The year I started working as an Assistant Fire Management Clerk, I was a shy 19-year-old, timidly running radio communications for the Thunder Bay District’s wildland fire operations. I got over my shyness quickly, however, as that year Ontario experienced its worst fire season on record. 2021’s brought on more fires than usual, burning hotter and moving faster than could be suppressed. (the 51st fire in the Kenora district that year), a 200,000-hectare fire, became the largest ever recorded in Ontario, and hundreds of remote First Nations community members were forced to evacuate. Some went a relatively short distance to Thunder Bay, while others were dislocated thousands of kilometres away from their homes to Cornwall, Toronto, and Sudbury – a reminder of just how far one can be displaced within a single province.  

With fire weather becoming increasingly volatile in the climate crisis, predicting labour and resource needs for the fire season can be difficult. There’s a phrase often repeated in the fire management headquarters: “hurry up and wait.” It refers to the fact that a lot of the job is preparing to respond at a moment’s notice – and then waiting around, at that same level of any-moment-now readiness, until it does. 2021 was followed up by a remarkably slow fire season in 2022, where it was all waiting and no hurry. This meant no large, destructive fires, but it also meant no overtime or hands-on experience for fire crews, a deciding factor in retention for a seasonal job whose start pay has to $25.58 a hour – 1.5 times minimum wage, compared to 2 times minimum wage 20 years ago.  

Come 2023, Canada’s worst fire season on record, bases across Ontario were understaffed, underexperienced and overworked. Fires across the country resulted in destruction and displacement, exacerbated by a lack of experienced crew leaders and resources spread too thin across a country that was suddenly experiencing fire disasters across multiple provinces at . As the ’s Marco Oved explains, this climate change-fueled “new breed of fire… used to be a career” but is now a summer job where “a lack of experience can be deadly.” Mainstream media that year relayed stories of and resulting in the deaths of over the course of the season, not to mention the countless untold stories that were less sensational, but no less destructive. 

[Screen grab of NRCan’s , displaying Canada’s active fires as of July 7, 2025.] 

2025 is shaping up to rival 2023, with forecasts of severe fire weather in western provinces in . Evacuees from Saskatchewan and Manitoba are only now beginning to , the former province’s two largest fires having burnt combined, or an area 40 times the size of Saskatoon. Red Lake 12, a fire rivalling the aforementioned Kenora 51 in size, has resulted in evacuations from multiple communities, with news coverage displaying dramatic scenes like workers sheltering from the blaze in a . Meanwhile, Ontario’s fire crew outfit is 45 crews and 100 fire rangers below its ideal staffing. Compounded by a lack of experience, seasonal rather than permanent positions, and climate changed-induced fire weather, the current labour shortage across Canada’s wildfire operations negatively affects and increases the risk of large, destructive fires that place fire rangers in danger and require evacuations.  

[Photo credits to Neil Gillespie/Facebook via .]  

On the ground, less human resources means even worst devastations for the most vulnerable communities. Specifically, for First Nations communities forced to evacuate, these disasters are becoming all too common while risk management is worsening. As explained in a on emergency management in First Nations communities, “First Nations communities are about 18 times more likely than non-Indigenous communities to be evacuated during an emergency because of their remoteness, location in fire- and flood-prone areas, aging infrastructure, and challenging socio-economic situations” (15). The report also found that Indigenous Services Canada spends 3.5 times more on disaster recovery than on prevention, a “more reactive than preventative” (3) approach that, without change, means First Nations will continue to experience disasters that “could be averted” (4).  

Nick Leeson and Alexys Santos, lawyers with Indigenous self-governance-focused law firm , explain how historical criminalization of traditional fire stewardship practices, through measures such as British Columbia’s , has left First Nations without the capacity to manage forest health in their own territories. In Ontario, Dan Johnston’s for the Forest History Society of Ontario describes how the 1917 implemented a stringent suppression mandate, which over time has left forests vulnerable to insect infestations and wind damage. all changing the “fire regime,” or fire behaviour in a certain area, and creating a wilderness highly reactive to the extreme conditions caused by the climate crisis and resource extraction.  

When smoke settled over Ottawa’s downtown in early June, it felt, in a strange way, like home. That nostalgia for scratchy lungs and eerie, beautiful sunsets, so familiar to anyone raised up north, betrays a staggering privilege, an ability to retreat inside and remark on the shocking heat and humidity while benefiting from the very processes – fossil fuel extraction, logging, and mining – accelerating climate disasters. How, then, do we think about fires – tangible, dramatic disasters you can see, measure and smell – alongside the other disasters shadowing them, those of labour shortages and legislative neglect; in other words, disasters of inaction? How do we treat fire disasters as, in the words of feminist ecology scholar “absolute wrongs that obligate us to act, and not simply as unfortunate tragedies that leave us bereft” (476)? How does the haze of smoke, stretching across the continent, remind us to act as if the fire is here, too?  

– Charlotte Johnston, Special Contributor to The Disaster Lab.

The post Hurry Up and Wait: Forest Fires and Disaster Prevention appeared first on The Disaster Lab.

On December 17th and 18th 2024, two groups of grade 10 Geography students from Colonel By High School journeyed to �Ӱ�ԭ�� University to tour the campus and participate in a workshop hosted by two Disaster Lab team members: PhD candidates Emma Awe and Rebecca Friend. Together, workshop participants situated their own understandings of what qualifies as a disaster within the context of the definition used by the . They were then invited to study past Ottawa university students’ transnational connections to global disasters using historical inquiry methods, with the ultimate goal of visualizing their findings in an . Combining these approaches created a stimulating workshop that put contemporary students into conversation with students from the past and teased out connections to disasters across geographic space and historical time.

