre

 Au lendemain de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, les CEOC connaissent une certaine précarité en Acadie. À l’Université Saint-Joseph, le corps-école est discontinué. À l’Université du Sacré-Cœur, bien que le conseil de l’établissement soit d’avis, dès l’automne 1945, que le corps-école devrait être « supprimé », en l’absence d’indications des autorités militaires, il est jugé imprudent d’agir de la sorte et les administrateurs décident de le maintenir en activité pour les volontaires intéressés. Une certaine opposition eu égard à l’entraînement militaire est alors perceptible dans les universités d’Acadie à la suite de la guerre. Les autorités avancent que l’entraînement militaire s’agence mal au règlement de leur maison d’enseignement et qu’il entraîne la formation d’un certain militarisme dans l’esprit des jeunes. C’est d’ailleurs pour ces raisons que le corps de cadets de l’Université du Sacré-Cœur, devenu un corps de cadets de l’air en 1944, est dissous en octobre 1946[1]. Un corps de cadets du Sacré-Cœur est néanmoins remis sur pied à l’Université du Sacré-Cœur en 1961[2].

Contingent du CEOC de l’Université du Sacré-Cœur, 1945. Marcel Tremblay, 50 ans d’éducation catholique et française en Acadie, Caraquet 1899 – Bathurst 1949, Bathurst, Université du Sacré-Cœur, 1949, p. 250

À l’automne 1946, les autorités de l’Université du Sacré-Cœur sont enfin informées de la nouvelle mouture, post-conflit mondial, que prendront les CEOC; un plan de formation qui demeura inchangé pour le reste de leur existence. Il est dès lors convenu que la formation offerte par ces corps-écoles sera décomposée en deux phases, l’une théorique, l’autre pratique. Durant l’année universitaire, les jeunes assisteront à des cours et conférences théoriques sur un ensemble d’aspects militaires, allant des rudiments des services offerts par l’Armée canadienne, à l’histoire militaire, en passant par la géographie, la science militaire et nous en passons. Ensuite, les membres sont tenus de suivre un entraînement pratique de trois-quatre mois durant l’été dans une base militaire de leur choix suivant leurs intérêts : armurerie, camp Borden en Ontario; artillerie, camp Shilo au Manitoba; ingénierie, camp Chilliwack en Colombie-Britannique; etc. Les membres qui suivent ce programme de deux à trois ans avec succès qualifient pour des grades de Capitaines dans les Forces de réserve ou de Lieutenants dans les Forces actives (3 ans) ou de Lieutenants dans les Forces de réserves s’ils n’ont suivi la formation théorique et pratique que durant deux années[3].

Jeunesse étudiante acadienne et Corps-école des officiers canadiens, 1941-1964 [1/2]

Philippe Volpé
Institut d’études acadiennes

 C’était à l’occasion de notre chantier de doctorat. Travaillant à l’étude des mouvements étudiants acadiens de la première moitié du 20^e siècle, nous nous étions occupé à dépouiller des albums de finissants des universités/collèges classiques d’Acadie. En feuilletant ces publications, c’est avec étonnement que nous avons trouvé dans quelques-unes un « Appel aux armes » adressé à la gent estudiantine. Aux côtés des photographies plus conventionnelles de conseils étudiants, d’équipes sportives, de concours oratoires et de pièces de théâtre, il s’en trouvait d’autres qui, présentant des jeunes au garde-à-vous, vêtus d’habits militaires, bottines cirées aux pieds et carabine en main, détonnaient d’avec les illustrations de leurs confrères engagés dans une représentation des Fourberies de Scapin.

Emblème du « COTC » de l’Université Saint-Joseph. Album-souvenir du Collège Saint-Joseph, 1864-1964, s.n., s.l., s.d., p. 38.

