Canadian History In Ontario Schools
This is a piece for the National Association of Scholars, under the pseudonym of Butler Schram. I chose that pseudonym to honour Butler’s Rangers, arguably the toughest guys in the Loyalist ranks of the Revolutionary War, and Frederick Andrew Schram, my 5th great-grandfather and a Corporal in that unit.
Probare 
I had the bulk of my history schooling in the late 1990s, right around the time that the New Curriculum was released (the one that scuppered OAC, not the latest revision). We spent the bulk of grade eight on Confederation which I found pretty dull going at the time.But we certainly learned the names and characters of all of the major players. Eighteen years later I have forgotten most of what I knew about Cartier, Brown, etc. but I at least recognise their names and can place them in their general context.
What would you recommend as good supplemental reading? I would nominate Charlotte Gray’s wonderful Canada: A Portrait in Letters but apart from that and some Farley Mowat I haven’t read much.
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Hi, Christine:
Great to hear from you! I prefer the pleasure of popular narrative history rather than turgid scholarship, so anything by Pierre Berton is worth reading and won’t put you to sleep. Donald Creighton also makes entertaining reading, albeit from the old Anglo-Imperial perspective. My particular interest is Loyalist history, so Humber, Loyal She Remains, is a good starting point if you want to walk that road.
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Ha — reading this now I realise that when I wrote Farley Mowat I meant Pierre Berton; I’ve read Flames Across the Border and its companion. Thanks for the recommendations!
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