#cultural sites Canada

[inc-immigrationnewscanada]

10 Secret Destinations in Canada You Must Explore in 2025

Canada, often celebrated for its iconic landscapes and bustling cities like Banff, Vancouver, and Toronto, harbors a treasure trove of lesser-known wonders that are just waiting to be discovered. This guide takes you on a journey through ten such secret destinations in Canada offering unique experiences that could captivate any traveler’s heart. List of Secret Destinations in Canada1. Spotted…

[aeolianblues]

There's an art series called Froid'Art in Kingston, Canada that is basically an outdoor exhibition of acrylic paintings frozen directly into ice. The exhibition is on from 'now until the snow melts'. And there's something so ephemeral and fleeting and in the moment about art that has this variable deadline on it: when the air warms up and your knees aren't knocking in the cold, will you be happy to feel a warm breeze or sad to watch a beautiful painting melt?

Anyway, it sounds like a great idea, I'm going to show you a few pictures from their websites and socials.

The idea of the exhibition was to give people 'a reason to go outside for a walk' and to embrace winter. They etched with markers and acrylic paints onto transparent plastic mylar sheets, imagined everything from warm, summery scenes to Canada's most beloved band (and Kingston locals) The Tragically Hip, and froze them into 300 lb blocks of clear ice.

"There is a depth and beauty to the finished work that we could not have envisioned. There, suspended, embedded, enshrined within this perfect ice, was our work. A frame of embracing cold that somehow could make you feel warm. The work took on new dimensions. It gained a holographic quality, it gleamed!", writes one of the artists, Lori Kallay.

Taken from the Kingston tourism page and Martello Alley, the art gallery facilitating this.

[travelernight]

Ultimate Canada Journey: 10 Stops You Need to Make

[rabbitcruiser]

Canada’s National Indigenous Peoples Day

Learn about the various cultures and traditions of Canada’s Indigenous People, or join an event or ceremony to see how they have been preserved over time.

The culture, language and social systems of the original inhabitants of our world have had a significant impact on how we live our lives today. Canada’s National Indigenous Peoples Day is all about focusing on the contribution that these groups have made to our societies and helping people to learn about their heritage and culture. By celebrating this day, we can help keep Indigenous languages, traditions and culture alive for future generations.

Learn About Canada’s National Indigenous Peoples Day

The day officially first began in Canada in 1996, to celebrate the contributions and history of the Métis, Inuit and First Nation peoples. Since then, the day has been observed and celebrated internationally. Originally organized on the Summer Solstice (when the different peoples sometimes celebrate their heritage on the longest day of the year), the day’s events often include traditional feasts from each Indigenous People, festivals, dances, and the opportunity for people of all ages to learn about traditions, spiritual beliefs and culture. You might be lucky enough to see a sacred fire extinguishing ceremony or participate in a feast with a traditionally prepared meal.

It’s all about bringing people together from different walks of life to share in the contributions of Indigenous People to our society. You’ll find an eclectic mix of contemporary and traditional music while learning about how Indigenous Peoples helped to develop our agriculture, language and social customs. The day is also about how governments are creating crucial partnerships with Indigenous Peoples to protect their land, heritage and culture in modern times.

You can all get involved as the website has educational material for the whole family. There are also awareness events hosted in schools and local communities. If people want to get more involved they can even submit their ideas to get them registered as part of the event, so there are hundreds of opportunities to get involved. It also forms part of more extensive celebrations over an entire month that includes days like Multiculturalism Day and overall, aims to celebrate people from all walks of life and culture.

History of Canada’s National Indigenous Peoples Day

The day was officially recognized in Canada by the Governor-General of Canada Roméo LeBlanc in 1996. A year earlier in 1995, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples put forward the idea for the day to be created. The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples was a Commission put forward to reconcile the relationship between the Métis, Inuits and First Nation peoples and the Canadian Government. In 1996, Aboriginal Day was born, later changed to Canada’s National Indigenous Peoples Day in 2017.

In 1995, it wasn’t just the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples that suggested the day should be celebrated. A team of non-Indigenous and Indigenous peoples gathered and named themselves the Sacred Assembly. Chaired by Elijah Harper (Canadian Politician and Chief of the Red Sucker Lake First Nations) they called for a day for Indigenous Peoples to be celebrated and recognized for their contributions to our society. In 1982, what is now known as the Assembly of First Nations, set the path for the creation of this day, which led to Quebec recognizing the day as early as 1990.

However, there has been chatter about creating this day since 1945, when the day was first termed as ‘Indian Day’ by First Nation Chiefs, led by Jules Sioui. Jules Sioui was part of Huron Wendake First Nation and led two conventions during World War II which started to challenge the rights of Indigenous Peoples. The first meeting was chaired in 1943 in Ottawa and was attended by 53 people. The conference grew remarkably, and in 1944 was attended by four times as many people. Since then calls for a day of recognition have gained increasing traction and popularity.

Meanwhile, in late-1970s America, an International Conference began to suggest that America should host a celebration of its Indigenous peoples on Columbus Day. In 1989, it was first celebrated by South Dakota, and by 2019 was observed by multiple towns and states, including Louisiana, Dallas and Vermont. Brazil has also been celebrating since 1943, by decree of the then President, Getúlio Vargas. The UN also launched International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples in 1994, celebrating worldwide contributions from global Indigenous populations.

The United Nations had issued a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in 2007, which aimed to create a global framework for the preservation, dignity and well-being of each Indigenous culture. This process started in 1982, when the UN created the Working Group on Indigenous Populations, to discuss the discrimination that Indigenous Peoples had faced worldwide.

How To Celebrate Canada’s National Indigenous Peoples Day

This is the perfect time to learn about different Indigenous Peoples and their cultures and traditions. For example, in Canada, this day celebrates the First Nations, Inuit and Métis cultures. Why not learn about the Michif language of the Métis, or find out more about the storytelling traditions of the Inuits? Learning about the separate cultures will help us to understand how each independent group contributed to many of the things in society we take for granted today.

Why not get involved in a local event and participate in a traditional feast or watch a sacred ceremony? Dive right in and download some of the online material – why have some fun with family and friends and learn about Indigenous Peoples in the process? If you don’t have an event near you, why not host your own and reach out to the local Indigenous community for some assistance.

Learning about the history of Indigenous Peoples is also part of understanding why a day of celebration is so vital for preserving cultures today. From land disputes to reconciling with Governments across the world, the story for all Indigenous People has not been an easy one.

Luckily now we can preserve and enjoy all Indigenous cultures and appreciate the vast contribution that has been and is still being made today. So get stuck in, participate in a traditional event and learn all you can about different cultures. Help us send a big thank you to the original inhabitants of our planet for making it what it is today.

Source

[mostlysignssomeportents]

UK publishers suing Google for $17.4b over rigged ad markets

THIS WEEKEND (June 7–9), I'm in AMHERST, NEW YORK to keynote the 25th Annual Media Ecology Association Convention and accept the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity.

Look, no one wants to kick Big Tech to the curb more than I do, but, also: it's good that Google indexes the news so people can find it, and it's good that Facebook provides forums where people can talk about the news.

It's not news if you can't find it. It's not news if you can't talk about it. We don't call information you can't find or discuss "news" – we call it "secrets."

And yet, the most popular – and widely deployed – anti-Big Tech tactic promulgated by the news industry and supported by many of my fellow trustbusters is premised on making Big Tech pay to index the news and/or provide a forum to discuss news articles. These "news bargaining codes" (or, less charitably, "link taxes") have been mooted or introduced in the EU, France, Spain, Australia, and Canada. There are proposals to introduce these in the US (through the JCPA) and in California (the CJPA).

These US bills are probably dead on arrival, for reasons that can be easily understood by the Canadian experience with them. After Canada introduced Bill C-18 – its own news bargaining code – Meta did exactly what it had done in many other places where this had been tried: blocked all news from Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and other Meta properties.

This has been a disaster for the news industry and a disaster for Canadians' ability to discuss the news. Oh, it makes Meta look like assholes, too, but Meta is the poster child for "too big to care" and is palpably indifferent to the PR costs of this boycott.

Frustrated lawmakers are now trying to figure out what to do next. The most common proposal is to order Meta to carry the news. Canadians should be worried about this, because the next government will almost certainly be helmed by the far-right conspiratorialist culture warrior Pierre Poilievre, who will doubtless use this power to order Facebook to platform "news sites" to give prominence to Canada's rotten bushel of crypto-fascist (and openly fascist) "news" sites.

Americans should worry about this too. A Donald Trump 2028 presidency combined with a must-carry rule for news would see Trump's cabinet appointees deciding what is (and is not) news, and ordering large social media platforms to cram the Daily Caller (or, you know, the Daily Stormer) into our eyeballs.

But there's another, more fundamental reason that must-carry is incompatible with the American system: the First Amendment. The government simply can't issue a blanket legal order to platforms requiring them to carry certain speech. They can strongly encourage it. A court can order limited compelled speech (say, a retraction following a finding of libel). Under emergency conditions, the government might be able to compel the transmission of urgent messages. But there's just no way the First Amendment can be squared with a blanket, ongoing order issued by the government to communications platforms requiring them to reproduce, and make available, everything published by some collection of their favorite news outlets.

This might also be illegal in Canada, but it's harder to be definitive. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enshrined in 1982, and Canada's Supreme Court is still figuring out what it means. Section Two of the Charter enshrines a free expression right, but it's worded in less absolute terms than the First Amendment, and that's deliberate. During the debate over the wording of the Charter, Canadian scholars and policymakers specifically invoked problems with First Amendment absolutism and tried to chart a middle course between strong protections for free expression and problems with the First Amendment's brook-no-exceptions language.

So maybe Canada's Supreme Court would find a must-carry order to Meta to be a violation of the Charter, but it's hard to say for sure. The Charter is both young and ambiguous, so it's harder to be definitive about what it would say about this hypothetical. But when it comes to the US and the First Amendment, that's categorically untrue. The US Constitution is centuries older than the Canadian Charter, and the First Amendment is extremely definitive, and there are reams of precedent interpreting it. The JPCA and CJPA are totally incompatible with the US Constitution. Passing them isn't as silly as passing a law declaring that Pi equals three or that water isn't wet, but it's in the neighborhood.

But all that isn't to say that the news industry shouldn't be attacking Big Tech. Far from it. Big Tech compulsively steals from the news!

But what Big Tech steals from the news isn't content.

It's money.

Big Tech steals money from the news. Take social media: when a news outlet invests in building a subscriber base on a social media platform, they're giving that platform a stick to beat them with. The more subscribers you have on social media, the more you'll be willing to pay to reach those subscribers, and the more incentive there is for the platform to suppress the reach of your articles unless you pay to "boost" your content.

