Editorial Board / Comité de rédaction

Editor-in-Chief Rédacteur en chef

Kenneth McRoberts, York University,

Associate Editors Rédacteurs adjoints

Isabel Carrera Suarez, Universidad de Oviedo, Spain Carolle Simard, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada Robert S. Schwartzwald, University of Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Managing Editor Secrétaire de rédaction

Guy Leclair, ICCS/CIEC, Ottawa, Canada

Advisory Board / Comité consultatif

Irene J.J. Burgers, University of Groningen, The Netherlands Patrick Coleman, University of California/Los Angeles, U.S.A. Enric Fossas, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, España Lois Foster, La Trobe University, Australia Fabrizio Ghilardi, Università di Pisa, Italia Teresa Gutiérrez-Haces, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico Eugenia Issraelian, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia James Jackson, Trinity College, Republic of Ireland Jean-Michel Lacroix, Université de Paris III/Sorbonne Nouvelle, France Denise Gurgel Lavallée, Universidade do Estado da Bahia, Brésil Eugene Lee, Sookmyung University, Korea Erling Lindström, Uppsala University, Sweden Ursula Mathis, Universität Innsbruck, Autriche Amarjit S. Narang, Indira Gandhi National Open University, India Heather Norris Nicholson, University College of Ripon and York St. John, United Kingdom Satoru Osanai, Chuo University, Japan Vilma Petrash, Universidad Central de Venezuela-Caracas, Venezuela Danielle Schaub, University of Haifa, Israel Sherry Simon, Concordia University, Canada Wang Tongfu, Shanghai International Studies University, China International Journal of Canadian Studies Revue internationale d’études canadiennes

15, Spring / Printemps 1997

Time, Space and Place Le temps, l’espace et le lieu

Table of Contents / Table des matières

Isabel Carrera Suarez Introduction / Présentation ...... 5 Jonathan Bordo The Terra Nullius of Wilderness—Colonialist Landscape Art (Canada & Australia) and the So-Called Claim to American Exception ...... 13 William J. Buxton Time, Space and the Place of Universities in Western Civilization: Harold Innis’ Plea ...... 37 Randy William Widdis Borders, Borderlands and : A Canadian Perspective . . 49 Guildo Rousseau La descente du continent...... 67 Patricia Vervoort Art and Illusion: Joe Fafard’s Space Wrinkles...... 85 Beverley Curran and Mitoko Hirabayashi Translation: Making Space for a New Narrative in Le désert mauve . . 109 S. Ramaswamy Time, Space and Place in Two Canadian Poems: An Indian View ...121 Valerie Legge Heralds of Empire: Liminal Heroes and Visionary Fugitives ...... 135

Review Essay / Essai critique Jocelyn Létourneau Le temps du lieu raconté. Essai sur quelques chronologies récentes relatives à l’histoire du Québec...... 153

Open Topic Articles / Articles hors-thèmes Michael A. O’Neill Stepping Forward, Stepping Back? Health Care, the Federal Government and the New Canada Health and Social Transfer...... 169 Mark E. Rush Citizenship and Rights in Canada and the United States: Managing the Tension that Haunts International Law ...... 187 David G. Delafenêtre and Daisy L. Neijmann The Netherlandic and Scandinavian Transition in Canada: A Sociological and Literary Perspective ...... 209 Introduction Présentation

The dimensions of time and space Le temps et l’espace sont non are not only the permanent subject seulement un sujet constant de of cultural and scientific spéculation culturelle et scientifique speculation, but also, in their close mais aussi, étant donné leur rapport link with the construction of place, étroit à la construction de la notion de fundamental factors of individual lieu, des facteurs déterminants dans la and collective self-definition. Not définition que se donnent d’eux- surprisingly, they are often at the mêmes les individus et les core of discussions of identity, and collectivités. Il n’est donc pas since Northrop Frye posed his surprenant que ces concepts se much quoted and contested retrouvent au cœur de débats portant Canadian existential question sur l’identité, surtout depuis la grande “Where is here?,” aspects of place question existentielle canadienne have been perceived as formulée par Northrop Frye, « Où est particularly significant in the ici? », des aspects du lieu ont pris une national context. Many of the signification toute particulière dans le articles that follow expand the contexte national. Plusieurs des limits of the questions asked about articles qui suivent abordent de spatio-temporal aspects in Canada. nouveaux horizons sur les questions The abundance of references to the de l’espace et du temps au Canada. imaginary, to the interaction Les nombreuses références à between reality and myth, brings l’imaginaire, à l’interdépendance de to mind another classic statement la réalité et du mythe, rappellent la by a Canadian writer and theorist, formule classique d’un autre écrivain Robert Kroetsch’s assertion that et théoricien canadien Robert “the fiction makes us real,” which Kroetsch. Selon lui, « la fiction nous posed the importance of narrative rend réel ». Son assertion affirme in the understanding and creation l’importance de la narration dans la of communities. In the papers that compréhension et la création des follow, the constant shuttle communautés. Dans les articles qui between the social and the suivent, le passage constant du social cultural, between the concrete and au culturel, du concret à l’abstrait, the abstract, confirms that confirme ce mélange inextricable de intertwining of reality and desire, la réalité et du désir, des lieux et des of places and maps of the mind topographies de l’esprit dans un within the Canadian context. contexte canadien. The first group of articles deals Le premier groupe d’articles porte sur with interrelated questions of time les rapports du temps et de l’espace et and space as they affect cultural leurs effets sur les constructions and social constructions. Through culturelles et sociales. Par le biais a comparison of colonialist d’une comparaison de l’art paysagiste landscape art in Australia and colonial au Canada et en Australie, Canada, Jonathan Bordo’s opening l’article de Jonathan Bordo relie la piece links the Canadian symbolic symbolique canadienne de la nature of the wilderness to the sauvage au mythe fondateur nord- américain de cette nature comme

International Journal of Canadian Studies / Revue internationale d’études canadiennes 15, Spring/Printemps 1997 IJCS / RIÉC foundational North American myth Terra Nullius, mise de l’avant par of the wilderness as Terra Nullius, les puritains de la baie du initiated by the Massachusetts Bay Massachusetts. Cet espace puritans. This space, devoid of the dépeuplé, tout à l’opposé des human figure and opposed to paysages européens chargés European historicized landscape d’histoire et faisant peu de cas de while conveniently erasing the l’Autre, en l’occurrence les Aboriginal Other, finds its ultimate Autochtones, trouve son expression expression in the iconic paintings of ultime dans les représentations the Group of Seven, and serves as iconiques du Groupe des Sept et legitimation of territorial claims. By vient légitimer les ambitions contrasting it with the symbolic of territoriales. En le mettant en the Australian bush, and challenging contraste avec la symbolique du the concept of “American exception,” « bush » australien et en remettant Bordo situates the Canadian en question le concept wilderness imaginary within the d’« exception américaine », Bordo dominant cultural project of Euro- situe l’imaginaire canadien de la , which reverberates nature sauvage dans le contexte du still, in his view, in contemporary projet culturel dominant des Nord- deep ecology. Issues of political Américains d’origine européenne, space are also the subject of William qui selon lui, trouve encore des J. Buxton’s approach to Harold Innis’ résonances dans l’écologie work, which focuses on the methods profonde contemporaine. L’espace by which civilizations ensure politique constitue aussi le sujet de territorial control and durability, and l’approche des travaux de Harold the monopolies of knowledge created Innis par William J. Buxton. Son in the process. In Innis’ analysis, the article met en lumière les méthodes modern era is obsessed with the par lesquelles les civilisations control of space while plagued by assurent le contrôle et la pérennité “endemic present-mindedness.” This de leur territoire et le monopole des imbalance, related to mechanization savoirs qui s’ensuit. Dans l’analyse and commercialization, finds certain de Innis, l’ère moderne est marquée points of resistance in time-sensitive par une obsession du contrôle de areas such as orality, the universities l’espace et par une « constante or the humanities. Buxton explores propension au présent ». Ce Innis’ commitment to counteracting déséquilibre issu de la contemporary spatializing tendencies mécanisation et de la through universities, as well as the commercialisation trouve certains role of Canada in resisting the space- points de résistance dans des biased, globalizing United States. secteurs où le temps joue un rôle déterminant, tel les traditions Randy Williams Widdis’ central orales, les milieux universitaires ou theme, the borderland, is also les humanités. Buxton explore primarily a territorial concept, but his l’engagement de Innis en vue de argument highlights precisely the contrecarrer les tendances importance of the time factor in the contemporaines à l’éparpillement definition of place. Through an dans les universités de même que le analysis of the Canadian diversity of rôledu Canada vis à vis l’empire internal borders—regional, cultural,

8 Time, Space and Place Le temps, l’espace et le lieu economic—and of cultural américain toujours plus globalisant et bridges, he reminds us of the envahissant. organic, dynamic aspect of Le thème principal qu’aborde Randy borders and borderlands, of the Williams Widdis, celui de région evolution of identity and place limitrophe, est lui aussi un concept over time. In Canada, he qui s’applique au territoire. maintains, this includes a Cependant, son argumentation met development of national précisément en lumière l’importance economies and political-cultural du temps dans la définition du lieu. institutions that transcended Par une analyse de la diversité des differences and counterbalanced frontières internes qui se trouvent au the north-south integrative forces Canada — qu’elles soient régionales, (Canada-U.S.) which defenders of culturelles ou économiques — et des the Borderlands Thesis emphasize. rapprochements entre les cultures, il The paradoxical character of nous rappelle la nature organique et Canadian identity, Widdis dynamique des frontières et des suggests, will face new challenges régions limitrophes, et met en lumière in the present globalized, l’évolution de l’identité et du lieu à postmodern world. In a return to travers le temps. Au Canada, the symbolic aspects of space, soutient-il, cette évolution s’effectue Guildo Rousseau deals directly par la mise en place d’économies, with the realm of the geographic d’institutions politiques et culturelles imaginary of the (North) de nature nationale qui sont venues American continent. Through the transcender les différences et analysis of a number of literary contrebalancer les forces works from Québec, Anglophone d’intégration nord-sud (Canada — Canada and the U.S., he explores États-Unis), ceci en opposition aux the mental landscapes and the thèses mises de l’avant par les tenants maps of desire involved in the de la théorie des zones limitrophes. fictional criss-crossing of North Le caractère paradoxal de l’identité America, a space marked canadienne, soutient Widdis, devra primarily by movement, by relever les nouveaux défis posés par voyages of discovery that insist on le monde actuel, global et post- two axes: East-West and North- moderne. Dans un retour aux aspects South. While patterns recur—the symboliques de l’espace, Guildo West as object enunciated from Rousseau traite expressément du the East, the “descent” south into domaine de l’imaginaire the dark continent, the encounter géographique du continent nord- with the Other—the variations of américain. Par une analyse de the myth demonstrate its fluidity, plusieurs œuvres littéraires du which finds one of its most Québec, du Canada anglais et des powerful symbols in North États-Unis, il explore le paysage American rivers, with their mental et les territoires du désir mis resonance of rites of passage, en œuvre dans les traversées fictives death and resurrection. de l’Amérique du Nord, un espace The second group of articles deals marqué par le déplacement, par les with specific works of art and their voyages de découverte qui se treatment of the concepts of space déploient selon deux axes : est-ouest

9 IJCS / RIÉC and/or time. Patricia Vervoort shows ou nord-sud. Bien que des modèles how Joe Fafard’s cow sculptures reviennent — l’Ouest constitué translate theories of spatial illusion comme objet à partir de l’Est et la into three-dimensional subjects. The « descente » vers le sud qui many representations of cows in représente le continent obscur et la Fafard’s career, often underrated as rencontre avec l’Autre — les humorous or merely thematic icons variantes du mythe manifestent sa of place, demonstrate the artist’s fluidité, qui trouve l’une de ses long-standing engagement with illustrations les plus fortes dans spatial representation and with l’image du cours des rivières nord- theoretical issues in science and art. américaines et le cortège de rites From his cows in “space wrinkles” to initiatiques et de cycles de mort et his more recent techniques, all his de résurrection qu’elles évoquent. animal sculptures challenge the laws Le second ensemble d’articles of perspective and our very traite de certaines œuvres d’art et perception of reality. Beverly Curran de la manière dont celles-ci and Mitoko Hirabayashi explore the abordent le temps et(ou) l’espace. acts of translation in Nicole Patricia Vervoort montre de quelle Brossard’s novel Le désert mauve, manière les sculptures de vaches especially with regard to the produites par Joe Fafard traduisent interactions between the spaces of des théories sur l’illusion spatiale life and fiction, male and female dans des sujets tridimensionnels. reality, language and body, reading Les nombreuses représentations de and writing. As they analyse the gaps vaches qui jalonnent la carrière de opened by the reader-translator- Fafard, souvent mésestimées et character Maude Laures in her reléguées au rang de l’humour ou transformation of désert into horizon, de simples icones emblématiques the authors invite us to find a new du lieu, mettent en lumière la narrative in the textual spaces of the préoccupation constante de l’artiste novel. From a different theoretical eu égard à la représentation dans perspective, S. Ramaswamy’s l’espace et aux questions consciously “Indian” reading of two théoriques qui chevauchent les arts Canadian poems, by Bliss Carman et les sciences. Depuis ses vaches and Margaret Atwood, exposes us to prises dans des « rides spatiales » a different conceptualization of jusqu’à ses productions récentes, space, time and place, a perspective toutes les sculptures d’animaux de contrasted in the essay with Fafard remettent en question les European philosophical and literary lois de la perspective et notre traditions. Finally, Valerie Legge, in perception de la réalité. Beverly her Bakhtinian analysis of Agnes C. Curran et Mitoko Hirabayashi Laut’s Heralds of Empire, shows explorent le processus de how a popular author at the turn of traduction dans le roman de Nicole the century engages in a process of Brossard Le désert mauve en revisionism of history and literature, suivant le fil des interactions de how her fugitive heroes, “liminal l’espace fictif et du vécu, de la men and chameleon women,” resist réalité masculine et féminine, du the conventions of time and space, langage et du corps, de la lecture et move from one cultural zone to de l’écriture. À mesure qu’elles another, and embrace the North as

10 Time, Space and Place Le temps, l’espace et le lieu the open territory which allows analysent les brèches que pratique creativity and cultural diversity. Maude Laures — la lectrice- traductrice-protagoniste — dans sa In the review essay by Jocelyn transformation de désert en horizon, Létourneau, recent literature les auteures nous convient à proposing chronologies for the construire un nouveau récit dans les history of Québec is seen to fall interstices du roman. Dans une mainly within two categories: the perspective théorique autre, la lecture first, following nationalist délibérément « indienne », par S. tradition, chooses symbolic dates, Ramaswamy, de deux poèmes des beginning with 1759, as landmarks Canadiens Bliss Carman et Margaret for a cultural narrative of Atwood nous met en présence d’une disempowerment and colonization; autre conceptualisation du temps, de the second, born in the 1960s, l’espace et du lieu, une perspective works along the lines of socio- que l’article contraste aux traditions economic experience, the philosophiques et littéraires structural and historical processes européennes. En dernier lieu, Valerie and discontinuities which situate Legge dans son analyse baktinienne the development of Québec within du roman Heralds of Empire d’Agnes the chronology of the western C. Laut montre comment une auteure world. As the author points out, populaire du tournant du siècle jette un both lines have political regard révisionniste sur l’histoire et la implications and theoretical littérature, comment ses héros fugitifs, limitations. Recent chronologies hommes liminaires et femmes employing new criteria, such as caméléons, s’opposent aux media and communication, public conventions qui régissent le temps et expression of citizens, or women’s l’espace, passent d’une zone culturelle issues, have yet to influence the à une autre pour englober le Nord, general public, for whom the territoire ouvert à la créativité et à la temporality of place is constructed diversité culturelle. along recognizable traditional lines. Dans son essai critique, Jocelyn Létourneau distingue deux catégories The last three articles constitute dans les ouvrages récents portant sur the open topic section of the issue. la trame chronologique de l’histoire Michael O’Neil analyses the du Québec. La première adopte la evolving role of the federal tradition nationaliste pour choisir des government in the health insurance dates symboliques, à commencer par system, and traces a pattern of 1759, et les pose comme étape d’un progressive decline of involvement récit culturel axé sur la dépossession and funding on the part of Ottawa. et la colonisation. La seconde, issue By leaving health care in the hands des années 1960, prend comme fil of the provinces, the author argues, conducteur l’expérience socio- the federal government has shifted économique et retrace autant les from enabler and guarantor of processus structuraux et historiques citizens’ welfare to financial que les ruptures qui situent le administrator, and ceases to make développement du Québec dans la possible a defining Canadian chronologie du monde occidental. characteristic, access to Medicare. Comme le signale l’auteur, les deux Mark E. Rush, following on the

11 IJCS / RIÉC theme of the previous issue of this perspectives sont porteuses de Journal, discusses the tensions conséquences politiques et de between the universal rights of limitations théoriques. Les immigrants and the sovereign nouvelles approches de la rights of citizens. The comparative chronologie posant de nouveaux study of court cases in Canada and critères, tel les média et les the U.S. shows a relative communications, les manifestations consistency in the treatment of the publiques des citoyens ou encore jurisprudential conflict which les questions soulevées par la arises between the relevant federal condition féminine, n’ont pas and provincial laws. Such encore fait sentir leur influence sur tensions, according to the author, le grand public, pour qui la can only be “managed” (not temporalité du lieu se construit resolved) by achieving a balance selon des paramètres traditionnels between competing interests, and et reconnaissables. by means of the legal distinction Les trois derniers articles between citizens and persons, constituent la section Hors-thème between the rights of citizens and du numéro. Michael O’Neil general human rights. The final examine le rôle changeant du article, by David G. Delafenêtre gouvernement fédéral en regard du and Daisy L. Neijmann, discusses système d’assurance-maladie et Netherlandic and Scandinavian montre le retrait progressif de acculturative tendencies in l’engagement et du financement Canada. Through a combined use par Ottawa. En remettant aux of census demographic material provinces la responsabilité des and analysis of the cultural soins de santé, l’auteur allègue que positioning of Icelandic-Canadian le gouvernement fédéral a délaissé and Dutch-Canadian writers, the son rôle de maître d’œuvre et de authors trace the patterns of garant du bien-être des citoyens adaptation of these two “invisible” pour celui de gestionnaire groups, and argue that financier; ce faisant, l’accès au multicultural policies such as the régime universel de soins de santé “mosaic” conception of ethnicity cesse d’être une caractéristique fail to explain or acknowledge déterminante de l’identité groups whose tendency to canadienne. Poursuivant le thème intermarriage and integration is du numéro précédent, Mark E. better defined by the concept of Rush examine les tensions entre les transculturality, a term which droits fondamentaux des étrangers gauges mutual influence between et les droits souverains des the host and immigrant citoyens. L’étude comparative de communities. causes plaidées devant des With the first nine articles dealing tribunaux canadiens et américains widely with spatio-temporal révèle une cohérence relative dans themes, and the three articles in l’approche des conflits de the final section discussing various jurisprudence existant entre les lois aspects of community- building in fédérales et provinciales Canada, this issue offers applicables. Selon l’auteur, ces illuminating insights into Canadian tensions ne peuvent qu’être gérées

12 Time, Space and Place Le temps, l’espace et le lieu self-definition, into crucial — et non résolues — en établissant narratives of its present and its un équilibre entre les intérêts en jeu past. et en préservant la distinction entre « personnes » et « citoyens », entre Isabel Carrera Suarez les droits des citoyens et les droits Associate Editor humains en général. Le dernier article de David G. Delafenêtre et Daisy L. Neijmann traite des tendances canado-néerlandaises et canado- scandinaves en matière d’adaptation au Canada. Par le biais de données démographiques et d’une analyse de la position culturelle d’auteurs canadiens d’origine islandaise et hollandaise, les auteurs font ressortir les principales constantes de ll’intégration de ces deux groupes « invisibles » et soutiennent que les politiques multiculturelles qui conçoivent l’ethnicité comme une mosaïque ne peuvent ni expliquer ni reconnaître les groupes dont la tendance aux mariages mixtes et à l’intégration sont mieux définis par le concept de transculturalisme, terme-repère de l’influence réciproque qui s’exerce entre les immigrants et leur terre d’accueil. Avec neuf articles traitant de plusieurs thèmes en rapport avec le temps et l’espace, auxquels viennent s’ajouter les trois derniers articles qui examinent divers aspects de la construction des communautés au Canada, le présent numéro jette un éclairage sur la formation de l’identité canadienne, sur des récits déterminants de son passé et de son présent.

Isabel Carrera Suarez Rédactrice adjointe

13 Jonathan Bordo

The Terra Nullius of Wilderness—Colonialist Landscape Art (Canada & Australia) and the So-Called Claim to American Exception*

Abstract The British Imperial project for North America conquered without juridico- legal declarations of terra nullius while the British Imperial project for Australia was initiated by these very devices. Yet that colonialism and its political successions in what was initially British North America came to articulate itself aesthetico-theologically in terms of a symbolics of the wilderness, first by the Massachusetts Bay puritans, then by the American 19th century transcendentalists, followed by English speaking Euro- during the first third of the twentieth century with Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven. The close of the millennium is marked by the alienating of the human from nature of deep ecology, fuelled by that very imaginary of wilderness. These North American visions intimately configured the landscape imaginary to what might be called an aestheticizing or subliming of terra nullius. This paper addresses the wilderness as symbolic apparatus and the way that Australian and early 20th century Canadian and American 19th century transcendentalist landscape painting is topologically named as wilderness, framed by wilderness, and yet wilderness itself is a condition that is intrinsically unpicturable. What is landscape and what relation does landscape have to wilderness when wilderness, unlike landscape, is neither real nor a simulacrum? One might say after Derrida, that wilderness is a kind of symbolic spacing, a culturally saturated aporia, a blank. Delineating a double mimetics between the aesthetico-theological register of wilderness and the juridico-political register of terra nullius is the conceptual task of this study, leaving as a substantive result the evidence of the persistence of a colonialist legacy at the heart of contemporary wilderness visions.

Résumé Tandis que le projet impérial britannique destiné à l’Amérique du Nord procédait sans déclaration de Terra Nullius (c.-à-d. terre inhabitée), celui destiné à l’Australie serait initié par une telle devise. Pourtant, le projet colonial britannique (ainsi que toutes les successions politiques de l’Amérique du Nord britannique qui suivirent) s’est orienté sur la symbolique esthético-théologique visant à opérer un vide pour légitimer l’occupation violente de ces terres habitées. Tour à tour, les puritains, les transcendantalistes américains du 19e siècle, les Euro-Canadiens anglais au cours du premier tiers du 20e siècle avec Tom Thomson et le Groupe des Sept se constituèrent les agents de cette symbolique du vide nommé « wilderness » (désert, solitude, abîme, tohu-bohu, néant, faute de terme français

International Journal of Canadian Studies / Revue internationale d’études canadiennes 15, Spring/Printemps 1997 IJCS / RIÉC

équivalent). Renforcée par cet imaginaire, l’aliénation de l’être humain eu égard à la nature marque la fin de notre millénaire. Cette vision nord- américaine a profondément contribué à transformer l’imaginaire du paysage canadien en ce que l’on pourrait appeler une « esthétisation » ou une sublimation de la terra nullius. Le présent article examine l’utilisation de ce paysage nommé « wilderness » en tant qu’outil symbolique. Il examine aussi le fait que l’art paysagiste des peintres australiens, des peintres canadiens du début du 20e siècle et des peintres transcendantalistes du 19e siècle est topologiquement nommé « wilderness », que celui-ci encadre cet art et que cet état est intrinsèquement indescriptible et ne peut donc être représenté. Qu’entendons-nous par paysage et quelle relation y a-t-il entre « wilderness » et paysage, quand ce premier, au contraire de la notion de paysage, n’est ni réalité ni simulacre. On pourrait dire à l’instar de Derrida que la notion de « wilderness » est une rature symbolique, une aporie culturellement saturée, un vide. Une des perspectives de cette étude est de délinier un dédoublement mimétique entre le registre esthético-théologique de « wilderness » et le registre juridico-politique de terra nullius. Ce qui en résulte substantiellement c’est la mise en évidence d’un héritage colonialisant au cœur de la pensée et de la pratique écologique d’aujourd’hui.

Landscape is a natural scene mediated by culture. It is both a representation and a presented space, both a signifier and a signified, both a frame and what a frame contains, both a real place and its simulacrum, both a package and the commodity inside the package. W.J.T. Mitchell1

[A]ll the more striking a concoction because they attached no significance a priori to their wilderness destination. To begin with, it was simply a void. Perry Miller2

The Deserted Landscape This is how Margaret Atwood describes some landscape paintings of the Group of Seven, belonging to Lois, her protagonist in Death by Landscape: None of the pictures is very large, which doesn’t mean they aren’t valuable...[They are] paintings, or sketches and drawings, by artists who were not nearly as well known when Lois began to buy them as they are now. Their work later turned up on stamps, or as silk-screen reproductions hung in the principals’ offices of high schools, or as jigsaw puzzles, or on beautifully printed calendars sent out by corporations as Christmas gifts to their less important clients. These artists painted after the first war, and in the Thirties and Forties; they painted landscapes. Lois has two Tom Thomsons, three A.Y. Jacksons, a Lawren Harris. She has an Arthur Lismer, she has a J.E.H. MacDonald. She has a David Milne.3 The roll call of the painters and paintings, comprising the Group of Seven, reads like a slide identification test directed to a true Canadian (at least from Toronto and southern of a certain generation), visual emblems of the “true north

14 The Terra Nullius of Wilderness strong and free.” Atwood’s somewhat testy narrative voice treats these images with a casualness, bordering on lassitude that only serves to inflect their iconic status. They are so familiar that she seems barely able to remember the names and the dates of the works she has fictively clumped on Lois’ wall. Her dating is vague enough to be almost factually erroneous. Tom Thomson, the Group’s avatar,butneverhimselfamemberoftheGroup,drownedinAlgonquinParkin 1917 while David Milne comes and goes with respect to his filiation to the Group. But such lapses come with the satisfaction of being on intimate terms with cultural treasures. Perhaps, it was a Varley on Lois’ wall and not a McDonald? Atwood quickly penetrates the surface of these vague pictorial place names to locate a disturbance that sits in the heart of the familiarity. Lois, we are told, didn’t acquire these paintings because of their picturesque properties but because of a personal trauma whose meaning and source these paintings somehow contain: She wanted something that was in them, although she could not have said at the time what it was. It was not peace: she does not find them peaceful in the least. Looking at them fills her with a wordless unease. There is something there in these paintings some person, force or power something, or someone, looking back out that fills her with wordless unease. Despite the fact that there are no people in them or even animals, there is something or someone looking back.4 The narrator’s observation that Lois has purchased them “despite the fact that there are no people in them or even animals” red circles the epicentre of the trauma through a succinct account of what marks these paintings of the Group of Seven as a painting style, namely, landscape devoid of human presence. Atwood sites the unnameable from that absence, in this emptied hollow or niche. The pictures turn out themselves to be memento mori for an originating trauma which the paintings also serve to enshrine and perpetuate: When she was thirteen, Lois went on a canoe trip. This was to be a long one, into the trackless wilderness, as Cappie put it. It was Lois’s first canoe trip, and her last.5 These paintings stand in for the trauma site itself. This site is “the trackless wilderness” and the occasion was a canoe trip, Lois’ first and last when a cabin mate of hers, a much accomplished American girl, mysteriously disappeared. Atwood names “the trackless wilderness” sceptically, putting it in quotation marks and attributing it to the woodsiest of the woodsy, Lois’ Camp counsellor. The bracketing jostles the site from the literal, physical reality. Thus the paintings are mnemonic with respect to a trauma that happened to Lois when she was thirteen “in the trackless wilderness.” They are for Lois the witnesses to something that is itself unsayable, inexpressible, reducing her to a condition of “wordless unease.”6 Atwood’s painting discourse, shot up with realist naturalism, articulates the unnameable as a picturesque landscape touched by the sublime, as historians qualify the style. The paintings of the Group of Seven have come to assume the iconic status of the constantly reissued Canadian postage stamp (Figure 1), because they depict what every Canadian believes to be the real of the wilderness. The belief coincides exactly with a popular view of wilderness

15 IJCS / RIÉC

Figure 1 Tom Thomson, The West Wind, Postage Stamp Courtesy of Canada Post Corporation.

16 The Terra Nullius of Wilderness

as a physical expanse, usually of land in an ecologically pristine condition, devoid of human presence, just what these pictures seem to portray—the visual moment where the fifth day of creation converges with deep ecology. This void quality of the landscape art of the Group of Seven has not escaped the attention of aesthetic sensibilities who feel little sympathy toward landscapes devoid of human presence. As this author has noted elsewhere,7 Guy Boulizon in Le Paysage dans la peinture au Québec observes that Tom Thomson’s work “only consists of landscapes where the human beings (except in rare exceptions) are absent.”8 The radical imbalance between omnipresent nature and the paucity of human presence provides Boulizon with the device for an unequal comparison between the austerities of the Anglo-Canadian bush and the plenitude of the Quebecois paysage. This incommensurability starkly manifests the most tenacious and dangerous cultural faultline that runs through the history of Canadian political culture going back to 1756 and the British conquest of North America, sealed in the Act of 1774. For it was with the conclusion of the Seven Years War that North America, which included New England and Pilgrim Rock, came to be the colonial preserve of “British North America.” The traditional visual evidences of human occupancy, which the Euro-North American landscape sought to erase, fill the Quebec paysage because a palpable and vigorously asserted human presence mark it as a culturally inscribed landscape.9 Boulizon resurrects, unwittingly it seems, the very same pattern of dichotomies which first surfaced with the nineteenth century American Renaissance: Europe vs. North America; Culture vs. Nature; History vs. Wilderness. Quebec is the delegate of the European and the cosmopolitan in the Anglo-Protestant bush. The symbolics of landscape art mark a veritable kulturkampf in the northern bush. In his mimetic literalism, Boulizon appears to have no concept for this symbolics of the wilderness. He is without a word for it except as unharmonious, even bizarre landscape art. Bereft of a concept, he thus only superficially appears to concur with the classical French lexigraphical tradition. While French does not have an independent substantive noun for wilderness, it has a range of words which cover the scriptural meanings of wilderness: désert, solitude, lieu inculte, abîme, errance, néant, tohu-bohu, putting aside, terre sauvage, the Group’s own bilingual rendering of their painterly site. The apparent denial of the symbolics of wilderness under any lexical description seems curious, especially when there is a rather important precedent for the French classical usage of “désert” to render the wilderness. Consider the rather telling example of the opening of Democracy in America,in the standard translation, where Tocqueville describes the vast physical expanse of America topographically in these words: The valley of the Mississipi is, on the whole, the most magnificent dwelling-place prepared by God for man’s abode; and yet it may be said that at present it is a mighty desert [et pourtant on peut dire qu’elle ne forme qu’un vaste désert.]10 Tocqueville declares the Mississippi valley to be “a vast desert,” a desert in the initial scriptural sense of a humanly bereft space. A strange desert indeed that yet calls for human dwelling as “the most magnificent dwelling place prepared

17 IJCS / RIÉC by God.” Unlike the geographically specific austere deserts of scripture, the desert of the Mississippi Valley is verdant in forest and pasture and this desert is marked by a second feature of wilderness, namely, a wandering across it by nomadic, indigenous tribes: These immense deserts were not, however, wholly untenanted by men. Some wandering tribes had been for ages scattered among the forest shades or on the green pastures of the prairie.[Ces immenses déserts n’étaient pas cependant entièrement privés de la présence de l’homme; quelques peuplades erraient depuis des siècles sous les ombrages de la forêt ou parmi les pâturages de la prairie.11 This almost naive articulation of wilderness as terra nullius, deserted landscape, tenanted yet unoccupied,12 is confirmed by Tocqueville’s rendering of William Bradford’s Arbella sermon of 1626. He translates “the hidious and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men” which confronted them as “un désert hideux et désolé, plein d’animaux et d’hommes sauvages.”13 Boulizon would have ordinary French usage at his disposal to address the symbolics of the Laurentian wilderness as désert, which his nationalist ideology blocks. In this regard, Australian lexical practice concurs, curiously enough, with the classical French usage. The Australian National Dictionary is rather sparse when it comes to wilderness as an independent lexical concept of particular Australian relevance. The McQuarrie Dictionary lists “wilderness area” as terrain not interfered with by humans, but circa 1970, it is a rather late arrival.14 Most, but not all of what is wilderness can be found under that fabulous variegated entry “bush.” Bush is thick and thin, dense and austere, permeable and impenetrable, definite and indefinite, visible and invisible, marginal and ubiquitous. The wild itself is coupled both to desert and bush, to which Marcus Clarke testifies in his 1874 topographic reverie of the Australian landscape: In Australia alone is to be found the Grotesque, the Weird,—the strange scribblings of Nature learning how to write. Some see no beauty in our trees without shade, or flowers without perfume, or birds who cannot fly, and our beasts who have not yet learned to walk on all fours. But the dweller in the wilderness acknowledges the subtle charm of this fantastic land of monstrosities. He becomes familiar with the beauty of loneliness. Whispered by the myriad tongues of the wilderness, he learns the language of the barren and the uncouth, and can read the hieroglyphs of haggard gum trees blown into odd shapes, distorted with fierce hot winds, or cramped with cold nights, when the Southern Cross freezes in a cloudless sky of icy blue. The phantasmagoria of that wild dreamland called the Bush interprets itself, and begins to understand why free Esau loved his heritage of desert-sand better than all the bountiful richness of Egypt.15 The desert ingests the wild and the bush ingests the desert. The bush becomes the space where “free Esau loved his heritage of desert-sand better than all the bountiful richness of Egypt.” The eremos of scripture, expelled from the European mother country, victimized and dispossessed of its European portion, comes to dwell in the desert of the Bush. It is from the imaginary of the bush that the exiled European subject becomes present in all its

18 The Terra Nullius of Wilderness

Figure 2 Eugene von Guerard, North-East View from the Top of Mount Kosciusko. Courtesy of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

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Figure 3 Arthur Streeton, The Selector’s Hut: Whelan on the Log. Courtesy of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

20 The Terra Nullius of Wilderness

incarnations—as free Esau, as von Guerard’s explorer (Figure 2), as Arthur Streeton’s Selector (Figure 3), as Robert’s pastoralists and Sydney Nolan’s cartoon imposter, Ned Kelly, ranging over the reconstituted modernist visual surfaceofartthatnamesitsgroundas“bush”anditsfigureas“bushranger.”16 Whether domestic or transported, the European imaginary of the land has constantly and reiteratively required the existential assertion of the subject figurally as the basis for its collective claim to place. Thus the imaginary of the bush in its lush polysemy seems unable to accommodate a space whose concept requires the exclusion of the human from its symbolic representation. The traces of human occupancy cannot be effaced from the imaginary as the way of constituting the landscape site.17 The traces of Aboriginal presence are visually reiterated despite the official juridico-legal declarations of erasure and the state sanctioned operations of emptying and enclosure. Even when the traces of Aboriginal presence have been most deliberately and systematically effaced both as representation and reality, the bush becomes denser and more saturated with layers of human scribblings.18 Wheredohumanscribblingsendand“nature’sscribblings”inMarcusClarke’s metaphorbegin?Thebushresistsvisualemptying.Theimaginaryofthebush,a hybrid space, is a surface that denies the possibility of the zero degree of itself. ThereisnofifthdayofcreationintheEuro-Australiansymbolicofthebush.19 However, the Euro-North American wilderness imaginary from covenant theology to deep ecology is defined by that very emptying. Atwood in Death by Landscape is incisive about the emptying of human presence to constitute wilderness, but silent with respect to the semiosis of this emptying. The iconic landscapes that she speaks about at the outset are specific and distinct images that bring into focus the range of the style, namely, that of a foregrounded solitary northern tree.20 The absence is directed from the figure of the tree, which (at the same time) signs that absence as a deliberate deletion. It sites “wilderness” as a sign for the deliberate figural emptying of (signs of) human presence. There have been comparisons between the early twentieth century Heidelberg Painting School of Southern Australia21 and the Group of Seven—gum trees compared to pine trees, gum trees as pine trees, Tom Thomson’s to Arthur Streeton’s and so on. Yet, they clearly belong to different and asymptotic symbolic economies, as the comparison of the Thomson Pine (Figure 1) or the Varley Pine (Figure 4) to a Streeton Gum (Figure 3) ought to suggest. For (instance), lone tree in the antipodes has been historically the symbolization of that colonial presence, of that precarious hold on the land and its attempted capture of the landscape imaginary. The lone tree accompanies the subject, becoming both the instrument and the justification for European presence just as (various) One Tree Hills were the site points for surveying the land.22 The Northern figure of a solitary tree, on the other hand, occupies the space where the Subject would have been, signing its absence as wilderness.23 Perhaps it extends the memory of the lost European forest, to the “.”24

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Figure 4 F.H. Varley, Stormy Weather Georgian Bay. Courtesy of the National Gallery of Canada.

22 The Terra Nullius of Wilderness

At first glance there seem to be promising points of commonality between the Australian and Canadian colonialist landscape projects. They seem so obviously to inhabit different zones of the same colonialist “imaginary” that was conceptualized so well by Benedict Anderson in Imagined Communities,25 interchangeable cases of the analysis of Imperial landscape offered by W.J.T. Mitchell.26 I began by problematizing the figural sign of the subject in Canadian post-colonial and Australian colonial landscape art and established a difference of quality in the imaginary between “wilderness” and “bush”respectivelyasindicatorsforthatwhichanimatesandframesthepicture rather than that which the picture portrays. I then correlated what Mitchell calls some “hard facts of Landscape”27 namely the juridico-legal operations of terra nullius, of emptying and enclosure to the imaginary of the Canadian wilderness as emptied and the bush as inscribed. My third entrance is to invite into the wilderness imaginary, the project of the American republic which in freeing itself from British colonialism transferred the very wilderness symbolics into its own domestic coloniality, a subliming of terra nullius as its own version of and claim to modernity.

The Witness in the Landscape Even the most cursory inventory of the work of Tom Thomson, whom one might call the founder of the Laurentian wilderness image, would reveal a singular dedication on his part to eliminating human and living animal traces whether of human figures proper, conveyances, cabins and encampment, lumber booms and wildlife. Thomson painted all of these things at one time or another, but in terms of the wilderness style of the Group, these evidences of humanoccupancywerethewitnessestoapresencethathadtoberemoved.28 Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven share the new world site for the landscape as wilderness with their nineteenth century Euro-North American transcendentalist predecessors. The notion of a “deserted landscape” remained an elusive aspiration, thwarted as much by method as a contrariness in ambition. The fact remains that the American landscape picturesque is secured by reflexively declared human presence (Figure 5). The Western European landscape from the fifteenth century forward is marked by deliberate signs of human presence: if not human beings figuratively present, then evidences of living human presence, shelters, dwellings, paths, roads, signs marking enclosures such as walls and fences, smoke rising from a fire; if not material evidences of living human presence, then traces on the land of former human occupancies, cairns, tumuli, ruins, graves, architecture. In all these respects, the landscape image of Tom Thomson and the Group aspires to an effacing of human presence as figure, material evidence and trace. The Group were inheritors of a landscape tradition that had already established the rhetorical figuration of Euro-North American landscape as wilderness, namely the Hudson River School of Painting and the influence that it had on late nineteenth century Canadian landscape art, especially on Lucius O’Brien.29 Thus, the uniqueness of early twentieth century landscape art of the Group of Seven is not its invention of a visual rhetoric of the wilderness. Rather, its innovation rests with what it made of a Romanticist legacy, and a Northern

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Figure 5 Frederic Edwin Church, The Heart of the Andes. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Mrs. David Dows, 1909.

24 The Terra Nullius of Wilderness

symbolic apprenticeship in order to work through to another starker and austere wilderness visual poetics.30 Even when the American transcendental poetics raised ontological questions concerning human presence itself, the thought of no place is never fulfilled by a visual step to erase completely figural inscription of the subject from the poetic surface. Rather, the ontological question of human presence becomes the assertion of the wilderness as the sign that marks America’s cultural superiority over Europe: America > Europe; Wilderness > History. Europe is history, agony, architecture, ruins where “everywhere the traces of men” contaminate in their ubiquity. The European landscape refuses to surrender the inescapable, unerasable traces of human continuance.31 However, wilderness incults American specialness by positioning the subject as a witness in the wilderness, bearing witness to the condition of wilderness.32 Emerson puts into words what Church and the Hudson River School enunciate visually when he begins Nature: Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. The foregoing generations beheld God and Nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should we not also enjoy an original relation to the Universe? Why should we not have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us and not the history of theirs? Why should we grope among the dry bones of the past?33 The American Romanticist Wilderness aspired to pristine, edenic expanse, thinned of the historical encumbrance of human presence while posing pictorial conundrums about the limits of picturing that required the subject to bear witness to the condition of wilderness as an unpicturable index of the sublime. Without going into an extended comparison here between Emerson’s aesthetic solipsizing meditation in the solitude of the woods to its obvious textual prototype of Descartes’s meditation in the seventeenth century pastoral of a French hotel, suffice it to note that Emerson obviously transfers Descartes’ conditions of philosophical preparation to a subject positioning, “standing on the bare ground” where the classical French discourse of solitude becomes transposed to the New England woods: In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel nothing can befall me in life—no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes.) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground—my head bathed by the blythe air, and uplifted into infinite space,—all mean egotism vanishes.34 Where Cartesian Inquiry feigns the cancelling of the external world in order to posit the absolute solitariness of the philosophizing subject, Emerson calls the wilderness that solitude of the woods surrounding this philosophizing subject. He posits the wilderness as an enduring condition, a substratum whose continuity has to be reiteratively established and confirmed testamentally. The testamental gaze establishes the priority or firstness of nature in its wild condition. Nature is the word that comes to be used to name its extension but wilderness is that which names its firstness as a humanly prior natural substratum. Reduced to a naked specularity as the medium of testamental

25 IJCS / RIÉC transfer, Emerson is understandably reluctant to part with his eyes, unlike his European philosophy tutor, Descartes, who seems willing to part with the body but not with the tropes of sight as vision. The American Romanticist sublime aspiredtowildernessdrainedofhumanpresencebutdepositedinsteadasubject of pure presence, stripped bare to the zero-degree of a pure opticality, bearing witness to nature, and through this cogito to justify its special entitlement to dominion.35 The subject testifies to its condition as an ekphrasis of testimony where seeing is writing and writing is seeing. Consider the writing in the essay entitled “Nature” as testimony to nature and compare it to the beholder’s view in Church’s The Heart of the Andes (Figure 5), where the “witness” is doubled as a minute figure forming part of an ensemble of human traces—a crucifix, some dwellings, fields, human measuring rods to that which the picture portrays as sublime, which is but the picturing limit of that divine nature which is beyond the picture. Optical testimony transcribed as writing inscribes the testimony of sight.36 In the ekphrasis of American transcendentalist poetics, there is no landscape without an ocular witness; the testimony takes place at the site of the wilderness and the wilderness is the discursive interface, the bar, both signifier and signified, for the ekphrastic conversion to take place.37 The Emersonian subject in the testamental writing to Nature is identical with the testamental figure in Church’s The Heart of the Andes.38 Overall, the nineteenth century romanticist landscape taught the Group what evidences and traces of human presence had to be eliminated as pictorial signs to achieve a fully reduced image, a reduction as it were to the Fifth Day of Creation, an emptying that required the voiding of the subject as a witness figure. Thus the inscribed, figural witness (in/at/to) the wilderness had to be effaced to purify the Canadian wilderness symbolic. The passage toward that further emptying occurred through the Aboriginal in part because for the American transcendentalist, the Aboriginal was the favoured European figure to bear witness to the condition of wilderness. The Aboriginal as figural presence was not only a common but an exalted thematic in 19th century Northern new world art, be it as picturesque idealization and/or ethnographic documentation (Figure 6). Henry David Thoreau elucidates the arcadian and archeological complexity of the Aboriginal figure in the emptying of the landscape for the 19th century wilderness picturesque: At first perchance there would be an abundant crop of rank garden weeds and grasses in the cultivated land,—and rankest of all in the cellar holes,—and of pinweed, hardhack, sumach, blackberry, thimble berry, raspberry, etc. in the fields and pastures. Elm, ash, maples, etc., would grow vigorously along old garden limits and main streets. Garden weeds would soon disappear. Huckleberry and blue berry bushes, lambkill, hazel, sweetfern, barberry, elder, also shad- bush, chokeberry, andromeda, and thorns, etc., would rapidly prevail in the deserted pastures. At the same time the wild cherries, birch, poplar, willows, checkerberry would reestablish themselves. Finally thepines,hemlock,spruce,larch,shruboak,oaks,chestnut,beechand walnuts would occupy the site of Concord once more. The apple and

26 The Terra Nullius of Wilderness

Figure 6 Thomas Cole, The Falls of Kaaterskill. Courtesy of the Warner Collection of Gulf States Paper Corporation, Alabama.

