Canadians across the country are invited to share their Canada Games story as part of a new crowd-sourced digital history project.<\/p>\n
The Canada Games Collection<\/a>, spearheaded by Brock University Associate Professor of History Elizabeth Vlossak, will be a publicly available collection of diverse stories of people\u2019s experiences of past Canada Games.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re creating a collection of material that doesn\u2019t exist anywhere else in Canada,\u201d said Vlossak. She hopes Canadians of all backgrounds and experiences will share their stories, whether positive or negative.<\/p>\n The project came about as Vlossak was preparing for her new course, Making History in Niagara<\/a>, which will see students create an online museum exhibition about the Games to launch in time for the 2021 Canada Summer Games in Niagara next August. Vlossak discovered there weren\u2019t many sources for students to work with and decided to create this new collection.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had originally imagined the collection would consist of oral history interviews we are conducting with past Canada Games Council members, high-profile athletes and Games officials,\u201d she said. \u201cBut as the project evolved, we realized that these should not be the only voices and narratives that we include in the collection.\u201d<\/p>\n Vlossak thought it would be important to include the stories of a more diverse range of Canadians, young and old, about their experiences and memories of the Games.<\/p>\n \u201cWe decided that crowd-sourcing would allow us to reach out to more people and capture these personal and local memories more effectively,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Vlossak is asking people with Canada Games memories, whether as athletes, coaches, local organizers, volunteers or attendees to share their images and thoughts about their experiences through the project\u2019s website.<\/a><\/p>\n Crowd-sourced material, including digitized Canada Games artifacts, will form part of the larger collection featuring interviews with individuals about their experiences and exploring themes such as race, class, gender, disability, immigration and Indigenous rights.<\/p>\n Vlossak and Brock History master\u2019s student Jessica Linzel, who was awarded a Match of Minds grant to help the professor build the collection, will contact some participants for follow-up interviews.<\/p>\n \u201cI’m looking forward to hearing the stories of those who have been involved in or affected by the Canada Games, and learning more about how the Games have helped shape people’s identities as Canadians in sport,\u201d says Linzel. \u201cI’m also excited to see the types of material we gain through crowd-sourcing and getting to see how different people have experienced the Canada Games in their lifetime.\u201d<\/p>\n