A bi-weekly discussion that critically (and flippantly) engages with the literature, culture, and people of this weird place known as Canada. Hosted by two English graduates, Patrick & Mackenzy. Sometimes features interviews with writers and academics. Featured on Feedspot's "35 Best Canada History Podcasts" (#18), "15 Best Cultural History Podcasts" (#7), and "30 Best History Podcasts For Students" (#10). Named best podcast of all time by their mothers!
In which we talk about one of the most influential poets in modern Quebec - who only published one collection in his lifetime! --- Support: Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/historiacanadiana); Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/historiacanadiana) --- Further Readings Garneau, Saint-Denys. Complete poems of Saint Denys Garneau, Oberon Press, 1975.
4/21/25 • 61:12
In which Patrick talks to Karin Wells about her new book Women Who Woke Up the Law. You can find the book here or at your local bookstore! --- Support: Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/historiacanadiana); Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/historiacanadiana); recommended reading (https://historiacanadiana.wordpress.com/books/)
4/14/25 • 55:06
In which Patrick talks to Ruby Smith Díaz about her new book Searching for Seraphim: The Life and Legacy of Serafim 'Joe' Fortes. You can find the book here or at your local bookstore! --- Support: Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/historiacanadiana); Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/historiacanadiana); recommended reading (https://historiacanadiana.wordpress.com/books/)
3/31/25 • 52:07
In which we overview the story of the Black Nova Scotia once known as Africville, as well as briefly discussing Jeffrey Colvin's novel Africaville, which was inspired by the events. --- Support: Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/historiacanadiana); Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/historiacanadiana) --- Further Readings Colvin, Jeffrey. Africaville: A Novel, HarperCollins, 2019. McRae, Matthew. "The Story of Africville," Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Feb. 23, 2017. Remember Africville. Directed by Shelagh Mackenzie, National Film Board, 1991.
3/24/25 • 57:14
In which Patrick talks to Tom Fraser about his new book Invested in Crisis: Public Sector Pensions Against the Future. You can find the book here or at your local bookstore! --- Support: Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/historiacanadiana); Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/historiacanadiana); recommended reading (https://historiacanadiana.wordpress.com/books/)
3/10/25 • 73:11
In which we slowly unravel (you have been forewarned) as we talk about the absurdities of our contemporary relations to America... Check out our Patreon page for more episodes (that are slightly less stupid).
2/24/25 • 65:12
In which we talk about Quebec's 'grande noirceur' period (1939-1959) through its figurehead, Maurice Duplessis, and classic author Félix-Antoine Savard. --- Support: Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/historiacanadiana); Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/historiacanadiana) --- Sources/Further Reading Jones, Richard. Duplessis and the union nationale administration, 1983. Savard, Félix-Antoine. Menaud, maître draveur, 1937.
2/10/25 • 67:35
In which Patrick talks to Andrea Currie (Métis) about her new book Finding Otipemisiwak: The People Who Own Themselves, a narrative that extends from Andrea's experience of being a Sixties Scoop survivor. Find the book here or at your local bookstore! --- Support: Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/historiacanadiana); Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/historiacanadiana); recommended reading (https://historiacanadiana.wordpress.com/books/)
1/20/25 • 57:09
In which Patrick talks to Thomas F. Pedersen (professor emeritus at the University of Victoria) about his new book The Carbon Tax Question: Clarifying Canada’s Most Consequential Policy Debate.--- Support: Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/historiacanadiana); Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/historiacanadiana); recommended reading (https://historiacanadiana.wordpress.com/books/)
1/6/25 • 76:05
In which Patrick sits down with Carolyn Roberts to discuss her new book on decolonial education practices and what exactly it means to 're-story' education. Find more about the book here or at your local bookstore! --- Support: Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/historiacanadiana); Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/historiacanadiana); recommended reading (https://historiacanadiana.wordpress.com/books/)
12/23/24 • 53:11
In which Patrick talks about Wayson Choy's beautiful novel The Jade Peony and how it portrays the lives of Chinese Canadians of the 1930s. --- Support: Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/historiacanadiana); Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/historiacanadiana); recommended reading (https://historiacanadiana.wordpress.com/books/) --- Sources/Further Reading Choy, Wayson. The Jade Peony, Douglas & McIntyre, 1995. Deer, Glenn. An Interview with Wayson Choy. Canadian Literature 163, 1999, pp. 34–44. Ty, Eleanor. “‘Each Story Brief and Sad and Marvellous’: Multiple Voices in Wayson Choyʹs The Jade Peony.” The Politics of the Visible in Asian North American Narratives, University of Toronto Press, 2004, pp. 116–34.