Nous ne savions rien à ce moment de ces étudiants ralliés sous cet emblème entrecroisant le drapeau acadien au Red Ensign et surmonté du sigle « COTC ». On ne nous tiendra sans doute pas rigueur de cette méconnaissance. Dans sa récente monographie consacrée au contingent du Canadian Officer’s Training Corps (COTC) de l’Université de Toronto, l’historien Eric McGeer souligne qu’encore à ce jour ces corps universitaires d’entraînement militaire ne font, la plupart du temps, que figure de « caméo » dans les études consacrées aux établissements d’enseignement et aux mouvements étudiants[1]. Cette constatation vaut également pour l’historiographie acadienne qui, au mieux, n’a fait que mentionner leur existence dans le contexte circonscrit de la Seconde Guerre mondiale[2]. Pourtant, les Corps-écoles des officiers canadiens (CEOC) – désignation française des COTC – ont marqué le vécu de centaines d’étudiants acadiens des années 1940 aux années 1960.

How Bonnie Morgan’s Conception Bay Anglican Women Influenced Another Regional History

By Shelby Blair Martens

At first glance, the Anglican women of the coastal communities of Conception Bay, Newfoundland in Bonnie Morgan’s Ordinary Saints: Women, Work and Faith in Newfoundland are very different from the Calvinist farm women of Southern Alberta of my own research. However, Ordinary Saints showed me how despite the obvious differences in region, religion and occupation, the women’s life stories speak to similar themes and situations.

Bonnie Morgan’s Ordinary Saints

Morgan’s recently released Ordinary Saints uses oral history interviews with Anglican women in the rural communities of Conception Bay, in addition to material culture and archival research, to highlight the impact of women’s lived religion on their labour, and vice-versa, the impact of their labour on their religion. Morgan brilliantly demonstrates that Conception Bay women’s religiosity and feminism often worked together to inform their labour. Ordinary Saints not only builds on scholars such as Lynn Marks and Robert Orsi in the study of lived religion and labour, but also shows the clear need for more work in these intersecting fields.

After benefitting so much from Ordinary Saints, I was thrilled when Morgan agreed to be interviewed about her research and writing process, as well as her goals and intentions for her study. As an oral historian myself, I know the challenges associated with conducting ethical community-based research while balancing academic rigor. I asked Morgan how she handled this delicate line in her own study:

Military Service, Citizenship, & Political Culture: Militia Studies in Atlantic Canada 1700 – 2000

By Cynthia Wallace-Casey 

Remembering the First World War

“Mud and barbed wire through which the Canadians advanced during the Battle of Passchendaele.” William Rider-Rider. Canada. Dept. of National Defence. Library and Archives Canada , A-002165

2018 marked the 100th anniversary of the ending of the First World War. This was a significant centenary year for Canadians, as the anniversary sparked a great deal of interest in commemorative activities and programmes. Of particular interest to my research is the Canadian War Museum’s Supply Line First World War Discovery Box, which became highly sought after by educators across Canada, as a useful tool for remembering the war. What made Supply Line particularly effective as a classroom resource was the use of museum artefacts, reproductions, and images that enabled students to experience war in tactile ways. Because of its popularity, however, access to the discovery box became highly competitive, and this popularity has since not waned at all. Every year, teachers across Canada vie to be included on the museum’s circulation schedule.

Canadian War Museum Supply Line First World War Discovery Box. Courtesy of the Canadian War Museum

The International Context

As the “war to end all wars” fades from living memory, an international research network known as the Teaching and Learning War Research Network has been working since 2017 to explore concepts of war remembrance among young people. It is in this international context that new questions have arisen about 1) the ways cataclysmic events are taught in the 21st century; 2) what commemorative narratives exist in education; 3) how young people respond to and interpret such messages; and 4) the relationship between education and commemoration (http://teachlearnwar.exeter.ac.uk/). These questions point to complex ways of remembering the First World War.

Commonwealth partners in the international inquiry include the Te Papa, Pukeahu Heritage Park and Auckland Museum in New Zealand (lead investigators: Dr. Mark Sheehan and Martyn Davison, Victoria University of Wellington), as well as the Imperial War Museum and National Army Museum in the United Kingdom (lead investigator: Dr. Catriona Pennell, University of Exeter), and Museums Victoria in Australia (see also Innes & Sharpe, 2018; Sheehan & Taylor, 2016). Data collection has been completed in New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom (Sheehan, 2018).

