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Poem in your Pocket Day

Canadians across the country have poems in their pockets, from a pretty little haiku to historical epics to the latest pop earworm. Every year new poets give us wonderful and engaging works. But we can’t forget the strong Canadian poetic tradition captured by, among others, Bliss Carman’s romantic odes to landscape, Stephen Leacock’s biting satire, [...]

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NATO: When Canada Really Mattered

On April 4, 1949, the foreign ministers of Canada, the US, the UK, France and eight other countries signed the North Atlantic Treaty. An armed attack on one member would be an armed attack on them all.

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Historical Maps of Toronto: Q&A with Nathan Ng

Historical Maps of Toronto makes hard-to-find maps easily accesible on the web. Nathan Ng, brainchild behind the project, answers a few questions about maps, history and his love for both.

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James Marsh Retires from The Canadian Encyclopedia

The editor in chief of the Canadian Encyclopedia, James H. Marsh, will retire after 33 years of dedication and leadership. He remembers his journey from bookish kid to what he calls “the best job in the country.”

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The History of April Fools’ Day

Our French editor Myriam Fontaine traces the history of April Fools, from its origins in 1534 to its current tradition in Quebec where children “run after the April Fish.”

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Remembering Sir John A. Macdonald

macdonald-sir john a

Sir John A. Macdonald, ca. 1875, George Lancefield / Library and Archives Canada

When in 1887 a Canadian delegation went to Washington to negotiate a treaty with the United States, their hosts treated them to a boat ride on the Potomac. One Canadian delegate arrived early and while waiting for the others struck up a conversation with a lady, the wife of a US senator.

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The Dogs of Canadian History

Tahltan Bear Dog

The Tahltan Bear Dog, indigenous to Canada.

January is Train Your Dog Month in the United States, but it’s an idea that Canadian dog lovers will be happy to adopt. According to a 2009 survey from the Canadian Veterinary Journal, a total of 56% of Canadian households have at least one dog or cat, with an estimated 6 million dogs in Canada. In 2011, Canadians spent $6.23 billion on the pets according to Statistics Canada. It’s clear that Canadians love their dogs, so in the spirit of Train Your Dog Month, we present a roundup of Canadian dogs, from the hardy sled dog to the indigenous Tahltan Bear Dog to the favoured terriers of a former Prime Minister. These canines are part of Canadian history and, in some cases, have been recognized by Canada Post with a commemorative stamp!

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Janvier est le mois d’entraînement pour les chiens aux États-Unis, soit le Train Your Dog Month, mais cette idée réjouira sans doute aussi tous les Canadiens qui adorent les chiens. Selon un sondage paru en 2009, tiré du Canadian Veterinary Journal, 56% des ménages canadiens ont au moins un chat ou un chien, ce qui équivaut à une population canine de 6 millions de chiens. En 2011, un montant de 6, 23 millions de dollars a été dépensé pour leurs animaux de compagnie selon Statistiques Canada. Les Canadiens aiment leurs chiens et dans cet esprit, nous vous présentons un éventail de races de chiens typiquement canadiennes, en commençant par les si courageux chiens de traineaux, jusqu’aux chiens ours des Tahltans, et même les terriers, chiens favoris de l’un des anciens premiers ministres du Canada. Ces chiens font partie du patrimoine canadien et dans certains cas, ont été reconnus par Postes Canada avec un timbre commémoratif à leur effigie.

Visit The Canadian Encyclopedia for more on Dogs.

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À Halifax, une belle mystérieuse…et Victor Hugo!

En 1863, une mystérieuse jeune Française arriva à Halifax par bateau, de New York. Ne pouvant à peine s’exprimer en anglais, elle eut beaucoup de difficulté à demander au cocher de la conduire à l’hôtel le plus proche. Il l’amena donc à l’hôtel Halifax Hotel, où est érigé maintenant le Ralston Building sur la rue Hollis, car le propriétaire des lieux parlaient français et allemand. La jeune femme s’enregistra sous le nom de Mademoiselle Lewley et dit qu’elle était venue pour retrouver un membre de sa famille installé dans la ville. On lui suggéra d’aller voir un certain Philip Lenoir, avocat francophone. Elle lui raconta qu’elle était à la recherche de son cousin, Albert Pinson, un officier britannique stationné à Halifax.

