This assignment uses the website: Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History, which was developed by teams of Canadian historians to develop students' research skills and critical thinking. It engages its users in playing historical detective by using primary sources to explore real issues drawn from Canada's past that have so far eluded conclusive interpretation by professional historians. In doing so, the research process highlights important social, political, or cultural issues about Canada's past.

What will you find on the "Mysteries" website?

For each Mystery, there is a brief introduction to the issues at hand (what happened and when, who was involved) and sometimes some presentation of the overall historical context and issues surrounding the unfolding of the events. Note the tabs at the top of the page: they allow you to navigate around the website and to find the sometimes hundreds of documents available. These are mostly primary source documents that have been collected from archives (and in cases involving French documents, translated) for your convenience. This means that most of the grunt work of researching primary source documents has already been done for you (note that there are references to the origin of the documents at the bottom of pages; these need to be provided in references in the essay you will write). The challenge consists of using the primary sources available and secondary sources as well in order to answer a question pertinent to the subject of the mystery.

Each Mystery is different in its nature and the type of ressources it gives access to in order to resolve it. In all cases, however, what makes these interesting is that there is no definitive interpretation. This assignment therefore pertains both to the analysis and selection of sources as well as building a strong historical argument. It is an excellent introduction into the work of being a practising historian. No interpretation that is supported by both primary or secondary sources, will be considered invalid from the start: you have to make your case on the strength of the evidence and the logic of your argument or explanation. You also must acknowledge the various possible interpretations given the often contradictory evidence available.

How to use the "Mysteries" as a research assignment:

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to answer a question about the events that constitute your chosen Mystery. In most cases, there are multiple questions that can be asked and that are relevant to the events of the Mystery. The questions could be directly related to attempting to "solve" the mystery, or they could have to do with what the Mystery says of the context in which the events unfolded. For example, you may want to understand who is most likely to have killed Wiliam Robinson (a direct question about the Mystery) or you may want to use the case to explore race relations on Salt Spring Island in the 1860s (a question about the socio-cultural context). Both approaches (or a question that might combine elements from both) could be entirely valid, provided that you are using resources from the website in order to solve your riddle. In most cases, you will find some elements that simply cannot be answered with the evidence at hand. This must be acknowledged and it could be an opportunity to raise multiple hypotheses and weigh in on which might be most likely given what you know of the circumstances. This exercises does expose you to the messy work of historical research, which often cannot yield clear-cut interpretations. That's the fun part of this assignment.

Once you have chosen a Mystery, the first step is to get to know something about the context in which the events unfolded. Some of this information is provided on the website itself, but additional research is required to understand the specific context in its broader place. In other words, what was happening at the time, around the place where this happened? Why has it remained "unsolved". What issues or questions does it raise about our understanding of Canadian history? Answering those questions will require you to do a bit of research outside the website, using encyclopedias and possibly scholarly monographs and articles. Start early to give yourself time to do this exploration.

Once you have a sense of what the events were, who was involved, and of the general context in which they unfolded, draw up a question you would like to answer about the Mystery. As mentioned above, this can be a question about the case specifically, or about its broader significance. Once you have that question, don't fall prey to the temptation of trying to answer it too quickly. Remember that you need to address ambiguities. The explanation can remain tentative and change over the time you do the research. Once you do have an explanation, however, it will essentially become your thesis (if you were writing a traditional essay, that is what it would be called). Ensure that you have evidence to support your thesis, and at the same time that you are not selecting only evidence that supports it: where there are ambiguities and contradictions, acknowledge them and explain why you think your chosen thesis is still preferable, using the evidence you have found. This should form an outline of your paper, generally articulated around a limited number of points (typically three). Remember that this is meant to be an analytical, not a descriptive essay. From this outline, you should be able to write a paper that answers your question to the extent that it can be resolved.

With this paper, you are expected to hand in a short self-reflection on the research and writing process. See the Research Essay section on this website for details.

Future Social Studies Teachers: These can be used for middle and high school pupils. Check out the "Mystery Quests" associated to the website! There are also resources for teachers (which might prove useful for the research project too).