Journalism professor Randy Boswell’s writings about Ottawa history have been showcased in a new book and in local media coverage surrounding this month’s 200th anniversary of the 1826 founding of Bytown — the future Ottawa — and the launch of construction of the Rideau Canal.

Boswell teamed with Ottawa photographer and publisher John McQuarrie to produce a new, lavishly illustrated book commemorating the city’s bicentennial. Ottawa, Spirit of Place: 200th Anniversary Edition contains new essays by Boswell about the history of Canada’s capital as well as a selection of history-themed feature stories and columns he published over the past 20-plus years in the Ottawa Citizen.

The book’s main essay, a 10,000-word retelling of Ottawa’s origin story, aimed to incorporate details typically missing from existing accounts of the beginnings of the city and the canal, says Boswell. These include the routinely erased backstory of the dislocation and dispossession of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people who had occupied the Ottawa Valley for millennia before the founding of Bytown by canal builder Lt.-Col. John By and Lord Dalhousie, Governor-in-Chief of British North America.

“The seminal ‘moment’ in Ottawa history — the reason the city is marking its 200th anniversary in 2026 — has typically been summed up by local historians as an auspicious meeting of two dauntless British men on Sept. 26, 1826, at a backwoods outpost destined to become the capital of Canada,” Boswell writes. “It’s true. But a closer, lingering look at the genesis story of Bytown-Ottawa invites us to think of that moment in a more layered way, as a series of illuminating scenes surrounding that famous, future-shaping encounter between Lt.-Col. John By and Lord Dalhousie . . .

“In this era of truth and reconciliation, the Indigenous people — whose bonds with the land that became Ottawa reach back thousands of years — are held in high esteem by municipal, provincial and federal leaders. But through ongoing land claims on both sides of the Ottawa River — for centuries the ‘Kichi Zibi’ lifeblood of Algonquin commerce and culture in the capital region — they are still seeking restitution, 200 years after the founding of Bytown, for lost but never ceded territory throughout their ancestral watershed.”

A version of the same essay appeared in the Citizen on Saturday, Sept. 26, billed as a “takeover” of the newspaper’s front section as a special offering to mark the exact day of the city’s 200th birthday. Boswell and McQuarrie also held a book-signing session at Indigo’s Rideau Centre store on the same day.
Earlier this month, CBC Ottawa radio journalist Robyn Bresnahan — a graduate of �Ӱ�ԭ��’s journalism program — hosted an episode of her podcast, This is Ottawa, exploring Boswell’s fresh research findings about the city’s origins.

For example, Lady Dalhousie — who accompanied her husband on the vice-regal voyage up the Ottawa River that led to the founding of the future Ottawa on Sept. 26, 1826 — emerges in Boswell’s narrative as an important natural historian and collector of botanical specimens in early 19th-century Canada. The story of a maple sprig she collected along the way to the birth of Bytown was traced to the present-day holdings of Canada’s Royal Botanical Gardens after being lost for more than a century in a storage trunk in a Scottish castle.

Photographs of an official version of the letter from Dalhousie to By dated Sept. 26, 1826 — widely hailed as “Ottawa’s birth certificate” — were reproduced for the first time in the book and the Citizen.

And Boswell unearthed other previously overlooked details about the founding of the city, including the fact that — on the eve of Bytown’s birth — By, Dalhousie and members of their respective entourages took a reconnaissance hike through the woods and swamps that would eventually become the path of the canal through central Ottawa — including present-day Old Ottawa South and possibly the campus of �Ӱ�ԭ�� University.

This year’s iteration of the longstanding Global Journalism Internship program will see students from �Ӱ�ԭ��’s Bachelor of Journalism and Master of Journalism programs take up 12-week internships in Ghana, Uganda or Zambia with the Ottawa-based Canadian organization .

The interns will collaborate with local partners to produce the next season of the podcast that showcases the nature-based solutions being practiced by African communities to counter climate change. The interns will also be sharing their experiences through blogs posted to the journalism program site .

