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There has been a bit of a discussion lately in academic circles about whether Canadian historians have been ignoring early, or pre-Confederation, history.

True or not, a group of Canadianists have set out to prove that "early Canadian history is vibrant" by starting a blog devoted to the subject (which is admittedly very broad). It is called Borealia and can be found here.

"The goal of Borealia is to provide an energetic,...

Yesterday found me strolling around the Maplewood Conservation Area in North Vancouver. The waterfront wetland is a mecca for bird watchers -- and we did see a pair of great blue herons and some ospreys along with dozens of smaller birds I was unable to identify -- but it was more the human history I was there for.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s the mudflats...

Personally, I have never understood the "beach book." Every summer the media are full of stories about the perfect book to take to the seashore -- usually the Proust you've never had time for or this week's James Patterson. But I don't go to the beach, at least not often. In the summer I do my reading in the same places as in the winter -- in the bath, at my desk, at the kitchen table while dinner cooks, basically just about everywhere.

That said, there was one memorable summer that...

A marvelous footnote to my book Closing Time about the history of prohibition, published last year.

In 1922 the Parisian bookseller Sylvia Beach had just published James Joyce's scandalous novel Ulysses and was trying to get copies to customers in the United States, where it was banned. Ernest Hemingway, who had recently moved to Paris and befriended Beach, put her into contact with an adman in
...

Back from a holiday up the coast, I find that the neighbourhood has filled with signs.

BLACK BEAR SIGHTING.

Of course there are election signs as well but these warn of a different species of interloper, come down from the mountains to paw through our garbage. Hardly a day goes by that a bear doesn't blunder into someone's kitchen or take a dip in their wading pool. I have not seen one yet this season but at night the air is redolent of skunk which I've been told means that...