Retired profs win award for books on Northeastern Ontario military history

‘Their research work is as broad as the region and offers a thoughtful framework to understand it’

Dieter Buse with the first volume of the book he penned with Graeme Mount. (Supplied)

Retired Laurentian University history professors Dieter Buse and Graeme Mount are the winners of the 2019 Fred Landon Award for their book Untold: Northeastern Ontario’s Military Past, volumes 1 and 2, published by Latitude 46 Publishing.

The Fred Landon Award recognizes the best book on local or regional history in Ontario published in the past three years.

Untold: Northeastern Ontario’s Military Past, in two volumes, brings to print for the first time stories of Ontario’s “Northeasteners” as seen through the lives of men and women who served in the Canadian military, principally in the two world wars.

This part of Ontario is vast and holds far-flung districts – Algoma, Cochrane, Manitoulin, Nipissing, Sudbury, Temiskaming–extending from the bottom of James Bay south to Mattawa on the Ottawa River – from Manitoulin Island at the top of Lake Huron in the west to as far north as Hearst.

The authors, Buse and Mount, retired professors of history at Laurentian University in Sudbury, have a passion for local history writ large, said a press release.

They recognize that less attention has been given to this region by military historians because its volunteers and conscripts (while they did enrol locally) more often than not served in units that are associated outside of the region, in populated centres of southern Ontario, or elsewhere.

Their research work is as broad as the region and offers a thoughtful framework to understand it, the press release added.

At the same time, their research is intended to be a catalyst to interested researchers who want to pursue the histories of individuals from the Northeast who appear in this book. In sum, Untold sheds new light on aspects of Canada’s military and people’s history by incorporating stories of the peoples of the Northeast.

Founded in 1888, the Ontario Historical Society is a not-for-profit corporation and registered charity dedicated to the preservation and celebration of Ontario’s history for people of all ages and cultural backgrounds.

Watch Buse and Mount’s acceptance speeches below: