Environmental History at the 2026 Annual Meeting of the Canadian Historical Association

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The 2026 Annual Meeting of the Canadian Historical Association (CHA) takes place at the University of Prince Edward Island, which is located on Epekwitk (Prince Edward Island), in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral territory of the Mi’kmaq People.

Below is a list of events that are likely to be of interest to scholars in environmental history and allied fields. Please reach out if we have mistakenly omitted an event that should be included in this list. Location information is included in the parentheses that follow the start time.

Monday 1 June | Tuesday 2 June | Wednesday 3 June

Monday 1 June

8:30-10:00 | 8h30-10h00 (KMB 211)

Spatial and Environmental Histories of the Prairie Wheat Economy in Canada and Abroad | Histoires spatiales et environnementales de l’économie céréalière des Prairies au Canada et à l’étranger
Cheryl Troupe, Mapping Dispossession: Spatial Histories of Métis Land, Settlement, and Colonial Expansion in Saskatchewan
Jessica Jack & Jim Clifford, Unmaking the Prairies: Rethinking Saskatchewan’s Urban Settler Colonialism
Stéphane Castonguay & Jim Clifford, The Canadian Wheat Economy and the Synchronicity of Landscape Changes in the Ports of Montréal and London
Chair | Présidence : Ben Bradley

8:30-10:00 | 8h30-10h00 (AVC 286N)

Controlling Contagion: Livestock in North America, 1870s-1940s | Contrôler la contagion : le bétail en Amérique du Nord, des années 1870 aux années 1940
Jennifer Bonnell, Trouble in the Hive: American Foulbrood in Great Lakes-Region Apiaries, 1875-1945
Jody Hodgins, An Invisible Threat: Anthrax Outbreaks in Canadian Livestock and Animal Products, 1870s-1930s
Catherine Paulin, Hooves Crossing Borders: Contagious BovinePleuropneumonia and Canadian Cattle Herds, 1870s-1900s
Chair | Présidence : Alan MacEachern

10:30-12:00 | 10h30-12h00 (KMB 210)

Relationships of Rurality | Relations de ruralité
Vivian Lamoureux, Myrtle Webb’s “House of Dreams”: The Relationship between the Webbs, Cavendish, and the Parks Branch between 1936-1945
James Flath & Robert Wardhaugh, Fielding: A Lifetime on the Northern Prairie
Chair | Présidence : Laura Forsythe

10:30-12:00 | 10h30-12h00 (KMB 237)

Got Milk? The Health, Environmental, and Settler Colonial Implications of Milk Production in Canada to the Mid-20th Century | Avez-vous du lait? Les implications sanitaires, environnementales et coloniales de la production laitière au Canada jusqu’au milieu du XXe siècle
Joshua MacFadyen, A Delectable Dominion: The Environmental Impact of Dairy Development in Eastern Canada, 1871-1951
John Matchim, Trading Sled Dogs for Milk Goats: American Missionary Efforts to Promote Better Nutrition and ‘Anglo-Saxon’ Ways of Life on Spotted Island, Labrador, 1920s
Emily B. Kaliel, Making Milk into the Perfect Food: Public Health Support of Milk Production and Consumption and the Structure of Settler Colonialism in Alberta, 1930s-1960s
Chair | Présidence : Mark McLaughlin

10:30-12:00 | 10h30-12h00 (AH 142)

Gender, Hydro, and Anti-Colonial Research | Genre, hydroélectricité et recherche anticoloniale
Jarvis Brownlie, Anti-Colonial Research with Indigenous Women from Hydro-Impacted Communities
Cara Ginter, Women, Water & Power: Uncovering Indigenous Resistance in the MCEC Environmental Impact Assessment Hearings
Minket Lepcha, Finding the River Within to Address the Dam Outside
Jennie Wastesicoot, How Hydro Development Impacted Women’s Roles in Cree Law
Chair | Présidence : Nancy Forestall

13:30-15:00 | 13h30-15h00 (MCDH 328)

Food Systems and the Self in 20th-Century Canada | Les systèmes alimentaires et l’identité au Canada au XXe siècle
Jamie Murton & Ross Kozuskanich, Subsistence Production and Market Production in Ontario Farm Diaries
Bruce Muirhead & Jodey Nurse, Building Supply Management in a Period of Rising Neoliberalism
Caroline Durand, « Ce n’est pas parce qu’on est pauvres qu’il faut qu’on mange tout croche » : Taste and Class in Montreal, 1970-2000
Chair | Présidence : Abril Liberatori

13:30-15:00 | 13h30-15h00 (KMB 237)

