Peter V. Krats

Assistant Professor
PhD, The University of Western Ontario, 1988

Teaching

Much of my energy is focussed on teaching students with little or no background in History in courses such as History 2127F/G. I combine conventional lecturing with PowerPoint slides, sound and materials found on WebCt websites. Because interpretation is fundamental to History, these courses always include Group discussion supplemented by postings on WebCt. My senior seminar reflects research interests on Northern Canada – it considers (from many disciplinary perspectives and in various media) both the historical and the imagined Canadian Norths.

Research Interests

Professor Krats is a specialist in Northern Canada, particularly the "resource frontier" of provinces; Immigration, particularly Finns; and the Local/Regional history of the Sudbury/Nickel Belt area. He is presently working on a study comparing "northern resource development" in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and Northeastern Ontario.

Publications

“John L. Agnew,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography (forthcoming)

Atikameksheng Anishnawbek  /   Whitefish Lake: Three Generations under the Robinson-Huron Treaty, 1850-1930,” in collected works on Robinson-Huron Treaty (ed. Karl Hele), (forthcoming)

“Northern-ness Notwithstanding the “Facts” :  Northeastern Ontario as a Northern Place”  North and Nordicity: Representations of the North (forthcoming)

"'Have Doctorate Will Travel': Reflections on Life as an Itinerant History Professor," Canadian Historical Association Bulletin 2002, (28, 2): 21-22.

“West Nipissing”, “North Bay” “Sturgeon Falls”; electronic version of The Canadian Encyclopedia.

"The Pic First Nation, Lake Superior and the Fur trade from their view," in Aboriginal People and the Fur Trade: Proceedings of the 8th North American Fur Trade Conference, Akwesasne ed. Louise Johnston (Ottawa: Mohawk Council of Akwesasne, 2001).

"This Remote Field of Missionary Toil: Christianity at the Pic to 1900" in Canadian Society for Church History, Church Papers, 1996.

The Fur Trade History of Pukaskwa National Park and Environs, Parks Canada, 1992.

"All that Glitters: Speculation in the 'Minor' Minerals of the Sudbury Area" in At the End of the Shaft: Mines and Single-Industry Towns in Northern Ontario, 1992.

Selected Conference Papers

“The Keweenaw and Nickel Belts,” Invited Talk, Michigan Tech University Archives, June 2009.

“Differently Similar : Comparing the Canadian & American Resource Frontiers,” The Twelfth Biennial Maple Leaf & Eagle Conference,  University of Helsinki, Finland, 6 May 2008

“Northernness Notwithstanding the “Facts” :  Northeastern Ontario as a Northern Place,”  North and Nordicity: Representations of the North, 2007, Munk Centre, University of Toronto.

“Recognizing the Northness of “Resource Canada,” Canadian Historical Association Conference, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, 28 May 2007.

“The Impact of the Border across the Natural Resource Frontiers: Ontario and Michigan” at Canadian / American Relations: Do Borders Matter? Organization for the History of Canada, 14 May 2004.

Non-Thesis supervisory privileges

Also from this web page:

Current Courses

  • HIS 1701E - Comparative History of Canada, The United States and Mexico
  • HIS 3296G - Canada's North: History and Imagery
  • HIS 143F-001 - HIS 143F-650 / HIS 143G-001 - Canada since 1929