NiCHE’s 2025 in Images and Media

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2025 was NiCHE’s eighth year on Instagram. Managing our Instagram account is a lot different from our other social media accounts. A focus on the visual and, to a lesser extent, audio aspects of our site’s content leads to new and unique aspects of the material coming to the forefront. It also leads to a different kind of engagement with our readers and followers and draws new people into environmental history content.

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Our “Top Nine” on Instagram is more than a statistical analysis of our digital popularity; it is an indication of the topics and images that resounded the most with our audience and a chance to look back on the past year. Let’s take one last look back at last year through our nine most-popular images and media from 2025:

#9: Cover of Christopher Brown’s A Natural History of Empty Lots

In February, we published Carmen Gilmore’s reflection on Brown’s A Natural History of Empty Lots. Gilmore took Brown’s reflections on Austin, Texas and applied them to the Canadian prairies, specifically Saskatoon. “My city,” Gilmore wrote, “grapples with cycles of economic growth and malaise: resource exploitation and the inevitable environmental impacts, people pushed into the unclaimed spaces of the city—safe as long as they remain hidden—and the flourishing resurgence of plants and animals along urban edges.”

Cover of A Natural History of Empty Lots by Christopher Brown

#8: Highlights from Siobhan Angus’ CHESS 2025 Keynote Address

Our 2025 Canadian History of the Environment Summer School took place at McMaster University, 30 May – 1 June, 2025. Organized by Jessica van Horssen and Ken Cruikshank, the theme of the gathering was “From Contamination to Collapse.” A weekend of field trips around McMaster’s industrial past and future was kicked off on Friday night by a keynote address by Siobhan Angus, “Shadow Geologies: Photography in the Aftermath of Mining.”

  • Audience for Siobhan Angus' CHESS 2025 keynote address at McMaster University
  • Siobhan Angus giving 2025 CHESS 2026 keynote address
  • Siobhan Angus CHESS 2025 keynote address presentation at McMaster University

#7: Announcement for 2025 CHESS Keynote Address with Siobhan Angus

Angus’ CHESS 2025 keynote also created a lot of buzz before the event. Take a look back at the event’s announcement, and many thanks to The Wilson Institute for Canadian History & McMaster Department of History for sponsoring.

Announcement for Siobhan Angus' 2025 CHESS Keynote Address, Shadow Geologies

#6: The Announcement for Our NiCHE Conversation with Isabelle Gapp and Sarah Pickman

I launched Season Six of NiCHE Conversations in September and am excitedly waiting my 100th episode that will conclude this season. Isabelle Gapp and Sarah Pickman joined me at the end of November to chat about new research in arctic history and Part V of Visual Cultures of the Circumpolar North, which they co-edited last year. Watch the conversation here.

Announcement for NiCHE Conversations with Isabelle Gapp and Sarah Pickman on New Research in Arctic Pasts and Visual Culture

#5: An Image of Arctic Snow and Ice Taken by Jen Rose Smith

In September, Jen Rose Smith introduced us to her new book, Ice Geographies: The Colonial Politics of Race & Indigeneity in the Arctic. “Taking Indigenous literature, theory and tradition as central modes of analysis and sensibility, Ice Geographies worries productively about how land, ice, water, and air meet in ways that are both never outside and of course always outside of human history and intellectualizing,” Smith wrote.

arctic ice

#4: Cover of Tina Adcock’s A Cold Colonialism

In June, Tina Adcock introduced us to her new book, A Cold Colonialism: Modern Exploration and the Canadian North. “A Cold Colonialism,” Adcock wrote, “is the culmination of more than 20 years of thinking about and studying John Hornby’s life and death, and what it can tell us about southerners’ fascination with the North, about modern exploration and adventurous travel in this region, and, ultimately, about colonialism in what is currently Canada in the past and present.”

Cover of a Cold Colonialism: Modern Exploration and the Canadian North by Tina Adcock

#3: ”Oki Naganode’ by Julia Lohmann

Our editor, Nicole Miller, was very busy the first half of the year acting as conference manager for ESEH 2025 in Uppsala, Sweden, as well as curating the coinciding Climate Histories Art Interventions. This image of Julia Lohmann’s “Oki Naganode” taken by Petr Krejci was featured in the art intervention event announcement. At ESEH, Lohmann hosted an open workshop that invited the public to explore working creatively with algae.

”Oki Naganode’ by Julia Lohmann is a large-scale installation at the Victoria and Albert Museum made of Japanese Naga seaweed. Photograph by Petr Krejci.

#2:  Franklin Expedition Map Based on British Admiralty Chart of 1927 Showing the Various Positions in Which Relics Have Been Found (1931)

If the popularity of arctic content this past year isn’t clear yet, the two most popular images this year are both connected to Terror Camp, a fan-run conference on polar themes. In July, Sarah Pickman published the call for abstracts for the Fifth Annual Terror Camp Online Conference on Interdisciplinary Polar Research, in which this Franklin Expedition map was featured.

Franklin Expedition Map Based on British Admiralty Chart of 1927 Showing the Various Positions in Which Relics Have Been Found (1931)

#1: A group of Terror Campers at the 2025 Shackleton Autumn School in Athy, Ireland

Visual Cultures of the Circumpolar North Part V concluded at the beginning of December with a reflection on Terror Camp by the conference founder, Allegra Rosenberg. This image, which shows a group of Terror Camp attendees, drew a lot of attention. And if the excitement and engagement around Terror Camp are any indicator, Rosenberg and others have built something truly, not unlike our own NiCHE community. Onward to 2026!

A group of Terror Campers at the 2025 Shackleton Autumn School in Athy, Ireland
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Jessica DeWitt

NiCHE Editor-in-Chief, Social Media Editor at Jessica M. DeWitt: Editing and Consulting
is an environmental historian of Canada and the United States, editor, project manager, consultant, and digital communications strategist. She earned her PhD in History from the University of Saskatchewan in 2019. She is an executive member, editor-in-chief, and social media editor for the Network in Canadian History and Environment (NiCHE). She is the Managing Editor for the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines and Associate Editor for Environmental Humanities. Closer to home, she is the President of the Saskatchewan History and Folklore Society, a Coordinating Team member of Showing Up for Racial Justice Saskatoon-Treaty Six, and a Conservation Advisory Committee member for the Meewasin Valley Authority. She focuses on developing digital techniques and communications that bridge the divide between academia and the general public in order to democratize knowledge access. You can find out more about her and her freelance services at jessicamdewitt.com.

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