We’ve talked about a lot of heavy stuff on the podcast this year – the pandemic, sexual violence, trans healthcare, mental health and reconciliation all to name a few. So before we take a summer break* it felt like we needed a safe space, somewhere serene where we can get back to nature and just talk like two people. In other words, we just need someone to tell us a story. Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #336 – Story Time”
Excavation work continues in the old Baker Street parking lot, so naturally, the City of Guelph has announced that they’ve found more remains. It was a little over a week ago that the City first announced that the had found remains, not for the first time, and most definitely not for the last time. Now, we will get updates on the matter every two weeks. Continue reading “More Remains Found in Baker Street Lot Archaeological Investigation”
Perhaps predictably, the archaeological consultants working with the City of Guelph crews to excavate the Baker Street Parking lot announced that they exhumed bone fragments from a lost grave. This is not the first time that remains have been found in the Baker Street area over the years, but this time the City is trying to carefully find them all before the redevelopment of the area can begin this coming spring. Continue reading “Bone Fragments Found During Baker Street Excavation”
On Monday May 23, 1921, a small group of people gathered in a barn on the outskirts of Guelph to found the Communist Party of Canada. It was three years after the Russian Revolution, and there was already widespread concern about the spread of Marxist ideas, but economic stagnation, a global pandemic, and societal disillusionment post World War I made people hungry for some kind of change to the status quo. Sound familiar? Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #275 – 100 Years After the Meeting on Metcalfe Street”
This week, in honour of Canada Day, we have a repeat of the podcast. That doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it is a holiday, and we could all use a nice break from the routine and skullduggery of the pandemic news cycle. So let’s revisit happier times from the recent and distant pasts. Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST REPLAY – A History of Guelph’s Birthdays”
This week’s Guelph Politicast kind of shakes up the format. Typically these are interviews with people, or clips of speeches either partial or whole, but on this pod I wanted to tell you a story, and that story is a tale of Guelph as we start the countdown to the Royal City’s 200th birthday in just 10 years time. Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #85 – Celebrating Celebrations of Guelph”
Much of the action at the East End Library Branch’s block party to celebrate Canada 150 was, naturally, outdoors, but there was something interesting happening inside too: Eight short films about Guelph by eight local filmmakers. Covering a wide variety of topics, the shorts each show a side of Guelph – known and unknown – that highlighted the reasons why the Royal City is the place that it is. Continue reading “Guelph Library Premieres 8 Short Films About Guelph”
The attack began Easter Monday, April 9, 1917. By the time it was over, Canada had secured its place in history as an army, as a nation, and as a people, and we’ve come to understand that deeply in the last 100 years. But I wondered: how was the battle seen at the time, how was it read and understood by the people of Guelph through their daily newspaper? To the microfiche! Continue reading “How the Guelph Mercury Covered Vimy Ridge”
Every November 11, wreaths are laid and poppies are left at the Cenotaph at the corner of Woolwich and Eramosa. On this corner, in the centre of town, there’s a wall of names memorializing those Guelphites that fought and died in the two World Wars and the Korean War, but how often does the average Guelphite in 2016 read those names? How often do we think about those lives lost, or who those people even were when they died in the killing fields of Europe and Asia? Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #56 – Ed Butts, Local Historian and Author”
Sandwiched between an article announcing that the new MacDonald-Stewart Art Centre would be opening in November, and pictures of the visiting Canadian Hearing Society’s mobile van on page 3 of the July 17 edition of The Daily Mercury was a notice. A young man named Terry Fox was running his way across Canada in a “Marathon of Hope” in order to raise money and awareness for cancer research, and his long journey was to bring him to Guelph that coming Tuesday. Continue reading “When Terry Passed Through Town”
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