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

In this podcast episode, Greg Marchildon speaks to Wes Olson about his book The Ecological Buffalo: On the Trail of a Keystone Species. The Ecological Buffalo is co-authored by Johane Janelle, Olson’s wife, and includes a beautiful collection of photographs by Janelle. The book is an in-depth history of the bison based on their combined experiences and years of studying and photographing bison in...

In this podcast episode, Nicole O’Byrne speaks to Jim Phillips about A History of Law in Canada, Volume Two: Law for a New Dominion, 1867–1914, a book he co-authored with Philip Gerrard and Blake Brown. This is the second volume in an ambitious three-volume series on the history of law in Canada. He explores the history of law in Canada through the period spanning from Confederation to the start o...

In this podcast episode, Greg Marchildon to Scott Berthelette about his book Heirs of an Ambivalent Empire: French-Indigenous Relations and the Rise of the Métis in the Hudson Bay Watershed. The book is based on Bethelette’s PhD dissertation which he completed at the University of Saskatchewan in 2020. He explores how relationships and family ties were involved in the relations between sovereign I...

In this podcast episode, Greg Marchildon interviews Catherine Carstairs about her newest book The Smile Gap: A History of Oral Health and Social Inequality. Carstairs presents the first cultural and social history of oral health in Canada and explores the ways in which society places high value on good teeth. For those Canadians without access to good, or any, dental care, there is a gap as they s...

In this podcast episode, Greg Marchildon interviews Stephanie Rutherford about her newest book Villain, Vermin, Icon, Kin: Wolves and the Making of Canada. Rutherford explores human-wolf relations from the time of Canadian settlers to present day. She further investigates the emotions behind these relations – fear of wolves by early settlers to the disgust of wolves as savage animals. She continue...

In this podcast episode, Greg Marchildon interviews Nicholas Eyles about his biography of Jock Tuzo Wilson, one of Canada’s most important scientists of the twentieth century. Eyles describes Tuzo’s youth, his beginning as a geologist, his experiences during World War II, and his impact on the science of geology. This culminates with the revolution of plate tectonics, which significantly altered t...

In this podcast episode, Greg Marchildon interviews Douglas Hunter, the author of Jackson's Wars: A.Y. Jackson, the Birth of the Group of Seven, and the Great War. In this book, two critical cultural aspects of Canadian history intertwine – the Group of Seven and the Great War. This biography provides a vivid and detailed account of the great Canadian painter A.Y. Jackson and the origins of the Gr...

In this podcast episode, Greg Marchildon interviews Nelson Wiseman, the author of 1950s Canada: Politics and Public Affairs. With his book, Wiseman chronicles each year of this decade, providing details of the social, economic, political, and cultural developments that shaped the nation. The book looks to the changes in crime rates, life expectancy, and discrimination; the interplay between Canada...

In this podcast episode, Greg Marchildon interviews Mairi Cowan, the author of The Possession of Barbe Hallay: Diabolical Arts and Daily Life in Early Canada, a microhistory of bewitchment and demonic possession in New France. This account of the possession of Barbe Hallay serves as an example of the social and religious history in and around 17th-century Quebec. With these stories, Cowan illustra...

In this podcast episode, Greg Marchildon interviews John Courtney, the author of a new book on the history of the rise and fall of Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker’s governments. Revival and Change: The 1957 and 1958 Diefenbaker Elections, published by UBC Press in December 2022, provides an interesting account of the elections as well as the path to Diefenbaker’s victories, including the...

In this podcast episode, Greg Marchildon interviews Alan MacEachern and Edward MacDonald, the co-authors of a new book on the history of tourism in Canada’s smallest province. The Summer Trade: A History of Tourism on Prince Edward Island was published by McGill-Queen’s University Press in 2022. This book covers the various stages in the history of tourism from its early beginnings in the late nin...

In this podcast episode, Greg Marchildon interviews Jim Tanner, one of the many authors of a new history of the Nakoda First Nation in Saskatchewan. Entitled Owóknage: The Story of Carry the Kettle Nakoda First Nation, this book was a collective effort by the Nakoda (formerly known as the Assiniboine) First Nation members. The book was published by University of Regina Press in 2022. The book weav...

In this podcast episode, Greg Marchildon interviews Catherine Carstairs and Heather MacDougall. They made important contributions on what got missed in the making of Canadian Medicare. Their chapters on dental care, prescription drugs and public health are in Medicare’s Histories: Origins, Omissions, and Opportunities in Canada , edited by Essylt Jones, James Hanley, and Della Gavrus, and publishe...

