Contact Us: admin@canadianmysteries.ca
Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History:
News for Educators
|
|
The Gagnon Farm near Fortierville, Quebec; home of Aurore Gagnon. (Peter Gossage) It’s December already! When you start planning to head back to your classrooms in January, be sure to check out the Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History (GUMICH) project, based at the University of Victoria. Welcome to the latest edition of the GUMICH Gazette, a thrice-yearly newsletter to help keep educators up to date on news and tips for teaching with historical mysteries. 
John A. Macdonald Day
Sir John A. Macdonald c. 1880 (LAC/MIKAN 2979083) Will you be celebrating Sir John A. Macdonald Day in your classroom on January 11th? The Historica-Dominion Institute offers a variety of online resources for learning about Sir John A. Free Teachers’ Guides and Historical Interpretations
Did you know that a free teachers’ guide is available for each of the Mysteries? Every guide includes a wide range of teacher support, including background materials, activity sheets and detailed lesson plans for one or more grade-specific units for elementary or secondary students. Some suggestions are relevant for college and university classes. Just fill in our online registration form available by clicking on Teachers’ Guides and download the guides in PDF format. You can also apply for your password to the Historical Interpretations at the same time. These are essays about each case, written by experts (from historians to coroners, archaeologists, scientists and First Nations Elders) who have carefully analyzed the evidence for the particular history mystery. We‘ve made this section password-protected to encourage students to come up with their own interpretations of primary documents, rather than relying on other people’s analyses. Teaching Tool – The Chilcotin War
Tsilhqotin War Song sung at Lhatassain (Klatsassin) Memorial Day, October 26, 2003 at Fish Trap (Liam Haggerty, GUMICH) In recent months there has been a lot of media coverage about the Supreme Court Decision granting aboriginal title to the lands at issue in the web site “We Do Not Know His Name: Klatssasin and the Chilcotin War” to the Tsilhqot’in People. Read the articles: Supreme Court grants land title to B.C. First Nation in landmark case and B.C.'s apology for hanging Tsilhqot'in war chiefs one step in a long healing process about the apology of the provincial government of British Columbia to the Tsilhqot’in people for hanging six war chiefs. If you would like to investigate the history of this case, be sure to check out Media Bias: The Chilcotin War (MysteryQuest4). This is a critical challenge for students ages 14-16, related to the mystery website We Do Not Know His Name: Klatsassin & the Chilcotin War. The webquest includes complete instructions, primary documents, activity sheets, and evaluation forms. 
Students are asked to assess the degree to which the newspapers in 1864 fairly reported this violent conflict between whites and First Nations peoples — the bloodiest single such incident to take place on Canadian soil. Prior to examining documents related to the Chilcotin War, they will consider the relationship between the concepts of “bias” and “perspective.” Students will then examine several historical newspaper reports of the Chilcotin War and decide on the degree to which these accounts were biased. Finally, everyone will prepare an impartial account of the event intended for use by other students who are studying European-First Nations contact. You will find the complete quest online along with many more MysteryQuests that can be used with the Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History. Teaching Tool – Was Jerome Mistreated?
Your students can investigate the story of Nova Scotia’s famous mystery man on the website Jerome: The Mystery Man of Baie Sainte-Marie. MysteryQuest27, designed for students ages 16-18, invites users to judge whether the way Jerome was treated was typical of the level of care given to other people deemed “not normal.” First, students will learn more about the treatment of the mentally ill (e.g., living conditions, medical treatment, opportunities for recreation). Next, they will look for evidence of how Jerome was treated by the community and his adopted families. Based on this evidence, the students will decide whether the treatment he received was better or worse than was typical at the time. Finally, each person will write a one-page response to the question, “Considering the standards of the time, was Jerome mistreated?” 
