“Canada’s Year Without a Summer” shares sources relevant to its titular event – the climate change in Canada caused by the 1815 Tambora volcano explosion. This site contains primary sources such as diary entries and newspaper articles with the goal of getting more people interested in climate history. This site intentionally refrains from providing extra information about the Year Without Summer in Canada; not only is the goal to get more people interested in climate history but for those people to develop that interest through self-directed learning. Through examining primary sources, readers are able to come to their own conclusions, to decide for themselves the causes and experiences of the Year Without Summer.

These primary documents are searchable by two methods: creator and date. The “Sources by Creator” page organizes the documents by document type (newspapers, diaries, and government sources) and then by its creator. The creator names are clickable links which lead you to each respective collection of sources. If there is more than one source per creator, the sources are then listed in chronological order. The “Sources by Date” page lists the newspaper articles and government sources in chronological order. The diary entries are only accessible through the “Sources by Creator” page. If you click one of the sources on the “Sources by Date” page, you are sent to that source’s creator page – the same page you are directed to after clicking its link on the “Sources by Creator” page. On the “Sources by Date” page, the sources are presented, centred, in a long column. While this aptly represents the chronological order of the sources, I wonder if there might be a better way to present the sources while still maintaining chronological organization, but also doing away with the excessive white space. So instead of presenting the sources in a vertical chain, perhaps the sources could be presented in a more cohesive fashion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This website is valuable in that it fosters self-directed learning. In order to learn about Canada’s Year Without a Summer, readers must peruse the collection of photographs and transcriptions. Additionally, the website provides questions to guide and facilitate readers’ learning on its “The Whys and Hows of Using this Site” page. These questions ask readers to think about how a change in the weather would have affected people’s lives. Additionally, the questions encourage readers to assess whether or not Canada did have a Year Without a Summer, if the title of the website accurately portrays and defines that particular historical period in Canada. The site also provides a list of additional sources for further research, supplying articles that discuss climate history, the historical context of the Year Without a Summer, and both regional and global effects of the Tambora volcano explosion. As a quick reference, this website is less useful. Someone wanting to know the basic history of the Year Without a Summer would be better off taking a quick jaunt to the topic’s Wikipedia page rather than wade through the website’s collection of primary sources.

While this website does claim to be a “one-stop-shopping primary source collection of yearwithoutasummerania,” it also acknowledges that its collection of sources could potentially be just the tip of the iceberg in terms of relevant material. It extends an invitation to its readers to send in relevant primary sources as well as interpretations of these sources to be posted on the “Canada’s Year Without a Summer” website. By crowdsourcing primary sources and their respective interpretations, the website would not only add to its wealth of resources but also provide valuable commentary. The website’s sources seem to be fairly representative of what is now eastern Canada. The newspaper articles range in origin from Ontario to Quebec to the Atlantic provinces; the government sources and diary entries seem to almost entirely originate from the Maritimes. Obviously, the Tambora volcano explosion occurred before Canadian Confederation, so perhaps a more apt name for the website would be “Upper and Lower Canada’s Year Without a Summer.” The primary sources found on this website are solely representative of eastern Canada rather than western Canada or the territories. So while this website provides a good idea of how the Year Without a Summer affected the colonial citizens of Lower and Upper Canada and the Atlantic provinces, it provides a less comprehensive study of other aspects, like how the Year Without a Summer impacted Indigenous communities or the overall geography of what is now considered Canada.

Ultimately, this website is a good educational resource for self-directed learning. While this website does not provide a simple overview of the Year Without a Summer in Canada, it does provide ample resources for readers interested in learning about the topic. This website allows readers to draw their own conclusions from the primary sources; readers get to decide for themselves how the Year Without a Summer affected Canadians.