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perhaps all exotic trees and shrubs and a great part of the indigenous ones named above would have disappeared, and the laurel and yew would to some extent be an underwood here, and perchance the red man once more thread his way through the mossy, swamplike, primitive wood.39 Thoreau’s deconstructive reverie terminates with the red man treading “through the swamplike, primitive wood.” It might have ended as it will later end in Agassiz’s inspection of the contents of rocks and in the birth of the dinosaur museum testifying to extinct cultures not in arcadian but in geological time. But it stopped almost conveniently at the moment just before the arrival in some mythic archaic past, just before the Arbella advent. Thoreau’s beginning, before the advent, becomes the next place to explore the meaning of the symbolic emptying of landscape called “wilderness.” In this respect one might say that the American pursuit of the dinosaur moves the wilderness imaginary back from the just “before” (of the landing) to the “before of the before.” The wilderness drops into geological time40 where the fossil record contains the evidence of a prior history which enforces the Puritan fear of communal extinction. Extinction lies not only on the surface of the land with the vanishing of Aboriginal peoples; it lies beneath the land with the discovery of extinct forms of life, most recently the mastodon still in the memory of Aboriginal peoples and most remotely the dinosaurs.41

Wilderness’ New World Genealogy The 19th century American Renaissance was unerring in its archeological retracing of wilderness back to the Plymouth Rock foundation of 1626. The wilderness, that vague space, became the frame for the descent—both a descent and an apotheosis. While Thoreau elevated the wilderness as the apotheosis of the Other, it was Hawthorne who excavated it as the very symptom of an impossible foundation. Wilderness sublime became the terror of the wilderness as other. The City on the Hill was erected and justified its instauration precisely by separating and elevating itself from the terror of the wilderness. Hawthorne reworks the Calvinist wilderness of his own recent ancestors into the wilderness as the virtually interchangeable alterities of Indigen, woman and child.42 Between the vague space—wilderness—as primordial terror and the apotheosis of wilderness as a sublime beyond the picture, an intervening symbolization surfaces, where the myth of wilderness erupts at the foundation of community. Perry Miller noted the void character of the wilderness as comprising the core of the “Puritan metaphor” en passant without fully realizing the potency of it as symbolic apparatus: But if they had set it up in America—in a bare land, devoid of already established (and) corrupt institutions, empty of bishops and courtiers, where they could start de novo and the eyes of the world were upon it—and if then it performed just as the saints predicted of it, the Calvinist internationale would know exactly how to go about completing the already begun but temporarily stalled revolution in Europe.43

28 The Terra Nullius of Wilderness

As an afterthought in a footnote, Miller then detects the systematic character of the Puritan “concoction” that made up their “metaphor” of the wilderness. It made it “all the more striking a concoction because they attached no significance a priori to their wilderness destination. To begin with, it was simply a void.”44 The very naming of the wilderness as that vague space, the void, creates the compulsion for covenanting as an actus foundatio from the named abyss itself. The terra nullius of wilderness is a covenant of the land that finds itself endlessly repeated in representational practices. One such family of practices is landscape pictures as devices of colonial legitimation. Speaking not about the wilderness but about “Columbus’ formalist” declaration of possession of New Spain, Stephen Greenblatt views it as trying “to make the new lands uninhabited—terranullius—byemptyingoutthethecategoryoftheother.The other exists only as an empty sign or a cipher...”45 Wilderness is the name of that empty sign or cipher in the Calvinist project. To bring the second epigraph into the text, if one substitutes “wilderness” for “landscape” one might say with W.J.T. Mitchell that wilderness “is both a representation and presented space, both a signifier and a signified, both a frame and what frame contains.” It comes to invent real places, as this author has shown elsewhere (e.g., wilderness parks). Wilderness performs all three semiotic roles—signifier, bar, signified. The treatments here are to show it as the in-between, as the slippage, the spacing or difference itself. Wilderness names the prior condition, temporal, ontological of the European displace called the New World. One might say that under certain historical and cultural conditions “wilderness” is the name of the prior symbolization that is the imagining out of which “an imagined political community” of the nation emerges. Wilderness is utterly unlimited and yet out of it the political community of the nation territorializes limit, makes a claim about territory, etc. just as it is the source from which it makes its claim to being sovereign. Colonial landscape pictures perform both those roles.46 To enact a kind of landscape requires that a voidal condition of the imaginary be posited already in advance. Wilderness is thus prior to the landscape picture that occasionally names its content “wilderness”47 (Figure 7). The ordering for the Puritan political theological project of the nation is thus: out of Wilderness, the City on the Hill; from the City on the Hill as precinct, the Wilderness as the excluded part, la part maudite, the Other. Wilderness is the myth at the very foundation of North American community—it is both foundation and fiction. The myth of wilderness erupts as the expression of the groundlessground,intheabsenceofground,theabyss,themyth:Wilderness. How did the Puritan rediscovery of “the new world in scripture” become a pivotal episode in the constitution of modernity? And what relationship did it have to wilderness? Further, what made the New England politico-theological project of occupation and settlement not only a pivotal moment but also the key to understanding why this colonialist actus foundatio was not only an original version of modernity but what made the New England experiment, as Sacvan Bercovitch has recently claimed, “exceptional.” A text from Bercovitch outlines the symbolic and scriptural basis for the American claim to cultural

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Figure 7 A.Y. Jackson, Terre Sauvage. Courtesy of the National Gallery of Canada.

30 The Terra Nullius of Wilderness

exception. Speaking about the Puritans’ “three lasting contributions to the American Way,” Bercovitch describes the first in terms of the innovative and successful strategy of appropriating the new land which was intimately tied to the textual inscription of the geographical metaphor: They justified the New World in its own right. Other colonists and explorers brought Utopian dreams to the New World, but in doing so they claimed the land (New Spain, New France, ) as European Christians, by virtue of the superiority of Christian European culture. In short, they justified their invasion of America through European concepts of culture. The Puritans denied the very fact of invasion by investing America with the meaning of progress and then identifying themselves as the peoples peculiarly destined to bring that meaning to life. “Other peoples,” John Cotton pointed out in 1630 “have their land by providence; we have it by promise.” The next generation of New Englanders drew out the full import of his distinction. They were not claiming America by conquest, they explained; they were reclaiming what by promise belonged to them, as the Israelites had once reclaimed Canaan, or (in spiritual terms) as the church had reclaimed the name of Israel. By that literal-prophetic act of reclamation the Puritans raised the New World into the realm of figura.48 Post-contact “New England” is the “new world” with Plymouth Rock as the originating monument. The clock started ticking with the arrival of the Arbella in the New World and the declaration of William Bradford. This is the absolute beginning point, not the terrible voyage and the wilderness of the sea, not the Calvinist prolegomena, not the dissenters and the puritan sects of Christopher Hill’s English Revolution, there is no English-New English condominium here. Pilgrim Rock is the Uhr site, the Uhr-text is the Bible.49 “Errand in the Wilderness” refers to Miller’s original formulation. Bercovitch deploys the formulafirstofalltonametheNewEnglandfoundationalproject,specifyingas it were, the state or condition of the geographically fixed topos of the New World. Modernity unfolded in the wilderness state or condition of the New World. Wilderness thus names, as it were, the condition of the Calvanist project of New World foundations. Bercovitch affirms that the American exception—what distinguishes it from Nova Scotia or New Zealand—is intimately tied to this symbolic refiguration— to the way that the Puritans as New Israelites biblically inscribed their occupation of new lands, not through a justification in terms of cultural superiority,butintermsofa“promise.”Isthis,indeed,wheretheexceptionlies?

The Wilderness in Terra Nullius The symbolical inscription of wilderness, coupled with the notion of an emptied sign, seems to bear a strong family resemblance to other European declarations of right to possession that link Columbus to Jacques Cartier to the Puritans and the Nova Scotians and James Cook at Botany Bay in 1788. Is there a discursive analogy between Miller’s metaphor of “wilderness as void” and the speech acts of occupation whose performances declare and emblematics seal such “new world” space to be void, to be terra nullius?

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Indeed the Puritan “wilderness” is the scriptural refiguring of these juridico- theological declarations and emblems of terra nullius. By symbolically refiguring terra nullius as wilderness, the Puritans fashioned an emblem with terra nullius on one side and wilderness as the zero degree of the sign on the other. “Wilderness” is the scriptural figure of terra nullius for the New England Puritans. Dallenbach notwithstanding, such declarations are juridico- theological mise-en-abîme.50 The wilderness was a sign in that domain of “New World” as capture and appropriation. Once again, how then were the New England Puritans different from the Spanish or the French or the Nova Scotia English or the English at Botany Bay in 1788 since they all deployed a variety of juridico-theological formalizing devices to reduce inhabited land to terra nullius? The crucial difference might lie in the fact of the symbolic refiguring of the juridico-theological operations of terra nullius into wilderness—of an aestheticizing of the legal and political devices, of a double operation, a mimetic doubling of the zero. At least this seems to mark the difference between Catholic and Protestant historia but does it mark the difference within the project of what Miller calls the “Calvinist Internationale”? Many examples weaken such a claim to distinction. One need only consider the Calvinist claims of the Dutch in South Africa who also claimed to hold the land by promise. The word “bush” is often traced to Afrikans “bosch.” Indeed British North America is coincidental with having a source in or deriving from and running parallel to the New England experiment until it splits off with the American Revolution. The Group of Seven’s symbolic of the wilderness might well be the remarkable eruption of that original Massachusetts Bay wilderness fragment—a fragment preserved by the United Loyalists taking a hike North and away from the American Revolution.51 On this conjecture, the British North American wilderness splits in two from an original source. Such an insight receives confirmation from the image of the Northern Pine itself. In its austere, stark and solitary resoluteness, it passes over the visual grandiloquence of the American transcendentalists, an echo back to Bradford’s wilderness of terror. With Thomson’s Jack Pine, the fifth day of creation and deep ecology converge. And by that same token one might also say that the contemporary wilderness of deep ecology is the myth of the American errand refigured.52 To summarize, it is useful to draw a distinction between “wilderness” as mise- en-abîme, positioned as the Saussurean bar itself at the site for the emergence of the symbolic, and wilderness as a “tableau,” as content and referent. The error of the Americanist is to treat wilderness exclusively from the side of the signified, as tableau. Thus the distinction between wilderness as mise-en- abîme and wilderness as tableau allows one to identify what comprises the “radical” and “original” modernity of “America” while finding a way of articulating just what is improbable and counter-intuitive about Americanist claims for wilderness as being what marks the American exception. In the foundational project of America, wilderness and terra nullius are inextricably bound together, politically and aesthetically. Indeed for the American project wilderness is terra nullius sublimed.

***

32 The Terra Nullius of Wilderness

The British Imperial project for North America conquered without juridico- legal declarations of terra nullius while the British Imperial project for Australia was initiated by these very devices. The Royal Proclamation of 1763, which recognized the prior title over the lands by indigenous North Americans, was confirmed in the Quebec Act of 1774. These legal recognitions of prior Aboriginal title are often understood as the causis belli of the American Revolution in 1776.53 It might be said that the has always been a negotiation between the settler culture and its first inhabitants about title. Yet the dominant cultural project of Euro-North Americans came to articulate itself aesthetico-theologically in terms of the emptying of wilderness initially by the Massachussets Bay colonists, then by the post-Constitution, American, nineteenth century transcendentalists, followed by Euro-Canadians during the first third of the twentieth century with Thomson and the Group of Seven. The emptying of deep ecology with the imaginary of wilderness at its source marks the close of the twentieth century. These North American colonialist visions, intimately configured the landscape imaginary to what might be called an aestheticizing or subliming of terra nullius. The Australian imaginary came to articulate a hybrid space that contradicted the official operations of voiding. In other words, the landscape imaginary overcame the declaration of terra nullius as preparation for the recent legal judgment on Wednesday, June 3, 1992 in the the case of Eddie Mabo vs. Queensland, two hundred and four years after the declaration of 1788.

Acknowledgment * This paper is among the results of two seminars given at the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University over 1993-94 . The outline of the paper was given as the overview for the paper I delivered “On the Line: The Rehanging of Australian Art,” June 11 1994. An earlier and extended version of part 3 was published as a critical notice of Sacvan Bercovitch Rites of Assent under the title “Cultural Symbology,” Semiotic Review of Books 5.1, Spring 1993. For the problematics of Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven and the iconology of the Northern Tree see my “Jack Pine—Wilderness Sublime or the Erasure of Aboriginal Presence from the Landscape,” Journal of Canadian Studies (Winter 1992- 1993) pp. 98-128 abbreviated to “Jack Pine”. The paper is a reworked version of a fragment from, Terra Nullius Sublimed—The Trauma of Wilderness, an Essay (Forthcoming). The author wishes to thank D.J. Mulvaney, Paul Duro, Yves Thomas, Douglas McLean, Bruce Hodgins, Ian McLachlan, John Wadland, Terry Smith, Molly Blyth, Tom Mitchell and Doreen Small.

Notes 1. W.J.T. Mitchell, “Imperial Landscape,” in Mitchell, ed., Landscape and Power (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994) p. 7. 2. Perry Miller, Errand in the Wilderness (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976) p. 12. 3. Margaret Atwood, “Death by Landscape,” in Wilderness Tips (Toronto: Seal Books, 1992) pp. 103-104. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. “Wilderness” is the very name of that which denies the event, that something has happened, while trauma clinically refers to the blow that denies to consciousness that something happened. One might say that wilderness is the idealized site of trauma, a correlation addressed in “Picture and Witness at the Site of the Wilderness” given at the 4th International

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Word & Image Conference in Dublin in August 1996 and at the Conference, “Refiguring Wilderness,” Lake Temagami, September 2 1996. 7. Jonathan Bordo, “Jack Pine—Wilderness Sublime or the Erasure of Aboriginal Presence from Landscape,” Journal of Canadian Studies (Winter 1992-1993) pp. 98-128. 8. Guy Boulizon, Le Paysage dans la peinture au Québec (Éditions Marcel Broquet, 1984) p. 25. 9. See the essay by Esther Trépanier, “The Expression of a Difference: The Milieu of Quebec Art and The Group of Seven,” in Michael Tooby, ed., The True North (London: Lund Humpries, 1991) pp. 99-116. 10. Alexis de Tocqueville, De la Démocratie en Amérique (Paris: Éditions Vrin, 1990) p. 20. 11. Ibid., p. 30. 12. Henry Reynolds, The Law of the Land (Australia: Penguin Books, 1987) especially chapter 2. 13. de Tocqueville, op. cit. p. 21. 14. For a comprehensive overview of the whole issue of indigenous Australians and the impact that colonisation had on the land, see D.J. Mulvaney, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Australia under the entry “environmental issues.” 15. Marcus Clarke, “The Weird Melancholy of the Australian Bush 1874,” in Bernard Smith, ed., Documents on Art and Taste in Australia: the Colonial Period 1770-1914 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1975) p. 135f. I am indebted to Sasha Grishin for having brought this passage to my attention. 16. See Tim Bonyhady, Images in Opposition: Australian Landscape Painting 1801-1890 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1985), Bernard Smith European Vision and the South Pacific 1768-1850 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985); Wally Caruana, Aboriginal Art (London: Thames and Hudson, 1994). 17. In the latter chapters of The Road to Botany Bay, Paul Carter carefully considers how the traces of Aboriginal presence came to disappear into a palimpsest of roads, fences and property came to run along and form over the aboriginal network of dreamings. [Static monuments on top of and effacing the original fluid tracks of transmission.] In a paper delivered at the conference, “Re-Hanging Australian Art,” Carter returned to that palimpsest, reproblematizing it as a kind of Derridean writing, hybrid scribblings that allow for cultural co-existence. See P. Carter The Lie of the Land (London: Faber, 1996). 18. Pedder Lake in its ecologically pristine condition as “wilderness” was saved by the intervention of archeologists one of whom was D.J. Mulvaney. They discovered over forty thousand years of Aboriginal traces, which provided the primary justification for the eco system’s preservation. 19. Canadian political theorist Peter Kulchyski problematizes the “north” as an imaginary of the bush which has many parallels to the Australian symbolics of the bush. See for example, his essay, “bush culture for a bush country: an unfinished manifesto,” Journal of Canadian Studies 31, 3 (Fall 1996) pp. 192-196. 20. So the decision by Charles Hill, the curator of the recent The Group of Seven — Art for a Nation Exhibition and Catalogue, to cut Tom Thomson off from the Group of Seven has the effect of dispersing the iconic target of the style, facilitating its dispersion and deflating its iconic power. This is the subject of a separate treatment in Terra Nullius Sublime. See M. Brower, “Framed by History,” Journal of Canadian Studies 31, 2 (Summer 1996) pp. 178- 182. 21. On the Heidelberg School, see Bonyhady 1985 chap. 8. 22. See Matthew Teitlebaum’s, “Siting the Single Tree—Siting the New found land,” in Augaitis and Pakasar, eds., Eye of Nature (Banff: Walter Phillips Gallery, 1991) which strikes out on the path of a post-colonialist re-evaluation of Canadian art. See also Albert Boime, The Magisterial Gaze: American Landscape Painting... (Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991). 23. See “Jack Pine” esp. pp. 112-115. 24. Robert Pogue Harrison, Forests (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1992) especially chap. 2. 25. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1990). 26. Ibid.

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27. W.J.T. Mitchell’s essay “Imperial Landscape,” appeared after the writing of the Australian manuscript of this text. Two observations: (1) I hope my approach confirms some of the theoretical ambitions of Mitchell’s analysis when he writes “my aim in this essay as taking a harder look at the framework in which facts about landscape are constituted—the way, in particular that the nature, history, and semiotic or aesthetic character of landscape is constructed in both its idealist and skeptical interpretations,” ibid., p. 7; (2) Mitchell chooses to delineate British colonialist landscape in a way that insulates the most obvious instance of his analysis, namely the American landscape tradition of the Hudson River School. There is a telling aside with respect to that omission: Speaking about Australia and New Zealand as colonial landscape exceptions, Mitchell writes “Unlike North America, it did not quickly develop its own independent pretensions to be an imperial metropolitan centre.” (Mitchell, p. 18) What would be more “colonial” than that westward expansion? On the other hand, Mitchell’s manner of ekphrastic treatment is pitched in such a way that it would make “wilderness” which he does not mention, a genre of landscape art, a kind of tableau, rather than the driving force of an imaginary, the site itself for “landscape.” 28. The argument is worked out in the early sections of “Jack Pine,” ibid. 29. Elizabeth Mulley, “Lucius O’Brien: A Victorian in North America,” Journal of Canadian Art History XIV, 2 (1991):74-81; Dennis Reid, Lucius O’Brien: Visions of Victorian Canada. See Doreen Small, “Picturing Grand Manan: 19th Century Painting and the Representation of Place” M.A. Thesis, Trent University, 1997. 30. See Robert Rosenblum, Modern Painting and the Northern Romantic Tradition (Harper 1988) and Roald Nasgaard, The Mystic North (University of Toronto Press, 1984); see “Jack Pine” especially pp. 114-118. 31. See “Jack Pine” p. 110 ff. for a treatment of these European themes. 32. “Witness and Picture at the Site of the Wilderness” problematizes the witness and picturing, and the question of what is meant by site. Cf. Note 6. 33. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nature,” in Richard Poirier, ed., Ralph Waldo Emerson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990) p. 6. 34. Op. cit. p. 19. 35. Emerson, op. cit. p. 6 “Nature is thoroughly mediate. It is made to serve. It receives the dominion of man as meekly as the ass on which the savior rode. It offers all its kingdom as the raw material which he may mould into what is useful. Man is never weary of working it up. He forges the subtile and delicate air into wise and melodious words, and gives them wing as angels of persuasion and command. One after another, his victorious thought comes up with and reduces all things, until the world becomes at last, only a realized will—the double of man.” 36. See my essay, “The Witness in the Errings of Contemporary Art,” in Paul Duro, ed., The Rhetoric of the Frame (New York & Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) esp. pp. 190-197 where I sketch out this logic of testamentaly as a feature of early modern picturing. 37. I work this argument out in detail in the paper “Picture and Witness at the Site of the Wilderness.” 38. I am grateful for the conversations with Tom Mitchell and a recent reading of Picture Theory which have suggested ekphrastic routes for advancing this testamental epistemology. See W.J.T. Mitchell, Picture Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995) esp. chap. 5. 39. Cited in Donald Worster, Nature’s Economy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985) p. 74. 40. See for example Barbara Novak, Nature and Culture: American Landscape Painting 1825- 1875. (Oxford 1983) esp. chap. 4. 41. See W.J.T. Mitchell’s forthcoming The Last Dinosaur Book, University of Chicago Press, where he links Jefferson’s observations of the imminent vanishing of indigenous peoples with his zoological interests with the mastodon whose disappearance was recollected by indigenous peoples, revealing a chain of extinctions that lead up to a sense of the precariousness of early American settler consciousness. On the mastodon, see Laura Regal, “Teale’s Mammoth,” in David Miller, ed., American Iconology (Yale University Press, 1993) p. 18-38.

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42. See Trinh Minh Ha, The Language of Nativism (Indiana University Press, 1990). On the modernity of wilderness, see especially Hayden White “The Forms of Wildness” in Tropics of Discourse (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978). 43. Ibid. 44. Ibid. 45. Stephen Greenblatt, Marvellous Possessions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992) p. 60. 46. Here I am rephrasing Anderson’s elaboration of his definition of the nation as an imagined community, Anderson, op. cit. p. 6f. 47. See Angela Miller’s penetrating analysis of Church’s “Twilight in the Wilderness,” in Empire of the Eye: Landscape Representation and Cultural Politics, 1825-1875 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell, 1993) esp. chap. 3, and also Franklin Kelly, Frederick Edwin Church and the National Landscape (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988) chaps 5 & 6. 48. Sacvan Bercovitch, The Rites of Assent (London: Routledge, 1993) p. 81. 49. I am indebted to conversations with the historian Alastair Maclachlan who opened up this important path of thought to me. The crossing becomes a conceptual and historiographical no man’s land between the rival versions of the seventeenth century puritan revolution. 50. Dallenbach, Le Récit spéculaire (Paris: Seuil, 1977). 51. See Dennis Duffy, Gardens, Covenants, Exiles: Loyalism in the Literature of Upper Canada/ Ontario (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982). 52. In this regard I am thinking both of Robert Pogue Harrison’s, Forests mentioned above, but most naively and stridently in Max Oelschlager, The Idea of Wilderness (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990) which claims to succeed Roderick Nash’s Wilderness and the American Mind. For a critique of Deep Ecology see Peter van Wyck, “Deep Ecology and the Absent Subject” M.A. Thesis, Trent University, 1993, forthcoming as Primitives and Wilderness: Deep Ecology and the Absent Subject (State University of New York Press 1997). 53. I am indebted to a conversation with the commonwealth historian John Milloy for a clarification on this point.

36 William J. Buxton

Time, Space and the Place of Universities in Western Civilization: Harold Innis’ Plea1

Abstract Many discussions of Harold Innis’ work are based on the assumption that he viewed the media as determining the time-space configuration of societies by virtue of their inherent properties. This paper takes a different approach, arguing that Innis’ main concern was how civilizations addressed the problems of ensuring territorial control (in space) and duration (through time). It examines Innis’ account of how the dialectical interaction of space- and time-binding media provide the motor of history with particular attention given to how the modern era has become obsessed with the control of space accompanied by “present-mindedness.” After addressing the points of resistance to this trend that Innis outlined, the implications of his theory for understanding Canada are explored.

Résumé De nombreuses discussions portant sur les travaux d’Harold Innis partent de l’hypothèse suivante : ce dernier estime que, vu leurs propriétés inhérentes, les médias déterminent la configuration spatio-temporelle des sociétés. Le présent article aborde le sujet sous un autre angle : la principale préoccupation d’Innis était de savoir comment les civilisations abordaient la question du contrôle territorial (espace) et de la durée (temps). Cet article examine l’explication que fait Innis de la façon dont les échanges dialectiques par la voie des médias qui lient l’espace et le temps constituent le moteur de l’histoire, en insistant tout particulièrement sur la façon dont l’ère moderne est obsédée par le contrôle de l’espace et par une « propension au présent ». Après avoir abordé les points de résistance à la tendance que soulignait Innis, l’article passe en revue les répercussions de la théorie proposée par ce chercheur pour comprendre le Canada.

Innis on Time and Space Issues of time and space are commonly recognized as central to Harold Innis’ work in communications. Largely based on the widely quoted summary statements from Empire and Communications and The Bias of Communications2, these accounts have developed their own form of bias. Above all, they have been preoccupied with Innis’ claims about how the inherent properties of early communications media left their mark on ancient civilizations.3 Strikingly, the closer Innis’ analyses approach the present, the

International Journal of Canadian Studies / Revue internationale d’études canadiennes 15, Spring/Printemps 1997 IJCS / RIÉC less they emphasize the bias inherent in the properties of the media. In his analysis of ancient civilizations, this mode of interpretation predominates. However, in his discussion of the Middle Ages and of the early modern period, the properties of the media work in tandem with other factors, and vary according to the particular contexts. Finally, when Innis comes to discuss the modern period following the onset of printing, the nation-state system and capitalism, the role played by the properties of media is almost negligible. When Innis considers the development of later media such as the book, the newspaper and radio, he makes only scant reference to how their inherent characteristics (such as their weight, durability or flexibility) are linked to biasing time or space. The properties of communications media become increasingly incidental to the structuring of time and space as Innis’ analyses move closer to the present. Indeed, in his explanation of what accounts for patterns of change in societies, the physical characteristics of the media, if discussed at all, are considered only in relation to broader social and political factors.4 Innis’ approach is not to begin with the media and to understand how they biased societies; his point of departure is civilizations and how they addressed the problems of ensuring territorial control and achieving duration. “Large-scale political organization,” he noted, “implies a solution of problems of space in terms of administrative efficiency, and of problems of time in terms of continuity” (Innis, [1950] 1986:168-169). Innis gives particular attention to how civilizations tend to create monopolies of knowledge in order to deal with the problems of time and space.5 Concentration on a medium of communication implies a bias in the cultural development of the civilization concerned either towards an emphasis on space and political organization, or towards an emphasis on time and religious organization. (Innis, [1950] 1986:169) As these forms of organization developed, however, they set in motion the emergence of new, countervailing tendencies at the margins of society. These, in turn, served as a check on the prevailing monopoly of knowledge, giving rise tocompositeformsofpoliticalorganization:“Introductionofasecondmedium tendstocheckthebiasofthefirstandtocreateconditionssuitedtothegrowthof empire” (Innis, [1950] 1986:169). Innis views history, then, as a dialectical dance of time and space as civilizations seek to deal with the problems of political control and durability. In discussing how empires and civilizations rise, fall and succeed one another, he gives particular attention to the formation of binary political organizations through the fusion of prevailing monopolies of knowledge with a countervailing tendency which serves to check the limitations of the dominant medium of communication: Monopolies of knowledge had developed and declined partly in relation to the medium of communication on which they were built, and tended to alternate as they emphasized religion, decentralization, andtime;orforce,centralization,andspace.(Innis,[1950]1986:166) As Innis observed, these hybrid forms have differing degrees of success depending upon the particular circumstances giving rise to the combination in question (Innis, [1950] 1986:166). In his view, the optimal society was one able

38 Time, Space and the Place of Universities to achieve some kind of balance between its time- and space-binding media.6 Greece of the fifth century B.C., for instance, combined its “powerful oral tradition” with “the flexibility of the alphabet” in such a way that it was able to resist the tendencies of empire in the East towards absolute monarchism and theocracy (Innis, [1950] 1986:81). According to Innis, this attainment of harmony between time and space enabled Greece to make notable advances in artistic and literary creativity (Innis, [1950] 1986:79). However, when Innis discusses the modern era, this pattern of development is no longer in evidence. Rather than examining how space- and time-binding media emerge, decline and come into balance within empires and civilizations, he now turns his attention to the forces set in motion once the binary relationship between church and state was severed, and to the way in which commercialization and the print revolution emerged as a result of this breakdown. The Church’s monopoly on time increasingly conflicts with “the demands of the bureaucracy centring on space,” leading to the eventual decline of the church and the consolidation of the state. Without the “check” provided by the time-oriented church, the state became increasingly rigid and was unable to withstand the growth of commercial interests. The growth of printing was particularly significant in this respect and, according to Innis, “marked the first stage in the spread of the Industrial Revolution” and led to “savage religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.” More generally, the “application of power to communication industries hastened the consolidation of vernaculars, the rise of nationalism, evolution, and new outbreak of savagery in the twentieth century” (Innis, [1951] 1991:29-30). Accompanying the development of nationalism, Innis argues, is increasing fragmentation and misunderstanding, as the emergent nation-states embarked on different trajectories, attendant upon how they chose to deploy post-print communications: “The varied rate of development of communication facilities has accentuated difficulties of understanding. Improvements in communication...make for increased difficulties of understanding” (Innis, [1951] 1991:28). Indeed, Innis seems to even suggest that the new forms of communication no longer operate as “checks” to the prevailing monopolies of knowledge; they owe their form and nature to the broader transformations in theorganizationofknowledgeandculturalproductionthathavetakenplace. This meant, it turn, that the definition and structuring of time underwent profound transformations as a result of the new forces unleashed. [I]ndustrial demands meant fresh emphasis on the ceaseless flow of mechanical time. Establishment of time zones facilitated the introduction of uniformity in regions. And advance in the state of industrialism reflected in the speed of the newspaper press and the radio meant a decline in the importance of biological time determined by agriculture (Innis, [1951] 1991:74). These tendencies were accentuated by scientific developments which sought to “apply...measurements of space to time, ie. astronomy, and destroy concept of time in myth and religion” (Innis, 1980:133). This suggested a loss of ability to understand what time had meant in a previous era. Much of the loss of a sense of time could be attributed to the press, which “[insisted] on time as a uniform and

39 IJCS / RIÉC quantitative continuum. [This]...obscured qualitative differences and its disparate and discontinuous character.” Innis contends that “under the guise of democracy freedom of the press has led to the defence of monopoly. These monopolies exert an important influence on the news. News can be selected and even made by a powerful journalist.” This results in a chronic sense of present mindedness and a preoccupation with the immediate. Moreover, oral and aural communications—once linked to questions of time—had been subsumed under the new space-binding communication: The disastrous effect of the monopoly of communication based on the eye hastened the development of a competitive type of communication based on the ear, in the radio and in the linking of sound to the cinema and to television. Printed material gave way in effectiveness to the broadcast and to the loud speaker (Innis, 1991:81). As he argued, with mechanization, printing became geared toward meeting the demands of increasingly large numbers of people. Such a tendency was particularly evident in the radio and cinema, in which emphasis upon the “ephemeral” and the “superficial” accompanied the drive for entertainment and amusement.“The demands of the new media,” Innis argues “were imposed on the older media, the newspaper and the book. With these powerful developments time was destroyed and it became increasingly difficult to achievecontinuityortoaskconsiderationofthefuture”(Innis,[1951]1991:82- 83). Indeed, the act of thinking itself became more difficult as a result of the printing press and the radio. The endemic present-mindedness detected by Innis was not confined to industry, science and the media; it was also evident in professional and educational practices. Law, for instance, which he characterized as “brittle, brilliant type work” tended to neglect “continuity in time” and to ignore “long-term factors.” Lawyers concentrated instead on the detailed intricacies of whatever case was before them, rather than considering more transcendent philosophical issues (Innis, 1952:56-57). Closer to home, Innis was dismayed at the degree to which “present-mindedness” had taken hold in the universities which were “menaced by specialization and the belief on the part of specialists that no other interest than their own is important” (Innis, 1946:viii). University teaching, like other professions, had become “narrow and sterile.” It was almost impossible to develop “a broad interest in the complex problems of society.” This meant that “student and teacher are loaded down with information and prejudice,” and “the capacity to break down prejudice and to maintain an open mind are seriously weakened” (Innis, [1951] 1991:208). Drawing on the work of his former colleague, Eric Havelock (1951), Innis maintained that the application of intelligence to the solution of problems was jeopardized by the wide-spread present-mindedness that had taken hold in Western civilization. In this regard, “the present—real, insistent, complex, and treated as an independent system...haspenetrated the most vulnerable areas of public policy.” This means that human action is unable to move beyond the present, resulting in war. Hence, “power, and its assistant, force, the natural enemies of intelligence, have become more serious as “the mental processes activated in the pursuit and consolidating of power are essentially short range”

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(Innis, 1952:v). It is evident that in his discussions of modern life, Innis is obsessed with the endemic “present-mindedness,” and the lack of concern with issues related to time and temporality. This was not simply an analytical concern on his part. As the scathing tone of Innis’ commentary reveals, he believed that the loss of time-consciousness represented an unmitigated disaster for contemporary Western societies. By grasping the extent to which Innis was disturbed by the trends in twentieth-century civilization, one can begin to understand why he so obsessively scanned the past in order to detect patterns of bias and processes of change in monopolies of knowledge. By doing so, he believed that we would be better equipped to understand and overcome biases in the present. By becoming “alert to the implications” of the bias of other civilizations, this would “enable us to see more clearly the bias of our own.” Innis was acutely aware that given the tendencies of mechanization and present-mindedness at work in contemporary civilizations, rigidities and inflexibility would make critical reflection increasingly difficult. He noted that “the use of a medium of communication over a long period will to some extent determine the character of knowledge to be communicated and suggest that its pervasive influence will eventually create a civilization in which life and flexibility will become exceedingly difficult to maintain. . . .” (Innis, [1951] 1991:34). It was through the hermeneutic act of retrieving the wisdom of past cultures whose sense of time had not yet been subject to objectifying and spatializing tendencies, that Innis sought to help create a temporal sensibility that could serve as a countervailing current to the massive wave of present- mindedness sweeping the contemporary world. Through the process of subjecting the past to this kind of scrutiny, Innis sought to gain perspective on where time-binding forms of communication and practice could still be detected, with a view toward strengthening and encouraging them. Innis’ recovery and reactivation of earlier forms of time-sensibility could be seen as an effort to help establish a new, time-binding form of communication. In the same way that time-binding forms of communication had arisen in the past to serve as checks upon the monopolies of knowledge based on space-binding forms of communication, this inchoate tendency would act as a countervailing force to mechanization, commercialization and present-mindedness, thereby giving contemporary society more balance.

Points of Resistance Innis’ remarks on the form this tendency would take are sketchy at best, and in no way constitute a coherent and well articulated vision. Had he not died an untimely death, he may well have sought to provide a detailed account of the form and nature of this movement. For the most part, in a manner akin to the negative dialectics of the Frankfurt School (Wernick, 1986; Stamps, 1995), Innis offered few specifics of an alternative vision, preferring to critically assess the then current trends in thought, communication and culture. Nevertheless, he did reveal glimpses of what he had in mind in some of his essays written during the last years of his life. By piecing them together against thebackdropofhiscritiques,itispossibletogetsomesenseofwhatInnissawas a possible corrective to the cataclysmic directions of contemporary life.

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“The first essential task,” as he saw it, was “to see and to break through the chains of modern civilization which have been created by modern science.” In particular, words have been produced “on an unprecedented scale” and have becomepowerless.Moreover,“[o]ralandprintedwordshavebeenharnessedto the enormous demands of modern industrialism and in advertising have been made to find new markets for goods. Each new invention which enhances their power in that direction weakens their power in other directions” (1946). In his view, this perversion of language was simply an aspect of the destruction of culture which accompanied the mechanization and commercialization of life. Culture, inhis view “isconcerned with the capacity of the individual toappraise problems in terms of space and time and with enabling him to take the proper steps at the right time.” However, “the tragedy of modern culture has arisen as inventions in commercialism had destroyed the sense of time” (Innis, 1991:85- 86). Indeed, “States are destroyed by lack of culture...andso,too, are empires and civilizations. Mass production and standardization are the enemies of the West. The limitations of mechanization of the printed and the spoken word must be emphasized, and determined efforts to recapture the vitality of the oral tradition must be made” (Innis, 1986:168). What Innis suggested, then, was that a balance between time and space could be restored through the development of cultural forms in which orality was revitalized. A formation of this kind would restore the former power of the printed and oral word. And where was such a tendency to be found? In the same way that Innis looked to the margins for signs of revitalization in the past, he turned his gaze to an institution whose traditions were at odds with the spatializing tendencies of contemporary societies in the present, namely the universities of the West.7 Here one could find the vanishing species of the scholar, whose influence had all but been destroyed by “the industrial Revolution and mechanized knowledge.” Not only were dominant interests based on force “no longer concerned with his protection” but were “actively engaged in schemes for his destruction.” Indeed, even science, mathematics and music as the last refuge of the Western mind have come under the spell of the mechanized vernacular (Innis, [1951] 1991:30-31). This attack on the scholar was part of a much broader onslaught against the university and the traditions it represented. Reflecting the deterioration of Western civilization, it was now assumed by “businessmen and...by university administrators trained in playing for the highest bid” that “universities can be bought and sold” (Innis, 1946:75). This recurrent “business and political exploitation of universities by bribes” had led to “the descent of the university into the market place” (Innis, 1946:76). In Innis’ view, this had grave implications for scholarly and intellectual life: “The mechanizationofmodernsocietycompelsincreasinginterestinscienceandthe machine, and attracts the best minds from the most difficult problems in western civilization” (Innis, 1946:74). Innis was particularly dismayed that knowledge had become prone to specialization as a result of bureaucratic demands (Innis, 1946:141). The university, moreover, had become increasingly susceptible to the influences of mass media such as the newspaper, the cinema and the radio, which “demand the thinning out of knowledge to the point where it interests the lowest intellectual levels.” Since higher education is

42 Time, Space and the Place of Universities bound up with problems of communication, the university has difficulty escaping the “demands of mechanization,” as revealed by the increasing presence of state radio stations, adult education programs and university extension courses (Innis, 1946:74). With its drive toward the popularization of education, and “direct selling of their wares to the public,” the universities have transformed the role of the professor from a scholar to a “particular type of entertainer.” As Innis scathingly summed up his view of the trends in university life, “we need a study of the professor as sandwich man—perhaps a doctoral thesis” (Innis, 1946:74). Despite these discouraging tendencies, Innis remained hopeful that the university could recover its tradition of “humanities and learning.” This would permit it to “resist the tendencies to bureaucracy and dictatorship of the modern State, the intensification of nationalism, the fanaticisms of religion, the evils of monopoly in commerce and industry” (Innis, 1946:66). It was imperative that the university “continue its vital function in checking the dangerous extremes to which all institutions with power are subject,” including “the rise of the modern state and...thetyranny of opinion” (Innis, 1946:141). Rather than continuing its complicity with mechanization and present-mindedness, he believed that “the University must play its major role in the rehabilitation of civilization which we have witnessed in this century by recognizing that western civilization has collapsed” (Innis, 1946:73). It was aptly suited to play this role because of its “great tradition of freedom from state control.” This means that it could serve as “a platform on which we may be able to discuss the problems of civilization. We stand on a small and dwindling island surrounded by the flood of totalitarianism” (Innis, 1946:73). And how was the university to serve as a point of resistance to ongoing trends, and the site for the rehabilitation of Western civilization? While Innis did not elaborate on how it could play this role, he did put great stock in a particular orientation towards the production of knowledge that challenged the trends he detected in Western civilization. The university has served as a “stabilizing factor” in “various periods in the history of civilization” because it has “preferred reason to emotion, Voltaire to Rousseau, persuasion to power, ballots to bullets” (Innis, 1946:141). More specifically, the tradition of the university has included the search for truth, an “obsession with balance and perspective” (as rooted in the Greek tradition of the humanities), “a constant avoidance of extremes and extravagance,” and scepticism about proposals to cure the world’s ills (Innis, 1946:141). Innis was particularly adamant about this final point. He believed that the university “must steadfastly resist the tendency to acclaim any single solution of the world’s problems at the risk of failing to play its role as a balancing factor in the growth of civilization” (Innis, 1946:141). Innis has often been characterized as championing pure and detached scholarship as opposed to practical involvement (Creighton, 1957). This account, however, is highly misleading. Innis disagreed with the efforts of social scientists to be relevant because he felt it made them prey to the broader trends of the instrumentalization of knowledge, specialization, endemic quantification. However, his stance was practical in a much more profound

43 IJCS / RIÉC sense. He seemed to propose a much more dialogic and open-ended approach to the production of knowledge, unbound to the demands and needs of particular social interests. This would involve the recovery of a time-sensibility and orality that he felt had been overwhelmed by the trends toward mechanization and present-mindedness.8 Behind Innis’ plea for time was another plea for the university to recover its traditional role as a critical counterpoint to entrenched and largely unchallenged monopolies of knowledge.

Time, Space and Canada’s Place in Innis’ Thought In discussions of Innis’ work, it is often claimed that he abandoned his early work on Canadian economic history in favour of global accounts of civilization based on his analyses of communications technologies and their impacts.9 To be sure, some efforts have been made to demonstrate the continuity of Innis’ thought from his writings on political economy and Canadian economic development to communications. But for the most part, commentators have largely confined themselves to showing the primacy of a staples-oriented form of thought in Innis’ work. They suggest that Innis’ later views on how the physical properties of communications (such as lightness or durability) served to bias civilizations in particular ways were derived from his earlier analyses of how the characteristics of staple production had a determinative impact upon culture and politics.10 While accounts of this kind are suggestive, they largely fail to closely examine the latter part of Innis’ sweeping historical narrative, in which he gives particular attention to developments in Western civilization ushered in by the advent of industrialization, and the print revolution particular to the development of newspapers. In considering these trends, Innis’ point of reference shifted away from ancient civilizations and Europe toward developments in North America. In this respect, Innis’ vantage point was very much Canadian, both in terms of the changing political, economic and cultural landscape of his native country, and in relation to the increasing power of the United States on the world stage. Innis was convinced that Canada’s neighbour, whose very origins were founded on print culture and the principles of the “free press”, had become the bearer of “space-biased” communications, with devastating consequences for local culture and independent critical thought. Canada had become increasingly absorbed into the American empire through its pulp and paper industries and hydro-electric power resources. Paradoxically, the same pre-Cambrian shield that had long been considered a barrier to economic development had provided the basis for Canada’s incorporation into a United States dominated continentalism. The cheap newsprint and power which flowed from Canada to the United States was reintroduced back into the country in the form of mass circulation newspapers and cheaply produced magazines and books. In the same manner that Greece and Scotland became corrective counterpoints to the space-biased imperial designs of Rome and Britain respectively, Innis came to view Canada as a point of cultural resistance to the expansionist tendencies of American empire. As Arthur Kroker suggests, it was Innis’ most tragic insight that at stake in the contest of Canadian culture and American economy was nothing other than the possibility for an emancipatory recovery of the “heritage” of western civilization itself...Thereclamation, and defence, of an emergent cultural

44 Time, Space and the Place of Universities practice in Canada against the ideological hegemony of the “commercial empire” of the United States was also a sensitive political index of the struggle between “time” (duration and extension) and “space” (discontinuity and extension) in the modern mind (Kroker, 1984:97). While Kroker’s account is rich in insight, he largely fails to examine what this “emancipatory recovery” meant for Innis in terms of political and cultural engagement. His account lacks any clear sense of which elements in Canada Innis saw as providing the basis for reclaiming and defending “an emergent cultural practice.” Specifically, he gives little attention to how Innis had come to map Canada in terms of its time/space coordinates, a mapping that would strongly influence his views on the prospects for cultural resistance. In terms of how Canadian space had been controlled and organized, Innis’ analysis differed from that which he offered for the United States. As Canada became integrated into the American empire, regional and provincial power centres had formed for the specific purpose of mobilizing natural resources for exploitation by American interests (Innis, 1946:ix-x). This led to a fracturing and decentralizing tendency within the country. At the same time, the federal government was gradually increasing its capacity to administer the country, a trend that had gained momentum during World War II. This tendency was aided and abetted by the expansion of the civil service, which had developed an insatiable desire for statistical material to support policies and programs. This form of knowledge was provided only too willingly, in Innis’ eyes, by social scientists, who had largely come to define their role as one of producing quantitative studies that would be of potential use to policy-makers. In effect, given his opposition to “present-mindedness,” Innis had become increasingly disenchanted both with the federal government and with the social sciences. The former, true to its counter-revolutionary roots, favoured authoritarian rule and social control over dialogue and participation (Dorland, forthcoming). The latter, largely abandoning its origins in moral philosophy and classical political economy, had sacrificed its historicity on the alter of positivistic fact-grubbing. Indeed, this trend within the social sciences was part and parcel of the direction taken by Canadian universities. Caught up in the federal government’s designs to expand its realm of control, they had become willing accomplices in the strategic production of knowledge for instrumental ends. The autonomy of the universities increasingly eroded as their boards of directors gained the upper hand in questions of governance, a process that downplayed critical reflection and scholarly debate in favour of applied work serving the needs of dominant social interests. Unsurprisingly, then, in the latter decade of his life, Innis resolutely aligned himself with the humanities in Canadian universities, an academic sector which he saw as beleaguered if not under siege. His leadership was largely responsible for derailing the plans to close humanities departments during wartime (proposed by Cyril James and others). And through his efforts, the Rockefeller Foundation-sponsored Committee on Economic History established a research agenda that included attention to changing conceptions of time. While Innis’ angle of vision on the course of Western civilization was profoundly Canadian, he was only too aware of the “twisted and distorted cultural growth” in his homeland, a state of affairs that had been brought about by a “fanatical interest in nationalism” and the excesses of the price system

45 IJCS / RIÉC

(1946:10). Yet he harboured the view that by interrelating “patterns of Canadian development with those of the Western world,” the overall impact of industrialism and mass communications upon knowledge could be better addressed (Innis, 1946:xvi).11 To this end, Innis’ Archimedean point became the humanities in Canada. While they were weak and underdeveloped, by virtue of their foundations in classical thought and their propensity to reflect upon the cultural growth of civilizations, they provided the basis for balancing and correcting the fashionable present-mindedness that threatened to rob humanity of its collective memory and sense of time. “With imperfect competition between concepts,” Innis argued, “the university is essentially an ivory tower in which courage can be mustered to attack any concept which threatens to become a monopoly” (Innis, 1946:xvii).

