Out and About with History

Today being the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe, lest we forget, I might note that last Monday May 5 I joined a small commemoration of the Liberation of Holland, held at the (previously unknown to me) Dundas Roncesvalles Peace Garden in Toronto. The researchers of They Walked these Streets had identified more than sixty Canadian soldiers and airmen from this west Toronto neighbourhood who died in liberation of the Dutch people, and info about each of them was posted about the garden. The Dutch consulate sent cookies, daffodils blossomed, and tulip seeds were scattered.  

Wednesday I lunched (guest!) at the Arts and Letters Club in Toronto, where an occasional series of talks on legal history presented Ian Radforth, who told us of his recent University of Toronto book, Deadly Swindle, about 19th century ne'er do well British aristo-trash making a complete hash of killing people for their money and leaving their bodies in Woodstock's Ontario, great swamp. Beware visiting British toffs, Mark Carney! 

Then I got an email from Christopher Dummitt, inviting visits to his new YouTube history channel, provocatively titled "Well, That Didn't Suck" which promises to be "irreverent and in-your-face, very much youth focused" -- a new contribution to quite a bit of work going on in the Canadian video-history space. 

Canadian History -- still not dead yet again.