“On belay?” “Belay on.” “Climbing?” “Climb on.”

The Government of Canada established Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in 2007 to investigate the history of residential schools. The investigation’s goal was to inform Canadians about the brutal treatment of Indigenous people under the residential school system and to start the process of reconciliation with Indigenous communities. Reconciliation, however, […]

When I walked out of a meeting with a professor to hyperventilate in the privacy of an empty Arts building bathroom, I knew my situation had become precarious. But it was late March of my third year, the busiest time of my busiest semester, and I had to return to […]

Seventy-one years ago, McGill instituted its first and only Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) program. It survived only four years. In that brief period, notable alumni such as Mary Filer and Nancy Petry, among many others, graduated, and subsequently became well-known for revolutionary works that have been showcased in the […]

Time slows down when I enter a Montreal diner. It slows down because the menu is so long, and it takes forever to read through and decide, for certain, what to order. It slows down because the plates are so big that it takes forever to eat a meal. And […]

Sandwiched between the crowded, cubicled floors of the McLennan library complex lies a trove of meticulously-catalogued treasures. McGill’s Rare and Special Collections, on McLennan’s oft-bypassed fourth floor, is positively teeming with peculiar artifacts; for instance, McGill boasts the largest collection of books about Abraham Lincoln in all of Canada, not to mention the 2,714 books and journals from the 19th to 20th century about puppet theatre, belonging to McGill’s much revered Rosalynde Stearn Puppet Collection.

“The McGill Students’ Council affirms the principle that the student, like any other citizen, has the right to information and counselling about birth control, as well as to any contraceptive device he may require,” a 1967 McGill Students’ Council decision reads. With this decision, the McGill Students’ Council, the precursor […]

Much to journalists’ chagrin, progress doesn’t come in satisfying narrative arcs. It is unsteady, disjointed, unpredictable, and ongoing in a way that frustrates the limits of news coverage. The indigenous protests at Standing Rock captured the world’s attention for weeks in early 2016, but few reporters were on the scene […]

The streets of Montreal are notoriously difficult to navigate. What might begin as a simple walk down a few blocks can spiral into an Odyssey through a dystopic landscape of potholes, puddles, and decades-old construction sites. One-way streets abruptly end at public parks, only to reappear ten blocks north. The […]

Days prior to returning to Montreal this August, I visited my father’s grave for the first time in nearly a decade, 17 years after he died. As a child in visits past, I had trudged along with my mother and sister, longing to return to the car. This time, though, […]