Notes 1. Harold Innis is recognized as one of Canada’s leading intellectual figures. He was born in Otterville, Ontario in 1894 and studied at McMaster University (then located in Toronto). While serving with the Canadian expeditionary force during World War II, he was injured in battle at Vimy Ridge (Gwyn, 1992). During his convalescence in England, he completed his master’s degree at McMaster. Following his return to Canada, he pursued doctoral work in economics at the University of Chicago, writing a dissertation on the Canadian Pacific Railway. He began his academic career at the Department of Political Economy of the University of Toronto in 1920, remaining there until his death (of cancer) in 1952. Innis became best known for his studies of how the production of staple products such as fur (1930), fish (1940), lumber ([1938] 1956) and wheat ([1939] 1956) shaped and directed the path of Canadian economic development. In the later years of his life, he turned his attention to the history of communications, with particular attention to the relationship between forms of media and broader patterns of power and social control ([1950] 1986; [1951] 1991). This focus represented a lifelong concern with the role played by universities and intellectuals in helping to sustain and nourish Western Civilization (1943; 1944). Reflecting this interest, Innis was closely involved with numerous academic and funding bodies including the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Social Science Research Council, the Canadian Humanities Research Council, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Guggenheim Foundation. Despite his abiding suspicion of academics who participated in the policy process, he was a member of such consultative bodies as the Nova Scotian Royal Commission of Provincial Economic Enquiry (1934) and the Royal Commission on Transportation (1951). For biographical accounts of Innis’ life and career, see Berger (1976), Creighton (1957), Christian (1988, 1989), Cooper, (1979), Havelock (1982), Neill (1972) and Watson (1981). For collected commentaries on Innis’ work, see Journal of Canadian Studies, (1977); Melody, Heyer, and Salter (1981); Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (1994), and Acland and Buxton (forthcoming). For bibliographies of Innis’s writings, see Innis (1953) and Innis Foundation (1973). 2. For instance, in Empire and Communications, Innis writes that: The concepts of time and space reflect the significance of media to civilization. Media that emphasize time are those that are durable in character, such as parchment, clay, and stone. The heavy materials are suited to the development of architecture and sculpture. Media that emphasize space are apt to be less durable and light in character, such papyrus and paper. The latter are suited to wide areas in administration and trade (Innis, [1950] 1986:5). 3. See, for instance, Drache (1995:xlvi) and Melody (1981:6). As Patterson points out, the account of Innis is far from deterministic. Rather, the same medium has much different effects in different situations (Patterson, 1990).

46 Time, Space and the Place of Universities

4. That Innis’ history of communications was bound up with his political theory has been remarked on by numerous commentators including Christian (1977), di Norcia (1990), Pal (1977), Watson (1977; 1981), Whitaker (1983), and Noble (forthcoming). 5. An excellent discussion of Innis’ views on time and space can be found in Patterson (1990). 6. Indeed, he even suggested that civilizations that had achieved a balance sought to maintain this state (Innis, 1964:75). 7. As Noble (forthcoming) points out, Innis also looked to such institutions as the common- law, the court system, parliaments and churches as “vestiges of the pre-modern era,” which served as the basis for the continuation of the oral tradition. 8. Innis’ own work could also be seen as an effort to approximate this oral tradition. What he did was to juxtapose quotes from various authors, taken out of context, with only minimal attention given to the exact sources of the quotes, as I can attest. It was up to the reader to fill in what this all meant, to establish the connections between observations. Innis was particularly fond of quoting from the memoirs of observers on modernity, such as Benda, Mark Pattison, or Lord Morley. One of his favourites was Graham Wallas, who, according to Innis, “emphasized the importance of the oral tradition in an age when the overpowering influence of mechanized communication makes it difficult to even recognize such a tradition” (Innis, 1952:78). This tendency, as noted by McLuhan (1964) and elaborated on by Angus, could be likened to “a modernist technique of writing, through a plurality of glimpses and montage, to encourage the perception of patterns and thereby, an oralist intervention in the system of writing” (Angus, 1993: 31). 9. See, for instance, Melody, 1981:8. 10. Creighton, for example, maintains that Innis’ interest in newspapers derived from his previous work on pulp and paper (Creighton, 1957:112). Salter argues that his early interest in transportation represented a particular concern with the “transportation of ideas,” an orientation that foreshadowed his later writings on communications (1981:194). Wernick claims that “Innis turned from pulp and paper to the publishing industry itself, and thence, on the one, to the more general analysis of industrialised communication and, on the other, to the place of publishing within the history of communication as such” (1986:141). 11. Innis suggested that the influence of American imperialism could be effectively resisted by Canada “by adherence to common-law traditions and notably to the cultural heritage of Europe” (Innis, 1986:168).

References Acland, Charles and William Buxton (eds). Forthcoming. Harold Innis and the New Century: Reflections and Refractions. (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press). Angus, Ian and Brian Shoesmith (eds). 1993. Dependency/Space/Policy: A Dialogue with Harold A. Innis. Continuum: The Australian Journal of Media and Culture. Vol. 7, No. 1. Angus, Ian. 1993. “Orality in the Twilight of Humanism: A Critique of the Communication Theory of Harold Innis,” pp. 16-42 in Angus and Shoesmith. Berger, Carl. 1976. The Writing of Canadian History: Aspects of English-Canadian Historical Writing since 1900. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press). Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 1994. “The Legacy of Harold Innis.” Series prepared by David Cayley for Ideas series broadcast on December 6, 13, 20, 1994. (Toronto: CBC Radio Works). Cooper, Thomas W. 1979. “Pioneers in Communication: The Lives and Thoughts of Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan.” Unpublished Dissertation, Department for the Study of Drama, University of Toronto. Creighton, Donald. 1957. Harold Adams Innis: Portrait of a Scholar. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press). Christian, William. 1977. “Harold Innis as Political Theorist.” Canadian Journal of Political Science, vol. X, no. 1 (March): 21-42. Christian, William. 1988. “Innis, Harold Adams,” p. 1069 in Canadian Encyclopedia, 2nd Ed., Vol. II. (Edmonton: Hurtig). Christian, William. 1989. “Harold Adams Innis.” Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 88, Canadian Writers, 1920-59, Second Series. Di Norcia, Vincent. 1990. “Communications, Times and Power: An Innisian View.” Canadian Journal of Political Science, vol. XXIII, no. 2, June: 337-357. Dorland, Michael. Forthcoming. “The Expected Tradition: Innis, State Rationality and the Governmentalization of Communication” in Acland and Buxton.

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Drache, Daniel (ed). 1995. Staples, Markets, and Cultural Change. Selected Essays, Harold A. Innis. (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press). Gwyn, Sandra. 1992. Tapestry of War: A Private View of Canadians in the Great War. (Toronto: Harper/Collins). Harold Innis Foundation. 1973. “Harold Adams Innis: A New Biography.” (Toronto: Harold Innis Foundation, Innis College). Havelock, Eric A. 1951. The Crucifixion of Intellectual Man. (Boston: Beacon). Havelock, Eric A. 1982. Harold A. Innis: A Memoir. (Toronto: Harold Innis Foundation, Innis College). Innis, Harold. 1930. The Fur Trade in Canada: An Introduction to Canadian Economy. (New Haven: Yale University Press). Innis, Harold Adams. [1938] 1956. “The Lumber Trade in Canada,” pp. 242-251 in Mary Q. Innis (ed.), Essays in Canadian Economic History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. [Originally published in A.R.M. Lower et al., The North American Assault on the Canadian Forest. (Toronto: Ryerson).] Innis, Harold Adams. [1939] 1956. “The Wheat Economy,” pp. 273-279 in Mary Q. Innis (ed.), Essays in Canadian Economic History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. [Originally published in G.E. Britnell, The Wheat Economy. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press).] Innis, Harold Adams. 1940. The Cod Fisheries: The History of an International Economy, Relations of Canada and the United States Series. (Toronto: Ryerson). Innis, Harold. 1943. “Some English-Canadian University Problems,” Queen’s Quarterly, 50: 30- 36. Innis, Harold. 1944. “A Plea for the University Tradition,” Dalhousie Review, 24: 298-35. Innis, Harold Adams. 1946. Political Economy in the Modern State. (Toronto: Ryerson Press). Innis, Harold Adams. [1950] 1986. Empire and Communications (David Godfrey, ed.). Victoria/Toronto: Porcépic. (Originally published in Oxford: Oxford University Press). Innis, Harold Adams. [1951] 1991. The Bias of Communication. (Introduction by Paul Heyer and David Crowley). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. (Originally published in Toronto: University of Toronto Press). Innis, Harold Adams. 1952. Changing Concepts of Time. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Innis, Harold Adams. 1953. “The Published Works of H.A. Innis” [prepared by Jane Ward,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, vol. XIX, no. 2, (May): 233-244.] Innis, Harold Adams. 1980. The Idea File of Harold Adams Innis. ed. William Christian. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press). Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 12, No. 5 Winter, 1977. Kroker, Arthur. 1984. Technology and the Canadian Mind: Innis/McLuhan/Grant. (Montreal: New World Perspectives). Melody, William, Liora Salter, and Paul Heyer (eds.). 1981. Culture, Communication, and Dependency: The Tradition of H.A. Innis. (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex). Melody, William. 1981. “Introduction,” pp. 3-11 in W. Melody, L. Salter and P. Heyer (eds.), Culture, Communication, and Dependency: The Tradition of H.A. Innis. (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex). Neill, Robin. 1972. A New Theory of Value: The Canadian Economics of H.A. Innis. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press). Noble, Richard. Forthcoming. “Harold Innis’ Whig Conception of Liberty”, in Acland and Buxton (eds)., Harold Innis in the New Century. Pal, Leslie. 1977. “Scholarship and the Later Innis,” Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 12, no. 5: 32-44. Patterson, Graeme. 1990. History and Communications: Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan, the Interpretation of History. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press). Report of the Royal Commission, Provincial Economic Inquiry, Province of Nova Scotia. 1934. (Halifax: King’s Printer). Report of the Royal Commission on Transportation. 1951. Ottawa: Salter, Liora. 1981. “Public and Mass Media in Canada: Dialectics in Innis’ Communications Analysis,” pp. 193-207 in W. Melody et al (eds). Stamps, Judith. 1995. Unthinking Modernity: Innis, McLuhan and the Frankfurt School. (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press). Watson, A. John. 1977. “Harold Innis and Classical Scholarship,” Journal of Canadian Studies, Winter. ______. 1981. “Marginal Man: Harold Innis’ Communication Works in Context.” Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto. Wernick, Andrew. 1986. “The Post-Innisian Significance of Innis.” Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory, vol. X, no. 1/2: 128-150. Whitaker, Reg. 1983. “To Have Insight into Much and Power over Nothing: The Political Ideas of Harold Innis,” Queen’s Quarterly, Autumn.

48 Randy William Widdis

Borders, Borderlands and Canadian Identity: A Canadian Perspective

Abstract Borders—internal and external, socio-economic, geopolitical and psychological—have always played a role in developing Canadian identity. Yet borders and borderlands are organic; they evolve over time and space to become different kinds of places. This paper examines the relationship between the development of identity and changing dimensions of space and place over time, placing particular emphasis on the border and borderlands metaphors. It maintains that identity and place, both interdependent concepts, are defined by borders and borderlands. Yet these concepts present a paradox which both frames and complicates the Canadian identity. While borders separate, borderlands are regions of interaction where functional relationships are established. The paper concludes that while the Borderlands Thesis supporters are justified in emphasizing the importance of cross-border interactions and synthesis, they must also recognize that, over time, Canada developed national economies and political-cultural institutions which transcended internal regional boundaries and provided a counterbalance to the North-South integrative forces existing within transborder regions.

Résumé Les frontières (qu’elles soient internes ou externes, socio-économiques, géopolitiques ou psychologiques) ont toujours joué un rôle dans le développement d’une identité canadienne. Pourtant, les frontières et les régions limitrophes sont de nature organique : elles évoluent de façon spatio- temporelle pour former divers types de lieux. Le présent article examine le rapport entre le développement de l’identité et l’évolution des aspects « lieu » et « espace » au fil du temps, en insistant particulièrement sur les métaphores que sont les frontières et les régions limitrophes. Il est connu que l’identité et le lieu — deux concepts interreliés — sont définis par les frontières et les régions limitrophes. Cependant, ces deux concepts constituent sur les deux plans, un paradoxe qui complique l’identité canadienne. D’une part, les frontières divisent; d’autre part, les zones limitrophes favorisent les échanges menant à des relations fonctionnelles. Selon le présent article, même si les fervents de la théorie des zones limitrophes ont raison d’insister sur l’importance des échanges et de la synthèse inter-frontières, ils doivent également reconnaître que, au fil du temps, le Canada a permis la mise en place d’économies et d’établissements politico-culturels de nature nationale outrepassant les frontières régionales internes et contrebalançant les forces d’intégration nord-sud au sein des régions transfrontalières.

International Journal of Canadian Studies / Revue internationale d’études canadiennes 15, Spring/Printemps 1997 IJCS / RIÉC

If the national mental illness of the United States is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia. Margaret Atwood

It is fashionable in socio-psychological history to look back and discover or invent identifications and attachments to place. Individuals and groups conceptualize their identity within the context of place—the household, the community, the region, the nation. Conceiving a feeling of “who-ness” in terms of a sense of “where-ness” is a voyage of discovery everyone takes. In this passage, the voyageur searches for frames of reference which facilitate the development of attachments to place and, in doing so, creates structural and psychological boundaries. These boundaries, in turn, delineate territories which are deemed necessary to both physical and psychic survival. And survival is dependent on the strength or vulnerability of the borders that separate the individual or group (“us”) from others (“them”) (Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, 1987: 11). Borders—socio-economic, geopolitical and psychological—have always played a role in the development of a Canadian identity.1 These boundaries represent structural centripetal and centrifugal forces that both unify the country and pull it in different directions. Such contradictory energies have created a country which is in itself a paradox. And trying to make sense of this paradox is in many ways an impossible and even schizophrenic task. Yet try we must for this is a responsibility that Canadianists cannot shirk. This paper attempts to examine the relationship between the development of identity and changing dimensions of space and place over time as symbolized by the metaphorical concepts of border and borderland.

Space, Place, Identity and Borders While critical theorists such as Giddens (1976, 1978, 1981) and Foucault (1980, 1982, 1986) recognize that space is basic to experience and action, it is place that captures the imagination of the geographer. “Place is space to which meaninghasbeenascribed”(Carter,DonaldandSquires,1993:xii)and“place. . . [is] seen as the foundation of...identity” (Eyles, 1985: 72). Geographers have increasingly rejected abstract spatial relations in favour of elucidating place associations, a trend, one could argue, that reflects the growing importance of postmodern geography. In the context of specific places, geographers attempt to understand the spatiality of social life. In terms of identity, “it is not spaces which ground identifications, but places” (Carter, Donald and Squires, 1993: xii). Identity develops as people engage in placemaking, i.e., “the way all of us as human beings transform the places in which we find ourselves into places in which we live” (Schneekloth and Shibley, 1995: 1). Placemaking occurs within particular, socially constructed realities which range over different spatial scales, including the space of housing, the space of the community, and the space of the nation-state. For Charles Taylor (1989: 35), questions of identity are bound up with the spacesweinhabitandassignmeaningto—theplaceswithwhichweidentify:

50 Borders, Borderlands and Canadian Identity

I define who I am by defining where I speak from, in the family tree, in social space, in the geography of social statuses and functions, in my intimate relations with the ones I love, and also crucially within which my most important defining relations are lived out. Both place and identity are interdependent and defined by borders. “Place is bounded,” states Robert Sack (1992: 13), and “thus can be seen literally and imaginatively from within and from without.” Identity provides boundaries for individuals, bearings with which they need to function. The practice of placemaking and the development of identity in Canada has necessarily involved the creation of territories which serve to strengthen and retard association with place at different levels. The interconnections between space and behaviour hinges on territoriality (Sack, 1986: 25). Territoriality, as Sack (1986: 216) explains: as the basic geographic expression of influence and power, provides an essential link between society, space, and time. Territoriality is the backcloth of geographical context—it is the device through which people construct and maintain spatial organizations. Socially constructed territories are expressed by the use of borders which functionasadeviceinwhichtoviewthedevelopmentofaCanadianidentity. Borders, the one shared with the United States and those created internally, frame the Canadian identity. Identity is a concept that is both discovered and invented. The Canadian identity is extremely complex and therefore is not easily understood even by those who attempt to identify or create it. The fact that the country exists in a dialectic of regional and ethnic tensions further complicates the search for identity. These internal borders of religious and ethnic division are reinforced by geographical separation and socio-economic distinction both within and between regions. A pan-Canadian identity has always been countered by the panoply of attachments existing in this country: allegiances to region, to ethnic group, to religion, to outside interests. While not a collection of warring tribes, Canadians have always erected boundaries that have shaped the contours of the Canadian identity. The effects of these borders are the subject of much debate and confusion.

Internal Borders

Regional Borders While regionalism is a narrow prism through which to view a political landscape, history teaches us that regional differences in this country are the consequence of distinct historical development and geographical realities. The regional dimension of Canadian life has been and continues to be a major factor in the development of a Canadian identity, as noted by many observers never more eloquently than by the recently deceased giant of Canadian literary criticism, Northrop Frye. Through a lifetime of study, Northrop Frye became one of the foremost students and interpreters of Canadian culture. In doing so, itmight beargued, he

51 IJCS / RIÉC unconsciously adopted an historical geographical approach to the study of Canadian identity. He views the elusive question of identity as nothing more than an expression of culture including the human imagination. Since the imagination—that is, the ideas by which we live—is so shaped by personal experience and perception, Frye maintains that in a country as large and diverse asCanada,identityisnota“Canadian”questionbuta“regional”question. Frye (1971: ii) insists that unity and identity in Canada, though quite different concepts, are often confused in the minds of Canadians: Identity is local and regional, rooted in the imagination and in words of culture; unity is national in reference, international in perspective, and rooted in political feeling. The tension between national unity and regional identity, Frye (ibid: 220) believes, means that the important question perplexing Canadians is not “Who am I?” but rather “Where is here?” According to Villeneuve (1993: 9899), this question gives “a definite geographical dimension to the paradox of Canadian identity, [a paradox]...strongly anchored in the territorial experiences of the people of Canada.” Frye emphasizes the fact, later elaborated upon by Cole Harris (1982), that there was no temporally and spatially continuous settlement experience as in the United States. Small communities and regions, geographically isolated from one another, generated what Frye calls a “garrison mentality” and Harris terms an “island archipelago.” Both Harris and Frye express their views of the historical geographical essence of Canada in the form of metaphors, the former seeing Canada as a collection of islands in a stormy sea called Confederation, and the latter comprehending the country in the form of a cartographical metaphor, that is using the legends and conventions of a map (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1975). To Frye, each voyageur (Canadian) in search of the national image (Here) is involved in a journey that has no arrival; the map is not yet complete. The individual identifies and interprets ideas, events and experiences largely within a geographic frame, which enables him to orient himself in time and space. Self- identity can only be discovered in the context of community yet is not ontologically prior to community. Individual values are both enabled and constrained through those of the community, however defined. Yet it is this ambiguous process of definition or placement that creates an ontological crisis for the individual. He asks himself “Where is here?” but this leads him still into uncharted territory. In this quest, the voyageur must recognize that a body of cultural assumptions, framed by regional/local consciousness, influences an appreciation of the nature of Canada and filters its imagery. Frye reasons that an individual’s “Here” is neither static nor complete but continually evolves as new ideas, events and experiences permeates one’s consciousness. To Frye (1982: 59), every part of Canada is a separation, segregated from each other along several grounds. Complicating matters for the voyageur is a pluralistic ethos which admits the possibility of a multiplicity of communities. Canada as a “community of communities,” a society where differences do not have to be adversarial, where unity in diversity is seen to be the essence of a collective identity, poses conceptual challenges to its members who more

52 Borders, Borderlands and Canadian Identity readily and easily align themselves with the immediate—the group, the locality, the region. Separation doesn’t have to imply segregation but exclusion or inclusion is often what results (Taylor, 1989, 1991, 1993). What effect the physical environment, a factor considered very important by geographers in any interpretation of regionalism, has had on both unifying and dividing the country has been a subject of considerable discussion, much of it centering on the theme of environmentalism. A tradition of cultural environmentalism evident in attributes both national and regional character to the shaping forces of terrain and climate. It is the reality of Canada’s geography, many argue, that has nurtured strong regional identities which act as barriers against national unity and retard national identity (Malcolm, 1985; Westfall, 1993). The role of geography in Canadian life was, in fact, recognized by the country’s first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, who described Canada as having “too much geography and too little history.” The immense size of the country combined with its relatively small population even today constrains the possibility of economies of scale from internal markets. Those communities on the periphery are still marginalized and isolated from the mainstream. Canada’s earliest European agriculturalists were limited to patches of suitable farmland, fishermen were huddled in protective coves, and lumbermen were scattered in isolated camps. This discontinuous settlement experience, which produced isolated communities and retarded the development of a common identity, created a different frontier experience in Canada than in the United States, one in which “European social formations were bent...bynon- European space” (Harris, 1987: 207).

Cultural Borders Regional separation within Canada, however, is not just related to geographical isolation; cultural plurality based on language, religion and ethnicity also serve as centrifugal forces. To most Canadians, the search for identity is complicated by the fact that the country has been divided by what Hugh MacLennan (1945) terms the “two solitudes.” Culture is shared and transmitted between generations through the medium of language. Through much of Quebec’s history, language, faith and the family have acted as a “triad” of French- Canadian culture and have served to protect both the interests and identity of this group (Barkan, 1980: 392). The English-French duality is a basic reality of Canadian existence, but even among Canadians who share the English language, religious and ethnic differences, often exacerbated by geographical isolation, have created boundaries both between and within regions. The whole question of ethnicity and ethnic identification is extremely problematical. Scant literature addresses the problem of distinguishing between ethnic and cultural boundaries. It is difficult to discern, for example, the degrees of Irishness and Canadianness in the second- and third-generation Irish-Canadian. Developing theories of relationship between individual behaviour and ethnic background is very difficult. Ethnicity is an abstract, heuristicdevicedefinedonbothobjectiveandsubjectivegroundsusedtocreate boundaries of inclusiveness and exclusiveness. Yet it is important “to

53 IJCS / RIÉC distinguish the sense of boundary from what is enclosed by the boundary” (Chun, 1983: 195); in other words, to separate ethnic identity (who am I?) from the traits associated with ethnicity (what am I?). The lack of theoretical guidance has meant that most researchers focus simply on the ethnic, i.e. those aspects of culture (speech, dress, custom) that people recognize as setting one group apart from the rest.

Economic Borders Well into the nineteenth century, “preindustrial methods of production and distribution still fostered a strong localism in British North American life” (Harris and Warkentin, 1974: 323). Differences in settlement policy, resource base, social organization and level of urbanization and industrialization contributed greatly to local and regional variations in economic development. The link between economic development and the formation of identity at the national, regional and local scales has most often been understood from the functional approach which adheres to the metropolitan/hinterland interpretation of staples theory. In this approach, “Canada is organized into a series of regions that link together strong metropolitan centres of capital and hinterlands of staple exploitation” (Westfall, 1993: 338-339). The fact that investment from foreign and domestic metropolises was never effectively coordinated under a national policy of economic development only served to exacerbate regional differences associated with history and geography (Bell and Tepperman, 1979: 249). European powers saw profit in the New World in the exploitation of staple resources, native wealth and labour, and a barter trade. Because exploitation was the primary objective, exploration was aimed at this end. The development of the Maritimes took place in a mercantilist/metropolitan context in which its staple resources (fish, timber, furs) were exploited for European markets. Access to Europe, the West Indies and America significantly counteracted a limited hinterland and small local markets. Maritime settlements developed as small colonial links in a metropolitan chain with no one centre asserting its dominance within the region. Small urban centres with limited regional hinterlands were more closely linked to outside metropolises than to each other (Harris and Warkentin, 1974: 170). As was the case for the Maritimes, the National Policy has been interpreted as an economic instrument of metropolitan interests based in central Canada to develop the West as a colony of central Canada (Francis, 1993: 453). The economic troubles of the 1880s tarnished the image of “Eden” associated with the West, and many felt betrayed by the Eastern interests who promoted such an impression (Owram, 1992: 178). Western farmers sold grain on an unprotected world market but were forced to buy expensive goods produced in central Canada. This cost-price squeeze, the monopoly power of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and federal control of Prairie crown lands all fostered anger and a sense of regional alienation in the West. With the improvement of the economy in the 1890s, regional tensions declined and confidence grew that Canada was economically strong enough to survive. The Maritimes, however, did not share in the general turn-of-the-century

54 Borders, Borderlands and Canadian Identity prosperity, and a legacy of regional antipathy towards central Canada was firmly established.

Attempts to Create Cultural Bridges While Confederation brought the colonies together in a political alliance, it could not unite them spiritually. That could only take place over the course of time with the development of economic linkages and the evolution of an indigenous culture shared by the inhabitants of all regions. Regional differences at the time of Confederation were arguably most pronounced in the cultural realm. The major problem with Confederation, according to Frye, was its impoverished cultural basis. Instead of relying on a native cultural base, Canada instead “was thought of, however unconsciously, as a British colony and a Tory counterpart of the United States, with French and indigenous groups forming picturesque variations in the background” (Frye, 1991: A17). At Confederation, Canada outside Quebec did not really have an indigenous national culture either in the sense of a shared heritage of historical memories and customs or in terms of artistic creation through literature, music, architecture, scholarship and the applied arts. Culture needs roots from which to grow. At Confederation, the roots of culture were confined largely to regions and locales. Through a combination of exogenous metropolitan influences and indigenous social processes, regional cultures had developed over time. People were moulded by both what they left behind and what they experienced in the new world. Many view this process as a “simplification” of Europe overseas. While Hartz (1964) argues that the mechanism of simplification was the emigration of fragments of the larger Europeansociety,fragmentswhosebackgroundsfacilitatedtheiradjustmentto their new environments, Harris (1977) and Meinig (1986) believe that the simplification of Europe overseas had to do more with the nature of the environments immigrants encountered rather than their own backgrounds. Regional cultures were not simple transplants but developed over a considerable period through processes of adaptation to the local environment, culturalselectionandinteractionswithpeopleofotherracesandethnicgroups. No strong national culture existed to provide citizens of the new country with a common frame of reference. For Anglo-Canadians, heritage was primarily of Britishratherthannativeorigin,apointoftennotedintheliteraryjournalsofthe period. A poor development of social communication among the regions contributed largely to this lack of clarity in Canada’s self-conception. As Deutsch(1966:172)maintains,“nationalconsciousness...istheattachmentof secondary symbols to primary items of information moving through channels of social communication, or through the mind of an individual.” Symbols lie at the core of culture but they first have to be created and then communicated to others. Anglo-Canadians in the late nineteenth century could only draw upon a meagre reservoir of national symbols and myths for guidance in the act of placemaking. Symbols help us to interpret who or what we are and what we can be and myths are particularly important because they transform secular history into sacred legends. Yet powerful obstacles existed in late nineteenth century Anglo-Canada which retarded the development of myths,

55 IJCS / RIÉC symbols and ideals that would serve to articulate a national experience. Most fundamentalwastheelementoftime.Notenoughtimehadpassedbytheturnof the twentieth century for the infant country to develop a strong sense of history and a set of traditions which reflected a national rather than a colonial experience. The sluggish development of literature and arts also impeded the establishment of national symbols. Post-Confederation literature, according to Marchak, ignored non-British groups, racism and poverty and presented romantic and unrealistic portraits of Canadian life. This was due to “the fact that Canada remained a colony long after [its] ‘declaration of independence”’ (Marchak, 1978: 180). Colonial symbols continued to dominate despite increased efforts among Canadian writers to develop indigenous symbols, myths and themes in novels and journals. Anglo-Canadian writers operated within two literary frames of reference: the British and the American. By mid-century, influenced by their distinct environment and close proximity to the United States, Canadian writers were more committed to revitalizing British civilization within a New World setting. Yet the passion for all things British diminished overtime,althoughmanywereunwillingtobreakalllinkswiththeOldWorld. The Canadian West never gripped the imagination of Canadians as the American West had captivated the minds of Americans. The initial ingredients of an Anglo-Canadian national identity were based primarily on a British cultural tradition. In this heritage, there was little passion for a frontier myth more closely associated with an American vision. Yet imperialist sentiment and British tradition were not enough to counteract strong regional sentiments and increasing American penetration. Most of the Canadian-developed literature was regional as opposed to national in character, a quality Cappon (1978: 60) argues to be “an extension of the economic and social reality of Canada’s situation as ‘hinterland’ to first the British and then the American ‘metropolis’.” Many of the Canadian-born writers of the period were attached geographically and emotionally to their region which, for most of this group, was a colony during their formative years. Any ideas that developed about a national identity were shaped by the writer’s regional and, if applicable, colonial contexts. Most importantly, Canadian literature had relatively little influence on the public because most during this period had little time for reading and reflection. Unfavourable copyright laws, a small readership, cheaper and more readily available American and British literature, and a high illiteracy rate resulted in hardship for Canadian writers and a restricted capability for developing and communicating native ideas, interpretations and symbols (Altfest, 1979: 235- 238). Margaret Atwood (1972) believes that the central symbol for Canada is survival, survival in a harsh environment and in the struggle to find an identity. The border is another, perhaps complementary, symbol for this country. We are, as Russell Brown (1991: 13) states, a country “encoded by borders.” As we have seen, many types of borders exist within the country to support the regional dimension of Canadian life. While identity is moulded to a significant

56 Borders, Borderlands and Canadian Identity extent by a regional consciousness shaped by cultural plurality and geographical isolation, the frame used by the voyageur to orient himself in territory is bounded east and west by the rest of Canada and north and south by his transborder relationship with the United States.

Borders and Borderlands Canada as an historically contingent society, developing within the context of its own internal evolution, has always framed its “becoming” through its changing political, economic and cultural relationships with the United States. That the relationship with the United States functions as a barometer by which Canadians, particularly Anglo-Canadians, measure their evolving identity is not surprising given the complex and varied nature of the ties linking different transborder regions. French Canada identifies with its distinctive language, religion, art, literature and other indigenous cultural traits and has developed its own cultural boundaries within the country, shields serving to strengthen its own sense of national identity. The fact of being “non-French” and the perception of being “non-American” have been the principal characteristics identifying Anglophone Canadians. At the same time, regional separation within Canada resulting from cultural plurality and geographical isolation, producing in effect internal borders, combined with different kinds of relationships with American border regions to create a variable settlement experience, produce different levels of identification with the idea of Canada, and elicit different interpretations of the symbolic meaning of the border separating Canadians (“us”) from Americans (“them”). That different meanings have been offered regarding Canadian-American relations is evident upon an examination of metaphors used to describe the border. Canadians, particularly Anglophone Canadians, in their fiction and popular culture have tended to view the border as a dividing line or shield, protecting a fledgling culture from a dominating presence. The metaphor of the border as shield symbolizes that for Canadians, our relationship with the United States has played a major role in developing what symbols we do have, an important consideration given the reality of living in an environment dominated by American symbols, icons and myths. A discontinuous and disjointed settlement experience, combined with the overwhelming American presence, have restricted efforts to create national symbols. Quebec exists largely as a nation because of its unique culture, reinforced by language, and its association with a distinctive historical geography, but Anglophone Canada has always struggled to find its niche within the continent. For this group, the Canadian-American border takes on an evengreatermeaning.Itisunderstoodasaninterpretedemotionalexperience,a symbolic marker defining a Canadian community, at least an Anglo-Canadian community. The most striking aspect of the border as shield metaphor is its oppositional character. As Anthony Cohen (1985: 58) wisely states, “boundaries are relational rather than absolute; that is, they mark the community in relation to other communities.” The border serves as the basic reference point for historical, literal, symbolic and psychological interpretations of an Anglo-

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Canadian identity. Yet as discussed, identity is a problematical concept; it is heavily contextual, difficult to measure, differs from place to place, and changes over time. But what is constant in the Canadian experience is that all groups in different regions and at different times have interpreted their identity vis-à-vis their relationship with the United States. And in this context, the border is the emotional and ideological focal point for the never-ending debate over the nature of these relationships. Yet the border as symbol should not blind us to the importance of place. In this context, we can distinguish between borders as lines symbolizing differentiation and as places or zones of mediation. It is the latter view in which the concept of borderland is included. The borderlands concept, developed years ago in other settings but only adopted recently by scholars interested in Canadian-American relations, serves as a worthwhile albeit polemic framework in which to view the complexity of this relationship. While borders separate, borderlands are regions of interaction where functional relationships are established which are acceptable for intercourse. Borderlands are created by various economic, social and family networks which serve to integrate communities on both sides of the boundary. The idea of borderlands takes on a decidedly geographical flavour, given that its primary features “are revealed in the dialectic between boundary as a political demarcation, and region as a geographic entity . . .” (McKinsey and Konrad, 1989: 2). Within North America, the U.S.-Mexico borderlands has long been the focus of attention by a large number of scholars. This school of “southern borderlands history” (egs. Bolton, 1921; Bannon, 1964; Nostrand, 1968; Martinez 1994, 1996) view this transborder region as an overlapping territory resulting from functional interrelationships. Members of this school and those studying other borderlands typically depict the two constituent spatial units of these regions as peripheral within the context of their respective nations and therefore particularly subject to foreign influences emanating from the adjacent country. The border itself is seen as a determining force in the sense that all of those who live along such a geopolitical boundary share a common experience resulting from geographical propinquity and functional interdependence. It is this transnational interaction that sets borderlands apart from interior zones. These ideas have been adopted by the organizers of the Canadian-American Borderlands Project, an interdisciplinary research and compiling effort whose basic premise is that “North America runs more naturally north and south than east and west...”(McKinsey and Konrad, 1989: ii). In the first of a series of publications which include a modest number of monographs, regional compendia and an anthology, the originator of the project, Lauren McKinsey, and its major proponent, Victor Konrad, chair of the Fulbright Scholarship PrograminCanada,provideaworkingdefinitionoftheborderlandsconcept: Borderlands is a region jointly shared by two nations that houses people with common social characteristics in spite of the political boundary between them. In a more narrow sense, borderlands can be said to exist when shared characteristics within the region set it apart from the country that contains it: residents share properties of the region, and this gives them more in common with each other than with

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members of their respective dominant cultures. More broadly, the borderlands is an area in which interaction has a tempering effect on the central tendencies of each society (1989: 4). While borderlands proponents concentrate on similarities occurring within this transborder region, selecting those features which are evident of “resistance to an artificial division imposed by a political border” (ibid: 2), others focus on expressions of difference. Borderlands are regions of both similarity and difference, a duality of dualisms; what is emphasized often reflects underlying ideology. Most important in the contribution of the borderlands concept to an understanding of the historical geography of Canadian-American relations is that it returns the symbol of border to the fact of place. Our propensity in this country to discern the border as a shield should not blind us to the powerful and sometimes overwhelming forces which bridge us with the United States. Yet at the same time, the Canadian-American border/borderland is a complex line/place. Borderland communities certainly are “spatially proximate” as Victor Konrad (1992: 199) states, but the degree of economic and social integration varies both spatially and temporally, a fact that is recognized by Borderlands scholars but is largely ignored in the research so far conducted. Borderlands are organic; they evolve over time to become different kinds of places. Investigations of Canadian-American borderland interactions along different transborder regions supports many of the arguments made by proponents of the Borderlands Thesis (e.g. Coats, 1937; Hansen and Brebner, 1940; McInnis, 1942; Brebner, 1946; Lipset, 1950; Podea, 1950; Sharp, 1952; Bicha, 1962; Preston, 1972; Brookes, 1976; Brookes, 1977; Hareven and Langenbach, 1978; Palmer, 1982; Breen, 1983; Louder and Waddell, 1983; Hammer and Gartrell, 1986; Widdis, 1987; Fedorak, 1988; Widdis, 1988; Gibbins, 1989; McKinsey and Konrad, 1989; Widdis, 1989; Wynn, 1987; Lipset, 1990; Granatstein and Hillmer, 1991; Everitt, 1991; Lecker, 1991; McIlwraith, 1991; Widdis, 1992; Ramirez, 1994; Shepard, 1994). Peoples, ideas and institutions rarely have clear, precise identities. These elements of identity are mobile; they begin from somewhere else and move across borders. To assess national and regional identities in Canada, we must identify those historical-geographic forces operating both from within and outside these units. Besides describing similarities that occur on both sides within the borderland region, the borderlands concept focuses on those shaping forces extending from and into the United States. Economic, social and family relationships across the border serve to integrate regions, cultures and communities. Yet borderland regions were and are integrated at different levels and in different ways. The variance in borderland experiences emphasizes that borderlands are zones of difference and divergence as well as similarity and convergence. The Canadian-American borderland is a parallax; the ideological position from which it is viewed certainly influences the ways in which it has been addressed. Proponents of the Borderlands Thesis view integration as determined largely by geographical proximity, migration and capitalist forces. As the frontierists did in the past, they look for those north-

59 IJCS / RIÉC south linkages that resulted in a synthesis within border regions. To a considerable extent this argument is valid; geography and capitalism have produced linkages that have resulted in considerable synthesis. Yet this in no way implies that the border is either “meaningless” or “undesirable” (Buckner, 1989: 156). Even though the core-periphery model is useful because it describes the development of a relationship that has characterized all borderlands, the nature of north-south linkages have varied over time and among borderland regions. It seemstomethatmany,butnotall,Borderlandssupportersshowlittleregardfor characteristics and events which differentiate people on both sides of the border.CriticsoftheBorderlandsProjectseegeographyshapingacountryvery different from its southern neighbour. Following the arguments of Innis and Creighton, Harris (1990a: 152) maintains that the emergence of Canadian regions, regional identities and even a national consciousness had more to do with the east-west transcontinental expansion of trade and settlement than proximity to American regions. Regional borders in Canada, he insists, are more the result of distinctive European encounters with different Canadian settings than simply being peripheries of American core regions (1990b: 1). Both Harris and the Borderlands proponents overstate their case; the truth lies somewhere in the middle of this dialectic. Harris and others cannot deny the importance of integrative forces taking place within trans-border regions. The existence of borderlands, zones of interaction, mediation and some degree of integration, is obvious. At the same time, while Borderlands supporters are justified in emphasizing cross-border interactions and synthesis, they must also recognize that, over time, Canada developed national economies and political- cultural institutions which transcended regional boundaries. Confederation served to formalize the differences between Canada and the United States and, accordingly, the border acquired a greater symbolic significance to Canadians. To ignore this significance, Buckner (1989: 158) argues, unwittingly promotes continentalism and supports “a variant of an even older American concept—Manifest Destiny.”2 Borderlands: Essays in Canadian-American Relations, edited by Robert Lecker (1991), is the most ambitious product of the Borderlands Project to date and noteworthy not only for the material presented in its fourteen essays but also for the fact that the collection conveys some dispute over the manner in which borderlands are to be interpreted. Most of the contributors share the view of the first presenter, Victor Konrad (1991: viii), that borderlands “have a tempering effect on the centralizing tendencies of each society, and these regions reveal the ways in which the nation-states blend into each other.” Yet five essays express a profound sense of Canadian-American difference in various contexts. This debate over the nature and extent of integrative and divergent forces challenges the aforementioned view of Konrad. Yet Konrad (1991: x), to his credit, recognizes and welcomes such dialogue, stating that “the borderlands between Canada and the United States largely remain open to interpretation and subject to debate.” Yet while they were influenced greatly by American goods, technologies, myths and ideas, Canadians did not see their place in North America in exactly

60 Borders, Borderlands and Canadian Identity the same way that Americans did. Canadians from different regions and groups formed variable ideas about society and their relationship with the United States. Many continued to espouse certain of the social and political principles inherited from Britain, but realized that a strong Canada was necessary to ensure the continuance of those same ideals. But their view of Canada continued to be framed by island perspectives. The islands in the late nineteenth century were shrouded in the fog of ignorance and the few bridges that had been constructed were in danger of collapsing from too little structural support. Yet this archipelago of solitudes, created within an institutional framework which in many ways furthered division, slowly developed associations that transcended differences and strengthened ties even in the face of developing north-south integration. That this was a struggle, there is no doubt; yet it was in this effort that Canadians discovered what they shared in common and constructed bridges.

