In addition to exhibiting at Expo (Booth #30!) at the 2013 Congress for the Humanities and Social Sciences in Victoria, BC, UMP authors will be launching books!

Here are the details:

June 1, 6:00 pm
Gabrielle Roy Prize Reception
Association for Canadian and Quebec Literatures
Featuring finalist Keavy Martin
Room 101, Computer Science Building

June 2, 2:45 pm
13th Annual Aboriginal Roundtable: Indigenous resurgence or reconciliation: Contestations and conversations
Canadian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies
Featuring a book launch of Keavy Martin’s Stories in a New Skin
Room 110, First Peoples House

June 2, 6:30 pm
Reception, Book Launch and Award Presentations in Exploration Gallery
Featuring the launch of Emily Eaton’s Growing Resistance
Canadian Association for Food Studies
Room 101A, Continuing Studies Building

As always, UMP’s editorial and marketing team will be on hand to answer any questions you may have about manuscript submissions and the publishing process, so by all means drop by Booth #30 for a visit.

The author of Stories in a New Skin will be presenting at the 2013 NorthWords Writers Festival in Yellowknife, NWT.

Martin will be participating in a panel discussion Saturday. Entitled “Honouring Other Cultures in Writing,” the panel will also feature Patrick Scott, Stephanie Irlbacher-Fox, Allice Legat, Mindy Willett, with moderator Loren McGinnis of CBC North.

“Writing about cultures requires respect, sensitivity and a willingness to watch and listen. Authors discuss their experience in rising to this challenge.”

About Keavy Martin
Keavy Martin is an assistant professor in the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta. Stories in a New Skin: Approaches to Inuit Literature, a finalist for the 2012 Gabrielle Roy Prize (English Section), is her first book.

About Stories in a New Skin
In an age where southern power-holders look north and see only vacant polar landscapes, isolated communities, and exploitable resources, it is important to note that the Inuit homeland encompasses extensive philosophical, political, and literary traditions. Stories in a New Skin is a seminal text that explores these Arctic literary traditions and, in the process, reveals a pathway into Inuit literary criticism.

Author Keavy Martin considers writing, storytelling, and performance from a range of genres and historical periods – the classic stories and songs of Inuit oral traditions, life writing, oral histories, and contemporary fiction, poetry and film – and discusses the ways in which these texts constitute an autonomous literary tradition. She draws attention to the interconnection between language, form and context and illustrates the capacity of Inuit writers, singers and storytellers to instruct diverse audiences in the appreciation of Inuit texts.

Although Eurowestern academic contexts and literary terminology are a relatively foreign presence in Inuit territory, Martin builds on the inherent adaptability and resilience of Inuit genres in order to foster greater southern awareness of a tradition whose audience has remained primarily northern.

Headed by series co-editors Karen Busby and Rhonda Hinther, the Human Rights and Social Justice series will publish work that explores the quest for social justice and the basic rights and freedoms to which all human beings are entitled, including civil, political, economic, social, collective and cultural rights. Particular emphasis is placed on works considering the denial or the realization of human rights and social justice. The series will publish books that are both academically rigorous and accessible to the public.

Karen Busby is a Professor of Law at the University of Manitoba and is Director of the university’s Centre for Human Rights Research.

Rhonda Hinther is Director of Research and Curation at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

The editors are actively acquiring new titles for inclusion in the series and welcome all enquiries and proposals. Please feel free to contact them directly at Karen.Busby@ad.umanitoba.ca or RHinther@gmail.com.

The Manitoba Historical Society’s Margaret McWilliams Awards are one of the oldest literary awards in Canada and are named in honour of writer Margaret McWilliams.

Imagining Winnipeg: History Through the Photographs of L. B. Foote by Esyllt W. Jones was nominated in the Local History category, while Larry Krotz’ Piecing the Puzzle: The Genesis of AIDS Research in Africa was nominated in the Popular History category.

