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Background information, Norma J. Hall

Self portrait, ballpoint pen on paper, c.1980.

HISTORICAL CONSULTANT

• Norma Jean Hall Ph.D. offers professional advice, research, and writing for historical projects.

Areas of research expertise:

• Manitoba Maritime history.
• Aboriginal Mariners of Manitoba.
• Métis history and heritage.
• Analysis of historical texts relating to the issue of identity.
• Analysis of historical descriptions of Aboriginal peoples.
• Recovering customs, belief systems, and values of historical communities.

Current Project:

June 2012 – March 2013, developing educational resources, relating to the history of the Legislative Assembly of Assiniboia, for Manitoba schools with the Manitoba Metis Federation, the Government of Manitoba, and the Government of Canada. See work in progress: Provisional Government of Assiniboia: Acknowledging the Contribution of Original North American Peoples to the Creation of Manitoba, http://hallnjean2.wordpress.com/.

Completed Contracts:

October 2011 – March 2012: Contracted researcher and writer for Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Canada, on the Métis experience with residential schools. Essay: “We Were Children: The Provision, Conduct, Legacy and Implications for Reconciliation of Residential Schooling for the Métis,” with appended list of schools.

Detail of photo used on report cover. “Group of Children, Ile-à-la-Crosse, Sask.,” [c. 1919?]. Source: Canada. Department of the Interior / Library and Archives Canada / PA-044539. Restrictions on use: Nil. Copyright: Expired. Date posited on the basis of a photograph taken at the same location beside the Hudson’s Bay Company house at what appears to be the same period, see “H.B. Co. dwelling house, Ile-a-la-Crosse, Sask.,” (1919), Canada, Department of Mines and Technical Surveys/ Library and Archives Canada / PA-018067.

August – November 2010: Contracted researcher and writer for Manitoba Aboriginal and Northern Affairs, Aboriginal Affairs Secretariat, on the “Contributions of Métis People in Manitoba: The Legislative Assembly of Assiniboia History Project.” Report: Norma Hall, with Clifford P. Hall, and Erin Verrier, A History of the Legislative Assembly of Assiniboia/le Consiel du Gouvernement Provisoire (Winnipeg:  Manitoba, Department of Aboriginal and Northern Affairs, 2010).

Logo design for proposal

EDUCATION

2004 – 2009: Ph.D. program, Department of History, Memorial University of Newfoundland.
• Major Concentration: Canadian History
• Minor Concentration: Social History
• Dissertation: [working title: The Significance of Seafarers of Hudson Bay to the History of Western Canadian Development, 1508–1920.] Title revised by examination committee (the only revision at that): “Northern Arc: The Significance of Shipping and Seafarers of Hudson Bay, 1508–1920.”

2003: M.A., Joint Program in History, Universities of Manitoba and Winnipeg.
• Major Concentration: Canadian History
• Minor: Nineteenth-century European History
• Thesis: “A ‘Perfect Freedom’: Red River as a Settler Society, 1810–1870″.

2002: Pre – M.A., University of Manitoba.
• Major Concentration: Canadian History
• Minor: Historical Method

2001: B.A., University of Manitoba.
• Major: Canadian History
• Minor: English Literature

1980: Diploma in Advertising Art, Red River College, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

HONOURS, AWARDS, RECOGNITION

• 2009: Fellow of Graduate Studies, Memorial University.
• 2008: Memorial University Graduate Fellowship.
• 2006: Doctoral Comprehensive Exams: Passed with Distinction.
• 2005: Memorial University Recognition of Excellence.
• 2004–2007: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council: Canada Graduate Scholarship – Doctoral Award.
• 2004–2005: University of Manitoba Graduate Fellowship (declined).
• 2004–2005: University of Manitoba Students’ Union Scholarship (declined).
• 2004: W.L. Morton Gold Medal and Prize in History, University of Manitoba.
• 2003: M.A. Thesis Defence: Passed with Distinction.
• 2003: University of Manitoba Graduate Studies Fellowship.
• 2002: University of Manitoba Students’ Union Scholarship.
• 2001: W.D. Smith History Essay Prize, University of Manitoba.
• 2001: Dean’s Honour List, University of Manitoba.
• 2000: Dean’s Honour List, University of Manitoba.

INSTRUCTIONAL EXPERIENCE

2012: Content Specialist, Per-Course Appointment (March – June)

University of Manitoba, Departments of History and Distance Education
Revise HIST 2282 Inventing Canada, for transition from ANGEL to Desire2Learn.

16 May 2012: Guest Lecturer (Informal)

Manitoba Historical Society.
Deliver talk entitled “Ocean Crossings: Hudson’s Bay Company Seafaring in a Northern North Atlantic World“

2011: Instructor, Per-Course Appointment (September – December)

University of Manitoba, Departments of History and Distance Education
Teach HIST 2282 Inventing Canada, a course in undergraduate-level History (via ANGEL).

2010-2011: Content Specialist, Per-Course Appointment (May – April).

University of Manitoba, Departments of History and Distance Education
Develop undergraduate-level, electronically resourced course (HIST 2282 Inventing Canada).

June 2010: Guest Lecturer (Job Candidate)

University of Winnipeg, Department of History
“An Introduction to the History of Aboriginal Sailors of Hudson Bay“

2007: Instructor, Per-Course Appointment

Memorial University of Newfoundland, Department of History
Teach course in undergraduate-level History(HIST 2400, Atlantic Canada since 1500).