Defining ‘Disaster’

Our workshop opened by asking the high school students how they would define the term “disaster.” This was an important grounding exercise that generated many different responses and examples about what might qualify as a ‘disaster.’ Across both groups, students suggested that disasters are often events with negative consequences and causing significant, unexpected, lingering, and/or dramatic changes.Their collective definition also described how these could be damages to infrastructure, humans, animals, and productivity. One group further explained how a disaster’s impact is compounded by social, religious, cultural, demographic, and economic realities of affected regions.

When asked to provide examples, students covered a full range of events that were either  caused by environmental or human activity, or a mix of the two. While some were standard examples like hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis (with some examples of each provided), and major historical events like the Halifax Explosion, mass plagues including Covid-19, and Chernobyl, other examples took on a more political tone, pushing up against the limits of their definitions. These included events like the murder of George Floyd and other members of Black communities across the United States, 9/11, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the French Revolution, the 2008 Economic Crisis, 9/11, and the rise in anti-Asian hate post-Covid.

Even though some of these examples may not be the typical ones that spring to mind when thinking about past disasters, they all fit within the both specific, yet amorphous, definition offered by the , wherein a disaster meets one or more of the following criteria:

• 10 or more people killed
• 100 or more people affected/injured/infected/evacuated or homeless
• an appeal for national/international assistance
• historical significance
• significant damage/interruption of normal processes such that the community affected cannot recover on its own

The students’ thinking encouraged us to push back against conventions implicit in common conceptions of disaster definitions and examples, moving the needle to encapsulate more political interpretations of what has been disastrous for different communities.

Tracing Transnational Student Connections

Following the establishment of some baseline definitions and examples, students were then invited to engage with the second part of our workshop: an examination of transnational connections between past Ottawa university students and disasters occuring in international contexts. We defined the term ‘transnational’ as historical processes, events, ideas, movements, and more that transcend national borders. We looked to underscore the fluidity and porosity of borders in order to show students how events occurring in an international arena may still have impacted students studying in Canadian contexts. To have participants begin looking at these convergences, a selection of archived articles were pulled from – �Ӱ�ԭ��’s student newspaper started in 1945 as The �Ӱ�ԭ��, but operating as The Charlatan since the 1970s. The Charlatan is written by, for, and about �Ӱ�ԭ�� students and spreads awareness about student experiences at local, national, and international levels.

The five selected articles described a mix of student connections to disasters, from clubs like the and the , to longer profiles on diasporic students reacting to events back home, like the or the . Efforts by served as the final article selection.

With scans of the articles in hand, alongside archival Charlatan volumes on loan from the library and available for perusal, students worked in groups to read one of the selected articles and reflect on student-led disaster relief efforts. They were asked to consider why students were responding to a disaster, how they led their relief campaigns, and how the disaster was represented in the article. In order to do so, they were asked to analyse their articles, conduct additional research on the disasters in question, and then prepare a blurb about the disaster emphasizing connections to �Ӱ�ԭ�� students. Each group then presented their findings to the class.

Their presentations demonstrated that the students were able to establish important context for the disasters in question and to make connections between �Ӱ�ԭ�� students and diasporic disaster experiences. Through guided discussion, students reflected on similarities across the presentations, the reasons why students might be well positioned to want to help or care about disasters in a global context, and finally what some of the values are of studying and mapping historical disasters.

Mapping

These presentations then served as the main data points for a pre-configured ArcGIS Story Map. With �Ӱ�ԭ�� University as the starting point, arrows follow the path of relief efforts outwards to affected areas around the world and across time. Flipping through slides in the , students’ analysis of unique responses, as outlined in The Charlatan articles, is paired with an interactive map and images of the disasters. Students identified several types of disaster responses, including material donations, raising funds, and spreading awareness.

In both the , students’ collaborative research findings are visualized for wider audiences.

Throughout this workshop, students learned critical methods of historical analysis by reading The Charlatan as a primary source, supported by their secondary source research about disasters. Importantly, students also remarked how reading about past student-led relief campaigns inspired them to think about how they can revive some of these tactics and approaches to engage in climate advocacy and awareness today. They recognized similarities across their advocacy efforts and those led by past studDisaster Lab Activity Guide Transnational Student Disaster Connectionsents in crisis. As educators, we hoped that providing examples of student-led campaigns, as reported upon by students, would act as historical learning, but also as community-building. Urging students to reflect on these historical case studies, the workshop bridges and empowers student communities across time.

If you’re interested in adapting this workshop for your own class, a copy of the lesson plan is available for download here.

– Emma Awe and Rebecca Friend

The post Classroom Connections: Linking Contemporary Youth with Historical Students’ Transnational Experiences of Disasters appeared first on The Disaster Lab.

As earlier posts have noted, the seeds for the Disaster Lab research project were planted before the Covid-19 pandemic. They emerged out of an observation, and a concern, that the bulk of the research and the discourse on climate change refugees or environmental refugees emphasized movement within and from the Global to the Global north. These discussions seemed to run counter to the more on climate change, which emphasizes that this is a phenomenon that affects us all, albeit unevenly.

The project’s original goal had been to conduct oral history interviews with those who had experienced displacement in Canada to better understand life in their communities, before, during, and after their forced movement. In keeping with some of the foundational principles in Social History, the project sought to learn from the lived experience and perspectives of those most affected.

Just as we began the project, however, the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Living through the pandemic changed everything. The very idea of reaching out to a community to ask about life in disaster seemed unconscionable given the strains that navigating the pandemic placed on individuals, families, and communities. Researchers and potential interviewees alike were living through the extremes of the pandemic. As a result, there was a depth of understanding, based on our own varied experiences in terms of family and employment circumstances, about what it would feel like to be interviewed about a difficult topic during difficult times. Swooping in to talk about displacement and disasters was a non-starter.

The implications of the decision not to pursue oral history interviews about displacement and disaster reverberated in several ways.

