Laurier's Graduate Studies website lists some ideas here, or also via the Faculty of Graduate Studies Student Awards database (don't forget to search by faculty as well as just the general listing for grad student awards) here. http://info.wlu.ca/~wwwsa/graduate/index.html For external awards they provide this list-o-links here.

The two "biggies" for history in terms of external grants are the Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) fellowships. The competition for these occurs each fall for funding in the following year. This is a bit tricky for MA students, since you need to apply for them usually when you've only just begun your fourth year of undergrad, but it sometimes pays off. For general information about these two programs, please consult the agency websites. OGS is here and SSHRC's is here. 

Early in the fall, we'll post more specific information about deadlines or other such details to the history website here. Both of these award-applications are ranked internally by a departmental committee before going downstairs to graduate studies to be further ranked by a university-wide awards committee. The number of SSHRC applications that are forwarded to Ottawa for consideration by the adjudication committees is very tiny (e.g. 11 PhD SSHRC applications left the university in 2007) but apparently the better students do each year in these competitions, the more likely that quota is to increase. For OGS applications, after the university committee's rankings, all applications are forwarded to the agency for distribution to the many adjucation committees. The results for OGS and SSHRC awards usually are announced in early April (or about half a year after you've submitted your application).

There are a number of other external granting agencies or scholarship opportunities beyond OGS and SSHRC. A good place to start is the listing provided the Graduate Students' Committee of the Canadian Historical Association (CHA) here.

TUGSA (our very own Tri-University Graduate Students' Association) has compiled a list of scholarships here.

Sometimes specialized academic associations or societies provide awards for students working in that same area or field, so look widely. You should keep this in mind for conference travel awards too.

A new award opportunity for those wanting to study at Harvard--the Frank Knox Memorial Scholarship (tenable at both at MA and PhD levels). More information can be found here or here  for more information.

For those of you working on local history, don't forget the Waterloo Regional Heritage Foundation Graduate Student Award. For more information click here.