Discover new aspects of the history of Canada in the 19th and 20th centuries through thematic tours.
Divided into five major themes and five time periods, these thematic tours may be accessed three different ways, by: Web tours (documented images, in HTML), movie clips (QuickTime version) and movie clips (Flash version).
Featured Thematic Tour
The Dirty Thirties
Michiel Horn, Glendon College (York University)
Images of the Great Depression in Canada include breadlines, relief camps, protest marches and dust storms sweeping over the western plains. The underlying reality is as stark as the images. During the downswing that begins shortly before the stock-market crash in 1929 and ends in the spring of 1933, national income falls by almost half. The recovery is uneven and ends in a renewed slump in 1937. Only the war that begins in September 1939 brings full recovery.
Themes
First Nations
- "My body is here but my spirit is always there": The Innu Language of the Forest
- "My body is here but my spirit is always there": The Innu Language of the Forest [Innu Version]
- Continuing Negotiations: First Nations and the State
- Exploration in the Canadian Arctic
- Exploration in the Canadian Arctic [Inuktitut Version]
Cartoons
- Funny and Moody: The Best of Aislin's Cartoons
- Funny and Moody: The Best of Chapleau's Cartoons
- Here a scandal, there a scandal: More fodder for cartoonists
- Once a Politician, Always a Butt: Introduction to Editorial Cartooning
- The birth and torment of Miss Canada and Johnny Canuck, or the beginnings of the federation
Places
- A Changing World: Education in New Brunswick
- A Riveted Community: North Vancouver's Wartime Shipbuilding
- A Year to Remember: 1904 New Brunswick
- All in a Day's Work: Lumbering in New Brunswick
- Big Cities, New Horizons
People
- All in a Day's Work: Lumbering in New Brunswick
- Clothes Make the Man
- Evangeline
- Funny and Moody: The Best of Aislin's Cartoons
- Funny and Moody: The Best of Chapleau's Cartoons
Society / Daily Life
- A Bourgeois Duty: Philanthropy, 1896-1919
- A Changing World: Education in New Brunswick
- A Consuming Passion
- A Riveted Community: North Vancouver's Wartime Shipbuilding
- A Year to Remember: 1904 New Brunswick
- All in a Day's Work: Lumbering in New Brunswick
- Big Cities, New Horizons
- Brand New and Wonderful: The Rise of Technology
- Clothes Make the Man
- Continuing Negotiations: First Nations and the State
- CPR, from Sea to Sea: The Scottish Connection
- Crowding the Parlour
- Cures and Quackery: The Rise of Patent Medicines
- Digging for Treasure: Mining in Canada
- Disasters and Calamities, 1840-1867
- Disasters and Calamities, 1867-1896
- Fancy Dress Balls: All Dressed Up and Somewhere to Go
- Form and Fashion
- From Pemmican to Poutine: Eating in Canada
- Funny and Moody: The Best of Aislin's Cartoons
- Funny and Moody: The Best of Chapleau's Cartoons
- Go West! Settling Canada's Prairies
- Growing Up Healthy in the 20th Century
- Happy Birthday, Miss Fanny! A 19th-Century Toy Story
- Last Resort: Hospital Care in Canada
- Learning, Limits, and Love: Maritime Girls in the Late 19th-century
- Lethbridge: Coal City in the Wheat Country
- Milk: A Matter of Life and Death
- Montreal 1850-1896: The Industrial City
- Moodyville: Legend and Legacy
- Once a Politician, Always a Butt: Introduction to Editorial Cartooning
- Out of Ireland
- Pastimes of Yesteryear, 1840-1867
- Pastimes of Yesteryear, 1867-1896
- Pastimes of Yesteryear, 1896-1919
- Silver and Gold: Bennett and the Great Depression
- Standardbearers of Acadian Identity
- Straitlaced: Restrictions on Women
- The Acadian Renaissance
- The Aftermath of the Rebellions
- The Cult of Domesticity
- The Dirty Thirties
- The splendour and misery of urban life
- Tradition, Change and Survival: Mi'kmaq Tourist Art
- Wanted! 500, 000 Canadians for WW I
- Wilderness on the Doorstep: Vancouver's Mountain Playground
- Winds of Change: Reforms and Unions
- World War II Through Cartoons
Politics / Economy
- Confederation: The Creation of Canada
- Continuing Negotiations: First Nations and the State
- Funny and Moody: The Best of Aislin's Cartoons
- Funny and Moody: The Best of Chapleau's Cartoons
- Getting Down to Business: Canada, 1896-1919
Technology, Industry & Commerce
Periods
1840-1867
- A Year to Remember: 1904 New Brunswick
- Confederation: The Creation of Canada
- Disasters and Calamities, 1840-1867
- Form and Fashion
- Happy Birthday, Miss Fanny! A 19th-Century Toy Story
1867-1896
- A Consuming Passion
- All in a Day's Work: Lumbering in New Brunswick
- Big Cities, New Horizons
- Brand New and Wonderful: The Rise of Technology
- Clothes Make the Man
1896-1919
- A Bourgeois Duty: Philanthropy, 1896-1919
- A Changing World: Education in New Brunswick
- A Year to Remember: 1904 New Brunswick
- Digging for Treasure: Mining in Canada
- Exploration in the Canadian Arctic
1919-1945
- A Riveted Community: North Vancouver's Wartime Shipbuilding
- Building a Vancouver Icon: The Lions Gate Bridge
- Growing Up Healthy in the 20th Century
- Silver and Gold: Bennett and the Great Depression
- Standardbearers of Acadian Identity