Conclusion: A Perspective on the Present The turn-of-the-century voyageur, with his psyche of juxtaposed identities, borders of division and bridges of association, belonged to a time and place in which his thinking was situated. The culture that acknowledged this belonging was none the less real for being poorly articulated. The few but potent symbolic identifications with “here” and symbolic differentiations from “there” were fundamental to a collective sense of identity in the face of powerful forces of integration. Contingency and situatedness were and still are the qualities of the voyageur. It is through these frames of reference that he took his identity. The voyageur was, is, and always will be, confronted by a series of paradoxes which complicates his search for identity and the border metaphor symbolizes a collective struggle with an existence that has a multitude of contradictory or inconsistent qualities. To a significant extent, comprehension of these paradoxes was and still is beyond the capabilities of the ordinary voyageur. For various reasons, the complexities and dimensions were not well articulated to the average Canadian in the late nineteenth century. The primary goal was to maximize life chances of survival. For many, that meant leaving familiar waters for what was perceived as more hospitable shores in other regions of Canada or south of the border. Yet the voyageur was not simply an economic animal driven by desire for wealth and security. He was related, however tenuously, to a symbolic realm of culturally relative values. The voyageur took with him the values, experiences and memories of his particular island and his archipelago. It is worthwhile to inquire as to the place of the voyageur now as this century draws to a close. Some things have not changed much. Canada still exists as a country with many layers of identity and possessing the same internal regional, cultural and economic divisions. Local places continue to provide the most important frame of reference and structure wider networks of economic, political and social interaction. Canada can still be described as “a reluctant partnership composed of two separate nations sharing a single state, or as a series of regions, each with their own identities, not denying each other’s distinctiveness but attempting to establish a frame whereby the efforts to secure

61 IJCS / RIÉC their own separate identities is juxtaposed against the desire to find grounds for integration” (Thorsell, 1995: D6). Yet while the voyageur is still on his journey, the map has changed significantly, a transformation that has been decoded in different ways. For some, Canada represents the archetypal postmodern society. The noted Canadian novelist, Robert Kroetsch (1989), portrays Canada as a fragmented, postmodern country because it lacks unifying meta-narratives such as revolutionary genesis or a single, unifying National Dream. Canadians, he believes, do not exist in a tight matrix of ideals; they come together because of the threat of death and disintegration. “If it is correct that postmodern culture thrives on irony, parody, and paradox”, the geographer Paul Villeneuve (1993: 99) reasons: [T]hen Canada has been postmodern for quite some time. The postmodern attitude seeks to transgress boundaries, and it emerges at atimewhentheculturalboundarybetweenCanadaandQuebecseems tobegettingthickerandthicker.Thesameeventsdonothavethesame meaning in Canada as in Quebec. To transgress a cultural boundary, one literally has to “balance the boundary.” And balancing on the boundary is the same, in this case, as staying in a paradox. This is the only vantage point from which to question spatial metaphors built on binary oppositions. In such a postmodern society, “the forces of new technologies, globalization and ‘time-space compression’ have together created a sense of information flows, fragmentation and pace replacing what is...perceived [even in Canada’s case] to be a previous stability of homogeneity, community and place” (Carter, Donald and Squires 1993: viii). In this world of expanding horizons (for some) and dissolving boundaries, where space becomes less important in a society where accessibility via the satellite dish and the Internet is freed from propinquity, places are no longer clear supports of identity. In this new world order, regional differences are increasingly diminished in the face of homogeneous economic forces and a global culture which promotes simplification. Although regional circumstances continue to shape the impacts of broader forces, a gradual convergence is taking place and regional identities are vanishing. Some may point to the reemergence of place expressed in postmodern culture as evidence of a strong reaction against the homogenizing forces of modernity. Yet the creation of renovated warehouses, pedestrian malls, and nouveau-deco architecture that reflect something of the history and geography of the places in which they are situated and stand in direct contrast to the utilitarian, universal landscapes produced in the postwar period are actually part of a culture and philosophy that is “the latest...expression of the transition from rationalist/ Modernist . . . capitalism to an emergent, globalizing advanced capitalism” (Knox 1991: 203). A material culture imposed from a disorienting global/American space is replacing local spaces or moulding them into landscapes of consumption. Increasingly, places of consumption are as important as the items being purchased, and visits to these places take on an almost ritualistic flavour. It almost seems as if individuals and groups are deriving some sense of identity as they shop, eat and drink in these shrines.

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In this new global environment, place is no longer the defining element of our new identity. Where is here? The geographic compass points which enable the voyageur to orient himself in time and space are disappearing. The promise of arrival that was such an important part of the journey no longer seems possible. Without the legend and conventions of the map, without the symbol of the border, the voyage is cancelled and the voyageur is left adrift searching for a frame of reference.

Notes 1. The meaning and symbolism of the border, particularly that separating Canada and the United States, is discussed in greater detail in my article: A Canadian Geographer’s Perspective on the Canada-United States Border. In D. Janelle, ed. Geographical Snapshots of North America, Commemorating the 27th Congress of the International Geographical Union and Assembly (New York: Guilford Press, 1992). A discussion of Canadian- American borderland regions is included in my forthcoming book entitled With Scarcely A Ripple: Intracontinental Anglo-Canadian Migration At The Turn Of The Twentieth Century (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1998). 2. I plan to write a synthetic overview which compares and contrasts the historical geography of Canadian-American interactions within borderland regions that were and are integrated at different levels and in different ways. This research will not adhere to either extreme view discussed in this paper but will attempt to sensitively explore the changing relationships between Canada and the United States as manifested in different borderland regions. Specifically, it will explore migration flows, the diffusion of technologies and ideas, the common transformation of landscapes, and the evolution of industrial and capitalist relations across the border. As such, it will attempt to deal with the criticism made by Worster (1992: 226) that there exists “no real school of northern borderlands history, no Herbert Bolton or John Francis Bannon for these parts.” This inquiry will recognize, however, some fundamental differences between the northern and southern borderlands, particularly the fact that the former is in many ways more diverse and therefore more puzzling than the latter despite the fact that a far greater percentage of people living on both sides of the Canadian-American border share the same language and culture and interact within social and economic contexts than do those who live along the Mexican-American boundary. The complexity of the northern borderlands is due to regional variations that, when viewed through an historical-geographical perspective, are seen to be more pronounced than those along the southern borderlands. While Oscar Martinez (1994: 303), a notable member of the southern borderlands school, argues that “notwithstanding local variations...the[U.S.-Mexico] borderlands constitute a single transnational system that focuses essentially the same from Brownsville-Matamoros to Tijuana-San Diego...”, the same statement cannot be made for the Canadian-American borderlands where regional differences in the historical geography of cross-border interactions have produced a picture that is much more paradoxical than is commonly believed. Yet at the same time, this research will recognize that developments within the borderland regions were shaped to a considerable extent by larger processes of a developing global capitalist system. In this context, the analysis will examine core and periphery relations within and among borderland regions as a means of assessing differences in borderlands experiences.

References K. Altfest (1979). Canadian Literary Nationalism, unpublished Ph.D dissertation, City University of New York. M. Atwood (1972). Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature (Toronto: Anansi). J. Bannon, ed. (1964). Bolton and the Spanish Borderlands (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press). E. Barkan (1980). . In S. Thernstrom, A. Orlov and O. Handlin, eds. Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (Cambridge: Harvard University Press). D. Bell and L. Tepperman (1979). The Roots of Disunity (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart).

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H. Bolton (1921). The Spanish Borderlands: A Chronicle of Old Florida and the Southwest (New Haven: Yale University Press). K. Bicha (1962). The North Dakota Farmer and the Canadian West, 1896-1914. North Dakota History 29. J. Brebner (1946). North Atlantic Triangle: The Interplay of Canada, the United States and Great Britain (Toronto: Ryerson Press, and New Haven: Yale University Press, for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Division of Economics and History). D. Breen (1983). The Canadian West and the Ranching Frontier, 1874-1924 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press). A. Brookes (1976). Out-Migration from the Maritime Provinces, 1860-1900: Some Preliminary Investigations. Acadiensis 5, 2. A. Brookes (1977). Islanders in the Boston States, 1850-1900. The Island Magazine 2. R. Brown (1991). The Written Line. In R. Lecker, ed. Borderlands: Essays in Canadian-American Relations (Toronto: ECW Press). P. Buckner (1989). The Borderlands Concept: A Critical Appraisal. In S. Hornsby, V. Konrad and J. Herlan, eds. The Northeastern Borderlands: Four Centuries of Interaction (Orono and Fredericton: Canadian-American Center, University of Maine and Acadiensis Press). Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (1975). Journey Without Arrival (film). P. Cappon, ed. (1978). In Our House: Social Perspectives on Canadian Literature (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Ltd.). E. Carter, J. Donald and J. Squires (1993). Introduction. In E. Carter, J. Donald and J. Squires, eds. Space and Place: theories of identity and location (London: Lawrence and Wishart). K. Chun (1983). Ethnicity and Ethnic Identity: Taming the Untamed. In T. Sarban and K. Scheibe, eds. Studies in Social History (New York: Praeger). R. Coats (1937). Two Good Neighbours: A Study of Exchanges in Populations. Proceedings, Canadian-American Affairs Conference (Kingston: Queen’s University). A. Cohen (1985). The Symbolic Construction of Community, Key Ideas Series, No. 1 (Chichester: Ellis Horwood). K. Deutsch (1966). Nationalism and Social Communication, 2nd edition (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press). J. Everitt (1991). The Borderlands and the Early Canadian Grain Trade. In Robert Lecker, ed. Borderlands: Essays in Canadian-American Relations (Toronto: ECW Press). J. Eyles (1985). Senses of Place (Warrington, U.K.: Silverbrook Press). C. Fedorak (1988). The United States Consul in Victoria and the Political Destiny of the Colony of , 1862-1870. B.C. Studies 79. M. Foucault (1980). Questions on Geography: interviews with the editors of Herodote. In C. Gordon, ed. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977,by Michel Foucault (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Press). M. Foucault (1982). Interview with Michel Foucault on space, knowledge and power. Skyline (March). M. Foucault (1986). Death and the Labyrinth: The World of Raymond Roussel (London: Athlone Press). R. Francis (1993). Changing Images of the West. In D. Taras, B. Rasporich and E. Mandel, eds. A Passion for Identity: An Introduction to Canadian Studies (Scarborough: Nelson Canada). N. Frye (1971). The Bush Garden: Essays on the Canadian Imagination (Toronto: Anansi). N. Frye (1982). Divisions on a Ground (Toronto: Anansi). N. Frye (1991). Northrop Frye’s Canada. Globe and Mail, Monday April 15, A17. R. Gibbins (1989). Canada As a Borderlands Society, Borderlands Monograph Series #2 (Orono: Canadian-American Center, University of Maine). A. Giddens (1976). New Rules of Sociological Method: A Positive Critique of Interpretive Sociologies (London: Hutchinson). A. Giddens (1979). Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and Contradiction in Social Analysis (London: Macmillan). A. Giddens (1981). Agency, Institution and Time-Space Analysis. In K. Knorr-Cetina and A. Cicourel, eds. Advances in Social Theory and Methodology: Toward an Integration of Micro- and Macro-Sociologies (London: Routledge). A. Giddens (1984). The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration (Cambridge: Polity Press). J. Granatstein and N. Hillmer (1991). For Better or Worse: Canada and the United States to 1990 (Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman Ltd.). Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (1987). Us and Them: The Psychology of Ethnonationalism (New York: Brunner/Mazel Publications). H. Hammer and J. Gartrell (1986). American Penetration and Canadian Development: A Case Study of Mature Dependency. American Sociological Review 51, 2. M. Hansen and J. Brebner (1940). The Mingling of the Canadian and American Peoples, Volume 1: Historical (New Haven: Yale University Press).

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T. Hareven and R. Langenbach (1978). Amoskeag: Life and Work in an American Factory City (New York: Pantheon Books). R. Harris (1977). The Simplification of Europe Overseas. Annals, Association of American Geographers 67, 4. R. Harris (1982). Regionalism and the Canadian Archipelago. In L. McCann, ed. Heartland and Hinterland, 1st edition (Scarborough: Prentice-Hall). R. Harris (1987). The Pattern of Early Canada. The Canadian Geographer 31. R. Harris (1990a). The Canadian Archipelago and the Border Thesis. Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting Program and Abstracts (Washington: Association of American Geographers). R. Harris (1990b). Editorial. Newsletter for Canadian Historical Geography 5. R. Harris and J. Warkentin (1974). Canada Before Confederation: A Study in Historical Geography (New York: Oxford University Press). Louis Hartz et al (1964). The Founding of New Societies (New York: Harcourt Brace and World). J. Hopkins (1990). West Edmonton Mall: Landscapes of Myth and Elsewhereness. The Canadian Geographer 34. P. Knox (1991). The Restless Urban Landscape: Economic and Sociocultural Change and the Transformation of Metropolitan Washington, D.C. Annals, Association of American Geographers 81. V. Konrad (1992). Borderlines and Borderlands in the Geography of Canada-United States Relations. In S. Randall, V. Konrad and S. Silverman, eds. North America Without Borders? Interpreting Canada, the United States, and Mexico (Calgary: University of Calgary Press). R. Kroetsch (1989). The Lovely Treachery of Words (Toronto: Oxford University Press). R. Lecker, ed. (1991). Borderlands: Essays in Canadian-American Relations (Toronto: ECW Press). S. Lipset (1950). Agrarian Socialism: The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation in : A Study in Political Sociology (Berkeley: University of California Press). S. Lipset (1990). Continental Divide: The Values and Institutions of the United States and Canada (New York and London: Routledge). D. Louder and E. Waddell, eds. (1983). Du continent perdu à l’archipel retrouvé: le Québec et l’Amérique française (Québec: Presses de l’université Laval). H. MacLennan (1945). Two Solitudes (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada). A. Malcolm (1985). The Canadians (New York: Times Books). P. Marchak (1978). Given a Certain Latitude: A (Hinterland) Sociologist’s View of Anglo- Canadian Literature. In P. Cappon, ed. In Our House: Social Perspectives on Canadian Literature (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Ltd.). O. Martinez (1994). Border People: Life and Society in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands (Tucson: University of Arizona Press). O. Martinez, ed. (1996). U.S.-Mexico Borderlands: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources Inc.). T. McIlwraith (1991). Transport in the Border Lands, 1763-1920. In R. Lecker, ed. Borderlands: Essays in Canadian-American Relations (Toronto: ECW Press). E. McInnis (1942). The Unguarded Frontier: A History of American-Canadian Relations (New York: Russell and Russell). L. McKinsey and V. Konrad (1989). Borderlands Reflections: The United States and Canada, Borderlands Monograph Series No. 1 (Orono: Canadian-American Center, University of Maine). D. Meinig (1986). The Shaping of Atlantic America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History, Volume 1: Atlantic America (New Haven: Yale University Press). W. Nostrand (1968). The Hispanic-American Borderland: A Regional Historical Geography. Unpublished Ph.D dissertation, UCLA. D. Owram (1992). The Promise of Eden, Volume 2 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press). H. Palmer (1982). Patterns of Prejudice: A History of Nativism in (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart). I. Podea (1950). Quebec to Little Canada: The Coming of French Canadians to New England in the Nineteenth Century. New England Quarterly, 2, 3. R. Preston (1972). The Influence of the United States on Canadian Development: Eleven Case Studies, Duke University Commonwealth Studies Center, No. 40 (Durham: Duke University Press). B. Ramirez (1994). Canada’s Place in the North Atlantic Migrations, 1860-1930. Unpublished paper presented at the Eleventh International Economic History Congress, Milan, Italy, September, 1994. R. Sack (1986). Human Territoriality: Its Theory and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). R. Sack (1992). Place, Modernity, and the Consumer’s World (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press).

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L. Schneekloth and R. Shibley (1995). Placemaking: The Art and Practice of Building Communities (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.). P. Sharp (1952). The Northern Great Plains: A Study in Canadian-American Regionalism. Mississippi Valley Historical Review 39. B. Shepard (1994). American Influence in the Settlement and Development of the Canadian Plains. Unpublished Ph.D dissertation, Canadian Plains Research Center, University of Regina. C. Taylor (1989). The Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press). C. Taylor (1991). The Malaise of Modernity (Concord: Anansi). C. Taylor (1993). Reconciling the Solitudes: Essays on Canadian Federalism and Nationalism, edited by G. LaForest (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press). W. Thorsell (1995). Distance has always been essential to the unity of Canada’s solitudes. Globe and Mail, Saturday October 28th, D6. P. Villeneuve (1993). Presidential Address: Inventing the Future in the North of North America. The Canadian Geographer 37. W. Westfall (1993). On the Concept of Region in Canadian History and Literature. In D. Taras, B. Rasporich and E. Mandel, eds. A Passion for Identity: An Introduction to Canadian Studies (Scarborough: Nelson Canada). R. Widdis (1987). “We Breathe the Same Air”: Eastern Ontarian Migration to Watertown, New York in the Late Nineteenth Century. New York History LXVIII. R. Widdis (1988). Scale and Context: Approaches to the Study of Canadian Migration Patterns in the Nineteenth Century. Social Science History 12. R. Widdis (1989). Tracing Eastern Ontarian Emigrants to New York State, 1880-1910. Ontario History LXXXI. R. Widdis (1992). Saskatchewan Bound: Migration to a New Canadian Frontier. Great Plains Quarterly 12. D. Worster. (1992). Under Western Skies: Nature and History in the American West. (New York: Oxford University Press). G. Wynn (1987). A Region of Scattered Settlements and Bounded Possibilities: Northeastern America, 1775-1800. The Canadian Geographer 31.

66 Guildo Rousseau

La descente du continent

Résumé Le transfert dans l’ordre de l’imaginaire et du mythe des solutions aux problèmes que l’homme ne parvient pas à résoudre effectivement est un phénomène commun à toutes les sociétés du monde. La persistance d’un tel phénomène dans l’univers mental du temps renvoie nécessairement à une vision du monde et du sujet humain dans le monde. C’est en quelque sorte l’étude mythocritique de ce « passage » du Temps à l’Espace — voire leur nécessaire confluence — que l’auteur cherche ici à mettre en lumière à partir d’une double hypothèse d’interprétation du Mythe de l’Amérique dans la littérature nord-américaine. L’analyse comparée d’un certain nombre d’œuvres littéraires américaines, canadiennes-anglaises et québécoises l’amène à examiner les polarités spatiales (Nord/Sud, Est/Ouest) comme autant de pôles inducteurs du pluralisme cohérent qui traverse les grandes images culturelles du temps, du lieu et de l’espace. La géographie imaginaire nord-américaine est d’abord pour l’auteur une « descente du continent » qui conduit à l’ultime anamnèse : au Léthé mythique dont la représentation symbolique, réactualisée à travers celle des grands fleuves du continent (le Saint-Laurent, le Mississippi, le Columbia, le Mackenzie, le Rio Grande...) constituerait l’une des topiques fondamentales de l’imaginaire géographique nord-américain.

Abstract Transferring solutions to the problems humankind is unable to effectively resolve from the realm of the imaginary and myth is a process common to all societies of the world. The persistence of this phenomenon in the mental construct of time necessarily references a vision of the world and of human beings in the world. Here, the author engages in what might be termed a mythical-critical study to shed light on this “passage” from Time to Space—their necessary convergence even—based on a two-fold hypothesis for interpreting the Myth of America in North American literature. A comparative analysis of a certain number of American, English-Canadian and Québécois authors leads to an examination of spatial polarities (North/South, East/West) as the inductors of a coherent pluralism apparent in the major cultural images of time, place and space. For the author, the North American geographic imaginary is above all a “descent of the continent” leading to the final analysis: the mythical river Lethe and its symbolic portrayal, evoked by the continent’s major rivers (the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, the Columbia, the Mackenzie and the Rio Grande), is a fundamental theme of the North American geographic imaginary.

International Journal of Canadian Studies / Revue internationale d’études canadiennes 15, Spring/Printemps 1997 IJCS / RIÉC

Les notions d’imaginaire et de culture souffrent d’ambiguïté. Les deux termes sont tantôt opposés, tantôt juxtaposés, quand ils ne s’englobent pas mutuellement. Le fait majeur est que leurs rapports se fondent sur un matériel sémiotique fort complexe. C’est en effet dans et par un ensemble de « signes- discours1 », et ceux propres à la manifestation des « sémiotiques verbales2 » que l’univers mental d’un individu ou d’une société se réalise le plus souvent et le plus intensément. Discours, langue et culture ne se conçoivent pas non plus sans rapports entre eux, sans une structure sociosémiotique qui anime leurs interrelations. Plus encore, toute sémiotique verbale ou culturelle répond à une situation géographique, historique et civilisatrice, où se débattent non plus des faits bruts mais des hommes. Si bien que les traits culturels d’une société ne s’additionnent pas arbitrairement les uns les autres. Ils prennent place dans un monde naturel, dans un milieu humain, dans des rituels et des pratiques sociales, dans des institutions qui les véhiculent; ils s’adaptent encore aux nécessités et aux circonstances ou subissent les érosions du temps. Ces traits culturels se présentent aussi sous la forme de relations interpersonnelles, donc d’échange de besoins, de sentiments ou de paroles, qui instaurent l’événement, la crise, ou encore le changement. De ces réalités géohistoriques, naissent les topiques socioculturelles de l’imaginaire, certes peu nombreuses, mais grâce auxquelles, comme le soutient Bachelard, « le monde vient s’imaginer » de façon nouvelle dans la vie imaginative d’une société. Ainsi il ne saurait y avoir de découpage statique des réalités imaginatives et culturelles qui enlèverait à l’événement sa valeur d’événement. Pour avancer dans cette direction, il suffit d’ailleurs d’interroger, à titre d’exemple, la culture géographique répandue dans les littératures américaine, canadienne et québécoise. Une géographie d’abord mythique, où les lieux de l’identité et de l’altérité ne cessent de puiser aux mêmes confluences la pluralité de leur pouvoir de représentation; une « géographie de l’imaginaire », pour reprendre une expression chère à Gilbert Durand, où la narration de « l’Amérique introuvable », celle d’un Jack Kerouac, d’un Leonard Cohen ou d’un Louis Hamelin, fait ressortir des « cartes mentales » jamais accidentelles ou différenciées, mais qui épousent plutôt des territorialités à partir desquelles les sociétés actualisent dans le temps leurs expériences imaginatives sous forme de discours ou de représentations symboliques. Mais voilà! L’espace imaginaire une fois supposé, il reste le temps comme fabrique d’images. Aussi parler de l’Amérique imaginaire, c’est d’abord renouer avec le temps primordial; c’est encore réfléchir longuement sur la mémoire de l’espèce et sur ses engagements dans des mythologies, des utopies, ou tout simplement dans des « images du monde ». Le questionnement proposé ici sera donc forcément incomplet. Impossible, en effet, d’en faire entièrement le tour sans se soumettre, entre autres, à un long débat sur les déterminants géographiques nord-américains qui se trouvent, encore aujourd’hui, au centre des interprétations dominantes de l’histoire canadienne et québécoise; il faudrait également s’interroger sur les imaginaires sociaux et leurs ancrages fondamentaux dans les mémoires collectives; il faudrait, pour que ce questionnement ait du « sens », réfléchir encore sur cette « mentalité de garnison » (on est soit un guerrier, soit un déserteur) dont parle Northrop Frye et qui est assez curieusement une vision du monde commune aux discours culturels canadien et québécois. Notre ambition

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est plus modeste. Elle s’articule autour de deux hypothèses d’interprétation de l’espace imaginaire nord-américain dans les littératures canadiennes d’expression anglaise et française. * * *

Première hypothèse

« Le mythe est vécu à l’Ouest mais raconté à l’Est » La première question de fond, qui nous vient, lorsqu’on s’interroge sur la sensibilité culturelle des écrivains canadiens d’expression anglaise et française à l’égard du monde naturel nord-américain, est de savoir « de quoi ici est-il fait »? Or, pour peu que l’on fréquente leurs œuvres, il nous apparaît vite évident qu’ils n’ont pu réussir à formuler une mythologie littéraire vraiment imaginative, c’est-à-dire une mythologie à partir de laquelle il est possible d’imaginer autrement le monde réel; au contraire, ils ont dans une très large majorité produit des œuvres qui demeurent conformes à la mythologie sociale de leur époque. Sans doute trouve-t-on chez les écrivains américains des XIXe et XXe siècles le même phénomène. Plus encore, à bien considérer les contextes interculturels dans lesquels les littératures américaine, canadienne et québécoise se sont développées, il est même banal de dire que ces trois littératures ont en commun un corpus d’œuvres où triomphe une telle mythologie qui a comme point d’appui un mythe pastoral. Rechercher l’articulation de cette mythologie sociale, qui médiatise un pan certain de la mémoire collective nord-américaine, y compris celle des Québécois d’expression française, c’est d’abord s’interroger sur les « trajets anthropologiques » à partir desquels émergent et finissent par se rationaliser les grands mythes antagonistes propres à une aire géographique particulière. Or, c’est avec l’image centrale du fleuve Saint-Laurent que l’on peut, croyons- nous, le mieux saisir la « fonctionnalité québécoise » de notre première hypothèse qui, soit dit en passant, se retrouve aussi comme mythe social dans les cultures américaine et canadienne3. Sur le plan géographique et culturel, le Saint-Laurent est un véritable symbole : on y pénètre comme Jonas dans la baleine, en ressentant un sentiment d’engloutissement; puis, le « mouvement laurentien » nous pousse vers l’Ouest par des voies d’eau qui conduisent aux mystères du continent4. Voilà, nous semble-t-il, l’espace primordial du désir qui circule à travers toute l’histoire géographique et culturelle québécoise et canadienne : un espace pénétré et traversé par des savoirs oniriques et rationnels hérités du monde européen5, mais aussi soumis à des déstructurations et restructurations politiques, économiques et sociales qui ont provoqué au cours de l’histoire des « déplacements » de sens. S’ilyaeneffet une certaine logique dans l’élaboration du mythe de l’Amérique pastorale, cette logique est éminemment profane. Ici, la métis humaine, c’est-à- dire l’intelligence pratique et technique6, fonde et nourrit les représentations collectives. Énoncé comme espace sacré et comme discours que la société (de l’Est) tient sur elle-même, l’Ouest — entendons surtout celui de la Nature sauvage et amérindienne — est soumis à la temporalité, au discours historique, plus exactement, à la durée existentielle. Il se présente comme « l’objet »

69 IJCS / RIÉC culturel de l’Est par excellence. Les figures légendaires du Canadien découvreur de terres neuves, du Pionnier civilisateur de la Frontière, ou encore du Coureur de bois, frère de sang de l’Indien, ne commencent ni ne finissent avec le pattern imaginé par Turner; leurs épiques parcours et errances dans le monde fictif de l’Ouest se révèlent davantage le produit culturel et imaginatif des sociétés urbaines de l’Est que le fruit d’une expérience humaine réellement vécue au sein de contrées inconnues7. L’espace narratif du mythe de l’Amérique est donc tendu entre deux pôles : l’Est, lieu de l’émission et de la réception du mythe, et l’Ouest, l’objet d’énonciation du récit lui-même, le tiers interposé entre le destinateur et le destinataire. Plus justement, le discours mythique ne vient pas « d’ailleurs », plongeant profondément ses racines dans les rêves culturels importés d’Europe8,ilestrevécu et redit par une ou plusieurs consciences en même temps qu’il devient un lieu d’échange culturalisé et culturalisant. * Un tel discours mythique prolifère dans l’histoire culturelle et littéraire nord- américaine. Tissé et retissé à partir de légendes et de contes, il envahit au XIXe siècle le roman, le cirque, les récits de voyage, voire encore des formes d’art comme la peinture et la musique, et apparaît dans le répertoire théâtral où il trouve parfois sa forme la plus achevée. Or, c’est notamment le cas avec la pièce de théâtre La Dalle-des-Morts (1965) de Félix-Antoine Savard, dont le contenu dramatique énonce un « rêve culturel » éminemment itératif. Voilà, en effet, qu’au beau milieu de la Révolution tranquille, le thème de la course aux fourrures « fait retour » et redit le mythe de l’Amérique pastorale, française cette fois, sous une forme toute particulière : la vision de la grandeur historique (disparue) qu’aurait été la geste passionnée et courageuse des Voyageurs des Pays-d’En-Haut. Ici encore, le « Grand-Ouest » renaît et meurt par l’utilisation excessive du langage et de la culture savante (de l’Est). Le jeune Gildore, le fiancé de Délie (la Femme-Terre), n’en finit plus de demander à son père José- Paul, lui-même coureur de bois, de lui nommer les lieux de passage vers l’Ouest : « Et, au-delà, qu’y a-t-il, mon père? ». En fait, ilyalaMort9, et c’est ce à quoi pense le père. Or, c’est bien ce projet d’énonciation des lieux comme savoir technique et rationnel10 qui définit ici la quête du héros épique et qui, en même temps, le perdra, non pas à ses yeux, mais aux yeux de ceux qui voient à l’Ouest l’Ailleurs de l’Autre. De fait, la cartographie empirique et descriptive du père, bien que liée à l’activité profane de la course aux fourrures, sous-tend ici une organisation discontinue et sacrée de l’espace historique canadien. À vrai dire, la culture géographique, intériorisée et savante, de José- Paul11 est doublement signifiante : elle l’est pour son fils Gildore et pour tous les autres acteurs du drame qui la reçoivent objectivement comme l’Ailleurs de leur Ici; elle l’est pareillement pour Félix-Antoine Savard qui, en tant que lecteur et énonciateur du Mythe, éprouve en lui cet Ailleurs de l’Autre comme narrativement le sien12: Ces hommes que j’ai toujours considérés comme le plus pur produit de la grande nature de mon pays et son expression la plus authentique,

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Paul Kane, La Dalle-des-Morts Source et droits de reproduction accordés : Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada

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m’ont fait comprendre, admirer et aimer l’une des plus belles et des plus riches époques de notre histoire. C’est grâce à leur contact fraternel, à l’observation sans cesse émerveillée de leur finesse, de leur force et incroyable endurance, de leur amour de la véritable liberté, que j’ai pu reconstituer en moi une sorte de carte vivante et parlante non du seul Québec, mais de tout le grand pays français de jadis [. . .]. La seconde source, je l’ai trouvée dans l’histoire de mon pays; et d’abord dans cette sorte de conflit qui, dès les premiers temps de la Nouvelle-France, n’a cessé d’opposer les paysans sédentaires aux découvreurs, explorateurs et coureurs de bois [. . .]13. Ainsi, c’est par le détour de l’Ailleurs que Félix-Antoine Savard nous présente le lieu actif et productif du Mythe. C’est effectivement pour le lecteur de l’Est14 qu’il écrit sa mise en œuvre, dramatique et narrative, de La Dalle-des-Morts15. Que dire! Pendant qu’il compose son œuvre, il n’a de cesse, lui aussi, qu’il parte. . . Tel le jeune Gildore, Savard prend l’ordre du récit pour l’ordre du monde, tel qu’il fut et tel qu’il devrait être encore grâce à la force illocutoire du mythe. Qu’il suffirait de croire au récit, de faire en quelque sorte, dans l’ordre du temps narratif, un certain voyage vers l’Ouest pour vivre à nouveau ce que l’Ancêtre a vécu une fois et ainsi retrouver, dans son lieu d’accomplissement, les gestes héroïques qui façonnent l’identité de l’homme. . . En tournant son regard vers l’eau du Fleuve, c’est bien vers la profondeur du continent nord- américain que « descend » l’auteur de Menaud et de L’Abatis. * Cet entrecroisement de la mémoire individuelle et collective, tel qu’il apparaît chez Félix-Antoine Savard, constitue une forme d’expression largement répandue dans la littérature nord-américaine. Il arrive cependant que le mythe de l’Amérique pastorale s’exprime sous une forme plus imaginative et autonome et qu’il soit ainsi à l’origine d’une véritable mythologie littéraire. Une mythologie où le phénomène de l’identification du sujet (le héros ou l’écrivain) à l’objet se situe à l’intérieur des formes littéraires elles-mêmes, et non plus séparé de l’objet, comme cela se produit dans toute mythologie sociale, produite par la société, et dont la finalité est de nous persuader d’accepter les valeurs sociales existantes. Ces formes d’expression plus imaginatives du mythe, où le processus d’identification est renversé, nous pouvons les retrouver, par exemple, dans le roman de Philip Grove, A Search of America (1927), où le narrateur est à la recherche du mythe de l’Amérique, non plus dans ses formes sociales (la petite maison de campagne, l’univers heureux de la ferme, les vastes horizons de la Frontière. . .), stéréotypes qu’il rejette d’ailleurs, mais dans ses formes d’expression verbale. Aussi voyons-nous celui-ci parcourir plutôt le Walden (1854) de Thoreau, ou encore suivre le héros de Mark Twain (Huckleberry Finn, 1885) se laissant aller au fil du Mississippi. L’Amérique de Grove se réactualise dans les rituels et les rêves que constituent en quelque sorte les œuvres littéraires elles-mêmes et dont la lecture, par l’écrivain ou par le lecteur, rend possible l’avènement du mythe. Travels With Charley (1962) du romancier américain John Steinbeck nous conduit lui aussi d’est en ouest, dans une quête identitaire qui rappelle celle

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entreprise par le héros de Philip Grove. D’ailleurs sous-titré « In Search of America », le roman met en scène un écrivain fictif, Steinbeck lui-même, qui se rend compte de sa méconnaissance du pays. Un long voyage le conduira donc de Sag Harbor (Long Island) à San Francisco, en compagnie d’un chien — Charley — avec qui il traverse une Amérique bien différente de celle qu’il avait jusqu’à lors peint le tableau dans ses œuvres. Mais plus le voyage avance vers l’Ouest, plus le narrateur voit dans le pays qu’il parcourt la représentation désolante d’une société consommatrice de l’artifice et du clinquant16; bref, une société aux mille et une contradictions, dont la vision imaginaire de son destin n’a rien à voir avec celle des Pèlerins du Mayflower. Incapable de saisir la réalité profonde d’une Amérique qu’il voudrait pourtant décrire, le narrateur se remémore alors, suivant les étapes du voyage, des souvenirs de lectures faites au temps de son enfance ou pendant sa période productive d’écrivain : The Great Divide, Main Street (1920) de Sinclair Lewis, Heavenly Discourse (1927) de Charles Erskine Scott Wood, You Can’t Go Home Again (1940) de Thomas Wolfe. . ., et d’autres encore, dont le contenu mythique est, à ses yeux, l’expression même des grandes images reliantes (ou archétypales) de l’éternel désir de l’Amérique. Travels With Charley est une géographique du mythe américain à la recherche de son éternel voyageur. Plus près de nous, Jacques Poulin, dans son roman Volkswagen Blues (1984), nous livre, d’une très belle manière, la recherche du mythe de l’Amérique chez son héros. De Gaspé à San Francisco, l’écrivain Jack Waterman17, l’un des personnages à qui l’instance narrative à la troisième personne prête la parole, est à la recherche de son frère aîné, en compagnie d’une métisse surnommée la Grande Sauterelle. Or, lui aussi, à l’instar du héros de Grove, prend (ou est obligé de prendre à cause de son contrat énonciatif) la contrepartie imaginative du Mythe, s’arrêtant dans les musées et les bibliothèques, et se livrant à toutes sortes de lectures, dont celle toute particulière de The Oregon Trail, dans l’espoir de percer le mystère qui entoure son désir inconscient de l’Amérique. Il n’y arrivera pas. Contrairement à celle du jeune Gildore dans La Dalle-des- Morts, sa quête le ramène vers l’Est. Le roman Volkswagen Blues apparaît comme une anti-épopée liquidant la figure du héros mythique telle qu’elle est déployée dans La Dalle-des-Morts18. Volkswagen Blues est le récit de la perte définitive des origines nord-américaines19. Seule la Grande Sauterelle, la femme métisse, retrouve à l’Ouest le sens de l’éternel recommencement de l’Histoire des Amériques. . . * * *

Deuxième hypothèse

« Le Nord et le Sud, ou la forme hétérologique du mythe de l’Amérique pastorale » C’est encore en réfléchissant sur les lois et les conditions de l’histoire culturelle canadienne et québécoise que l’on peut le mieux saisir la polarisation sur l’axe Nord/Sud du mythe de l’Amérique pastorale. Porte d’entrée à l’intérieur du continent, le Saint-Laurent n’apportait pas précisément la possession du Nouveau-Monde. Quelque chose se dressait entre lui et le continent et qui le

73 IJCS / RIÉC désavantageait : le littoral de la mer. Cette réalité géographique a marqué profondément, croyons-nous, l’histoire culturelle du Québec et du Canada : pénétrer et s’installer aux États-Unis furent le fait de traverser l’océan et de se déplacer jusqu’à la Frontière; pénétrer et s’installer au Canada furent le fait d’être englouti par un continent étranger et de sentir la frontière tout autour de soi20. Il n’est donc pas étonnant que notre culture, et en particulier nos littératures, tant canadienne que québécoise, soient traversées par des images, des « fixations » sur le monde nord-américain qui interpellent sans cesse notre sensibilité : les canaux contre les rivières, les chemins de fer contre les fleuves, les voies maritimes contre les routes, le roc contre la plaine fertile. . . Véritable tragédie! D’un côté Moby Dick, de l’autre l’impossible Passage du Nord- Ouest. Au Sud, la « ceinture dorée du soleil » (le Sunbelt), au Nord les pays de la neige et du froid (le Snowbelt et le Frostbelt). Perçue et ressentie suivant des structures affectives ou imageantes qui courent de l’Est vers l’Ouest21, la géographie du pays est ainsi soumise à une autre formedementalitécontinentalepluscritiqueetplusidéologique:unementalité plus portée à considérer le monde (naturel) canadien ou québécois comme étant destiné à d’autres fins. C’est que l’axe Nord/Sud permet la division des contraires, d’introduire la coupure, le partage — l’acte culturel par excellence — qui produit un espace séparé et délimité où s’inverse le sens de toute chose. Alors tout est possible. Le mythe peut se métamorphoser pour s’adapter à un nouveau temps et à un nouvel espace mental, et ainsi répondre à de nouveaux besoins, à un plus grand consensus social, voire à de nouvelles quêtes des origines22. Ainsi ce qu’on a appelé « le Mythe du Nord » serait d’abord, dans sa dimension idéologique, la polarisation sur l’axe Nord/Sud du mythe de l’Amérique pastorale23. Plus exactement, la vision d’un idéal social dont les représentations imaginatives se retrouvent d’ailleurs dans la majorité des cultures ou des civilisations : la nostalgie d’un monde paisible et protecteur, étroitement lié au monde animal et végétal; « la vie simple, libre et ordonnée24 » du défricheur ou de l’habitant enraciné dans sa terre; la cité habitée par des hommes naturellement bons, ignorant le péché et vivant une vie pleine d’aise. . . Que ce mythe domine notre culture, autant savante que populaire, qu’il prenne ses appuis sur des images spatiales et sur des habitudes de pensée enveloppées dans les cadres sociaux de la mémoire, la raison en est qu’il permet une « commune manière de penser » les enjeux de la société. Par conséquent, s’employer à la compréhension de ce mythe, c’est entrer de plain-pied dans le va-et-vient des représentations mentales en ce qu’elles se découvrent dans et parlasociété.Encesens,iln’estpasdutoutcertain,commeonl’aprétendu,que l’imageprofondeduNordsoitdansl’inconscientdesQuébécoisun« calque » de « l’image de la féminitude25 ». Les mythes sociaux ne se collent jamais, « comme des plantes desséchées, sur l’herbier de l’imaginaire26 ». Ils sont plutôt des efforts pour réorganiser une vision du monde troublée, ou ils se veulent une réponse à l’angoisse du changement. *

74 La descente du continent

Certes, l’axe Nord/Sud se constitue en représentations imaginaires ou symboliques de toutes sortes27. Selon les périodes de l’histoire canadienne ou québécoise, il recouvre un jeu d’oppositions qui débordent de tous côtés, tantôt au gré des réalités sociales et économiques28, souvent tragiquement vécues, tantôt selon les déplacements de sens, les pulsions ou les répulsions, qui éprouvent la quête épique ou identitaire du héros canadien ou québécois29. Du Mémoire sur les mœurs, coustume et relligion des sauvages de l’Amérique septentrionale (entre 1710-1717?) de Nicolas Perrot à Né à Québec (1933) d’Alain Grandbois, de La Longue traverse (The Conjuror’s House, 1903) de Stewart-Edward White à La Rivière sans repos (1970) de Gabrielle Roy, de The Foreigner (1909) de Raph Connor aux Fous de Bassan (1982) d’Anne Hébert, la géographie imaginaire du continent nord-américain se fait antinomique, se renverse sur elle-même, comme pour libérer le Nord et le Sud de leurs pré- logiques et de leurs mythes irréductibles : le Sud, espace du péché, de la faute, de la punition, de la souillure ineffaçable; le Nord, espace de la rédemption, de la folie créatrice, de l’innocence native, de la quête spirituelle. . . La formule est elliptique! Nous en convenons. Elle permet néanmoins de saisir les deux axes du monde qui interpellent sans cesse les héros des œuvres que nous venons de citer. La quête nordique de Pierre Cadorai dans La Montagne secrète (1961) de Gabrielle Roy a son centre dans la « nuit arctique », dans l’éblouissement de la Montagne qui devient pour le jeune peintre le symbole même de sa lumière intérieure : « . . . elle était devenue son âme30 », écrit la romancière. La descente vers le Sud de Berthold Mâchefer dans Oh Miami, Miami, Miami (1973) de Victor-Lévy Beaulieu se fait pour sa part sous le signe d’une américanité refoulée : miroir de sa sexualité infantile et de son homosexualité ignorée, mais aussi et — par-dessus tout — expression de l’ultime Grand Retour (interdit) vers la Mère31 par laquelle le héros brûle d’être introduit dans le monde de la sexualité32. Impossible régénération, comme si Éros et Thanatos convergeaient trop vers la même errance androgyne, vers le même Deep South faulknérien. D’autres Suds imaginaires sont aussi possibles, qui dédoublent la quête d’un Grand Sud obsessionnel. Des Suds soumis aux fureurs de l’inconscient ou livrés aux profondeurs de la Night of America : celui des Fous de Bassan d’Anne Hébert, qui est un va-et-vient intérieur entre Griffin Creek, Montréal et Key West; celui du Premier mouvement (1987) de Jacques Marchand : récit mimétique d’une nouvelle fantastique d’Edgard Allan Poe intitulé William Wilson; celui encore du Cœur éclaté (1993) de Michel Tremblay, dont la textures’écoulesemblableàuntristelamentosurlamort;ouceluitoutrécentde Pâques à Miami (1996) de Claude Jasmin, avec ses exils burlesques et ses licencieuses mystiques. Voilà donc autant de Suds, qui n’existent que par rapport au Nord : « The South is what I want! », aimait à dire Jack Kerouac. À dire vrai, la « vastitude » du continent se perd en quelque sorte dans ces descentes fictives du Nord au Sud, dont les parcours se mêlent parfois aux eaux du Mississippi, sur les rives duquel l’abbé Henri-Raymond Casgrain rêvait, autour des années 1850, de voir se réaliser le mythe de La France américaine; descente cardinale, mais aussi vision perdue d’un monde, dont Alain Grandbois dans Né à Québec (1933) et William Carlos William dans In the American Grain (1925) nous donnent la juste mesure. L’aventure américaine

75 IJCS / RIÉC qu’ils prêtent à leurs « conquérants sans conquête33 » — pour l’un, Louis Jolliet; pour l’autre, Ferdinand De Soto — est une lecture des commencements des Amériques. * L’axe Nord/Sud génère des paysages mentaux inscrits dans les formes expressives même du continent34. Un écrivain de talent comme Félix-Antoine Savard l’a bien compris; au lieu d’user du symbolisme traditionnel européen de la hache ou de la charrue pour signifier toute la valeur mythique du Nord, il fait plutôt appel au vol des oies sauvages, métaphore extrêmement riche de sens. Sans doute l’idéologie colonisatrice y est-elle encore affirmée, mais elle s’exprime entièrement dans l’aventure éternellement recommencée de la grande vie sauvage nord-américaine : Elles s’avancent par volées angulaires, liées ensemble à l’oie capitale par un fil invisible. Inlassablement, elles entretiennent cette géométrie mystérieuse, toutes indépendantes, chacune tendue droit vers sa propre fin, mais, en même temps, toutes unies, toutes obliques, sans cesse ramenées, par leur instinct social, vers cette fine pointe qui signifie : orientation, solidarité, pénétration unanime dans le dur de l’air et les risques du voyage. C’est une démocratie qu’il nous serait utile d’étudier pour le droit et ferme vouloir collectif, pour l’obéissance allègre à la discipline de l’alignement, pour cette vertu de l’oie-capitaine qui, son gouvernement épuisé, cède à une autre, reprend tout simplement la file, sans autre préoccupation que sa propre eurythmie, sans autre récompense que le chant de ses ailes derrière d’autres ailes et la victoire de l’espace parcouru [. . .]. ADMIRABLES, admirables, intrépides et fidèles, que vous m’enseignez de choses!35 Dans sa polarité systémique avec le Sud, le mythe du Nord serait donc comparable au vol des oies sauvages toujours fidèles à leur destin. La migration qu’elles accomplissent ainsi du Nord au Sud fait figure d’un rituel qui n’est pas sans rappeler la quête du héros mythique; comme ces oiseaux migrateurs qui s’envolent à chaque automne vers le sud américain, le héros doit en effet descendre, passer par l’autre monde, pour effectuer sa naissance, puis remonter vers la mort-résurrection36, vers l’Ancêtre qui lui a donné la vie. . . Ainsi se trouve résolu, il nous semble, l’épuisement du désir que symbolise dans l’imaginaire nord-américain, le parcours vers l’Ouest. Parcours solaire, l’axe Est-Ouest constitue à la fois une quête de la transcendance et une perte de l’énergie dépensée37 par le héros civilisateur, une entropie du destin inscrit dans l’immanence et dans sa durée existentielle. L’homme de l’Ouest est, en effet, l’étranger : celui qui est dépourvu d’ascendance et de descendance. « Pays de l’obscurité et du déclin », pour reprendre une expression de Gilbert Durand, l’Ouest symbolise le couchant de la vie38 : il est le lieu où s’accomplit la descente vers la mort absolue, c’est-à-dire une mort retranchée du monde des siens, comme la reçoivent le vieux trappeur Bas-de-cuir de Fenimore Cooper ou encore Tristan Bonhomme, le héros de L’Homme qui va (1929) de Jean- Charles Harvey. Et c’est sans doute parce qu’un tel parcours est livré aux forces

