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

Larry Ostola talks to Allan Greer about his book, Before Canada: Northern North America in a Connected World. Showcasing the exciting work of historians, archaeologists, and literary scholars who are rewriting North America’s ancient past. Long before Confederation created a nation-state in northern North America, Indigenous people were establishing vast networks and trade routes. Volcanic eruptio...

Mi’kmaq Who Left a Mark on the History of the Northeast, 1680-1980 Nicole O’Byrne talks to Janet E. Chute and Donald M. Julien about their book, Muiwlanej kikamaqki "Honouring Our Ancestors": Mi’kmaq Who Left a Mark on the History of the Northeast, 1680 to 1980. Drawing upon oral and documentary evidence, this volume explores the lives of noteworthy Mi’kmaw individuals whose thoughts, actions, and...

Greg Marchildon talks to Dennis Gruending about his book, A Communist for the RCMP: The Uncovered Story of a Social Movement Informant. In 1941, the RCMP recruited Frank Hadesbeck, a Spanish Civil War veteran, as a paid informant to infiltrate the Communist Party. For decades, he informed not only upon communists, but also upon hundreds of other people who held progressive views. Hadesbeck’s “Watc...

Greg Marchildon talks to Mark Maloney about his book, Toronto Mayors: A History of the City’s Leaders. The first-ever look at all 65 Toronto mayors — the good, the bad, the colourful, the rogues, and the leaders — who have shaped the city. Toronto’s mayoral history is both rich and colourful. Spanning 19 decades and the growth of Toronto, from its origins as a dusty colonial outpost of just 9,200...

Larry Ostola talks to Matthew Reeve about his book, Casa Loma: Millionaires, Medievalism, and Modernity in Toronto’s Gilded Age. Leading architect E.J. Lennox designed Casa Loma for the flamboyant Sir Henry Pellatt and Mary, Lady Pellatt as an enormous castellated mansion that overlooked the booming metropolis of Toronto. The first scholarly book dedicated to this Canadian landmark, Casa Loma situ...

Larry Ostola talks to Dimitry Anastakis, Elizabeth Kirkland and Don Nerbas about their book, Montreal's Square Mile: The Making and Transformation of a Colonial Metropole. In nineteenth-century Canada, the Square Mile was an elite residential district in Montreal that represented a dramatic new concentration of wealth. Montreal’s Square Mile chronicles the history of the neighbourhood, from its or...

Greg Marchildon talks to Murray Knuttila about his book, Eroding a Way of Life: Neoliberalism and the Family Farm. An analysis of how neoliberal policies have radically restructured farming in Western Canada. The establishment of a Western Canadian economy dominated by family farming was part of the government’s post-Confederation nation building and industrial development strategy. During this er...

Nicole O’Byrne talks to John Andrew Morrow about his book, The Legacy of Louis Riel: Leader of the Métis People. Based on a comprehensive review of Riel’s writing, Morrow uncompromisingly examines Riel’s views on vital subjects. These include the term Métis, Métis identity, “Indians,” Jews, Islam, Quebec, French Canadians, the Irish, the United States, women, liberalism, and Métis unity. Riel’s vi...

Greg Marchildon talks to Royden Loewen about his book, Mennonite Farmers: A Global History of Place and Sustainability. The book reveals the ways in which modern-day Mennonite farmers have adjusted to diverse temperatures, precipitation, soil types, and relative degrees of climate change. These farmers have faced broad global forces of modernization during the twentieth and early twenty-first cent...

Larry Ostola talks to Stephen R. Bown about his book, Dominion: The Railway and the Rise of Canada. In the late 19th century, demand for fur was in sharp decline. This could have spelled economic disaster for the venerable Hudson's Bay Company. But an idea emerged in political and business circles in Ottawa and Montreal to connect the disparate British colonies into a single entity that would stre...

Nicole O’Byrne talks to Peter Ludlow about his book, Disciples of Antigonish: Catholics in Nova Scotia, 1880–1960. For generations eastern Nova Scotia was one of the most celebrated Roman Catholic constituencies in Canada. Occupying a corner of a small province in a politically marginalized region of the country, the Diocese of Antigonish nevertheless had tremendous influence over the development...

Greg Marchildon talks to Ronald F. Williamson about his book, The History and Archaeology of the Iroquois du Nord. In the mid-to late 1660s and early 1670s, the Haudenosaunee established a series of settlements at strategic locations along the trade routes inland at short distances from the north shore of Lake Ontario. From east to west, these communities consisted of Ganneious, on Napanee or Hay...

