Dr. John Sutton Lutz
Short Curriculum Vitae
Professor University of Victoria, History Department

Videos and Podcasts

Introduction to my projects

Ethnohistory Field School

Short Thematic Talks

Lectures

History is not boring, but we can make it boring

Podcasts

Websites

  • Vancouver Island Treaties. Creator and director, 2017.

    Originally launched to support the conference First Nations, Land, and James Douglas: Indigenous and Treaty Rights in the Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia,1849-1864 the site has become a public resource for information on the Vancouver Island Treaties.

  • Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History, Co-director (with Ruth Sandwell and Peter Gossage).

    Co-originator and project co-director of a non-profit internet-based teaching project based at the University of Victoria. Its goal is to engage university and high school students in an exciting problem-solving activity while it teaches about the main themes, regions, and social groups in Canadian history and the critical thinking skills used in constructing a history. Students do not just learn about history -- they do it--creating a coherent narrative from non-consecutive and often contradictory sources. The series now has three websites and contemplates a total of 13 bilingual sites.

  • The Missing British Columbia Paintings of Grafton Tyler Brown

    A history of the Black artist who began his career in British Columbia in 1882 as a White artist and a list of his BC paintings found and lost.

  • Fort Victoria Journal. Academic Director.

    An edited version of the Fort Victoria Post Journal from 1846-50 with Graham Brazier and the Historical Editing Class, University of VIctoria.

  • We Do Know Know His Name: Klatsassin and The Chilcotin War. Director.

    An internet anthology of 400 documents (150,000 words) and 200 images relating to the Chilcotin War in the colony of British Columbia in 1864. A part of the Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History Series. Translated into French as "Personne ne connaît son nom : Klatsassin et la guerre de Chilcotin." Launched April 1, 2004.

  • Colonial Despatches. Academic Director.

    Electronic publication of Dr. James Hendrickson's transcriptions of the communication of the governor's of Colonies of Vancouver Island British Columbia with the Colonial Office in London. At the moment only the despatches of 1858 are available to the public. The rest will be added to the site as they are revised for the web.

  • Auto-biographies. Director/Curator.

    An archive of first person accounts of their family's relationship with the automobile drawn from student projects in the university's "Social History of the Automobile Course."

  • Victoria's Victoria. Director/Curator.

    A website on the history of Victoria, B.C. in the Victorian Era, built with research reports from student projects. Launched April 2002.

  • ViHistory.ca. Partner (with Patrick Dunae).

    A series of searchable census, directory and assessment databases relating to Vancouver Island in the 19th Century. Launched April 2003. )

  • Who Killed William Robinson? Race Justice and Settling the Land. Co-director with Ruth Sandwell.

    Internet Anthology of 200 documents (100,000 words) and 80 images relating to the death of a Black American immigrant in the Colony of Vancouver Island blamed on an aboriginal man who was hanged. The evidence suggests he may well have been innocent. The first in the Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History Series. . First launched in April 1997 and revised in 2001.

Education

  • Doctor of Philosophy in History University of Ottawa, 1995. Dissertation: "Work, Wages and Welfare in Aboriginal-Non-Aboriginal Relations, British Columbia, 1849-1970."
  • Master of Arts (History) University of Victoria, 1988. Thesis: "Losing Steam: Structural Change in the Manufacturing Economy of British Columbia, 1860- 1915."
  • Bachelor of Arts (History and Economics) with Honours and Distinction, University of Victoria, 1983. Thesis: "Unstapling a Regional Economy: Innis, North and British Columbia, 1858-1901."