76 La descente du continent

de la nuit que nos héros légendaires et romanesques, après avoir parcouru le continent d’Est en Ouest, remontent vers le Nord, c’est-à-dire vers l’Est, vers le lieu de leur origine. Encore une fois, seul l’Amérindien, parce que né dans la Sauvagerie de l’Ouest, a le pouvoir de traverser la Mort américaine et d’y co- naître l’achèvement du Mythe. L’ultime rencontre de l’homme Blanc avec les Amériques ne se réaliserait donc qu’au prix d’une identité avec l’Autre de l’homme...UnFélix-Antoine Savard, poète de la profondeur et de la nuit américaine, en a saisi toute la portée mythique39. À Gildore, son jeune héros, il accorde un corps de sagesse dont celui-ci ne trouvera cependant la signification que dans une dissolution dans « la Dalle-des-Morts »:«[...]dalle funèbre où l’eau se précipite avec violence entre des rochers abrupts40 », mais par-delà de laquelle se trouve l’Origine de toutes les origines. Descendre le fleuve Columbia, pour y vaincre « la Dalle- des-morts », au prix d’une mort certaine, voilà la quête finale du jeune Gildore, une quête qui le conduit définitivement vers l’Autre, vers le Père amérindien dont il est par le sang l’arrière-petit-fils. . . * * * L’imaginaire n’a rien d’imaginaire. Il s’inscrit dans les styles multiples de l’histoire et de la mémoire collective. Il s’enracine dans les cultures et les civilisations. Loin de résulter d’une construction cristallisée, il est une nourriture qui s’adapte sans cesse à la dynamique des sociétés et des individus. Mais, par-dessus tout, l’imaginaire est une géographie onirique, une carte mentale, « grandeur nature », sur laquelle s’entrecroisent les rêves culturels et les apories du temps. L’imaginaire nord-américain résulte des mêmes « alogiques41 ». Il vit à travers des héros-culturels dont les actions dépassent toujours les limites de la Nature: « les illusions collectives ne sont pas illusoires », affirme avec justesse Pierre Bourdieu, qui ajoute:«[...]lesmécanismes les plus fondamentaux — ceux de la vie et de la mort — ne pourraient fonctionner sans le secours de la croyance42»; ajoutons, sans les discours que les sociétés tiennent elles-mêmes sur leurs croyances, sur leurs rêves culturels contés ou rapportés, discours choisis non plus en fonction seulement des investissements affectifs, mais pour leur caractère d’événement frappant, leur valeur d’échange collective, leur capacité de ressasser l’ordre culturel. Certes, tout imaginaire est réducteur, et l’imaginaire nord-américain n’échappe pas non plus à cette loi. C’est pourquoi il faut démêler les entrecroisements de ses parcours, repérer les strates culturelles à travers lesquelles il nous donne à voir les modes de production et de représentation des mentalités. Ces approches intradisciplinaires, il suffit de les poser pour que surgissent les « résidus » de la chose sociale et culturelle, les écarts différentiels que l’intelligibilité historique essaie de combler par sa théorie. Mais l’histoire culturelle — et en particulier celle des représentations mentales — n’est jamais réductible à l’objectivité du code. La culture n’a de sens véritable qu’à travers sa pluralité : « les différences culturelles peuvent être placées n’importe où », soutient avec raison Edmond Ortigues : « entre deux individus, entre deux professions, entre deux régions, entre deux continents, et ainsi de suite par degrés infinis de variations43 ». La culture est

77 IJCS / RIÉC fondamentalement un échange de significations, de signes et de symboles, une communauté d’images, de pratiques et d’usages, d’attitudes et de discours. «LeMytheestracontéàl’Estetvécuàl’Ouest»,avons-noussoutenu.Cequ’un tel Mythe donne d’abord à raconter, c’est le naturel des Amériques épiques : celles des Conquistadors, des Explorateurs français ou anglais, des Missionnaires, des Engagés du Grand-Portage, des Émigrants vers la frontière, etc. L’Histoire elle-même est naturalisée, celle surtout de l’Ouest, qui devient « surnaturel44 ». Mais il faut aller plus loin. En tant qu’il permet le récit de toutes les Amériques, l’imaginaire nord-américain est une descente vers les fleuves de l’Oubli45. Voilà le mouvement instinctif du Mythe. Chateaubriand en dresse magistralement les tracés géographiques dans son Prologue d’Atala; quatre grands fleuves, « nés dans le même berceau », écrit-il, qui coulent inexorablement leurs eaux vers d’autres eaux — vers leur embouchure — dans une unité primitive avec la terre américaine : le fleuve Saint-Laurent « se perd à l’est dans le golfe du même nom », la rivière de l’Ouest46 « porte ses eaux à des mers inconnus », le fleuve Bourbon47 « se précipite du midi au nord dans la baie d’Hudson » et le Meschacebé « tombe du nord au midi dans le golfe du Mexique48 » où, selon le texte de l’édition originale, il « s’ensevelit49 ». Fleuves de la Chute ou de la Perte50! Fleuves d’Amérique dont les eaux vont rejoindre les eaux primitives : celles de la Mer de Champlain. Sans doute est-ce à de semblables eaux que pense le narrateur des Anciens Canadiens, lorsqu’au début de son récit, il convoque son lecteur à méditer avec lui sur la marche du monde. Tout naturellement, c’est vers « l’immense fleuve Saint-Laurent » qu’il lui dit de regarder. Une direction alors s’impose : celle qui va de l’amont vers l’aval. Soit, non plus celle de l’Ouest — de la Descente du continent — qui donne à l’homme la possibilité « de vivre une autre fois51 », ou une autre vie, mais celle tournée vers l’Est, où le lit du fleuve finit « par s’engloutir dans le gouffre de l’éternité52 ».

Notes 1. Nous empruntons cette expression à L. Hjelmslev, pour qui le signe est le résultat d’une sémiosis, autrement dit d’un enchaînement de signes; voir à ce sujet A.J. Greimas et J. Courtés, Sémiotique : dictionnaire raisonné de la théorie du langage, Paris, Hachette, vol. I, 1979, p. 349-350; aussi M. Arrivé, F. Gadet et M. Galmiche, La Grammaire d’aujourd’hui, Paris, Flammarion, 1986, p. 615. 2. On entend habituellement par « sémiotiques verbales » les systèmes de signification qui utilisent pour leur manifestation une langue naturelle; c’est notamment le cas de la littérature et de différents types de discours d’ordre religieux, mythique, folklorique, historique, juridique, scientifique, etc. (M. Arrivé et coll., op. cit., p. 615). 3. À consulter : Robert Edson Lee, From West to East. Studies in the Literature of the American West, Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1966, 172 p. Voir aussi : Laurence Ricou, Vertical Man/Horizontal World: Man and Landscape in Canadian Prairie Fiction, Vancouver, University of British Columbia Press, 1973, 152 p.; Dennis Duffy, Gardens, Covenants, Exiles: Loyalism in the Literature of Upper Canada/Ontario, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1982, 160 p.; Northrop Frye, The Bush Garden: Essays on the Canadian Imagination, Toronto, Anansi, 1971, 256 p.; Edwin Fussel, Frontier: American Literature and the American West, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1965, 45 p.; Élise Marienstras, Les Mythes fondateurs de la nation américaine, Paris, François Maspero, 1976, 377 p.; Henry Nash Smith, The Virgin Land. The American West as Symbol and Myth, New York, Random House, 1950, 305 p.; Robert Viau, L’Ouest littéraire : vision d’ici et d’ailleurs, Montréal, Éditions du Méridien, 1992, 170 p.; « L’Amérique des langues »,

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numéro spécial de la revue Études françaises, vol. 28, nos 2-3, automne 1992-hiver 1993, 186 p. 4. Voir Donald Creighton, The Commercial Empire of St. Lawrence, Toronto, MacMillan of Canada, 1957, 619 p. 5. Citons, à titre d’exemple, l’« île de Thevet » — île fictive — dessinée par André Thevet (1516-1592) lui-même, à titre de cosmographe du Roi, sur l’une de ses cartes du Golfe Saint- Laurent, et dont on retrouve notamment l’illustration dans son ouvrage le Grand insulaire (environ 1590); voir à ce sujet André Thevet’s North America. A Sixteenth-Century View,An Edition-Translation with Notes and Introduction by Roger Schlesinger and Arthur P. Stabler, McGill-Queen’s University Press, Kingston and Montreal, 1986, p. XLIX et 272. Sur la cosmographie imaginaire de la Nouvelle-France, voir Frank Lestringant, « Nouvelle- France et fiction cosmographique dans l’œuvre d’André Thevet », Études littéraires, vol. 10, no 1, 1977, p. 145-173. 6. Voir Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America, New York, Oxford University Press, 1964, 292 p. 7. Il s’agit en quelque sorte des processus mentaux à partir desquels l’homme catégorise le monde réel. Selon Annamaria Lammel, « les objets réels, identiques, donnés dans le monde indépendamment de la culture, peuvent être universellement catégorisés, les objets mentalement construits qui n’ont aucune chance d’être confrontés à une réalité externe, semblent au contraire être regroupés, classés et nommés de manière arbitraire et variable selon les cultures » (« Connaissance culturelle et catégorisation du monde réel », L’Individu et ses cultures (sous la direction de F. Tanon et G. Vermes), Paris, L’Harmattan, 1993, p.119). 8. Voir à ce sujet : Fernando Ainsa, « L’Invention de l’Amérique », Diogène,no145, 1989, p. 104-117; Miguel León-Portilla, « Le Nouveau Monde, 1492-1992. Un débat interminable? », Diogène,no157, 1992, p. 3-26; Pierre Chaunu, L’Amérique et les Amériques : de la préhistoire à nos jours, Paris, Armand Colin, 1964, 470 p.; Thomas Gomez, L’Invention de l’Amérique. Rêves et réalités de la Conquête, Paris, Aubier, 1992, 332 p.; Edmundo O’Gorman, The Invention of America, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1961, 178 p. 9. Située sur le fleuve Columbia (approximativement à 51o, 45’ de latitude nord et à 118o, 45’ de longitude ouest), la Dalle-des-Morts, dont le site et l’histoire ont inspiré l’artiste et l’illustrateur Paul Kane (voir la reproduction de son tableau en page suivante), était à l’époque de la course aux fourrures un passage extrêmement dangereux pour les brigades de voyageurs qui osaient affronter ses rapides. Elle était aussi un lieu de campement et de rencontre, comme le rappelle Paul Kane (1810-1871) lui-même, qui fit deux voyages dans l’Ouest, de 1845 à 1848, au cours desquels il a peint cette funèbre Dalle-des-Morts. Son tableau La Dalle-des-Morts n’évoque cependant que très partiellement les faits historiques survenus en cet endroit au cours des années 1800. Dans son journal de voyage du 4 octobre 1847, il souligne sommairement les circonstances qui auraient été à l’origine des événements tragiques. Voici le premier paragraphe de son récit:«Wecamped at night below the “Dalle des Morts”, or the Rapids of the Dead, so called from the following circumstance. About twenty-five or thirty years ago, an Iroquois, a half-breed, and a French Canadian, having charge of a boat, had to descend this frightful rapid. Fearful of running it, the affixed a long line to the bow, and being themselves on the shore, they attempted to lower her gradually by means of it down the foaming torrent. The boat took a sheer and ran outside of a rock, and all their efforts to get her back, or reach the rock themselves through the boiling surge were unavailing. The rope, chafing on the sharp edge of the rock, soon broke, and she dashed down among the whirling eddies, ans broke to pieces, with their whole stock of provisions on board » (Paul Kane’s Frontier, Including « Wandering of an Artist the Indians of North American », edited with a Biographical Introduction and a Catalog raisonné by J. Russell Harper, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1971, p. 127-128). On retrouve le toponyme « La Dalle-des-Morts » sur plusieurs cartes anciennes ou récentes; voir, entre autres, Tackabury’s Atlas of the Dominion of Canada with General Description, by T. Sterry Hunt and coll., Drawn, Compiled and Edited by H.F. Walling, C.E., Published by George N. Taskabury, Montreal, Toronto, and London, 1876, p. 107; New Map of British Columbia by R.T. Williams, Publisher, Victoria,; reproduite à la même grandeur que l’originale de la Collection nationale de cartes et plans, Archives publiques du Canada.

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10. La Dalle-des-Morts, Montréal, Fides, 1965, 154 p. Voir en particulier le deuxième acte, scène 1. 11. Il faut souligner que le père ne répond guère aux questions de son jeune fils; ce sont plutôt ses compagnons de voyage — Théo la Corneille, Michel dit Trompe la Mort, Rossignolet, Kanaoui, un vieil indien outaouais — qui apprennent au jeune homme les parcours et les lieux géographiques qui mènent les coureurs de bois jusqu’aux confins de l’Ouest canadien. 12. Il s’agit en quelque sorte de l’identité narrative, telle que la définit Paul Ricœur. Pour l’auteur de Temps et récit, « la voie de l’identification de soi » (du sujet réel) passe en effet par « l’identification avec l’autre »; « la réception du récit par le lecteur, écrit encore Ricœur, est le lieu d’une multiplicité de modalités qui s’intitulent identification » (Paul Ricœur, « Identité narrative », Revue des sciences humaines,no221, 1991, p. 35-47; voir encore du même auteur : Soi-même comme un autre, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1990, 424 p. et, naturellement, Temps et récit, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1983- : vol. I (Temps et récit), vol. II (La configuration dans le récit de fiction) et vol. III (Le temps raconté). 13. « Préface » à La Dalle-des-Morts, p. 17-18. L’italique est de nous. 14. Les intentions de Félix-Antoine Savard sont d’ailleurs tout à fait explicites. À ses yeux, les voyageurs des Pays-d’En-Haut étaient une race d’hommes extraordinaires : « leur valeur, le pittoresque de leurs mœurs et allures, écrit-il, les traditions de contes, de chansons, de légendes grâce auxquelles ils poétisaient, si je puis dire, les plus durs travaux, ont forcé l’admiration de beaucoup d’auteurs anglais. La connaissance, hélas bien fragmentaire, de cette geste extraordinaire m’a fait regretter qu’on n’ait pas, dans l’une de nos quelconque universités françaises, pour la recueillir, un centre de documentation, de recherches et d’études. La jeunesse trouverait là, il me semble, un objet de légitime et saine fierté et, pour une littérature nationale, une source inépuisable d’inspiration et d’information » (« Préface » à La Dalle-des-Morts, p. 19). 15. La pièce fut également présentée pour la première fois le 20 mars 1966, à Montréal, au théâtre Orpheum. 16. À son compagnon de voyage, le narrateur fait un jour cette remarque : « Let’s go a little farther into other fields, Charley. Let’s take the books, magazines, and papers we have seen displayed where we have stopped. The dominant publication has been the comic book. There have been local papers and I’ve bought and read them. There have been racks of paperbacks with some great and good titles but overwhelmingly outnumbered by the volumes of sex, sadism, and homicide. The big-city papers cast their shadows over large areas around them, the New York Times as fas as the Great Lakes, the Chicago Tribune all the way here to Norh Dakota. Here, Charley, I give you a warning, should you be drawn to generalities. If this people has so atrophied its taste buds as to find tasteless food not only acceptable but desirable, what of the emotional life of the nation? (Travels With Charley. In Search of America, New York, The Viking Press, 1962, p.127). 17. La quête qui conduit Jack Waterman de Gaspé à San Francisco ressemble fort étrangement à celle qu’accomplit Steinbeck dans Travels With Charley; voir à ce sujet Jonathan M. Weiss, « Une lecture américaine de Volkswagen Blues », Études françaises, vol. 21, no 3, 1985- 1986, p. 90. Dans son dernier roman Petit homme Tornade (Montréal, Stanké, 1996, 284 p.), Roch Carrier reprend à peu près le même scénario; son héros, qui répond au nom de Robert Martin, est un historien dont le voyage dans l’Ouest américain se transforme peu à peu en une quête initiatique des Canadiens français partis chercher fortune aux États-Unis. À l’instar de Jack Waterman, Robert Martin se met à la recherche de documents historiques (archives, procès-verbaux, correspondance, etc.) susceptibles de lui dévoiler le fabuleux passé d’un nommé Joseph Dubois qui, après avoir traîné sa misère de « Canadien errant » (p. 204) aux quatre coins de l’Amérique, est tué d’une balle de revolver par son meilleur ami lors d’une partie de cartes à Santa Fe. . . D’une façon parfois plus explicite que Volkswagen Blues, Petit homme Tornade actualise un métarécit dont le contenu renvoie à des œuvres littéraires prises comme mythèmes de la quête du héros : Moby Dick, Le Dernier des Mohicans, Le Tueur de daims, Fils de Peau-Rouge, autant de titres dont la lecture dicte tantôt au narrateur, tantôt aux personnages eux-mêmes, le sens et la finalité du Mythe de l’Amérique. 18. Sans doute est-il utile de distinguer ici le mythe de l’Amérique de sa reconfiguration littéraire. Par-delà une recherche certaine du mythe « véritable » et « pur », le roman Volkswagen Blues laisse voir une « nostalgie des origines » qui appartient davantage au récit mythique lui-même qu’aux hommes de l’Histoire dont le(s) narrateur(s) ou les (la)

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narratrice(s) nous rappellent sur un ton critique l’aventure peu glorieuse en terre d’Amérique : celle notamment des découvreurs et des pionniers de l’Amérique française et, très souvent, celle aussi des pionniers américains qui ont participé à la marche de la Frontière. Voir aussi à ce sujet Leslie Fiedler, Le Retour du Peau-Rouge (1968), traduit de l’américain par Georges Renard, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1971, 172 p.; Suzan J. Rosowski, « La Femme, la frontière et l’écriture », Le Mythe de l’Ouest, Paris, Éditions Autrement, 1993, p. 145-162. 19. Volkswagen Blues n’est pas cependant le seul roman québécois contemporain à dériver ainsi hors du Mythe d’origine. . . Depuis le début des années 1970, la littérature québécoise dans son ensemble — et sans doute pourrait-on aussi affirmer à peu près la même chose de la littérature canadienne-anglaise — se lit comme un flux étranger en tout sens : la Matrice de l’américanité, métaphore miroir de nous-mêmes, accouche de nouveaux héros et, ce qui est à notre avis très révélateur et postmoderne, de nouvelles héroïnes, dont la quête est une recherche non pas d’une Amérique, mais des Amériques : celles amérindienne, féminine, migrante, native, minoritaire, régionale, urbaine, intime. . . Nouveau mythe? Sur cette dérivation mythique, voir notre article « L’Amérique comme métaphore », Écrits du Canada français, vol. 58, 1986, p. 156-167; aussi Ian G. Lumdsen, Paysages de l’Amérique du Nord Britannique, Toronto, The Beaverbrook Art Gallery, 1995, 76 p; et Marguerit E. Turner, Imagining Culture: New World Narrative and the Writing of Canada, Montréal, McGill- Queen’s University Press, 1995, 134 p.; Lucie Guillemette, « Femmes et Amériques dans Une histoire américaine de Jacques Godbout : l’Ouest revisité », Canadian Review of American Studies/Revue canadienne d’études américaines, vol. 24, no 3, automne 1994, p. 121-135 et « Pour une nouvelle lecture des Fous de Bassan d’Anne Hébert : l’Amérique et ses parcours discursifs », Voix et images, vol. 32, no 65, hiver 1997, p. 332-354. 20. Voir à titre d’exemple, les romans : Maria Chapdelaine (1914) de Louis Hémon, La Forêt de Georges Bugnet (1935), Les Opiniâtres (1941) de Léo-Paul Desrosiers, ou encore Wacousta : or, the Prophecy (1964) de John Richardson, où on peut lire : « The forest, in a word, formed the gloomy and impenetrable walls of a prison...»(p.159). On trouve dans de nombreuses monographies, tant d’expression canadienne-anglaise que française, la même représentation symbolique d’un espace humain emmuré de toute part : « une forêt d’épouvante, comparable à celle que le ciseau de Gustave Doré a gravée pour illustrer certaines scènes de l’Enfer de Dante » (Estras Minville, La Forêt, Montréal, Éditions Fides, 1944, p. 13-14); voir aussi Richard Lippincott Williams, Les Bûcherons, Amsterdam, Time- Life Books, 1980, 240 p. Enfin, sur les représentations culturelles de la forêt, on consultera tout particulièrement l’ouvrage de Robert Harrison, Forêts : essai sur l’imaginaire occidental, traduit de l’anglais par Florence Naugrette, Paris, Flammarion 1992, 396 p. Voir aussi Northrop Frye, « Conclusion », Histoire littéraire du Canada. Littérature canadienne d’expression anglaise, publiée sous la direction de Carl F. Klinck, traduit de l’anglais par Maurice Lebel, Québec, Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 1970, p. 975. 21. Cette vision est déjà énoncée à grands traits dans L’Histoire véritable et naturelle des mœurs et productions du pays de la Nouvelle-France, vulgairement dite le Canada (1664) de Pierre Boucher. Percevant le pays canadien par l’intermédiaire du fleuve Saint-Laurent (le Haut- du-fleuve et le Bas-du-fleuve), Boucher fait de la direction est-ouest l’axe primordial qui traverse le monde de la géographie canadienne. L’axe Nord/Sud demeure chez lui un agencement du premier : le Sud à la fois la rive sud du fleuve (l’Est du pays) et le Haut-du- fleuve (l’Ouest), tandis que le Nord renvoie plus précisément à la notion de Pays-d’En-Haut, qu’il oppose au Bas-du-Fleuve. Nous résumons ici l’article de Léopold Leblanc sur L’Histoire véritable...dePierre Boucher, paru dans Le Dictionnaire des œuvres littéraires du Québec (Montréal, Fides, 1978, p. 376-377); voir aussi Ramsay Cook, « Imagining A North American Garden : Some Parallels & Differences in Canadian & American Culture », Canadian Literature, no 103, Winter 1984, p. 10-23. 22. Voir à ce propos Une frontière dans la tête : culture, institutions et imaginaire canadien, Montréal, Éditions Liber, 1991, 274 p. 23. N’a-t-on prétendu plus d’une fois que les rigueurs du climat canadien jouaient un rôle providentiel dans la lutte contre le mirage américain? Ainsi ces propos d’un ultramontain du XIXe siècle semonçant ses compatriotes trop portés à dénigrer l’hiver canadien, alors qu’il fuit lui-même vers le soleil californien! : « A-t-on jamais pensé [. . .] aux avantages providentiels qui se rattachent particulièrement aux grands froids de cette partie du Canada

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et qui sont ceux-ci, l’empêchement d’une immigration étrangère aux instincts absorbants et envahisseurs; le développement facile de la race canadienne-française et la garde intacte des principes catholiques. Cela vaut la peine d’y réfléchir et de ne pas déplorer injustement la sévérité du climat » (C.-M. Panneton, « Le Colorado en 1880 », Revue canadienne, vol XVII, 1881, p. 594). On trouvera la même vision du monde chez le Canadien Lawren Harris, autour des années vingt:«WeinCanada [are] in different circumstances than the people in the United States. Our population is sparse, the psychic atmosphere comparatively clean, whereas the States fill up and the massed crowd a heavy psychic blanket over nearly all the land. We are on the fringe of the great North, and its living whiteness, its loneliness and replenishment, its resignations and release, its call and answers — its cleansing rhythms. It seems that the top of the continent will ever shed clarity into the growing race of America, and we Canadians being closest to this source seem destined to produce an art somewhat different from our southern fellows an art more spacious, of greater living quiet, perhaps of more certain conviction of eternal values. We were not placed between the Southern teeming of men and the ample replenishing of North for nothing » (« Revelation of Art in Canada », The Canadian Theosophist, vol. 7, 15 July 1926, p. 85-86). Voir à ce sujet notre ouvrage, L’Image des États-Unis dans la littérature québécoise, Sherbrooke, Éditions Naaman, 1981, p. 275-292. 24. Félix-Antoine Savard, L’Abatis (1943), Montréal, Fides, 1960, p. 16. 25. Suivant Christian Morissonneau, l’image du Nord « est bien celle qui se substitue comme un calque à celle de la nature, je veux dire celle de la Femme, tantôt accueillante, tantôt intouchable, tantôt violée mais toujours l’image de la féminitude. Autrement dit, dans l’inconscient québécois, le Nord serait-il Femme? » (« Le Nord qui est nature qui est féminitude », Cahiers de géographie du Québec, vol. XXVI, no 68, septembre 1982, p. 242). 26. Roger Bastide, Le Sacré sauvage, Paris, Payot, 1975, p. 112. 27. Voir à ce sujet Jack Warwick, L’Appel du nord dans la littérature canadienne-française (1968), Montréal, Éditions HMH, traduit de l’anglais par Jean Simard, 1972, 249 p.; Antoine Sirois, Mythes et symboles dans la littérature québécoise, Montréal, Triptyque, 1992, 154 p. 28. Voir à ce propos Henry Forbes Angaus (Editor), Canada and Her Great Neighbor. Sociological Survey of Opinions and Attitudes in Canada Concerning the United States, New York, Russel & Russel, 1970, 452 p.; Carl Berger, The Sense of Power : Studies in the Ideas of Canadian Imperialism, 1867-1914, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1970, 280 p.; Alfred-Oliver Hero Jr et Louis Balthazar, Contemporary Québec & United States, 1960-1985, Cambridge (Mass.), Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, University Press of America, 1988, 532 p.; Herbert Marshall, Frank Allan Southard et Kenneth Wiffin Tayler, Canadian-American Industry : a Study in International Investment, New York, Russel & Russel, 1964, 360 p. 29. Voir notre ouvrage L’Image des États-Unis dans la littérature québécoise (1775-1930), Sherbrooke, Édition Naaman, 1981, 360 p.; Ronald Sutherland, The New Hero : Essays in Comparative Quebec Canadian Literature, Toronto, Macmillan of Canada, 1977, 172 p.; Margaret Atwood, Survival : A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature, Toronto, Anansi, 1972, 287 p. 30. La Montagne secrète, Montréal, Beauchemin, 1961, p. 102. 31. Voir à ce propos Erich Neumann, The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype, New York, Pantheon Books, 1995, 380 p.; Wilma Garcia, Mothers and Other Myths of the Female in the Works of Melville, Twain and Hemingway, New York, Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1984, 180 p. 32. À l’instar de maints romans américains, Oh Miami, Miami, Miami donne au mythe de la Frontière une dimension anthropologique qui surdétermine celle que symbolise dans les faits (réels ou imaginaires), la géographie nord-américaine elle-même; voir à ce sujet Richard Slotkin Regeneration Through Violence.The Mythology of the American Frontier, Middletown, Conn., Wesleyan University Press, 1973, 670 pages ; et aussi du même auteur, The Fatal Environment: The Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialization, 1800-1890, Middletown, Conn., Wesleyan University Press, 1986, 636 p. 33. Pierre-Yves Petillon, La Grande-route. Espace et écriture en Amérique, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1979, p. 124. 34. Russell Brown, « La Frontière dans la littérature canadienne-anglaise », Une frontière dans la tête : culture, institutions et imaginaire canadien, p. 151-226.

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35. Félix-Antoine Savard, L’Abatis, p. 16. 36. Sur la signification du rituel de la naissance et de la mort-résurrection respectivement associées à la descente et à la remontée, voir Simone Vierne, Rite, roman, initiation, Grenoble, les Presses universitaires de Grenoble, 1973, 138 p. 37. Georges Bataille, « La Notion de dépense », La Part maudite, Paris, Éditions de Minuit, coll. Point, 1967, p. 21-54. 38. En réalité, la vie naît de la mort. Voilà le sens même du mythe. La symbolique de « la mort à l’Ouest » est la possibilité de recevoir l’illumination. C’est pourquoi certaines grandes œuvres littéraires guident-elles leurs personnages vers la mort pour leur faire découvrir la vie. C’est notamment le cas du récit De quoi t’ennuies-tu, Éveline? (1984) de Gabrielle Roy. C’est en faisant son voyage depuis Winnipeg jusqu’à Bella Vista (Californie), où elle retrouve son frère Majorique mort, que l’héroïne sera éblouie par la lumière suprême du Pacifique. . . La mort du frère aimé, résolument acceptée, crée en quelque sorte en Éveline la vie! Voir à ce sujet Lucie Guillemette, « L’Espace narratif dans De quoi t’ennuies-tu, Éveline? : l’avènement d’un dire libérateur », Portes de communications; études discursives et stylistiques de l’œuvre de Gabrielle Roy (sous la direction de Claude Romney et Estelle Dansereau), Québec, PUL, 1995, p. 103-117. 39. Certes, l’œuvre de Savard n’est ni la première, ni la dernière à faire de l’Autochtone la figure emblématique de notre imaginaire nord-américain. Des multiples versions de la légende de L’Iroquoise aux romans québécois d’aujourd’hui (André Langevin, L’Élan d’Amérique, Robert Lalonde, Le Dernier été des Indiens, Pierre Gobeil, Dessins et cartes du territoire, Louis Hamelin, Cowboy, etc.), en passant par les romans d’YvesThériault (Ashini, La Quête de l’ourse, Tayaout, etc.), la représentation symbolique de l’Amérindien fait maintes fois état d’un passage entre deux cultures. 40. « Avant-Propos»àLaDalle-des-Morts, p. 17. Savard justifie ainsi le titre de sa pièce : La Dalle-des Morts « est le nom que les Canadiens français avaient donné à un passage ou couloir extrêmement dangereux situé sur le fleuve Columbia » (Ibid.). 41. Gilbert Durand, L’Imaginaire : essai sur les sciences et la philosophie de l’image, Paris, Hatier, coll. « Optiques philosophiques », no 208, 1994, 79 p. 42. Le Sens commun, Paris, Éditions de Minuit, 1980, p. couverture (4). 43. « Situations inter-culturelles ou changements culturels? », L’Individu et ses cultures,p.10. 44. C’est le titre que Paul Louis Rossi donne à l’un de ses ouvrages : L’Ouest surnaturel. Les écrivains du bout des terres vers les îles (Paris, Hatier, 1993, 184 p.). À son tour, l’auteur cherche en effet à apprécier l’« intelligence de l’Ouest » qui préside à la découverte du continent américain : « il ne s’agit pas seulement d’une direction géographique », écrit Rossi, « Quand on l’examine, elle devient imaginaire, car, malgré la prose, l’Ouest est surnaturel. C’est la contrée des brumes, du jardin des Hespérides, de l’Ultime Thulé (découverte par Pythéas de Marseille), de l’île des Bienheureux, de l’Avalon de la Terre promise »; Rossi écrit encore:«Iln’est pas étonnant que des contrées fabuleuses soient désignées l’Ouest. S’y prête le contour indistinct des terres, ouvertes sur l’Océan, avec les pluies, les tempêtes, le changement infini du ciel et des nuages. L’extrême Ouest, alors, n’est pas seulement une terre d’asile, un réceptacle pour les migrations des peuples et des civilisations. Il apparaît comme un véritable conservatoire des mœurs, des mythes, des races, des arts et des langages qui se sont réfugiés à l’extrême Occident » (p. 11). 45. L’un de ces fleuves les plus connus est sans doute le « Léthé ». Considéré dans la mythologie grecque comme un élément primordial du monde, le Léthé séparait le Tartare des Champs élysées : « Les âmes des morts buvaient de ses eaux pour oublier les circonstances de leur vie. De même, les âmes destinées à une nouvelle existence terrestre y buvaient pour perdre tout souvenir de la mort » (Le Petit Robert 2, p. 1075). 46. Il s’agit de la fameuse « Rivière de l’Ouest » que le cartographe Guillaume Delisle situait, en 1717, au nord du Nouveau-Mexique et de la Californie. Pierre de La Vérendrye a vainement recherché cette rivière qui devait le conduire vers la « Mer de l’Ouest ». La découverte des premiers contreforts des Rocheuses états-uniennes l’obligent, lui et ses fils, à rebrousser chemin. Sur le sujet, voir Collection de cartes anciennes et modernes pour servir à l’étude de l’histoire de l’Amérique et du Canada, Québec, Université Laval, Institut d’histoire et de géographie, 1948, p. 52 et Marcel Trudel, Atlas de la Nouvelle-France / An Atlas of New France, Québec, Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 1968, p. 126-129.

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47. La nomination du fleuve ou de la « Rivière de Bourbon » sur les cartes des terres arctiques et de la Baie d’Hudson remonte sans doute au milieu du XVIIe siècle. Guillaume Delisle fait état d’un tel cours d’eau qui va du midi au nord, sur l’une de ses cartes, vers 1690. Une autre « carte de la Baie d’Hudson », établie en 1744 par N. Bellin, Ingénieur de la Marine, mentionne encore l’existence d’une « Rivière de Bourbon ». Il s’agit sans doute aujourd’hui du fleuve Nelson; voir à ce sujet : Collection de cartes anciennes et modernes pour servir à l’étude de l’histoire de l’Amérique et du Canada, p. 53 et Marcel Trudel, op. cit., p. 124. 48. Atala, dans Œuvres romanesques et voyages, texte établi, présenté et annoté par Maurice Regard, Paris, Gallimard, « Bibliothèque de la Pléiade », tome I, 1969, p. 33. Sur le même sujet : Pierre Glaudes, Atala: le désir cannibale, Paris, PUF, 1994, 128 p. Sans doute pourrait-on aussi retracer des représentations géographiques similaires à propos d’autres fleuves; nous pensons tout particulièrement à l’Amazone, le premier du monde par la superficie de son bassin et par son débit, et le second, après le Nil, pour sa longueur; au Colorado, fleuve de l’Ouest des États-Unis, qui prend sa source dans les Rocheuses, pour se jeter dans le golfe de Californie, après une course de 2 250 kilomètres à travers différents États américains; enfin, au fleuve Mackenzie, qui coule à travers les Territoires du Nord- Ouest canadien, pour finir son cours dans l’Océan Arctique. 49. Dans les cinq premières éditions d’Atala, la dernière représentation géographique du Mississippi est celle d’un fleuve qui « descendant du nord au midi, s’ensevelit dans le golfe du Mexique »; voir Atala, édition critique établie par Armand Weil, Paris, Librairie José Corti, 1950, p. 27. 50. Outre Atala de Chateaubriand, d’autres œuvres développent la même finalité mythique; citons, à titre d’exemple : Henry David Thoreau, Une semaine sur les fleuves Concord et Merrimac (1849); Jean Cocteau, Le Potomak (1913-1914); Alain Grandbois, Né à Québec (1933). 51. Joseph Campbell, « La Descente au paradis : le Livre des morts tibétain », Les Mythes à travers les âges (1990), traduit de l’américain par Marie Perron, Montréal, Éditions Le Jour, 1993, p. 179. 52. Les Anciens Canadiens (1863), Montréal, Fides, 1961, p. 10.

84 Patricia Vervoort

Art and Illusion: Joe Fafard’s Space Wrinkles

Abstract Joe Fafard’s reputation as a sculptor continues to grow, yet attention is focused on his ceramic portraits of people whereas his cows have not merited similar consideration. By using cows as a form, Fafard explores varieties of spatial representation and challenges viewer’s expectations about looking and seeing. His contorted cows are responses to theories of perspective in art history as related by E. H. Gombrich’s book Art and Illusion and by Clement Greenberg’s rejection of all spatial illusion in painting. Both Gombrich and Greenberg addressed their ideas to painters, but Fafard’s cows demonstrate these ideas in three-dimensions. The resulting spatial illusions straddle the world of ideas in association with mathematics, physics, science fiction and art.

Résumé La renommée de Joe Fafard en tant que sculpteur continue de croître. Pourtant, le centre d’attention demeure ses portraits de gens en céramique. Ses portraits de vaches ne se sont cependant pas mérités une attention similaire. En utilisant les vaches comme mode d’expression, Fafard explore toute la gamme de la représentation dans l’espace et remet en question les attentes des spectateurs au sujet du regard et de la perception. Les contorsions de ses vaches se veulent une réponse aux théories de la perspective en histoire de l’art tel que les décrit E.H. Gombrich dans son ouvrage Art and Illusion et par le rejet qu’exprime Clement Greenberg face à toute illusion spatiale en peinture. Tant Gombrich que Greenberg ont transmis leurs idées aux peintres, mais les vaches de Fafard démontrent ces idées dans un univers tridimensionnel. Les illusions spatiales qui en résultent chevauchent l’univers des idées (les mathématiques, la physique de même que la science-fiction) et le monde des arts.

Cowsmayseemlikeanunlikelytopicforadiscussionofspaceandtime,butJoe Fafard’s (b. 1942) cows are not ordinary ones and his cows caught in space wrinkles are most appropriate. Although Fafard’s reputation as an artist is growing rapidly, he is generally regarded as a sculptor of portraits. However, throughout his career, Fafard has maintained two parallel subjects in his art: people and cows. Critics, curators and art writers consistently explore his human subjects whereas the cows receive far less attention. In all their shapes and variations, cows form a large portion of Fafard’s artistic output and, for the most part, dumbfound Fafard’s critics and attract admirers. He is said to be “almost obsessively attached” to “the rural image of the cow” (Teitelbaum and White 1987: 4). However, cows as a subject and form have allowed this Saskatchewan artist to experiment with ideas about space, its representation

International Journal of Canadian Studies / Revue internationale d’études canadiennes 15, Spring/Printemps 1997 IJCS / RIÉC and its dislocations. As this paper intends to demonstrate, Fafard’s sculptural depictions of cows in space wrinkles and other eye-catching phenomenal situations reveal a sophisticated and unique interpretation of the laws of perspective created as guidelines for artists representing three-dimensional objects on a two-dimensional surface. The novelty of Fafard’s work is his applicationoftheseideastothree-dimensionalwork.Thesedepictionsofcows, manipulated and distorted, delineate an intense exploration of vision and how we interpret what we see. Fafard did not arrive at his spatial manipulations through mathematics or physics, but from various sources in the art world and ideas pertinent to painting. Three of the sources in art that played a part in providing Fafard with the basis for his contorted cows were E. H. Gombrich’s book Art and Illusion, examples from the history of art, and some of the theories of Clement Greenberg (1909-1994), the American art critic. Place plays an important role in Fafard’s art because he depicts what he knows—from friends and associates to heroes he admires, and the animals. Fafard, in his practice as an artist, emphasizes that art can be produced anywhere without requiring an artist to migrate to a large city. This attitude, along with Fafard’s increasing success, still prompts art critics to mention his geographical background or his “rural subjects” which often is the only comment about his work (Mays 1988: C4). Early in his career, Fafard merited uncomplimentary labels, such as a “talented prairie weirdo” (Jonson 1978: 170).Morerecently,acriticcomplainedofFafard’sart:“Peoplearereluctantto discuss it, they are too busy simply ‘liking’ it.” And, “there is also,” as Chris Gallagher wrote, “the delight of not needing all the baggage of contemporary art discourse before getting to the art” (Gallagher 1988: 38). Fafard’s art is accessible and appeals to viewers from the general public and now to those in the art world. But whether people like his art or not, there is a dearth of discussion about Fafard’s cows. An example of Fafard’s unorthodox treatment of cows is Daisy III (1980) (Figs. 1-2), who is represented in a “space wrinkle,” a massive fold which encloses and conceals much of her body. When viewed from the front or from the rear, the clay and glazed cow appears to be an ordinary farm animal. The detail and the particular facial expression suggest that this is a portrait of a specific cow and that the entire cow has been fully represented. But, on moving around to the side, the viewer discovers the depth of Daisy III has been compressed. The distance between her legs, and indeed her whole body, has been foreshortened to such a great degree that it evokes a “space-wrinkle.” Fafard treated her body asifitwerehollowlikeaballooninsteadofsolidlikeacow,anexampleof“play on the idea of space and our perception of it” (Fafard and Whitney 1997). From front and back, there is only the illusion of a whole cow. This unexpected deception is a prime example of his use of perspective techniques intended for two-dimensional artists. To most critics, this illustrates Fafard’s humour and his role as a trickster of illusions (Walsh 1988/89: 21-22). How Fafard achieves these illusions is the discussion here. Visual artists throughout the twentieth century have been experimenting with the concepts of time and space. Many artists have eliminated subject matter

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Figure 1 Daisy III. 1980. Front view. Clay and glaze. 35.3 x 29.2 x 26.6 cm. Photo: Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon. Courtesy of the artist.

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Figure 2 Daisy III. 1980. Side view. Clay and glaze. 35.3 x 29.2 x 26.6 cm. Photo: Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon. Courtesy of the artist.

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altogether and concentrated on the elements of art, shape, colour and line to produce non-objective works of art. In fact, in his early career Fafard was a kinetic sculptor, but his manipulation of cows to explore spatial dislocations and in particular his wrinkled cows challenge the viewer’s perceptions of mass, space and time. However, the combination of the varieties of spatial illusions and cows disconcerts the viewer and critic to the extent that the cows merit little critical attention. Perhaps, the sophistication of the formal spatial aspects of his art and the down-to-earth nature of the cow inhibits the viewer. In order to discuss the spatial concepts employed by Fafard, this paper will look at the existing critical response to Fafard’s work in order to realize the confusionthatexistsbetweenthebovinesubjectmatterandthespatialconcerns of his art work. Secondly, an examination of some individual cows will identify the varieties of dislocation that Fafard uses. And thirdly, observation of his cow subjects in relation to the laws of artistic perspective will determine the unique approach of Fafard’s use of time and space. From the beginning of his career, Fafard has exhibited both cows and portraits. However, critics and reviewers dealing with Fafard’s art have traditionally emphasized his portraits of people. He has depicted ordinary citizens and celebrities as well as historical characters and contemporary political figures. He has also portrayed fellow artist friends and artists from the past such as Van Gogh and Cézanne (Vervoort 1993: 30). In a review of an exhibition in 1973, Fafard’s intimate portrait sculptures are described: “And, finally three of Fafard’s bovine friends lie in a corner chewing their clay cuds. . . .” (Heath 1973: 68). For a sculpture exhibit in 1987 of both people and cows, Fafard used the title Cows and Other Luminaries. And, as usual, critics and reviewers concentrated on the “other luminaries.” The cows are mentioned in most of these reviews but given little space or attention. For instance, the cows are identified as Fafard’s “prairie icons” (Borsa 1985: 32) or “personal totem figure” or “heraldic emblem” (Walsh 1988/89: 20). Also, “Fafard’s emblem is the equally humble domestic cow” and “Fafard is considerably more than a talented cattleman....”(James 1987: 69). Regarding the cows, it has been said that “the ubiquitous creatures are the emblem of Fafard’s regionalism and stand-ins for the landscape...”(Tousley 1988: 60). These comments indicate that the subject matter takes precedence in the eyes of the critics and that the cows show Fafard’s regionalism. Cows are rural subjects, but certainly not limited to the prairies. In comparison, Alex Colville in Nova Scotia has painted cows many times, but they are, accordingtoDavidBurnett,“amonghismostcontemplative works”andimpart “the sense of unity in the natural world....”(Burnett 1983: 167). Admittedly, Colville paints and Fafard sculpts, but there is a difference in the way critics perceive their work. Colville only does cows occasionally whereas Fafard does them constantly; yet, the subject seems to be “rural” only when it is produced in Saskatchewan.

