The Financial Statements for 2021 are here
The 2022 AGM document is here
We return to in-person meetings in January at the Kingsbridge Retirement Community which has graciously agreed to let us use their very comfortable theatre lounge for our meetings. This is a most attractive location with comfortable armchairs and the most up-to-date audio-visual equipment. The spaciousness of this venue also allows us to offer light refreshments and an opportunity for socialization preceding each lecture: 6:30 for 7:00 p.m.
The Kingsbridge Retirement Community, 950 Centennial Drive is the tall building just south of Princess Street. Enter by the prominent door on the east side (not the front door). Staff will be at the door to check your double vaccination status and to give you directions. Park in any unmarked parking spaces behind the building; there is also free parking north of the building (around Shoppers). Express buses #501 and 502 serve Upper Princess Street with a stop very near Kingsbridge. Bus #4 offers slower service along Princess Street from downtown. Use the Centennial Drive bus stop.
Covid precautions: Please wear a mask on entry to the building, but you may remove your mask once in the room. Proof of vaccination is mandatory. At this point, a routine RAT test will be self-administered once in the convention rooms. The building is kept meticulously sanitized.
February 15 Annual General Meeting. Details to follow in January. As well as the formal business, the meeting will include an update on the Murney Tower from Dr. Tabitha Renaud, the Tower’s Director, and Simge Erdogan-O’Connor, the Manager and Curator, with the latest news on what activities been happening, and the plans for 2023. The annual KHS Awards Presentation will also take place at the AGM. For the Zoom link, please email kingstonhs@gmail.com
Monday February 20 In collaboration with the Frontenac Heritage Foundation, join us to celebrate Kingston’s Heritage Month. The event will centre around the book launch and subsequent lecture of Dr. Robert Banks’ upcoming Warriors and Warships: Conflict on the Great Lakes and the Legacy of Point Frederick (Dundurn). Dr. Banks’ lecture will focus on the research and writing of the book and his personal perspectives on Kingston heritage. This will be an afternoon event at Memorial Hall in City Hall accompanied by afternoon tea. See here for details
March 15 Military historian Dr. Matthew Barrett will discuss his ground-breaking use of graphic art – cartooning – to convey historical narrative and analysis. Barrett’s pictorial chronicle of events such as the battle for Hill 70 in World War I have been widely featured in the national press. For the Zoom link, please email kingstonhs@gmail.com
April 19 John Grenville, former Curator and Historical Research Officer at Fort Henry and long-time investigator of Kingston’s military architecture, will report on his research into the city’s iconic Market Battery. For the Zoom link, please email kingstonhs@gmail.com
May 17 The point is often made that our world of instantaneous communication through the internet was foreshadowed by the telegraph in the nineteenth century. Graeme Roy, a docent and board member of the Railway Museum of Eastern Ontario, will give us an intimate glimpse of “How the telegraph connected Canadians in the early years of Confederation”. He will reinforce his lecture with a demonstration of telegraphic equipment brought from his extensive collection at the Smiths Falls museum. For the Zoom link, please email kingstonhs@gmail.com
September 20, 2023: Despite their proximity to Kingston, Wolfe Islanders have long prided themselves on the distinctiveness of their island culture. Professor Anastasia Riehl, a linguist at Queen’s, will report on her research into “The distinctive linguistic patterns that have evolved on Wolfe Island over many years.” For the Zoom link, please email kingstonhs@gmail.com
October 18, 2023: Kingston textile historian Joanna Dermenjian will report on her research on “Women’s domestic and charitable making of cloth and fibers”. In particular, she will focus on the effort made by women in Kingston and across Canada during World War II to produce quilts for distribution to soldiers, civilians and hospital in Britain and Europe. For the Zoom link, please email kingstonhs@gmail.com
November 15, 2023: Kingston has long relied on haunted walks and its role as penitentiary warden of the nation to bolster its tourism. Queen’s doctoral candidate Kaitlyn MacDonald’s research into what is called “Dark Tourism” will delve beyond the superficial into the historical construction behind our fascination with the abnormal and suggest ways in which such analysis may be used to enhance both our historical understanding and tourism management. For the Zoom link, please email kingstonhs@gmail.com
Dr. Tim Cook: “Forgetting, Remembering and Remaking Canada’s Second World War.” You can watch this presentation here
Victoria Cosby: “Kingston through Her Eyes: Harriett Dobbs Cartwright and Her Adopted Home” as part of the Society’s celebration of Heritage Month in Kingston. You can watch this presentation here.