Histories of the 1970s Energy Crisis | Histoires de la crise énergétique des années 1970
Petra Dolata, Canada and the 1970s Oil Price Crises: An International History
William Gillies, Just Transitions? The Power Politics of Deindustrialization in the 1970s Canadian Coalfields
Justin Fisher, Canadian Uranium and the 1970s Polycrisis
Mack Penner, “Alberta’s Particular Advantage”: Crisis and Fossil Politics in a Petro-Province
Chair | Présidence : Kim Geraldi

13:30-15:00 | 13h30-15h00 (PAC 110S)

Young People and the State: Work, Rights, and Justice in Post-War British Columbia | Les jeunes et l’État : travail, droits et justice dans la Colombie-Britannique d’après-guerre
Mona Gleason & Tamara Myers, Kids’ Lib: The Rise and Precipitous Fall of Children’s Rights in 1970s BC
Taryn Hepburn, An Exercise of Productive Failure: The Youth Criminal Justice Act as Reform in BC’s Youth Justice System
Ben Bradley, “The Money’s Not Great, But…”: BC’s Youth Crew Program and Seasonal Work in Provincial Parks, 1950-1985
Chair | Présidence : Timothy A. Sayle

13:30-15:00 | 13h30-15h00 (PAC 110AS)

Food that Binds: Immigration, Belonging, and the Boundaries of Identity | La nourriture qui unit : immigration, appartenance et frontières de l’identité
Amanda Whittaker, “What on earth is Coleslaw?”: Migrants, Foodways, and Belonging in Montréal, QC
Lydia Kinasewich, “It’s Politics, It Isn’t Bad Milk”: Pasteurization Policy Debates in British Columbia, 1954-1991
Hannah Pinilla, “Hotel Mama” and Gendered Foodwork in the Transnational Family
Chair | Présidence : Aileen Friesen

13:30-15:00 | 13h30-15h00 (AVC 201N)

The Politics of Rural Life | La politique de la vie rurale
Jay Lalonde, Poet Júlíana Jónsdóttir: Reading a Microhistory of Mobility and Settlement
Victor Michael Roberts, Operating Engineers and Professionals: Rural Experts and Expertise in 19th-Century Ontario Knowledge Communities
Ransford Tei, Reworking the “Other”: Agricultural and Industrial Training and the Making of the Modern Ghanaian Self, 1951-1966
Chair | Présidence : Alan MacEachern

15:30-17:00 | 15h30-17h00 (KMB 237)

Roundtable: Lines on a Moving Landscape: “Bordering” and Environment in Canada’s North | Table ronde : Lignes dans un paysage en mouvement : « Frontières » et environnement dans le Nord canadien
Aidan Burghardt
Nev Ozbilge
Mark Stoller
Susan Vanet
Phil Wight
Chair | Présidence : Glenn Iceton
Moderator | Modératrice : Heather Green

15:30-17:00 | 15h30-17h00 (AVC 205N)

Settling Sunset: Visualizing Settler Colonialism from Land and Sea | Coloniser le coucher de soleil : visualiser le colonialisme de peuplement de la terre et la mer
Erin Morton & Richard Yeomans, Settler Views in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia: Loyalist Land Grants and the Visualization of Land Possession
Sara Spike, “Through the Darke Mists”: Emotions and Early Colonial Visions of Land Glimpsed through Fog
Claire Schofer, Where Pines Mark Empire: Visualizing Colonial Power in Loyalist Nova Scotia
Sandi Stewart, The Hudson’s Bay Company Auction Case Study: “A Legacy through Art” or Settler-Colonialism?
Chair | Présidence : Beth Jewett

Tuesday 2 June

8:30-10:00 | 8h30-10h00 (MCDH 246)

Patterns of Development | Modèles de développement
Mark Sholdice, Trillium Exploration Corporation and Ontario’s Oil and Gas Policies, 1982-1989
Jessy Lee Saas, “To the Best of My Memory”: Remembering the Homesteader and the Colonizer in the Saskatchewan Pioneer Questionnaires
Chair | Présidence : Piyusha Chatterjee

8:30-10:00 | 8h30-10h00 (AH 142)

Oral Traditions and Cultural Memory | Traditions orales et mémoire culturelle
Zainab Farooqui, “Aik zamanay mai…”: A Study of the Prose Narratives and Oral Culture in the Ibrahim Hyderi Fishermen Community
Stéphanie St-Pierre, Locale, régionale ou nationale ? Analyse des représentations historiques lors du Congrès mondial acadien 2024
François Lamoureux, Sunday Tams: Counterculture and Commemoration in 1990s Montréal
Maureen L. Atkinson & Glenn Iceton, Forgetting the Fire: The Quesnel River Fire, Superstition and Historical Memory
Chair | Présidence : Michael Borsk

10:30-12:00 | 10h30-12h00 (MCDH 246)

