Dr. Forrest Pass

Editorial Director and Research Fellow

Education: Ph.D. (Canadian History), Western Univ.; M.A. (Canadian History), Western Univ.; B.A. (History), Univ. of Toronto.

Awards: Kevin Harrington Award (2015) (given by the North American Vexillological Association-Association nord-américaine de vexillologie for the best article to appear in a non-vexillological publication during the preceding year): “‘Something occult in the science of flag-flying’: School Flags and Educational Authority in Early Twentieth-Century Canada, 95 Can. Hist. Rev. 321 (2014).

Honors: Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal (2012).

Selected Works: Strange Whims of Crest Fiends: Marketing Heraldry in the United States, 1880–1980. 50 J. Am. Studs/ 587 (2016); “A ‘Red Rag’to an Infuriated Bull”: American Flags, Canadian Vexilloclasts, and the Origins of Canadian Flag Culture, 1880–1930, 23 Raven J. of Vexillology 81 (2016); “‘Something occult in the science of flag-flying’: School Flags and Educational Authority in Early Twentieth-Century Canada, 95 Can. Hist. Rev. 321 (2014).

DR. FORREST PASS is the Center’s Editorial Director and Research Fellow, directing its research and publications programs. A Canadian public historian and vexillologist, he completed his doctorate in history at the University of Western Ontario in 2008. He then joined the Canadian Heraldic Authority as Saguenay Herald and devised coats of arms, flags and badges for individuals and corporate bodies as part of the Canadian national honours system. As an historian at the Canadian Museum of History between 2013 and 2017, he curated an exhibition marking the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the National Flag of Canada and acquired and documented hundreds of artifacts for the museum’s vexillological collection. Since 2019 he has been a curator at Library and Archives Canada, where he continues to research and publicize Canada’s symbolic heritage.

Dr. Pass’s research on flag culture, heraldry, and related topics has appeared in the Canadian Historical Review; Raven: A Journal of Vexillology; British Columbia History; the Journal of American Studies; and the Canadian Parliamentary Review. He has also written about these subjects for the Canadian Museum of History and Library and Archives Canada blogs and has been a commentator on flag history and controversies for print, broadcast, and online media across Canada. In 2012, he received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for his contributions to Canadian history and heraldry. In 2015, he received the Kevin Harrington Award from the North American Vexillological Association-Association nord-américaine de vexillologie for his research on school flag policies.

Dr. Pass lives in the Greater Ottawa-Gatineau Area with his wife, Manon Labelle (herself a former Miramichi Herald), and their two boys, Arthur and Edmond, both enthusiastic junior flag spotters.