Sport and Recreation in Canadian History

Serving as a foundation for critical discussion about the importance of the past, Sport and Recreation in Canadian History covers the historical events, people, and moments that shape Canadian sport in the present and future. While this text focuses on sport and recreation practices on these lands now claimed by Canada, it is set within a larger historical context of interconnecting social and cultural practices to speak to the sustained tensions, complexities, and contradictions prevalent in Canadian society.

The editor, Dr. Carly Adams, and her 17 contributing experts from across Canada bring the latest research in all areas of Canadian sport history to life and present a thorough look at the nation’s past events. The text challenges the dominant narratives and encourages students to think critically about Canadian sport history. It examines how gender, ethnicity, race, religion, ability, class, and other systems of oppression and privilege have shaped sport and recreation practices, with Canadian sporting culture reproducing many of the same oppressive systems that exist on the larger scale.

Sport and Recreation in Canadian History separates itself from its competitors by providing an abundance of pedagogical aids. Sidebars highlighting prominent people provide glimpses of figures who made a significant impact on Canadian sport history. Transformative Moment sidebars focus on significant events as they relate to specific themes, such as gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, or ability. A comprehensive timeline showcases where important events fell in relation to one another, while the text acknowledges the problem of presenting history in a linear way and provides a more nuanced discussion of time. Descriptions of primary source documents—such as newspaper articles, photographs, and historical documents—are accompanied by explanations of how sport historians work with these documents.

Sport and Recreation in Canadian History asks readers to think differently about the history of Canadian sport, and it examines how past people, moments, and events continue to shape 21st-century sport.

Carly Adams, PhD, is a professor in the department of kinesiology and physical education and Board of Governors Research Chair (tier II) at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada. She teaches courses on sport history, gender, the modern Olympic movement, and oral history. Her research explores sport, recreation, and leisure experiences from the intersections of historical and sociological inquiry, with a focus on gender and community. In collaboration with Dr. Darren Aoki, she is currently working on the Nikkei Memory Capture Project, a community-based oral history project collecting Japanese Canadian histories in southern Alberta. Her work has appeared in, among others, Journal of Sport History, Journal of Canadian Studies, The International Journal of the History of Sport, and International Review for the Sociology of Sport. She is the author of Queens of the Ice (published by Lorimer). Dr. Adams is the editor of Sport History Review.