Historical Context A further indication of the difficulty critics have with Fafard’s cows is the attempt to place them within an historical context. Cows appear in numerous

89 IJCS / RIÉC historical landscape paintings, but are unusual as subjects for sculpture. The analogies drawn in the Fafard literature, however, do not provide satisfaction. For example, “when you think of cows in art it would be unlikely that Paulus Potter’s Young Bull [1647] would not come to mind.” But Potter’s “animals are generic” while Fafard’s are “distinct, presenting a personality.” Further searching for a sculptural analogy, the same writer compared Fafard’s cows to the Etruscan She-Wolf [c.500 B.C.], a highly stylized animal and certainly not a cow (Walsh 1988/89: 21). Another writer indicated that “the cows link him to a history of pastoral landscape painting that is centuries old” (Tousley 1988: 60). Also, Fafard is concerned with “cattle on the Prairies as an integral part of the landscape....”(Pluralities 1980: 55). These analogies illustrate the lack of precedence for the kind of art Fafard produces, and they demonstrate the difficulties contemporary Canadian critics have in dealing with Fafard’s cows. Fafard, himself, takes a disdainful attitude towards those who look at art with “such motivations as discovering the artistic influences” which leads to “academic sterility” (Mandel 1979: 19). But finding precedents is not the same as identifying artistic influences, although both are a way of sorting, or attempting, to position an artist within a larger context. A few other twentieth century artists have produced works with the cow as a subject, but these have been treated kindly in the critical literature for the method of representation rather than for the subject matter; none of these have been cited in the literature about Fafard. Alex Calder’s whimsical wire Cow (1929), part of his circus series, was essentially a line drawing in space. Calder, in fact, did a number of cows, but they are usually discussed as toys (Marter 1991: 83,92; Lipman 1976: 69, 244). Also from early in the century was the three-panel painting titled Composition (the Cow) (1916-17) which Theo van Doesburg used inhis public lectures todemonstrate how toabstract asubject. In the left panel was a naturalistic cow; in the centre, a cow distorted; and, the right hand panel was a painting of shapes no longer recognizable as a cow (Barr 1977: 169). Van Doesburg’s subject and treatment was recycled on a huge scale by Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, Cow Triptych (Cow Going Abstract) (1974) (Coward 1981: 68-70). In 1965 and 1966, Andy Warhol produced his Cow Wallpaper on the suggestion of Ivan Karp, director of the Leo Castelli Gallery, because “they’re so wonderfully pastoral and such a durable image in the history of art” (Ratcliff 1983: 54, 89-91). As these examples demonstrate, Calder, van Doesburg, Lichtenstein and Warhol used the cow to manipulate space and representation, ideas and techniques providing perhaps a more suitablecomparisonwithFafard’sworkthantheYoungBullortheShe-Wolf. Fafard has made various statements about cows to emphasize that he is not interested in them as a subject, but only as a form. He has said, “[c]ows are an animal I know well, but more than that, they’re a shape you can, you know, study.” Fafard continued: . . . what I’m trying to do there is just understanding shape and form and using them as an art form. I can change the spots on a cow, the colours, and it’s perfectly legal. Sometimes I think I’m using cows like painters use this rectangular frame. My frames are not square, they’re just the shape of a cow (Ursell 1975: 34).

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Fafard has also made other comments about cows to indicate his familiarity with them as well as knowing some of them individually. “Cows,” Fafard has said, “have a closer relationship with humans than any other animal” (Henker 1986: 52). Too, he has said: Generally the cow has been much more useful to use as a motif for solving sculptural problems. It’s a totally elastic thing that you can stretch in one direction or the other, and you’ll never find cow critics complain, either. They’ll never comment. Human beings are not so elastic: they fight back (Enright 1988: 15). These comments indicate that Fafard does care about cows and they are subjects as well as forms. Commenting on his cow subjects, Fafard once stated: “No one sets out to do thousands of cows” (Henker 1986: 53).

Fafard’s Early Career After receiving his M.F.A. from Pennsylvania State University in 1968, Fafard accepted a teaching position at the Regina campus of the University of Saskatchewan, now the University of Regina, where there was a lively program in both ceramics and sculpture. When Fafard arrived, he was a kinetic sculptor, making abstractions which moved with the help of a motor. Later, he commented on his kinetic works: “Masonite, paint, motorized foam rubber— that sort of thing. I made flying French Fries, palm trees that waved in nonexistent breezes, a high chair for adults” (Zwarun 1977: 24). He gave up kinetic sculpture because “there is nothing more annoying than a work of art that won’t work. And when you’re dealing with mechanical things, they’re constantly breaking down” (Teitelbaum and White 1987: 47; Enright 1988: 11). When Fafard joined the faculty at Regina, sculptor Ric Gomez and ceramicist Jack Sures were teaching their students to model in clay and to emphasize this modeling by leaving evidence on the surface (Fenton 1971: 19). Then the Californians, David Gilhooly and David Zack, an art writer, joined the faculty in 1969. Gilhooly was already well-known for his glazed clay frogs of irreverent Funk artsubjects. From observing Gilhooly’sartbeingproduced and particularly inspired by Gilhooly’s attitude that art is fun and that one can create his own world, Fafard began producing plaster portraits and ceramic cows. Eventually the portraits, first in plaster and later exclusively in clay, formed the material for his exhibitions. From the beginning, Fafard modeled cows in clay, but initially they were his “warm-up” exercises before working on the portraits. Of his change in direction, from the kinetic to the ceramic, Fafard attributes to his contact with Gilhooly: “Suddenly I realized it really didn’t matter what you did as long as you did something that you felt was engaging and you didn’t have to bother with this very heavy cerebral question about making ‘art’” (Teitelbaum and White 1987: 47). After portraying his colleagues at the university and his artist friends as well as his family, Fafard moved on to do portraits of the people of Pense, the small town between Regina and Moose Jaw,wherehehadlivedfrom1971to1984.Hethenexpandedhiscommunityto include prairie historical figures such as Louis Riel and Crowfoot. By 1982, he wascreatingportraitsoffiguresfromarthistorysuchasCézanneandvanGogh.

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Artists included in Fafard’s repertoire of portraits included those from the Regina area who were like-minded with Fafard in rejecting the prevailing interests of the art world in formalism. Importantly, from the time he first portrayed his university colleagues, Fafard’s art friends included Russ Yuristy, Vic Cicansky and David Gilhooly who, with Fafard, exhibited together as Six Regina Artists in 1973, but were dubbed “Regina Funk” (Shuebrook 1973: 39- 41). This group along with a number of local “folk” artists shared the belief that art should be personal by reflecting the artist’s immediate environment and that itshouldreachouttotheaudience.Infact,the“fine”artistsandthe“folk”artists collaborated on the Grain Bin in 1976 commissioned by The Saskatchewan Olympics Art Committee as part of Saskatchewan’s display at the Montreal 1976 Olympic Games. The painted wooden “grain bin” contained a diorama of rural farming in the 1920s and all its activities; the cows were by Fafard (Grain Bin 1979: 6-7). The links with California artists were important to the sculptors and ceramic artists in Regina for the confirmation that clay was a suitable material for fine art, an attitude that was new; previously clay was considered only as a material for crafts (Gilhooly 1980: 4-11). In addition, the philosophy of art that combined Pop art subjects with the implementation of the notion that art should be fun and communicate with the viewers were crucial to Fafard’s development as an artist.

Dislocations, Viewpoints and Perspectives Cows, whether shapes or frames, provide a vehicle for Fafard’s experiments with ideas about space and its representation. Because these ideas are explored in the shape of cows, the timeliness and complexity of the images as well as their aesthetic and conceptual qualities are often overlooked. However, the spatial contortions are in step with developments in twentieth century art, but also with ideas found in mathematics and physics, at least in popularized science-fiction versions. Space is defined as “the intuitive three-dimensional field of everyday experience” whereas space-time is “time and the three- dimensional space regarded as fused in a four-dimensional continuum containing all events” (Oxford English Dictionary, 1989). The notion of time as the fourth dimension challenges the idea of time as non-spatial whereas dimension is a measure of spatial extent. Some art theorists early in the century, for instance, attempted to link Cubist art and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, a connection denied by Einstein himself (Richardson 1971: 111-2; Henderson 1983: xiii-xix, 353-365). Nevertheless, art texts continue to discuss notions of space and time as art united with science and particularly with Einstein (Janson 1991: 720). Space, then, and its interpretation occupy an important role in the literature of art and, as Fafard’s work demonstrates, in the practice of art. His experiments with the manipulation of space and the resulting contortions may perhaps be more in tune with science fiction than with theoretical mathematics, but nevertheless attest to Fafard’s acquaintance with theoretical ideas about space in art. Fafard’s contorted cows are his personal response to the ideas about space and time prevalent in the art world, ideas that invite a visual expression. Cows are not expected to be complicated, so Fafard’s manipulations are eye-opening and instructive as he teaches the viewer to look

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and then to look again. The cows may strike a note of humour in the viewer’s response, but they also display a sophisticated approach to spatial problems. Fafard has used cows in at least six different ways to experiment with spatial dislocation. First of all, there are the straightforward portraits of cows. Fafard’s early cows, modeled in clay and displayed on top of boxes or pedestals, received individual or generic names, colouring and particular facial expressions. Some of these cows are standing, for example Daisy I (1980), but many recline as does the Great White Bull (1970) in order to overcome the technical problem of supporting a heavy body on thin legs. Spatial dislocation occurs when these animals turn up in unexpected places. An example is Pasture (1985). Among Fafard’s best-known works, a group of seven cows are slightly over full-size, and cast in bronze (Henker 1986: 52). Reclining and relaxed, each cow is distinguished by a different patina; this was Fafard’s first major bronze work. The cows that form Pasture are not unusual in a farmer’s field, but unexpected when found on a small patch of grass at the Toronto Dominion Centre surrounded by high-rise office buildings. The placement of Pasture jolts the viewer because the cows are in the “wrong” place, an urban setting. The ground under the cows, the landscape, is a minimal patch of grass. Pasture, claims John Bentley Mays, reminds Toronto residents of the “pastoral history of the site with a playful vengeance” (Mays 1985: D17). Recently, Pasture became a media event when the cows were moved to Montreal for a major Fafard exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Joe Fafard: The Bronze Years from November 1996 to February 1997 (Jordan 1996: 16). Secondly, there are the cows with names that create unexpected associations. For example, Albert and Victoria (1988), the title conjures up one image from history, but the sculpture depicts a mother cow and her calf (Walsh 1988/89: 20). Two other bronze cows from 1989 are titled Lascaux and Dubuffet after the painted cave and the French artist, Jean Dubuffet. That cows are the subject is a surprise, but not if one is familiar with Fafard’s work. Other depictions of cows with names that evoke incongruities of time and place are House Bull (1982) and Pet Cow (1980) (Figs. 3-4) since bulls are not found in houses and cows are not pets. The names and titles, along with the specificity of facial features and stances, indicate that these are portraits too. In addition to exploring contemporary cows, Fafard has experimented with historical representations of cows, also, as seen in his Assyrian Cows (1987) (Teitelbaum and White 1987: 48). In Assyrian art, depth was suggested by overlapping. To represent a row of overlapping animals, a single animal in profile view was depicted, but the legs, heads and tails were multiplied. The viewer was expected to determine the number of animals supposedly stretching into the distance by counting the heads or legs. Here the representation of five animals is in three-dimensions whereas the Assyrians who excelled at relief sculpture presented the illusion of three dimensions. Fafard, in Assyrian Cows, approached the same problem by depicting five animals in relief, each standing on its own individual base, but positioned to form a staggered line. The cow in front is seen clearly and each successive one has its head out in front of the

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Figure 3 House Bull. 1982. Back view. Clay and glaze. 43.6 x 77.3 x 22.2 cm. Pet Cow. 1980. Front view. Clay and glaze. 40.7 x 56.8 x 10.4 cm. Photo: Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon. Courtesy of the Artist.

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Figure 4 House Bull. 1982. Side View. Clay and glaze. 43.6 x 77.3 x 22.2 cm. Pet Cow. 1980. Side View. Clay and glaze. 40.7 x 56.8 x 10.4 cm.

95 IJCS / RIÉC previous one and the rumps rise successively above the previous cow’s sagging back. The patina of each cow also distinguishes one from another while the number of legs and the individual bases confirm the presence of five overlapping cows. Their overlapping positions allow the historical allusion to succeed, but also allows the viewer to observe Fafard’s alterations. AthirdtypeofdislocationandmanipulationisfoundinFafard’sscreenprints— again with the subject of cows. These screenprints date from the 1970s, but demonstrate again that Fafard’s concerns with the representation of space are on-going, rather than a new development. In Bird (1977), the viewpoint is experienced by a bird (and the viewer) flying over a farmer’s field where cows are grazing (Teitelbaum and White 1987: 26; Moosehead 1987: 28). Seen from above, the cows acquire unusual shapes, not unlike elongated but irregularly- shaped bowling pins which cast cow-like shadows. The cows are clearly defined and most are solidly coloured whereas the cow shadows are created by small patches of parallel lines arranged in facets reminiscent of Cézanne’s brushwork. As a result, the cows appear to be flat shapes echoing the flatness of the paper; the viewpoint from above eliminates the legs of the cows while most of the shadows have legs. Fafard here has transformed something ordinary into something new and, at the same time, challenges the viewer to look more closely. Pursuing the same theme but from a far greater height is Bird’s Eye (1978), another screenprint. Here, the earth is egg-shaped and its entire surface is divided into fields and water separated by fences. Populated only by cows, this earth-egg presents the cows as irregular spotted shapes due to the height from which they are viewed. Again, they are flat like the paper. DC-Neuf (1978) also presents the earth as an egg but from a higher vantage point (Teitelbaum and White 1987: 26). As these prints from the 1970s demonstrate, Fafard is interested in spatial illusions and has been for some time. By the 1980s, Fafard was experimenting with similar ideas in three dimensions.

Fafard and Clement Greenberg Fafard’s acquaintance with Greenberg was only second-hand, but Greenberg’s influence on Saskatchewan painters was profound; many of the painters, such as the Regina Five, were connected with the University of Regina. Fafard did not attend the Emma Lake Workshop conducted by Clement Greenberg in 1962, but he did participate in the 1968 workshop with American sculptor Donald Judd, also a formalist who created minimalist boxes in series. The influence of Greenberg was pervasive (Hudson 1970: 45; Fulford 1993: 18-21; Williamson 1963: 196). Greenberg’s formal interests stressed the flatness of the canvas surface as he urged painters to eliminate all hints of spatial illusion. Or as Greenberg wrote: “Modernist painting meets our desire for the literal and positive by renouncing the illusion of the third dimension” (Greenberg 1961: 139). Greenberg condemned the use of subject matter because it took the “emphasis away from the medium” (Greenberg 1961: 25). In Saskatchewan, Greenberg’s influence was strong and he was instrumental in the success of the Regina Five, a group of painters who embraced the concept of flatness. But to Fafard, Greenberg’s impact had a reverse effect. Although Greenberg directed

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his comments to painters, Fafard reacted against the dictates of a critic from elsewhere urging Saskatchewan artists to create like New Yorkers (Heath 1985: 27). As Robert Fulford phrased the issue: “In this controversy Greenberg would be pictured as a doctrinaire imperialist dictating rigid and formalistic theories to Canadian artists....”(Fulford 1993: 19). John O’Brian acknowledges that Greenberg “created a controversy that simmers to this day. . . .” (O’Brian 1989: 35). In addition to conducting the workshop at Emma Lake, Greenberg was commissioned to write a report of western Canadian art for Canadian Art magazine. Here, Greenberg praised the “big attack” painters and particularly “the specialness of art in Regina” by commending the work of Ronald Bloore, Kenneth Lochhead, Arthur McKay, Ted Godwin and Douglas Morton; all but the latter were connected with the University of Regina. Also, in his article Greenberg remarked on sculpture: “French Canada has a tradition of folk sculpture, but somehow one doesn’t expect to find much in the way of sculpture in Canada at large” (Greenberg 1963: 105). Ironically, Fafard is French Canadian and very much in tune with folk art. But Fafard’s criticism of Greenberg’s impact in Saskatchewan was not only a general one, but also affected his workplace at the University of Regina with the painters and gallery director favouring Greenberg’s views while Fafard and the other sculptors/ceramists championing the Californian approach. New York and California then, not Toronto or Montreal, supplied the contradictory philosophies of art in Regina. Fafard left teaching in 1974 because the school’s teaching emphasis, in his view, encouraged the students to tune into the newest art fashions rather than to develop their own interests and skills (Heath 1985: 27). Thus, in the ideological battle about how one should teach art, the Greenberg faction at Regina won. Although Fafard disagreed with Greenberg’s ideas and his influence, the issues must have seethed within Fafard until 1980 when he actually made four portraits of Greenberg, full-length and head-and-shoulders; from the front, these give the illusions of depth and three-dimensions, aided by the modelling andcolouring,butfromthesideview,thesearerevealedtobeflatreliefs,giving Greenberg a dose of his own philosophy. Clem stands with his hands in his pockets and appears to be focusing on something in front of him, like a painting. A smaller full-length figure is the maquette for Clem or Model of Clem with his back left as unfinished, unpainted clay. Mark Cheetham says Fafard “puns with the notions of surface and depth by literalizing them....”(Cheetham 1991: 27). Fafard’s flat Greenbergs have been reproduced in many publications and clearly demonstrate again Fafard’s use of illusion; from one direction they appear to be complete, three-dimensional portraits, from another they are shallow reliefs (Teitelbaum and White 1987: 22-25). Peter White asserts in an essay in the catalog of Cows and Other Luminaries that Fafard here makes “flatness read as shallowness or narrowness” (Teitelbaum and White 1987: 24). That Fafard cared little for Greenberg’s ideas is legendary and when asked by Robert Enright why he did “four pieces about a figure whose aesthetic has been inimical to your own sense of how art is made?” Fafard’s response was: “I think sometimes you have to work out your devils, get them out there so that they’re no longer inside you.” On My Art Critic, the large, flat head of Greenberg, Fafard said: “It was the first human face on which I used

97 IJCS / RIÉC foreshortening, telescoping and flatness.” And, also that Greenberg was “an appropriate person to flatten” (Enright 1988: 11-12). My Art Critic was fully painted with acrylic paints to give Greenberg a life-like appearance whereas the other Bust of Clem is monochromatic. The year 1980 was important for Fafard, for in addition to his Greenberg portraits, he also flattened the Queen (Heath 1990: 26) and produced his wrinkled cows. Because all of these works were created in a short span of time and the Greenberg portraits were recognizable as well as able to recall the arguments generated by Greenberg’s ideas and Fafard’s objections to them, the Greenberg portraits have become “pivotal” in Fafard’s art (Teitelbaum and White 1987: 26). However, Fafard’s ideas about flattening figures and cows developed after he read E. H. Gombrich’s Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation in 1980 as he prepared to teach at the University of California at Davis for a semester. This campus was noted as the academic home of California Funk art with artists such as Robert Arneson and William Wiley on the faculty; David Gilhooly and Vic Cicansky were graduates of Davis. Fafard remarked to Peter White that “art” to Gombrich meant painting (Teitelbaum and White 1987: 28). Gombrich’s chapter on the “Ambiguities of the Third Dimension” deals with the power of suggestion and explores the “reading of images.” He noted “it is always hard to distinguish what is given to us from what we supplement in the process of projection which is triggered off by recognition” (Gombrich 1960: 242). From here, Gombrich focuses on perspectiveanditstricksinthetextandtheillustrations,diagramsandart,butas with most works on perspective, the emphasis is on two-dimensional art which gives the illusion of three dimensions. There are many types of perspective, but Gombrich emphasizes that developed during the Italian Renaissance and which assumes a stationary viewer with one eye. Most viewers of course have two eyes which perceive two slightly different view points simultaneously and these are incorporated by the mind into a single image. Further, the picture plane is assumed to be vertical, straight in front of the viewer, but representations on the picture plane are actually positioned perpendicular to the line of vision. Perspective drawing aims to represent things as they are arranged in space, i.e., depth, and as if seen from a single point of view. To draw an object in perspective requires the application of geometry and mathematical measurement which in itself alters the object being depicted by re-forming it, by distorting it for the sake of the internal consistency of the picture. As viewers, however, we have been trained not to notice these distortions and to read them as accurate portrayals of objects in a “real” depicted space (Gombrich 1960: 250-58). It is instructive to notice some of the examples used by Gombrich and to discover that many of these challenge the prevalent Euclidean geometry. One of these is Hogarth’s 1754 engraving called False Perspective which was the frontispiece for a book about perspective. Hogarth’s engraving ridiculed those who did not follow the rules by reversing the positions of the sheep and trees, with the largest in the background and the smallest in the foreground. A woodcut by M. C. Escher, Autre Monde (1947), appears to apply the laws of recession, but the image is impossible. These and other examples in

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Gombrich’s text illustrate the “ambiguity of all images.” Gombrich also confirmed Fafard’s view about subject matter when he stated: “Surely it is artificial...toseparate what we call ‘form’ from what we call ‘content’” (Gombrich 1960: 99). Further, Gombrich reminds the reader that perspective “rests on a simple and incontrovertible fact of experience, the fact that we cannot look round a corner” (Gombrich 1960: 250). In two-dimensional art this statement is true, but Gombrich does not deal with sculpture. Fafard takes these ambiguities and the rules of perspective and applies them to his sculptures and takes delight in the fact that, in his sculpture, one can indeed look around corners. For example, Daisy III is “normal” from the frontal view, but the side view partially consumed by a space wrinkle takes us around the corner to an ambiguity of time and space.

Cows in Space Wrinkles Most relevant in this context are the cows in space wrinkles, such as Daisy III, which manipulate and distort the physical appearance of the cow. Returning to Daisy III (1980) who is modeled in clay and glazed, there are also distortions or alterations due to the medium. To support the weight of the cow’s body on four thin legs is possible in nature, but not in clay. Fafard has adjusted Daisy’s proportions, particularly the thickness of the legs, to enable them to support her cumbersome bulk. From a frontal view, Daisy appears to be an entire cow with all of her large bumpy body intact. The realism of detail from the tufts of hair on her forehead to the emphatic eyebrows suggest a complete and intact cow. As with My Art Critic, a slight shift in stance on the viewer’s part reveals that from another viewpoint, Daisy has been compressed, the length between her legs shortened considerably. She looks like she was squeezed between two hands, one on her head and the other on her rump. Her body is all there, but the proportions have been changed. The compression is due to the application of foreshortening. This is a technique used traditionally by painters, to represent a three-dimensional object on a two-dimensional surface, particularly when an object is viewed from an angle. This was the device used by Paolo Uccello for the horses and dead soldiers in his Rout of San Romano (c.1455). The foreshortening suggests the entire horse or human figure is present, whereas in actuality, the torsos have been compressed. This technique is well-known in drawing and painting, but new to sculpture. We assume that Daisy III is whole and complete, but as soon as we move and discover the illusion, we become conscious of the tricks Gombrich described and that our sight is supplemented by our recognition, our minds. Fafard’s applications of foreshortening and other perspective devices to cows created a whole new phase of work. Two other cows, created at different dates, but photographed together, are Pet Cow (1980) and House Bull (1982) (Teitelbaum and White 1987: 28-29) (Figs. 3-4). Made of clay and glazed, they recline and face one another. The reclining pose is often used by Fafard and offers one solution to the problem of supporting the enormous bulk of the body on spindly legs. Frontally and from the rear, the two appear to be complete, three-dimensional portraits of particular bovines. But when the viewer shifts position to look between the animals, the peculiar foreshortening and flattening effect is visible, suggesting that the bodies, but not the heads, experienced the effects of a rolling pin. The

99 IJCS / RIÉC ability of the viewer to change position and, therefore, change perspectives is fully exploited by Fafard. Taking this idea to another level, and even more contortions, is the Cow in Space Wrinkle (1982) (Figs. 5-7). Again, the front and rear views appear “normal” and we expect to see an entire animal whereas the side view displays the head and front legs as expected, but the entire body has been collapsed and eliminated. This changing of viewpoints as the observer moves around the image is a three-dimensional exploration of the same illusions that perspective teaches painters. But perspective rules instruct the painter on how to conceal what has been eliminated while Fafard presents these literal interpretations for eyes to see. The cow’s body is lost in a “space wrinkle,” a term belonging to science fiction along with hyperspace. A wrinkle is a small furrow, a folding or puckering of a normally smooth surface. Also, a wrinkle is defined as an “ingenious new trick or innovation.” Combining several viewpoints in a single cow as Fafard does compresses the time factor needed to view each one as well as the actual space consumed by the cow portrait. Time is also involved as the viewer moves around the sculpture. In the paintings of Cézanne or Picasso, the combination of several viewpoints in a single work was startling at first, but we have become accustomed to it. However, seeing these techniques in sculptures of cows is new. Fafard’s spatial manipulations are all the more challenging when sometimes a cow sculpture presents an entire animal and other times, the cows are wrinkled or “incomplete.” By exhibiting both types simultaneously, Fafard challenges the viewer’s expectations. As Gombrich relays the history of theories about vision, he concludes “it is our mind that weaves these sensations into perceptions” which are “grounded on experience, on knowledge” (Gombrich 1960:297).Weareusedtosizedistinctionsandthefactthatobjectsfarawayare small, but we are not used to the elimination, the wrinkles, or the visibility of the visual trick.

Contemporary Sculptors, Visual Perception and Fafard Contemporaries of Fafard in the Canadian art world are also interested in the issue of space, its representation and challenging expectations. In the work of two fellow sculptors, Don Proch (b. 1944) and Michael Snow (b. 1929), their interests obviously parallel those of Fafard, but the bases of their experiments arise from different premises. For example, Proch’s three-dimensional fiberglass sculptures of heads, masks and figures provide surfaces for drawings of the prairie landscape executed in graphite and silverpoint. Drawing is a two- dimensional technique, but in Proch’s work, the three-dimensional surfaces require the spectator to move around each of his masks. The landscape is fragmented and the masks themselves; for example, Mining Mask, 1976, resembles an altered human head merging with a mining mask plus smoke stack. The delicate drawings on the surface and their suggestion of the endless prairie contrast with the startling shapes and the surreal implications of their mask-head-surfaces. In Proch’s work, the traditional distinctions between the two- and three-dimensional blur (Vervoort 1991: 134). In fact, Proch has said, “I consider my pieces three dimensional drawings” (Kroker and Hughes

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Figure 5 Cow in Space Wrinkle. 1982. Front view. Clay and glaze. 37.1 x 23.4 x 30.6 cm. Photo: Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon. Courtesy of the artist.

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Figure 6 Cow in Space Wrinkle. 1982. Rear view. Clay and glaze. 37.1 x 23.4 x 30.6 cm. Photo: Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon. Courtesy of the artist.

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Figure 7 Cow in Space Wrinkle. 1982. Side view. Clay and glaze. 37.1 x 23.4 x 30.6 cm. Photo: Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon. Courtesy of the artist.

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1986: 239). Both Fafard and Proch attended the University of Manitoba in the early 1960s; Fafard earned his B.F.A. degree in 1966. The two sculptors have also participated in the same exhibitions, such as Western Untitled in 1976 (Heath 1970). The landscape is dominant in Proch’s work whereas in Fafard’s view the cow is “some aspect of the landscape” (Visions Guide 1983: 30). While both come from Prairie backgrounds and received a similar training, Fafard and Proch deal with problems of visual perception by employing different materials and techniques as well as with different subject matter. Michael Snow’s Walking Woman series, created between 1961 and 1967, included painted and collaged versions as well as free-standing sculptural examples. Characteristic of the execution of all the Walking Woman in the series was her “flatness,” a quality that belied her striding pose. As Snow wrote in 1967: “All the work till recently used the same contour of a walking figure as a constant” (Snow 1994: 17). Snow, as a painter, found the cut-out to be an answer to the problem of the “figure/ground relationship and the avoidance of illusionistic spatial recession.” Or as Louise Dompierre has said of the Walking Woman, it “acted simultaneously as subject and form which, in turn, was used, among other things, to explore various possibilities of spatial relationships.” And, “the W.W. cut-out was figure/form/content” (Dompierre 1983: 36-37). In Snow’s sculptural versions, the identical image found in the paintings and paper cut-outs, is immediately visible. For Example, Project (1961) displays the Walking Woman silhouetted on a series of stepped boxes attached to the wall. The format allows for depth, but the silhouette, now sectioned, is presented on four different levels, but the silhouette is still flat and the pose is still striding (Michael Snow Project 1994: 134). Also from 1961 are Rolled Woman I and Rolled Woman II which wrap the flat cut-out silhouettes around cardboard tubes. In Rolled Woman I, two tubes placed horizontally within the deep frame allow the mid-section of the canvas cut-out to remain recognizable whereas in Rolled Woman II, the single vertical tube is wrapped more tightly and the paper cut-out woman is only recognizable in the context of the series. In all of these examples, the “constant” of the essentially two-dimensional cut-out is the same; she might be presented in different forms and materials, but she is always flat. Even in the stainless-steel extended cut-outs that Snow made for Expo ’67, such as Stretched Figure (1967), the ends of the works are the familiar silhouette of the Walking Woman. They may have depth, but the drawn-out aspect makes them unrecognizable as human figures when seen from the side. The Vancouver Art Gallery’s Walking Woman (1961) constructs the familiar and recognizable silhouette with irregularly shaped blocks of wood so that the surfaces are uneven, but which overall is the most three-dimensional depiction of the series (Dompierre 1983: 148-149). Even in the cut-paper invitations for the opening of an exhibit at The Isaacs Gallery in Toronto, Snow folded and ironed (“foldages”) each invitation to create individual small-scale works of art, but whether folded or unfolded, they were still the familiar cut-out Walking Woman. Whether working in miniature or with large scale casts, Snow’s interest in the figure, the silhouette, and the framing or non-framing of the image emphasizes the singularity of that image and the multiplicity of approaches to materials and surfaces.

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Nowhere in the Walking Woman series, however, does Snow collapse the volume of the figure as Fafard does with his cows. Snow’s women from beginningtoendinhisseriesnevertakeonthecharacteristicsofafigure-in-the- round whereas Fafard’s cows are usually three-dimensional and only in some cases is the volume partially collapsed. The position of the viewer before the Walking Woman is usually vertical and face to face with the Woman usually represented as five feet tall (Snow 1994: 17). The small scale of many of Fafard’s cows and their display on pedestals or the life-size examples placed on the floor or ground, e.g., The Pasture, positions the viewer to look down on the sculptures. In addition, Snow’s exploration of a single image in as many variations as possible is not the same as Fafard’s cows which vary in appearance from work to work with each cow or bull’s expression having the individuality of a portrait. Snow and Fafard treated their subjects as both subject and form. Nevertheless, the premises which prompted each artist to dwell on a single subject, their individual examples and particularly the materialshaveresultedinentirelydifferentconclusions.Andfinally,thereisno evidence of Fafard being aware of Snow’s art. Snow was included in an exhibition at Regina’s Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery in 1967, but Fafard did not arrive to teach at the University of Regina until the next year. The idea of working in series or repeating the same subject in numerous variations, however, has been a characteristic of Western art since the time of the Impressionists.

Fafard in the 1990s More recently, Fafard’s experiments lead in another direction, but one still connected with issues of space. Berthe (1990) is a cow constructed of sheets of wax and cast in bronze. The assemblage of the sheets remains visible in the finished product and the inability of the sheets to fully define the cow is exploited. From a three-quarter view, Berthe appears complete, but from a closer view the gaps between the sheets are visible and reveal Berthe as hollow. In addition, a piece of the head and ear are eliminated although, from most angles, these omissions are not visible. As Terrence Heath observes: “. . . from many angles these sculptures are ‘abstract’; like the best art of all cultures, they are balanced on that fine line between representation, pure form and concept” (Heath 1990: 25-26). Berthe’s appearance results in a different experience of space because of the different medium, the slab technique. Lately, Fafard’s art has turned in another direction, but he is still manipulating space and illusion. His latest works are three-dimensional outlines cut from stainless steel sheets. The cows, bulls and horses, however, are larger in scale than his earlier clay cows, but the new depictions are basically all space. Only the contours remain to define the shape of the animals; they have height and width, but no depth. Interior lines to represent manes, eyes or tails are kept to a minimum; the crisp lines are sharp and clear because they are laser-cut. (Kellogg 1994: D15). Fafard’s galleries have photographed these in the landscape so that fields, horizon line and sky become part of the animals as, for example, Gordon and Jill (1993) are recognizable as cattle but presented in their natural milieu for the Susan Whitney Gallery advertisement (Susan Whitney 1993: 12). As Gordon and Jill reveals, these recent works are more

105 IJCS / RIÉC space than line, they are both pictorial and sculptural. These three-dimensional lines form the shapes of cattle and depend on the viewer’s mind to fill in what the artist has eliminated. Rounded lines predominate. Their spatial presence does not stop at the physical boundaries indicated by the contour lines, but extends to encompass the setting. These new linear cattle have the potential to blendwiththeirsurroundingswhetherindoorsorout.Theyarespaceandair. Some of Fafard’s recent exhibitions have featured only his animals, a situation which has forced reviewers to pay some attention to the cows. Even so, mention of his human figures is inevitable as a review of Fete Champetre: Recent Patinated Bronze Sculpture, an exhibit of 13 bronze works, demonstrates as Fafard’s representations of Diefenbaker, Queen Elizabeth and Greenberg are recalled (Heath 1990: 25-26). Another exhibit, Wild Things: Animals in Contemporary Art was successful according to a reviewer because of the “integrity” of individual works, that “animals have been such a compelling subject in the history of Western art” and because many of the animals exhibited “show off animals that have become artists’ trademark” like “Joe Fafard’s broad-beamed cows....”Aphotograph of Alexander is “among the interesting works on display” (Gilmor 1991: C34). Unlike portraits of people where the reviewer can remark on the likeness achieved and the expression of personality, the representation of animals still leaves critics almost speechless. The Montreal Museum of Fine Art’s publicity for Joe Fafard: The Bronze Years assured visitors they would not be stampeded by the cattle by Joe Fafard “the figurative artist.” As Nancy Tousley observed, “what Fafard means to tell us with his spatial illusions and distorted proportions is that there is no one way of looking at anything” (Tousley 1988: 60). And Fafard himself has said that “a fresh and ordered work of art” succeeds when it can “re-create itself in the soul of the viewer” (Mandel 1979: 19). These achievements by Fafard are in accord with the philosopher Peter Ouspensky’s ideas about the role of the artist: The artist must be a clairvoyant; he must see that which others do not see; he must be a magician; must possess the power to make others see that which they do not themselves see, but which he does see (Henderson 1983: 251). Fafard’s cows in all their various appearances whether looked at from an unexpected angle, location, or “around a corner” with unexpected wrinkles and flattening or the latest line reliefs are a successful means of manipulating the viewer who after viewing a few Fafard cows can no longer rely any longer on the preconceived expectations set up by a single viewpoint. The complexity of Fafard’s cows and their spatial contortions are in step with twentieth century art’s interest in space. Fafard’s cows entice viewers to walk around the sculptures, to examine them from various angles, and, at the same time, to become conscious of the process of viewing. To be aware of the perspective systems used for the representations of these cows in three dimensions also delights the viewer. Imaginative, thought-provoking and humorous, Fafard’s cows teach us about looking and then looking again.

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Acknowledgment The author is indebted to two anonymous referees for their insightful comments on an earlier version of this paper. Special thanks are due to R. Ferguson for reviewing the manuscript. A shorter version of this paper was presented to the Interdisciplinary Conference on Time and Space at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, Memorial University of , May 9-13, 1990.

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O’Brian, J., ed. 1989. The Flat Side of the Landscape: The Emma Lake Artists’ Workshops. Saskatoon: Mendel Art Gallery. Ratcliff, C. 1983. Andy Warhol. New York: Abbeville Press. Richardson, J. A. 1971. Modern Art and Scientific Thought (Urbana: University of Illinois Press), 111-2. Shuebrook, R. 1973. “Regina Funk,” in Art and Artists, 8 (August), 39-41. Snow, M. 1994. The Collected Writings of Michael Snow. Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier University Press. Susan Whitney Gallery. 1993. Ad, Canadian Art, 10 (Fall), 12. Teitelbaum, M. and White, P. 1987. Joe Fafard: Cows and Other Luminaries 1977-1987. Saskatoon: Mendel Art Gallery and Regina: Dunlop Art Gallery. Tousley, N. 1988. “Community Spirit,” Canadian Art, 5 (Spring 1988), 56-61. Ursell, G. 1975. “Joe Fafard,” Emerging Arts West, 1 (October ), 30-35. Vervoort, P. 1991. “Masking and Mapping the Prairie Landscape: Fragments in 2-D and 3,” British Journal of Canadian Studies, 6: 1, 129-140. Vervoort, P. 1993. “Re-Constructing Van Gogh: Painting as Sculptures,” in The Low Countries and Beyond, ed. R. S. Kirsner. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 15-33. Visions: Artists and the Creative Process: Postsecondary Guide. 1983. Toronto: Ontario Educational Communications Authority. Walsh, M. 1988/89. “The Prairie Trickstering of Joe Fafard,” Artpost, 31: 21-22. Williamson, M. 1963. “South of the Borduas-Down Tenth Street Way,” Letter to the editor. Canadian Art, 20: 3 (May/June), 196. Zwarun, S. 1977. “That artist fella: Welcome to the Neighborhood, Joe Fafard,” Maclean’s,90 (July 25), 23-25.

108 Beverley Curran Mitoko Hirabayashi

Translation: Making Space for a New Narrative in Le désert mauve

Abstract Nicole Brossard’s novel, Le désert mauve, is a dialogue between two versions of a story. In the imaginative space between the intentions of the writer and the understanding of the reader, the process of translation functions as a narrative in which the relationship between reality and fiction, between the reader and the writer, is always questioned. Constrained by the text which precedes her reading, yet intimately involved with the text she imagines, the translator translates herself from reader to writer to slant “la réalité du côté de la lumière.”

Résumé Le roman intitulé Le désert mauve de Nicole Brossard est un dialogue entre deux versions d’une même histoire. Dans un espace imaginaire situé entre les intentions de l’auteur et la compréhension du lecteur, le processus de traduction prend la forme d’une narration où le lien entre la réalité et la fiction, entre le lecteur et l’auteur, est toujours mis en doute. Contrainte par le texte qui précède sa lecture tout en participant intimement au texte qu’elle imagine, la traductrice passe du rôle de lectrice à celui d’auteure pour faire pencher « la réalité du côté de la lumière ».

