Curious Canadian History

David Borys
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  • HISTORY
  • UPDATED BIWEEKLY

Historian David Borys dives deep into the fascinating world of Canadian history in this bi-weekly podcast exploring everything from the wonderful to the weird to the downright dark. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. S11E8 Curious Canadian History presents: Canadian Time Machine | The Furry Gold of Canada: The Beaver’s 50-Year Legacy

    2D AGO

    S11E8 Curious Canadian History presents: Canadian Time Machine | The Furry Gold of Canada: The Beaver’s 50-Year Legacy

    In this episode, we step back in time with the Canadian Time Machine podcast to explore the 50th anniversary of the beaver becoming an official national symbol. For more than 50 years, this small but mighty animal has shaped rivers, driven trade, and quietly transformed the land. Wildlife ecologist Dr. Glynnis Hood and Jan Kingshott, director of animal welfare at Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary, take us inside the beaver’s world—from its role in the fur trade to its work as an ecosystem engineer today—and reveal why it remains one of Canada’s most remarkable and resilient symbols. More episodes are available at https://lnkfi.re/canadian-time-machine. To read the episode transcripts in French and English, and to learn more about historic Canadian milestones, please visit thewalrus.ca/canadianheritage. There is also a French counterpart of this show called Voyages Dans L’Histoire Canadienne so if you’re bilingual and want to listen to more, visit https://lnkfi.re/Voyages-dans-lhistoire-canadienne.   Check out Canyon Entertainment’s newest podcast hosted by David Borys, The Conflict and Culture Podcast, here! Don’t forget! You can purchase a copy of Punching Above Our Weight: The Canadian Military at War Since 1867 right now at the below links: Amazon Indigo Dundurn Goodreads Indiebookstores.ca Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    33 min
  2. S11E7 Cigarette Nation: The History of Cigarettes in Canada

    12/16/2025

    S11E7 Cigarette Nation: The History of Cigarettes in Canada

    Cigarette smoking in Canada is a fascinating look at how consumer products, social rituals, and corporate misinformation interact. While widespread cigarette use began in the 1930s it was in the 1950s where a causal link between smoking and lung cancer surfaced in medical journals and mainstream media. Yet the best years for the Canadian cigarette industry were still to come, as per capita cigarette consumption rose steadily in the 1960s and 1970s. The persistence of smoking owes to such factors as product development, marketing and retailing innovation, public relations, sponsored science, and government inaction. Domestic and international tobacco firms worked to furnish Canadian smokers with hope and doubt: hope in the form of reassuring marketing, as seen with light and mild cigarette brands, and doubt by means of disinformation campaigns attacking medical research and press accounts that aligned cigarettes with serious disease. Helping us dive into this historical smoke pit is Daniel J. Robinson. Daniel is a Professor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario, where he teaches courses on media history, advertising and marketing. He is the author of Cigarette Nation: Business, Health, and Canadian Smokers, 1930-1975, (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021), and has served as an expert witness for two provinces suing tobacco companies involving health-care costs recovery lawsuits.   Check out Canyon Entertainment’s newest podcast hosted by David Borys, The Conflict and Culture Podcast, here! Don’t forget! You can purchase a copy of Punching Above Our Weight: The Canadian Military at War Since 1867 right now at the below links: Amazon Indigo Dundurn Goodreads Indiebookstores.ca Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    46 min
  3. S11E6 Letters from the Frontier – The Jesuit Relations and Old World Understandings of New France

    12/02/2025

    S11E6 Letters from the Frontier – The Jesuit Relations and Old World Understandings of New France