This is plainly fraudulent. When I sign up to follow a news outlet on a social media site, I'm telling the platform to show me the things the news outlet publishes. When the platform uses that subscription as the basis for a blackmail plot, holding my desire to read the news to ransom, they are breaking their implied promise to me to show me the things I asked to see:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-need-end-end-web

This is stealing money from the news. It's the definition of an "unfair method of competition." Article 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act gives the FTC the power to step in and ban this practice, and they should:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

Big Tech also steals money from the news via the App Tax: the 30% rake that the mobile OS duopoly (Apple/Google) requires for every in-app purchase (Apple/Google also have policies that punish app vendors who take you to the web to make payments without paying the App Tax). 30% out of every subscriber dollar sent via an app is highway robbery! By contrast, the hyperconcentrated, price-gouging payment processing cartel charges 2-5% – about a tenth of the Big Tech tax. This is Big Tech stealing money from the news:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-must-open-app-stores

Finally, Big Tech steals money by monopolizing the ad market. The Google-Meta ad duopoly takes 51% out of every ad-dollar spent. The historic share going to advertising "intermediaries" is 10-15%. In other words, Google/Meta cornered the market on ads and then tripled the bite they were taking out of publishers' advertising revenue. They even have an illegal, collusive arrangement to rig this market, codenamed "Jedi Blue":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_Blue

There's two ways to unrig the ad market, and we should do both of them.

First, we should trustbust both Google and Meta and force them to sell off parts of their advertising businesses. Currently, both Google and Meta operate a "full stack" of ad services. They have an arm that represents advertisers buying space for ads. Another arm represents publishers selling space to advertisers. A third arm operates the marketplace where these sales take place. All three arms collect fees. On top of that: Google/Meta are both publishers and advertisers, competing with their own customers!

This is as if you were in court for a divorce and you discovered that the same lawyer representing your soon-to-be ex was also representing you…while serving as the judge…and trying to match with you both on Tinder. It shouldn't surprise you if at the end of that divorce, the court ruled that the family home should go to the lawyer.

So yeah, we should break up ad-tech:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-shatter-ad-tech

Also: we should ban surveillance advertising. Surveillance advertising gives ad-tech companies a permanent advantage over publishers. Ad-tech will always know more about readers' behavior than publishers do, because Big Tech engages in continuous, highly invasive surveillance of every internet user in the world. Surveillance ads perform a little better than "content-based ads" (ads sold based on the content of a web-page, not the behavior of the person looking at the page), but publishers will always know more about their content than ad-tech does. That means that even if content-based ads command a slightly lower price than surveillance ads, a much larger share of that payment will go to publishers:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-ban-surveillance-advertising

Banning surveillance advertising isn't just good business, it's good politics. The potential coalition for banning surveillance ads is everyone who is harmed by commercial surveillance. That's a coalition that's orders of magnitude larger than the pool of people who merely care about fairness in the ad/news industries. It's everyone who's worried about their grandparents being brainwashed on Facebook, or their teens becoming anorexic because of Instagram. It includes people angry about deepfake porn, and people angry about Black Lives Matter protesters' identities being handed to the cops by Google (see also: Jan 6 insurrectionists).

It also includes everyone who discovers that they're paying higher prices because a vendor is using surveillance data to determine how much they'll pay – like when McDonald's raises the price of your "meal deal" on your payday, based on the assumption that you will spend more when your bank account is at its highest monthly level:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/05/your-price-named/#privacy-first-again

Attacking Big Tech for stealing money is much smarter than pretending that the problem is Big Tech stealing content. We want Big Tech to make the news easy to find and discuss. We just want them to stop pocketing 30 cents out of every subscriber dollar and 51 cents out of ever ad dollar, and ransoming subscribers' social media subscriptions to extort publishers.

And there's amazing news on this front: a consortium of UK web-publishers called Ad Tech Collective Action has just triumphed in a high-stakes proceeding, and can now go ahead with a suit against Google, seeking damages of GBP13.6b ($17.4b) for the rigged ad-tech market:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/17-bln-uk-adtech-lawsuit-against-google-can-go-ahead-tribunal-rules-2024-06-05/

The ruling, from the Competition Appeal Tribunal, paves the way for a frontal assault on the thing Big Tech actually steals from publishers: money, not content.

This is exactly what publishing should be doing. Targeting the method by which tech steals from the news is a benefit to all kinds of news organizations, including the independent, journalist-owned publishers that are doing the best news work today. These independents do not have the same interests as corporate news, which is dominated by hedge funds and private equity raiders, who have spent decades buying up and hollowing out news outlets, and blaming the resulting decline in readership and profits on Craiglist.

You can read more about Big Finance's raid on the news in Margot Susca's Hedged: How Private Investment Funds Helped Destroy American Newspapers and Undermine Democracy:

https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p087561

You can also watch/listen to Adam Conover's excellent interview with Susca:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N21YfWy0-bA

Frankly, the looters and billionaires who bought and gutted our great papers are no more interested in the health of the news industry or democracy than Big Tech is. We should care about the news and the workers who produce the news, not the profits of the hedge-funds that own the news. An assault on Big Tech's monetary theft levels the playing field, making it easier for news workers and indies to compete directly with financialized news outlets and billionaire playthings, by letting indies keep more of every ad-dollar and more of every subscriber-dollar – and to reach their subscribers without paying ransom to social media.

Ending monetary theft – rather than licensing news search and discussion – is something that workers are far more interested in than their bosses. Any time you see workers and their bosses on the same side as a fight against Big Tech, you should look more closely. Bosses are not on their workers' side. If bosses get more money out of Big Tech, they will not share those gains with workers unless someone forces them to.