Amazingly, Jock Lehr has won two years running in the Scholarly History category – in 2011 for his Community and Frontier: A Ukrainian Settlement in the Canadian Parkland and in 2012 for his Inside the Ark: The Hutterites in Canada and the United States (University of Regina Press), which was co-authored with Yossi Katz.

The awards were announced on Manitoba Day (May 12) and will be given out at the MHS’ annual general meeting in June.

Speaking of Manitoba Day, the Lost Foote Photos blog and Jock Lehr’s Community and Frontier were among seven projects recognized by the Association for Manitoba Archives.

The Manitoba Day Awards were established in 2007 to “recognize users of archives who have completed an original work of excellence which contributes to the understanding and celebration of Manitoba history.”

Other winners include WFP reporter Bruce Owen, teacher Matt Henderson, artist Barb Flemington, writer Bernard Bocquel, and scholar Shannon Stunden Bower.

The awards ceremony took place May 16 at the Western Canadian Aviation Museum.

2013 is the 25th anniversary of the awards, which awards thirteen prizes in a variety of categories.

Here are share the judges’ comments for the four categories in which Imagining Winnipeg was nominated.

Best Illustrated Book of the Year Award – WINNER
“Foote’s images of our city are clear and very well reproduced. The carefully selected photographs replicate the sensibility of a magnificently curated art-show.” – Brian Mlazgar, Natalie Olsen, Paul Tetrault.

The Best Illustrated Book of the Year Award is presented to a Manitoba publisher, designer and illustrator for the book deemed to have the best use of illustrations, including drawings, paintings, photographs, and other artwork. Entries are judged on artistic merit, innovation of form, quality of production values and appropriateness to the intended market.

Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award – NOMINEE
“Winnipeg’s rich history would be lost without photographers like L.B. Foote, whose book gives evidence that this city is more than just concrete and steel. University of Manitoba history professor Esyllt W. Jones dove head first into over 2,500 photographs at the Manitoba Archives and brought together 150 images that capture the way Foote saw Winnipeg. They highlight the people, places, and events that shaped the city into becoming a prairie metropolis. History has a way of being forgotten, but books like Imagining Winnipeg give it a new life.” – Rick Brignall, Helen Norrie, Krista Strang.

The Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award was created to honour books written in English or French that contribute to the appreciation and understanding of life in Winnipeg. The award is sponsored by the City of Winnipeg.

Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher – NOMINEE
“No need to imagine Winnipeg with these fascinating and beautiful black-and-white photos! Esyllt W. Jones’ collection of L.B. Foote’s photography brings the boom years of Winnipeg to life, capturing subjects from all walks of life and covering major events in Manitoba and Canada’s history. The book’s design lets the photographs speak for themselves, with large glossy images that seem vivid without colour. Uncovering lost Foote images and sharing through social media brought this photographer to a wider audience, which he well deserves.” – Stephanie Furrow, Amber Goldie, David Lawrence.

Sponsored by Friesen, the Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher is presented to the best book published, in either English or French, for the trade, bookstore, educational, specialty, academic or scholarly market.

McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award – NOMINEE
“Imagining Winnipeg offers us a way of re-imagining not only Winnipeg the history of Canada in the first half of the twentieth century. Beautifully curated by Esyllt W. Jones, this collection presents the work of photographer L.B. Foote in all its mastery and idiosyncrasy. The eclectic subjects of the photographs – the social and political pressures of the 1930s, strikes and union issues, Native life and its representation, diverse cultural identity and relations – brings many aspects of Canadian history back into conversation in new ways. Jones’ insightful introduction establishes the cultural and aesthetic context for Foote’s photographs and asks us ‘to risk a move into unknown territory, beyond the firm ground of well-trod historical narratives,’ so as to look at the history presented within these pages, as well as – by extension – our own time period, in a new light.” – Jake MacDonald, Susan Musgrave, Johanna Skibsrud.