The Canadian Context

Working with the Canadian War Museum, Dr. Lorna Mclean and myself have initiated a small University of Ottawa inquiry, aimed at identifying the concepts Canadian students (grades 7 – 9) construct about war. We are particularly interested in how the Canadian War Museum’s Supply Line discovery box may impact these beliefs. More specifically, our research question is twofold: “What core beliefs and assumptions underpin young peoples’ narrative beliefs about the First World War in Canada; and how does Supply Line support historical thinking and historical empathy about the First World War.” Our objective is to explore the extent to which students are able to question the highly emotive official narratives of reverence and sacrifice—to construct more complex narratives of war remembrance that empathize with a wide variety of war experiences.

Unfortunately, what we have discovered thus far, is that due to high demand, many teachers do not have access to the museum’s discovery box. For this reason, we have begun the process of replicating and localizing the discovery box (much as has already happened in Newfoundland with The Rooms BMO First World War Edu-kit). In so doing, we hope to make the material more easily accessible to classrooms in New Brunswick. Our replicated discovery box will be available for educators wishing to participate in the inquiry by September 2020.

Research Intersections

So how does this relate to the activities of the Military Service, Citizenship and Political Culture research initiative? I believe that our research interests intersect in three specific areas:

1. Student narratives around Acadian participation in the First World War;
2. Student beliefs about identity, loyalty, and obligation to the Commonwealth (and how these may or may not differ between classrooms and language groups within Atlantic Canada); and
3. Insights into current student learning about war (grades 7 – 9), and how this might relate to new research being undertaken by the Atlantic Canada Military Service, Citizenship and Political Culture research network.

Looking more broadly upon international research, Mark Sheehan and Catriona Pennell have collected preliminary data, and undertaken a comparative analysis of 11-16 year-olds visiting First World War exhibition sites in Wellington (New Zealand), or Western Front battlefields (United Kingdom). Some of their findings have been recently published in the History Education Research Journal (volume 17, no 1, April 2020).

In New Zealand (Sheehan & Davison, 2017), Mark Sheehan has focused upon student remembrance around the Gallipoli campaign. His findings indicate that while young people in New Zealand (aged 13-14 years) perceive Gallipoli as significant to their national identity, they do not draw upon historical evidence to justify their beliefs. Instead, they construct “notions of sacrifice, heroism and a debt of duty to support their views” (p. 260). Upon examination of museum-related images that challenge popular beliefs about Gallipoli, however, Sheehan has found that a substantial number of students adopt more complex concepts for remembering. As Sheehan observes:

What emerged from the elicitation task is that when given the opportunity to do so, young people were able to engage critically with the production of cultural memory messages about war remembrance… Far from being passive consumers of national narratives about Anzac, the ways that these young New Zealanders made meaning of war remembrance was complex, nuanced and critical (Pennell & Sheehan, 2020, p. 26).

In Australia, where Anzac Day and the battle of Gallipoli are equally remembered, Melanie Innes and Heather Sharp (2018) have reached similar conclusions. They have found that a large proportion of students participating in their inquiry (aged 13 – 18 years) perceive Gallipoli as their iconic symbol of nation building (p. 203); only a very small proportion recognize differing perspectives surrounding this ideology (p. 202).

Likewise, Catriona Pennell in the United Kingdom has discovered similar beliefs among students aged 14-16 years. She has found that young people hold an “uncritical engagement” (Pennell & Sheehan, p. 27) with the First World War, attributing significance to remembering simply because “it would be disrespectful not to” (Pennell & Sheehan, 2020, p. 27). Through her research, involving students visiting First World War battlefields on the Western Front in France, Pennell has found that while the excursion greatly enhances students’ empathy towards war, the experience actually perpetuates beliefs about war remembrance that are shaped around patriotic concepts of sacrifice, duty and loyalty (Pennell, 2018, p. 93). As Pennell concludes: “The tours are teaching young people to remember a predominantly British experience of the First World War, to ensure that the “next generation” engages in remembrance practices – but for what purpose is not entirely clear to the students” (p. 94).