Interns heading to Africa this year, front row L-R: Victoria Silva McGuire, Kyla Silva, Sarah Harb, Georgia Looman and Stefanja Ottier. Back row L-R Ben Jorgenson, Dan Arnold and Matheus Modesto-Nelson.

�Ӱ�ԭ��’s Global Journalism Internships unfolding this year are the continuation of a program that has been in operation since 2006 and has sent more than 300 �Ӱ�ԭ�� journalism students to the Global South on media internships.

“These internships provide life-changing experiential learning opportunities for our students,” said Allan Thompson, the founder of the internship program and currently the head of �Ӱ�ԭ��’s journalism program. “Over two decades, I have been determined to keep these internships going because of the remarkable life experience they offer for our students,” Thompson said.

�Ӱ�ԭ�� intern Madison Eldridge, on the ground last year in Uganda.

Working with Farm Radio partners on the ground, the �Ӱ�ԭ�� interns will identify and plan for podcast episodes and undertake field travel to rural communities to record video, audio and photographs, with a focus on audio. In the end, they will work on the editing and production of podcast episodes, as well as video and written stories.

The �Ӱ�ԭ�� internships were originally an offshoot of the partnership �Ӱ�ԭ�� forged in 2006 with the journalism school at the National University of Rwanda, the Rwanda Initiative project that operated from 2006 to 2012, fostering journalism education and independent media in post-genocide Rwanda. Over the first few years of the program, all the �Ӱ�ԭ�� interns took up placements with Rwandan media outlets.

�Ӱ�ԭ�� intern Abyssinia Abebe on the ground last year in Cote d’Ivoire.

But even after the Rwanda partnership wound down, the internships continued, in partnership with several other organizations across Africa, including Farm Radio International.

For the last four years, Farm Radio’s work on the����project has been the primary focus of the �Ӱ�ԭ�� internships, producing the��Nature Answers��podcast that��shares stories from rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa, where some of the most vulnerable people on earth are turning to nature for solutions to a changing climate.

You can����from Season 4 of��Nature Answers.

This year’s �Ӱ�ԭ�� interns include:

• Dan Arnold has just completed the third year of �Ӱ�ԭ��’s four-year Bachelor of Journalism program and is taking up an internship in Ghana.
• Sarah Harb just completed the first year of �Ӱ�ԭ��’s Master of Journalism program and will be travelling to Uganda.
• Ben Jorgenson also just completed the first year of �Ӱ�ԭ��’s Master of Journalism program and will take up an internship in Ghana.
• Georgia Looman is heading into the fourth year of �Ӱ�ԭ��’s Bachelor of Journalism program and will travel to Ghana.
• Matheus Modesto-Nelson is heading into the fourth year of �Ӱ�ԭ��’s Bachelor of Journalism program and will be on internship in Zambia.
• Stefanja Ottier has just completed the second year of �Ӱ�ԭ��’s Bachelor of Journalism program and will take up an internship in Zambia.
• Victoria Silva McGuire has just completed the first year of �Ӱ�ԭ��’s Master of Journalism program and is headed to Uganda.
• Kyla Silva has just completed the third year of �Ӱ�ԭ��’s Bachelor of Journalism program and is taking up an internship in Zambia.

Farm Radio’s mandate since its creation in 1979 has been to use radio as a vehicle to achieve development goals and to explore how to get people to listen to useful programming that brings about change. Various Farm Radio projects over the years have focused on farming, gender equality, sexual health and mental health. The focus on radio as a medium has expanded to include another important media platform – the mobile phone.

The �Ӱ�ԭ�� interns recently underwent a two-day pre-departure orientation exercise at Farm Radio, led by the organization’s communications manager Blair Amyotte.

“We’re very grateful for our continued partnership with �Ӱ�ԭ��’s journalism program,’’ Amyotte said. “Every year, we get an incredible group of candidates who are eager, professional and excited to learn and grow. I have great confidence that this group travelling to Zambia, Ghana and Uganda this summer as part of our Nature-based Solutions project with��Global Affairs Canada, will amplify voices and stories from some incredible communities across��the continent.”