Patrice Dutil meets David A. Wilson to talk about his book Canadian Spy Story: Irish Revolutionaries and the Secret Police , published by McGill-Queens University Press. In an effort to disable the Irish revolutionaries from attacking Canada and stirring Irish sympathies in Canada, Sir John A. Macdonald established a sophisticated spy ring to infiltrate Fenian ranks. They examine the ideas that an...

In this podcast episode, Greg Marchildon interviews Dale Eisler, the author of From Left to Right: Saskatchewan’s Political and Economic Transition . Published by the University of Regina Press in 2022, Eisler’s book explores the reasons why Saskatchewan evolved from being the cradle of social democracy to one of the country’s most conservative political cultures in the past half century. He trace...

Patrice Dutil meets Daniel Ross, professor of History at the Université du Québec à Montréal, to talk about his book The Heart of Toronto: Corporate Power, Civic Activism and the Remaking of Downtown Yonge Street (University of British Columbia Press). The focus of the discussion is the politics of development during the 1960s and the 1970s when competing visions of urban development prompted a nu...

In this podcast episode, Greg Marchildon interviews Charlie Angus, the author of Cobalt: Cradle of the Demon Metals, Birth of a Mining Superpower . Published by House of Anansi Press in 2022, the book explores the silver mining boom in Northern Ontario radiating from the town of Cobalt between 1903 and 1921. Charlie Angus is an author, journalist, broadcaster, musician, and a politician who ran as...

Patrice Dutil talks to Veronica Strong-Boag about her book A Liberal-Labour Lady: The Times and Life of Mary Ellen Spear Smith (UBC Press). Together, they examine the life and ideas of Spear-Smith (1861-1933) and her impact on British Columbia politics. Mary Ellen Spear Smith emigrated from Britain in the early 1890s and soon established herself, along with her husband Ralph Smith, on the British...

In this podcast episode, Greg Marchildon interviews Stacey Barker and Krista Cooke on the lives of Canadian women and their involvement in the two world wars of the 20th century. They along with co-author Molly McCullough wrote Material Traces of War: Stories of Canadian Women and Conflict, 1914-1945 published by the University of Ottawa Press in 2021 as part of the Canadian Museum of History’s Me...

Patrice Dutil talks to Sonya Grypma about her book Nursing Shifts in Sichuan: Canadian Missions and Wartime China, 1937-1951 (UBC Press). In this podcast, they discuss the impact of the Peking Union Medical College (PUMC) when it sought refuge in the West China Union University’s (WCUU) nursing school in Sichuan, which was managed by Canadians. China was in the middle of its war with Japan at the...

In this podcast episode, Greg Marchildon interviews Bruce Maxwell, the author of Failed Promise: Five Reasons why R.B. Bennett Lost the 1935 Canadian Federal Election published by Amazon Books in 2022. For twenty years, Maxwell researched the reasons for the Conservatives’ momentous loss to the Liberals in the 1935 general election in the midst of the Great Depression. His historical analysis pinp...

Patrice Dutil discute de la politique du Parti libéral et de l'Union nationale de Maurice Duplessis au Québec dans les années 1930 avec Alexandre Dumas, professeur d'histoire à l'Université du Québec et auteur de Les Quatre mousquetaires de Québec, publié aux éditions Septentrion. Ce balado a été produit par Jessica Schmidt. Il est également disponible en version anglaise sur Witness to Yesterday....

Patrice Dutil discusses the politics of the Liberal Party and Maurice Duplessis’s Union Nationale in Quebec in the 1930s with Alexandre Dumas, the author of Les quatre mousquetaires de Québec, published by Septentrion. The conversation focuses on four politicians (René Chaloult, Oscar Drouin, Ernest Grégoire and Philippe Hamel) as they join forces with Conservative Party leader Maurice Duplessis t...

In this podcast episode, Greg Marchildon interviews Lyndsay Campbell, the author of Truth and Privilege: Libel Law in Massachusetts and Nova Scotia, 1820-1840. Published by Cambridge University Press in 2022, this is the first book ever to be co-sponsored by the American Soceity for Legal History and the Osgood Society for Canadian Legal History. A transnational history, Truth and Privilege illust...

Patrice Dutil talks to Michael Hill about his book The Lost Prime Ministers: Macdonald’s Successors Abbott, Thompson, Bowell and Tupper, published by Dundurn Press. In this podcast, Michael Hill describes the background and the accomplishments of the four men who served as Canadian prime minister between 1891 and 1896. John J. Abbott, for instance, mostly served to complete the unfinished legislat...