CHESS 2026: Climate & History – Call for Participants

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We are pleased to invite applications to attend the 2026 Canadian History & Environment Summer School. CHESS is an in-person event that brings together graduate students, faculty, and other scholars in the fields of environmental history, historical geography, and the environmental humanities for a weekend of workshops, field trips, public lectures, networking, and more.

[Applications are now closed]

CHESS 2026 will be held at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island from Friday, 29 May to Sunday, 31 May – the weekend immediately preceding the Canadian Historical Association’s annual meeting at UPEI, 1-3 June.

The theme of CHESS 2026 is Climate & History. We are excited to have Dagomar Degroot of Georgetown University and Liza Piper of the University of Alberta as confirmed keynote speakers. We also have a full-day field trip planned to explore how climate change and related extreme weather events are affecting the Island in the 21st century and has affected it in the past.

NiCHE, UPEI, and Western University will be providing some financial support to CHESS 2026, but the final cost to participants – if any – will hinge on a SSHRC Connection Grant application now underway. (The Summer School will occur regardless.)

To apply to attend, please click on and complete the online form above. The deadline to apply is 30 November 2025. All applicants will be notified as to acceptance by 15 February.

If you have any questions, please contact Alan MacEachern – amaceach@uwo.ca. See you on the Island!

Feature image: Greenwich, Prince Edward Island National Park. Photo courtesy of Alan MacEachern.

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Alan MacEachern

Professor at Western University
I am the author of Becoming Green Gables & the companion website GreenGablesDiary.ca (2024), The Summer Trade (with Edward MacDonald, 2022), & The Miramichi Fire (2020). I'm also the editor of the print/open-access Canadian History & Environment series at University of Calgary Press. I was Director of NiCHE, 2004-15. Contact me at amaceach@uwo.ca.

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