Farm Radio’s��On Air��project is funded by Global Affairs Canada. The �Ӱ�ԭ�� travel awards that help fund these internships are supported by the Office of the Dean of the Faculty of Public and Global Affairs.

Freelance journalist Jessica Patterson and �Ӱ�ԭ�� journalism professor Kanina Holmes have been awarded the prestigious fellowship for their project��“AI Literacy for Canadian Journalism Education.”

Freelance journalist Jessica Patterson (left) and journalism professor Kanina Holmes have been awarded the Michener – L. Richard O’Hagan Fellowship for Journalism Education

The project aims to develop, test, and disseminate educational modules that will prepare journalism students for the critical and ethical use of artificial intelligence in Canadian newsrooms.

At a time when many media organizations are��establishing��guidelines for AI use, the project��seeks��to strengthen public trust in journalism by ensuring future journalists are equipped to use these tools responsibly.

Patterson is a freelance journalist, researcher, and instructor with 20 years of experience across Canadian and international media and is a graduate of �Ӱ�ԭ��’s Master of Journalism program. Her independent research on AI adoption in Canadian newsrooms . She teaches Advanced Practices in Multimedia Storytelling at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies.

Holmes is a graduate of �Ӱ�ԭ��’s Bachelor of Journalism program and has been on the faculty since 2003. Before joining �Ӱ�ԭ��, she worked in daily journalism for 20 years, including stints in local and national radio with CBC Ottawa and CBC Whitehorse, local and national television (with CTV in Ottawa, Global News in Winnipeg and CBC Ottawa and CBC North), and as a senior correspondent for Reuters. She is currently editor-in-chief of the Yukon Magazine and recently spent three years on a leave from �Ӱ�ԭ�� as executive producer with CBC North. She is also a candidate for a Doctorate of Education at Simon Fraser University.

“This is such a formative time for journalism and for journalism education,” Holmes said. “This award will give Jessica and I the chance to figure out ways to build media literacy, critical thinking, and productive and ethical uses of AI, both in the classroom and in the field of journalism for the next generation of reporters.”�Ӱ�ԭ��’s journalism program will serve as the institutional partner for the project and will pilot AI literacy modules in some journalism courses, involve journalism students in module testing and evaluation and host an instructor training workshop.

“This project addresses head-on an urgent need identified across Canadian journalism programs,’’ said Allan Thompson, the head of �Ӱ�ԭ��’s journalism program. “As educators, we recognize the gap between newsroom expectations for AI literacy and current pedagogical resources. We urgently need tested, ready-to-use curriculum modules that balance practical AI tool training with critical ethical frameworks.”

The Michener Foundation also announced the winner of the Michener-Deacon Fellowship for Investigative Journalism, awarded to Jordan Michael Smith for his project,��“The Hague Mothers.”�� Smith’s project will investigate a critical loophole in the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction that can result in children being returned to potentially abusive parents, even when risks are known. The work will��centre��on the case of Thuy Nguyen, a Canadian woman whose children were returned to their father in Poland despite his status on Interpol’s most-��wanted list.

The Michener fellowship recipients will be��honoured��at the annual��Michener Awards ceremony at Rideau Hall on Thursday, June 18.��This event unveils the winners of the Michener Award for public service journalism in Canada. Finalists for the 2026 Michener Award will be announced next week.

The Michener Awards��honour, celebrate, and promote excellence in Canadian public service journalism. Established in 1970 by the late Right��Honourable��Roland Michener, Governor General of Canada from 1967 to 1974, the Michener Awards are Canada’s premier journalism award. The Michener Awards Foundation’s voluntary Board of Directors administers the award, in partnership with the Rideau Hall Foundation and with sponsorship from BMO, Cision, and Power Corporation of Canada. Learn more at��.

Mary McGuire with this year’s CBC North intern Grace Knapp.