That's where antitrust comes in. Antitrust is designed to strike at power, and enforcers have broad authority to blunt the power of corporate juggernauts. Remember Article 5 of the FTC Act, the one that lets the FTC block "unfair methods of competition?" FTC Chair Lina Khan has proposed using it to regulate training AI, specifically to craft rules that address the labor and privacy issues with AI:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mh8Z5pcJpg

This is an approach that can put creative workers where they belong, in a coalition with other workers, rather than with their bosses. The copyright approach to curbing AI training is beloved of the same media companies that are eagerly screwing their workers. If we manage to make copyright – a transferrable right that a worker can be forced to turn over their employer – into the system that regulates AI training, it won't stop training. It'll just trigger every entertainment company changing their boilerplate contract so that creative workers have to sign over their AI rights or be shown the door:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/13/spooky-action-at-a-close-up/#invisible-hand

Then those same entertainment and news companies will train AI models and try to fire most of their workers and slash the pay of the remainder using those models' output. Using copyright to regulate AI training makes changes to who gets to benefit from workers' misery, shifting some of our stolen wages from AI companies to entertainment companies. But it won't stop them from ruining our lives.

By contrast, focusing on actual labor rights – say, through an FTCA 5 rulemaking – has the potential to protect those rights from all parties, and puts us on the same side as call-center workers, train drivers, radiologists and anyone else whose wages are being targeted by AI companies and their customers.

Policy fights are a recurring monkey's paw nightmare in which we try to do something to fight corruption and bullying, only to be outmaneuvered by corrupt bullies. Making good policy is no guarantee of a good outcome, but it sure helps – and good policy starts with targeting the thing you want to fix. If we're worried that news is being financially starved by Big Tech, then we should go after the money, not the links.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/06/stealing-money-not-content/#content-free

[godbirdart]

june 21 is national indigenous peoples day up here in canada; a day focused on celebrating the arts and cultures of our indigenous neighbours and communities.

if you’re looking for ways to support, or generally further your education on indigenous history, here are a bunch of links to help you get started! please go further and look up events hosted by your local community specifically, as some may not be listed on the sites below.

remember that if you cannot attend events or monetarily support businesses - you can always boost indigenous artists and voices online too.

indigenous tourism; lists businesses, events, and other indigenous-owned / led programs for the respective province or territory

indigenous tourism canada [generalized resources, event listings etc]

yukon

northwest territories

nunavut

british columbia

alberta

saskatchewan

manitoba

ontario

quebec

newfoundland and labrador

new brunswick

nova scotia

prince edward island

art

bill reid gallery of the northwest coast

lattimer art gallery

native northwest [while NNW itself is not indigenous-owned, it is a good way to discover artists and purchase their work. some artists sell on other sites too, so look around]

strong nations [sells books by indigenous authors]

education and resources

two-spirited people of manitoba

alberta indigenous history timeline [pdf]

alberta indigenous history resources

british columba history timeline

list of first nations peoples [wikipedia; could be incomplete / inaccurate]

cbc indigenous [indigenous-focused news]

missing and murdered indigenous women and girls

national centre for truth and reconciliation

native land interactive map

orange shirt day

qikiqtani truth commission

lil’ red dress project

whose land interactive map

charities / support / donations

clan mothers healing billage & knowledge centre

first nations health authority

indian residential schools survivor society

indigenous peoples resilience fund

qajuqturvik food bank

niqinik nuatsivik nunavut food bank

nunavut food security coalition

reconciliation canada

urban native youth association

additional links are always appreciated

[multiplicity-positivity]

Shoutout to Indigenous systems on this day for Truth and Reconciliation!

Today, September 30th, is the Canadian National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. This is a day of remembrance for victims and survivors of Indian residential schools in Canada, though it could likely apply to those who live on Turtle Island in general.

If your system or someone you know is or knows a survivor of an Indian residential school, or has a loved one who did not survive their time in a residential school, our hearts go out to you. We are wishing for you and family a future full of strength, peace, and resilience. Inter-generational trauma can have significant impacts, and the pain imposed on your loved ones and ancestors should not be forgotten as time passes. We hope that their lives can be honored and remembered throughout history, and we want to do our part to help preserve their legacy.

For allies of Indigenous peoples, if you are able to, please wear an orange shirt today to honor those whose lives were forever changed due to the negative impact residential schools has left on indigenous communities. Remember that, even today, Indigenous peoples face hardships, disparities, and inequalities in our society. The closure of residential schools does not mean rest, healing, and proper compensation for the victims of such institutions. Let’s vow as a community to make our spaces safe and accepting of Indigenous systems, and do our part to educate ourselves on their histories so that we may be better allies in the future.

Friends, please show some support to the Indigenous people in your lives today, and do not take their presence for granted. Take a moment to learn more about the history of Indian residential schools in Canada and the United States, and the grim legacy they have left which many Indigenous communities are still dealing with today. If you are able to, please reach out to the Indigenous systems and non-systems in your lives to provide support in whatever ways they have requested.

We will include links to sites and organizations where you can learn more about the Canadian National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and the history of Indian residential schools in both Canada and the USA, along with links where you can directly support survivors of Indian residential schools. Remember, if you cannot support these organizations or individuals financially, you can show your support by educating yourselves and providing a space in your own communities where Indigenous voices can be acknowledged and uplifted.

Indigenous systems, we love you, we are in your corner, and we want to support and uplift you however we can. Please do not hesitate to get in touch if there is anything we can do to help make our spaces more welcoming for you. You have an important and treasured place in the plural community, and we are honored to be able to share this space with you. We hope that you can do your best to treat yourselves and your system with compassion and gentleness today, and take care!

‼️ Non-indigenous systems are welcome and encouraged to reblog, but DO NOT derail or try to center your voice over actual indigenous systems and those who are actually affected by inter-generational trauma due to Indian residential schools!‼️

[bignaz8]

CHIEF MOUNTAIN, also known as Nínaiistáko in Blackfoot or "Old Chief" in English, is a prominent peak located on the border of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana, United States, and Alberta, Canada. It is considered one of the most sacred sites for the Blackfeet Nation and holds significant cultural and spiritual importance.