The McNally Robinson Book of the Year is the book judged as the best written in English by a Manitoba author.

Here is the press release from the ALCQ/ACQL, the association that presents the award:

Prix Gabrielle-Roy 2012 / Gabrielle Roy Prize 2012

ASSOCIATION DES LITTÉRATURES CANADIENNES ET QUÉBÉCOISE / ASSOCIATION FOR CANADIAN AND QUEBEC LITERATURES

COMMUNIQUÉ DE PRESSE / PRESS RELEASE
Le 22 avril 2013 / April 22, 2013
Pour diffusion immédiate / For immediate release

The Association for Canadian and Quebec Literatures (ACQL) is pleased to announce the shortlist for the 2012 Gabrielle Roy Prize (English Section), which each year honours the best work of Canadian literary criticism published in English. This year’s shortlisted finalists (in alphabetical order) are Sandra Djwa for Journey with No Maps: A Life of P.K. Page (McGill-Queen’s UP); Tanis MacDonald for The Daughter’s Way: Canadian Women’s Paternal Elegies (Wilfrid Laurier UP); and Keavy Martin for Stories in a New Skin: Approaches to Inuit Literature (U of Manitoba P). The shortlist was chosen by a jury composed of Cecily Devereux (University of Alberta), Cynthia Sugars (University of Ottawa), and Linda Warley (University of Waterloo). The winner will be announced publicly on June 1st, 2013, at the Gabrielle Roy Prize reception at the Association for Canadian and Quebec Literatures annual conference, which this year will take place in Victoria, British Columbia. The prize reception will be held from 6:00-7:30 p.m. on June 1st in Room 101 of the Computer Science Building at the University of Victoria.

L’Association des littératures canadiennes et québécoise (ALCQ) est heureuse d’annoncer la liste des finalistes pour l’obtention du Prix Gabrielle-Roy 2012 (section francophone). Les finalistes sont (en ordre alphabétique) : Bernard Andrès (Histoires littéraires des Canadiens au XVIIIe siècle, Presses de l’Université Laval) et Nicoletta Dolce (La Porosité au monde. L’écriture de l’intime chez Louise Warren et Paul Chamberland, Éditions Nota Bene). Ces deux finalistes ont été choisis par un jury formé de Anne Caumartin (Collège Militaire Royal de Saint-Jean), Carlo Lavoie (Université de l’Île-du-Prince-Édouard) et Maïté Snauwaert (Université de l’Alberta). Le nom du gagnant ou de la gagnante sera annoncé publiquement le 1er juin 2013, lors du colloque annuel de l’Association des littératures canadiennes et québécoise, qui se tiendra cette année à Victoria en Colombie-Britannique. Le Prix sera remis lors de la réception organisée le 1er juin de 18h00 à 19h30 dans la salle 101 du Computer Science Building à l’Université de Victoria.

Billy Joe will be joining Al Hunter. Their collaboration is called Spoken Word & the Blues: Al Hunter with Billy Joe Green.

Also speaking at the event will be CAS contributor Julie Pelletier, Chair and Associate Professor in the Indigenous Studies department at the University of Winnipeg.

See you at McNally’s! (The event is in McNally Robinson’s atrium on Wednesday April 10 at 7:00 pm. Light refreshments will be provided!)

Billy Joe Green
“Way back in the woods, among the evergreens” is where Anishinabe rock & roll guitarist Billy Joe Green ( aka ‘Osawi Kinew of the Anishinabe Aki-ing Territory) first heard the soothing, comforting, thick chords and melodies of his dad’s, David Green’s guitar. Dad sang the country blues standards of Jimmie Rogers, Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb and Wilf Carter. Uncle’s Cecil and especially ‘The talking guitar’ of Robert ‘A-Go’ Green, along with brother Richie, helped fuel the fire within the young guitarist.