The program was the brainchild of long-time journalism professor Mary McGuire, who had to leave her position on �Ӱ�ԭ��’s journalism faculty in 2018 because of a terminal cancer diagnosis. She encouraged CBC North to create the internships in tandem with the travel fund, which has been supplemented by donations from friends and colleagues. The internship arrangement with CBC was just renewed for another five years.

McGuire began her journalism career with CBC in Whitehorse and decided that her legacy at �Ӱ�ԭ�� would be a fund to offset the costs of travel and living expenses for �Ӱ�ԭ�� students who took up paid internships in the north.

“It was lovely to meet Grace and wish her well as she heads off to the Yukon on an extraordinary adventure and learning experience to����launch her journalistic career at CBC in Whitehorse,” McGuire said. “Canada’s North is a unique part of the country full of fascinating stories for young journalists with a sense for curiosity and a passion to help others understand part of the country few get to experience.����She will carry the lessons of its remarkable geography, culture and peoples with her through her life, as I did after launching my career there.”

Knapp was born and raised in the rural west end of Ottawa and completed a Bachelor of Global and International Studies at �Ӱ�ԭ�� before enrolling in the two-year Master of Journalism program she has just finished. She says she initially thought of doing international policy work but was drawn to journalism as “a more immediate way to explore how power and institutions shape people’s lives.”

“I’m really grateful for an opportunity like the CBC North internship because it’s a chance to live and work in a part of the country I’ve always wanted to experience, while continuing to grow as a journalist,” Knapp said. “I think there is so much to learn from the community and from the CBC team, so I’m looking forward to stepping outside my comfort zone and seeing where it takes me.”

Mervin Brass, Senior Managing Director for CBC North, has been involved with the internship program from its beginnings in 2020.

“The opportunity provides a supportive learning environment for new journalists to develop the skills required to work in a newsroom,” Brass said. “Our journalists travel to remote northern communities to meet with people and gather their stories to share locally and with the rest of Canada. Through these experiences, new journalists better understand the nuance and complexity of northern stories while also seeing the beauty of northern Canada. This work placement is a life-changing experience.”

Mary McGuire at a Dec. 1 event held to mark the extension of the CBC North internship program she instigated in 2020.

CBC President Marie-Philippe Bouchard came to �Ӱ�ԭ�� last December to make the announcement of the extension of the internship program and to thank McGuire personally.

“Journalism internships like this one are essential. They help forge strong journalistic skills which are needed now more than ever, given today’s environment of polarization, misinformation and disinformation,” Bouchard said. “It gives interns a unique opportunity to live and work in the north.”

�Ӱ�ԭ��’s partnership with CBC North has already given five journalism graduates the rare opportunity to work in Canada’s North. The McGuire fund will have resources to continue for many more years . And �Ӱ�ԭ��’s new Certificate in Journalism in Indigenous Communities also holds the promise of producing more Indigenous journalism grads who could also take up such opportunities.

McGuire said she’s proud that her dream lives on. “The dream was to partner with the CBC to create a paid summer internship in the North for a �Ӱ�ԭ�� Journalism graduate and create a travel fund to help cover the high airfare and housing costs to make it possible for a student to do it. Thanks to the CBC and so many friends, colleagues and supporters for helping make that dream come true and continue.”

�Ӱ�ԭ�� offers a number of internship opportunities for students to apply the journalism skills they learn in the classroom, build their portfolios and open doors to career opportunities after graduation. But before the CBC North partnership, few of those short-term internship opportunities existed in newsrooms in northern or Indigenous communities in Canada. The high cost of travel and accommodation is a barrier to most students.

One part of McGuire’s legacy at �Ӱ�ԭ�� will be this program that helps to introduce another generation of students to Canada’s North, to follow in her footsteps.

Popplewell’s article was published online by The Walrus on April 15 and is slated to be the cover article in the June edition of the prestigious magazine.

Journalism professor Brett Popplewell on the ground in Nuuk, Greenland.

Popplewell travelled in February to Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, and his feature chronicles how local residents were bracing for invasion.