The premise for the project shifted to consider historical instances of displacement within Canada as a result of environmental disasters and climate change. One example is  the thousands of people who moved or relocated from the Prairies during the “” drought conditions of the 1930s. Using information in the , the project documented over three hundred discrete disasters within Canada that resulted in some form of displacement, evacuation, or relocation. Many of these were the result of environmental disasters including flooding and wildfires.

The other concerning dimension was a trend we observed from an initial overview of the evacuation events we identified in the Canadian Disaster Database. Namely, the vast majority of communities affected by environmental factors and displacement were Indigenous. There were repeated examples of displacements in the , and as a result of flooding. This finding should perhaps have been obvious even in the early planning stages of the project given the extensive history of forced relocation, displacement, and containment of Indigenous peoples on reserve lands, which were often located in environmentally vulnerable areas. Nevertheless, this particular finding raised alarms about proceeding with oral history interviews given the many, and repeated interventions by Indigenous communities and scholars about academic research that is extractive in nature.

At the most basic level, the pandemic context raised the question of whether it ever would have been, or would be, appropriate for researchers to approach a community with the express purpose of researching their experience of disaster and displacement. This question goes beyond the notion of collaborative research, where researchers work in tandem with community members to develop research protocols and methods. As generations of scholars have demonstrated, this approach is crucially important for addressing power inequities inherent in academic research partnerships where the perceptions of expertise and authority can lead to research projects that ignore or disregard community interests. Collaborative research projects aim to correct this imbalance, however, they are not unproblematic. As Linda Tuhiwai Smith has observed of collaborative research projects undertaken by non-Indigenous scholars with Indigenous communities, collaborative approaches can sometimes impose colonizing, disciplinary approaches to research rather than recognizing “”. Collaborative research, though intended as a partnership in spirit, can often be uneven and even harmful in practice.

These general observations alongside a series of ongoing reflections led to a fundamental shift in the Disaster Lab’s approach to studying the history of environmental displacement in Canada. Rather than creating oral histories with communities, we are creating historical resources (largely through the blog posts, resources, and maps on this website) with communities in mind. Our revised goal is to document the extent of displacement in Canada and to theorize thematic connections, which we hope will be useful for communities who may wish to pursue their own research on these topics in the future.

This approach is in keeping with the that foregrounds the lived experience and narratives of individuals and communities who have been marginalized by dominant society and nation-building narratives that facilitate the inclusion of some stories and perspectives and, relatedly, perpetuates the exclusion of others. Rather than tell other people’s stories, however, with a view to correcting or clarifying existing narratives, the Disaster Lab aims to create different kinds of foundations from which community research can build. Based on the research and reflections we have pursued over the past few years, we can see how research foundations can encourage and inspire community members to ask their own questions about their histories and pursue their own projects. With this approach, the project returns to the notion that knowledge or as the title of Keith Basso’s acclaimed study suggests “”. We layer this with the understanding that not all knowledge needs to be shared for public consumption. Rather, knowledge can and often should live in community.

– Laura Madokoro

The post The Ethics of Disaster Research appeared first on The Disaster Lab.

I was knee-deep in my continuous research on the history of disasters when the by American writer Mark Twain came to mind. Coincidentally, as a true-blue ADHD-er, I was also scrolling through my Instagram reels and came across a clip of someone poking fun of Humanities and Arts majors, with someone jokingly saying something similar to, “Arts majors don’t make money, because they’re stuck in the past instead of investing in the future.” While this admittedly made me chuckle a bit, it also got me thinking how harmful it can be to not take academic disciplines such as historical studies seriously. 

Why do we, the research team here at the Disaster Lab, indeed focus our attention on past disasters, when we can use our energy to make the future better? Simply put, studying history could help us create a better future, by preventing ourselves from making the same mistakes. While it may appear obvious, we as a society still tend to underestimate the impact of this perspective.

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction () recently published the Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction () for the year 2024, serendipitously titled, The report highlights the increasing risk of disasters globally, often driven by factors such as climate change and anthropogenic (human-made) choices and activities. The document states that the higher the global temperature gets, which is , “the world faces a new and unprecedented level of climate hazards.” 

Canadians, particularly us who are fortunate enough to live in cities where disaster relief is more accessible, tend to look past (albeit mostly unintentionally) discourses that involve these issues—partly due to the fact that disasters are often associated with developing countries, rural communities, and/or marginalized communities. Due to this dominant narrative, from a Global North perspective, we may be inclined to normalize the occurrence of catastrophic events in the Global South. However, extreme disasters are far from “normal,” and the Global North is not completely safe from them and its effects (eg: )

Learning from the past, to help with the future

“If we accept that disasters are neither natural nor inevitable, then we must work to prevent, or at least reduce their impact.”

One aspect that the report emphasizes is the importance of understanding the root causes of disasters, and making informed decisions on risk management, through “disaster forensics.” The methodology simplifies the study of disasters through three main steps: 

Step 1 – Understanding the ‘Disaster DNA’: This involves analyzing the specific hazard, exposure, and vulnerability factors that made a disaster unique (or familiar) and significant. For instance, answering questions such as, ‘What specific hazard happened?’, ‘Where did it occur and who was exposed?’, ‘Who was most affected and why?’, and ‘What/Who survived and why?.’

Step 2 – Focusing on Future Trends: This means looking further into the key areas of the ‘disaster DNA’ to predict future trends. For example, if a flood was mainly caused by urbanization and informal settlements, what are the current and potential future trends involving these factors?

Step 3 – Forensic Learning: This final step involves facilitating multi-stakeholder discussions and analysis to help co-create future policies and practical actions to reduce the risk associated with each “DNA strand,” and to help consider the impacts of future disasters and scenarios. 