Awards

  • Robert Hackenberg Memorial Award from the Society for Applied Anthropology for work with the Sto:lo Ethnohistory Field School, 2016.
  • Engaged Scholar Award, University of Victoria, 2016-21.
  • Shortlisted for the SSHRC Research Impact Award, 2016.
  • Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, 2012.
  • Craigdarroch Award for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, University of Victoria, 2012.
  • Harold Adams Innis Award (Now renamed the Canada Prize) for the best book in the Social Sciences for Makúk: A New History of Aboriginal-White Relations, 2010 from the Canadian Federation of Social Sciences and Humanities
  • Clio Award for the best book in British Columbia History for Makúk: A New History of Aboriginal-White Relations from the Canadian Historical Association 2009.
  • Choice Outstanding Book Award for Makúk: A New History of Aboriginal-White Relations, 2009.
  • Award of Merit for the Times Colonist Digitization Project from the Victoria Hallmark Society (jointly with team from the University of Victoria Libraries and the Times Colonist) 2009.
  • Award of Merit for the Colonial Despatches project from the Victoria Hallmark Society (jointly with the team from the UVic History Department, the Humanities Computing and Media Center and the UVic Library). 2009.
  • Award of Recognition for a major contribution to BC Heritage from the BC Heritage Society for the British Colonist Online project (jointly with team from the University of Victoria Libraries and the Times Colonist) 2009.
  • Pierre Berton Award for the Dissemination of Canadian History awarded by the National History Society to the Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History Project, 2008.
  • MERLOT Classics Award for Exemplary Online Learning Resources for Phases One to Five of the Great Unsolved Canadian Mysteries Project, Awarded at the MERLOT International Conference, Minneapolis, August, 2008.
  • Craigdarroch Award for Research Dissemination, (shared) University of Victoria, March 2007 (Joint with Coast Under Stress Team).
  • Craigdarroch Award for Research Dissemination, University of Victoria, March 2006.
  • Award of merit: Historical feature from the International Regional Magazine Awards for “The war that nobody won,” British Columbia Magazine, (Winter 2005).
  • MERLOT Classics Awardfor Exemplary Online Learning Resources for Phase One of the Great Unsolved Canadian Mysteries Project, Awarded at the MERLOT International Conference, Vancouver, August, 2003
  • Vancouver Book Award,, (Shared) for the Stó:lo:Coast Salish Historical Atlas, 2002 in which I was a co-author.
  • Haig-Brown Prize (Shared) for the best book on British Columbia for Stó:lo-Coast Salish Historical Atlas (Douglas and McIntyre/University of Washington Press/Stó:lo Heritage Trust) 2002.
  • NAWEB (North American Web) Award, (with Ruth Sandwell) for the Best of the Web for 2001 for their murder mystery teaching site, “Who Killed William Robinson? Race, Justice and Settling the Land”.
  • Clio Award (Shared) for the best book in British Columbia History for the collection of essays Beyond the City Limits: Rural History in British Columbia, Ruth Sandwell, ed. (UBC Press, 1999), in which “Relating to the Country: The Lekwammen and the Extension of Settlement,” appears on pp. 17-32 from the Canadian Historical Association, 2000.
  • Journal of the West Best Article Prize for 1999-2000 for “When is an ‘Indian War’ not a War?: Canadian Indians and American Settlers in the Pacific Northwest, 1850s-1860s,” Journal of the West, 38, 3 (July 1998), 7-13.
  • Eugene Forsey Prize for the best dissertation in labour and working-class history in Canada, 1996.
  • Governor General’s Gold Medal, University of Ottawa - awarded to a Ph.D. graduate for outstanding achievement, 1995.

Publications

Books

Edited Books

Articles and Chapters in Books:

  • “The Rutter’s Impasse and the End of Treaty Making on Vancouver Island,” in Peter Cook et al, To Share Not Surrender: Indigenous and Settler Visions of Treaty Making in the Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia (UBC Press, 2021).
  • “Preparing Eden: Indigenous Land Use and European Settlement on Southern Vancouver Island” in Plants, People and Places: the Roles of Ethnobotany and Ethnoecology in Indigenous Peoples’ Land Rights in Canada and Beyond, Nancy Turner, ed. (McGill-Queen’s U Press 2020). (Book won the Austin Award from Society of Economic Botany)
  • ‘“A City of the white race occupies its place“ Kanaka Row, Chinatown, and the Indian Quarter in Victorian Victoria‘ with Don LaFreniere, Patrick Dunae and Jason Gilliland for The Routledge Companion to Spatial History edited by Ian Gregory, Don Debats, Don LaFreniere (Routledge, 2018) 320-347.
  • John Sutton Lutz “Totem Poles,” in Michael Dawson, Catherine Gidney and Donald Wright, eds., Symbols of Canada. Toronto: Between the Lines, 2018.
  • John Sutton Lutz (with Patrick Dunae). “Victorian Sim Cities: Playful Technologies on Google Earth,” Kevin Kee, ed., Pastplay: Teaching and Learning History With Technology. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2014, 292-308.
  • John Sutton Lutz (with Ruth Sandwell). “What Has Mystery Got to Do with It?” Kevin Kee, ed., Pastplay: Teaching and Learning History With Technology. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2014, 23-42.
  • John Sutton Lutz (with Patrick Dunae, Jason Gilliland Donald Lafreniere and Megan Harvey). “Turning Space Inside Out: Spatial History and Race in Victorian Canada,” Jennifer Bonnell and Marcel Fortin, eds., Historical GIS Research in Canada. Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2014, 1-26.
  • “Turning Space Inside Out: Spatial History and Race in Victorian Canada,” in Jennifer Bonnell and Marcel Fortin, eds., Historical GIS Research in Canada, (University of Calgary, 2014) 1-26, coauthored with Patrick Dunae, Jason Gilliland Donald Lafreniere and Megan Harvey.
  • “What Has Mystery Got to Do with It?” in Kevin Kee, ed., Pastplay: Teaching and Learning History With Technology, (University of Michigan, 2014) 23-42, coauthored with Ruth Sandwell.
  • Victorian Sim Cities: Playful Technologies on Google Earth,” in Kevin Kee, ed., Pastplay: Teaching and Learning History With Technology, (University of Michigan, 2014) 292-308, coauthored with Patrick Dunae.
  • “Vanishing the Indians: Aboriginal Labourers in Twentieth-Century British Columbia” in Aboriginal History, A Reader, edited by Kristin Burnett and Geoff Read, Oxford University Press, 2012, 277-291.
  • Making the Inscrutable, Scrutable: Race and Space in Victoria’s Chinatown, 1891,” BC Studies, No. 169 (Spring 2011): 51-80. Co-authored with Patrick Dunae, Jason Gilliland, and Don Lafreniere.
    Reprinted in
    • Graeme Wynne and Richard Mackie, eds. Home Truths: Highlights from BC History, (Harbour: 2012) 206-239.
  • Towards a Theory of Good History Through Gaming," Canadian Historical Review, Volume 90, Number 2 (June 2009) 303-326, co-authored withKevin Kee, Shawn Graham, Pat Dunae, Andrew Large, Michel Blondeau and Mike Clare
  • "Introduction"and "Conclusion: Miles to Go," with Barbara Neis in Making and Moving Knowledge: Interdisciplinary and Community Based Research in a World on the Edge, McGill-Queens University Press, 2008, 338pp.
  • "First Contact as a Spiritual Performance: Aboriginal -- Non-Aboriginal Encounters on the North American West Coast," in John Lutz, ed., Myth and Memory: Rethinking Stories of Indigenous-European Contact, (University of British Columbia Press, 2007) 30-45.
  • "Myth Understandings: First Contact, Over and Over Again," Introduction to John Lutz, ed., Myth and Memory: Rethinking Stories of Indigenous-European Contact. UBC Press, 2007, 1-14.
  • “Not Managing for Scarcity: Social-Ecological Issues in Contemporary Fisheries Management and Capture Practices,” co-author with others, in Coasts Under Stress: Understanding Restructuring and Social-Ecological Health by Rosemary E. Ommer and the Coasts Under Stress team. McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal, 2007. 68-94. Authored 5%.
  • “The Human Voice of Social-Ecological Restructuring: Jobs, Incomes, Livelihoods, Ways of Life and Human Health,” co-author with others in Coasts Under Stress: Understanding Restructuring and Social-Ecological Health by Rosemary E. Ommer and the Coasts Under Stress team. McGill-Queen's University Press, 2007. 296-323. Authored 14%.
  • "Toward a Critical Literacy of Racisms, Anti-Racism, and Racialization" co-written with Jo-Anne Lee, in Lee and Lutz, ed.s Situating Race and Racism in Time, Space and Theory: Critical Essays for Activists and Scholars Edited Collection. McGill-Queens University Press. 2005. 3-29.
  • "Turning the Page: Ethnohistory from a New Generation," co written with Keith Thor Carlson and David Schaepe, in The University of the Fraser Valley Research Review 2, vol.2: 1-8.
  • "Work, Sex, and Death on the Great Thoroughfare: annual migrations of Canadian Indians to the American Pacific Northwest." Parallel Destinies: Canadians, Americans and the Western Border. John M. Findlay and Ken Coates, eds. Seattle: Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest and University of Washington Press, 2002. 80-103.
  • "Riding the Horseless Carriage to the Computer Revolution: Teaching History in the Twenty-first Century," Histoire Sociale/Social History, Vol XXXIV (68) November 2001, 427-436.
  • Making Race in British Columbia: Power, Race and the Importance of Place" in Richard White and John Findlay eds., Power and Place in the North American West, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999).
  • "'Relating to the Country': The Lekwammen and the Extension of European Settlement, 1843-1911," in Ruth Sandwell, ed., Beyond the City Limits: Essays from British Columbia, (UBC Press, 1999).
  • "A Gender and Work in Lekwammen Families, 1843-1970," in Kathryn McPherson, Cecilia Morgan and Nancy M. Forestell, eds. Gendered Pasts: Historical Essays on Femininity and Masculinity in Canada (Oxford University Press, 1999) 80-105.
    Reprinted in
    • Dan Glenday and Ann Duffy ed.s, Canadian Society: meeting the challenges of the twenty-first century (Don Mills, Ont. New York : Oxford University Press, 2001.)
    • Mary-Ellen Kelm and Lorna Townsend ed.s, In the Days of Our Grandmothers: A Reader in Aboriginal Women’s History in Canada, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006.)
  • "When is an Indian War not a War?: Canadian Indians and American Settlers in the Pacific Northwest, 1850s-1860s," Journal of the West, 38, 3 (July 1998) 7-13.
  • "After the Fur Trade: The Aboriginal Labouring Class of British Columbia, 1849-1890," Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, N.S. 2, (1992) pp. 69-94.
    Reprinted in
    • C. Gaffield, ed., Constructing Modern Canada: Readings in Post-Confederation History, (Toronto: Copp Clark Longman, 1994) pp. 69-95.
    • Readings in the History of British Columbia, (Vancouver: Open Learning Agency, 1997).
    • Laurel Sefton MacDowell and Ian Radforth, eds. Canadian Working Class History, (Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press, 2000). 2nd Edition and and3rd Edition (2006).
    • Bryan Palmer and Joan Sangster, eds. Labouring Canada: Class, Race and gender in Canadian History, (Oxford University Press, 2007).
  • "Israel Wood Powell," Dictionary of Canadian Biography, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998).
  • "Robert Garnet Tatlow," Dictionary of Canadian Biography, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994) vol. 13, 1021-2.
  • "Light and Shadows: Canadian Capitalists in Latin American and the Caribbean," Journal of Canadian Studies, 28, 1 (Spring 1993) pp. 192-8. (Review Essay).
  • "Technology in Canada through the Lens of Labour History," Scientia Canadensis: Journal of the History of Canadian Science, Technology and Medicine, vol. 15, no. 1, (Summer 1991) pp. 5-20.
  • "Losing Steam: The Boiler and Engine Industry as an Index of British Columbia's De-industrialization, 1880-1915," Historical Papers, (now renamed the Journal of the Canadian Historical Association) 1989, pp. 168-207.
  • "`Books which are no books': An Introduction to the Use of Nineteenth Century B.C. Directories," in The Researcher's Guide to British Columbia.... Victoria: Public History Group, 1988, pp. 1-13.
  • "Interlude or Industry? Ranching in British Columbia, 1849-1885," B.C. Historical News, vol. 13, no. 4, (Fall 1980) pp. 2-11.