Here in Canada, we wish to investigate how teaching tools like the Supply Line discovery box may or may not enable students to move beyond such notions of reverence and duty, to adopt more complex—and more inclusive—understandings about war. Most certainly, the Covid-19 pandemic has dramatically impacted our work in this regard; but we are nevertheless hopeful, that a day will come when students can return to their classrooms again. In the interim, we are seeking teachers, or individual homeschooled students, who may wish to borrow our discovery box and participate in our inquiry. The replicated trunk will be available for use beginning in September 2020. I invite anyone who may be interested in participating in our inquiry to reach out to me at cwallac2@uottawa.ca .

Works Cited:

Canadian War Museum. First World War discovery box. Retrieved from https://www.warmuseum.ca/s1/supplyline/first-world-war-discovery-box/

Innes, M., & Sharp, H. (2018). World War I commemoration and student historical consciousness: A study of high-school students’ views. History Education Research Journal, 15(2), 193-205.

Pennell, C. (2018). Taught to remember? British youth and First World War centenary battlefield tours. Cultural Trends, 27(2), 83-98.

Pennell, C. & Sheehan, M. (2020). But what do they really think? Methodological challenges of investigating young people’s perspectives of war remembrance. History Education Research Journal, 17(1), 21-35.

Sheehan, M. (February 5 & June 17, 2018). Personal communication.

Sheehan, M., & Davison, M. (2017). “We need to remember they died for us”: War remembrance in New Zealand and young people’s “memory messages” about Gallipoli and ANZAC. London Review of Education, 15(2), 259-271.

Sheehan, M., & Taylor, T. (2016). Australia and New Zealand: ANZAC and Gallipoli in the twenty first century. In R. Guyver (ed.), The teaching of history and the changing nation state – transnational and intranational perspectives (pp. 237-254). London: Bloomsbury.

Teaching and Learning War Research Network. Teaching and learning war research network: Education and modern conflict in an international comparative perspective. Retrieved from: http://teachlearnwar.exeter.ac.uk/

The Rooms. The Rooms BMO First World War edu-kit. Retrieved from: https://www.therooms.ca/programs-events/for-schools-youth/edu-kits/the-rooms-bmo-first-world-war-edu-kit

 

 

Is there an ideological Left, Right and Centre in Canadian Politics?

By Gail Campbell

Editor’s Note: This post was submitted on 13 May 2020.

The daughter of a ‘working man’ whose experience and understanding of the world in some ways surpassed that of my teachers, I became interested in politics at an early age. As a graduate student in the 1970s, I was attracted to the ‘new political history’, which sought to trace the connections between electoral behaviour and political ideologies. Yet the methodology of the ‘new political historians’ drew a good deal of criticism, often from those who were not only sceptical of but also intimidated by statistical analysis. Ultimately, even many of the ‘new political historians’ themselves became discouraged by time-consuming data gathering and analysis, and abandoned the computer assisted effort to understand and explain the participation of ordinary people in formal and informal party politics.

In recent years, the analysis of Canadian political history has tended to drift away from a nuanced analysis of party politics and toward a more general, often confusing overview that conflates the two major parties into a single ideological framework. At best, Canada’s system is discussed in terms of ‘brokerage politics’ with two ‘big tent’ parties, each with a small loyal core, vying for the same supporters. This situation has, according to a widely held view, resulted in the triumph of ‘neoliberal policies’, for which we can read ‘Capitalism’. The problem with this characterisation is its narrow economic focus and lack of sophisticated analytical framework or theoretical perspective. It tends to originate in and reflect a dismissive condemnation of both major parties.

Une épopée corsaire au Canada atlantique durant le régime français

This essay is part of a series of contributions to be published over the coming years by members of the research group “Military Service, Citizenship, and Political Culture: Studies of Militias in Atlantic Canada.” Any questions about the project can be sent to Gregory Kennedy, Research Director of the Acadian Studies Institute at the Université de Moncton at gregory.kennedy@umoncton.ca.