Studying history in association with contemporary events, particularly in issues such as global disasters, play a crucial role in preventing and/or reducing the risks of future (and inevitable) hazardous events. Analyzing past records expose recurring patterns that may help predict and identify potential disasters, resulting in organizations and government bodies putting together more effective policies and relief measures. Knowing our history helps us understand how social, economic, environmental, and political factors contribute to the level of danger individuals are exposed to. In turn, we can then slowly dismantle misleading narratives, by revealing inequalities and power imbalances within our society, and how certain groups and communities become more vulnerable to these hazards compared to others.

—D. Espina

The post “History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes.” appeared first on The Disaster Lab.

On October 16, 1954, buried between the pages of the Toronto Evening Telegram, reads a seemingly out of place headline, “Beautiful Gowns Worn to Ball Despite Lashing Winds and Rain.”[i] The black and white photo collage framing the banner appears as an odd tribute to Toronto’s who’s who.[ii] Dressed to impress in their splendid and posh attire, the following article lists exactly who wore what right down to the jewels and accessories. In mild contrast to the smiles of a determined pair of guests, one out-turned umbrella hints at the presence of Hurricane Hazel.

Readers will have had to flip past the pages of horrific news stories: “Fear 58 Drowned,” “Damage Estimate is $100 Million,’’ and “I saw a man drown” before arriving at the headline, “Night in Nassau” Ball in support of the National Ballet.[iii] Hurricane Hazel and the cascading Humber River drowned out homes to ultimately render 81 dead and 1900 families homeless. In all, Hazel would cause over $25 million in damages in modern currency.[iv] Meanwhile, amid this calamity and chaos, the attendees of this soiree were making merry.

Why would editors of the “Tely” allot precious print space to this gala event with such an obtuse header? What more does this say about Toronto in 1954? How does this feature speak to the ways disaster is differently felt?

Sifting through the delicate and yellowing pages of the Telegram at the City of Toronto Archives, I admit I was unfamiliar with this particular newspaper. Founded by Canadian media giant John Ross Robertson in 1876, it would eventually cease publication in 1971 due to financial troubles.  In the late nineteenth century, the Telegram was the first to cater to the city’s changing demographic and appeal to a broader readership beyond businessmen and professionals. The first to practice “people’s journalism,” according to biographer Ron Poulton, the Telegram narrated events with a popular, sensational, and more superficial flare.[i] It was a family newspaper and the first without any political party affiliation. By 1954, the Telegram had changed ownership twice. In 1948, George McCullagh, owner of the Globe and Mail, purchased the paper for $3.6 million. Later in 1952, publisher John Bassett purchased the “Tely” for $4.2 million with funds from retail mogul John David Eaton.[ii]

The linkages between the Telegram, the Eaton family, and the National Ballet Readers are telling, as they offer a glimpse of what life was like in Toronto in the 1950s. From these relationships, I argue that the allure of post war development, optimism, and progress could not be deterred by Hurricane Hazel and its devastation. It would appear that this headline, albeit tone-deaf, curates a certain social immunity that allows wealth, culture and the high arts to appear safely outside of Hazel’s immediate path.

As the grandson of Timothy Eaton, founder of T. Eaton Company Ltd. in 1869, John David Eaton was born into Canadian retail royalty.[iii]  As president of the Eaton’s department store chain from 1942 to 1969, he was responsible for its expansion west while fueling rumors as the richest man in Canada for contributing an unprecedented $50 million to employee medical and retirement plans.[iv] Noted as a private and “shy” man, he is visibly absent from the Telegram feature. Instead, his wife “Mrs. J. D. Eaton” (Signy Steffanson Eaton) is photographed at the gala wearing a dark strapless ball gown alongside other prominent guests.[v] Together, the Eatons were lauded for their philanthropy.[vi]

Through the campaigning of Toronto’s Boris Volkoff Ballet, Canada’s first national ballet was established only years earlier in 1951. Recruiting “half-trained” students from across the country, the company held its inaugural performance at the Eaton Auditorium at the now historic College and Yonge Street location.[i] Listed among the feature’s fashion forward in Telegram’s exposé is the National ballet’s artistic director and founder, Celia Franca, wearing a gown of “Magnolia green satin”.[ii] A newcomer from London, she, like many new Torontonians, had left a Europe devastated by the Second World War.[iii] Life in 1950s Toronto signaled a time of new hope and old world culture as the company’s dance students, choreographers, and professionals asserted their European background and training into the Canadian arts. In an interview for the 2020 book Early Days, Early Dancers, dancer Myrna Aaron describes Toronto in the 1950s as “rather dreary and provincial—not at all like the metropolis it is today.”[iv] The 1951 fundraising campaign that helped inject the city with its current cultural urbanity called for $150,000 in sustainability funds, to which local businesses responded fervently to fundraise, gain board membership, and patronize the early performances of the National Ballet.[v]

The momentum this fundraiser brought to Toronto as the home of the nation’s own ballet company appears unphased by the arrival of Hurricane Hazel. Simply, Hazel was but a blip in the on-going plans towards the city’s metropolitan progress.

Despite The Telegram’s allegiance to both the Eaton family and the National ballet, the remaining headlines tell of the immediate and urgent realities of Hazel’s destruction. The frontpage headline in its bold type face reads, “Fear 58 drowned. 300 Missing in this area. City blocked off.” [vi] Immediately below is a black and white image of the “heroism” and rescue of civilian, Richard Stock, whose head is seen barely surfacing from the raging current of the Humber River. Metro Chairman Fred Gardiner, to whom Toronto’s main traffic artery, the Gardiner Expressway, is named after, issues an emergency decree under the headline “Damage estimate is $100 million” to cease all non-essential travel. Traffic over the bursting Humber River was thereby limited to two bridges for volunteers, fire fighters, and police to access on their rescue missions as the death toll rose in neighboring Etobicoke, Weston, Holland Marsh, Woodbridge and Unionville.[vii] Terrifyingly, another frontpage headline, “I saw a man drown,” details the futile screams of one victim, “Help me. Save me.”[viii] The storm that killed and displaced thousands along Toronto’s outskirts stood in stark contrast to the rain and wind that dampened a few ball gowns and tuxedos at the gala ball in the city’s downtown.

