A day late for International #Vexillology Day, the latest addition to my vexillological ephemera collection: a Royal Kennebacasis Yacht Club church service program, 1932, featuring Blue Ensign and club burgee. Also a nice ex. of early 20c letterpress job printing! #cdnhist #nbhist #SailAway

"Your attention please. The following employees will be laid off, in alphabetical order. Simpson, Homer. That is all." Ot maybe "Purple's a fruit."

As this non-starter raises its ugly head again, some birthday shopping for my eldest, who turns ten next week... #CdnPoli #Never51

What do Shirley Temple, glee club leader Louise Akeo, and "Bible Bill" Aberhart have in common? All were guests at Vancouver's 1936 Golden Jubilee! Read more from me in a Urban History Review's special Vancouver issue, guest edited by @belshaw.bsky.social! #bchist #cdnhist tinyurl.com/2s3rwe9m

Health Canada statement issued last night: "Acetaminophen is a recommended treatment of pain or fever in pregnancy when used as directed. It should be used at the lowest effective dose for the shortest duration needed. Untreated fever and pain in pregnant women can pose risks to the unborn child."

Governments (and others) have a long history of trying to avoid controversy through strict flag regulations, which (often) have unintended consequences. #vexillology www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

@petercoffman.bsky.social, do you know of any of these buildings in Canadian cities? #cdnhist

I like to think that festive Dief very closely resembled this charming caricature by former Ottawa Citizen cartoonist Rusins Kaufmanis, complete with Union Jack top hat! #vexillology #cdnhist #cdnpoli

We canceled months ago (a short trial subscription in which we watched Aladdin and the 1954 20 000 Leagues Under the Sea...).

Apparently I missed Dief the Chief's 130th birthday yesterday. If I had a turntable (which, alas, I do not), I might have taken this for a spin! #cdnhist #cdnpoli

When I cycled past the Embassy this evening, I thought I heard someone playing a mournful tune on the world's tiniest violin...

#vexillology www.cnn.com/2025/09/18/t...

I just deleted my Academia dot edu account, created in 2011. The analytics we're kinda neat, and it was handy to have a place to link to for my harder-to-find articles, but not worth the shocking new TOS. (Anyone who ever wants a free copy of anything I've ever published need only send me a DM!)

#vexillology www.cnn.com/2025/09/17/w...

"Can they truly be so ignorant to the words of a man they have so rushed to memorialize? I don’t know. But the most telling detail in Klein’s column was that, for all his praise, there was not a single word in the piece from Kirk himself." Ta-Nehisi Coates, with receipts.

#Vexillology #Heraldry find of the week: a BC shield w/ maple leaf and fleur de lis in place of Union Jack. Designed in 1958 by Gerard Tremblay for a Franco-Colombien youth magazine. @jmcelroy.bsky.social, I wonder if this less colonial version might have topped the bracket? #bchist

Slightly diminish a book. Talks-Big-But-Always-Chickens-Out-at-the-Last-Minute New World

Just a reminder to check for your name in this list of books that OpenAI trained from. If your name is there, they probably owe you several thousand dollars. OpenAI cried that if everyone eligible author files, the company will go bankrupt, so I'm alerting every author I have ever spoken to.

Still a few hours of Labour Day left, so why not "strike" up the band and join in a rousing labour anthem, perhaps something from my all-time favourite bit of political ephemera, the New Party (i.e. @ndp.ca) Founding Convention Songbook? "Farmer-Labour Train" is a toe-tapper! #cdnhist #cdnpoli (1/2)

Still a few hours of Labour Day left, so why not "strike" up the band and join in a rousing labour anthem, perhaps something from my all-time favourite bit of political ephemera, the New Party (i.e. @ndp.ca) Founding Convention Songbook? "Farmer-Labour Train" is a toe-tapper! #cdnhist #cdnpoli (1/2)

Not Alberta's first moral panic over "salacious" lit for children. Take this handwringing pamphlet from the province's "Advisory Board on Objectionable Publications," warning about (inter alia) sex in comics. Originally published 1955, the AB Archives has reissued (cheekily). #cdnhist #bookhistory

Reposting for #FreemasonryFriday!

