Wednesday, September 17th, 2025, 7:00 pm (Atlantic), in-person at the Lindsay Children’s Room on the 2nd floor at the Halifax Central Library, 5440 Spring Garden Road, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Click here for the Zoom link.

Dr. Arthur McCalla is Professor in the Department of History at Mount Saint Vincent University. He specializes in nineteenth-century European intellectual history, but in 2024 published On Life’s Slippery Rink: 200 Years of the Halifax Curling Club to mark the bicentenary of the HCC, of which he has been a member since 2006.

Abstract: 
This talk draws on the records of the Halifax Curling Club, founded 1824, to show how over its first century—which included its founding by a Royal Navy officer, immigrant Scots early membership, links to Governors-General, and participation in curling exchanges with Scotland—the HCC contributed at a local level to British Empire-wide attempts to construct a unified imperial identity, ultimately placing the sport of curling in the service of the concept of “imperial Scottishness.”