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Halifax’s Connection to Victor Hugo

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Halifax Hotel, H. Hesslein, Proprietor. — East side of Hollis Street. 1871 Joseph S. Rogers Nova Scotia Archives negative no. N-432

In 1863 a mysterious young Frenchwoman arrived in Halifax on a packet-boat from New York. She spoke broken English and had difficulty asking the carriage-driver to take her to a hotel. He brought her to the Halifax Hotel, where the Ralston Building now stands on Hollis Street, because the proprietor there spoke French and German. The woman registered as ‘Miss Lewley’ and said she wanted to locate a relative in the city. She was directed to Philip Lenoir, a French-speaking lawyer, and told him she wanted to locate her cousin, Albert Pinson, an officer in a British regiment stationed in Halifax.

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2012: Canadian Women Reading & Writing

feminist-writer
The end of the year: a time when people reflect on the most significant developments in their field, and, honestly, on myriad unrelated occurrences and happenings as well. Where are we going and what have we done? This year, I think the conversation about literature in Canada belongs to Canada’s female readers and writers for a few key reasons.

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Ring in 2013 with “Auld Lang Syne”

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Canadian-born bandleader Guy Lombardo in his familiar pose, ushering in the New Year.

“Auld Lang Syne” has aptly been described as the song that nobody knows, although it is universally the song the English-speaking world uses to bid farewell to the old year and to hail the new.

The song nicely combines a note of conviviality with a poignant sense of loss, just the right mood for New Year’s Eve, when our minds hover between regret and anticipation.

The song we sing now is a version of an ancient song reworked by the 18th century Scottish bard Robbie Burns, a song he said “of olden times” which he took down from an old man’s singing and then improved with the words we (try to) sing today.

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In Search of Canadian Christmas Stories

Civil War Christmas, Thomas Nast 1863. Note Santa climbing into the chimney at top left and Santa in a sled pulled by reindeer at top right (public Domain).

Civil War Christmas, Thomas Nast 1863. Note Santa climbing into the chimney at top left and Santa in a sled pulled by reindeer at top right (public Domain).

Christmas holidays: the perfect time to find another reason – if one is ever needed – to settle into a warm corner on a winter’s night with a book. Perhaps with the wood stove on, the tree lights glinting in the corner and a warm mug at my elbow. I’ve been mulling on “the classic” Canadian Christmas story, and have found myself surprised, and then unsurprised, by the difficulty of locating one.

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Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

A Christmas tree for German soldiers in a temporary hospital.

A Christmas tree for German soldiers in a temporary hospital.

On December 25, 1943, the acrid smell of cordite hung over the rubble barricades of Ortona, Italy, where Canadians and Germans were engaged in grim hand-to-hand combat. Even amid the thunder of collapsing walls and the blinding dust and smoke darkening the alleys, the men of The Seaforth Highlanders of Canada and The Loyal Edmonton Regiment were determined to celebrate Christmas. They chose the abandoned church of Santa Maria di Constantinopoli as their banquet hall.

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The Story behind A Christmas Story

The tag line for Bob Clark’s A Christmas Story is: “A Tribute to the Original, Traditional, One Hundred Per Cent, Red-Blooded, Two Fisted, All-American Christmas.” Except that the film isn’t. American that is. It’s a 100-per-cent Canadian production, shot on location in St. Catherines and Lindsay, Ontario, and studios in Toronto.

This is the story behind one of the most popular Yuletide movies that’s right up there with the holiday holy trinity of A Christmas Carol, It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street

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Canadian Christmas Movies

A still from my favourite Canadian Christmas film, Treevenge.

A still from my favourite Canadian Christmas film, Treevenge.

The Canadian holidays are a lot like the American holidays, but with a higher chance of snowfall. Plus, Santa’s workshop is totally in the Canadian north, right? I say we call dibs on the guy in red – back off, Coca Cola.