Nous vous présentons une texte d’une série de contributions qui seront publiées au cours des prochaines années par des membres du groupe de recherche « Service militaire, citoyenneté et culture politique : études des milices au Canada atlantique ». N’hésitez pas à joindre Gregory Kennedy, directeur scientifique de l’Institut d’études acadiennes de l’Université de Moncton, pour toute question concernant le projet à gregory.kennedy@umoncton.ca.

Nicolas Landry

Université de Moncton, campus de Shippagan

Nul besoin d’insister sur le fait que la guerre de course et les corsaires n’occupent pas une grande place dans l’historiographie militaire de la Nouvelle-France. Du moins, pas au même titre que les troupes de la marine, la milice ou encore les alliances entre communautés amérindiennes et eurocanadiennes. Une explication possible à ce phénomène réside sans doute dans le fait que cette activité se concentrait très majoritairement dans les colonies françaises de l’actuel Canada atlantique qui ont moins retenu l’attention des spécialistes de la Nouvelle-France jusqu’ici, soit Port Royal et le fleuve Saint-Jean en Acadie, Plaisance à Terre-Neuve et, finalement, Louisbourg sur l’île Royale. Les chiffres parlent d’eux-mêmes puisque, en définitive, sur un total de 332 prises de navires anglais déclarées en Nouvelle-France entre 1689 et 1759, 89% ont été effectuées dans l’espace colonial français du Canada atlantique[1].

Figure 1 – Carte de l’Accadie et Pais Voisins, 1757, Jacques-Nicolas Bellin (Wikipedia)

C’est donc en vertu de cette lacune historiographique mentionnée ci-haut que je me suis intéressé à cet aspect négligé de l’histoire du Canada atlantique. Le projet tentera à la fois de mieux faire comprendre les réalités de la course française dans la région mais aussi de présenter certains de ses principaux acteurs. À noter que ce texte s’inscrit dans deux projets en collaboration avec le Professeur Gregory Kennedy, directeur de l’Institut d’études acadiennes de l’Université de Moncton. D’abord celui intitulé « La course et les corsaires en Acadie et sur l’Île Royale, 1688 à 1758 », qui a bénéficié d’une subvention de la Faculté des études supérieures et de la recherche de cette institution. Ensuite, celui intitulé « Service militaire, citoyenneté et culture politique; études des milices au Canada atlantique 1700-2000 », en collaboration avec le Gregg Centre for the Study of War and Society et le Département d’histoire de la University of New Brunswick.

La période à l’étude dans ce projet s’aligne sur la chronologie de l’histoire-bataille coloniale qui regroupe les guerres d’Augsbourg (1688-1697), de Succession d’Espagne (1702-1713), de Succession d’Autriche (1744-48) et de Sept Ans (1754-1763). En guise d’entrée en matière, nous consacrons néanmoins ce billet à démontrer que l’activité corsaire dans la région est d’abord l’œuvre d’initiatives anglo-hollandaises entre 1613 et 1674. L’activité française, quant à elle, débute plutôt avec la Guerre de la Ligue d’Augsbourg en 1688. Ainsi, en 1613, lorsque le capitaine anglais Samuel Argall, amiral de la nouvelle colonie de Virginie, s’empare de Saint-Sauveur et de Port Royal, il est à ce moment muni d’une commission en guerre du roi d’Angleterre. Il en va de même des frères Kirke qui détiennent des lettres de marque de Charles I^er (décembre 1627) les autorisant à capturer des « French Prizes in the Atlantic during the Anglo-French War »[2]. Les Kirke s’empareront non seulement des postes français du fleuve Saint-Laurent, entre Cap Tourmentin et Tadoussac, incluant le poste de traite français de l’île Miscou et finalement Québec. Fait intéressant à noter, rappelons que les Kirke sont des huguenots et natifs de Dieppe en France. En 1627, suite au début de la guerre entre la France et l’Angleterre, le roi Charles I^er confie à David Kirke et à ses frères la mission de s’emparer du Canada. Quoiqu’ils échouent devant Québec en 1628, ils réussissent l’exploit en 1629.

