In the 20th century’s greatest war, one battle­field held the key to victory or defeat—the North Atlantic. It took 2,074 days and nights to deter­mine its out­come and in the end the Battle of the Atlantic proved to be the turn­ing point of the Second World War. That battle also proved to be Canada’s long­est con­tin­u­ous mili­tary en­gage­ment of the war.

The siege pitted German U-boats, which were attempt­ing to des­troy Allied trans­atlantic Merchant Navy convoys sail­ing to and from Britain, against naval escorts and bomber-recon­nais­sance air­craft. Many of the former were ships of the Royal Cana­dian Navy (RCN). In 1939 Canada’s navy went to war with exactly 13 war­ships and about 3,500 sailors. Over the course of the long, des­per­ate strug­gle, the RCN grew to 400 fight­ing ships and over 100,000 men and women in uniform. By V-E Day in 1945 the RCN was the fourth larg­est navy in the world.

Bestselling author Ted Barris tells stories from his latest book, The Battle of the Atlan­tic: Gaunt­let to Vic­tory, with sym­pa­the­tic regard for indi­vi­duals and fami­lies caught in tumul­tu­ous times. He has pub­lish­ed 20 non-fiction books, half of them war­time his­tor­ies. His The Great Escape: A Canadian Story won the 2014 Libris Award as Best Non-Fiction Book in Canada. His Dam Busters: Canadian Airmen and the Secret Raid Against Nazi Germany received the 2019 NORAD Trophy from the RCAF Asso­ci­a­tion; and his Rush to Danger: Medics in the Line of Fire was listed for the 2020 Charles Taylor Prize for Non-Fiction in Canada.

Battle of the Atlantic is Mr. Barris' twentieth non-fiction book. In addition to being a highly productive and successful author, Ted Barris is a Member of the Order of Canada.

A plague victim shows his phy­si­cians the swel­ling (bubo) in his armpit. Woodcut, circa 1500. NPR (USA).

The Black Death (1345–1350), the first wave of the second plague pan­demic, kil­led an esti­mat­ed 100 mil­lion people and re­duc­ed the Euro­pean and Middle Eastern popu­la­tions by 30 to 40 per­cent. Until 2011 the nar­ra­tives around causes and con­se­quen­ces of the Black Death were driven by his­tor­i­cal texts alone.

Since then, using DNA mo­lec­ules ex­tract­ed from the teeth of plague vic­tims, re­search­ers have un­cover­ed a new and com­pel­ling story of when the Black Death emerged, how it moved across Europe and West­ern Asia, and what con­se­quences were for sur­vivors. Our speaker will dis­cuss how ancient DNA is helping to revise cultural and genetic knowledge about the Black Death pandemic.

Dr. Hendrik Poinar is a Professor in the De­part­ment of Anthro­po­lo­gy, Mc­Master Uni­ver­sity, and the principal investigator at the university's Ancient DNA Centre. Read about the Ancient DNA Centre, what Dr. Poinar and his colleagues do, and some of their findings, at https://adna.mcmaster.ca/.

New archival research is painting a fresh pic­ture of Royal Bota­ni­cal Gar­dens’ (RBG) de­vel­op­ment as an insti­tu­tion and cul­tural heri­tage land­scape. The ori­gins and de­velop­ment of RBG, now Cana­da’s largest bo­tan­i­cal gar­den, in­clude tales of grand, early 20th cen­tury ef­forts to beau­ti­fy Ham­il­ton.

Indeed, by 1934 “The Am­bi­tious City” had more park acre­age than any other Cana­dian city and much of that acre­age became RBG. The City Beau­ti­ful move­ment, the first Com­mon­wealth Games (the British Empire Games of August 1930), Mc­Mast­er Uni­ver­sity’s new Hamil­ton City cam­pus, which open­ed in 1930, the Great De­pres­sion of the `30s, and Cana­da’s best archi­tects — they all be­came en­tangl­ed with bank­rupt­cies, threaten­ed wet­lands, and plans for arctic research — and they're all part of RBG’s story.

Dr. David Galbraith is Director of Science at RBG, Adjunct Bio­logy Pro­fes­sor at Mc­Mas­ter University, and a passion­ate advocate for both natural and cul­tural heritage. Learn more about RBG at https://www.rbg.ca/.

In pursuit of ever more texture, colour, and meaning, Dundas, On­tar­io, textile artist Mita Gia­co­mi­ni has deve­lop­ed a novel art tech­ni­que she calls “surface weaving”. In this ap­proach, strands of fabric, string and fibres swim together, creating exuberant colour inter­actions and tex­tures as an image takes form.

In this talk Ms Giacomini will take us through her creative journey exploring new ways to evoke experiences of nature. She’ll share recent work in her ongoing series on en­counters with birds, as well as newer series inspired by the qualities of tex­tiles them­selves, as both subject and art medium. Throughout, she’ll address the fre­quent­ly asked question: "Why make images with fibre, rather than with paint or drawing media?" In doing so she will illustrate how the fibre medium offers a sculptural di­men­sion, rich cul­tur­al asso­ci­a­tions, and a geo­met­ric resonance with the fabric of nature that is difficult to achieve with other media.

Mita Giacomini’s colourful, neo-impres­sion­ist birds and semi-abstract images inspired by nature have been exhibited in numerous galleries and museums across Canada and inter­national­ly, and fea­tur­ed in many fibre art articles and books. Learn more about Mita and view examples of her art on her website, "https://www.mitagiacomini.com/".