12/9/24 • 32:31
In which we discuss the time the Canadian government asked itself: 'wait... are [white] women people?' For real though... We compare that event to two P.K. Page poems. --- Support: Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/historiacanadiana); Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/historiacanadiana); recommended reading (https://historiacanadiana.wordpress.com/books/) --- Sources/Further Reading Brandt, Gail, et al. Canadian Women: A History, 2011. Hamilton, Sheryl. Impersonations: Troubling the Person in Law and Culture, 2013. Irvine, Dean J. Editing Modernity: Women and Little-Magazine Cultures in Canada, 1916–1956, 2008. Killian, Laura. “Poetry and the Modern Woman: P.K. Page and the Gender of Impersonality,” Canadian Literature 150, 1996, pp. 86–105. Page. P.K. "After Rain" and "Nightmare". Sharpe, Robert J. and Patricia I. McMahon. The Persons Case: The Origins and Legacy of the Fight for Legal Personhood, 2007.
11/25/24 • 59:42
In which Patrick talks to filmmaker and writer Chase Joynt (Framing Agnes) about his new book, Vantage Points: On Media as Trans Memoir, which you can find here or at your local bookstore. --- Support: Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/historiacanadiana); Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/historiacanadiana); recommended reading (https://historiacanadiana.wordpress.com/books/)
11/4/24 • 55:10
In which we discuss the Prime Minister during the opening years of the Depression, and how he mostly struggled to keep things running... --- Support: Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/historiacanadiana); Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/historiacanadiana); recommended reading (https://historiacanadiana.wordpress.com/books/) --- Sources/Further Reading Bowering, George. Egotists & Autocrats: The Prime Ministers of Canada, Penguin, 2000. Caricature #1 -- Caricature #2 -- Caricature #3 MacLean, Andrew D. R.B. Bennett, Prime Minister of Canada. Excelsior Publishing, 1935 Ondaatje, Christopher. The Prime Ministers of Canada, 1867-1967. Canyon Press, 1967. Werthman, William C., ed. Canada in Cartoon: A Pictorial History of the Confederation Years 1867-1967. Brunswick Press, 1967.
10/28/24 • 62:14
In which we discuss some of anti-capitalist responses to the Depression, like the creation of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and the On-To-Ottawa Trek. Discussed caricatures/images: On-To-Ottawa; "unemployement relief camps" --- Support: Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/historiacanadiana); Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/historiacanadiana); recommended reading (https://historiacanadiana.wordpress.com/books/) --- Contact: historiacanadiana@gmail.com; Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/CanLitHistory) --- Further Reading: Baird, Irene. Waste Heritage, 1939. The Regina Manifesto, Co-operative Commonwealth Federation Programme, 1933. Vanderhaeghe, Guy. “We’re All Right.” 2017
10/14/24 • 67:59
In which we channel our inner feelings and talk about The Great Depression, with the help of Jack Winter's play Ten Lost Years (1974). --- Support: Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/historiacanadiana); Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/historiacanadiana); recommended reading (https://historiacanadiana.wordpress.com/books/) --- Contact: historiacanadiana@gmail.com; Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/CanLitHistory) --- Further Reading Winter, Jack. Ten Lost Years, Talonbooks, 2013.
9/30/24 • 69:02
Patrick sits down with activist Ellen Gabriel (Kanien’kehá:ka, Wakeniáhton) and historian Sean Carleton (University of Manitoba) to discuss their excellent new book When the Pine Needles Fall: Indigenous Acts of Resistance (released on Sept. 24). --- Find the book here or at your local bookstore. --- Support: Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/historiacanadiana); Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/historiacanadiana); the recommended reading page (https://historiacanadiana.wordpress.com/books/) --- Contact: historiacanadiana@gmail.com & Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/CanLitHistory)
9/16/24 • 69:41
In which we talk about a Looney Toons episode happening in the Arctic - and a bit on another Rudy Wiebe novel! *Sorry about Patrick's mic quality - he didn't notice it was recording on a different device* --- Support: Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/historiacanadiana); Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/historiacanadiana); recommended reading (https://historiacanadiana.wordpress.com/books/) --- Contact: historiacanadiana@gmail.com; Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/CanLitHistory) --- Further Reading Wiebe, Rudy. The Mad Trapper, Calgary: Red Deer Press, 1980.