Billy Joe was then, just in the nick of time, yanked from a dull life of school boy drudgery and incompleteness by his guitar mentor and life-long friend, Martin Tuesday. Still in his teens, he was asked to perform with a fiery group of young Indian musicians who called themselves ‘the FEATHERMEN’. He jumped at the chance and it changed his life forever. He entered the group on second guitar but soon learned all the songs and was quickly exchanging and weaving lead guitar lines with Martin Tuesday. After a struggling 2 year stint with ‘the FEATHERMEN’, Billy Joe armed only with a pair of sunglasses, fake i.d. and a Les Paul Jr., advanced quickly into the ranks of the then flourishing barroom scene, learning how to play and survive the life of a bluesman.

As one of Canada’s premier blues guitar slingers, Billy Joe earned his rambunctious, no frills approach to the guitar honestly, as a rockin’ swaggering sideman for such acts as THE FEATHERMEN, JACK’S SCOUTS, CHEZ BOJECK, WHYTEFEATHER, KID SILVER BAND, WILL JOE TRAVEL EXPEDITION, ALEX PARENTEAU BAND, PERCY TUESDAY, ROBBIE BRASS and countless other than main stream configurations of bluesy, rockin’, high voltage, loud and progressive bands. He’s worked with the drive & passion that would frustrate most musicians throughout western Canada and for a time in the western USA, patiently & diligently trying to find a place for his music. Billy Joe has been described as ‘an incredibly talented, diverse and well-traveled musician’ by John Scoles for SCENE Roots & Blues Magazine, and the description is well-earned.

Three decades later, with a brand new CD/DVD (FIRST LAW OF THE LAND) and 4 other CDs under his belt, 2 JUNO nominations, a 5 win sweep at the 2006 Winnipeg Blues.Com Music Awards, a Best Blues CD Award at the inaugural 2006 Aboriginal People’s Choice Awards, the Best Male Artist at the 2002 Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards, a Best Aboriginal Recording Award at the 2001 Western Canadian Music Awards and countless other nominations, Billy Joe still pursues his love, passion and devotion for the electric guitar.

Julie A. Pelletier
Dr. Pelletier, descendant of the Wesget Sipu Band, earned her PhD and MA in Cultural Anthropology at Michigan State University. Her dissertation involved applied anthropological research in an Ojibway community in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This research, which focused on tribal identity and its relationship to ceremony and ritual, was funded by the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. Her interest in tribal identity includes recent research on Indian casino gaming, a site of contestation as essentializing notions about the “Noble Savage” conflict with the new stereotype of the “Rich Indian” who has given up his identity to be a capitalist. Dr. Pelletier is also interested in the economic impact of Indian casinos on surrounding communities and is compiling longitudinal data on perceptions of American Indians in those communities.

As an award-winning teacher, Dr. Pelletier has published on decolonized pedagogy with Dr. Becca Gercken who also helped found the American Indian Studies program at the University of Minnesota – Morris, a former Indian boarding school. Dr. Pelletier has done fieldwork in Aotearoa/New Zealand which influenced her understanding and application of decolonized methodologies, and she has written on the linkages between Indigenous and feminist methodologies with sociologist Dr. Jennifer Rothchild.

Dr. Pelletier is a proponent of education as a tool of empowerment and is excited to facilitate the transition of what has been the Aboriginal Governance Program at the University of Winnipeg to its new status and identity as the Department of Indigenous Studies, offering a BA in Indigenous Studies and an MA in Indigenous Governance. The mission of the department remains the same: to educate Indigenous and non-Indigenous students about the unique place of Indigenous peoples and communities in Canada and around the world by providing a strong grounding in Indigenous policy, cultures, issues, and representations – preparing them to take an active part in the self-determination goals of Indigenous communities.