Antarctica is a vast, cold des­ert at the far ends of the Earth. How­ever, under­neath kilo­meters of ice there is a fas­ci­na­ting world of water­ways, long sinu­ous rivers, and lakes that flow from the inter­ior into the ocean. This water plays a vital role in the be­hav­iour of the ice sheet, in some regions caus­ing the ice to flow faster and driving en­hanc­ed melt in the sen­si­tive regions where the ice first begins to float on the ocean. There­fore, to predict the future of the ice sheet in our warm­ing planet, we need to know what’s hap­pen­ing at its slippery base.

Dr. Christine Dow is an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­sity of Water­loo, On­tario, and the Canada Re­search Chair in Glacier Hy­dro­lo­gy and Ice Dy­na­mics. Her research takes her to far-flung polar regions rang­ing from the ice shelves of Terra Nova Bay, Ant­arc­tica, to glaciers in the St. Elias Moun­tains of Yukon Ter­ri­tory. Dr. Dow uses tech­niques such as num­er­i­cal model­ling, field data col­lec­tion, and geo­physics to examine the changes occur­ring to our ice sheets and glaciers in a warming climate. Dr. Dow's pub­li­ca­tions are listed on the Waterloo website at "https://uwaterloo.ca/scholar/c3dow/publications". Some of her recent Antarc­tic find­ings are sum­mariz­ed here: https://uwaterloo.ca/news/media/river-runs-beneath-it-new-study-discovers-460-km-river-under.

Henry Lickers has spent much of his life think­ing about the im­port­ance of bridg­ing science and local know­ledge gained by Indi­ge­nous com­mu­ni­ties from ex­per­i­ences with the land, the water, and their in­ha­bi­tants. As the first Indi­ge­nous com­mis­sioner on the Inter­national Joint Com­mis­sion (IJC) he brought an aware­ness of ‘two-eyed seeing’ gained through his own exper­i­ence and pre­vi­ous work as en­vi­ron­men­tal science officer for the Mohawk Council of Ak­we­sas­ne. Now recently refired from the IJC, Henry Lickers is a Hau­de­no­sau­nee citizen of the Seneca Nation, Turtle Clan and a biologist.

The IJC is a govern­ment-appoint­ed group that over­sees all bodies of water shared by Canada and the United States. Read about the IJC at "https://www.ijc.org/en". Also on the IJC site is then-Commissioner Lickers' January, 2021, "letter" to the public in which he re­counts details of his life relevant to his role as a Commissioner; see https://ijc.org/en/letter-henry-lickers.

The total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, starting at 3:18 pm in the Hamilton-to-Niagara area, is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for scien­tists and star­gazers alike to wit­ness an event that con­nects us all to astro­no­my.

Eclipses of both the Sun and Moon have play­ed many roles in his­tor­i­cal set­tings and have re­veal­ed a rich set of know­ledge about our solar system, fun­da­men­tal phy­sics, and in­sights into the tem­por­al evo­lu­tion of the Earth-Moon sys­tem and the outer layers of both the Sun and Moon.

Dr. Welch re­counts some of the most pivotal research, such as test­ing gen­er­al re­la­ti­vi­ty, and dis­cus­ses the "transit method" that informs our under­stand­ing of the abun­dance of pla­ne­tary systems around other stars.

Dr. Doug Welch, PhD Astronomy, is a full Pro­fes­sor in the De­part­ment of Physics and As­tro­nomy and a former Vice-Pro­vost and Dean of Gra­du­ate Stu­dies at Mc­Master Uni­ver­sity. His areas of exper­tise in­clude evolved pul­sa­t­ing vari­able stars, obser­va­tion­al studies of dark mat­ter, and the study of super­nova light echoes. He is an author or co-author on over 150 refere­ed journal papers and a co-author on four Nature papers.

Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra Composer-in-Residence Abigail Richardson-Schulte explores the lives and artistic impacts of North American composers whose work helped shape the musical landscapes we know today — from the soul-stirring sounds of American composers Copland and Barber to the remarkable musical infra­structure building of Sir Ernest MacMillan in Canada. Discover the historical context, cultural nuances and influences behind the quintes­sential North American sound.

Presented in partnership with the HPO.

Abigail will provide piano demonstrations throughout her presentation, highlighting the music of featured composers and a performance of her own piece.

Graphic novels are find­ing their place in main­stream liter­ary circles and reader­ship, in part due to grow­ing recog­ni­tion for the value of this rela­tive­ly new nar­ra­tive form. For ex­ample, Sabrina, by Nick Drnaso, was nomi­nated for Bri­tain's Man Booker prize in 2018, while Kate Beaton’s Ducks took home top honours in 2023 in the CBC's Canada Reads competition.

Flamborough-born and Mohawk Col­lege educated, Canadian car­toonist Joe Oll­mann gives his take on the de­vel­op­ment of graphic novels, why they de­serve our attention, and why some are under attack. He is the author of eight graphic novels, including Fictional Father, the first graphic novel nominated in the adult fiction ca­te­gory of Cana­da's Gov­er­nor General's Awards, and a winner of the Hamilton Literary Award for the same ca­te­gory. In 2019 he co-curated with Alana Traficante ‘This Is Serious’, a 47-artist retro­spec­tive of indie comics at the Art Gallery of Hamilton.