Two hundred and fifty years ago the Battle of the Plains of Abraham* took place in Quebec City. In a fight that lasted less than an hour (following a three-month siege throughout the summer of 1759), both generals died and the British won Quebec, soon becoming masters of most of North America. [more inside]
posted by zadcat on Sep 7, 2009 - 91 comments

Land's End: Photographer and writer Christopher Grabowski documents the fading industrial towns of the British Columbia coast. Interview, and some of his other Photo Essays at Geist Magazine.
posted by Rumple on Aug 18, 2009 - 11 comments

Canadian War Poster Collection at McGill University. And if that doesn't strike your fancy, the list of digital collections include such time-honoured favourites as Expo '67, and the award-winner for unexpected collection, Gynaecology in Traditional Chinese Medicine. (previously)
posted by flibbertigibbet on Jun 26, 2009 - 7 comments

Kate Beaton, Historical Cartoonist
posted by flatluigi on Mar 13, 2009 - 70 comments

Peace and War in the 20th Century is an ambitious, in progress, massive assemblage of posters, photographs, propaganda, ephemera, letters, diaries, paintings, sketches, stories, letters, music and related items, from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. The collection is international in scope. Some of the nodes lack content, and the navigation is a little confusing, so the jump I list some of my favourite case studies from their site. [more inside]
posted by Rumple on Jan 2, 2009 - 4 comments

Dick Stacey's Country Jamboree is now available on DVD/CD after years of slowly fading into obscurity. "I was wrong in thinking the Jamboree was a thing of the past," said Dick Stacey, a man whose three gas stations and motel took over sponsoring this uniquely Maine talent showcase on a whim in 1973—and ended up lasting just over a decade. [more inside]
posted by boost ventilator on Sep 3, 2008 - 7 comments

It stands as one of the more unusual turning points of the Cold War, thanks mostly to the surprise appearance of several naked middle-aged women. Taking The Cure: How a group of British Columbian anarchists inspired democracy in Russia. [more inside]
posted by amyms on May 13, 2008 - 7 comments

Canada at scale: Exploration, colonization and development. And a pop-up menu. Go, eh!
posted by St Urbain's Horseman on Sep 25, 2007 - 30 comments

Framing Canada is an online exhibit of early Canadian photography. Some images are quintessentially Canadian; others range from the sublime to the ridiculous. One picture just might settle a contentious debate once and for all. Most of the collection is organized into topical photo essays. [More inside]
posted by Urban Hermit on Aug 9, 2006 - 13 comments

From Muddy York to the Toronto of today.... My search to discover the exact age of the house I recently bought led me to the fabulous Toronto Archives. Even if you don't have the good fortune to live in Toronto and so have the ability to visit the Archives to take a free tour and check out their massive holdings, they have a whack of stuff on line. Of their million photographs dating back to 1856, over 21,000 are online. Check out some of their virtual exhibits. I couldn't begin to give you an overview of the site or even the best of its many gems, but check out Chinatown's VE day victory parade, Bay and Wellington as it was after a huge fire in 1904, old advertisements, letters and postcards (including some from the disenchanted), snapshots of a, er, less politically sensitive time (thanks, Capn!), and — inevitably! — hockey artifacts. A friend of mine makes a hobby of Toronto's history, and after this search of mine, I better understand her interest. It’s fascinating to see what lies beneath the layers of time on a surface so familiar and loved.
posted by orange swan on Jul 4, 2006 - 23 comments

The Public Archives of Nova Scotia has some cool online exhibits. The original list of dead bodies recovered from the Titanic sinking caught my eye, they also have original log book pages from privateers, lighthouses, slavery and abolition, boats, boats, and more boats. [via]
posted by marxchivist on Apr 20, 2006 - 11 comments

The impressive Gimli Glider. Yes, seriously: it can be a glider. An amazing story of a commercial pilot with mad emergency landing skillz.
posted by five fresh fish on Feb 21, 2006 - 42 comments

The past can be a fascinating place. An Anthropologist by training and finder of interesting things by avocation, Hugh Blackmer, began rescuing old photos from antique shops on Nova Scotia (the former Acadia) several decades ago. He's now posting them on-line for his Nova Scotia Faces project. He's using Flickr and experimenting with a wiki. He's finding some wonderful old moments.
posted by mmahaffie on Jan 12, 2006 - 16 comments

Learning English with the CBC. Learn about Canadian history and improve your English skills with a series of audio and video clips, as well as quizzes and exercises. Topics include Terry Fox: A Marathon of Hope, Arctic Winter Games: The Olympics of the North, and Maple Syrup: A Taste of Canada, among others.
posted by livii on Apr 25, 2005 - 9 comments

Laura Secord ,Elizabeth Barnett and the Five Nations Mohawks, arguably, made Canada possible.
posted by arse_hat on Jan 29, 2005 - 7 comments

It's Carnival Time! In 2002, Silflay Hraka launched the internet's first carnival: The Carnival of the Vanities. Carnivals are showcases of the best that blogs have to offer; bloggers send in posts they have made that they are especially pleased with, and a rotating editor collates them into a weekly edition with editorial comments. Think of carnivals as best-of-the-blogosphere magazines. The Carnival of the Vanities (current edition here) doesn't have any particular focus, but a number of offshoots dedicated to specific fields have popped up. Stay up to date on blog postings about philosophy, science, history, the early modern period, sex, Canada, and (if desperately bored) cats. A new carnival about atheism, The Carnival of the Godless, will be coming out at the end of the month.
posted by painquale on Jan 23, 2005 - 5 comments

The Virtual Museum of Canada has funded or collaborated on almost 150 virtual exhibits, mostly relating to Canadian History and Culture. There is great diversity, among my favourites are Nk'Mip Nation Aboriginal Childrens' Art from the Inkameep day school (a welcome counterpoint to the residential schools tragedy), the historic re-photography and soundscapes of Montreal, Haida Culture documented , and also compared to Inuit Culture, Inuit (Eskimo) games and 3-dimensional (VR) sculpture, a history of the Canadian Trucking Industry, a splendid overview of Canadian documentary film making, Canadian design in the late 20th century, and the Shipwrecks of Vancouver Island. There is also a searchable image gallery. The only thing missing is a historical whodunnit or two (or three). All sites available in both French and English, and some in other languages too.
posted by Rumple on Nov 25, 2004 - 17 comments

History comes to the life, and to television. If people will not come to history, then let history come to them. [more inside]
posted by jb on Apr 11, 2004 - 7 comments

Mammoths (Mammuthus) have been discussed here before and for those modern explorers who hunt the long extinct tusker in the field there is the 3rd International Mammoth conference where you can learn about things such as Mammoth Hunters and Ice Age Dogs.
posted by stbalbach on Aug 8, 2003 - 4 comments

The world's oldest corporation, the Hudson's Bay Company, has a great introduction to its three-hundred seventy years of history on the site. Once hailed as the largest colonial power other than Russia, England, and the U.S., the Bay has generally left furs and is now the Sears of Canada.
posted by tdecius on Oct 11, 1999 - 0 comments