8/19/24 • 62:46
We somehow made a hundred of these bloody things! Why? Who knows? But, for the occasion, we started taking about WLMK, only the longest lasting PM ever. I think it's thanks to his dead mom's advice. Find our ranking of the P.M.s so far here! --- Support: Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/historiacanadiana); Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/historiacanadiana); recommended reading (https://historiacanadiana.wordpress.com/books/) --- Contact: historiacanadiana@gmail.com; Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/CanLitHistory) --- Sources/Further Reading Bowering, George. Egotists and Autocrats: The Prime Ministers of Canada, Penguin Books, 2000. Dawson, R. MacGregor. William Lyon Mackenzie King: A Political Biography. University of Toronto, 1958. Scott, F. R. “W.L.M.K.” The Collected Poems of F.R. Scott, McClelland & Stewart, 1981, pp. 78–79. Stacey, C.P. A Very Double Life: The Personal World of Mackenzie King, Macmillan, 1977
8/5/24 • 73:59
In which we discuss one of the most forgotten Prime Ministers in Canada's history: Arthur Meighen. He was a great politician, but... nobody cared and his ideas were outdated. Find our ranking of the P.M.s so far here! --- Support: Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/historiacanadiana); Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/historiacanadiana); recommended reading (https://historiacanadiana.wordpress.com/books/) --- Contact: historiacanadiana@gmail.com; Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/CanLitHistory) --- Sources/Further Reading Bowering, George. Egotists and Autocrats: The Prime Ministers of Canada, Penguin Books, 2000. Cartoon #1 - Conscription Cartoon #2 - Wheat Board
7/22/24 • 60:08
In which we talk about modernism and its early days through a rag-tag group of McGill students who wanted to make poetry different. Many of them would go on to be quite famous in poetry and politics! FYI: We're in a new Top 5! --- Support: Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/historiacanadiana); Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/historiacanadiana); recommended reading (https://historiacanadiana.wordpress.com/books/) --- Contact: historiacanadiana@gmail.com; Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/CanLitHistory) --- Sources/Further Reading Irvine, Dean. The Canadian Modernists Meet, University of Ottawa Press, 2005. Norris, Ken. The little magazine in Canada, 1925–80, 1984. New Provinces: Poems by Several Authors, Macmillan, 1936.
6/17/24 • 62:23
In which our heroes discuss the emergence of realism in Canada through an excited talk about two novels: Martha Ostenso's Wild Geese and F.P. Grove's Settlers of the Marsh - both coincidentally published in 1925. --- Support: Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/historiacanadiana); Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/historiacanadiana); recommended reading (https://historiacanadiana.wordpress.com/books/) --- Contact: historiacanadiana@gmail.com; Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/CanLitHistory) --- Sources/Further Reading: Grove, Frederick Philip. Settlers of the Marsh, McClelland and Stewart, 1925. Ostenso, Martha. Wild Geese, Dodd, Mead & Company, 1925.
6/3/24 • 67:50
In which Patrick does a bit of a freewheeling talk about the early days of national radio broadcasting in Canada. --- Support: Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/historiacanadiana); Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/historiacanadiana); recommended reading (https://historiacanadiana.wordpress.com/books/) --- Contact: historiacanadiana@gmail.com; Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/CanLitHistory) --- Sources/Further Reading: Shea, Albert Aber. Broadcasting the Canadian Way, Harvest House, 1963. Weir, E. Austin. The Struggle for National Broadcasting in Canada, McClelland and Stewart, 1965.
5/20/24 • 31:34
In which our heroes talk about Archibald Belaney, a.k.a. 'Grey Owl' - a British man who pretended to be an Indigenous eco-activist in the 1920s. He's... complicated... --- Support: Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/historiacanadiana); Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/historiacanadiana); recommended reading (https://historiacanadiana.wordpress.com/books/) --- Contact: historiacanadiana@gmail.com; Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/CanLitHistory) --- Sources/Further Reading: Belaney, Archibald [Grey Owl], Grey Owl: Three Complete and Unabridged Canadian Classics, Firefly Books, 2001. Dickson, Lovat. Wilderness man: the strange story of Grey Owl, Abacus, 1976. Ruffo, Armand Garnet. Grey Owl: the mystery of Archie Belaney, Regina: Coteau Books, 1996. Smith, Donald B. From the land of shadows: the making of Grey Owl, Western Producer Prairie Books, 1990.