Figure 2 – Champlain surrendering Qubec to Admiral Kirke, July 20, 1628, oilette postcard printed in England after the drawing by R. Caton Woodville (Wikipedia)

L’expédition est alors organisée par la Company of Adventurers to Canada[3]. En ce qui concerne le major Robert Sedgwick, nommé par Cromwell, il détient lui-aussi une commission de course lorsqu’il s’empare de l’Acadie en 1654. Il est également sûr qu’en 1674, le capitaine Jurriaen Aernoutsz commande un navire corsaire hollandais, le Flying Horse, lorsqu’il attaque Machias, Saint-Jean et Jemseg, avant de vendre son butin à Boston[4]. Ainsi, avant 1688, les épisodes violents survenant à Terre-Neuve ou entre l’Acadie et la Nouvelle-Angleterre découlent davantage de luttes pour le contrôle des pêches que d’enjeux proprement impériaux[5]. À cette époque, il y aura toutefois des tentatives en vue d’assurer un contexte de paix dans les colonies atlantiques détenues par la France et l’Angleterre.

Spring 2020 Acadiensis

By Suzanne Morton and Donald Wright

The publication of the Spring 2020 issue of Acadiensis takes place in a very different world from that of when it began to come together. Indeed, no one could have anticipated how quickly the novel coronavirus would spread or the toll it would take. Our hearts go out to our readers who have been directly impacted by the pandemic or whose precarious incomes have been made even more precarious.

Still, historians are well-equipped: the study of change over time is our bread and butter, giving us much-needed perspective and the ability to read change in the present.

To this end, we are delighted with the he Spring issue both for its scholarship and its unusually broad sweep, from the late-17^th century to the 1970s. Thomas Peace contributes an exciting and original analysis of social networks in early-18^th century Kespukwitk and Port Royal, arguing that there was less interaction between Indigenous populations and settlers than has been assumed.

G. Patrick O’Brien offers an article on a family in Loyalist exile in Halifax focusing on the women’s emotions. In his words, “Loyalist women were not simply complicit followers. To the contrary, women had influence over their husband’s decisions concerning the family and were also important public figures in the creation of Loyalist communities.”

The Nova Scotia Cricket League at the turn of the 20^th century is the subject of John Reid’s contribution. For a period of time, Reid argues, the NSCL served an important integrative function. When read in the context of Black Lives Matter, his scholarship is yet another powerful reminder of the historical presence and participation of Black Nova Scotians throughout society.

Andrew Secord examines the process of political decision making around New Brunswick’s move into nuclear power in the early 1970s. In remarkable detail, and drawing on the idea of decisions becoming “locked-in,” he uncovers where, how, and why the decision to build Point Lepreau was made.

Finally, we round out the volume with Jacques Gagnon’s research note on a 1686 Beaubassin map and two review essays by Michael McCrossan and Fred Burrill that examine recent books on Indigenous legal issues and modern state planning respectively.

Readers should be able to access the issue through MUSE next week and through other platforms shortly after. And although the mailing of hardcopies will be delayed because of the closure of the University of New Brunswick campus, we are actively looking at ways of getting copies to our subscribers as soon as possible.

On behalf of the Acadiensis team, we hope that you enjoy this issue. We also hope that you and your family are well during this difficult time. We won’t say unprecedented time because, as historians, we know that nothing is unprecedented and that everything has a precedent. In this sense, we are incredibly lucky to be historians.

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Suzanne Morton and Donald Wright are Co-editors of Acadiensis.

 

The Wake: The Deadly Legacy of a Newfoundland Tsunami

By Linda Kealey

On a recent news broadcast, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Chief Medical Health Officer of Alberta, compared the current pandemic crisis to a tidal wave that sweeps all before it out to sea.  Tidal waves and tsunamis destroy lives and communities often without warning.  Her comparison brought to mind Linden MacIntyre’s recent historical narrative based in the Newfoundland community of St. Lawrence, located on the South Coast of the province.  The Wake: The Deadly Legacy of a Newfoundland Tsunami (Toronto: Harper Collins Canada, 2018) is both a historical recounting of events and a personal coming to grips with a legacy not only of a disastrous tidal wave that killed 28 people in November 1929, wiping out buildings and the fishery, but also of the ensuing turn of that community to fluorspar mining.  The mines replaced the fishery but left in their wake a history of industrial disease and death, taking the lives of hundreds of miners, leaving families to grieve and deal with inadequate compensation.