Interesting that the intro to this cool project mentions the Egyptian precedent, as Woodland's co-founder Anne Elizabeth Wilson was certainly aware of it: her Egyptian-inspired personal bookplate included a mummified cat! #cdnhist #egyptology #bookhistory

A really important project by my colleagues at Library and Archives Canada #cdnhist

The Mayflower design for a new Massachusetts flag may not look like any other US state flag, but it does bear an uncanny resemblance to the former house flag of the British Columbia Ferry Corporation ("The Dogwood Fleet"). Mayflowers... dogwoods.. same thing? #vexillology #bchist

Back from holiday and going through my photos, I see the makings of a #MercrediMaconnique (and a #Woodensday, h/t @petercoffman.bsky.social) Four Masonic halls I encountered in my travels, in Old Strathcona (Edmonton) and Banff, AB, and Fort Steele and Creston, BC). #cdnhist #freemasonry

Former BC Premier Amor de Cosmos once offered an intriguing counterproposal that might (ahem) interest Sen. Joe Martin. Check it out (starting at p. 70). #cdnhist #bchist #alaskahistory #mainehistory tinyurl.com/2hdx6uwt

Former BC Premier Amor de Cosmos once offered an intriguing counterproposal that might (ahem) interest Sen. Joe Martin. Check it out (starting at p. 70). #cdnhist #bchist #alaskahistory #mainehistory tinyurl.com/2hdx6uwt

Anxiety up a band: Depressed Rodeo

Gentle reminder to Alaskans that you have options 😉 #AlaskaHistory #cdnhist #bchist

#vexillology in the news!

Disappointingly Hip Turquoise Rodeo Slightly Pompous Worms #CanCon

This conversation was lots of fun! As the flag advances to the semifinals, two versions that speak to its flexibility, taken in Clinton in 2023. 1. A mid-century cast metal coat of arms at the Village Hall; 2. Lou Ann Neel's Indigenized update on a private home. #bchist #vexillology #heraldry

Fun to defend the dogwood this morning on the CBC Vancouver's Early Edition with @cbcstephenquinn.bsky.social as @jmcelroy.bsky.social's epic BC Symbols Bracket enters the home(ish) stretch. Come for the #bchist, stay for the terrible puns! www.cbc.ca/listen/live-...

This is fascinating, esp as I recently found this 1931 composite photo/cartoon of a Cdn Govt Motion Picture Bureau staff dinner in an antique shop. Seems making morality films didn't preclude some frivolity in the off-hours. Work hard, play harder! #cdnhist #filmhistory

This is fascinating, esp as I recently found this 1931 composite photo/cartoon of a Cdn Govt Motion Picture Bureau staff dinner in an antique shop. Seems making morality films didn't preclude some frivolity in the off-hours. Work hard, play harder! #cdnhist #filmhistory

The forgotten Canadian film bu... www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

In December 1938, a Chinese restaurant owner in Wallaceburg, Ontario, asked his local postmaster if he could distribute some fliers through the mail. A #FridayFind in the archives makes for a short thread about a consumer boycott to protest human rights abuses. #cdnhist #cdnpoli (1/6)

In December 1938, a Chinese restaurant owner in Wallaceburg, Ontario, asked his local postmaster if he could distribute some fliers through the mail. A #FridayFind in the archives makes for a short thread about a consumer boycott to protest human rights abuses. #cdnhist #cdnpoli (1/6)

BC flag presentation by W.A.C. Bennett, prob. 1966 (per the Centennial logos in background). After the 1965 adoption of the Cdn flag, but a Cdn Red Ensign still flies - evidence of persistent Britishness! #cdnhist #bchist #vexillology (City of Victoria Archives, William E. John fonds)

This story aired a few weeks ago on OMNI News Filipino in Tagalog (with me subtitled: I know but two words of Tagalog); today there's an English digital version. I'm pleased to help make known some little-known stories of #cdnimm history! #cdnhist #bchist tinyurl.com/3xncphm3

This story aired a few weeks ago on OMNI News Filipino in Tagalog (with me subtitled: I know but two words of Tagalog); today there's an English digital version. I'm pleased to help make known some little-known stories of #cdnimm history! #cdnhist #bchist tinyurl.com/3xncphm3

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Archives!

The important question is, WWJD? #bchist (or, as @benbradleyca.bsky.social might have it, #vitrifiedhistory)

Coincidentally, the exhibit I am working on right now includes similar ancient artifacts. No more spoilers 😉 #bookhistory #cdnhist

Apparently foreign (ie. Eastern) interference didn't tip the scales for the hapless Steller's Jay, spotted here on a banner steps from Parliament Hill in Ottawa this morning (the National Capital Commission is celebrating provincial and territorial birds this summer). #bchist #vexillology

Hey AI: make me a picture of Gutenberg with his press. Nailed it! #bookhistory

"Every pennant bears a lifelike picture." (I sense the Sun's half-tone process doesn't do justice to the "lifelike"-ness) #vexillology

#ThriftingThursday find (yesterday...): A copy of then-future, now-former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's 1985 memoir, "Dans la fosse aux lions," inscribed not only by the author but also be two of his brothers and his sister-in-law, apparently to family friends. #cdnhist #cdnpoli