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Alan MacEachern
Research Chair and Professor
Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
PhD, Queen’s University, 1997
Supervision
Master's & Doctoral Level supervisory privileges
Teaching: Fall/Winter 2026-27
Course Number |
Course Title |
| HIST 1840G | Graphic History! |
| HIST 2189A | History at the Movies |
| HIST 3723G | The Anthropocene: History of a Human Planet |
| HIST 9833B | Environmental History |
Research and Specializations
Professor MacEachern teaches & researches Canadian history, with an emphasis on environmental & climate history.
Teaching Philosophy
A healthy society spends most of its energies trained on the present & the future. But a healthy society also devotes some of its energies to remembering & understanding the past. The historian's job is to tell or remind people today about the lives of others in the past. That's it. Doing so goes a small way to fulfilling the obligation that people of the past are not forgotten. And it holds a promise & a threat to people of today, that they won't be forgotten either.
I am available at the coordinates above, and welcome hearing from you.
Supervisions
- Mary Baxter (co-supervisor with William Turkel) Divided Waters: An Environmental History of Oil and Gas Development in the Great Lakes Waterbeds, 1900-80
- Chara Mandur (co-supervisor with William Turkel) NASA's Analog Missions: Terrestrial Visions of Celestial Bodies
- Kenny Reilly (co-supervisor with Robert MacDougall) The Wonder of their Senses: Disabled Engagements with American Nature
- M. Blake Butler, Canada's Evergreen Playground: A History of Snow in Vancouver
- Michael O'Hagan, Beyond the Barbed Wire: POW Labour Projects in Canada during the Second World War
- Ryan O'Connor, Toronto the Green: Pollution Probe and the Rise of the Canadian Environmental Movement
- Jessica van Horssen, Asbestos, Quebec: The Town, the Mineral, and the Local-Global Balance between the Two
- Nina Harle, The Treadgold Concession (in progress)
- Scott MacGregor, Gaelic in Scotland, Gaelic in Canada: Challenges, Prospects, Connections (in progress)
- David Seston, American Scripts, Canadian Images: Anglo-American Comics and Visual Nation Identity during the WECA Era (in progress)
- Mary Baxter, The 1900s Southwestern Ontario Sand Sucker Panic (2023)
- Jack Charlton, Arteries or Daggers? Toronto’s Shifting Impression of Expressways Through the Toronto Star and Globe and Mail Newspapers (2023)
- Rosemary Giles, "Groves of Trees Were God’s First Temples”: An Environmental Analysis of Second World War Alternative Service (2022)
- Kenny Reilly, "Plant Kudzu Seeds Up Nawth": Northern Reactions to Kudzu, 1876-2009 (2020)
- Christopher Weekly, An Awful Calamity in Philadelphia: The Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 and City Transformations (2020)
- Ryan Melo, Diversity Our Strength: The Proliferation of Multicultural Programming in Toronto's 1984 Sesquicentennial Celebrations (2020)
- Robert Armstrong, An Environmental History of Oil Development in Southwestern Ontario, 1858-85 (2019)
- Shane Roberts, Separating the Sands: Karl Clark and Early Oil Sands Research in Alberta (2018)
- Marshall Wilcox, Diplomacy in the North: Canadian Terrestrial Sovereignty During the 1940’s (2017)
- Carla Joubert, Two Deaths in Matawan Creek: How the 1916 New Jersey Shark Bite Incidents Influenced Ichthyologic Research in the Early 20th Century United States (2015)
- Jessica Dubinsky, Scientific Investigations in the Bering Sea Controversy, 1890-1911 (2011)
- Jenny Brown, (2003)
- Brad Tyssen, "The Woods Are All Aflame": Fire and Culture in Colonial Maine and New Hampshire (2003)
- Dagomar Degroot (2014)
- Joshua MacFadyen (2010-14)
- John Sandlos (2004-06)
Major Research Projects
In summer 2024, I completed a two-part project about Myrtle Webb, whose diary tells of living for a half-century in “Green Gables,” Prince Edward Island, as it was in the process of becoming the most famous house in Canada. Becoming Green Gables was published by McGill-Queen’s UP and the entire diary was made available at a companion website, GreenGablesDiary.ca.
I am now working with Mary Baxter on a history of the Meteorological Service of Canada, 1871-1936.
Selected Publications
Books
Becoming Green Gables, McGill-Queen's University Press, July 2024.
The Green Gables Diary website
(with Edward MacDonald) The Summer Trade, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2022
The Miramichi Fire: A History, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2020.
(with Robert Wardhaugh) Origins: Canadian History to Confederation, 8th ed., Nelson, 2017.
(with Robert Wardhaugh) Destinies: Canadian History since Confederation, 8th ed. Nelson, 2017.
(with William J Turkel) Method and Meaning in Canadian Environmental History. Nelson, 2009. Includes "An Introduction, in Theory and Practice" and "Lost in Shipping: Canadian National Parks and the International Donation of Wildlife."
The Institute of Man and Resources: An Environmental Fable. Island Studies Press, 2003.
Natural Selections: National Parks in Atlantic Canada, 1935-1970. McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001.
Recent Chapters & Journal Articles
- “J.E. Bernier,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Mar 2025.
Recent Public & Digital History Projects
- "Back to the Island: The Back-to-the-Land Movement on PEI” online archive, Nov 2025 -.
- "The Green Gables Diary” online archive, Jun 2024-.
- "L.M. Montgomery’s Green Gables,” Exploring a National Treasure: L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables Manuscript online exhibition, 2023-.
Awards & Distinctions
- Fellow, Royal Society of Canada, 2023-
- Visiting Scholar, L.M. Montgomery Institute, University of PEI, Charlottetown, PEI, 2021-23.
- Visiting Professor, School of Architecture & Urban Planning, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China, 2017-22.
- Carson Fellow, Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, LMU Munich, 2016.
- SSHRC Strategic Knowledge Clusters grant, principal investigator, 2007-15.
Related Links
NiCHE: Network in Canadian History & Environment / Nouvelle initiative canadienne en histoire de l'environnement