Governor General’s History Award 2025 Recipients

Canada’s most prestigious history prize celebrates the achievements of history teachers, scholars, authors, community groups, and museums.
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About the Awards

The Governor General’s History Awards are Canada’s top honours in the field of history and heritage. They celebrate the very best in Canadian achievements to ensure our national past has a vibrant presence in our society today.

The Governor General’s History Awards are administered by Canada’s National History Society, with the support of the Government of Canada through the Department of Canadian Heritage, and Power Corporation of Canada.

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2025 Recipients

Mark Bourrie

Over four decades, Mark Bourrie's writing has revealed the complexity and richness of Canada’s history — from early encounters between Europeans and Indigenous peoples to the political struggles, wars, and media forces that have shaped the country’s modern identity.

Crystal Gail Fraser

In its research methods, incorporation of Indigenous languages, and community-centred approach, By Strength, We Are Still Here makes a striking and original contribution to the literature on Indian Residential Schools in Canada.

Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink

In his superb intellectual biography of an important but largely forgotten figure in Quebec’s media and political scene at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink makes a major contribution to Canadian history.

François Desmarais & Véronique Picard

François Desmarais and Véronique Picard developed the Tissés serrés (Tightly Woven) project for their students, taking an innovative educational approach that puts history at the heart of the creative process.

Ian Duncan

The Historytellers Project empowered students to uncover and share Canada’s often-overlooked 2SLGBTQ+ history.

Heather Howell

Heather Howell’s students cultivated a heritage garden using traditional methods, growing vegetables and herbs similar to those raised by Burlington families in the late 19th century.

Kathryn Laframboise & Jonathan McPhail

The Black History Walking Tour was sparked by students’ concern over the near loss of a historic building — home to Canada’s first Black labour union.

Manouchka Otis

Manouchka Otis designed and implemented the Uapush Project, a pedagogical approach rooted in Innu knowledge, perspective and lived realities, offering a culturally relevant teaching experience.

Erin Quinn

Through Discovering Our Roots, Erin Quinn’s students became historians and museum curators as they explored their community’s local history.

Love in a Dangerous Time: Canada’s LGBT Purge

Through immersive installations, AI technology, and newly commissioned artworks, this exhibition fosters empathy and invites visitors to reflect on the Purge as part of a broader history of sexuality and gender in Canada.

Dawson Trail Arts and Heritage Tour

The Dawson Trail Arts and Heritage Tour is a model for community-led heritage programming and collaboration, leaving an economic, cultural, and educational legacy that honours the goals of truth and reconciliation.

Géo-visualiser les patrimoines de Mercier–Hochelaga–Maisonneuve

This project actively breathes new life into the stories of a Montreal working-class neighbourhood whose collective identity continues to inspire and unite.

Who (or what) made you go "wow!" this year?
Nominations for any category of the Governor General's History Awards are accepted all year round. Tell us about the best Canadian history experience you had this year.
Past Winners

The Governor General's History Awards

Celebrating the very best in Canadian achievements in the field of history and heritage.