John Gormley Live
Show Notes
MONDAY, APRIL 08, 2013

8:30 a.m. John weighs in on the death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher – who passed away from a stroke this morning at the age of 87.
9:00 a.m. Merle and Mike on the Monday Morning Roundtable. Insurance and group benefits broker Mike Couros and Lise Merle, Founder, Socialite Media join John.
9:15 a.m. Open Session.
10:00 a.m. Federal Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver will be making an appearance in Saskatoon today to announce some upcoming opportunities for the Canadian nuclear industry. He joins John.
10:15 a.m. Saskatchewan’s ‘no-fault’ insurance is facing new challenges.
11:00 a.m. Growing Resistance: Canadian Farmers and the Politics of Genetically Modified Wheat. Emily Eaton, Assistant Professor of Geography, University of Regina joins John.

About Growing Resistance
In 2004 Canadian farmers led an international coalition to a major victory for the anti-GM movement by defeating the introduction of Monsanto’s genetically modified wheat. Canadian farmers’ strong opposition to GM wheat marked a stark contrast to previous producer acceptance of other genetically modified crops. By 2005, for example, GM canola accounted for 78% of all canola grown nationally. So why did farmers stand up for wheat?

In Growing Resistance: Canadian Farmers and the Politics of Genetically Modified Wheat, Emily Eaton reveals the motivating factors behind farmer opposition to GM wheat. She illustrates wheat’s cultural, historical, and political significance on the Canadian prairies as well as its role in crop rotation, seed saving practices, and the economic livelihoods of prairie farmers. Through interviews with producers, industry organizations, and biochemical companies, Eaton demonstrates how the inclusion of producer interests was integral to the coalition’s success in voicing concerns about environmental implications, international market opposition to GMOs, and the lack of transparency and democracy in Canadian biotech policy and regulation. Growing Resistance is a fascinating study of successful coalition building, of the need to balance local and global concerns in activist movements, and of the powerful forces vying for control of food production.

Emily Eaton is an assistant professor of geography at the University of Regina specializing in political economy and natural resource economies. She is also active in a variety of social justice struggles. Growing Resistance is her first book.

And Imagining Winnipeg: History Through the Photographs of L.B. Foote by Esyllt W. Jones was nominated for FOUR Manitoba Book Awards! CONGRATS to Esyllt!

Imagining Winnipeg was shortlisted in the McNally Robinson Book of the Year, Best Illustrated Book of the Year, Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award, and Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher categories.

The awards will be presented at the Manitoba Book Awards gala, on Sunday April 28th at the West End Cultural Centre and hosted by Ismaila Alfa. Doors open at 7:15 p.m., with the ceremony beginning at 8:00 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

About Imagining Winnipeg
In an expanding and socially fractious early twentieth-century Winnipeg, Lewis Benjamin Foote (1873-1957) rose to become the city’s pre-eminent commercial photographer. Documenting everything from royal visits to deep poverty, from the building of the landmark Fort Garry Hotel to the turmoil of the 1919 General Strike, Foote’s photographs have come to be iconic representations of early Winnipeg life. They have been used to illustrate everything from academic histories to posters for rock concerts; they have influenced the work of visual artists, writers, and musicians; and they have represented Winnipeg to the world.

But in Imagining Winnipeg, historian Esyllt W. Jones takes us beyond the iconic to reveal the complex artist behind the lens and the conflicting ways in which his photographs have been used to give credence to diverse and sometimes irreconcilable views of Winnipeg’s past. Incorporating 150 stunning photographs from the more than 2,000 images in the Archives of Manitoba Foote Collection, Imagining Winnipeg challenges our understanding of visual history and the city we thought we knew.

About Esyllt W. Jones
Esyllt W. Jones is a history professor at University of Manitoba and is the author of the award-winning Influenza 1918: Death, Disease and Struggle in Winnipeg. She co-edited, with Adele Perry and Leah Morton, the forthcoming Place and Replace: Essays on Western Canada.

