Environmental History at #CHASHC2016

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Next week, from Monday May 30 to Wednesday June 1, Canadian historians will converge on Calgary for the annual meeting of the Canadian Historical Association at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences. If you’ve never had the pleasure of attending the CHA, just imagine three days of delivering papers, discussing ideas and insights over coffee/lunch/beer, and then dancing till the cows come home at Cliopalooza.

I’ve scoured the preliminary program for environmentally-themed papers, panels, and roundtables. If I’ve somehow missed your contribution, please leave a comment at the bottom!

Sunday May 29th

CHA Community Event: Is Oil a Dirty Word? Conversations from the Humanities (6:30-8:00 pm)
A free public event at Theatre Junction Grand, Studio, 601 1st Street SW. Moderated by the journalist and author Chris Turner, the roundtable includes NiCHE director Sean Kheraj and NiCHE member Petra Dolata.

Monday May 30th

Limited Identities, Limited Loyalties: Western Canadian Agriculture, Exhibition, and Empire in the First World War (8:30-10:00 am, Science A-13)
“Patriotic Reserve Home Fronts?: Treaty 7 Agriculture during the First World War”
William Pratt (University of Lethbridge)

Narrating Places: Three Approaches to the Visual Production of Historic Sites (8:30-10:00 am, Science A-15)
“Sensing Place at the Brooks Aqueduct Historic Site”
Lianne McTavish (University of Alberta)

Canadian History Blogging: A Conversation Between Editors (8:30-10:00 am, Science B-142)
A roundtable discussion about how this activity is reshaping the ways in which we research, write, publish, and teach Canadian history, featuring five editors of group blogs: Tina Adcock (The Otter~La Loutre), Keith Grant (Borealia), Stacy Nation-Knapper (Findings/Trouvailles), Beth Robertson (Active History), and Corey Slumkoski (Acadiensis’ blog).

Storied Landscapes: Indigenous Land Use, GIS, and Historical Inquiry (1:00-2:30 pm, Science B-148)
“History and Tradition: Mapping Metis Land Use in Northwest Saskatchewan”
Liam Haggarty (Mount Royal University)

“Kinship Unbound: A Gendered Analysis of Traditional Land Use Studies”
Stephanie Danyluk (Whitecap Dakota First Nation)

“Where is the Story in a Traditional Land Use Assessment?”
Janelle Marie Baker (McGill University)

“Re-Mapping the Indigenous Nations on the Prairies: Merging GIS and Archival Sources to Create Traditional Land-Use Maps”
Matthew Todd (University of Saskatchewan)

Introductions, Invasions, and Infections: Testing Environmental and Cultural Reception in Canadian History (2:45-4:15 pm, Science B-148)
“Managing Introductions across Dominion and Imperial Scientific Networks”
Peter Anderson (Queen’s University)

“‘Pugnacious Marauder’ and Prized Trophy: Black Bass Introductions in British Columbia, 1902-2012”
William Knight (Canada Agriculture and Food Museum)

“Swamp Fever: Horses, Infectious Anemia, and the Rush to the Farm Frontier”
Merle Massie (University of Saskatchewan)

Rethinking Canada Through the Lens of Energy Use (2:45-4:15 pm, Science B-142)
“Canada’s Distinctive Energy History 1870-1940: The Role of Households and Local Environments”
Ruth Sandwell (University of Toronto)

“The Historical Nature of Canadian Energy Networks | The Energy Networks of Canadian History”
Philip van Huizen (McMaster University)

“The North as Energy Potential: Scale, Failure and Conflict in the “Power Possibilities” of Subarctic Canada”
Jonathan Peyton (University of Manitoba)

“The Five Faces of Canadian Energy History”
Steve Penfold (University of Toronto)

Commentator: Sean Kheraj (York University)

Tuesday May 31st

Canadian Children’s Television History: Nationalism, Regulation, and the Formation of Canadian Identities (8:30-10:00 am, Science B-142)
“‘Run With Us’: Environmental Attitudes in the CBC Cartoon The Raccoons
Daniel Macfarlane (Western Michigan University)

Stories and Story-telling in Indigenous-Settler Relations (8:30-10:00 am, Science B-105)
“‘All of us can be proud of the way we were represented’: The Narrative Dynamics of Haida-State Relations in the McKenna-McBride Commission and the Joint Review Panel on the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project”
Megan Harvey (University of Victoria)

Sovereignty, Security, and Nationalism in Canada’s Arctic (8:30-10:00 am, Science A-15)
“Putting the Canadian Arctic in Its Place: Science, Sovereignty and the Arctic Environment During the Cold War, 1945-1991”
Daniel Heidt (Trent University)

“Canadian Nationalism and Energy: Oil and Gas Exploration in Canada’s Arctic in the 1970s”
Petra Dolata (University of Calgary)

Recreation, Popular Resistance, and the Environment at the City’s Edge (8:30-10:00 am, Science A-17)
“Fencing in an Island: How Toronto Island formed at the Nexus of Nature, Play and Capital: 1870 to 1920”
Dale Barbour (University of Toronto)

“‘One of the finest pieces of empty real estate in Canada’: The Creation of Vancouver’s Devonian Harbour Park”
J.I. Little (Simon Fraser University)

“Tales of a Park Not Yet Created: The Fish Creek Provincial Park Questionnaire, 1974”
Jessica DeWitt (University of Saskatchewan)