There is no sense of disaster, but a little bit of “rain and high water” when it comes to being seen within Toronto’s socialite circles as proprietors of high culture.[i] The Telegram was one such venue that showcased and celebrated this commitment. It did, of course, also owe its financial existence to Eaton funds. Perhaps, the show still goes on so to speak when much meaning is still being made for post-war Canada to stand culturally on its own with its nascent National Ballet. Though the victims of Hurricane Hazel will have felt an entirely different sense of urgency to their own lives and livelihoods through years of loss, recovery, and reconstruction, the legacy of metropolitan Toronto remains. As the immediacy of Hazel’s ruinous path unfolded, the headline,“Beautiful Gowns Worn to Ball Despite Lashing Winds and Rain,” assured readers that the Telegram was still moving forward alongside the individuals and institutions that saw a version of the city’s modernity, come what may.

– Darlyne Bautista

Notes

[i] Foster. “Beautiful Gowns Worn to Ball,” p.11.

[i] Jocelyn Terell Allen. Early Days, Early Dancers: Early Years of the National Ballet of Canada. Toronto, Ontario: Inanna Publications and Education Inc. 2020. p. 5.; See also Heritage Toronto. “Eaton Auditorium.” Sounds Like Toronto. 27 September 2022 (cited 26 December 2024).

[ii] Foster. “Beautiful Gowns Worn to Ball,” p.11.

[iii] Allen. Early Days, Early Dancers. pp. 18-19.

[iv] Allen. Early Days, Early Dancers. p. 2.

[v] Allen. Early Days, Early Dancers. pp. 8-9.

[vi] “Fear 58 drowned. 300 Missing in this area. City blocked off,” The Evening Telegram. 16 October 1954, p.1.

[vii] “Damage estimate is $100 million,” The Evening Telegram. 16 October 1954, p.1.

[viii] Val Sears. “I saw a man drown,” The Evening Telegram. 16 October 1954, p.1.

[i] P. Rutherford. “The Paper Tyrant: John Ross Robertson of the Toronto Telegram by Ron Poulton (Review).” The Canadian Historical Review 55, no. 1 (1974): 91–92; Ron Poulton. The Paper Tyrant: John Ross Robertson of the Toronto Telegram. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin, 1971.

[ii] Denise Marie. “Toronto Telegram – The Newspaper’s Explosive Force in Toronto’s History.” Toronto History. Toronto Journey 416. (cited 20 December 2024); York University Digital Library. “Toronto Telegram” Home. York University. (cited 20 December 2024).

[iii] Donica Belisle. Retail Nation : Department Stores and the Making of Modern Canada. Vancouver, B.C: UBC Press, 2011. Pp.82-83.

[iv] Historica / The Canadian Encyclopedia. “John David Eaton.” The Canadian Encyclopedia. 7 March 2014 (cited 26 December 2024).

[v] Foster. “Beautiful Gowns Worn to Ball,” p.11.

[vi] Royal Ontario Museum. “The Eaton Family.” Bio. Royal Ontario Museum. (cited 26 December 2024); Bruce Allen Kopytek. Eaton’s: The Trans-Canada Store. Charleston: The History Press. 2014.

[vii] Jocelyn Terell Allen. Early Days, Early Dancers: Early Years of the National Ballet of Canada. Toronto, Ontario: Inanna Publications and Education Inc. 2020. p. 5.; See also Heritage Toronto. “Eaton Auditorium.” Sounds Like Toronto. 27 September 2022 (cited 26 December 2024).

[viii] Foster. “Beautiful Gowns Worn to Ball,” p.11.

[ix] Allen. Early Days, Early Dancers. pp. 18-19.

[x] Allen. Early Days, Early Dancers. p. 2.

[xi] Allen. Early Days, Early Dancers. pp. 8-9.

[i] Lillian Foster. “Beautiful Gowns Worn to Ball Despite Lashing Winds and Rain,” The Evening Telegram. 16 October 1954, p.11.

[ii] “Hurricane Provides True ‘Night in Nassau’ Weather for National Ballet Guild Ball,” The Evening Telegram. 16 October 1954, p.11.

[iii] The Evening Telegram. 16 October 1954

[iv] James H. Marsh. “Toronto Feature: Hurricane Hazel.” Article. The Canadian Encyclopedia. 2 July 2015. (Cited 20 December 2024)

The post Hurricane Hazel’s Best Dressed: Reading between the headlines in the Toronto “Evening Telegram” appeared first on The Disaster Lab.

Pet-owning families will know the important role that animal companions play in the household. From dinner table companions anxiously awaiting fallen scraps, to bedside (or pillowside, depending on your willpower) sleeping partners, pets are an integral part of the family. It is no surprise, then, that during times of disaster, accommodations for pets are a top priority in household evacuation planning. 

Despite this priority, Canadian media describes a disaster landscape of , , and . These articles comment on the impact of disasters through the perspective of pets, and how they are folded into people’s families and considered as critical members of their community. The safety of these companion animals ultimately plays a role in the decision-making process families go through when under evacuation orders. 

Kimberly A. Williams, a Faculty Affiliate with Mount Royal University’s , detailed in an article for how the Fort McMurray wildfire in 2016 highlighted gaps in animal care protection. Williams emphasized how “humans will delay or refuse evacuation if they cannot evacuate with their pets or, at the very least, be assured that first responders and emergency management personnel have a well-organized plan for managing those pets that must be left behind.” Failing to consider pets as members of the family thus puts not only their lives in danger, but the lives of the entire household at risk.