    The Jesuit Relations, a series of annual reports produced between 1632 and 1673 detailing the experiences of Society of Jesus missionaries in what is now Eastern Canada, have long been an influential source on the history of New France and encounters between European settlers and Indigenous Peoples. The question of what exactly the Relations are, and who had a hand in composing the versions that circulated, has been given far less attention. Recent research has shown that they were in fact shaped by a diverse array of contributors, including Indigenous people, lay settlers, nuns, editors in Paris, and readers in France. To shine a new light on the Jesuit Relations we have invited on historian Micah True. Micah reveals a richer and more complex picture of a primary source that has played a major role in public understanding of the colonial history of North America. Micah True is Professor of French and Folklore at the University of Alberta, where he also serves as Associate Dean of the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies. He is the author of Masters and Students: Jesuit Mission Ethnography in Seventeenth-Century New France, published by McGill-Queen's University press in 2015, and the translator of the Jesuit Pierre-François-Xavier de Charlevoix's 1744 account of his voyage through North America, published in Brill's Jesuit Studies series in 2019. His new book, published this year by McGill-Queen's University Press, is The Jesuit Relations: A Biography.   Check out Canyon Entertainment’s newest podcast hosted by David Borys, The Conflict and Culture Podcast, here! Don’t forget! You can purchase a copy of Punching Above Our Weight: The Canadian Military at War Since 1867 right now at the below links: Amazon Indigo Dundurn Goodreads Indiebookstores.ca Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    48 min
  4. S11E5 Canada at War with Angus Wallace

    11/18/2025

    S11E5 Canada at War with Angus Wallace

    Recently our very own David Borys had the pleasure of having a long chat with Angus Wallace of The WW2 Podcast to explore Canada's military legacy from confederation to the Second World War. Angus and David start at the very beginning with Canada’s military (or lack there-of) in 1867 and trace its development through the next near-century all the way to the start of the Second World War. They then cover the incredible expansion of the Canadian military from 1939-1943 and detail the unbelievable contribution the Canadian military made to that global conflict into 1945.   Check out Angus’ podcast here!   Check out David’s newest podcast, The Conflict and Culture Podcast, here! Don’t forget! You can purchase a copy of Punching Above Our Weight: The Canadian Military at War Since 1867 right now at the below links: Amazon Indigo Dundurn Goodreads Indiebookstores.ca Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 7m

  5. 11/11/2025

    "Remembrance in their Own Words" a CDA Institute Remembrance Day Series

    Our very own David Borys was flattered when recently he was made a fellow at the CDA (Conference of Defence Associations) Institute, Canada's leading think tank on defence and security issues. The Institute immediately put David to work interviewing Canadian veterans as part of a Remembrance Day special series titled "Remembrance in their Own Words." CCH felt like sharing one of those episodes. In this one, David interviews Vice Admiral Duncan "Dusty" Miller, CMM, MSC, CD (Ret’d). VAdm Miller served 38 years in the Royal Canadian Navy, with a distinguished career that included commanding two ships, leading the Canadian Naval Task Group during the Persian Gulf War, and serving as NATO's Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic. He was also the NATO HQ commander overseeing AWACS surveillance of North America after 9/11. Follow the CDA Institute here and their podcast on Apple and Spotify Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    21 min
  6. S11E4 Internment to Exile: The Japanese-Canadian War Experience

    11/04/2025

    S11E4 Internment to Exile: The Japanese-Canadian War Experience

    During the course of the Second World War nearly 22,000 Japanese-Canadians were uprooted and forcible interned by the government of Canada. More than half of those had been born in Canada, thousands more were naturalized British subjects. Despite no shred of evidence that the population posed any threat to the Canadian nation at war the internment continued until after the war in the Pacific had ended. In September 1945, Canada proposed exiling Japanese Canadians to Japan, a country devastated by war. Thousands who had experienced internment and dispossession were now at risk of banishment and the government sought to do all in its power to ensure as many Japanese-Canadians as possible accepted their potential new fate. To dive into this subject today we’ve brought on two historians Eric M. Adams and Jordan Stanger-Ross. Eric is a Professor of Law at the University of Alberta, Faculty of Law. He publishes widely on Canadian constitutional law, theory, and history. Jordan is Professor of History at the University of Victoria and Director of Past Wrongs, Future Choices, a research partnership that is working to understand, from a global perspective, the uprooting of people in Japanese descent in the 1940s. The two have recently co-authored the book Challenging Exile: Japanese Canadians and the Wartime Constitution which was published in 2025 by UBC Press.  Don’t forget! You can purchase a copy of Punching Above Our Weight: The Canadian Military at War Since 1867 right now at the below links: Amazon Indigo Dundurn Goodreads Indiebookstores.ca Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 1m
  7. The Conflict and Culture Podcast S1E4 The Good Allies - Rest in Peace Tim Cook

