About Me

Hello there! I'm Rob Collins, from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, where I've lived for more than four decades. Following a fulfilling career in the high-tech sector, I decided to embark on a new adventure and returned to school. In 2008, I earned my Bachelor of Arts degree in History from the University of Ottawa.

My academic journey led me to specialize in Atlantic History. Sounds fancy, doesn't it? But really, it's about understanding that Canadian history isn't just about what happened here—it's all tangled up with what was going on across the pond and beyond.

Growing up in the Niagara Peninsula, I was taught a simplified version of events like the War of 1812. We learned it as this big moment where Canada stood up to the U.S., but there's a whole lot more to it. It's like pulling on a thread and finding out it's connected to this massive tapestry of global politics - a subplot of the larger Napoleonic Wars where Britain was fighting for its life against the French who controlled most of Europe.

My passion for history extends beyond academia; I aim to make history accessible and engaging to the broader public. Popular history, as I see it, should be lively, thought-provoking, and, above all, fun. It's about storytelling.

I generally don’t communicate through lectures or talks indoors. I think history is best learned by standing in the places where it happened. If you can learn something happened and then look around at the landscape, you can actually, in your mind, see it happening. And if you can travel through that landscape, you can take history with you and travel through time, retracing the paths of those who went before us. I like to think of this as travelling in four dimensions - height, length, width and time.

I don’t write books. Firstly, no one reads books any more. Secondly, books are static. Most of my work is done on web sites. Using the power of the internet, it is easy to provide links to multiple sources without slowing down the story. Then if you want to dig deeper or see how I can justify any statement, you can click on the link. But if not, you can just keep on reading.

I do give tours. You can find them on ToursbyLocals or Ottawa’s Jane’s Walks site.

This website is a culmination of that vision—a platform designed to spark curiosity and invite exploration.

So, what do you think? Did I manage to strike the right balance? Let me know your thoughts!

Rob Collins

March, 2024