The emphasis on the role pets play in disasters is not new. An archived article by Donald V. Martin titled “Prepare to Save Your Pet if There’s Disaster,” published in the Scarboro Consumer on February 13, 1980, reflected on the 1979 Mississauga rail wreck and the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear crisis in Pennsylvania- the worst accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history – and urged readers to prepare plans for their pets in the case emergency evacuations are ordered. 

An even earlier clipping from April 27, 1937, published in the Windsor Daily Star, described the tragic loss of many family pets after the Thames River flooded a large section of London, Ontario and 6,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes, many leaving their pets behind. The impacts of disasters on family pets has cropped up repeatedly across research focusing on Canadian print media’s recapping of disasters and requests for disaster preparedness.

In today’s landscape, where disaster events appear to be occurring with more frequency and ferocity, pet advocacy groups like Pets Canada have been for pets to be included in Canadian national disaster and evacuation strategies, such as the , where they are currently left out. A model for such a national strategy exists in the United States’ 2006 , an act that instructs local governments to include pets in their disaster management planning.

The PETS Act was introduced in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, where an estimated 200,000 pets were displaced and tens of thousands died. A highly emotive image of a young boy being separated from his small white dog, Snowball, before boarding an evacuation bus also made media rounds at the time, sparking an outcry from pet owners across the country. The connection between pets and their owners during Hurricane Katrina could not be ignored – according to a survey conducted by the , almost half (44%) of the respondents who did not evacuate chose to stay behind because of their pets. 

The loss of a family pet was also found to have severe repercussions on survivors of Hurricane Katrina. In a exploring how low-income Black single mothers from New Orleans made associations between pet loss, the perception of post-hurricane social support, and psychological distress, pet loss “significantly predicted postdisaster distress.” In Ashleigh M. Day found that “companion animal guardianship can impact disaster-relevant decisions, behaviors, psychological symptoms, and willingness to work during a time of disaster” (81).

The interconnectedness between disasters and pets is clear. Animals historians like Mieke Roscher, André Krebber, and Brett Mizelle suggest in their that “animals and the relationships humans have with them surface not only as powerful lenses for unpacking history, but as powerful forces in shaping history in the first place” (1). In fact, as Harriet Ritvo, an early proponent of animal studies writes in her , “most scholars who specialize in the study of animals believe that human beings fall within that category. But, often, such assertions seem defensive, even strident. Indeed, the recurrent need to make them reveals persistent semantic and cultural tension…” (119).

What would it look like, then, to write a history of disasters that includes the animal perspective in a way that doesn’t relegate animals to different categories of “family pets” or “farm animals” or “wildlife” – categories presumed to be distinct from the human experience? What could be gained from considering animals as community, in the same way that small white dogs are increasingly seen as members of the family? As we proceed with producing research and educational materials as part of the Disaster Lab project, it will remain important to underscore the non-human experiences of disasters as inextricable to the overall impacts of these catastrophic events.

– Rebecca Friend

The post Gone to the Dogs: Disasters and the Pet Perspective appeared first on The Disaster Lab.

The impact of Hurricane Hazel can be approached from a spatial historical perspective. Spatial history focuses on the relationship between humans and place over time. These relationships can be many things; physical, cultural, and economic, and the focus on this relationship gives space the capacity to act on the people that interact with it. In the context of Hurricane Hazel, the extreme flooding, damage to homes, and the legislating of certain areas as no longer safe to live had wide-ranging impacts on individuals’ and communities’ relationships to their spatial environments, depending on their country’s emergency responses. By charting the development of these relationships through time, we can gain insight into how the legacies of natural disasters shape the interplay between people and place nationally, internationally, and transnationally.  

In early October 1954, Hurricane Hazel was born in the Caribbean sea. On October 05, Hazel raged close to Grenada, and then the next day slipped between the islands of Grenada and Carriacou. Suddenly, two days later on October 07, the storm changed direction westward heading towards Haiti’s western tip, and when it hit near Baie-de-Henne with winds of 200 kph, total devastation followed. An estimated 400 to 1000 people were killed (the largest death toll compared to the other countries hit by Hurricane Hazel,) infrastructure such as homes, roads, electrical grids and water systems were damaged and many coffee and cacao plantations were destroyed causing long term impacts on Haiti’s agricultural industry.  

By October 15, Hazel touched down in North Carolina causing a storm surge of nearly 15 feet and 240 kph. 19 residents passed away and 15,000 homes were destroyed. Hazel continued blazing a path through the United States, causing similar damage in the southeastern to northeastern seaboard states of Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York, costing the United States $281 million in 1954 USD ($5 billion in 2024 CAD).  

On October 15 Hazel hit Toronto at 11 pm EST, and in the next 48 hours she ripped the city apart. Winds blew in around 110 kph and 285 millimetres of rain fell. Toronto flooded dramatically due to the Humber River drainage basin being deforested in 1946, so the water flowed freely, and the area’s floodplains were saturated already due to heavy rain in the days before. The flooding washed away roads, houses, bridges, and led to an estimated loss of 81 Ontario residents, many of whom drowned. In addition, Hazel left 4,000 people homeless and caused $100 million in 1954 CAD of damage (approximately $1 billion in 2024 CAD.) 

The tragic effects of Hurricane Hazel has had a lasting impact on the communities and environments that fell in its path. When viewed historically, Hurricane Hazel offers an important opportunity to understand how emergency preparedness and response have changed over time from the local to the global level. This post asks: can Hurricane Hazel, and national disasters more broadly, offer unique insight into societal norms and values of their time? 

Given Hazel’s devastating impact on multiple countries, the borderless nature of natural disasters provides an opportunity to approach the past from international and transnational perspectives. When viewed internationally, differences in emergency response can give insight into the impact of wealth disparity, colonial legacies, and international relations. Further research into the case study of Hurricane Hazel could provide valuable insight into the varying national responses to the hurricane and investigate how disaster relief, economic damage, and displacement are approached across national borders.  A transnational approach to studying Hazel could raise important questions about which communities and diasporas are impacted and how international aid workers contribute to the understanding of disasters at home and abroad. Through approaching the historical record with these questions in mind, a transnational approach to studying Hurricane Hazel may offer a more expansive view of the socio-political context of disasters, and provide insight into whether these relations born out of distress have in some way shaped the present-day communities who rebuilt after Hazel. 