    10/28/2025

    The Conflict and Culture Podcast S1E4 The Good Allies - Rest in Peace Tim Cook

    On October 26th news broke of the passing of Canadian historian Tim Cook. Tim was a leading voice in the field of Canadian military history and the chief historian and director of research at the Canadian War museum. He is someone I personally have known for most of my academic career and he has been a mentor at times for me during a variety of ups and downs throughout my career. In August I had the pleasure of interviewing Tim about his most recent book The Good Allies, and with the news of his passing I thought it fitting to release this episode right away. When the Second World War broke out in 1939, it set in motion a deadly struggle between the Axis powers and the Allies, but also fraught negotiations between and among the Allies. On questions of diplomacy, economic policy, industrial might, military capabilities, and even national sovereignty, thousands of lives and the fate of the free world depended on back-room deals and desperate trade-offs between soldiers, diplomats, and leaders. In North America, Canada and the US strained to forge a new military alliance to guard their coasts and fend off German U-boats and the menace of a Japanese invasion. Wartime economies were entwined to produce a staggering contribution of weapons to keep Britain and other allies in the war. The defence of North America against enemy threats was essential before the US and Canada could send armies, navies, and air forces overseas   For ad-free content sign up to Patreon today! The Conflict and Culture Podcast at Patreon   https://www.patreon.com/cw/TheConflictandCulturePodcast   You can purchase a copy of Punching Above Our Weight: The Canadian Military at War Since 1867 right now at the below links:   Amazon Indigo Dundurn Goodreads Indiebookstores.ca Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    43 min
  8. S11E3 Unceded Territory and Land Rights in British Columbia

    10/21/2025

    S11E3 Unceded Territory and Land Rights in British Columbia

    In British Columbia, land acknowledgements often refer to “unceded territory.” Yet many people remain uncertain about the history behind these words or their implications for the future of the province. B.C. has a long history of injustice toward First Nations where government officials refused to negotiate treaties and instead coerced First Nations onto small and scattered reserves while granting settlers access to vast tracts of land. Despite sustained Indigenous resistance, the situation only worsened as non-Indigenous demands for land and natural resources increased in the decades that followed confederation. Understanding this process provides much of the context behind the province’s current reconciliation efforts, including modern treaty negotiations.   George Abbott, PhD, enjoyed thirty-five years in elected public office, including seventeen years as MLA for Shuswap and twelve years as a cabinet minister. Among his portfolios were Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation. George has published several scholarly articles on BC’s political history including the award winning article “Persistence of Colonial Prejudice and Policy in British Columbia’s Indigenous Relations: Did the Spirit of Joseph Trutch Haunt Twentieth-Century Resource Development?” George’s most recent book was published in September 2025 through Purich Books/UBC Press titled Unceded: Understanding British Columbia’s Colonial Past and Why It Matters Today.  Don’t forget! You can purchase a copy of Punching Above Our Weight: The Canadian Military at War Since 1867 right now at the below links: Amazon Indigo Dundurn Goodreads Indiebookstores.ca               Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    57 min
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About

Historian David Borys dives deep into the fascinating world of Canadian history in this bi-weekly podcast exploring everything from the wonderful to the weird to the downright dark. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Information

  • Creator
    David Borys
  • Years Active
    2016 - 2026
  • Episodes
    205
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    ©Curious Canadian History
  • Show Website
    Curious Canadian History

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