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Forrest Pass

@forrestpass.bsky.social
1.5K followers 1.3K following 1.5K posts

Historian, curator, heraldist, vexillologist, collector of arcane and eclectic Canadiana. All opinions my own. Likes, reskeets =/= endorsement.

PostsRepliesMedia
Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Maple and oak, I think (tho' the flagmaker was no botanist!)
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Image from Canadian Museum of History:
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The Canadian Red Ensign was not officialized, except for merchant shipping use, before 1924. Various informal designs circulated, incl this one with a white disc, beaver, crown, and maple leaves surrounding the coat of arms (itself unofficial before 1921, and subject to unofficial adaptation).
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Great! Now I can not use SI the same way I don't use AI...
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
But where is @mark-carney.bsky.social in the running for that most coveted of distinctions, the FIFA Peace Prize™️? #canpoli
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Chris Turner @theturner.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Even moreso for those of us on the Anthropic claim whose meth dealer looted our garages for the supplies to cook their meth
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Stalin once said that historians are the most dangerous people; now Cheeto Ceauşeascu says that Canada is one of the worst countries in the world. As a Canadian historian I am, therefore, the most dangerous of the worst. QED. #cdnhist #canpoli
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
But he gets his comeuppance!
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Fun fact: as much as Paris, ON, likes to emphasize the French connection today, it was named for the plaster, not the French capital (tho' the plaster was, in turn, named for the City of Light). #cdnhist
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
When Elon Musk's groups spent $20M+ on Wisconsin's 2025 Supreme Court race, his involvement backfired and his candidate lost by 10 points. Now his super PAC has quietly spent $14M+ on key midterm races, including the Texas Senate race. Would be a shame if people found out.
nbcnews.com
Elon Musk is flying under the radar in the Texas Senate race. Republicans want to keep it that way.
One Republican involved in the Texas Senate contest called Musk’s in-your-face campaigning in Wisconsin last year “a mis
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Wrong former Soviet republic, Donnie: everyone knows that Kazakhstan has more potassium than any other country (and they are not run by little girls). IYKYK.
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
So poweful it can turn our darkness to dawn...
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Missed an opportunity for a great tourism slogan here: "On the Nakusp of something great!"
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
It must be said....
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Now, now: asking for cuts there would have been meighen-spirited....
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Oh but then we wouldn't have the opportunity to slip a little ex-lax into their poutine (I call it "Montcalm's Revenge" - why should Montezuma have all the fun?)
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Do the Canadian thing: be painfully polite to their faces but make fun of them behind their backs. En français. #canpoli
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
@michaeldemoor.bsky.social, @cfrangou.bsky.social - thinking of you in particular!
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Agree entirely - a much more interesting book! And if memory serves, the author retired to Gabriola Island. (It's in the exhibit also!)
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Albertans! Check this out if you can (some of your finest men and women in Ottawa make cameo appearances)! #abpoli #cdnhist
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Who wore in better, Weird Al (facetiously, obvs) or Raffi....?
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Up early to take my eldest to swimming practice, but at least I have an appropriate new t-shirt:
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
When Alaska's flag design was announced in 1927, William Simpson of New Westminster, BC, alleged Benson had plagiarized Simpson's design for a Cdn flag, published two years earlier. The intrepid Stroller White took up the case! (Seward Gateway, Jul 29, 1927) #cdnhist #alaskahistory #vexillology
Clipped headline from Seward Daily Gateway, Jul 29, 1927, reads "Did Bennie Benson Honswoggle Alaskan Solons Asks White"
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
A friendly reminder that most academics I've encountered (and I regularly cold-call) are more than happy to send you free PDFs of their articles on request. Not a perfect work-around, but always worth trying!
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Richard @rwpickard.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
You need to read THE ART OF LOOKING BACK, by @fishgottaswim.bsky.social. This memoir offers a wise and nearly unflinching look at the decades of consequences that can flow from being looked at as a young woman, and it's irreplaceable. #booksky 1/3 boughtbooks.blogspot.com/2026/09/ther...
boughtbooks.blogspot.com
Theresa Kishkan, The Art of Looking Back
Let me do the thumbnail first, because I've enough to say that frontloading the reviewiest bit about Theresa Kishkan's The Art of Looking Ba...
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
If you can source a clerical collar and hood, do I have the Halloween costume for you!
