Meetings & Events

Please scroll down to see the 2025-26 programme. All lectures will be presented on Wednesday evenings at 7:00pm in the Lower Lounge of the Kingsbridge Retirement
Community at 950 Centennial Drive (free parking beside the building). Lectures will be simultaneously carried on ZOOM (with connection information sent to KHS members by e-mail the Friday before) and will subsequently be available on YouTube through the website. All lectures will also be published in the Society’s journal, Historic Kingston.

Please scroll down for the links to our previous meetings available for viewing on YouTube, and to outside events of interest.

Next Meeting

Upcoming Meetings

November 19, 2025: Warren Everett, military historian and collector of military medals, will reflect on the significance of military decorations not just for the immediate recipient, but also for the society he/she served. Warren will bring samples from his expansive collection. 

January 21, 2026: Dr. David Gordon will speak on “Conservative Surgery on Kingston’s Fringe: The Evolution of Rideau Heights,1952-1973.” Dr. Gordon is a professor in Queen’s School of Urban and Regional Planning and a frequent commentator for The Globe and Mail and the CBC.

March 18, 2026: Jake Breadman, a doctoral candidate in history at Queen’s and a Heritage Interpreter at Bellevue House, will speak on “The Many Residents of Bellevue House: A Microcosmic History of Kingston.” Jake took part in Parks Canada’s recent remodeling of the focus of Bellevue House.

April 15, 2026: Thomas Harrison, a lawyer, artist and writer living in Prince Edward County, will speak on “Richard Nixon’s Secret 1957 Visit to Eastern Ontario, Prince Edward County and Hastings” drawing on his recent book Searching for Richard Nixon: Finding Refuge and Making a Home in Prince Edward County.

May 20, 2026: Dr. Kenneth Feigelman, Director of Operations for Kingston-based undersea exploration enterprise Deep Quest 2, will speak on diving “The Mysterious ‘Mythical’ Marysburgh Vortex in Lake Ontario.” As part of his presentation, Dr. Feigelman will show a video “Rhapsody in Blue – Around the World Under the Sea.”

June 6, 2026: The Society will host its annual graveside commemoration of Sir John A. Macdonald on the anniversary of his 1891 death at his graveside in Cataraqui Cemetery at 1:30 pm. Speaker and event details will be available on the KHS website.

September 16: Dr. Daivd Lenarčič will speak on one of Kingston’s most prolific and outspoken historians, Arthur Lower of Queen’s, under the title “Confronting the
‘Imperialistic Wolf-Hounds‘: Arthur Lower, Canadian Nationalism and the Coming of World War II.” After completing a doctorate at York University, Dr. Lenarčič pursued a teaching career and then served in various policy positions in Ottawa at DND and at the Privy Council as well as at the Canadian embassy in Washington.

October 21: Alicia Boutilier, Chief Curator at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre and a prominent Canadian art historian and commentator, will speak on the evolution of the
Art Centre at Queen’s from its initial benefaction by local arts patron Agnes Etherington under the title “Agnes Etherington’s House: Tracing Changes and Intended Uses, 1926-2026.” Alicia is currently involved in the massive expansion and
reorientation of the Centre, scheduled to open in 2027.

November 18: Dr. David More will share his extensive knowledge of the maritime history of the Great Lakes with us under the title “Unforgiving Seas: The Schooner Women on the Great Lakes in the Age of Sail.” David holds a doctorate in history from Queen’s, is a boat builder and the author of many books of historical fiction and non-fiction about the waters
that lap Kingston’s shore.

Past Meetings

 Paul Van Nest, a local historian, related the World War II experience of his cousin Glenn Brooks, an eastern Ontario farm boy who served as a tail gunner on an RCAF bomber until his death over Germany in 1944. Brooks’ letters home offer Van Nest a prism through which to probe the innermost experience of men at war and their ongoing impact of their loss on those left behind. To watch the presentation click here

Susan Smith, the long-time editor of Thousand Islands Life on-line
magazine and author of The First Summer People: The Thousand Islands 1650-1910, reflected on the history and heritage of the Thousand Islands, the iconic stretch of the St. Lawrence just east of Kingston.
Susan Weston Smith took over as the production editor of Thousand Islands Life in 2008. Currently, she is on the board of the 1000 Islands History Museum in Gananoque. She has served on the Board of the Thousand Islands Land Trust and Save the River in Clayton, NY, as well as
the Thousand Islands Association in Gananoque. You can watch her presentation here.

Christine Lavallee, a St. Lawrence College librarian, writer and literary scholar, spoke about her research into nineteenth-century Canadian author Julia Beckwith Hart, whose pioneering novel – St. Ursula’s Convent –was partially set in Kingston and is said to be the first indigenous work of Canadian fiction. You can watch the presentation here.

Dr. Sandy Campbell, emerita professor of women’s studies at Carleton University spoke on “Kingston’s Kathleen Hammond, the Lusitania and the White Plague”, a story of World War I happiness and tragedy. You can watch the presentation here

Professor Ralph Boston  spoke on “A History of the Mississauga People North of Kingston”.  You can watch the presentation here. 

Dr. Duncan McDowall spoke on “HMCS Thiepval: Kingston’s Little Ship That Could.” A tale of a World War I warship built on Kingston shores that found fame and eventual misadventure on the high seas. You an watch the presentation here.

2025 Annual General Meeting of KHS. The 2024 Financial Statement is here. The Agenda for the AGM is here. The video of the meeting is here.

Meetings held in 2020 to 2024 are indexed by topic and by speaker here. You can download a Word document with live links to YouTube. 

You might want to catch up on your reading about Kingston. We have produced a Reading List – click here to see it! Contact us here with suggestions for additions to the list. We also recommend you viewing a video describing the 22 National Historic Sites of Kingston. You can find it here . If you have comments on it, please contact Greg Anderson at gpanderson191@gmail.

You can follow presentations of the Ottawa Historical Society here

You have access to a video of the late George Muirhead reminiscing about his time in Kingston. View it here  He talks about his life and career as Kingston’s first City Planner. I believe this one-hour overview presented by the individual at the centre of the post-war Kingston historic building restoration movement, the Rideau Heights slum clean-up, the founding of the Frontenac Heritage Foundation, plus much more, is an important document of recent Kingston history.

Outside Events Of Interest

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CANADIAN CLUB KINGSTON AUTUMN 2025 LUNCHEON PROGRAM:

DECEMBER 11: Eric Friesen, Writer, Speaker, Broadcaster

Check for more details and register one week in advance of an event at www.canadianclubkingston.org.
Payment by e-transfer, credit card or by cash or cheque at the door.
LOCATION: Cataraqui Golf & Country Club, 32 Country Club Lane.
TIME: Lecture is preceded by lunch served at 12 p.m.
FEE: Luncheon price is $37 for members, $45 for non-members.
CONTACT: 613-699-3102 or rsvp@canadianclubkingston.org.
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