The mountain and its surrounding area are part of the Glacier National Park and Waterton Lakes National Park, jointly designated as the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park. This designation reflects the cross-border cooperation between the United States and Canada in preserving the natural and cultural heritage of the region, including the sacred significance of the peak to indigenous peoples..

[whencyclopedia]

The Native Peoples of North America (also known as American Indians, Native Americans, Indigenous Americans, and First Americans) are the original inhabitants of North America believed to have migrated into the region between 40,000-14,000 years ago, developing into separate nations with distinct and sophisticated cultures. These autonomous nations spread from Alaska, through Canada, and the lower United States. The earliest periods of migration, settlement, and development are defined by archaeological evidence (spearheads, tools, monumental structures) from sites throughout North America and are most often referred to by the following terms: Paleoindian-Clovis Culture – c. 40,000 to c. 14,000 BCE Dalton-Folsom Culture – c. 8500-7900 BCE Archaic Period – c. 8000-1000 BCE Woodland Period – c. 500 BCE to c. 1100 CE Mississippian Culture – c. 1100-1540 CE During the Archaic Period, some Native populations moved from a hunter-gatherer paradigm to a more sedentary social model as evidenced by sites such as Watson Brake (c. 3500 BCE), Poverty Point (c. 1700-1100 BCE), and others of varying size, developed throughout the region during the Woodland and Mississippian Culture eras. The cultures that developed in and around these sites were distinct from one another but shared a worldview that included belief in a higher power and disembodied spirits, the value of community over individual needs, reciprocity in interaction with the environment and each other, the importance of ritual and tradition, the practice of warfare and slavery, and conservation of resources. Women were highly respected in the communities and frequently served as leaders or advisers in government. These separate communities developed into what are sometimes called 'tribes' (but more often referred to now as 'nations') at some point prior to c. 980 to c. 1030 CE when the first European settlement was established in North America by Leif Erikson at L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland. By the time of the beginning of European colonization of the Americas in the 15th century CE, they were highly developed political and social entities associated with a specific region and a certain territory within that region. Although European expansion across Canada and the United States eventually deprived the indigenous peoples of their ancient lands, the nations still exist today and the image of the 'vanished Indian' is as much of a myth as the 'noble savage' or similar tropes developed by European and American scholars during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

[mythalism]

i think, anecdotally, canadians love to use land acknowledgments and Diversity(tm) a bit more than americans do, and have a degree of always pointing at the us and being like "well at least WE didn't do anything that fucked up! we're so much more enlightened and respectful 😌". and so any acknowledgment that racism exists, or that necessary societal change is often only brought by unpleasant disruption, or specifically that indigenous people live in terrible conditions because of colonization, is bracketed with this type of "but it's very complicated, and who's to say if there's a solution? we're thinking about it really hard, and holding space, and listening and learning, and maybe we will get to fixing it in like 50 years if people ask nicely" rhetoric. and there's a degree of apprehension that "land back" is a call for ethnic cleansing of settlers (somehow, despite this being both physically not possible and not actually anyone's demand) and that any movement towards that will be bad and overly radical.

which maps directly onto how bioware writes elves specifically haha. they'll sympathetically show how they're oppressed and living under the boot of a catholic church-esque entity, but then... ahhh noo, actually they had a very problematic pre-colonization culture, and they're too impractically fixated on the past and that prevents them from moving forward, and the church employees are sometimes trying their best and making amends, and the demands of the elven leadership are just too out there and violent... so really, it's very complicated. maybe it could be better to keep the status quo and only have Incremental Change, forever.

(they sort of didn't do this in the masked empire, but as always they had to throw in a bit about how Rude And Mean the dalish are. plus the ridiculously evil chevalier lore of each one randomly executing a few elves as a rite of passage, and then never mentioning that aspect again bc i guess it wasn't relevant to michel's story. as well as the insanely underwritten premise of what briala and celene's relationship actually was. there's ~toxic lesbians~, and then there's "extremely rich and powerful white noblewoman calls her younger servant class gf ugly for being dark skinned, lies to her for years, has her family and then entire community killed, then tries to seduce her back when she gets angry and leaves" lmao. i think weekes was going for a tragic morally grey starcrossed lovers to enemies vibe, but to me it was more of a horrific one-sided exploitation that the author did not seem to realize they were writing.)

and in veilguard i suppose they tried to avoid the entire issue by mostly removing those aspects of the setting, so you no longer even have the somewhat well-observed depictions of oppression combined with Justin Trudeau Moments, it's just kind of empty.

anyway thank you for appreciating my very long ted talk! i left tumblr after the whole "popular bloggers mass reporting pro-palestine people for terrorism" thing (i can get that treatment for free irl, don't need that extra stress from the Fandom Webbed Site haha). i've just been drifting back to look at dragon age posts bc i was curious about veilguard. i didn't expect much from bioware but it was surprising that they just went even further into tone-deaf bizarre race allegories rather than reading 1 (one) nonfiction book in the years since dai, or hiring anybody from a different background who could weigh in. :')

wow this is seriously so fascinating and insightful and truly does give me a better understanding of both canada and bioware LMFAO so thank you so much for sharing seriously. you are welcome in my inbox for more ted talks anytime and now im just gonna leave this here to marinate on it further and hope other people read it because its fantastic. xoxo

[rabbitcruiser]

Banff National Park, AB (No. 7)

Throughout its history, Banff National Park has been shaped by tension between conservationist and land exploitation interests. The park was established on November 25, 1885, as Banff Hot Springs Reserve, in response to conflicting claims over who discovered hot springs there and who had the right to develop the hot springs for commercial interests. The conservationists prevailed when Prime Minister John A. Macdonald set aside the hot springs as a small protected reserve, which was later expanded to include Lake Louise and other areas extending north to the Columbia Icefield.