Storying the Nation: Sources, Methods, and the Performance of Alternate Histories (8:30-10:00 am, Science A-247)
“Migration Stories: Wolves and their Role in Canadian National Narratives”
Stephanie Rutherford (Trent University)

Urban Political Authority (I): Regulating the Urban Environment (10:15 am-12:00 pm, Science Theatres 61)
“Ontario Hydro in Municipal-Provincial Politics 1906-1939”
Mark Sholdice (University of Guelph)

“Governing Urban Livestock in Nineteenth-Century Canada”
Sean Kheraj (York University)

“Expertise and Municipal Governance: The Case of Toronto 1891-1914”
James Hull (University of British Columbia Okanagan)

“Urban Governance Meets Global Change: Perspectives on Sewage-Society Relationship 1850-2015”
Jamie Benidickson (University of Ottawa)

Environmental History Group meeting (11:45 am-1:15 pm, Science B-144)
NiCHE’s director Sean Kheraj will run this meeting, which will include a short presentation. All welcome!

Management, Marketing, Trade, and Debt: Stories from Canadian Business History (1:15-2:45 pm, Science A-17)
“Britain’s Farms: Canada, Australia, New Zealand and campaigns for the British commodity market, 1922-1939”
Felicity Barnes (University of Auckland)

Wednesday June 1st

The Stories Staples Tell: Resource Economies in Canada (8:30-10:00 am, Science B-148)
“The Staples Thesis and Digital History”
Colin M. Coates (York University)

“Interacting with London’s Canadian Ghost Acres, 1865-1919: Creating a Deep Online Map with HGIS and a MediaWiki Database”
Jim Clifford and Andrew Watson, with Anne Janhunen (University of Saskatchewan)

“Ordered Reclamation: Redefining Mine Cleanup in Northern Canada”
Anne Dance (Memorial University)

State and Voluntary Regulation of Health, Industry, and Local Economies (8:30-10:00 am, Science A-17)
“Conditions of Production: A Social History of Labour Process and Mechanical Change in Nineteenth-Century Vancouver Island Coal Mines”
Matthew Greaves (Simon Fraser University)

“Annapolis Valley Farming, 1935-1950: Depression, War, and Recovery”
Julian Gwyn (University of Ottawa)

Stories from the Mountains: Stoney Nakoda Accounts of Environment, Tradition, and Colonialism (10:15-11:45 am, Science A-15)
“‘I presume the Indians will continue their hunting’: The Stoney Nakoda, the Courtroom, and Game Law in Early Twentieth Century Alberta”
Jonathan Clapperton (Memorial University)

“First Nation Stories through the Lens of Traditional Environmental Knowledge”
William Snow (Stoney Tribal Administration)

Nukes, Computers, Arctic Islands, and Apartheid: Canadian Energy History in the 1970s (10:15-11:45 am, Science A-247)
“Energy-Political Systems: Synthetic Fuels as a Mode of Government in Canada and South Africa in Last Quarter of the Twentieth Century”
Troy Vettese (New York University)

“When Fracking Went Nuclear: Projects Gasbuggy, Rulison, and Rio Blanco”
Victor McFarland (University of Missouri)

Parenting, Play, and Youthful Resistance (2:30-4:00 pm, Science A-17)
“Children’s Outdoor Play Stories and the Urban Ecomuseum: Reconnecting Heritage Landscapes of Community and Place in Edmonton Local History”
Pearlann Reichwein and Paulina Retamales (University of Alberta)

Restor(y)ing Western History through a Métis Lens: Family, Land, Bodies and Nation (2:30-4:00 pm, Science A-247)
“Storied Spaces: Memory, Kinship and Place in a Saskatchewan Metis Road Allowance Community”
Cheryl Troupe (University of Saskatchewan)

Revisiting Park Histories: Everyday Voices from Canada’s Protected Places (2:30-4:00 pm, Science B-146)
“Playground, not Sanctuary: Family Camping at Algonquin before World War II”
Mica Jorgenson (McMaster University)

“‘A Very Great Deal of Pleasure’: Park Creation, Management, and Dispossession in Ontario’s Georgian Bay Region”
Anne Janhunen (University of Saskatchewan)

“‘It’s a viper’s nest of uncounted perverts and near insane alcoholics’: Policing Montréal’s Mountain during the 1950s”
Matthieu Caron (Université de Montréal)

Sustaining a Fragile West: Environmental Myths and Realities (4:15-5:45 pm, Science B-146)
“Mining Our Bison Heritage: Stories of Agricultural Practices in Saskatchewan Through its Soils”
Laura Larsen (University of Saskatchewan)

“Rat Patrol, Communism, and Radioactive Fallout: Protecting Alberta from Invading Species in the Early Cold War”
Frances Reilly (University of Saskatchewan)

“Ranching Landscapes, Frontier Thinking, and Canadian Environmental History”
Claire Campbell (Bucknell University)

Reconstructing Gendered Leisure and Work: Revisiting Sources and Methods (4:15-5:45 pm, Science B-148)
“Tales from the Ice: Masculinity, Embodiment, and Affect in the Life Narratives of Newfoundland Sealers”
Willeen Keough (Simon Fraser University)

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Assistant professor in the Department of History at Simon Fraser University. I research and teach Canadian and environmental history, with a special focus on the Arctic and Subarctic.

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