March 21-23
Native American Literature Association conference, Minneapolis
Stories in a New Skin & Centering Anishinaabeg Studies

April 9
Growing Resistance / Emily Eaton
Roundtable discussion
Regina: The Artful Dodger

April TBA
Growing Resistance / Emily Eaton
Saskatoon: Turning the Tide Bookstore

April 10
Centering Anishinaabeg Studies / Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair
With poet Al Hunter launching his Beautiful Razor
Also featuring a performance by Jason Parenteau
Winnipeg: McNally Robinson Booksellers

April 16
French and Indians in the Heart of North America / Robert Englebert
Saskatoon: McNally Robinson Booksellers

May 1
The Constructed Mennonite / Hans Werner
Winnipeg: McNally Robinson Booksellers

June 1-8
Congress of the Humanities, Victoria
Canadian Association of Food Studies: Emily Eaton (June 2)
Canadian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies: Keavy Martin (June 1-3)

Happy Holidays everyone, and we’ll see you in the New Year!

About the Book
In 1979, Dr. Allan Ronald, a specialist in infectious diseases from Canada, and Dr. Herbert Nsanze, head of medical microbiology at University of Nairobi, met through the World Health Organization. Ronald had just completed a successful project that cured a chancroid (genital ulcer) epidemic in Winnipeg and Nsanze asked him to come to Kenya to help with Kenya’s “sexual diseases problem.” That initial invitation led to a groundbreaking international scientific collaboration that would uncover critical pieces in the complex puzzle that became today’s HIV/AIDS pandemic. In Piecing the Puzzle, journalist and documentary filmmaker Larry Krotz chronicles the fascinating history of the pioneering Kenyan, Canadian, Belgian, and American research team that uncovered HIV/AIDS in Kenya, their scientific breakthroughs and setbacks, and their exceptional thirty-year relationship that began a new era of global health collaboration.

About Larry Krotz
Larry Krotz is an award-winning writer, filmmaker, and author of seven books, including_ The Uncertain Business of Doing Good: Outsiders in Africa_ as well as 2012’s Piecing the Puzzle: The Genesis of AIDS Research in Africa. Over the past 25 years he has traveled to a number of African countries, where he produced the documentary film, Searching for Hawa’s Secret, and wrote extensively for magazines and newspapers on scientific research and foreign aid projects. Originally from Winnipeg, he currently lives in Toronto.

Held on December 9 at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, the theme of this year’s forum is “How the Centennial of World War I should be commemorated?”

Tim’s panel will focus “on what Canada was like when the war broke out. What were the social and economic conditions at the time, what was the level of preparedness Canada had for the war.” Tim will discuss the participation of First Nations in the war.

About the Forum
Canada’s History Forum brings together over 150 of Canada’s leading historians, educators, museum curators, community leaders and content producers in an annual discussion of issues and opportunities facing the Canadian history community. Among the participants are the recipients of the Governor General’s Awards for Excellence in Teaching Canadian History, the Pierre Berton Award recipient, and the Canada’s History Awards recipients. The event is open to the public, and students of media production, history and education in the Ottawa area are encouraged to participate free of charge.

About For King and Kanata
When the call to arms was heard at the outbreak of the First World War, Canada’s First Nations pledged their men and money to the Crown to honour their long-standing tradition of forming military alliances with Europeans during times of war, and as a means of resisting cultural assimilation and attaining equality through shared service and sacrifice. Initially, the Canadian government rejected these offers based on the belief that status Indians were unsuited to modern, civilized warfare. But in 1915, Britain intervened and demanded Canada actively recruit Indian soldiers to meet the incessant need for manpower. Thus began the complicated relationships between the Imperial Colonial and War Offices, the Department of Indian Affairs, and the Ministry of Militia that would affect every aspect of the war experience for Canada’s Aboriginal soldiers.

In his groundbreaking new book, For King and Kanata, Timothy C. Winegard reveals how national and international forces directly influenced the more than 4,000 status Indians who voluntarily served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force between 1914 and 1919—a per capita percentage equal to that of Euro-Canadians—and how subsequent administrative policies profoundly affected their experiences at home, on the battlefield, and as returning veterans.