Archaeological evidence found at Vermilion Lakes indicates the first human activity in Banff to 10,300 BP. Prior to European contact, the area that is now Banff National Park was home to many Indigenous Peoples, including the Stoney Nakoda, Ktunaxa, Tsuut'ina, Kainaiwa, Piikani, Siksika, and Plains Cree. Indigenous Peoples utilized the area to hunt, fish, trade, travel, survey and practice culture. Many areas within Banff National Park are still known by their Stoney Nakoda names such as Lake Minnewanka and the Waputik Range. Cave and Basin served as an important cultural and spiritual site for the Stoney Nakoda.

With the admission of British Columbia to Canada on July 20, 1871, Canada agreed to build a transcontinental railroad. Construction of the railroad began in 1875, with Kicking Horse Pass chosen, over the more northerly Yellowhead Pass, as the route through the Canadian Rockies. Ten years later, on November 7, 1885, the last spike was driven in Craigellachie, British Columbia.

Source: Wikipedia

[lillipad72]

Anne's World: A New Century of Anne of Green Gables

Part 1: Introduction (Irene Gammel)

"Anyone who has ever encountered her in one of L.M. Montgomery's novels will never forget her, for she is what we're not - and all that we long for and shall never become." - Jack Zipes on Anne Shirley

Key questions the book wants to answer:

"How do we read this early twentieth-century novel in ways that are relevant for readers of the twenty-first century?

How do the novel’s ethical dimensions fit into our own era?

Can Anne of Green Gables be read as a therapeutic text, capable of counteracting depression?

What is the power and danger of digital encounters with Anne?"

The goal of this book:

To consolidate and expand upon previous scholarship and information by placing Anne in its contemporary context while also exploring the reception and cultural impact, providing new references for future study.

The essays:

'Seven Milestones: How Anne of Green Gables Became a Canadian Icon' (Carole Gerson) "argues that Anne’s longevity is partly the result of a series of ‘institutional, commercial, and grassroots interventions."

'Matthew Insists on Puffed Sleeves: Ambivalence towards Fashion in Anne of Green Gables' (Allison Matthews, David and Kimberly Wahl) "argues that the text allows Anne Shirley to have it both ways: others want her to be fashionable and ambitious, whereas she wants to fit in."

'I'll never be Agelically Good: Feminist Narrative Ethics in Anne of Green Gables' (Mary Jeanette Moran) "reveals that the novel conforms to a feminist ethical paradigm because it tends to value those ethical choices that preserve or maintain relationships to support the principle that those who nurture others must also care for themselves, and to challenge the assumptions that women naturally care for others or that they alone bear the responsibility to do so."

'Too Headless and Impulsive: Re-reading Anne of Green Gables through a Clinical Approach' (Helen Hoy) "argues for the possibility of reading Anne Shirley as a psychological case study."

'Reading to Heal: Anne of Green Gables as Biblio-therapy' (Irene Gammel) "argues for reading Montgomery’s fiction within the important context of bibliotherapy, or the use of books in the treatment of personal and mental disorders."

'Reading with Blitheness: Anne of Green Gables in Toronto Public Library's Children's Collections' (Leslie McGrath) "examines how Montgomery’s literary reputation endured wide swings of critical opinion"

'Learning with Anne: Early Childhood Education Looks at New Media for Young Girls' (Jason Nolan) "looks closely at Anne of Green Gables: The Animated Series, Anne’s Diary, and New Moon Girls as prominent examples of how Anne of Green Gables and the work of Montgomery in general have been taken up as locations for formal and informal learning, through the identifi cation of Anne as variously a marketing icon, as an ideal young girl, and through the way Montgomery constructed learning environments within her novels."

'On the Road from Bright River: Shifting Social Space in Anne of Green Gables' (Alexander MacLeod) "studies the ways in which the characters inside the novel, like the readers outside of the text and the real-world visitors to the Green Gables National Park site in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, are all engaged in a complex process of reading and rewriting social space"

'Anne in a "Globalized" World: Nation, Nostalgia, and Postcolonial Perspectives of Home' (Margaret Steffler) "explores the impact of the novel and character both outside and within Canada, arguing that the attraction of Montgomery’s work continues into the twenty-first century because it resonates with conditions in contemporary lives and culture, specifically the emotions and activity involved in migratory patterns of losing and creating home"

'An Enchanting Girl: International Portraits of Anne's Cultural Transfer' (Andrew O'Malley, Huifeng Hu, Ranbir K. Banwait, Irene Gammel) "shines a light on the crossover points from one culture to another, identifying cultures that have ‘appropriated’ Anne for very different purposes"

'What's in a Name? Towards a Theory of the Anne Brand' (Benjamin Lefebvre) "draws on film and cultural theories to consider paratextual Annes in terms of authorial ownership, control, and narrative pleasure"

'Mediating Anne' (Richard Cavell) (afterword) "closes off the book by providing a jumping-off point, looking forward to future research exploring the global Anne."

hi hi hi! I just discovered this book from 2010, which is a collection of essays on Anne of Green Gables, and I thought I might go through each essay and share my thoughts on the pieces! If anyone else has this book or access to any of the essays (some of which I think you can find online) I would love to discuss them with you! xoxo lily

[bossymarmalade]

Messages, some dating back a century, written by children on the walls of a barn on the site of the former St. Joseph’s Mission Indian residential school.

Rick Gilbert, a survivor of St. Joseph’s Mission, tends to the Catholic cemetery on the grounds of the school. 

During the 19th and 20th centuries, government programs in both the United States and Canada forcibly separated Indigenous children from their families, relocating them to residential boarding schools to “civilize” them. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada has acknowledged this as a form of cultural genocide.