Le désert mauve has been in print for a decade, and Nicole Brossard, in a recent interview, confirmed her continuing fascination with translation, particularly as an “act of passage”: an act of passage, well, of course, from one language to another, but also, for me, it functions the same way as passing from reality to fiction, or from fiction to reality. So it’s the transformation of a reality, of a world into another one with slight alteration.1 Brossard uses the indefinite article to refer to reality, indicating there are multiple versions of this “familiar idea which appears obvious,”2 and suggesting different versions of reality for women and for men. Her character, Mélanie, the narrator of Laure Angstelle’s Le désert mauve, reflects, “[l]a réalité avait un sens, mais lequel?” (28). Brossard raises many such troubling questions in her writing. She asks questions because she writes not about what she knows, but is enticed by the horizon, and what she can only approach in her writing. For her, a book:

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should make you ask questions. I write to explore, to understand more and to discover. And I want the reader to do the same—to stop, to question, to explore with me while reading the text. If my writing is full of rupture, it is...mywayofcreating new spaces for new meaning which would not appear if I wrote in a linear way.3 Translation is a narrative which adds a new dimension to Brossard’s writing by always questioning the relationship between reality and fiction, between the reader and the writer. Translation is a form of writing which lets a woman explore “who she is”4; Brossard provides a model for the translation, like Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood, the English translator of Le désert mauve, each of whom asserts, “I am already a translation by being bilingue,Iam already a translation by being a lesbian feminist, I am already a translation by being a woman.”5 The process of translation engages the woman as both a reader and a writer, negotiating meaning in an imaginative space which is nevertheless constrained by the original text which precedes her reading. Again, questions make translation an open space of ontological inquiry: La question qui se pose en traduction est celle du choix. Quel signifiant privilégier, élire pour animer en surface les multiples signifiés qui s’agitent invisibles et efficaces dans le volume de la conscience? (JI 23) Brossard constructed her novel, Le désert mauve, by becoming her own reader and asking questions, imagining dialogues between the characters she had already created: I wrote the first book...butthen after I wrote that first part, I personally wanted to know more about the characters. I didn’t know anything about them so I was curious to find out about the place where they lived; about their childhood; to imagine the dialogues they would have together...sothat is why the second part exists because of my natural curiosity to find out about the characters I had given existence. (Interview) With “that obsession with understanding the act of writing” (Interview) which is an ubiquitous concern in her novels, Brossard interrupts her own writing processinordertoreadandtoimaginewhathasbeenleftfor“thepageahead.”6 This “interactive discourse”7, the strategy for developing Le désert mauve, is illustrated in the text by the dialogue between the two versions of a story, and between two writers, one of whom is an active reader, a translator. Brossard’s novel is a structural triptych, consisting of Laure Angstelle’s novel, Le désert mauve, and a translation of Angstelle’s book, Mauve, l’horizon, by Maude Laures. In the space between the two sites of writing, the translator imagines the possibilities of the text she has read, “re-imagining the characters’ lives, the objects, the dialogue” (Interview). Between the versions of the desert story, she creates a fluid dimension of desire, a “space to swim with the words” (Interview). That fluid space spills over the ostensible borders between the texts, and multiple levels of narration flow together. The universe of the “narratrice dont le nom, Mélanie” (56) is differently configured, with a different narrative voice in the imagination of Maude Laures, in dialogues between characters, between

110 Making Space for a New Narrative translator and author, and in the translation. The production Mauve, l’horizon adds another level of narration in the imagination of a new reader. This narrativespiralisanotherdistinctversionoftheintertextualnarrativedescribed by Louise H. Forsyth in her preface to Picture Theory: Dans l’univers de la narratrice principale circulent, à plusieurs niveaux textuels, de nombreuses écrivaines et narratrices qui se rassemblent, se ressemblent et se répètent. C’est ainsi qu’on fait émerger une communauté et une culture...Leréseau mobile d’écrivaines, de narratrices et de lectrices...estlenoyau d’une communautéinterprétiveparlaquelleBrossardcomptetransformerle paysage ontologique de l’humanité . . . (18) In Brossard’s fiction, she imagines women, as writers, readers, translators and storytellers, speaking to each other openly. Within Angstelle’s text, Mélanie’s first writing takes place in the desert, in her mother’s car, using a page from the small notebook kept in the glove compartment for recording oil changes and other car maintenance. From that momentofwriting,Mélanieisinsearchofareader.Shetriestodrawhermother into a different configuration of intimacy, to talk to her through her writing: Je harcelais ma mère pour qu’elle lise le peu que j’avais écrit. Mes fautes!Jevoulaisqu’ellecorrigetoutça.Jelaissaistraînerlecahiersur le téléviseur ou sur le plancher, bien en vue. (27) In “flaunting” her writing and juxtaposing her text against the television, Mélanie places her writing, her tentative words and her anxious excitement about them and how they might be read, next to television, “the Book of Patriarchy” (Interview). To Mélanie’s disappointment, the television remains on, and the stories her mother tells to her lover, Lorna, are “quelques histoires qu’elle avait lues dans le Time ou le Convention Globe. À la fin du récit, quelqu’un mourait, s’en allait ou dévoilait un secret” (27): the familiar linear texts with their predictable narrative of closure. Without a reader, Mélanie is a writing subject who cannot find her partner in an intimate dialogue: “Je ne peux tutoyer personne” (32/51). She is “a subject in process, moving, changing, a being in pursuit of” (AL 133). At another level of the narrative is the translator, Maude Laures, located within the text through her reading, and the text located within her through the writing of her translation. She is aware of the risk of translating the mauve desert of her reading into the mauve horizon of her own writing, “peur panique de se substituer à l’auteure de ce livre” (57), but “[e]n ce début de décembre, son désir est grand, résulté de l’approche et de la possibilité croisées de quelques transformations” (58). Le pourrait-elle sans confondre l’horizon et le désert, ces espaces venus, par effraction, se greffer sur son monde urbain et sur les figures qui, en elle, ne toléraient pas de désastre? (58) Maude Laures is drawn into the pages of “ce livre écrit par une femme dont elle ne sait rien sinon la preuve présumée d’une existence recluse dans le temps et l’espace franchi d’un seul livre” (55). From her first readings of “ce livre insolite trouvé dans une librairie de livres usagés” (121), she boldly confronts

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“the issue of control. Who owns the meaning of the black marks on the page, the writer or the reader?”8 and “decides that this book will belong to her”; and that she can do everything because she has fallen in love with the book, and therefore she’s taken possession of the book, the author, the characters, the desert. (Interview) In her intimate exploration of the text in terms of her desire, in her “intention de faire passer” (61), Maude Laures negotiates the “aller-retour” (61) between fiction and reality, between the tangible “innocent” novel of Laure Angstelle and her own translation, located in the virtual reality of her imagination. Although Maude Laures can read of Mélanie, and only imagine the author of “l’univers de la narratrice dont le nom, Mélanie,” (58) she is as attracted to the “auther” as she is to the characters. Indeed, Maude Laures, in her deconstruction of the novel in the process of preparing her translation, includes Laure Angstelle among the characters. Imagining Laure Angstelle becomes a “pre-text” ritual to begin the daily act of writing, translating the text: La nuit, Maude Laures rêvait de son livre et le jour, avant même de s’adonner aux principes de l’audace et de la prudence elle pensait à Laure Angstelle. Cela la rassurait de savoir qu’elle était libre de tout (imaginer) à son sujet. (61) Brossard’sdesireinwritingLedésertmauveincludedtheintention“totranslate myself from French to French” (Interview); in the text, the process of translation is taking place within one language, between language and body, and in the writing of a woman’s tongue. In “Reading Nicole Brossard,” Susan Knutson describes the writer’s use of the figure of translation not so much as an exploration of the physical frontiers of languages or cultures—although these are still present as fictions, as metaphors, as incitations—but rather as the drive to reach the internal horizons of meaning and the consciousness or construction of reality. (12) Sherry Simon points out that “the installation of the figure of the translator within the text suggests images of cultural space which are complex and multiple”9 without elaborating on the configuration of that space. Pamela Banting is more specific about the implications of translation as a way of “rewriting within literary systems”: Women’s language is a simultaneous translation between language andbody...Furthermore, the (m)other tongue is not a language that can be translated out of or into...itisalanguage which emerges only in a complex and multivalent act and can only be comprehended in two or more languages at once.10 And in more than one genre, according to Brossard, who feels that “women’s subjectivity needs all the genres at the same time. The way we re-route words to our own experience opens up entire zones of unknown and unspoken dimensions of reality” (SD 64). It is with this intention that Maude Laures sets her reading beside Laure Angstelle’s writing: Le temps était venu du corps à corps avec le livre...D’une langue à l’autre, il y aurait du sens,...contour et rencontre du moi...Maude

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Laures savait que le temps était maintenant venu de se glisser anonyme et entière entre les pages. (177) As Maude Laures plunges, engrossed, into the book of Laure Angstelle, she feels “the sensational effects of reading as a feeling we cannot express unless we underline” (AL 157). In a desire to do more than just read the words, she marks the pages, tattooing them with her own inks, breaking the book’s bindingsandturningitintoacollectionofpagesheldtogetherbyelasticbands: Toutes les pages étaient annotées, ici le bleu polysémie, le vert piste sonore, le rouge à vérifier, le noir incompréhensible, le jaune familier, le rose quel genre?, le mauve quel temps? Dans les marges, des attentions qui pouvaient passer pour des remarques à la mine. Parfois un dessin pour faciliter la représentation. au bas de la page éliminer tous les comme si possible (169) The techniques of the translator uncover and employ signifiers, such as “ellipses, footnotes [and] orthographical conventions,” which occupy a textual space of loss or oversight. Apparently escaping the laws of representation, they are overlooked by interpretative procedures. Often thought to be matters of style rather than substance, perfunctory rather than perfomative, these signifiers occupy a textual space that overlaps a cultural space, a margin of difference or a vanishing point of meaning, that is psychosexually coded “feminine.”11 Maude Laures’ attention to the margins is meticulous, and draws her reader’s eye to what is overlooked or ignored in the act of reading. The chapters of Laure Angstelle’s novel are marked by the predictable headings “chapitre un,” “chapitre deux” through to “chapitre huit.” This is a structural convention we take for granted in reading a novel, and a reader will barely glance at the divisional marker before reading. But Maude Laures adjusts the orthography, translating “chapitre” to “chaptitre,” drawing our eye to an unlikely site of surprise. Maude Laures also translates the representations of numbers in the chapter headings and within the text from words to figures. The translator’s use of mathematical figures on the pages of the translator’s text tangles her identity with Angela Parkins, the geometrist. The languages of the translator and the geometrist are both “capable de représentation et ayant le sens du territoire, un grand territoire qui recouvrait plusieurs états” (99). From another perspective, these figures are part of “l’homme long,” and their appearance upon the pages of the translation, especially in the final chapter, heighten the subliminal menace of that character, just as the translation of that character from “l’homme long”to“l’hom’oblong”increasesthethreatofhismoresubstantialpresence. The figures also draw Mélanie differently; her “quinze ans” becomes “15 ans,” linking her in a “figurative” association with Angela Parkins and “l’homme long,” and also with the road and the map of her restlessness. In Laure Angstelle’s novel, Mélanie drives to Albuquerque to meet her cousin, “the only girl or woman that she thought she could be in touch with easily” (Interview), driven by the attraction for another woman which she had felt in the presence of

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Angela Parkins. She passes the junction of “10” and “25,” the signs of the two roads presented graphically in Angstelle’s text. This junction is “real,” and could be found on a map of the southwestern States or encountered while driving from Tucson to Albuquerque. However Maude Laures changes the coordinates of this junction, replacing “25” with “15,” unsettling “certitude” and “reality” by translating the road into a time warp, where Mélanie’s “15” years is the site of the story. Maude Laures’ footnote reminds her to attempt to “éliminer tous les comme si possible” in her translation, but here, she introduces one instead. Whereas Laure Angstelle’s text reads, “La route était un décalage horaire perdu dans l’air tremblant de l’horizon” (32), Maude Laures writes “La route était comme un décalage horaire imperceptible dans l’air tremblant” (201), creating the simile and removing the horizon, suggesting that this is a moment where the subjectivity of the reader/translator did not meet that of the author, resulting in a distancing. It is not the only place where Maude Laures “leaves out” the horizon in Laure Angstelle’s text. In her consideration of all the dimensions of the novel, such as the desert, dawn, fear and reality, she does not include the horizon, although she situates it beyond the text, in the title of her translation, Mauve l’horizon. But the similes Maude Laures does eliminate are those which make associations with women’s bodies. Mélanie writes of the surprise of finding her mother and Lorna making love: “Un soir, je surpris dans l’obscurité de leur chambre ma mère, épaules et nuque tendues comme une existence vers la nudité de Lorna” (18) [italics added]. The translation of this passage reads, “Lorsque je la voyais si près de Lorna et qu’entre elles il y avait juste assez de distance pour que j’imagine en leur corps une excitation, les images défilaient en moi, nuque, nudité, épaules heureuses” (188). Her decision favours the erotic association of the bodies over the cerebral association of “existence” and the nude body of a woman. As Pamela Banting explains in her discussion of Daphne Marlatt’s use of the simile: In the simile, it is forms which are analysed and compared. The traditional use of the simile reinforces metaphysics. In this formal analysis there is no room for erotic attachments....Erotic attraction is not always or even necessarily based on similarity: erotics is based upon the play of sameness and difference. Rather than producing analogy, this other kind of simile is based upon...theprocess of attraction between two bodies.12 That attraction also takes place between writing and speaking. In the text are conversations rendered as sound, where the meaning of the spoken word does not matter. “Sound teases out the sense: the ear leads the mind in new directions.”13 There is the memory of Mélanie’s first meeting with Lorna, her mother’s lover: La première fois que j’ai vu Lorna, je l’ai trouvée belle et j’ai prononcé le mot « salope ». J’avais cinq ans. Au souper, ma mère lui souriait. Elles se regardaient et quand elles parlaient leurs voix étaient pleines d’intonations. J’observais obstinément leurs bouches. Lorsqu’elles prononçaient des mots qui commençaient par m, leurs lèvres

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disparaissaient un instant puis gonflées se réanimaient avec une incroyable rapidité. Lorna dit qu’elle aimait le moly et la mousse de saumon. (12) The topic of food, the repetition of the sound “m” and the minute focus on the way the lips form that sound attract the reader to the mouths of Lorna and Mélanie’s mother. This “eroticization of the oral cavity” (TTF 35), the attraction between the sounds, focusses the reader on lips and mouths, their sounds and textures, and interrupts the text and the reader’s concentration, setting both adrift. “Oralization reorders textual spatiality, subverting the distance and separation between object and subject, word and thing, on which the symbolic is premised” (TTF 35), leaning into the text until it seems to lose its balance. At her first meeting with Angela Parkins, listening to her conversation in the Bar, Mélanie hears words she does not understand about things she does not know, but the voice and the beauty of Angela Parkins resonate within her, her body and the sounds of words linked in an erotic association: Un soir, je pus enfin voir cette Angela Parkins dont ma mère parlait souvent...Cesoir-là, je m’installai au bar, espérant surprendre une conversation qui puisse dénouer le mystère que ma mère avait créé autour d’Angela Parkins. Mais on parla en détail de structure et de perspective avec des mots dont la plupart m’étaient inconnus. Puis Angela Parkins se tourna vers ma mère et lui fit un brin de jasette en employant cette fois-ci des mots simple qui résonnèrent en moi, savoureux et colorés comme une chose intime. (28) This conversation, this meeting, is curtailed abruptly in Laure Angstelle’s novel, with a laconic/lacunal suggestiveness: “Angela Parkins quitta le Bar avant onze heures et je me retirai à peu près à la même heure” (28). The translator pries open a gap and extends the text, changing the rhythm of the story and offering Mélanie and Angela an opening: “Angela Parkins se retira avant 11 heures. Je la suivis jusqu’au stationnement. J’avais 15 ans et je voulais que tout mon corps soit nécessaire” (198). Fifteen-year-old Mélanie, in her mother’s Meteor, “les yeux fous d’arrogance” (12), drives through the night to the dawn, her face “comme une image qui suit son cours entre la voix narratrice et le personnage” (117). She drives to the desert “car très jeune je voulais savoir pourquoi dans les livres on oublie de mentionner le désert” (13), or, as Maude Laures translates, “car très jeune je voulais tout connaître de la beauté, de la lumière, éloigner la peur et la mort” (183). In either reading, Mélanie senses the presence of absence. “Nous sommes le désert et l’évidence au coucher des ombres” (49), says the narrator, and the translator echoes her words, but even more strongly, “[n]ous sommes le désert et l’évidence” (219), both asserting their visibility, their presence by writing, by translating to “make sense slip and move in ways hitherto unheard of in language’s imaginary” (AL 141). Willingly seduced by the text, Maude Laures enters Laure Angstelle’s novel, “se glisser anonyme et entière entre les pages,” and in her borrowed vehicle, her intention is to engage in a dialogue “[u]n dialogue pour que soit rectifiée sa

115 IJCS / RIÉC méfiance à l’égard de tout personnage, sa fascination de l’aube et surtout pour nettoyer la peur de sa composition affective” (59): Oui, un dialogue. Obliger Mélanie à la conversation...Oui, un dialogue somptueux...Undialogue qui lui permettrait, Mélanie emportée par les mots, de voyager à ses côtés dans la Meteor, d’ouvrir la boîte à gants, de toucher le revolver, de feuilleter le carnet d’entretien. (60) Maude Laures creates her own space for conversation, imagining dialogues between the characters, such as that between Angela Parkins and Mélanie in the parking lot. But she does not imagine such a conversation with “l’homme long,” keeping only blurred and overexposed photographs of him—he remains faceless—in a file. “I have no words for him and that’s why I had to go through the image” (Interview). “L’homme long” recites poetry in the original Sanskrit, and thumbs through porno, as fascinating and threatening as television. Until the final chapter of Laure Angstelle’s story, he is isolated, in short chapters which continue to shrink, and in his hotel room. Nevertheless, “l’homme long” is given precedence in each chapter by appearing first, and his motel room, when he parts the curtain, has a view of the pool—unlike the room the translator enters and occupies. Her window “donne sur un espace en terre battue où une adolescente,appuyéesurunbarilrouillé,fumeunpetitcigare”(70).“L’homme long” is responsible for murdering Angela Parkins. Or is he? The translator wants to know why the author allows the reality of “l’homme long” to manipulate her own fiction away from her. Given the possibility of closeness between Mélanie and Angela Parkins, why does the author select closure, using lesbianpanic14 asthemotivationofthemaleassassin’shatredandmadness? In the conversation between writer and translator, made possible imagining “la scène en écartant le rideau entre l’auteure et la traductrice” (140), the two women meet in the translator’s imagination, “à comprendre comment la mort transite entre la fiction et la réalité. La langue parlée est celle de l’auteure” (140). It is not a conversation that the translator has eagerly anticipated; she had delayed it with annotations and possible word choices: Dans la marge, il n’y avait plus d’espace et Maude Laures se mit à cocher d’autres mots qui pourraient dans sa langue relancer le sens et lui éviter d’affronter la fin brutale d’Angela Parkins. (175) The translator begins her conversation tentatively, with deference for chronological precedence: “J’ai craint un instant que vous ne veniez pas au rendez-vous....Jen’ai aucun droit. Vous m’êtes antérieure” (140). She is there solely to discuss the death of Angela Parkins. Maude Laures does not want to talk about Angela Parkins from her perspective as a reader—she is too involved. She wishes instead to “abolish the distance” between fiction and reality by imagining she is talking as one of Laure Angstelle’s own characters, for “in the translator’s imagination, the author is the same level, in the same deep dimension of the characters” (Interview), marking her movement with italics, and a more intimate term of address: —...J’aimerais vous parler exactement comme j’imagine qu’Angela Parkins le ferait si elle pouvait sortir de son personnage, si elle en était la présence ultime.

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—Je vous écoute. —Pourquoi m’as-tu mise à mort? (141) With this question, the author is confronted with her responsibility: why did she let “l’homme long” kill Angela Parkins, and deny the possibility of an unfolding relationship between her two very passionate subjects? In this question one might detect “a particular tone of superiority which characterizes the backshadowing observer, who passes judgment on those who failed to take responsible action.”15 But this same tone is also evident in the reply of the authorwho,awareoftheshiftingbordersbetweenrealityandfiction,answers: — . . . jure-moi que tu n’as rien vu venir. Jure-le-moi. —Vu venir quoi? L’amour, la mort? Vu venir qui? Mélanie ou l’assassin? (141) The confusion is evident: choices are unclear and difficult to make for writers, translators and characters because there are so many versions of reality: “La réalité avait un sens, mais lequel” (28)? The contours of the dialogue shift to include not just the personal universe of the writer with characters, readers and writerimaginedtogether,buttherealityinwhichallwomenlive,envelopedina patriarchal society full of violence: “L’intolérance. La folie. La violence” (141), a shared awareness that “man will kill because he cannot support lesbian love...cannot accept the fact that women can be subject” (Interview). Angela Parkins’ death then, within the text, remains a fictional death resulting from “a situation of symbolic violence [against] women who seem to be existing on their own, not in a relationship with a man” (Interview). With a lacerating directness, the author admonishes her character, challenges her reader: Tu es morte parce que tu as oublié de regarder autour de toi. Tu t’es trop vite affranchie et, parce que tu t’es crue libre, tu n’as plus voulu regarder autour de toi. Tu as oublié la réalité.” (141-2) There are at least two stories unfolding at once, simultaneously. There is the story of women like Lorna and Mélanie’s mother, whose love has clearly entered the dimension of daily life: “Nous n’avons d’autre repère que nous” (135), who are the subjects of their own story. But there is another story, which like an unmarked envelope slipped unobtrusively under a motel room door, intrudes and alters what reader and writer want to come next. But both versions of reality exist. In the reader’s imagination, Angela Parkins may well ask why the author could not constrain the story: —Tu aurais pu m’aider, me faire signe. —Il est vrai que je t’ai crue à l’écart du danger et des aboiements. Je t’ai imaginée passionnée et capable en cela d’éloigner le mauvais sort. Je t’ai crue plus forte que la réalité. —Mais imaginant la scène, tu aurais pu en changer le cours. Tu aurais pu faire ricocher la balle ou me blesser légèrement. (142) To believe that foreknowledge will protect one like a talisman, or that the alteration of a plot can protect a character also assumes that any decision is conclusive and without contingency. The author is sympathetic to her

117 IJCS / RIÉC character, had imagined her strong and passionate, yet concedes the insidious power of the patriarchy. “La peur est une réalité qui encombre la fiction car sans elle nous jonglerions avec nos vies bien au-delà de la leçon” (162). From her perspective, Angela Parkins’ death appeared inevitable. Even if “l’homme long” had missed: — ...sicethomme t’avait seulement blessée, tu te serais retournée contre lui avec une telle fureur que c’est toi qui l’aurais mis à mort. De toute manière, ta vie aurait été gâchée. Légitime défense ou non. Cet homme, ne l’oublie pas, avait bonne réputation. (142) The translator’s imagined Angela Parkins insists that the context could have been undermined: “imaginant la scène, tu aurais pu en changer le cours,” but the reader and the writer have different things at stake. Maude Laures seeks alteration. She knows that “[a]ucun livre ne peut s’écrire sans enjeu. Enjeu de vie, enjeu de mort, je ne sais encore. Mais aucun livre ne s’écrit sans enjeu, brutal et immédiat,” but “[c]omment pourrais-je déserter Mélanie?” (154). This moment of confrontation or imagined dialogue draws the reader into the text, into a narrative moment both independent and communal, which offers “alternatives: with each present another possible present”: [W]e do not see contradictory actualities, but one possibility actualized, and at the same moment, another that could have been but was not. (NAF 118) There are then at least two versions of Angela Parkins’ death, depending on the oscillation of “un fil de fer invisible qui tranche entre la réalité et la fiction” (142). In one, the killer of Angela Parkins is fictional, as in the dialogue, Angela Parkins maintains “cet homme n’existe pas. Tu n’étais pas obligée de faire exister cet homme” (142). In another, the author’s insistence that “cet homme existe” and that he has a life she neither created nor controls: — Je ne suis pas responsable de la réalité...nous avons fait longue route mais la réalité nous rattrape tôt ou tard. (142) However, Maude Laures is no longer interested in the writer’s explanations, or in talking “exactly the way...Angela Parkins would” and emerges from the italics. She prefers her own version of the story and defiantly declares to the author whose work she has chosen to translate: “Je peux reprocher ce qui existe dans votre livre...Devous lire me donne tous les droits” (142), privileging her own reading of the book over the author’s, and contradicting her initial position of having “no right” because of the author and the text’s precedence. It is not surprising that the author would be sceptical, even fearful of the appetite of this reader who wishes to “take over” her book and translate it: “Comment croire un instant que les paysages qui sont en vous n’effaceront pas les miens?” (143). If the dialogue has emphasized the distance and difference between the author’s writing and the translator’s reading, Maude Laures’ answer shows her attraction, attachment even, to the text, “Parce que les paysages vrais assouplissent en nous la langue, débordent le cadre de nos pensées. Se déposent en nous” (143). And so Maude Laures writes, and in writing, slows time. In the final chapter, when she had danced in the arms of Angela Parkins, Mélanie had run out of

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time. “Le temps me manque pour comprendre. Il n’y a plus de temps” (50). Maude Laures translates “Encore un temps” (202), and lets the dance continue for at least another breath. Just as in writing “we are necessarily slowed down by the act of forming letters or striking the keys on a keyboard” (AL 150), time is translated into space, and in that space Maude Laures leans into the text to slant “la réalité du côté de la lumière” (14/155). Revising, repeating and reshaping the story, she bends the lines of her borrowed text into her own life, diving into the story as if into a pool and surfacing with her own version: “j’appuyais sur le pan fragile de mes pensées pour qu’elles soient penchant de l’instant, pour que ça compte vraiment la réalité” (184). Sometimes she makes mistakes. In her translation, Maude Laures confuses her own imagined version of the text with the one written by Laure Angstelle and translatesaccordingly.Infact,shetranslatesthewaywealldomostofthetime: we keep translating what other people are telling us, even in our own language,...even for the most simple things we are translating all the time, and this is why we don’t agree very easily...because we are making mistakes in our translation, because we translate with only what our eyes have seen...orourknowledge...oursense, our emotion. (Interview) As readers participating in conversations with writers, translating their texts to create our own versions, captivated by the process of living, we have to keep asking ourselves, “Reality has a meaning, but which one?”16 and learn to listen for the possibility of an unexpected, even impossible, answer.

Notes 1. The interview, which focussed on Brossard’s interest in translation and our interest in Le désert mauve, took place on April 23, 1996, in Montreal, and was conducted in English. Hereafter referred to as “Interview.” 2. One of Brossard’s descriptions of reality in the English edition of The Aerial Letter, trans. Marlene Wildeman (Toronto: The Women’s Press, 1988), 149. This text hereafter referred to as AL. 3. From Janice Williamson’s interview with Nicole Brossard in Sounding Differences: Conversations with Seventeen Canadian Women Writers (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 69. Hereafter referred to as SD. 4. Compare Brossard’s remarks on the limitations of the journal: “Le journal ne me suffit pas. Ne me convient pas. C’est une forme d’écriture qui exige trop de moi et pas assez de ce que je suis.” From Journal Intime (Montréal: Les Herbes Rouges, 1984), 74. Hereafter referred to as JI. 5. In Mapping Literature: The Art and Politics of Translation, eds. David Homel and Sherry Simon (Montreal: Véhicule Press, 1988), 49. 6. “. . . reading us into the page ahead” appears on the page following the last paginated page (152) of Daphne Marlatt’s Ana Historic (Toronto: Coach House Press, 1988). 7. Alice Parker uses this term in her article, “The Mauve Horizon of Nicole Brossard” in Québec Studies 10 (1990), 107-119. 8. From Barbara Godard’s “Becoming My Hero, Becoming Myself: Notes Towards a Feminist Theory of Reading” in Language in Her Eye: Views on Writing and Gender by Canadian Women Writing in English, eds. Libby Scheier et al (Toronto: Coach House Press, 1990), 115. 9. From Sherry Simon’s “The Language of Cultural Difference” in Rethinking Translation: Discourse Subjectivity Ideology, ed. Lawrence Venuti (London:Routledge, 1992), 173.

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10. Pamela Banting, “S(m)other Tongue?: Feminism, Academic Discourse, Translation” in Tessera (Spring 1989), 85. 11. See Introduction, “Writing and Subjectivity” in Shari Benstock, Textualizing the Feminine: on the Limits of Genre (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), xvii. Hereafter referred to as TTF. 12. From “The Reorganization of the Body: Daphne Marlatt’s “musing with the mothertongue” in ReImaging Women: Representations of Women in Culture, eds. Shirley Neuman and Glennis Stephenson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 220. 13. From Barbara Godard’s commentary on her translation of a poem by Lola Lemire Tostevin in “Vers-ions con-verse: A Sequence of Translation” in Tessera (Spring 1989), 20. 14. Patricia Juliana Smith defines “lesbian panic” in terms of narrative as “the disruptive action or reaction that occurs when a character—or conceivably, an author—is unable or unwilling to confront or reveal her own lesbian desire.” Laure Angstelle’s Le désert mauve is overtly lesbian, yet her narrative seems to favour the mad male over the lesbian in love. L’homme long’s “lesbian panic” is of course not the panic of a woman resisting her own lesbian desire—though he may be resisting his own homosexuality— but his rage at the possibility of lesbian love. 15. In Gary Morson, Narrative and Freedom: The Shadows of Time. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 118. “Backshadowing” is a term used by Gary Morson to describe “foreshadowing after the fact. The past is viewed as having contained signs pointing to what happened later, to events known to the backshadowing observer” (234). 16. Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood’s version of Mélanie’s question, “La réalité avait un sens mais lequel?” in her translation of Brossard’s novel, Mauve Desert (Toronto: Coach House Press, 1990), 25.

Works Cited Banting, Pamela. “The Reorganization of the Body: Daphne Marlatt’s ‘musing with the mothertongue’” in ReImaging Women: Representations of Women in Culture. Eds. Shirley Neuman and Glennis Stephenson. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993. 217-232. ———. “S(m)other Tongue?: Feminism, Academic Discourse, Translation” in Tessera, Spring, 1989: 81-91. Benstock, Shari. Textualizing the Feminine: On the Limits of Genre. Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991. Brossard, Nicole. The Aerial Letter. trans. Marlene Wildeman. Toronto: The Women’s Press, 1988. ———. Le désert mauve. Montréal: l’Hexagone, 1987. ———. Journal Intime. Montréal: Les Herbes Rouges, 1984. ———. Mauve Desert. trans. Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1990. Forsyth, Louise H. “Préface” to Nicole Brossard, Picture Theory. Montréal: l’Hexagone, 1989. 7- 26. Godard, Barbara. “Becoming My Hero, Becoming Myself: Notes Towards a Feminist Theory of Reading” in Language in her Eye: Views on Writing and Gender by Canadian Women Writing in English. Eds. Libby Scheier et al. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1990. 112-122. ———, Susan Knutson, Kathy Mezei, Daphne Marlatt, and Gail Scott. “Vers-ions con-verse: A Sequence of Translation” in Tessera, Spring, 1989: 16-23. Homel, David, and Sherry Simon, eds. Mapping Literature: The Art and Politics of Translation. Montreal: Véhicule Press, 1988. Knutson, Susan. “Reading Nicole Brossard” in Ellipse 53,1995:8-29. Marlatt, Daphne. Ana Historic. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1988. Morson, Gary. Narrative and Freedom: The Shadows of Time. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994. Parker, Alice. “The Mauve Horizon of Nicole Brossard,” in Québec Studies 10, 1990: 107-119. Simon, Sherry. “The Language of Cultural Difference” in Rethinking Translation: Discourse Subjectivity Ideology. Ed. Lawrence Venuti. London: Routledge, 1992. 159-176. Smith, Patricia Juliana. “And I Wondered If She Might Kiss Me: Lesbian Panic As Narrative Strategy in British Women’s Fictions” in Modern Fiction Studies 41, Fall/Winter, 1995: 567-607. Williamson, Janice. Sounding Differences: Conversations with Seventeen Canadian Women Writers. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993.

120 S. Ramaswamy

Time, Space and Place in Two Canadian Poems: An Indian View

Abstract The purpose of the present article is to explicate two Canadian poems—Bliss Carman’s Lord of my Heart’s Elation and Margaret Atwood’s You Want To Go Back—from the perspective of the Indian philosophical concepts of Time and Space. However it does not imply any “influence” of Indian thought on these poets but the intention is to show how the poems make a great deal of sense to an Indian sensibility. While the poem of Carman explores the idea primarily of inner space (hridayakasha), the poem of Margaret Atwood explores Time as well as Space in an intensely metaphysical context from an “Indian” point of view.

Résumé L’article tente d’expliquer deux poèmes canadiens (« Lord of my Heart’s Elation » de Bliss Carman et « You Want To Go Back » de Margaret Atwood) selon une perspective fondée sur les concepts philosophiques indiens du temps et de l’espace. Cependant, ce résumé ne sous-entend pas une quelconque « influence » de la pensée indienne sur ces poètes mais vise plutôt à démontrer comment les poèmes en question prennent toute leur signification dans le contexte de la sensibilité indienne. Le poème de Carman a comme thème principal l’espace intérieur (hridayakasha), tandis que le poème de Margaret Atwood étudie le temps de même que l’espace dans un contexte intensément métaphysique et selon une perspective purement « indienne ».

Kalosmi Lokakshaya krithpravruddaha1 I am come as Time. Disashcha Akasashcha aupadhika bheda Space that is ordinarily spoken as Desa and Akasha are only due to upadhi.2 Mayakalpitha desa kala kalana vaichitriya chitrikrutam Space and Time are but the concoctions of Maya.3

International Journal of Canadian Studies / Revue internationale d’études canadiennes 15, Spring/Printemps 1997 IJCS / RIÉC

But now That the forests are cut down, the rivers charted, Where can you turn, where can you travel? Unless Through the desperate wilderness behind your eyes So full of falls and glooms and desolations, Disasters I have glimpsed but few would dream of You seek new Easts!4 Douglas Le Pan Coureurs de bois

I Yes, the Canadian poets have come far from going “round the mulberry bush”5 and “painting the native maple.”6 They have sought the “new Easts”—and the air is no longer “heavy with Canadian topics”7 alone. They have survived all this and have transcended into “Eastern” perceptions of space and time. As Margaret Atwood has said: History is over, we take place in a season, an individual space . . .8 Space and time—more precisely, spacio-temporal transcendence—have alwaysoccupiedacentralconsciousnessinpoets.BlissCarmansuddenlyasks: Was it a year or lives ago We took the grass in our hands, And caught the summer flying low Over the waving meadow lands, And held it there between our hands?9 Carman belonged to that group of remarkable poets which included the Ontario poets Archibald Lampman, Wilfred Campbell and Duncan Campbell Scott. As A.J.M. Smith has pointed out: “These men were all classically educated”.10 In fact, the liberal classical education extended to include an Eastern classical language like Sanskrit. Talking about Crémazie, “the father of French- Canadian poetry,”11 Smith says: “He was a man of wide culture...Hewaswell read in English and French, and like some later poets he studied Sanskrit.”12 Margaret Atwood is not only a central figure in Canadian literature but “a popular Canadian icon”.13 Some of her poems reveal a remarkable grasp of Indian philosophical perceptions of space-time and empirical reality. This is certainly not to indicate or imply any Indian or Sanskrit “influences” in the poems of Carman and Atwood, but merely to make a cursory comment on how two poems strike an Indian reader. However, a theoretical foundation is necessary to discuss the concepts of time and space briefly from a comparative perspective to establish the difference between “Western” and “Indian” metaphysical thinking. Time and change in Henri Bergson, serial time in Dunne, time in Existentialism according to Heidegger, “unreality of time in McTaggart and Bradley, time and Zeno’s paradoxes are well-known as documents dealing with the concept of time in Western thinking. Time and the theory of relativity in the Western

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context is not quite acceptable in the Indian metaphysical context. As D.S. Subbaramaiya,aprofoundscholarinbothphysicsandmetaphysicsobserves: Time is conceived of as extending from infinite past to infinite future. There is also the feeling of the lapse of time given expression to as “the flow of time,” etc. This concept of time, too, is fairly complex. Here also, the use of numbers on the part of the scientist is of no avail as far as the question of what constitutes time is concerned. Again, it is not decided as to whether time is the totality of instants or a continuum. The concept of the flow of time is not rendered clearer. The involvement of the notion of change in the passage of time does not make it any the clearer, the two concepts being reciprocally dependent. The idea that the notion of events involving the question of “where” and “when” together is to be regarded as fundamental in the spirit of the Theory of Relativity which speaks of the space-time manifold, instead of treating space and time as distinct manifolds, adds little towards the clarification of the situation. The notions of “time-dilatation,” “relativity of simultaneity,” the measured “time- interval” being dependent on the motion of the observer, etc., raise the question as to whether there is anything like an absolute or universal time at all. The Quantum theory, with its Uncertainty Principle pertaining to energy and time makes it impossible to talk of the precise value of the energy of a system at a definite instant. The principle of continuous increase of entropy brought in to account for “irreversibility” in nature raises the question as to whether time as such, without relation to bodies and their motions, has any meaning at all.14 Archie J. Bahm in his book, Metaphysics, discussing the concepts of time and space says: The problem of time is difficult to deal with, partly because it is really several problems. Some that will be considered here include; events and duration; how long is the present? simultaneity; levels of time; does the past exist? can there be eternity without time? instantaneity.15 . . . Space exists. Existence is spatial. What is space? Answers range all the way from “nothing” (“nonbeing,” Parmenides) to “everything”, or at least “everything physical” (Descartes, “matter” = “extension”).16 The Indian view of time and space is presented here for comparison to, or rather contrast with, the Western view. In Indian thinking, time is denoted by various experiences like Idanim “now,” Tadanim “then,” Kshipra “soon,” Cira “later,” Vilanba “delay,” Yugapat “simultaneous,” Purva, Agre, Pura “earlier, anterior,” Pashchat “later, posterior,” Yuva “young,” Vriddha “old,” Kshana “instant,” Bhuta, Vartamana, Bhavishyat “past, present, future,” Chalana “motion,” Parinama “process of transformation,” etc. The concept of space takes into account various experiences such as Iha “here,” Amutra “there,” Samipe “near,” Doore “farther,” Vyavadhana “separation,” Parimana “size”, Dik “direction,” such as East, West, North, South, Desa “space,” Pradesa “place,” etc.

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The Indian concepts of space, time and place are so different from the Western way of thinking that it may be appropriate to quote T.S. Eliot on this matter, even at the risk of sounding chauvinistic: Two years spent in the study of Sanskrit under Charles Lenman and a year in the mazes of Patanjali’s metaphysics under the guidance of James Woods, left me in a state of enlightened mystification. A good half of the effort of understanding what the Indian philosophers were after—and their subtleties make most of the great European philosophers look like schoolboys—lay in trying to erase from my mind all the categories and kinds of distinction common to European philosophyfromthetimeoftheGreeks.Mypreviousandconcomitant study of European philosophy was hardly better than obstacle. And I came to the conclusion—seeing also that the “influence” of Brahmin and Buddhist thought upon Europe, as in Schopenhauer, Hartmann and Deussen had largely been through romantic misunderstanding that my only hope of really penetrating to the heart of that mystery would lie in forgetting how to think and feel as an American or European, which for practical as well as sentimental reasons, I did not wish to do.17 However, we should bear in mind that unlike the Canadian poets, Bliss Carman and Margaret Atwood, Eliot came under the direct influence of Hindu thought and Sanskrit. Consequently, his notions of space, time and place show a clear knowledge of Indian philosophical thought. Significantly, Eliot’s own doctoral dissertation was on F.H. Bradley. Bradley is the one Western philosopher who closely approaches Shankaracharya in his thinking. Again, Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American transcendentalist, reveals a knowledge of the Upanishads,BhagavadgitaandVishnupuranainpoemslikeBrahma.ArchieJ. Bahm, talking about the comparative perspective of Western and Indian philosophical thought says: Plato, who influenced the Christian doctrine of time, postulated an eternal realm of pure and perfect ideas or forms that served as patterns used by the creator (demiurgos) in making men and things in the world. “Time is the moving image of eternity.” Particular things behave temporally and imperfectly because the eternal forms are only imperfectly embodied in them. The Neo-Platonist philosopher Plotinus conceived ultimate reality as The One, utterly unrelated to the temporal universe that emanates from it. Levels of being emanating from The One degenerate from a highest level of being without parts, spatial or temporal, through the physical world’s levels of increasing plurality of both spatial and temporal parts, toward a beingless void. Events, the shorter the less real, nevertheless do not lack reality, as with Shankara, but exist as less real than the nontemporal and as dependently real.18 While there are many schools of Indian philosophical thought, our focus here primarily centres on Advaita thought as propounded by Adi Shankara. However, Archie J. Bahm make some noteworthy comments regarding the Sankhya-Yoga system of Indian philosophy: Sankhya-Yoga philosophers divide ultimate reality into two completely different kinds of beings: First, purusha, pure timeless

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spirits; and, second, prakriti, evolving nature, which like Plotinus creation devolves from quiescent duration through several stages of increasing activity and differentiation, both spatial and temporal. The minutest flick of action embodies prakriti in its most degenerate form. Accidental encounters between spaceless and timeless spirits and prakriti both lure it from quiescence into activity and create in the spirits a reflected illusion of existing actively and temporally. Yogic liberation of spirits from nature restores them to their nontemporal purity and returns nature to its quiescent state. Such quiescence is perfect, hence without events, except that the tendency toward action is perpetually present and is kept in check only by maintaining equalized tensions between the gunas, or forces existing as tendencies to act. The temporary coincidence of timeless spirits and evolving prakriti (which enjoys an illusion of being conscious in the presence of spirits) in no way influences the nature of either. Neither depends on the other for its nature, although prakriti cannot activate its temporal processes, and thus events, except in the presence of spirits.19 The notion of place, which generally includes the idea of the atmosphere associated with an area or city, in Indian thought goes further to imply a state of mind. Take the two examples of Montreal, Canada and Banaras (Kasi), India. Hugh MacLennan in his novel The Watch That Ends the Night, wrote so perceptively about Montreal that the city became one of the main characters in the novel, along with other human characters: It is a curious city, Montreal, and in this story I keep returning to the fact that it is. Strangers never understand its inner nature, and immigrant families, even from other parts of Canada, can live here two generations without coming to know it in their bones. I am absolutely certain that Montreal is the subtlest and most intricate city in North America. With her history she could not have been otherwise andsurvived,forheretheFrench,theScotchandtheEnglish,overtwo centuries have been divided on issues which ruin nations and civilizations,yethavecontrivedtoliveinoutwardharmony.Thisisno accident they understand certain rules in their bones.20 In the Indian context, a city like Banaras (Kasi) becomes a symbol of spiritual life. Kasi is perceived not just as a city but as a space in the heart of man—every man. That is why it is quite common to talk about antara-kasi, “the inner Banaras.” In fact, there is a Sanskrit saying: “Kashi Kshetram Shariram tribuvana janani vyapini Jnana Ganga” (My body, the holy site, is Banaras- Spreading within me as knowledge, the Ganges, Mother of the three worlds). This concept of place emerges very clearly in the famous novel of Raja Rao, The Serpent and the Rope. Even Eliot says “the river is within us.” Raja Rao says: “Banaras is everywhere where you are, says an old Vedantic text and all waters of the Ganges.”21 Again he points out “Ganges is every so knowing, so wise. If wisdom become water the Ganges would be that water, flowing down to the seven seas.”22 In his writing, Paris and Banaras become one as the rivers Ganga and Rhone attain a spiritual sangam—“Paris is a sort of Banaras turned outward and where but in Banaras would Baudelaire be more real, more understandable, more

125 IJCS / RIÉC perfect, and in every dimension.” That explains why in Vedantic thought the world as a “place” is unreal like a city seen in a mirror. The world is within, and only Mayasakthi, the power of illusion, projects it outside. The great Shankara in his famous hymn “Dakshinamurti Stotram” points out: Vishvam darpanadrishyamananagari tulyam nijantargatam Pashyannatmani mayaya bahirivodbhutam yatha-nidraya24 These Sanskrit lines sound just as beautiful and meaningful in French: Telle une ville dans un miroir l’univers est contenu en Lui mais comme produit par mirage comme en songe et cependant existent en vérité dans le Soi.25 An understanding of “place” in these terms is what makes T.S. Eliot say: We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.26 Again we find: In succession Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended, Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.27 It is in this context of impermanence that Indian thought of the world as “illusion” is to be understood. The world has only a physical, phenomenal, empirical reality but lacks the quality of “Ultimate Reality.” The former in SanskritisknownasVyavaharikaSattaasopposedtoParamarthikaSatta. This introduction, giving a comparative, theoretical background for a discussion, to the concepts of space, time and place should suffice. Now we shall turn to the two Canadian poems chosen for comment.

II First, Bliss Carman’s poem: Lord Of My Heart’s Elation Lord of my heart’s elation, Spirit of things unseen, Be thou my aspiration Consuming and serene! Bear up, bear out, bear onward This mortal soul alone, To selfhood or oblivion, Incredibly thine own, As the foamheads are loosened And blown along the sea, Or sink and merge forever In that which bids them be.

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I, too, must climb in wonder, Uplift at thy command, Be one with my frail fellows Beneath the wind’s strong hand, A fleet and shadowy column Of dust or mountain rain, To walk the earth a moment And be dissolved again. Be thou my exaltation Or fortitude of mien, Lord of the world’s elation, Thou breath of things unseen!28 The “Lord” of the heart’s “elation” is a “Spirit” and it is a spirit of “things unseen,” and the poet wants this “Spirit” to be his “aspiration.” However, this elation bestowing “Spirit” is both “consuming” and “serene.” For an Indian reader familiar with Hindu philosophical-Vedantic-tradition, the first stanza’s “invocation” immediately strikes a familiar chord. The “spirit of things unseen” reminds one of the concept of “Nirguna Brahman.” It is not only without attributes—“nirguna”—but it is trans-sexual, i.e., neither masculine, feminine or neutral. This IT is THAT—indicated by the word “TAT” in Sanskrit. Being a “spirit of things unseen,” it, too, is unseen and unseeable because this “Spirit” is the transcendental “Ultimate Reality” which cannot be comprehended by the senses. It is worthy of “aspiration” because it transcends both space and time. The transcendental “Ultimate Reality” is known as “Brahman” in Vedanta, the same Emerson evokes in his poem Brahma.Inthe present context the second stanza of the poem is relevant: Far or forgot to me is near; Shadow and sunlight are the same; The vanished gods to me appear; And one to me are shame and fame.29 The spacio-temporal level has to be transcended in order to comprehend the “subtle ways.” The world of relativity which admits of “far and near,” what is “forgot,” what is happening and what is yet to come, is only a result of “thinking.” The mind is circumscribed by the space-time limitation— Desakalapariccheda which it has taken for granted—Avicharitasamsiddha. The transcending of apparent opposites like far and near, then and now, helps in understanding the true nature of Brahman who is beyond space, and time. As Archie J. Bahm sums up: In Hindu metaphysics, Shankara’s Nirguna Brahman, the only ultimate reality, is timeless being. All events are illusory (maya), because they appear to have a being and nature different from Nirguna Brahman, but reality is nondual (advaita), so apparent events have no reality apart from timeless Brahman. Strictly speaking, we cannot attribute duration or even timelessness to Brahman either, since it is entirely without attributes (nirguna). But it always is, not in the sense of “always” as “at all times” but in the sense that it is whether anything else is or not.30 . . .