5/6/24 • 66:57
In which our heroes talk about the shockingly pervasive ideas about eugenics in the early 20th century and how they still pop up today. --- Support: Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/historiacanadiana); Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/historiacanadiana); recommended reading (https://historiacanadiana.wordpress.com/books/) --- Contact: historiacanadiana@gmail.com; Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/CanLitHistory) ---Sources/Further Reading: Campbell, Maria. Halfbreed, Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1973. Dodd, Dianne. "eugenics." The Oxford Companion to Canadian History, Oxford University Press, 2004. Ludolph, Rebekah. “Exposing the Eugenic Reader: Maria Campbell’s Halfbreed and Settler Self-Education,” Studies in Canadian Literature / Études en littérature canadienne, vol. 44, no. 2, 2019, pp. 101–120. McLaren, Angus. Our Own Master Race: Eugenics In Canada, 1885-1945, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1990. Stote, Karen. An Act of Genocide: Colonialism and the Sterilization of Aboriginal Women, Fernwood Publishing, 2015.
4/22/24 • 67:18
Patrick is moving after coming back from a conference, Mack is still reeling from the end of semester, so we vibed by doing quizzes on Canada and talking about news bits. Back to normal in the next episode!
4/8/24 • 74:39
In which Patrick talks with wildlife biologist Wayne McCrory about the beautiful - and surprisingly controversial - wild horses of the Chilcotin region. In this compelling book, McCrory draws upon two decades of research to make a case for considering these wonderful creatures, called qiyus in traditional Tŝilhqot’in culture, a resilient part of the area’s balanced prey-predator ecosystem. McCrory also chronicles the Chilcotin wild horses’ genetic history and significance to the Tŝilhqot’in, juxtaposing their efforts to protect qiyus against movements to cull them. Find the book here or at your local bookstore. --- Support: Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/historiacanadiana); Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/historiacanadiana); the recommended reading page (https://historiacanadiana.wordpress.com/books/)
3/25/24 • 48:43
In which we discuss the paintings and philosophy of the most famous group of painters in Canada's history -- with a short story by Margaret Atwood for good measure. Patrick also rants in the wake of Brian Mulroney's death, be warned... --- Support: Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/historiacanadiana); Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/historiacanadiana); recommended reading (https://historiacanadiana.wordpress.com/books/) --- Contact: historiacanadiana@gmail.com; Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/CanLitHistory) --- Sources/Further Reading: Atwood, Margaret. “Death by Landscape” Maccallum, Reid. “The Group Of Seven: A Retrospect.” Imitation & Design and Other Essays, edited by William Blisseti, University of Toronto Press, 1953, pp. 162–69. Murray, Joan. The best of the Group of Seven, Edmonton: Hurtig, 1984
3/11/24 • 58:02
In which Pat and Mack discuss who was once one of the most influential and powerful women in Hollywood history - an actress from Toronto! --- Support: Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/historiacanadiana); Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/historiacanadiana); recommended reading (https://historiacanadiana.wordpress.com/books/) --- Contact: historiacanadiana@gmail.com; Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/CanLitHistory). --- Sources/Further Reading: Brownlow, Kevin. Mary Pickford Rediscovered: Rare Pictures of a Hollywood Legend. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1999. Whitfield, Eileen. Pickford: The Woman Who Made Hollywood. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1997.
2/26/24 • 69:44
In which Patrick lectures by himself about a poet whose work, Acanthus & Wild Grape, actively tried to bring Canadian poetry into the realm of modern sensibilities. --- Support: Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/historiacanadiana); Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/historiacanadiana); recommended reading (https://historiacanadiana.wordpress.com/books/) --- Contact: historiacanadiana@gmail.com; Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/CanLitHistory). --- Sources/Further Reading Avrum Malus, Diane Allard and Maria Van Sundert. “Frank Oliver Call, Eastern Townships Poetry, and the Modernist Movement,” Canadian Literature 107, 1985. Call, Frank Oliver. Acanthus & Wild Grape, McClelland & Stewart, 1920. Trehearne, Brian (editor). Canadian Poetry, 1920 to 1960, McClelland & Stewart, 2010. Beattie, Munro. “Poetry: 1920-1935.” Literary History of Canada: Canadian Literature in English (Second Edition) Volume II, edited by Alfred G. Bailey et al., University of Toronto Press, 1976, pp. 234–53.
2/12/24 • 34:12
