Native Protestors at the Douglas Creek Estates in Caledonia
“The Calamity of Caledonia: What B.C. can teach Ontario about Native land claims.”
That’s the title of an excellent article by historian Christopher Moore in the Literary Review of Canada. As a Torontonian who has recently completed a history of the B.C. Court of Appeal, Moore is well qualified to speak about this complex legal-historical-political topic.
Skidegate Inlet, British Columbia
The Canadian historian Daniel Francis is working on a new history of coastal BC. He is the process of posting chapters from the book on his blog. The introduction and chapter one are now online.
Here is Francis’s announcement re the blog:
“For some time I’ve been working on a new history of coastal BC, a narrative account synthesizing for the general reader the vast amount of information that’s been published about this part of the world. Eventually the history will be published as a book. In the meantime, a brave new world of digital publishing seems to have arrived. Thinking to be part of it, I’ve decided to serialize my history (titled Where Mountains Meet the Sea: a history of coastal British Columbia) online on the blog.
I launched the project on Sunday (Nov.15) by posting the book’s Introduction. Every Sunday from now until completion I will post several hundred more words. Like all the other blog entries at KnowBC, Where Mountains Meet the Sea will be fully searchable, interactive and open to everyone without passwords or credit cards. I look forward to reading your comments.
Please accept this invitation to visit us and become a regular reader as the history of the BC coast unfolds.”
You can read more about Francis here and here.
In my first-year course, the focus was on the 1840s and 1850s. On Monday, I spoke about the achievement of Responsible Government. I showed part of this clip:
On Wednesday, I talked about the advent of the railway in British North America. I stressed the revolutionary impact of the technology on society, the economy, and, above all, politics.I showed the following clip at the end of my lecture:
In my honours seminar on British North America in the period of Confederation, we focused on the colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia. We discussed the following readings: Jean Barman, The West Beyond the West: a History of British Columbia (Toronto, Ont. : University of Toronto Press, 1991), 52-98; Chris Clarkson, “Property law and family regulation in Pacific British North America, 1862-1873” Histoire Sociale / Social History 30 (1997): 386-416. Charles C. Irby, “The Black Settlers on Saltspring Island in the Nineteenth Century” Phylon 35 (1974): 368-374
One student gave an excellent presentation on the life of Sir James Douglas. I am including a video about Douglas here:
I’m also including this video about Black settlers in British Columbia.
I also met my graduate student to discuss two readings related to her research project. Edward S. Roger, “Northern Algonquians and the Hudson’s Bay Company, 1821-1890” in Aboriginal Ontario : Historical Perspectives on the First Nations edited by Edward S. Rogers and Donald B. Smith (Toronto : Dundurn Press, 1994), 307-344; J.R. Millers, Skyscrapers Hide The Heavens (Toronto : University of Toronto Press, 1989).
The Past Speaks 