Other publications

  • “Working Together Apart – Collaborative Writing Tools for the Spatially and Temporally Displaced” CHA Bulletin, 37.3 (2011) 29-30.
  • “Beautiful Data: Digital Tools that Make Data Look Sexy,” CHA Bulletin, 37:1 Spring 2011, 18-19.
  • Digital Literacy: What Every Graduate Student Needs to Know. Canadian Historical Association Bulletin. 40: 40-41.
  • Bed Jumping and Compelling Convergences in Historical Computing,” Digital History, University of Nebraska, 2007
  • The Web Gives and Takes Away,” CHA Bulletin, Vol 33 No 2, 2007, 38-39.
  • "The War That Nobody Won," British Columbia Magazine, 47, 4 (Winter 2005) 42-49
  • "Preserving Our Past Essential to Our Future", Op Ed Piece Times Colonist, May 26, 2005.
  • The Researcher's Guide to British Columbia Directories, 1901-1939, a Bibliography and Index, Victoria: Public History Group, 1993, 210p (with George Young).
  • The Researcher's Guide to British Columbia Nineteenth Century Directories, Bibliography and Index, Victoria: Public History Group, 1988, 150p (with George Young).

Periodicals Edited or Co-Edited

  • Teaching History/Enseigner l'Histoire, Athabasca University, an occasional papers series co-edited with Jeremy Mouat. Teaching Women's History: Challenges and Solutions (January 1996) and Clio and Mars in Canada: Teaching Military History (December 1995).
  • Canadian Historical Association Bulletin, Canadian Historical Association, Quarterly, Summer 1989 - Spring 1991, 160p