Jerry Amernic on his book Sleepwoking

History Matters by Canadian Institute for Historical Education · Apr 2, 2026 · 30m

In this episode, Allan talks with journalist Jerry Amernic about his book Sleepwoking, published in November 2025.

The conversation opens with an anecdote about the founding of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York in 1939, ostensibly because the first ever baseball game had been played there in 1839, an origin story subsequently debunked by the Hall of Fame itself. Sleepwoking, in a similar vein, considers the accusations that Sir John A. Macdonald “starved the Indigenous Peoples,” Egerton Ryerson was the “architect” of residential schools, Henry Dundas “delayed” the abolition…