Last updated on April 5th, 2021 at 10:45 am
What IS the #Chronicle150?
On July 1st, 2017, Canada turned 150 years old, and for its sesquicentennial, I dreamed up the #Chronicle150—a celebration of 150 Canadian stories to show its personality from coast to coast, much like the Live from the 3.5 series I put out for Black Canadians each Black History Month. From February 1st through June 30th, the 150 days leading up to Canada Day, I wanted to showcase a story each day that truly captured the ways we show what it means to be Canadian. New immigrant stories. Multigenerational stories. Any story that could help define the Canadian experience, no matter how big or small! It was lofty and it was ambitious, but I thought it’d be important to show Canadian culture to its fullest.
But perhaps… it was too ambitious.
On top of the fact that I’m an atrocious planner, what Canada’s 150th reminded me is that we have people who were here long before Canada’s confederation into a Dominion on July 1, 1867 and that celebrating the sesquicentennial ignored tens of thousands of years of history that came before it. And so just as quickly as it started, I brought it to a close, no longer feeling like a project that could truly celebrate my Canadian heritage.
And so here’s what came from that project. Here’s the content I produced before I decided to pull the plug and pursue some other interests with my brand.
Welcome to the #Chronicle150: 150 Truly Canadian stories for its 150th Birthday—with any luck, we’ll explore it again sometime in the future!