About Tim Winegard
Timothy C. Winegard received his doctorate in History from the University of Oxford in 2010. He served nine years as an officer in the Canadian Forces, including a two-year attachment to the British Army. He is the author of Oka: A Convergence of Cultures and the Canadian Forces (2008) and Indigenous Peoples of the British Dominions and the First World War (2011). Dr. Winegard recently moved to Colorado, where he is professor of history at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction.

Dale Barbour’s Winnipeg Beach: Leisure and Courtship in a Resort Town, 1900-1967, tied with Ron Stevens’ Much Ado About Squat: Squatters and Homesteaders Ravage Riding Mountain Forest in the Local History category.

Winnipeg Beach was also recently awarded a AMA Manitoba Day Award and was shortlisted in two categories at the Manitoba Book Awards, McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award and the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award.

In addition, John C. Lehr’s Community and Frontier: A Ukrainian Settlement in the Canadian Parkland received the Margaret McWilliams Award in the Scholarly History category.

Community and Frontier was also shortlisted for the Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction at the Manitoba Book Awards.

Congratulations to both Dale and Jock!

The Manitoba Day Award was established by the Association in 2007 to recognize users of archives who have completed an original work of excellence which contributes to the understanding and celebration of Manitoba history.

Thirteen awards will presented this year, including Danny Schur, John K. Sampson, and Sally Ito.

Our thanks to the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections for nominating Dale!

About Winnipeg Beach
During the first half of the twentieth century, Winnipeg Beach proudly marketed itself as the Coney Island of the West. Located just north of Manitoba’s bustling capital, it drew 40,000 visitors a day and served as an important intersection point between classes, ethnic communities, and perhaps most importantly, between genders. In Winnipeg Beach, Dale Barbour takes us into the heart of this turn of the century resort area and introduces us to some of the people who worked, played and lived in the resort. Through photographs, interviews, and newspaper clippings he presents a lively history of this resort area and its surprising role in the evolution of local courtship and dating practices, from the commoditization of the courting experience by the CP Railway through their “Moonlight Specials,” through the development of an elaborate amusement area that encouraged public dating, and to its eventual demise amid the moral panic over sexual behavior during the 1950s and ’60s.

UMP would like to congratulate Carmen and Mark on their wins in the First Peoples’ Writing, Scholarly Writing Award, and Regina Book Award categories!

We’d also like to extend our congratulations to all the other nominees and winners.

More about Seeing Red:

Seeing Red is a groundbreaking study of how Canadian English-language newspapers have portrayed Aboriginal peoples from 1869 to the present day. It assesses a wide range of publications on topics that include the sale of Rupert’s Land, the signing of Treaty 3, the North-West Rebellion and Louis Riel, the death of Pauline Johnson, the outing of Grey Owl, the discussions surrounding Bill C-31, the “Bended Elbow” standoff at Kenora, Ontario, and the Oka Crisis.

The authors uncover overwhelming evidence that the colonial imaginary not only thrives, but dominates depictions of Aboriginal peoples in mainstream newspapers. The colonial constructs ingrained in the news media perpetuate an imagined Native inferiority that contributes significantly to the marginalization of Indigenous people in Canada. That such imagery persists to this day suggests strongly that our country lives in denial, failing to live up to its cultural mosaic boosterism.

Dale Barbour’s debut, Winnipeg Beach: Leisure and Courtship in a Resort Town, 1900-1967, was recently nominated for the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award and the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award at the Manitoba Book Awards.

Winnipeg Beach was also nominated in the Local History category in the MHS’ Margaret McWilliams Awards.

John C. Lehr’s Community and Frontier: A Ukrainian Settlement in the Canadian Parkland is also a dual citizen when it comes to awards.

Lehr’s social and economic history of one of the oldest Ukrainian settlements in Western Canada was was nominated in the Scholarly History category in the McWilliams Awards and for the Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction at the Manitoba Book Awards.