Boundaries of Self and Other | Les frontières entre soi et l’autre
Amelie Pelletier, Death Beyond the Color Line: Black Funeral Homes and the Reimagining of Self and Other in Jim Crow America
Guillaume Durou, « Une satisfaction intérieure et instinctive » : analyse des attaque contre le Juifs à partir de la Cour du Recorder de Montréal, 1900-1913
Clio Reid, From Asylum to Archive: Constructing the Psychiatric Patient through Case Files, 1885-1895
Rishma Johal, South Asians, Race, and Indigenous Workers in Fishing and Canning on the Pacific Coast
Chair | Présidence : Martin Laberge

10:30-12:00 | 10h30-12h00 (AVC 201N)

Disease, Ecology, and the Politics of the Environment | Maladie, écologie et politique environnementale
Yuanfang Zhang, Green Imperialism: A Critical Study of Fujiyama Kazuo’s Essays on Forestry in Manchuria
John Lutz, Smallpox Stalks the Chilcotin Plateau
Alex Souchen, A Call to Action? Fighting Climate Change with the Second World War Metaphor
Chair | Présidence : Gregory Marchildon

12:00-13:30 | 12h00-13h30 : Business meetings | Réunions d’affaires

Network in Canadian History & Environment (NiCHE) | Nouvelle initiative Canadienne en histoire de l’environnement (NiCHE) (KMB 211)

13:30-15:00 | 13h30-15h00 (AVC 205N)

Observing and Marking the Environment | Observer et marquer l’environnement
Blake Butler, “Our Winter Snows are of the Utmost Importance”: Richard Charles Farrow and the Development of B.C.’s Snow Survey Program
Alan MacEachern, Observation Nation: The First Decades of the Meteorological Service of Canada’s Daily Observation Program
Lily Hart, ReMarking the Land: Settler-Colonial Environmental Historytelling in the Pacific Northwest
Catherine St. John, Leave it to (Nuisance) Beavers: Manitoba’s Beaver Management Problem, 1930 to 1953
Chair | Présidence : Jamie Murton

Wednesday 3 June

10:30-12:00 | 10h30-12h00 (KMB 210)

Perspective on Newfoundland History | Perspective sur l’histoire de Terre-Neuve
Andy Post, From Fishery to ‘Discovery’? Re-thinking the Crown’s ‘Acquisition’ of Sovereignty in Newfoundland
George Colpitts, Transforming the Seal for Whitecoat Fur in St. John’s, 1925-1938
Andrew Goodwin, The Newfoundland Grenfell Reindeer Herd and Troubles with Community, 1907-1917
Chair | Présidence : Susan Brown

11:30-13:00 | 11h30-13h00 (The Breezeway, MCDH)

POSTER SESSION | SESSION D’AFFICHES

Sara Pilon & Sarah Trevor, Documenting Indigenous and Settler Land Use in the Redberry Lake Biosphere Region
Thea Stewart, Not the Breadwinners, but the Bread Makers: Exploring the Role of Women on Family Farms on Prince Edward Island during the Mid to Late 20th Century

13:30-15:00 | 13h30-15h00 (PAC 112)

Perspective on the Land and Animals | Perspective sur la terre et les animaux
Renna Truong, Christie Teterenko, Lelland Reed, & Julia Guy, The CPR Land Sales Application at UCalgary Libraries and Cultural Resources
Alex Gagné, Fertile Ground, Barren Vision: Government Oversight and the Stunted Growth of Ontario Viticulture, 1866-1929
Emily Oakes, A Weary Horse: Shell-Shocked Equines in the Canadian Expeditionary Forces During the First World War
Mark McLaughlin, Invasion of the Grosbeaks! Recharting the Self and the Other Through Human-Animal Relations in Post-Second World War New Brunswick
Chair | Présidence : Jerry Bannister

15:30-17:00 | 15h30-17h00 (KMB 211)

Langue, artefacts et politique de l’histoire | Language, Artifacts, and the Politics of History
Xavier Gélinas, La Grande Constellation canadienne (1967) : le président Johnson, le premier ministre Pearson et les relations canado-américaines
Olivier Côté, Une histoire intime des communications : un projet d’histoire orale au Musée canadien de l’histoire
Keith Goulet, Utilizing Cree Language to Decolonize the History of Land
Chair | Présidence : Gregory Kennedy

Banner Image: Satellite Image of Prince Edward Island. By Copernicus Sentinel-2, ESA – https://scihub.copernicus.eu/dhus/#/home, CC BY-SA 3.0 igo.
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Shannon Stunden Bower

Shannon Stunden Bower is a Professor of History in the Department of History, Classics, and Religion at the University of Alberta. Her research focuses on the Canadian Prairies, and addresses questions related to water management (with particular concern for the extremes of flood or drought) and government institutions (whether at national, provincial, or local scales).

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