2006: Guest Lecturer

HIST 1013, Issues in Canadian History, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Conduct class in undergraduate-level History (“Red River Settlement and the Creation of Manitoba”)

2005: Guest Lecturer

HIST 1013, Issues in Canadian History, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Conduct class in undergraduate-level History (“Red River Settlement: People and Perspectives”)

1990: Guest Lecturer

Department of National Defence, Canadian Forces Base Borden, Ontario
Teach classes for NCO trainees, School of Music (“Advertising and Public Relations”)

1990: Guest Lecturer

Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Conduct Workshop for the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (“Illustrating Children’s Books for Publication”)

SCHOLARLY RESEARCH INTERESTS

Pre- and Post Confederation Canadian History, Northern Canadian History, Aboriginal History, including illuminating the Aboriginal presence in: Canadian Maritime History, History of Settlement in Western Canada, History of Canadian Resource Utilization, Canadian Business History, Social History and Gender History in Canada, History of Society and Culture in Canada, History of Art in Canada, History of Ideas, Historiography as Communication, History of Cartographical Representation, Web 2.0 History.

ACADEMIC RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION

My research into the social history of seafaring in Hudson Bay resulted in a dissertation, original in its depiction of maritime activity as a lived aspect of human experience that was essential to history in, and of, the Canadian North; to historical process in Canada as a whole; and to the history of development in Western Canada in particular, because the North was the site of maritime ingress to the Canadian West.

I demonstrated that past sea voyages were not mere economic linkages. Socio-culturally, sailors were active agents of complex communication. In examining the contextual aspect of their experiences –– temporally, geographically, and technologically –– I found that sea ice, as a natural feature, was a primary determinant of work, the pacing of work routines, and the time-frame of voyages. I highlighted the ways in which sailors –– including those native to North America –– were harbingers and makers of transoceanic change and continuity.

My conclusions were therefore twofold: appreciating the cumulative effect of past commerce, communication, and maritime practice requires taking into account the people who actively effected traverses of sea space; understanding the behaviour of those people requires taking their relationship to the physical environment into account.

CONFERENCE PAPERS

Norma J. Hall, “Contesting Identity: A Confrontation with Semantic Paradox in
Historiography,” paper presented to Writing New Histories of Indigeneity and Imperialism: A Workshop (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba, 21 May 2008).

Norma J. Hall, “Ritual, myth and identity in gendered space: The secret rites of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Loyal Orange migrants to Manitoba,” paper presented to The Fort Garry Lectures in History (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba, 2 May 2003).

Norma J. Hall, “Seeking freedom to decline the fall: Historiography, literary form and the determination of the Red River Métis,” paper presented to the Digging the City Graduate Conference (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba, 12 January 2002).

PRINTED WORK

Articles and Essays:

Norma Hall, “Ocean Crossings: Hudson’s Bay Company Seafaring in a Northern North Atlantic World,“ Manitoba History: The Journal of the Manitoba Historical Society 71, special issue Red River Revisited (Winter 2013).

Norma Jean Hall, “Selkirk’s Settlers and the Robert Taylor, 1812,” Generations 37, no. 4 (December 2012): 9-12.

Norma Jean Hall, with Clifford P. Hall, and Erin Verrier, A History of the Legislative Assembly of Assiniboia/le Consiel du Gouvernement Provisiore (Winnipeg: Aboriginal and Northern Affairs, Government of Manitoba, 2010).

Norma Hall, and Barbara Huck, “Fortitude in Distress: The Northwest Company
and the War of 1812,” The Beaver: Canada’s History Magazine 82, No. 4 (August/September, 2002): 8–14.

Reviews:

Norma Hall, review, Trials and Tribulations: The Red River Settlement and the Emergence of Manitoba, 1811–1870, by J.M. Bumsted, and Archbishop A.-A. Taché of St. Boniface: The Good Fight and the Illusive Vision, by Raymond J.A. Huel, The Beaver: Canada’s History Magazine 84, No. 4 (August/September 2004): 45–46.

______, review, It Happened in Manitoba: Stories of the Red River Province, by Don Aiken, Canadian Book Review Annual 2004 (Toronto: Peter Martin Associates, 2005), 345–346.

______, review, Askel Sandemose and Canada: A Scandinavian Writer’s Perception of the Canadian Prairies in the 1920s, by Christopher S. Hale, Canadian Book Review Annual 2005 (Toronto: Peter Martin Associates, 2006), 330–331.

______, review, The Battle of Seven Oaks and the Violent Birth of the Red River Settlement, by Irene Ternier Gordon, Canadian Book Review Annual 2005 (Toronto: Peter Martin Associates, 2006), 263–264.

______, review, False Expectations: Politics and the Pursuit of the Saskatchewan Myth, by Dale Eisler, Canadian Book Review Annual 2006 (Toronto: Peter Martin Associates, 2007), 331–332.

______, review, On the Side of the People: A History of Labour in Saskatchewan, by Jim Warren and Kathleen Carlisle, Canadian Book Review Annual 2006 (Toronto: Peter Martin Associates, 2007), 327–328.

______, review, Frontier Farewell: The 1870s and the End of the Old West, by Garrett Wilson, Canadian Book Review Annual 2007 (Toronto: Peter Martin Associates, 2008).

______, review, Give Your Other Vote to the Sister: A Woman’s Journey into the Great War, by Debbie Marshall, Canadian Book Review Annual 2007 (Toronto: Peter Martin Associates, 2008).

______, review, Marie-Anne: The Extraordinary Life of Louis Riel’s Grandmother, by Maggie Siggins, Canadian Book Review Annual 2009 ( http://www.cbraonline.com).

______, review, Adventures in the West: Henry Ross Halpin, Fur Trader and Indian Agent, by Davd R. Elliott, Canadian Book Review Annual 2009 (http://www.cbraonline.com).

SKETCHBOOK

Red River Folk

Captain William Kennedy

Annie McDermott Ballantyne