With the continued rise of extreme weather, we believe the interconnection between human activity and natural disasters will be increasingly relevant to researching the impact of climate change. By approaching these topics historically and transnationally, we hope to develop a better understanding that a hurricane is more than just a natural disaster, but also shape human activities, responses, and relationships across space and time.

– Holly Sutton-Long and Katie Carson

The post A Hurricane is Not Just a Hurricane appeared first on The Disaster Lab.

“To God Be the Glory.” It says at the end credits of a Filipino telenovela playing on tv at a family friend’s living room. Growing up as a Filipino-Canadian, who was used to more “secular” Canadian media content, I have always thought this was such a bizarre statement to have at the end of a T.V. show. You would never see a statement like this at the end of a Degrassi episode. Catholicism and the Philippines go together like �貹�Բ�í�� and lumpia – one cannot exist without the other.

From a restrictive lens, this relationship can be interpreted merely as a product of colonialism. However, without overlooking the prevalent colonial influence on this matter, we can also attempt to approach it from a different angle. For instance, looking at it from a migration studies perspective, religion and shared faith can be incredibly beneficial for newcomers who do not have family and friends in their new home country. Religion is so ingrained in Filipino culture that it is not uncommon for new immigrants to seek out a Catholic church community as soon as they arrive in Canada. Organized religion such as Catholicism can help create a solid support system for new and established immigrants, while also keeping them spiritually and emotionally close with family back home, especially during times of strife and hardship. 

In November 2013, Filipino-Canadians, among others, were awoken with terrible news that the Philippines was hit by one of the most powerful tropical cyclones ever recorded. killed over 6,000 people (plus over 1,700 people missing) and costed approximately $2.98 billion (USD) worth of damages. This catastrophic event made waves internationally, affecting not only residents of the Philippines, but their loved ones living abroad.

While remittances are not a foreign concept within the context of Filipino migration, this disaster weighed heavily on Filipinos living and working in Canada. Personally, I can remember all the fundraisers within the Filipino and Asian community in Winnipeg. However, as I was looking back on archived news articles regarding the typhoon, I could not help but notice how these articles were framed. I was particularly drawn to some articles from (based in Winnipeg, Manitoba) that centred the Catholic church and their contributions to the typhoon disaster relief. 

This had me thinking deeply about the seemingly perpetual relationship between colonial religious beliefs and the colonized. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority census of 2020,. The Philippines has been free of Spanish rule since 1898, yet Catholicism still remains the most prominent religion in the country. So do I dare assume that there is a correlation between the Philippines’ long history with natural disasters and the prominence of organized religion in the country?

Disasters not only destroy buildings and living spaces, and inflict physical injuries, they also carve a substantial amount of emotional and mental trauma on survivors. In a developing country like the Philippines, it is presumable that people with lower socioeconomic status tend to suffer more during disasters. Catastrophic events provoke intense feelings of anxiety and distress, especially for lower-class folks who struggle financially. Religion, or turning to God during these times, offer a sense of security, safety, hope, or even explanation (ie. “This is part of God’s greater plan”) in times of strife. 

Prior to diving into these relationships through extensive research, the connection between Catholicism, colonialism, and disasters in the Philippines left a bad taste in my mouth. However, after taking a step-back and checking my positionality as a privileged Filipina woman in North American academia, I realized that these discourses are more complex than they appear, in times of distress. Colonialism has a large part to play in the continued dominance of Catholicism in the Philippines, however, we also need to consider other factors such as, but not limited to, the frequency of disasters in the country, and the socioeconomic status of folks who are most vulnerable during these events.

– Denie Espina

The post Thoughts, Prayers, and Typhoons: Catholicism in the Midst of a Disaster appeared first on The Disaster Lab.

At a recent Disaster Lab meeting, the question of “what is a disaster?” came up. We realized that despite researching how other people were thinking about, addressing, and/or experiencing disasters our project team had yet to define the term for our own purposes. As we set about doing so, we recognized that (as is the case with so many projects) our sense of what constitutes a disaster has become more subjective and relational the more that we learn about the ways in which communities have experienced disasters and displacement historically.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a disaster as “An event or occurrence of a ruinous or very distressing nature; a calamity; esp. a sudden accident or natural catastrophe that causes great damage or loss of life.” This is a tidy definition that seemingly captures the essence of what constitutes a disaster; something unexpected, something upsetting and potentially life-altering or life-ending, and something beyond any one victim’s control.

However, this tidy definition fails to reveal the many ways in which the notion of a disaster is contested because there is so much at stake. To name something a disaster is to call attention to its tragic proportions, either human, material, or environmental. We see this in the language around climate change, which has shifted from emergency, to disaster, and now , or apocalypse. Returning to the Oxford English Dictionary, it bears observing that the definition offered of a catastrophe relies on an understanding of the term disaster, explaining that it is “a sudden disaster, very wide-spread, fatal, or signal.” The dictionary also notes that “In the application of exaggerated language to misfortunes it is used very loosely.”