Marc Seguin: “The Lighthouses of Kingston: Guiding Ships through the Graveyard of Lake Ontario, 1828 to 1914”. You can watch the presentation here.
Dr. Tabitha Renaud: “Without Words: The Communication Barrier between Indigenous Peoples and the Earliest European Explorers in North America.” You can watch this presentation here.
Heather Home & Janice McAlpine: “Community Archiving: the Kingston LGBTQ Archives as Collaborative Model.” You can watch the presentation here.
We presented the 2021 Sir John A Macdonald Commemorative Service from Cataraqui Cemetery. Watch the Service here
John Immerseel: “For a Better Life: Post-War Dutch Immigration to Canada with special reference to the prominent Dutch community resident in Kingston“. You can watch the presentation here
Duncan McDowall: “Edward Peacock finds Fame and Fortune in London“. You can watch the presentation here
Barry Cahill: “Icarus Revisited: The Short Life and Tragic Death of Norman McLeod Rogers“. You can watch the presentation here
Dr. Robert Engen: “Weathering the Storm: Health Protection and the Canadian Corps during the Pandemic of 1918“. You can watch the presentation here
Catherine Fogarty: “Murder on the Inside: the 1971 KP Riot”. You can watch the presentation here.
Ken Cuthbertson: “When the Ponies Ran“. You can watch the presentation here
Maurice Smith: “The Calvin Company four-master barque”. You can watch the presentation here.
Murray Sinclair and the Sir John A Macdonald memorial service. You can view the video here.
Nathan Brinklow “Mohawk Language Loss and Recovery“. You can view the video here.
Peter Gower “The changing attitude to memorializing our war dead, 1800 – 2022“. You can view the video here.
David Gordon and Sara Wehbi: “Mayor Clifford Curtis: Queen’s Economist and Municipal Reformer” You can view the video here.
During the pandemic, 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.
James and Sarah Reid: “The Story of the James Reid Funeral Home” You can watch the presentation here.
Wednesday February 8: Marine Museum of the Great Lakes at Kingston presents Nautical Nights #3 “Lake Superior Our Helper: Stories from Batchewanaung Anishinabek Fisheries” with Kristen Lowitt. Book Now>
Thursday February 9th: Canadian Club luncheon meeting, at the Cataraqui Golf and Country Club (CGCC). John Palmer, Conductor of Orchestra Kingston and BrassWerks and occasional conductor of the Greater Toronto Philharmonic Orchestra will talk on “Conducting and Musical Score”. Details here
Monday February 20: Frontenac Heritage Foundation. Joint meeting with KHS: see above for details.
Saturday February 25 at 1:00 p.m. Kingston & District United Empire Loyalists’ Association on Zoom and live at St. Paul’s Church Hall, Queen & Montreal Streets (door opens at 12:30 pm). Our Branch Genealogist Anne Redish will speak on “Herchmer’s Secret: The Loyalist Family, the Land and the Kingston Fall Fair since 1830.” If you’ve ever lived in mid-town Kingston, you’ve been on Herchmer land. Zoom link here closer to the date. All are welcome.
Wednesday March 8, Marine Museum of the Great Lakes at Kingston presents Nautical Nights #3 Nautical Nights #4 “HMS Speedy“with Dan Buchanan. Book Now>
Wednesday March 22, Marine Museum of the Great Lakes at Kingston presents Nautical Nights #5, “Pierre’s Song: The Beaupres of Portsmouth” with David More and Marie Edwards. Book Now>
Wednesday March 29, Marine Museum of the Great Lakes at Kingston presents Nautical Nights #6 “The Politics of the Niagara River” with Daniel MacFarlane. Book Now>