Congratulations to current MA student Joshua Wetendorf (HBA 2025) whose paper “From Captive to Folk Hero: The Legacy of Hannah Duston” was recently accepted for publication in The Mirror, Canada’s oldest undergraduate history journal. Josh’s paper examines how the story of Hannah Duston, a 17th-century Puritan captive who violently escaped from Indigenous captors, evolved into a symbol of frontier heroism. It argues that 19th-century reinterpretations served settler-colonial, racial, and gendered ideologies. It explores how current debates over her memorialization reflect broader conflicts over historical memory and colonial violence. The Mirror is published annually by the University of Western Ontario. We look forward to seeing Josh’s article in print in mid-March 2026! 

The third annual Thunder Bay Historical Film Festival will take place on Thursday, 20 November, at 7:00pm in the Community Auditorium.  The festival will feature six historical films, including an episode of The View From Up Here, a satirical and educational documentary series on the history of the Lakehead created by Department of History members Tom Peotto, Ron Harpelle, and Kelly Saxberg. Nathan Hatton, a former member of the Department, and several former students also played roles in the development of this series.

Congratulations to the Department of History's Kelly Saxberg for receiving a lifetime achievement award at the City of Thunder Bay's 2025 Arts and Heritage Awards.  Professor Saxberg has directed, produced, and edited a diverse range of historical documentary and docudrama films in her 40-year career, including "Rosies of the North" (1999), a National Film Board production chronicling the work of women building warplanes at the Canadian Car and Foundry factory in Fort William during the Second World War, "Under the Red Star" (2011), a historical docudrama about the Finnish Labour Temple in Thunder Bay, and "A Tale of Two Qallunaat" (2025), a documentary about the travels of Sheila Burnford and Susan Ross in the Canadian Arctic during the 1970s.  She also co-founded the Bay Street Film Festival (now the Vox Popular Media Arts Festival) in 2005 featuring the work of independent filmmakers in Canada and around the world.

https://www.tbnewswatch.com/arts-culture/local-talent-shines-as-arts-and...

Dr. Steven Jobbitt has recently published "A Watershed Crisis: Hydrology and the Politics of Revisionism in Post-Trianon Hungary" in Flowing Progress: Transforming the Danube Through Infrastructure, edited by Stefan Dorondel and Luminita Gatejel (Purdue University Press, 2025), 97-132. This chapter explores the ways in which geographers and other experts mobilized hydrological arguments to argue against the territorial dismemberment of Hungary after World War I. Research for the chapter was supported by a multi-year grant from the National Research, Development, and Innovation Office of Hungary.  The chapter is open access and can be viewed at https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.32657614.9?seq=1.