Finally, Howard Pawley’s Keep True: A Life in Politics was nominated in the Popular History category in the McWilliams Awards.

Seeing Red was nominated in the Scholarly Writing Award, First Peoples’ Writing Award, Regina Book Award and Non-Fiction Award categories.

“It was very nice to see the number of First Nations and Métis authors and books being recognized across the board on the shortlist this year. The diversity of the authors, in addition to the tried and true greats, is going to make this year especially interesting,” says Stacy Riggs, Director of the Saskatchewan Book Awards.

Award winners will be announced on Saturday, April 28, 2012 at the Saskatchewan Book Awards Gala at the Conexus Arts Centre.

Broadcast on the NICHE (Network in Canadian History & Environment) website, Nature’s Past is a monthly discussion about the environmental history community and research in Canada moderated by Kheraj, a member of the History Department at York University.

Here’s the episode description:

“In the late decades of the nineteenth century, urban North Americans sought refuge from congestion, noise, and pollution. As the environmental problems of industrial cities grew worse, city councils across the continent established urban parks while federal governments in both Canada and the United States developed national parks systems. Parks, as constructed natural spaces, were just one option for city-dwellers seeking relief from polluted urban environments. Many flocked to the shores of oceans, lakes, and rivers where beach side resorts emerged as yet another recreational destination. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Winnipeggers turned to the shores of Lake Winnipeg to the north of the city in the hopes of finding an outlet for their leisure time. There the Canadian Pacific Railway established the beachside resort community of Winnipeg Beach. For more than half a century, Winnipeg Beach was one of the most popular recreational retreats for Manitoba’s urban population. Thousands of people enjoyed the lake views and boardwalk entertainments of Winnipeg Beach for many years until the community went into decline by the end of the 1960s.”

Dale Barbour grew up on a farm in Balmoral, Manitoba and made a few trips of his own to Winnipeg Beach as a youth. A former journalist, he is currently completing a PhD in history at the University of Toronto. Dale’s first book, Winnipeg Beach: Leisure and Courtship in a Resort Town, 1900-1967, has recently been released through the University of Manitoba Press.

A book about the father of Manitoba and his role in the Canadian identity is coming home.

University of Maine professor Jennifer Reid’s book, Louis Riel and the Creation of Modern Canada, was first published in the United States in 2008 and was recently picked up for reprinting by University of Manitoba Press.

The book will be released on Mon., Feb. 20, Louis Riel Day.

“I’m really happy,” said Reid, a Canadian who grew up in Arnprior, Ont.

Reid said she initially wanted to have her book published in Canada, but couldn’t find a publisher and settled for release in the United States.

To have the University of Manitoba Press republish her book brings it full-circle, she said.

“It’s the audience it was intended for,” Reid said.

Glenn Bergen, managing editor of University of Manitoba Press, said it only made sense to reprint Reid’s book.

“It’s our story, it’s a Manitoban story, and it was one that we felt should reach a wider audience in Canada,” he said.

Reid’s book examines the plight of modern countries as they grapple with identity, an age-old issue that is growing as immigration levels continue to climb, she said.

Canada has dealt with its diversity better than most countries, Reid said.

“Riel is important because he’s a symbol of that,” she explained.

Since his execution, Reid said, Riel has been used by almost everyone — historians, politicians, musicians and even the creator of a graphic novel — to represent their own agendas.

“In Riel, you can find anything you want in terms of Canadian issues,” said Reid, adding she believes it demonstrates the desire of Canadians to make peace with the diverse identities within the country.

“We keep going back to this person who brings together all these dichotomies to make into a hero.”

Meanwhile, she said, other countries are struggling because they feel they need a single identity to define everything.

While Reid’s book has yet to be published in Canada, she said Canadians have been reading it. Despite the fact it’s an academic work, it is reaching a wider audience, she added.

“I’ve had a lot of non-academics tell me they enjoyed it,” she said.