Larry Ostola talks to Alister Campbell about his book, The Harris Legacy: Reflections on a Transformational Premier. Elected for the first of his two terms as premier of Ontario in 1995, Mike Harris introduced some of the most sweeping reforms the province has ever seen: substantial reductions in spending and taxation as well dramatic changes to welfare, education, health care, municipal affairs,...

Nicole O’Byrne talks to Sean Carleton about his book, Lessons in Legitimacy: Colonialism, Capitalism, and the Rise of State Schooling in British Columbia. Lessons in Legitimacy brings the histories of different kinds of state schooling for Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples – public schools, Indian Day Schools, and Indian Residential Schools – into one analytical frame. Schooling for Indigenous...

Nicole O’Byrne talks to Martin Friedland about his book, Canadian Criminal Law in Ten Cases. Canadian Criminal Law in Ten Cases explores the development of criminal justice in Canada through an in-depth examination of ten significant criminal cases. Martin L. Friedland draws on cases that went to the Supreme Court of Canada or the Privy Council, including well-known cases such as those of Louis Ri...

Larry Ostola talks to Palmiro Campagna about his book, The Avro Arrow: For the Record. The controversial cancellation of the Avro Arrow — an extraordinary achievement of Canadian military aviation — continues to inspire debate today. When the program was scrapped in 1959, all completed aircraft and those awaiting assembly were destroyed, along with tooling and technical information. Was abandoning...

Larry Ostola talks to Bill Vigars about his book, Terry & Me: Inside the Marathon of Hope. A twenty-two-year-old cancer survivor and amputee, Terry set out from St. John’s Newfoundland in April 1980, aiming to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research. His first months on the road in Atlantic Canada and Quebec were not only physically taxing—he ran the equivalent of a marathon a day—but...

Nicole O’Byrne talks to Heidi MacDonald about her book, We Shall Persist: Women and the Vote in the Atlantic Provinces. We Shall Persist captures both the long campaign and the years of disappointment. Suffrage victories across Atlantic Canada were steps in an unfinished and contentious march toward gender, race, and class equality. This insightful book will appeal to readers with an interest in w...

Larry Ostola talks to Robert Lower about his book, Unsettled: Lord Selkirk’s Scottish Colonists and the Battle for Canada’s West, 1813–1816. The fascinating story of the Red River Settlement, now Winnipeg, in the years 1813 to 1816, told with archival journals, reports, and letters. Unsettled takes you inside the experience, relying on journals, reports, and letters to bring these days of soaring...

Nicole O'Byrne talks to Bill Waiser and Jennie Hansen about their book, Cheated: The Laurier Liberals and the Theft of First Nations Reserve Land published by ECW Press in October 2023. Cheated is a gripping story of single-minded politicians, uncompromising Indian Affairs officials, grasping government appointees, and well-connected Liberal speculators, set against a backdrop of politics, power,...

Greg Marchildon talks to James Urry about his book, On Stony Ground: Russländer Mennonites and the Rebuilding of Community in Grunthal, published by UTP in February 2024. On Stony Ground presents a historical ethnographic account of a generation of Mennonites from the Soviet Union who, following Russia’s revolution and civil war, immigrated to Manitoba during the 1920s. James Urry examines how the...

In this podcast episode, Nicole O'Byrne talks to Lori Chambers and Joan Sangster about their book, Essays in the History of Canadian Law, Volume XII: New Essays in Women's History published by UTP in October 2023. Drawing on engaging case studies, Essays in the History of Canadian Law brings the law to life. The contributors to this collection provide rich historical and social context for each ca...

In this podcast episode, Nicole O'Byrne talks to Thomas Peace about his book, The Slow Rush of Colonization: Spaces of Power in the Maritime Peninsula, 1680–1790 published by UBC Press in February 2024. In The Slow Rush of Colonization, historian Thomas Peace traces the 100-year context that underpins the widespread Euro-American/Euro-Canadian settlement of the Maritime Peninsula. Thomas Peace is...

In this podcast episode, Nicole O'Byrne talks to Ian Kyer about his book, The Ontario Bond Scandal of 1924 Re-examined published by Irwin Law in October 2023. In 1924, Peter Smith, the former treasurer of the Province of Ontario, and Aemilius Jarvis, one of Canada’s most prominent businessmen and a champion yachtsman, were found guilty of criminal conspiracy to defraud the Ontario government in co...

In this podcast episode, Larry Ostola talks to Graham Broad about his book, Part of Life Itself: The War Diary of Lieutenant Leslie Howard Miller, CEF published by the University of Toronto Press in October 2023. This extensively annotated wartime diary illuminates the military service of Leslie Howard Miller (1889–1979), a Canadian soldier who served in the First World War. Miller joined the Cana...