My favourite thing to do around Christmastime is to curl up on the couch with a cup of hot chocolate and watch Too Many Things. Too Many Things could be that DVD box set that you got from a loved one, or the goodies waiting in your instant qeue on Netflix. Whatever it is, you’ve got to watch it. This holiday season, my must-watch movie spree includes some classic Canadiana. While Home Alone and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation may be on TV repeat, hunting down the following movies and TV specials will make your holiday season merry, bright, and especially Canadian.

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Music Mondays: Mummers Mumming

Mummers. Bodleian Library MS. Bodl. 264, fol 21v.

Mummers. Bodleian Library MS. Bodl. 264, fol 21v.

On a wall in my home is a print by David Blackwood. It features a line of humans dressed in various swaths of fabric, masked and guided by lanterns. It is titled, “Mummers Group at Pound Cove”. It is an eerie picture that conjures up images of medieval, Breughelesque, ceremonies. Mummering goes back to medieval times and, according to some scholars, to the back of beyond. No one really knows for sure. What we do know is that mummering, done by mummers, arrived in what is now Canada with the first English and Irish settlers and remains part of the Christmas tradition in at least Newfoundland and Labrador, although a friend from Prince Edward Island tells me it is still happening there, too.

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Dogsledding in the Yukon

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Pete with Albert (photo: by Darwin Wiggett).

I’ve always loved dogs and I’ve always enjoyed winter so I guess there was a certain inevitability to my becoming a dog musher. In the late 1980s a combination of a love of wilderness and a frustration with the increasingly warm and snow-less winters in Southern Ontario propelled me to the far north and into dog mushing.

The Alaskan husky is a mutt. Bred over generations for performance rather than appearance, the Alaskan husky came about by breeding the dogs of interior Alaskan villages with the ancestors of the Siberian husky. Over the years the Greyhound, Saluki, Border Collie and Pointer have been bred into the lines with the goal of improving performance.

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Inuit Myths and Legends

The Inuit are an “imaginative, hardy and resourceful people” wrote famed Igloo Dweller James Houston. The Inuit (meaning simply “the people”) make their home in the Arctic, encompassing the vast, rugged land from the Bering Sea through Alaska and northern Canada to Greenland. Theirs is a semi-nomadic life that traces back to as early as 1000 AD when their ancestors (the Thule) moved eastwards from Alaska to the Arctic.

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A Very Canadian Gift Guide

Encyclopedia editors have long been pegged as crusty, humourless academics, too busy researching facts and figures to enjoy the fun and quirky material world. This holiday season, The Canadian Encyclopedia staff is happy to dispel this notion with a very Canadian gift guide made up of their favourite things, from handcrafted pens to plush toys and potato vodka. Crusty and humourless? We think not!

vodka-1Schramm Organic Potato Vodka
Pemberton Distillery, $30–$62
Everyone knows where Bud the Spud is from—think of PEI, and one thinks of potatoes. But tucked away in an idyllic, isolated valley, in the Coast Mountains of BC, is a village also famous for its potatoes. Pemberton, just 20 minutes north of Whistler, has long been a key supplier of high grade seed potatoes—they are used all over North America. Pemberton is a controlled agricultural area to keep its seed stock free of viruses—no outside potatoes allowed! One enterprising company is using the pristine Pemberton potatoes for a different purpose—making vodka and other spirits. While the distillery has been producing its Schramm Organic Potato Vodka since just 2009, it has already won rave reviews and double-gold at the 2010 World Spirits Awards. Sheila Keenan, Copy Editor (more…)

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Chanukah, Ruth Rubin and Me

An engraving depicting the Maccabbee Rebellion (public domain).

An engraving depicting the Maccabbee Rebellion (public domain).

I grew up in Toronto in a militantly secular Jewish environment. My parents and their friends – comrades, really – were Communists. This meant that they were atheists. It also meant that they were passionately committed to a Jewish culture without religion. Our “temple” was the United Jewish People’s Order hall (UJPO) on Christie Street. It was a cultural Mecca, as it were. It was situated across the street from the park, Christie Pits. In August of 1933 a baseball team of Anglo Saxon Protestants flew a swastika flag – the emblem of the Hitler regime that had recently come to power in Germany.

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