With funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, Professor Constance Crompton, Canada Research Chair in Digital Humanities, is leading a national project. Its goal is to transform Canadiana, the largest online collection of Canadian historical documents, into an intelligent, searchable research platform that’s open and accessible to everyone.
Canada’s documentary memory, unlocked
For decades, Canadiana has been one of the country’s most valuable historical resources. The collection contains archival materials dating from the 1500s to 2010. They document immigration, agriculture, politics, science and everyday life.
“There isn’t anything else like that in Canada. This is the one,” says Crompton. “It holds the documentary evidence of who we are, where we came from and how we got here. To me, it’s almost like an old-growth forest. If we don’t care for it, there’s no bringing it back.”
While much of this material is publicly available through the Canadian Research Knowledge Network, finding information can be challenging. Many records exist only as scanned page images. Handwritten documents are often unsearchable, and metadata at times is incomplete or uses outdated, derogatory language.
The new Digital Collections of the Future project aims to change that.
Using artificial intelligence, optical character recognition and advanced data tools, the team will make millions of documents machine-readable and searchable. This project will include new accessibility features, visualizations, maps and specific topic portals. Researchers, students, genealogists and the public will be able to discover people, places and stories hidden in plain sight.
“It’s already online,” Crompton says, “but not in a way that lets its knowledge fully flourish.”
Hidden stories waiting to be discovered
Crompton experienced the archive’s potential first-hand while teaching a class on records from Canada’s Home Children program, which brought thousands of impoverished British children to Canada to work between the 1860s and 1940s.
While examining immigration files connected to the program, Crompton unexpectedly found a set of government documents debating whether Mennonite immigrants from Russia should be allowed to enter Canada. The correspondence, Crompton realized, was tied to their spouse’s ancestry.
“It was incredibly moving,” they say. “As I read these letters, I realized they documented decisions that would shape the course of my own family’s life. The happiness my husband, children and I enjoy in Canada today can be traced back to the people and choices captured in these records.”
That discovery illustrates the project’s promise. Millions of stories already exist within Canadiana’s vast collection, but many remain hidden, buried in records found only by chance or painstaking research.
“Really, the whole point, and the thing that’s exciting about this project, is unearthing those hidden stories.”
Finding the people history forgot
Historical records reflect the priorities, power structures and prejudices of their time. As a result, they often centre politicians, wealthy landowners and other prominent figures, leaving many other lives in the margins.
Crompton is excited by the potential for AI-powered entity recognition to change that. By linking references across thousands of documents, the project can help uncover the hidden stories and figures that shaped the country.
“Right now, you might find an old photograph where the metadata names a wealthy landowner and mentions only ‘his wife’ or ‘a guide’ in passing,” they say. “We might soon trace those unnamed people across different records and learn more about them, their lives and their contributions.”
Why history matters now
As conversations about identity, belonging and Canada’s future grow more urgent, Crompton sees access to history as a powerful tool.
Historical records provide evidence that Canada’s story has always been more diverse, complex and interconnected than simplified narratives suggest.
“The easier it is to access that history,” Crompton says, “the easier it is to understand that people have always been here.”
The archive contains records documenting Indigenous communities and languages, queer histories, Sikh farming families in British Columbia, early Chinese Canadian communities and generations of Canadians whose contributions are often overlooked.
“We don’t have to go with cheap and easy stereotypes,” says Crompton. “We can know the real history.”
For them, understanding the past can help people imagine alternatives for the future.
“I get the sense that people sometimes feel stuck or frustrated with the way things are. But the world didn’t arrive this way by accident.”
Women once weren’t considered persons under the law. Public education, reproductive rights and labour protections were all won through social and political change. History reminds us that today’s systems are not fixed.
“It gives us the tools to make evidence-based decisions about our future,” says Crompton. “If we understand how we got here, we’re better equipped to decide what comes next.”
Beyond history: A national resource for the future
Led by the University of Ottawa and supported by partners nationwide, the project is a major effort to modernize records of Canada’s heritage. It brings together researchers, librarians and technology experts to unlock a collection unlike any other in Canada.
For Crompton, the significance extends far beyond historical research.
Canadiana contains centuries of agricultural records, health information, economic data and scientific observations that could inform research on climate change, public health and public policy. By making these materials easier to search and analyze, the project opens new opportunities for discovery across disciplines.
“It’s very exciting to work at a university that can do things of this national importance and national scale,” says Crompton. “This is the only collection like this in Canada, and uOttawa is the lead institution.”
Among the 69 million pages of history are countless stories still waiting to be discovered. By making Canadiana searchable, connected and accessible, the Digital Collections of the Future project will help ensure those stories, and the knowledge they contain, are no longer hidden from the people who need them.