Crucially, the terms disaster and catastrophe have been used interchangeably in recent scholarship, drawing attention to what is at stake in the research and public discourse on this topic. For instance, historian Julia F. Irwin, in  (University of North Carolina Press, 2024) uses both “disaster” and “catastrophe” to describe how “in the early 1900s, US diplomatic and military officials began devoting increased attention to catastrophes in other nations and empires. At the same time, they started to contribute rising material and financial resources to the survivors of these disasters, grasping the strategic, diplomatic, economic, and moral potential of American humanitarian assistance.” (emphasis added, 2)

In other cases, scholars have focused on defining the term disaster alone. For instance, in , Cynthia Kierner insists that disasters are “recognizably modern” (xii), that can be defined in both quantitative and qualitative ways. Kierner notes that disasters “involve collective or community suffering and not merely individual losses” and suggests a disaster is “less an event” than “a process that unfolds in its particular social and cultural context, exposing social fissures and tensions that engender robust and often revealing public debates and conflicts.” (1)

The work of defining disasters federally in Canada falls under Public Safety Canada and its various Emergency Preparedness frameworks (the most recent one dates to 2017 and is currently being revised). This defines a disaster as:

“Essentially a social phenomenon that results when a hazard intersects with a vulnerable community in a way that exceeds or overwhelms the community’s ability to cope and may cause serious harm to the safety, health, welfare, property or environment of people; may be triggered by a naturally occurring phenomenon which has its origins within the geophysical or biological environment or by human action or error, whether malicious or unintentional, including technological failures, accidents and terrorist acts.”

In compiling the , Public Safety Canada includes events and incidents conforming to this definition and which also meet the following criteria:

• 10 or more people killed
• 100 or more people affected/injured/infected/evacuated or homeless
• an appeal for national/international assistance
• historical significance
• significant damage/interruption of normal processes such that the community affected cannot recover on its own

The result is a very actuarial approach, one that reflects what is at stake for government officials (including municipal, provincial and their federal counterparts) who must attend to claims for responsibility and relief.

In contrast to state approaches to categorizing disasters, which often seek to limit the perception that something is a disaster in order to avoid financial or other forms of responsibility, the Disaster Lab takes a different approach. Our research operates on the basis that individuals and communities who experience various forms of displacement as a result of sudden occurrences or slow change should be the ones to determine whether something is a disaster, regardless of the categorical implications. In other words, we are attending to the social and cultural histories bound up in notions of disaster and the ways in which these, as Cynthia Kierner suggests, both “reveal” and “aggravate” existing “cultural and political tensions” at multiple scales from the local to the national to the diasporic.

The result is a deeply subjective interpretation of what constitutes a disaster. This situation is at once problematic in terms of a clear answer to the question of “what is a disaster?” and deeply revealing in terms of the ways in which notions of disasters have been imposed by state actors, and non-governmental actors, who have a vested pecuniary interest in advancing the ways in which disasters are defined and categorized. By following a variety of answers to the question of “what is a disaster?” to the people most affected, this project contributes to ongoing shifts in historical research that foreground community-based and community-driven research and our understandings of how understandings of disasters have come to be constituted in our contemporary moment. Future blog posts will explore the ethical, conceptual, and methodological complications that arise when such openings are laid bare.

– Laura Madokoro

The post What is a Disaster? appeared first on The Disaster Lab.

As September ushers in feelings of a new school year, the once casual “how was your summer?” exchange has taken on a sombre tone. Informally speaking, nearly every conversation I’ve had this past week with friends from across the country has come with a tone of hesitation.

“I didn’t really feel like I had a summer” was a repeated refrain.

“The smoke is so thick the trees think it’s winter,” came another sobering observation from Northern Alberta.

Relaxing in the cool shade of tree canopies and swimming in a crisp body of water come to mind of “summer” activities, but between affecting air quality in May/June and the searing heat of the in human record, my own  summertime was hardly memorable between monitoring air health quality indices and upgrading my sunscreen game.

As I write over a Labour Day weekend while sitting under an extended heat warning advisory covering most of Southern and Eastern Ontario into Quebec, hundreds of wildfires are still raging across the country in what has been with projections that these wildfires will continue into the Fall. Beyond the immediate devastation to wildlife and air quality (and yes, a lacklustre summer), we should be gravely concerned for the long term impacts of burning tens of millions of hectares of forest in one year, or possibly in successive years.

Researchers at Disaster Lab have tracked the historic records for how the federal government has perceived, defined, and addressed disasters in our past to better understand how we may prepare for the present and future scenarios. As historians living through one unprecedented moment after another, it is important to understand the past for context and patterns.

Looking at the parameters, how we define “disasters” have been human-centric and shaped by how humanitarian organizations like Red Cross have categorized events as “major,” “minor,” “personal” or “large scale.” The boundaries between these categories are based on quantifiable metrics such as number of people affected which in turn defines funds allocated. However, the intensity and scale of climate disasters such as floods and wildfires would do well to be be understood beyond human impact alone. Because the fact of the matter is: the natural environment will survive without humans, but humans are wholly dependent on nature for our essential survival.

Beyond enjoying (and extracting) from nature to meet our short term needs, humans have taken more than our fair share and abused our responsibilities. When I hear people talk about stewardship of land, I understand this is based on that humans are “” and intrinsically rely on maintaining a reciprocal relationship with nature. At the end of the day, human beings are part of the environment and not above or outside of it. I interpret reciprocity as coming down to this: if humans don’t take care of nature, nature cannot take care of us.

Blackfoot scholar Dr. Leroy Little Bear has pointed out the “” for humans to survive on earth, which I thought a lot about this summer. We really are physically frail creatures that cannot endure conditions either too hot or too cold; we cannot hold our breath for that long; we cannot fly; and we cannot even move that fast on land on our own accord. Humans have invented our way to the supposed top, but no matter where we are on the proverbial food chain, we still need clean water to drink and clean air to breathe.

Living in a settler capitalist society means discourses and policies still think we can carbon tax our way out of climate change, but if that were true, who would be paying for the released this summer? The we maintain thinking green capitalism will save us is certainly being tested more regularly, but we could lose a lot more than a summer season if keep treating our stark reality as aberrations.

-Amy Fung

The post Summer (and Wildfire Season) Are Not Yet Over appeared first on The Disaster Lab.