The Wake: The Deadly Legacy of a Newfoundland Tsunami.

As a journalist and novelist, MacIntyre tells these stories as a tribute to the residents and victims of the tsunami and as a reminder of corporate greed as well as government failures to act.  His father moved to St. Lawrence in the 1940s to work in mining but stayed only a few years (Linden MacIntyre was born in a nearby community) before returning to Cape Breton. The author’s conversations with his father in the 1960s brought to light the perils of underground mining and the economic factors that led men to risk their lives to earn a living for their families.  His book starts with the tsunami and its impact on the community, drawing on archival documents, government sources, interviews and personal stories, setting the context for the community’s eager embrace of a mining proposition in the subsequent hard times of the Great Depression.

The David Alexander Prize / Le prix David Alexander – 2020 ($400)

The David Alexander Prize – 2020 ($400)

The David Alexander Prize is awarded annually for the best essay on the history of Atlantic Canada written in a course by an undergraduate student in any university. The amount of the prize is currently set at $400.

 Conditions:

• Entries must be undergraduate essays between 1,500 and 5,000 words in length on some aspect of the history of Atlantic Canada, written in English or French.
• They may be research, interpretive, or historiographical efforts.
• The author must be part-time or full-time undergraduate student in a degree program at an accredited university or college, and the essay must have been written to meet the requirement of an undergraduate credit course during the 2019-2020 academic year.
• Previous winners of the prize may not compete.

Submissions: Entries shall be submitted by course instructors no later than 30 June 2020. No instructor shall submit more than two entries. Essays should not bear the instructor’s comments or a grade. Entries may be sent as an electronic copy or a printed copy.

Adjudication: Entries will be judged by a panel of three distinguished historians. The winner will be announced in the autumn of 2020. No runners-up or honorary mentions will be designated.

Entries may be submitted by email attachment to the Acadiensis Administrative Assistant at acadnsis@unb.ca, or by post to:

Alexander Prize Committee
c/o Office Manager, Acadiensis
Campus House, University of New Brunswick
P.O. Box 4400, Fredericton, N.B.   E3B 5A3

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Le prix David Alexander – 2020 ($400)

Le prix David-Alexander est accordé annuellement à la meilleure dissertation portant sur l’histoire des provinces de l’Atlantique réalisée par une étudiante ou un étudiant dans le cadre d’un cours de premier cycle.

Conditions:

• Les dissertations soumises doivent avoir été effectuée dans le cadre d’un cours de premier cycle. Elles doivent compter entre 1 500 et 5 000 mots, être rédigées en français ou en anglais, et traiter en profondeur d’un aspect de l’histoire des provinces de l’Atlantique.
• Il peut s’agir d’un travail de recherche ou d’un essai de type historiographique.
• L’auteur doit être inscrit à temps plein ou à temps partiel dans un programme de premier cycle dispensé par une université ou un collège reconnu. La dissertation doit avoir été rédigée à titre d’exigence dans le cadre d’un cours de premier cycle offert durant l’année universitaire 2019-2020.
• Les personnes ayant déjà reçu le prix ne sont pas éligibles.

Dépôt des candidatures: Les dossiers de candidature doivent être présentés par les professeurs avant le 30 June 2020. Aucun professeur ne peut présenter plus de deux dossiers. Les dissertations doivent être dactylographiées et ne comporter aucun commentaire ou note de la personne responsable du cours.

Résultats: Les dossiers seront évalués par un jury formé de trois historiens de renom. Le gagnant sera connu au plus tard à l’autumne 2020. Aucun prix de deuxième place ou mention spéciale ne sera accordé.

Les candidatures peuvent être soumises en l’envoyant par email attachement à l’assistant administratif d’Acadiensis (acadnsis@unb.ca), ou par courrier à:

Alexander Prize Committee
c/o Office Manager, Acadiensis
Campus House, University of New Brunswick
P.O. Box 4400, Fredericton, N.B.   E3B 5A3