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The Stories that We Didn’t Learn

Got some historical fuckwhittery we should know about?

A forgotten story, a spectacularly bad decision, or a piece of history that somehow never made it into the textbooks?

Tell us about it.

stories@fuckwhittery.com

Browse the Fuckwhittery:Fuckwhittery Against WomenFuckwhittery in PowerFuckwhittery in the Name of ProgressFuckwhittery Meets Mother NatureImperial FuckwhitteryMunicipal Fuckwhittery
Elsie MacGill

Elsie MacGill: How the FUCK Do We Not Know Her Name?

Most Canadians have watched an airplane being de-iced. We sit at the gate on a miserable February morning while great mechanical arms move around the aircraft, spraying the wings before takeoff, and although we may grumble about the delay, none of this seems particularly remarkable anymore. Nor does the sight […]
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Canada ordered 100,000 children from England

The Children Canada Ordered From Britain

In June 1913, a ten-year-old girl from Sunderland, England, boarded the SS Corinthian bound for Canada. She was travelling with her older sister, 12, and a large group of other children, but she was not an immigrant in the usual sense. Her mother was not standing beside her, preparing to […]
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LIberty Village Toronto

The Liberties Taken in Liberty Village

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There is a story about the name Liberty Village in Toronto. The neighbourhood takes its name from Liberty Street. According to local tradition, that was the street people walked when they left the prisons that once stood nearby. Beyond the walls lay liberty. It is an appealing image. Someone finishes […]
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Silent Hill

The Town They Tidied Into Oblivion

I was watching the 2006 horror film Silent Hill when the burning town began to seem a little overdone. Smoke rising from the streets. Fire somewhere deep beneath the houses. Ground that might open without warning. Surely that was the part the filmmakers had invented. Then I discovered Centralia, Pennsylvania. […]
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The Lost Villages of Ontario 1958

The Villages We Put Underwater

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On a train to Belleville, a woman told me she was from the Lost Villages. I imagined a place that had slipped out of use: a railway stop without trains, perhaps, or a town whose name had vanished from the map. Then she told me her grandparents were still there. […]
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The Year of No Summer 1816

The Year Summer Forgot to Show Up

In Grade 8 history, many of us learned about the War of 1812. We learned about battles, borders, and the time British troops burned the White House. What I do not remember learning is what happened just after the war. Summer failed to show up. In April 1815, Mount Tambora […]
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The Retreat from Afghanistan 1842

Apparently Once Wasn’t Enough

There is a name for the long struggle between Britain and Russia for power in Central Asia: the Great Game. It sounds rather grand. For the people living between those empires, it was considerably less fun. Britain ruled India and feared Russia might move towards it. Afghanistan lay between the […]
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