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Mid-career moments: realizing that my 1st scholarly article appeared 20 yrs ago. Research began even earlier, when I was still using steno pads for notes! There are some things I would change, but I think it's held up. Be the judge yourself (it's free-2-read): tinyurl.com/yc4dr5pr #bchist #cdnhist
Dense notes on the Grand Post of the Native Sons of BC fonds at the Nanaimo Community Archives, handwritten in pencil on yellow stenographer's paper.Title of an article in BC Studies entitled "The Wondrous Story and Traditions of the Country: The Native Sons of British Columbia and the Role of Myth in the Formation of an Urban Middle Class," written by a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed third-year PhD candidate named Forrest D. Pass.
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Right? Such a great story. Add a heaving bosomed heroine and it's got the makings of a good Harlequin itself!
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Any weekend when I add a vintage N.L. Barlee to my library is a good weekend (IYKYK - and I K that @benbradleyca.bsky.social K's...) #bchist
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
I see your real manatee and raise you the first book published by Winnipeg-based Harlequin Enterprises, now the world's largest romance publisher, in 1949. I'm including a copy in an exhibit in 2027! (Spoiler alert: no real manatees in this story). #InternationalManateeDay #CdnHist #CanLit (sort of)
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
George Emery has a chapter on this in his "Facts of Life" - IIRC, he estimated that Ontario birth registrations pre-1900 account for only about 2/3 of births in the province... www.mqup.ca/Books/F/Fact...
mqup.ca
Facts of Life
Facts of Life is the first historical study of any Canadian civil registration statistics since 1930 and the first study, for any jurisdiction, that extends into the twentieth century. George Emery ex...
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
I was today years old when I learned of the existence of "tree kangaroos". And I approve.
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Yay for mimicking #heraldry!
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Happy to answer any questions you have re Library and Archives Canada (where I work) -or direct you to a colleague who can!
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
McDonald's book is the best for political history. Jean Barman's West Beyond the West tops the charts for general histories (though Margaret Ormsby's British Columbia: A History is an oldie but a goodie too!)
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
The US administration consistently advancing its policy of Making Diarrhea Explosive Again....
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Quite so, but that is not the sense in which "America" is being used in the brochure:
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
File under "Seemed like a good idea at the time": this Canadian National Railways slogan is a little cringeworthy today.... (From CNR fonds, @library-archives.canada.ca)
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
My only response shall be from the mouth of my Sharpie...
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
IYKYK... #cdnhist #canpoli
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Just gonna leave this here! www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-p...
cbc.ca
There’s another Ottawa out there. In Illinois. We head across the border to ask: how are those other Ottawans feeling about the US election? | This is Ottawa | CBC Podcasts | CBC Listen
For one week only we’re calling ourselves 'This is Ottawa, Illinois'. Robyn Bresnahan reaches out to the city south of the border to talk to fellow Ottawans about life there, how they’ve been thinking...
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
I trust it'll be a cold day in Hell (and not just a cold December night) before @bluerodeo.bsky.social changes the lyric to "Out in the middle of Lake America..." #canpoli youtu.be/oMt0skVPC0o?...
youtu.be
Blue Rodeo - Hasn't Hit Me Yet (Official Music Video)
YouTube video by Blue Rodeo
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Not gonna lie: I would pay good money (Canadian dollars only, of course) to see Cheeto Ceauşeascu try to pronounce "Niigani-gichigami"... #cdnhist #canpoli decolonialatlas.wordpress.com/2015/04/14/t...
decolonialatlas.wordpress.com
The Great Lakes: An Ojibwe Perspective
Nayaano-nibiimaang Gichigamiin means “The Five Freshwater Seas” in Anishinaabemowin. The cultural impact of the Anishinaabe on the region is everywhere, as evidenced by this map. The toponyms that …
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Who wants to tell Cheeto Ceauşescu that the name "Lake Ontario" loooooong predates the Province of Ontario, and that he carried Ontario County, New York, by healthy margins in 2016, 2020, and 2024? #canpoli #cdnhist #onthist
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
And this on (checks notes) the 212th anniversary of the burning of the US Capitol during the War of 1812... #cdnhist
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
A pleasure to chat with @cfrangou.bsky.social for this piece in @thewalrus.ca (and ICYMI, here's my Canada Day display this year, to which she refers!) #vexillology #abhist #abpoli
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
My name is Indigo Buntoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die. #IYKYK
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Trade War Diary, Day 2: back from vacation and hit the Ottawa Farmers' Market. Fresh, local Canadian Produce: fending off foreign foes AND explosive diarrhea since 1867... #BuyCanadian #cdnpoli
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Forrest Pass @forrestpass.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Lately men forget the name of Billy Green, the scout... #cdnhist m.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z7m...
m.youtube.com
Billy Green
YouTube video by Stan Rogers - Topic
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