I vaguely remember some mention that many of the work from the Champlain Society are now available online in a digital format. I could not find mention of how many of the works are now available in this format. I did a couple cursory searches and determined that Read and Stagg’s Rebellion in Upper Canada is not, although Alexander Begg’s Journal is. Both works were on our Canadian history major field reading list and the 1837 work was annoyingly stored in the archives at Mac so to read it we had to venture into a space that was only opened for a portion of the day, request the book (it’s not fragile, but since its in th archives its treated with kidd gloves) and we were permitted to sit at a controlled space and ‘savour’ the prose. Yes, it was inconvenient and awkward simply beacause this work was from a limited printing run. Its in the stacks at most any other institution, but i guess we got the bonus experience of appreciating the way in which books in general were jealously protected from readers 200 years ago or more. Ooops…I guess that was a rant.
What I wanted to really focus on here was that its great that some of the Champlain Society works are available online and I am sure more will be in the future. Its a wonderful collection of seminal works in Canadian history and encouraging access to these pieces is great and worthy initiative.