“The implausible threat of an American invasion had transformed the quiet Arctic city of Nuuk into an unlikely stage for a global showdown,” Popplewell says. The remote community had become “a rallying point for NATO troops and international diplomats all trying to preserve the rules-bound world order.”

Popplewell is an associate professor of journalism at �Ӱ�ԭ�� and the bestselling author of Outsider: An Old Man, a Mountain, and the Search for a Hidden Past. A contributing writer for The Walrus, he has also written for��Bloomberg, Businessweek,��Mother Jones, the��Globe and Mail, the��Toronto Star,��Sportsnet, and���Ѳ������𲹲�’s, among other publications.

On top of his full-time workload as a faculty member in the School of Journalism and Communication, Popplewell is often out in the field as a reporter. He was intrigued by the unfolding situation in Greenland and convinced The Walrus to commission his report.

“What struck me most from my trip was how deeply Trump’s threats had unsettled local residents,” Popplewell said. “People were on edge. Several told me they’d drawn up escape plans to Canada and elsewhere.

“The longer I spent on the ground, the more I understood just how personally the annexation threats had hit people. But more than that, I was struck by the willingness many had to share their stories in the hope that doing so might help shape their island’s fate. I hope this reporting will add some clarity to this continuing puzzle.”

Student projects with community partners used media production and design tools to address such topics as civic and youth engagement, Indigenous storytelling and sovereignty, community third spaces, municipal and provincial policies and governance and community empowerment. The annual capstone event was this year dubbed “Real Designs – Taking Flight.”

Students from the Arrival Initiative project explain their work with the Arnprior Museum.

“We are at our core storytellers,’’ said Prof. Stéfy��McKnight, the interim program director in media production and design and leader of the project.

“We’re also acknowledging the folks who have been the longest and the original storytellers here in Ottawa, the Algonquin nation. We’re very fortunate to have been able to work with various Indigenous partners throughout this year.”

Prof. Stéfy McKnight is the interim program director in media production and design.

McKnight noted that much of the capstone work was the result of deep engagement with community partners in Ottawa, who also have a stake in the storytelling.

This is McKnight’s fifth year supervising and teaching the MPAD Capstone Projects course.

Students created documentaries, websites, social media campaigns and strategies, as well as workshop and event plans. And the entire exhibition was supported by student fundraising.

The capstone exhibit showcased nine student projects with community partners:

• 613Sounds is a podcast series that highlights Ottawa’s local music scene, exploring how the city’s musical environment fosters a sense of community and belonging. Across genres, a range of interviews spotlight independent local artists.
• Crow’s Path/Aandeg Miikana produced a number of deliverables for Indigenous youth in Thunder Bay, including a documentary Where the Crows Gather, highlighting youth resilience and countering negative portrayals.
• The Arrival Initiative partnered with Emily Stovel, curator and manager of culture for the District of Arnprior Museum. Students developed a workshop to support a project to train local participants to collect interviews with people who migrated to Arnprior in the last 50 years.
• Future Voices partnered with the Institute for Collaborative Innovation Canada to help youth engage with Canadian civic matters. An interactive website takes audiences on a train journey through a fictional representation of Canada’s future.
• Little Sips was the result of a student partnership with the City of Ottawa’s Infrastructure and Water Services Department to educate city residents about how to protect the city’s water systems. A four-part informational video series will be part of the city’s educational initiatives.
• The Withering Trillium produced a short film and social media series to highlight Bill 5, a piece of provincial legislation that many contend poses risks to the environment. Students partnered with Prof. Chris Russill, academic director at Re.Climate, a centre of climate communication and public engagement.
• The Zine Project, in partnership with the Sioux Lookout First Nations Health Authority, created an online presence to encourage the creation of zines to boost Indigenous youth mental health. The project promotes zines and zine-making workshops.
• City Studio Ottawa translated the complex data of Ottawa’s City Transportation Asset Management Plan by using an animated video to provide clearer and more accessible material on how the city evaluates the state of its infrastructure.
• Unedited Women developed a social media campaign, website and video testimonials to create a new branding palette to help Osa Natalie Fraser’s program reach a wider audience.

