Forrest Pass's avatar

Forrest Pass

@forrestpass.bsky.social

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Historian, curator at Library and Archives Canada, heraldist, vexillologist, collector of arcane and eclectic Canadiana. All opinions my own.

Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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As Charles Mair wrote to George Taylor Denison about the Okanagan (and BC in general) in 1892, “It will be a very rich Province, but it must be CANADIANIZED." (In the original, "Canadianized" is underlined, but Bluesky doesn't rise to underlining - anyway, I think Mair was, in fact, shouting...)

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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Probably 1927, for the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation: the national organizing committee's "Suggestions for Historical Pageants, Floats and Tableaux" included a "Champlain the Discoverer" float and many local committees followed the suggestions pretty closely:

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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Happy Canada Day! I was happy to contribute to this @cnn.com story about the day's history (in great company alongside @mhayday.bsky.social!) #cdnhist
www.cnn.com/travel/what-...

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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L.-G.-A. Cressé, officier de la Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste, a envoyé cette carte postale à Alexandre Charpentier, sculpteur français, en 1904. L.-G.-A. Cressé, an officer of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste, sent this postcard to the French sculptor Alexandre Charpentier in 1904.

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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Bonne Saint-Jean-Baptiste (un jour d'après)! Célébrons la fête nationale canadienne-française en hissant ce drapeau proposé du début du 20e siècle!

Happy belated Saint-Jean-Baptiste! Celebrate French Canada's national day with this proposed flag (early 20c) #cdnhist #vexillology (1/2)

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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De Rinzy did do some railway commissions, but I've found no evidence (yet) that he did in 1914..

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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Yes, this is George Horne Russell, painted for the GTP around 1909, for one of the company's offices in the UK. Given the foreground, I wonder if de Rinzy copied from Russell rather than painting on site, but missed key details of the mountain?

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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Good question! There would certainly seem to be a link: maybe the coincidence of romantic sublime with technologies for mass distribution, so a generation (or two) came to think of this as the pinnacle of artistic expression, and decided to mimic it?

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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Thrift-store find of the weekend: a 1914 watercolour of Mount Robson by the Ottawa historical illustrator and landscape painter John Henry de Rinzy (1852-1936). Coinciding with the arrival of the Canadian Northern Railway at Yellowhead Pass. @benbradleyca.bsky.social #cdnhist #bchist

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Matthew Hayday's avatar Matthew Hayday @mhayday.bsky.social
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Delighted to announce the publication of my article "Not a Contradiction in Terms: Exploring the Progressiveness of the Progressive Conservatives" in the American Review of Canadian Studies. It's open access, and explores the history of the PC Party of Canada. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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Not teaching exactly but very interested in it as inspiration for a censorship exhibit I have in mind for a few years down the road!

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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The headline is epic, but I wish the journalist could have continued in kind: Perplexed police ponder possible perps in patrimonial porker's perfidious peregrinations.

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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Nay! Nothing to see here. It is clearly the infrastructure of the second author's imagination...

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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A #dday / #d-day post (sort of). In English, this 1950s Canadian Dept of National Health and Welfare pamphlet was entitled "Make Every Day Vitamin D-Day". Sadly, the pun was lost in translation... #cdnhist #foodhistory

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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Whenever I see Brian Peckford's name, I remember a Double Exposure sketch from the 80s in which Premier Peckford goes on a junket to Bermuda to see how its beaches compare to Nfld beaches. And the next time I heard about him, it was re anti-vaxx conspiracies. Some legacy, Brian!

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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Canada: It's 1967! We're 100 yrs old! Let's celebrate this amazing accomplishment! A full century!

McDonald's Corners, Ontario: Hold my beer...

#cdnhist

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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(Unfortunate typo, of course, unless Louis had a little-known little sister named Lois)

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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This guy absolutely fascinates me, and a bio is on my (very long) list of possible projects (Omineca Express, Dec 11, 1991):

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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Apparently they were brought to New Westminster in 1866 for the Seymour Artillery Company and were only installed next to the Fraser bust in the 1930s. They're now outside New Westminster City Hall.

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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Oh no! In addition to her work, I remember having a really nice dinner with her at an Indian restaurant in Prince George on the eve of my first BC Studies conference and she was so encouraging to a (nervous) newbie. Such a loss.

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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Melania channeling her inner Tyra Banks?

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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I remember that project - glad you found them useful! Unfortunately I don't have copies of the videos - maybe the publisher, Cross Country Canada (praxis.dk), can help?

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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Jealous of your signed Farley Mowat - my thrift stores of late have yielded signed Pierre Bertons, Peter C Newmans, a Jean Chretien, even a René Levesque, but never a Mowat!

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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A chance find at a used book sale turned out to be one of last books notorious assimilationist Duncan Campbell Scott ever read. I wrote about it for the Literary Review of Canada. Check out online or at your local indie bookshop! shorturl.at/hxENY #cdnhist #bookhistory

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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So I'm told that #BicycleDay has to do with an illegal substance rather than my transportation method of choice. Well I find it trippy that you could once leave a bicycle unlocked in downtown Ottawa without fear of theft! (Dept of Mines and Technical Surveys photo collection, LAC) #cdnhist

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Data Visualization Society's avatar Data Visualization Society @datavizsociety.bsky.social
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📊 What lessons can data viz professionals learn from flag design and vexillologists?

Gain some insights from Darren Shearer on simplicity, clarity and purposeful design.

nightingaledvs.com/flags-and-fi...

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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This is cool! I have a vague recollection of having heard him perform at a Princeton music festival in the early 2000s. The Morris dancing part rings a bell (ahem)...

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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Happy Leap Day to those who celebrate! If Canadians Moses Cotsworth and Arthur Hills had their way, the Leap Day would have been in June rather than February. Find out more in my latest on the Library and Archives Canada blog! #cdnhist thediscoverblog.com/2024/02/29/n...

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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"Largest investment in over ten years!" i.e. "Since the Liberals were in power"?

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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I, for one, welcome our new F-ian overlords...

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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My 5-year-old was home sick today, and decided to make a series of alphabet flash cards. He chose to draw (without prompting) a flag (Or a saltire Azure) for "F". The apple does not fall far from the tree. #vexillology

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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In the same file as something else I was looking at today: the 1917 order-in-council legalizing (temporarily) margarine in Canada. Clearly ignoring the advice of experts who warned that it could serve as a gateway to harder, more saturated fats. #cdnhist #foodhistory

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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Goodin really performed a miracle in bringing the Turnips and Rutabagas together, after years of conflict that made the east coast-west coast hip-hop wars look positively civil by comparison.

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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Appropriately spending part of the first day of Freedom to Read Week reviewing copyedits for an article that contributes to the history of censorship in Canada. Intrigued? Watch this space - it'll be out later this spring! #cdnhist #bookhistory

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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...was sent from Ottawa to England on Feb 8, 1965, a week before the flag first flew. The sender wrote, "I preffer [sic] the 3 maple leaves with blue at each end." I guess you can't please everyone! #cdnhist #vexillology

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Forrest Pass's avatar Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social
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Happy National #Flag of Canada Day! "L. Le Bel" of Ottawa published these 2 postcards as private promotion. The 1st depicts "Canada's beautiful proposed, distinctive flag" (the so-called "Pearson Pennant"), probably dates from summer 1964, and is unused. But the 2nd... (1/2) #cdnhist #vexillology

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