In 2021, this awful history got a fresh round of public discourse when surveying work on the grounds of the Kamloops residential school in British Columbia identified around 200 unmarked graves. (Officially, 51 children are currently recognized as having died at the school.) 

These events spurred Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie to collaborate on Sugarcane (2024), a documentary about Canada’s residential school system. It’s told from the perspective of now-elderly survivors of St. Joseph’s Mission, another such school in British Columbia, including Julian’s father, Ed. (The documentary gets its name from the nearby Williams Lake Indian Reserve, which is often called “Sugarcane.”) 

[ x ]

[lostinhistory]

Heritage News of the Week

Discoveries!

Archaeologists in London have found the remains of the city’s first basilica underneath the basement of an office building set to be demolished. Dubbed “the beating heart of Roman London,” it has been deemed one of the most important finds from the city’s Roman history.

Major discovery of a pre-Roman necropolis in Trento

More than 200 tombs have been discovered beneath layers of Roman and medieval material, at a depth of eight metres below the current street level.

Gold jewelry with leopard and tiger designs unearthed in 2,400-year-old burial in Kazakhstan

Striking gold jewelry and weapons made by Sarmatian nomads have been unearthed from three burial mounds in Kazakhstan that date to about the fifth century B.C.

Britain’s largest Viking Age building found near Holme St Cuthbert

Archaeologists from Grampus Heritage & Training Limited have uncovered a Viking Age timber building near the village of Holme St Cuthbert, located in the county of Cumbria, England.

People have been dumping corpses into the Thames since at least the Bronze Age, study finds

A new study of human remains dredged from the Thames River reveals that people frequently deposited corpses there in the Bronze and Iron ages.

Recent excavations unveil five remarkable statues, shedding light on Perge’s Roman heritage

During the excavations in the ancient city of Perge in Antalya, one of the most organized Roman cities of Anatolia, five different statues were unearthed.

Man buried with Roman pugio found at ancient fortress

Excavations at Cortijo Lobato, conducted during the construction of a new photovoltaic park, have revealed the skeletal remains of a man buried with a pugio (a Roman dagger) placed on his back.

Burial of ascetic monk in chains reveals surprising identity: A woman in Byzantine Jerusalem

A recent archaeological discovery near Jerusalem has challenged long-held beliefs about ascetic practices in the Byzantine era, revealing the remains of a woman in a burial typically associated with male ascetics, thus prompting a reevaluation of women’s roles in extreme religious traditions of the 5th-century AD.

Rare bronze beverage filter discovered in Hadrianopolis

Archaeologists excavating in Hadrianopolis, located in Turkey’s Karabük province, have discovered a 5th century AD bronze object believed to have been used as a beverage filter.

2,000-year-old artifacts found at Swat’s Butkara site in Pakistan, including coins and Kharosthi inscriptions

Excavations at the Butkara Stupa, located near Mingora in Swat, Pakistan, have uncovered significant findings, including two-thousand-year-old coins, pottery, and inscriptions in the Kharosthi script, all of which provide valuable insights into the Saka-Parthian period and the rich Buddhist heritage of the region.

Key Silla Kingdom palace site found in South Korea after decade-long probe

A decade-long investigation conducted by the Korea Heritage Service has uncovered a crucial palace site of the Silla Kingdom (57 BC-935 AD), revealing findings that could potentially reshape the historical narrative of this ancient kingdom.

Cemetery for enslaved people rediscovered at Andrew Jackson’s Tennessee plantation

Long-obscured and forgotten, the burial plots of more than two dozen people enslaved by the seventh president of the US are located and honoured

Museums

The Textile Museum of Canada will close its doors on 16 February, with a re-opening date still to be determined but tentatively expected in September. Funding is a major concern, along with accessibility—the building’s elevator is in need of serious repair.

The Alabama museum grappling with the 'Gulf of America'

The world's only museum dedicated to the history and culture of the Gulf of Mexico may be in hot water following Trump's decision to change the name of the planet's largest gulf.

I feel for this museum. They spent $100,00 to rebrand and less than a year later the orange one blows things to pieces.

Also, @greenekatgrey, fyi, this museum is planning an exhibit about your favourite, Jimmy Buffett.

The Bunny Museum in LA looks to rebuild after fires

The co-founders of the world’s largest collection of rabbit-themed items want to recreate “the hoppiest place in the world.”

History lovers invited to sketch museum artefacts

A Devon museum is encouraging people to get closer to their local history - by drawing it.

Repatriation

National Museums Northern Ireland (NMNI) is to return further human remains to Hawaii.

Have you seen this book?

The initiative ‘Have you seen this book?’ also known as the Library of Lost Books, is run by the Leo Baeck Institute and intends to both publicise the history of these books in a beautifully created interactive exhibition and to appeal to the general public for their support in locating them.

Heritage at risk

The Uzbekistan government is on an ambitious tourism drive – but is sparring with heritage experts over how to protect its historical sites.

AI-powered initiative HeritageWatch.AI to safeguard cultural heritage from crises

HeritageWatch.AI, a new collaboration launched in Paris, combines satellite imagery, 3D modelling, and AI to provide real-time data that will help protect cultural heritage sites from disasters and conflict.

Organised crime threatening cultural heritage by trafficking irreplaceable artefacts

Cultural artefacts and historic sites around the world are being threatened by organised crime groups who traffic the items for lucrative profits, a team of researchers from The University of Queensland found.

Israeli bill on West Bank antiquities oversight faces opposition from government body

The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), a body of the Israeli government that oversees national artifacts and sites, rejected a proposal to take on an official role overseeing West Bank antiquities under a bill presented by Likud party member Amit Halevi on Tuesday.