Who Is He? (New York Herald, 9 Dec. 1906) Featured Source from The Redpath Mansion Mystery
The Redpath Mansion (Redpath Sugar Museum) From The Redpath Mansion Mystery: Two members of one of Canada’s wealthiest families died from gunshot wounds on June 13, 1901. Ada Maria Mills Redpath, the 59-year old widow of industrialist John James Redpath, and her 24-year old son Jocelyn Clifford Redpath (“Cliff”) were shot in Ada’s bedroom in the Redpath mansion in Montreal’s affluent Square Mile district. Beyond these facts it is difficult to know what happened. We do know that the investigation was hasty. Apparently the police were not called. A coroner’s investigation was opened, closed, and the bodies were buried within 48 hours of the shots being fired. Who shot whom and why? Inquest: Coroner’s Report re Death of Ada Redpath, The questioning of Peter Redpath, Thomas George Roddick, Hugh Patton, Rollo Campbell, Rosa Shallow, Charles James Fleet, taken under oath before me in Montreal on the fourteenth day of June, nineteen hundred & one, who declare respectively the following: Peter Redpath Yesterday evening I saw my brother the deceased arriving home at around six o’clock; he seemed ill and was tired, working hard to prepare for his bar exams. He went up to the room of my mother, Ada Maria Mills, age 62, and a few seconds later I heard a shot from a firearm, followed by two others. I ran up and broke down the door. I saw my mother lying on the floor and several feet from her my brother, also lying in a pool of blood, a revolver a foot away from him near his hand. My brother had been very nervous for some time. Doctor Thomas George Roddick, M. D. I was called upon to confirm the death. The witness explains to the Jurors the position in which he found the bodies and declares that in his mind the son must have killed his mother and then shot himself afterward. Has known the family for 20 years. The son is epileptic and not responsible for his acts before during and after his attacks. Knows that he had attacks a few [?] ago. Had advised him to go get some rest for a few days and was supposed to accompany him. Read the complete Coroner’s Report. Featured Image For Aurore: The Mystery of the Martyred Child
Poster for the film La petite Aurore l’enfant martyre (Cinémathèque québécoise) Aurore Gagnon was a young girl who died on February 12, 1920, under suspicious circumstances, in Fortierville, Quebec. The coroner’s inquest revealed that she had succumbed to blood poisoning and general exhaustion, the result of the great number of untreated wounds which covered her body. Who was responsible for the mistreatment and abuse that she had clearly suffered? Aurore Gagnon become Aurore, l'enfant martyre, an icon of Quebec popular culture. The events that took place in 1920 inspired many publications, a play, novels, a television dramatization, a radio program, etc. This poster was an advertisement for a film about the tragic life and death of this abused child. The novel La petite Aurore (Little Aurore, 1951) was used to write a screenplay in order to produce the film La petite Aurore l’enfant martyre (Little Aurore, the Child Martyr). The première of this film took place on April 25, 1952. Quebec cinema was only starting out and this melodramatic film was one of the first to achieve such success. Your class can investigate Aurore: The Mystery of the Martyred Child on the GUMICH site. You’ll find many other interesting images about this story in the archives section – great for student projects. Partner News – Concordia UniversityThe Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS) at Concordia University is proud to be a GUMICH partner for its latest mystery, the Franklin Expedition. COHDS has many resources on its main website and is currently involved in a number of educational initiatives. Among these is Map Collab, a participatory mapping project of immigrant neighbourhoods in Montreal and Paris. Youths aged 16 to 25 speak about their place-based experiences. Through the creation of multi-media audio-guides, they share their thoughts on their own rapport with their neighbourhood and reflect on belonging and identity. 
Public and oral history are increasingly used in Canadian classrooms, offering countless possibilities for student involvement and improved learning experiences. These also come with their own sets of ethical and pedagogical questions as well as multidisciplinary practices. The Going Public Project provides a space where public historians around the world can share their knowledge and best practices, through conversations about ethics, advocacy, interviewing and so much more. It is a worthwhile resource for any educator out there thinking of using oral history or digital storytelling in the classroom. 
COHDS is also proud to be involved in a multi-pronged project called Mapping Memories, where Montreal youth speak about the refugee experience through digital storytelling. The website features an education section where educators can get ideas for classroom projects, get tips on oral history interviewing, and access customized curricula. 
|
|