To raise funds for the capstone project, students hosted a live show at the Ollies campus bar in January. And local realtor Team Makan Real Estate also supported the capstone event.

As �Ӱ�ԭ�� journalism professor Matthew Pearson explained, a zine is a publication that often addresses topics from an independent or alternative viewpoint, emphasizing editorial control by the producer. Zines can break from conventional formats and are often photocopied, folded or stapled.

Final assembly of the zines produced by students in Matthew Pearson’s Trauma-Informed Journalism class

Many see a resurgence in zines as a reaction to the ephemeral nature of today’s pervasive digital media world, a place where content can be here today and gone tomorrow. Zines are a rollback to a more analogue time, permanent publications that you can hold in your hand and will never go away.

Journalism professor Matthew Pearson

And as Pearson pointed out, zines as a medium often provide space for marginalized voices and stories that are often excluded from traditional journalism.

In a way, what we now call zines have been used throughout history: in the secretly written and circulated literature of the Soviet era, in 1970s-era fanzines about punk culture and direct action, in the 1990s when zines explored feminist topics and described experiences with sexism, mental illness, body image and more.

“Zines are a creative act and at times, even an act of resistance,’’ said Pearson, who used zine production as a class project in his course Trauma-Informed Journalism.

“I was interested in bringing zines and zine-making into the classroom, especially at a time when I see so many young people gravitating to this form,’’ Pearson said. “Students created zines to explore ways to approach the coverage of a range of issues with greater care.”

A number of Pearson’s students spoke about their experiences with the zine project during the April 1 event in the school’s resource centre.

“At a time when journalism feels increasingly dehumanized because of AI … it was really special to work in such an imperfect and human medium,” said fourth-year journalism student Elissa Mendes, who was part of a team producing a zine called “How to report with care – even when it feels like the world is on fire.”

“It was just really nice to be able to operate outside of the framework of what was significant, interesting and new and satisfying to corporate media and focusing on what sells and generate clicks and instead, focus on how we can serve communities,” Mendes said.

Abyssinia Abebe, also a fourth-year journalism student, spoke of her team’s experience producing a zine called “The War on Women – online gender-based harassment.”

“Addressing this online-based harassment is about addressing misogyny in our society and that’s what we tried to get at here,’’ Abebe said.

Some of the zines produced by students in the Trauma-Informed Journalism class

Another of those who spoke at the event was 2024 journalism graduate Laura Blanchette, producer of the Mid City zine that focuses on municipal politics. Notably, Blanchette launched the Mid City zine project – which recently produced its ninth issue – with the support of The Peter Mansbridge Emerging Reporter Fund, a �Ӱ�ԭ�� award designed to support undergraduate and graduate journalism students pursuing an innovative research or reporting project with a focus on topics of governance and public social policy.

Blanchette spoke about a resurgence in ‘analogue’ publications that keep things local and focus on community.

She sees the mission of her zine as “bringing people into politics, especially city politics and local politics because that is where I think we can have a big impact, as citizens and as journalists.”

The Grief Cafe zine produced by Matthew Pearson and illustrator Sara Mizannojehdehi, was released March 31

The journalism school event took place the day after Pearson launched his own zine – The Grief Café: a hands-on guide to heartache and healing – at an emotional event held at the Happy Goat coffee shop, on Laurel St. in Ottawa. Working with illustrator Sara��Mizannojehdehi (a graduate of �Ӱ�ԭ��’s Bachelor of Media Production and Design), Pearson produced a powerful collection about grief and how to deal with the aftermath of losing a loved one.

Alboim’s remarkable career and his deep love and care for his family – wife Kathy, children Jennifer, Jesse and Jaime and his seven grandchildren – were celebrated in two hours of powerful, emotional and at times hilarious tributes.

The best way to take in the event is to watch the recording, which has been preserved on the journalism program’s YouTube site.

A veritable Who’s Who of Canadian journalism and public life attended the service. A gallery of photographs from the event is featured below.

Alboim’s family has established the to support students in the School of Journalism and Communication.