As Sudan’s civil war rages on, its heritage is under siege

At least six museums and multiple historic sites have suffered looting or damage as a result of the conflict

Odds and ends

Almost eight centuries after it was crafted in a workshop in Salisbury, the Sarum Master Bible, a vividly illustrated medieval manuscript, has returned home and will go on display at the city’s cathedral this month.

Iraq’s ancient marshes are running out of time

Iraq’s southern marshes, the birthplace of early civilization, face ruin from environmental and political mismanagement. As the water disappears, so too does a 5,000-year-old culture.

Smell like an Egyptian: researchers sniff ancient mummies to study preservation

Scientists hope that smell could be a non-invasive way to judge how well-preserved a mummy is

The landmark home of a California family was destroyed by fire. Now a city reckons with its painful history

The Bidwell mansion was a symbol for the city of Chico, but for some it was a reminder of colonization and genocide

Library Crunchie muncher sought for 'relic' wrapper

Workmen dismantling shelves at Cambridge University Library got a sweet surprise when out fluttered an old chocolate bar wrapper from at least 50 years ago.

Blue plaque unveiled to honour boy chimney sweep

A blue plaque to commemorate a Victorian child chimney sweep has been unveiled at the place of his death. George Brewster, 11, became trapped in the chimney in 1875, and could not be saved. He is thought to be the last of what were known as "climbing boys" to have died in England.

Groundbreaking botanical discoveries on Captain Cook voyage were thanks to Indigenous people

New book reveals that Pacific islands inhabitants helped European scientists identify hundreds of plant species

Date set for Sycamore Gap tree felling trial

Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, both from Cumbria, are charged with causing £622,191 worth of criminal damage to the famous Northumberland tree.

[scotianostra]

On 15th September 1773 the emigrant ship “Hector” arrives in Pictou Harbour on Nova Scotia carrying 189 Highlanders, most loaded two months earlier in Ullapool.

Although they were not the first Scots to arrive in North America they were the vanguard of a massive wave of Scottish immigrants to arrive in what is now Canada. In the century following the landing of the Hector more than 120 ships brought nearly 20 000 people from Scotland to the port of Pictou. By 1879 more than ninety-three percent of the region’s rural property owners had Scottish names.

Ironically, very few of the Hector people stayed on the Pictou Plantation. They had been cruelly deceived by the shipping company that brought them out to Nova Scotia. The land was not ready for settlement as promised and supplies for the coming winter were meagre. Most of them moved on to settled parts of the province leaving an intrepid handful of their countrymen to fend for themselves in an uncultivated wilderness.

The Hector was owned by two men, Pagan and Witherspoon, who bought three shares of land in Pictou, and they engaged a Mr John Ross as their agent, to accompany the vessel to Scotland, to bring out as many colonists as they could induce, by misrepresentation and falsehoods, to leave their homes.

As they were leaving, a piper came on board who had not paid his passage; the captain ordered him ashore, but the strains of the national instrument affected those on board so much that they pleaded to have him allowed to accompany them, and offered to share their own rations with him in exchange for his music during the passage. Their request was granted, scrolling through various passenger lists I have found out the Piper was more than likely a man called William McKay.

All those travelling that were aged over 8 were required to pay full fare for the passage, those between 2 and 8 were charged half fare under 2’s were free. It was bad enough that they were conned with the promise of land in Canada but conditions on board the Hector were said to be horrendous, the ship was barely sea worthy and has been described as a crumbling wreck. I can’t find any mention of how may survived the 11 week journey or how the passengers were related to one another it was a nine week journey over the Atlantic, Smallpox and dysentery took their toll on the infants and children on board. In all, eighteen died at sea, I think by that they mean 18 children, poor things. By the time the rotting hulk landed, people were picking at the planks to find worms to eat.

On arrival about all that they seen was the dense forest grew down to the water’s edge as far as the eye could see.

The unfamiliar customs and appearance of the natives inhabiting the area so terrified the settlers that they remained on board for two days despite their desire to walk again on dry land. Finally, on September 17, 1773, dressed in full Scottish regalia, with all pageantry of their kilts and the pipes, they went ashore

The “Hector” pioneers faced extreme difficulties during their first year in the New World, but with the development of a lively timber trade with Scotland and the finalising of land grants, conditions improved and the development of what is now Pictou County was under way. The land was rich, the rivers and oceans plentifully stocked with fish, and the timber of high quality.

Pics are of a stamp issued in 1973 to mark 200 years since the crossing and the Hector replica at Pictou. The Hector Heritage Quay is one of Nova Scotia's major cultural tourist attractions. The Hector is a full-sized replica of the original ship. A Highland Homecoming, a celebration of the strong Scottish spirit, takes place on-site every September. and kicking off today.

You can find all the details on their FB page here https://www.facebook.com/shiphector/

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada is expressing support for a proposed Inuit women’s shelter in Ottawa that is facing resistance from residents.

In a statement Wednesday, the national Inuit women’s organization said that “in response to recent reporting about the proposed women’s shelter in Ottawa’s south end,” it supports the Ottawa Aboriginal Coalition’s efforts to build the facility.

Ottawa’s Gloucester-Southgate Coun. Jessica Bradley held an information session for residents Tuesday over a proposed transfer of a vacant city-owned lot in the Hunt Club neighbourhood to the coalition.

The lot would then become the site of a new shelter dedicated for Inuit women and children fleeing violence.

“This sanctuary will provide Inuit women and their children with a safe, healthy, and culturally appropriate place to live and heal in a welcoming family-oriented neighbourhood with great access to schools, parks, and greenspace,” Bradley said in a news update posted to her website. [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @newsfromstolenland, @vague-humanoid