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Shankara, Advaita Vedantist, held that Brahman is the only reality, that Brahman is nonspatial, that spatiality is a false appearance. “Space implies coexistence of a plurality of objects”. But Brahman, or reality, is one and indivisible. Therefore space is unreal.31 Naturally, the “elation” of the title of the poem Lord of my Heart’s Elation is not mere mundane joy or worldly “happiness” but an elevation, an “exaltation,” as conveyed in the last stanza of the poem. It is “serene” because it is pure and uncontaminated by human limitations—quite beyond the pale of words and meanings “Vagartha.” It exists beyond even the reach of the mind—“Yato Vacho nivartante aprapya manasa saha” as the Sanskrit spiritual saying goes. Indeed, this is the “message”—the “vision” of the poem explored in the next four stanzas and brought to fruition in the final sixth stanza. However, the “aspiration” is not only “severe” but also “consuming.” Unless the spiritual aspiration becomes a consuming, all absorbing, obsessive passion, it is not worthy of being an “aspiration” or a goal “guri” in Sanskrit. This goal or “guri” is what gives meaning to life without which being would descend into an atheistic, existential “hell.” The “elation” referred to by the poet is “Ananda”—the supreme Bliss (which Bliss Carman is experiencing if the pun may be pardoned!) which is paradoxically both “consuming and serene” at the same time. The second and the third stanzas contain some quintessential words: up, out, outward, mortal, soul, and self-hood, merge, that and be. The “Lord” of the “Heart’s elation” is reached, attained through “sinking” the narrow personal ego “forever” and “merging” it into “oblivion” so that “self-hood” is achieved. It is not so much a conscious achievement as an awareness of consciousness, of the ever-present Self. In terms of the vocabulary of the poem, “this mortal soul” which is the individual identity must transcend the limited ego-sense or egoity and become “that.” “That,” known as “Tat” in Sanskrit, is what everyone really is: one of the “Mahavakyas”—TAT TVAM ASI (Thom art That). It is this “That” which bids them “be.” Being is the reality; becoming is a process which culminates in the ultimate knowledge of Being. The individual “foamheads” which are the individual souls “loosened and blown along the sea” must realise that the foam and the waves are but the sea and therefore “must sink and merge forever” in the universal, one and only Self with an “S” capital. The fourth and the fifth stanzas peruse and pursue the same idea through a different imagery. Notice the words “uplift,” “climb,” “one,” “column,” “dust,” “mountain rain,” ending in “disolve again.” Whether it is through the element of water and the sea, through the “shadowy column,” “the wind’sstronghand”or“walkingtheearth,”—manmust“uplift”himself“atthy command”—i.e., the “Lord of the Heart’s” command and “merge for ever”—“be one with my frail fellows” for only one spirit courses through the various bodies given different names and forms, and through this universal humanism attain salvation. This, in terms of the poem is to “climb in wonder.” The sixth and final stanza neatly ties together all these thoughts by repeating and slightly altering the quintessential words used in the first stanza. The “Lord” of the individual “heart’s elation” has become “the world’s elation” and the “aspiration” has turned into “exaltation.” The “Spirit of things unseen” has become the very “breath of things unseen” and this “Spirit,” this “breath,” is not only “my” elation and “my exaltation” but the “I” has become “thou,”—“Be thou my exaltation”—an “Advaita Siddhi”—the achievement of non-dual

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experience. This poem basically explores the inner, interior space called “Hridayakasa,” resulting in the transcendence of the ordinary, physical, phenomenal, empirical, outer, outward “space.” The inner, interior space is the “space” where Brahman resides, the cave in the heart where the mind goes during deep sleep and resurfaces on awaking. As Ramana Maharshi points out, “Brahman alone shines as ‘I,’ ‘I,’ in the heart it is the form of the Self.”32 Margaret Atwood, in her poem You Want To Go Back, explores the true nature of man through the concepts of time and space. You Want To Go Back You want to go back to where the sky was inside us animals ran through us, our hands blessed and killed according to our wisdom, death made real blood come out But face it, we have been improved, our heads float several inches above our necks moored to us by rubber tubes and filled with clever bubbles, our bodies are populated with billions of soft pink numbers multiplying and analyzing themselves, perfecting their own demands, no trouble to anyone. I love you by sections and when you work. Do you want to be illiterate? This is the way it is, get used to it.33 The first two lines, You want to go back to where the sky was inside us is an opening gambit to explore the process of the evolution of man—biological, mental and spiritual. While “back” indicates time past, “inside” indicates “space.” From the point of view of Indian philosophical thinking, Darwinian evolution is a false concept. The evolution is not so much from monkey to man, through the notorious “missing link,” but the evolution of man into a superman by the exercising his intelligence and his essential spiritual nature. Margaret Atwood takes into consideration, quite significantly, both the body and the mind in her poem. Paradoxical as it may seem, if we “go back” far enough, we end up in the future. As Eliot has realized “Time present andtimepast”arebothpresentin“timefuture”and“timefuture”iscontainedin “time past.” That is why he says:

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What we call the beginning is often the end And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.34 When the linear concept of time yields to the cyclical or circular, then the wisdomof“inmyendismybeginning”and“inmybeginningismyend”makes sense. [H]uman kind Cannot bear very much reality. Time past and time future What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present.35 . . . I sometimes wonder if that is what Krishna meant— Among other things—or one way of putting the same thing; That the future is a faded song, a Royal Rose or a lavender spray Of wistful regret for those who are not yet here to regret, Pressedbetweenyellowleavesofabookthathasneverbeenopened. Andthewayupisthewaydown,thewayforwardisthewayback.36 Atwood wants “you to go back.” Not just to the immediate past but to a time “where the sky was inside us”. Notice the space-time continuum which is a prelude to spacio-temporal transcendence. Change the “where” into “when” and you have the answer. When exactly was the sky inside us? The answer—always. Where was the sky inside us? Always, because the sky, the air, fire, water and earth were always inside us and will always be. It is significant that the “Four Quartets” of Eliot have as their “source” the four elements of earth, water, fire and air. The elements are only empirically seen as being outside us but what is outside is exactly what is inside and thus man is but a conglomeration of elements and his body and his mind are what give a false motion about “inside” and “outside” — as well as “then” and “now.” In the final analysis, space and time are only creations and projections of the mind—“Maya kalpita desa kala kalana vaichitrya Chitrikritam,” as the great Adi Sankara has said. This is not to imply that Atwood has heard of Sankara or has knowledge of Hindu philosophy. As has already been said at the beginning of this essay, this is how her poem makes sense and comes alive to an Indian reader. This is just one Indian response as there can be several. “The sky was inside us” is a familiar thought to an Indian — not only that “The sky is inside us” and “always” will be. “Sky,” “Ether,” “Space”—indeed, the entire inter- stellar space is “inside us” in microcosm, symbolic of the “macrocosm” which isusuallyassumedtobeoutside.Theideaof“hridayakasa”(alreadyreferredto earlier)—the space within the heart—indeed in the cave or cavern of the heart—“hridayakuhara” is the in dwelling space of the infinite, eternal, all- pervading—That. The self in deep sleep sushupti, without consciouness of body or mind, is pure Consciouness—unfettered by the impediments of the knowledge of space, time and place. In another poem The Woman Who Could Not Live With Her Faulty Heart, Margaret Atwood says: and at night it is the infra-red third eye that remains open

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while the other two are sleeping but refuses to say what it has seen.37 Indeed, the “third” eye which is always open is the sakshi, the “observer.” In the words of another Canadian poet P.K. Page, we read: Who am I or who am I become that walking here I am observer . . . 38 To “go back” to that state is the goal of life, and to remain there is the achievement. When Atwood talks about “animals ran through us” and “our hands,” “killed according to our wisdom,” she is contemplating man’s evolution through time, for she moves quickly from the animal existence to man’s body-mind Consciousness. our bodies are populated with billions of soft pink numbers But notice that Margaret Atwood in a typical ironic tone says: But face it, we have been improved, our heads float several inches above our necks. As she has said in another poem: The word is an O, outcry of the useless head, pure space, empty and drastic.39 Then comes “the overwhelming question”: “Do you want to be illiterate? If all the manifestations of the “literate mind” and all its mischievous machinations are interested in “perfecting their own demands” then, what is the use of “our heads” floating “several inches above our necks”? The “head” should merge in the spiritual “heart-space” and that is why You want to go back to where the sky was inside us. The Indian view of matter and mind differs from that of a philosopher like Descartes, considered “father of modern philosophy.” According to his “Je pense, donc je suis”—Cogito Ergo Sum, since thinking is a part of mind’s activity and Descartes discusses matter and mind in relation to space. Archie J. Bahm says: A space, or intrinsic place, does not differ in actuality from the body thatoccupiesit...Inrealitytheextensioninlength,breadth,anddepth that constitutes the space is absolutely the same as that which constitutes the body. Matter and space are identical, and there is no empty space. But Descartes also held that matter is not all that exists, for spirit, mind, or consciousness also exists and it is not spatial.40 This experimental “explication de texte” of two poems—one traditional and the other modern has been attempted only to indicate how many of the Canadian poets have passed through this cage of “survival” and how “new Easts” have surfaced in their poems. It may be appropriate to conclude by

131 IJCS / RIÉC quoting a few lines from a Canadian “pilgrim” in India thou she is not essentially, primarily a poet: Salutation to Him The great-souled One, Who has no name nor form. He who resides in all Who is Lord of all The Self of all beings.41

References 1. The Bhagavadgita. Chapter IX, verse 32. 2. Padarthatattvanirnaya by Sri Anandanubhava 3. Sri Shankaracharya. Dakshinamurti Stotram. verse 2. 4. Douglas Le Pan “Coureurs de bois” quoted in Canadian Literature in the 70’s. Edited by Paul Denham and Mary Jane Edwards. Holt, Rinehert and Winston of Canada Ltd., Toronto, 1980, pp.13. 5. F.R. Scott “The Canadian Authors Meet” in The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse in English and French. Chosen and with an introduction by A.J.M. Smith, Toronto, Oxford University Press, 1960, pp.188. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. Margaret Atwood “Book of Ancestors” in Canadian Literature in the 70’s, op. cit., pp.101- 102. 9. Bliss Carman “Low Tide on Grand Pre” in The Oxford Book, op. cit., pp.85. 10. A.J.M. Smith. Introduction to The Oxford Book, op. cit., pp.xxxiv. 11. Ibid., pp.xxxi. 12. Ibid. 13. Canadian Literature in the 70’s, op. cit., pp.117. 14. D.S. Subbaramaiya. Sri Dakshinamurti Stotram. Commentary. Sringeri, 1988, p.325. 15. Archie J. Bahm. Metaphysics – An Introduction. First published by Harper and Row, Publishers, Inc., as Baners and Noble Books Edition EH 338 in 1974. Second printing 1986, p.44. 16. Ibid., p.62. 17. T.S. Eliot. After Strange Gods. London: Faber & Faber, 1933, pp.40-41. 18. Bahm. Metaphysics, op. cit., pp.58-59. 19. Ibid., pp.59-60. 20. Hugh MacLennan. The Watch that Ends the Night. Macmillan of Canada, Toronto, 1958, p.255. 21. Raja Rao. The Serpent and the Rope. John Murray, London, 1960, p.388. 22. Ibid., p.43. 23. Ibid., p.54. 24. Sri Shankaracharya. Dakshinamurti Stotram. Stanza 1. 25. Raja Rao. Le Serpent et La Corde. Traduit de l’anglais par Georges Fradier. Calmann-Levy Éditeurs. 3, rue Auber, Paris. c1959. 26. T.S. Eliot. The Complete Poems and Plays. 1909-1950. Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., New York, 1952, p.145. 27. Ibid., p.123. 28. “Lord of my Heart’s Elation” by Bliss Carman in The Oxford Book, op. cit., pp.90-91. 29. Emerson’s Brahma. Stanza 2. 30. Archie J. Bahm. Metaphysics, op. cit., p.58. 31. Ibid., p.71. 32. Ramana Maharshi. Ramana Gita. Verse 17. Translation by A.R. Natarajan. Published by Affiliated East-West Press Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, Madras, Bangalore, Hyderabad. Second Edition, 1995, p.145.

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33. “You Want To Go Back” by Margaret Atwood. in Canadian Literature in the 70’s, op. cit., p.99. 34. T.S. Eliot. The Complete Poems and Plays, op. cit., p.144 35. Ibid., p.118. 36. Ibid., pp.133-134. 37. Margaret Atwood. “The Women Who Could Not Live With Her Faulty Heart” in Canadian Literature in the 70’s, op. cit., p.105. 38. P.K. Page. Arras in The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse, op. cit., p.353. 39. Margaret Atwood. “Song of the Hen’s Head” in Canadian Literature in the 70’s, op. cit., p.102. 40. Archie J. Bahm. Metaphysics, op. cit., p.70. 41. Elyse Aylen. The Night of the Lord. Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay, 1967, p.55.

133

Valerie Legge

Heralds of Empire: Liminal Heroes and Visionary Fugitives

Abstract Drawing on the work of Russian theorist Mikhail Bakhtin, this paper examines how the growing diversity of Canada’s population during the early decades of the twentieth century was reflected in the popular literature of the period. While Bakhtin’s writings originated during a period of political upheaval, Agnes C. Laut’s popular novels and histories emerged from a period of social revolution. Like Canada itself, the popular novel was in a process of becoming; country and genre both possessed what Bakhtin, in reference to the novel, described as “plastic possibilities.” Laut used the popular novel to document Canada’s different social languages, its “other” words and histories, and to convey an enthusiasm often absent from historical discourse. In Heralds of Empire (1902), while viewing the heroics of history from a contemporary perspective, Laut deliberately engaged in a process of revisionism by casting history and literature in a different light. In doing so, Laut effectively turned time, space and figures inside out so we are made to see their “unrealized surplus value” for a contemporary Canadian society. In early exploration narratives and historical documents she discovered a dynamic past filled with diverse types of men and women who helped fashion the newly emerging nation to the North. Liminal men and chameleon women negotiated the contending forces associated with class, race and gender as they moved from one cultural zone to another. Heralds of Empire suggests that nations are created by dreamers who possess the courage to take great risks and by visionary fugitives who break free from bound spaces. At a time when Canada seemed poised on the brink of a new era, Laut returned to the past, to threshold moments in Canadian history to investigate some of our most persistent national narratives.

Résumé En se basant sur les travaux du théoricien russe Mikhail Bakhtin, l’auteur de l’article examine comment la littérature populaire des premières décennies du 20e siècle traduit la diversité croissante de la population canadienne au cours de la même époque. L’œuvre de Bakhtin a été écrite en période de bouleversement politique, tandis que les romans et les histoires populaires d’Agnes C. Laut proviennent d’un épisode de révolution sociale. Tout comme le Canada même, le roman populaire était en devenir : le pays et le genre littéraire possédaient tous deux ce que Bakhtin (en faisant référence au roman) décrivait comme des « possibilités plastiques ». Laut s’est servie du roman populaire pour documenter les différents discours sociaux du Canada, ses autres mots et anecdotes, ainsi que pour traduire un enthousiasme souvent absent du discours historique. Dans Heralds of Empire (1902), bien que les héros de l’histoire soient perçus d’un angle contemporain, Laut engage

International Journal of Canadian Studies / Revue internationale d’études canadiennes 15, Spring/Printemps 1997 IJCS / RIÉC délibérément un processus de révisionnisme en jetant un regard différent sur l’histoire et la littérature. Ce faisant, Laut parvient efficacement à inverser la perspective du temps, de l’espace et des gens pour amener les lecteurs à voir le « potentiel inutilisé » de la société canadienne contemporaine. Dans les premiers récits d’exploration et documents historiques, l’auteure a découvert un passé dynamique rempli de divers types d’hommes et de femmes qui ont aidé à façonner la nouvelle nation émergente du Nord. Des hommes liminaires et des femmes caméléons ont négocié les forces contraires de nature hiérarchique, raciale et sexuelle en transition d’une zone culturelle à une autre. Heralds of Empire suggère que les nations sont engendrées par des rêveurs qui possèdent le courage de courir des risques importants et par des fugitifs visionnaires qui transcendent les contraintes d’espace. À une période où le Canada semblait immobile, à l’aube d’une ère nouvelle, Laut est retournée dans le passé, à des moments-charnières de l’histoire du Canada, pour étudier certains des récits nationaux les plus durables.

Fugitive Forces [D]ecentering will occur only when a national culture loses its sealed-off and self-sufficient character, when it becomes conscious of itself as only one among other cultures and languages. (Dialogic 370)

Writing during the first quarter of the twentieth century, one of the most turbulentperiodsinEasternEurope’shistory,RussiantheoristMikhailBakhtin turned to historical periods and figures usually ignored by his contemporaries in order to understand the relationship between language and culture. In his study of the “opposition and struggle at the heart of existence, a ceaseless battle between centrifugal forces that seek to keep things apart, and centripetal forces that strive to make things cohere,”1 Bakhtin suggests that human language best provides the most complete and complex reflection of this struggle, and that the literary genre which best transcribes it is the novel. There language is presented “as a living mix of varied and opposing voices.”2 Heralds of Empire (1902) is one of several popular turn-of-the-century works by Agnes C. Laut, a remarkably productive author of fiction, historical, periodical and travel literature. Based on extensive travels by boat and train throughout Canada from British Columbia in the West to the remote coasts of Labrador and isolated bays of Newfoundland in the East, her works celebrate the unruly beauty, the lure of the North, and the nobility of ordinary people living in extraordinary times. And the first decades of the twentieth century were extraordinary. As Robert E. Spiller points out in The Cycle of American Literature (1955), the “era of revolutions was over, and one of vigorous and competitive living had set in. The spirit of nationalism was everywhere providing motivation for building new empires abroad and making new social patterns at home” (107). This spirit of nationalism and emerging sense of newness is reflected in many of the titles of Laut’s works: Canada, the Empire of the North (1909), “New Nation to the North” (1908), The New Dawn (1913), “Firebrand of Nations” (1914), “Rediscovering America” (1914), and “New Spirit Among Women Who Work” (1915).

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One of the changes characterizing this era was rapid population growth which exposed more people in Canada to a wider variety of cultures than ever before. The country’s growing diversity is reflected in the popular literature of the period. Laut’s contemporaries included Winnifred Reeve3 (Onoto Watanna) and Edith Eaton (Sui Sin Far), whose works reflected their Eurasian culture; Gertrude Bonnin (Zitkala-Sa) and Emily Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake), whose writings and public performances drew attention to the plight of Aboriginal people; Elizabeth Frame and Alice Fletcher, who translated and transcribed Aboriginal place names and songs; and Jessie Sime and Anastasia English, who emphasized in very different ways the relationship between labour and class. Even a cursory glance at popular literature of the period reveals an awareness as well as an anxiety regarding the changes in national demographics. In two collections of essays, The Canadian Commonwealth (1915) and Canada at the Crossroads (1921), Laut examines the impact that a more heterogeneous population was beginning to have on what previously had been a predominantly white, English-speaking country. Technological advances, especially in communications, also contributed to a heightened awareness of ethnic, cultural and regional diversity in Canada. Travel magazines flourished as more and more Canadians explored once remote regions of their own country, while others ventured further afield to the United States, Mexico, Europe, Asia and South America. These rapid increases in population and advances in technology combined together to create a climate ripe for the growth of pluralism. Writers and travellers like Laut, who from the beginning of her literary career had her finger on the pulse of the country, grew steadilyawareofthewidevarietyofswirlingperspectives,philosophies,points of view, codes of ethics and aesthetic sensibilities. They began to recognize that the beliefs and customs of people from different backgrounds had a certain legitimacy or grounding. This recognition is evident, for example, in the photography of Edith Watson as she travelled throughout the country capturing images of ordinary working people.4 “Infected”5 by so many cultural changes and technological innovations, new literary genres began to emerge, among them photographic journalism, and western and urban novels. Laut’s work incorporates illustrations and photographs by well-known artists such as Frederic Remington, Verne Morton, I. W. Taber and H. Armstrong Roberts. From the vantage point of the late twentieth century, Laut’s popular novels seem very contemporary in their themes and concerns. Freebooters of the Wilderness (1910), her American-style western, provides a critique of the American concept of democracy and describes an emerging militant, anti- government discourse, while The New Dawn (1913), her urban novel, can be read as a Foucaultian study of power and knowledge. These works suggest Laut’s awareness that popular literature could provide important information about who we were, where we had come from, and what national direction we might pursue. Like the country itself, the popular novel was in a process of “becoming”;6 country and genre both possessed what Bakhtin, in reference to the novel, described as “plastic possibilities” (3). Laut uses the popular novel to document Canada’s different social languages, its “other” words and histories, and to convey an enthusiasm often absent from historical discourse. As contemporary Canadian writer Carol Shields contends in “Thinking Back

137 IJCS / RIÉC through Our Mothers,” the “popular tradition must be taken into consideration, since it echoes and even interrogates the established tradition, taking liberties, offering modes of behaviours, and gesturing crudely, covertly, often unconsciously towards that alternate sphere” (13). In Heralds of Empire, an interrogative text emphasizing spectacle, unruliness, liminality and the liberating spirit of carnival, Laut seems most akin to Bakhtin, who insists in all his writings that art is oriented toward communication, not estrangement. While Bakhtin’s writings originated during a period of political upheaval, Laut’s emerged from a period of social revolution. In Heralds of Empire, a pretext to Pathfinders of the West (1904), the distance between Radisson’s seventeenth-century world and the world of Laut and her readers is demolished; the past is contemporized, “brought low, represented on a plane equal with contemporary life, in an everyday environment” (Dialogic 21). Like Bakhtin, Laut observes that we often fail to pay attention to what we hear or see in real life, to the events that occur in the moment, and encourages us to focus more on the rich texture of “prosaic life” that conditions and touches everything around us. And in that prosaic life of the present are roots extending back to the past and growing into the future.7 The world of the fur-trade is made familiar to early twentieth-century readers, and figures valorized by history as refractory colonial agents are made to appear both extraordinary and common through laughter and popular speech. In her imaginative reconstruction of the past, Laut effectively turns time, space and figures inside out to reveal their “unrealized surplus value” for a contemporary Canadian society (Dialogic 35). For example, Laut perceived the beginnings of twentieth-century free trade among nations in the much earlier reciprocal relations between Europeans and Aboriginal people. At a time when many Canadians were stridently opposed to what they saw as the growing “Americanization” of their country, Laut believed Canada needed to widen its horizons, increase its commerce and traffic with other countries, and become more international in its policies.8 Heteroglossia9 is evident in the use of extraliterary genres of everyday life: popular ballads, songs, letters, nursery rhymes, jokes, journals, maxims and aphorisms. In the spirit of the so-called “Vaudeville School” of writing, Laut’s fiction, with its “picaresque speech of the Far West and High North,” its “picaresque characters” and its “‘wild and woolly’ life...full of moral (or immoral) colour of speech and action,”10 appeals to popular taste. When different languages (social languages, national languages, literary languages, everyday languages, etc.) come in contact, interact and engage in dialogue, each is changed and enriched by the presence of the other. Speech then becomes the locus of vitality, the site of individual and social creativity (Morson 22). Poised on the brink of a new era, Canadians, Laut believed, needed to remember the imagination and energy of their predecessors. In her popular works, while viewing the heroics of history from a contemporary perspective, Laut deliberately engages in a process of revisionism by casting history and literature in a different light. In Pathfinders of the West, she warns her North American audience that her rereading of Canadian history will “upset the apple cart of established opinions” and challenge “notions imbibed at

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school, and repeated in all histories of the West.” While acknowledging the importance of Canada and its history as “shared territory,” she reminds her audience that the significance of shared stories changes as the social and cultural experience of the speaker changes, and that the meaning of history shifts with context.11 Though the past or a particular myth may serve as the subject of a given text, it can only ever be viewed from a contemporary stance. In Heralds of Empire, Laut’s own contemporary reality provides the point of view, the value orientation of the novel. A Canadian woman who frequently characterized herself as a “free trader” reads the foundational fault-lines of her country’s past through an idiosyncratic turn-of-the-century lens. Writing at a time when the novel was superseding poetry and drama as the most popular literary form, Laut saw the popular novel as an alternative site where different discourses, different social and cultural groups (what Bakhtin calls “different-speech-ness”) could clash, collude and co-exist. In Heralds of Empire, New England and Canada’s northern regions function as the primary contestatory ground or what Bakhtin calls “chronotope” (a term referring to the complete interdependence of narrative space and time) for these interactions; unlike New England, with its imposed script of Puritanism, or Quebec, with its French convents or English garrisons, the North becomes “the place where the knots of narrative are tied and untied” (Dialogic 250), where official and non- official (fugitive) forces compete without eliminating one another. The main actors in Laut’s high dramas (presented in low or popular forms) are “liminal heroes,”12—militant men like Pierre Esprit Radisson and Sieur des Groseilliers, and chameleon women like Hortense Hillary, who chafe against the conventions of time and space. In their quests for freedom, they often resort to antics, anarchy and disruption. Characterized by independent, risk-taking dispositions, and an intense yearning for freedom, they view the North as a dialogic site of resistance, agency and vision, a place where new standards emerge from old ways, where energy and change are essential for survival. But it is also a place of “high carnival” (Heralds 95). Using the romance with its pattern of separation, exploration and return, Laut brings together a mix of extravagant figures for whom the North becomes an alien, alternate sphere, a borderland where social, cultural and racial boundaries dissolve and disappear. These liminal heroes, caught in forces and influences swirling around them, explore different ways of being in the world while resisting conventions that time and space would impose on them. Radisson best represents these “betwixt-and-between” figures (problematic figures like Louis Riel, Tom Thomson, and Almighty Voice) who exist in the “wild zone” of Canadian history.13 Perhaps because Radisson perplexed historians and was grossly misrepresented by “cheap pamphleteers” (Heralds 2) and respectable writers alike, Laut endeavors to present him in a different light without ever settling conflicting points of views. To some degree, in this fusion of fact and fiction, comedy and romance, she succeeds in capturing the exhilarating spirit of the times in which Radisson lived, as well as the unsettling terrain of his exploration narratives which often “played fast and loose with truth” (Heralds 1).

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Written in “a milk-and-water age”14 of women writers and staid, domestic fictions, Heralds of Empire is a vigorous, nomadic narrative dedicated to the spirit of new world nobility possessed by Canada’s “visionary fugitives” (Freebooters 67). Laut breaks free of the closed and finalized spaces common in so many early Canadian novels: Frances Brooke’s garrisons, John Richardson’s dark fortresses, Catherine Beckwith Hart’s convents, Rosanna Leprohon’s manor houses, William Kirby’s secret chambers, Gilbert Parker’s prison houses, Sara Jeannette Duncan’s colonial communities. Turning instead to the shifting spaces found in captivity narratives, historical documents and exploration journals—all of which function as subtexts and pretexts in her works—Laut imagines boundless, horizonless Northern worlds where people from very different backgrounds come in contact, mingle and initiate new social configurations. Though writing when women’s lives were still largely restricted by notions of propriety and idealization, Laut chose to recreate in her fictions an earlier historical time when men and women from different social and cultural backgroundscollaboratedasassociates,subordinatesandsuperiors.Andsoher female characters play complex roles, for they both resist and affirm the social and literary conventions of woman as “standard-bearer” or “moral compass” (Lords104).Whilerecordingwomen’sintimate,oftenexuberantresponsestoa “harsh and lovely land”15 and their encounters and connections with people from different cultures, Laut suggests that during the early years of exploration, European approaches to the land variously included acceptance and accommodation as well as conquest and colonization. Ever mindful that Canada was explored by fugitive men and gypsy women who viewed the North as a place of vision, performance and masquerade,16 Laut hopes their legacies will enable contemporary Canadians to create a “new nation to the north.”17

Contact Zones [T]he entire world and everything in it is offered to us without any distance at all, in a zone of crude contact. (Dialogic 26)

In Heralds of Empire, a mock heroic romance rich in comic figures and dramatic episodes, Laut familiarizes well-known historical figures like Radisson and Groseilliers through laughter, sudden reversals, parody and popularspeech;andsheusesmotifsofsubterfugeandmasqueradetocontribute to the development and the eventual tapering (for it cannot be called resolution) of the narrative. The central frame for the narrative is Radisson’s covert 1682 fur trading voyage to Fort Nelson—or Fort Bourbon as the French called it; as Ramsay reminds us, “You must not forget that we were French on that trip” (97).18 Speaking different national languages, characters from diverse social and cultural backgrounds come together during their strange journeys to form strange alliances and forge new contracts: Ramsay Stanhope, a young Englishman whose father was a royalist; Eli Kirke, a Puritan New Englander and Ramsay’s uncle; Hortense Hillary, abducted from the French court and raised by her abductor/guardian M. Picot; Jack Battle, a runaway sailor lad from Barbados; Ben Gillan, son of a New England sea captain; Rebecca

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Stocking, daughter of a Puritan New Englander; and Mizza, the Aboriginal girl encountered during a covert fur trading expedition to Hudson Bay. Some of these characters share common histories—familial, cultural, national—but they do not all possess the same “field of vision”; those that do, however, engage with and enrich one another, hence changing and being changed by the worlds they pass through. The primary narrator is Ramsay, relative of Radisson’s English-born and England-bound wife, Mary Kirke. Orphaned by the untimely death of his father, a Royalist sympathizer, Ramsay was sent to Boston to be placed in the care of his stern Puritan uncle, Eli Kirke. When young Hortense and her uncle are charged with witchcraft by overly zealous Puritans fearful of M. Picot’s scientific practices, Ramsay helps them escape from a Boston prison. Later when Ramsay accompanies Groseilliers and Radisson to Fort Nelson/Fort Bourbon to trade illegally in furs, he again meets up with Hortense, now actively involved in her uncle’s illegal fur-trading activities. A distrust of closed, oppressive systems is established in the opening scene as Ramsay, a spoiled and somewhat cynical lad in his teens, arrives in New England to live with relatives. Surveying his new surroundings, he recalls the absurd circumstances of his father’s death: My father—peace to his soul!—had been of those who thronged London’s streets with wine tubs to drink the restored king’s health on bended knee; but he, poor gentleman, departed this life before his monarch could restore wasted patrimony. On the night my father died he had spoken remorsefully of the past to the lord bishop at his bedside. “Tush, man, have a heart,” cries his lordship. “Thou’lt see pasch and yuleyetfortyyear,Stanhope.Tush,man,’tisthyliver,oratouchofthe gout. Take here a smack of port. Sleep sound, man, sleep sound.” And my father slept so sound he never wakened more. (7) Though neither the health nor the patrimony of Ramsay’s father is ever restored, his irreverent offspring survives these shifts in fortune and learns that humour can make the most unfortunate situations more bearable. The tyranny and the stupidity of leaders—kings, priests, elected officials, etc.—is a common motif in many of Laut’s works. In Heralds of Empire, it is Ramsay who exposes the absurdity of all pretenders, especially that of Eli Kirke, who tries to regulate his nephew’s irreverent tongue by constructing a penalty box to receive fines for each blasphemous utterance. The austerity of Eli’s creed, transplanted in a foreign soil though not so very different from the tyranny of a savage monarchy which forced him to abandon Europe, is ridiculed during Ramsay’s exaggerated account of the spectacle that resulted from a verbal transgression. Shocked by Ramsay’s outburst of profanity (“a forcible word [he] had oft heard used by gentlemen of the cloth”), the serving maid collapses in the pantry while the nurse, Old Tibbie, “yelped out with laughter, and then nigh choked” (14). Ramsay’s lack of reverence for “Holy Writ” is reinforced when Tibbie openly appropriates and misquotes sacred texts, in effect using the Bible against Eli in order to contest his rigid, Puritanical teachings.

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Having witnessed the chaotic nature of the world in the religious and political upheavals and personal shifts of fortune in England, it is little wonder that Ramsay, amused by his excessively staid New England relatives and their surroundings, quickly learns to juggle his uncle’s authoritative discourse (“Holy Writ”) with his own youthful hilarity (unholy laughter). Eli’s response to profanity and chaos (and perhaps also to a threatening, alien environment) is a determination to make things cohere. Despite Eli’s attempts to impose order and discipline, Ramsay has come to expect unruliness and surprise around any corner. He concludes, “There comes a time when every life must choose whether to laugh or weep over trivial pains, and when a cut may be broken on the foil of that glancing mirth which the good Creator gave mankind to keep our race from going mad” (12). Laughter, at himself and others, liberates Ramsay, as it does Radisson, from the constraints of age, class, race and religion that institutions would have him respect. Bakhtin writes, “[l]aughter purifies from dogmatism, from the intolerant and the petrified; it liberates from fanaticism and pedantry, from fear and intimidation, from didacticism, naiveté and illusion, from the single meaning, the single level, from sentimentality” (Rabelais 123). Initially an absence of laughter creates what appears to be an irreconcilable gap between the uncle and his new ward; Ramsay is convinced that “With [Eli], goodness meant gloom. If the sweet joy of living ever sang to him in his youth, he shut his ears to the sound as to siren temptings, and sternly set himself to the fierce delight of being miserable” (8). Laut challenges the conventional notion that age, experience and education automatically result in wisdom: “children oft get closer to the essences of truth than older folk grown foolish with too much learning” (75). When these two opposing and equally strong-willed forces come together in New England, each enacts subtle changes in the other. One moment of what Bakhtin calls “interanimation”19 occurs when a squadron storms into Eli’s house to arrest a political fugitive from England. With no concern for his own safety, Ramsay helps the fugitive escape, a selfless act that briefly bridges the ideological gap between the close-minded uncle and his disrespectful, sceptical relative. The main characters’ refusal to maintain fixed positions regarding gender, class, race or nationality is indicated in an opening scene when as children and all from very different backgrounds, the characters come together, clash, fall out and regroup. When Ben asserts his social superiority over the others by drawing attention to Jack and Hortense as social outcasts, Ramsay retaliates by nearly drowning him: “From that day Hortense was Jack’s slave, Jack was [Ramsay’s], and Ben was a pampered hero because he never told and took the punishment like a man. But there was never a word more slurring Hortense’s unknown origin and Jack’s strange wrist marks” (Heralds 19). Religious fanaticism with its “tyrants of souls” is one of the main centripetal forces that liminal characters mock and resist. When Jack Battle, in jest, re- enacts “the awful mockery of the axeman’s block” as he and Ramsay conspire to free Hortense from prison, Ramsay remembers the horror he felt when, as a young child in Europe, he witnessed a public execution. Now these same oppressive tyrannies have taken root in New England where “[p]rayers were

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uttered that were fitter for hearing in hell than in Heaven. Good men could deceive themselves into crime cloaking spiritual malice, sect jealousy, race hatred with an unctuous text....Here...wastyranny masking in the guise of religion” (54). But disguise also functions in the text to enable precarious people to escape imprisonment and persecution. Unlike Eli and Rebecca whose masks are transparent, Radisson and Hortense are more sophisticated “stud[ies] in masks” (85); enigmatic and contradictory, they, as well as minor characters associated with them, use masks to move away from destructive tyrannies. Hortense, disguised as a page-boy, conceals her gender while her black servant paints her face “white as paste;” she conceals her race in order to escape from a fearful and intolerant community that would hang them for their difference (64). In the North, both Radisson and Hortense at different times disguise themselves as Indians. Both are at ease in the Northern wilderness where deeds—not gender, race, creed or convention are the only proofs of the inner man or woman. Rebecca and Hortense provide two opposing female responses to a world still without clearly demarcated borders. While Hortense roves and explores other ways of being in the world, Rebecca remains bound and unenlightened. Her field of vision does not extend beyond the teachings of the church or the medieval superstitions of the Puritan community. When Jack Battle, her childhood friend, decides to marry the young Aboriginal woman whom he rescued during a massacre and who in turn rescued him, Rebecca refuses to sanction miscegenation. Puzzled by Rebecca’s sanctimonious response to a marriage contracted “according to the custom of the country,” Jack asks Ramsay if he thinks the union is proper. Ramsay replies in the affirmative and Jack concludes that “you’ve been to the wilderness—you understand! Other folks don’t! That is the way it happens out there!” (329). While Rebecca hides her true feelings behind pious psalms and a prim exterior, Hortense openly showers her affection on all around her, regardless of sex, race or social standing; and she displays her awareness of a large, public world of literature, science, politics and art. When Ramsay courts her with “wanton songs,” she counters them with “naughty music” of her own as she modifies the popular lyrics of imprisoned poet George Wither’s “The Lover’s Resolution.” Rebecca remains bound by social, cultural and religious convention, while Hortense journeys to a world which gives her the chance to discover her own strengths. Hortense also discovers that the North, unlike Old England or New England, allows women the space and freedom to grow. Protesting the roles that women are expected to play in conventional society, Hortense asks, “Must a woman ever be a cat’s-paw to man’s ambitions?” She realizes that while society restricts women’s choices to marriage and the convent, the wilderness offers much more. “Oh, the wilderness is different. In the wild land, each is for its own! Oh, I love it! It is hard, but it’s free and it’s pure and it’s true and it’s strong!” (275-76). Cultures as well as individuals come in contact in this novel. An excerpt from a brief authorial comment introducing part II of the narrative prepares the reader for one particular cultural shift:

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Each life is a shut-in valley...butManitou...knows there is more than one valley, which had been a maxim...long before one Danish gentleman assured another there were more things in heaven and earth than philosophy dreamed. (72) The allusion to Manitou who “knows there is more than one valley,” indicates the limitations of a European field of vision (indicated by the allusion to Shakespeare’s Hamlet) when it encounters the Aboriginal world. As Radisson and his men leave New England and Quebec far behind, they seem to step outside an historical frame to enter a more mythical world. In the North, the natural world eclipses the so-called civilized world of religious bigotry and political corruption. For Hortense and Radisson, Canada’s North is a place of high carnival, a place where men and women, English and French, European and Aboriginal, infidel and Christian, are free to pit themselves against the harsh natural elements and to outwit the duplicitous politics of the English, French and New Englander alike. Each believes that the ultimate reward is not material wealth alone but the struggle, the becoming. But the North does more than create a new race; it infuses spirit and creativity into those who are open to diversity, those who respect and appreciate different cultural values. As Radisson heads into the interior to search for the tribes with whom he has come to trade, his men are captivated by the sheer beauty of the land: “We were intoxicated with the wine of the rugged, new, free life...blood atingle to the laughing rhythm of the river—what wonder that youth leaped to a fresh life from the mummified existence of little, old peoples in little, old lands?” (102). The North has a similar effect on Hortense, who quickly becomes a “wilderness woman,” despite her uncle’s plan to turn her into a lady and restore her to court life. When Ramsay meets her in the wilderness, where in disguise she mysteriously saves his life, he is struck by the dramatic transformation that has taken place: Pausing, she turned with the frank, fearless look of the wilderness woman. She was no longer the elusive Hortense of secluded life. A change had come—the change of the hothouse plant set out to the buffetings of the four winds of heaven to perish from weakness or gather strength from hardship. Your woman of older lands must hood fair eyes, perforce, lest evil masking under other eyes give wrong intent to candour; but in the wilderness each life stands stripped of pretence, honestly good or evil, bare at what it is; and purity clear as the noonday sun needs no trick of custom to make it plainer. (267) This shift of scene and subsequent change of character enables Hortense to see the pretence, intolerance and hypocrisy so often lurking under the masks of civilized society. Though not bound by gender or social station like Hortense, Radisson too recognizes the restraints imposed by a more structured society. Returning to a life of court intrigue and political posturing in Europe, he realizes that “[a] man’s a man by the measure of his stature in the wilderness. Here, ’tis by the measure of his clothes” (303-304). Having survived the hazards of wilderness life in North America, the “heroic” adventurer faces serious injury while

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walking down England’s Fleet Street when “some French kitchen wench [threw] her breakfast slops to mid-road from the dwelling overhead.” The humour of the situation does not escape the great explorer: “‘Egad’s life,’ he cried, ‘’Tis the narrowest escape I’ve ever had’” (301). Presenting an account of their covert Northern expeditions from the limited and sometimes faulty perspective of Ramsay, an unimportant figure who supposedly accompanied the expedition, Laut effectively decenters the historical narrative. At the same time, as if reluctant to relinquish complete control for the story to Ramsay or Radisson, she includes footnotes, a site of authorial surplus value which gives the novel a dialogic quality. At odd moments when Ramsay’sversion ofevents becomes muddled, when itswerves toofarawayfromRadisson’sownwrittenaccount(asubtextinLaut’snarrative and a historical document which is itself problematic for many scholars), or when Ramsay’s reading of Radisson differs from Laut’s reception, the interplay among authors-narrators becomes both comic and complex, raising as it does intriguing questions. Did Radisson “author” his own text and, if so, why did he choose to record it in an alien language? Is Ramsay, the “posited author,” based on a “real” historical figure or is he a complete fabrication? How much faith should we put in the “real author” of Heralds of Empire, an author who not only takes Radisson’s words out of context but then casts them in a strange idiom? How manipulative, how accurate are historical documents? If Laut wrote this book to counteract many of the misconceptions surrounding Radisson and to set the historical record straight, then ironically this play of narrative voices fails to contribute to the “finalizability” of the script: we are no wiser at the end “[h]ow much of good was in [Radisson’s] ill, how much ill in his good” (1). All that can be said is that Ramsay/Laut/Radisson have presented a rollicking good tale about an unruly, renegade figure whose exploits contributed to the fashioning of one of our earliest national narratives. Throughout her writing career, Laut frequently expressed her distrust of rigidly enforced boundaries, whether they were social, political or generic. Her main intent in Heralds of Empire is to show that democratic nations come into existence because fugitives like Ramsay, Radisson and Hortense ignore boundaries, resist centripetal forces, and embody “the spirit of that wild, tempestuous world where the storm never sleeps” (80-81). Laut, like her characters, believed that the North fosters hybridity, creates new types of men and women. As Ramsay concludes when he first arrives in the hinterland, “That was my first experience of the fusion which the New World makes of Old World divisions. We thought we had taken possession of the land. No, no, ’twas the land had taken possession of us, as the New World ever does, fusing ancient hates and rearing a new race. . .” (100-101). This notion that Northern and frontier spaces foster a fuller and more tolerant human response is repeated at the end of most of Laut’s fictions.

Follow the River This is a country of metamorphosis, where we have translated ourselves. . . .We put on new clothes here. ...The

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roughness and brutality of the land created irony about our worth. (Ondaatje xiii-xiv)

Three hundred years after Radisson’s explorations and nearly a century after Laut wrote her fictions and histories about nations and northern spaces, the real and the mythical North continues to haunt the Canadian consciousness. In The Canadian Commonwealth, Laut says that tracing the awakening of national consciousness is “like following a river back from the ocean to its mountain springs. From the silt borne down on the flood-tide you can guess the fertiled plains watered...[the] regions of eternal snow and glacial torrent warring turbulently...[and] the eternal striving, the forward rush and the throwback” (1). Rejecting the “formal, conventional, and statistical outlines of Canadian history” that she and most Canadians had been taught, Laut set out to explore the twists and turns, the turbulent moments in her country’s struggle for nationhood. In early exploration narratives and historical documents, she discovered a dynamic past filled with diverse types of men and women who helped fashion this newly emerging nation to the North, men and women who confronted the conflicting forces of race, religion, region and gender. Some of these forces clung tenuously to illusory positions of status, privilege and monopoly, while the more creative, through their encounters with “other consciousnesses” and their travels to other places, resisted elitist and exclusionary notions. For the men and women who explored and colonized Canada, North was more than a direction: it was a place where pretence was stripped away, where newcomers were redefined not in terms of class, race or gender but by their merits, persistence and inventiveness. In Heralds of Empire, Agnes C. Laut suggests that nations are created by dreamers who possess the courage to take great risks and by visionary fugitives who break free from bound spaces. Nearly a century after the publication of Laut’s popular fictions, Canada is still, as Michael Ondaatje observes, “in the process of documenting and inventing itself” (xiii). In the introduction to From Ink Lake (1990), Ondaatje writes, “the landscape the early explorers of Canada found was surreal and brutal.... Th[eir] drama of entrance into a new land is central in our writing, as is the desire to get out of a social structure” (xv). It is this high carnival of entrances and exits that exists at the heart of Laut’s Northern fictions. At a time when Canada seemed poised on the brink of a new era, Laut returned to the past, to threshold moments in Canadian history to investigate some of our most persistent national narratives. As Bakhtin observes, the novel was “powerfully affected by a very specific rupture in the history of European civilization: its emergence from a socially isolated and culturally deaf semipatriarchal society, and its entrance into international and interlingual contacts and relationships” (Dialogic 11). Liminal men and chameleon women negotiated the contending forces associated with class, race and gender as they moved from one cultural zone to another during similar moments of historical ruptures: the exploration and colonization of America, the penetration of an Aboriginal way of life, the dreaming of holy cities and Northern nations. In the process, they discovered that “here” was an appropriate site for “becoming.”

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Notes 1. See Michael Holquist, ed. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin, Trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981) xviii and 272-73. 2. Bakhtin quoted in Holquist xxviii. 3. See Amy Ling, “Winnifred Eaton: Ethnic Chameleon and Popular Success,” MELUS 2 (Fall 1984): 5-15 and Annette White-Parks, Sui Sin Far/Edith Maude Eaton: A Literary Biography (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995). Unlike her sister, Edith Eaton, who did write about the Chinese in Canada, Reeve pretended that her heritage was Japanese, which was more acceptable at the time. 4. See Rooney’s Working Light. 5. This is a term Bakhtin uses to talk about the impurity of words, languages, genres and literary conventions. For example, Heralds of Empire is a comic-romance, an historical novel, a picaresque novel and a type of travelogue. 6. See Bakhtin, “Epic and Novel.” He writes, “The study of the novel as a genre is distinguished by peculiar difficulties. This is due to the unique nature of the object itself: the novel is the sole genre that continues to develop, that is as yet uncompleted. The forces that define it as a genre are at work before our very eyes: the birth and development of the novel as a genre takes place in the full light of historical day. The generic skeleton of the novel is still far from hardened, and we cannot foresee all its plastic possibilities” (3). 7. Bakhtin explains the relationship between literary scholarship and the history of culture in “Response to a Question from the Novy Mir Editorial Staff,” in Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, ed. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986) 2-9. He writes, “artwork extends its roots into the distant past. Great literary works are prepared for by centuries, and . . . Trying to understand and explain a work solely in terms of its epoch alone, solely in terms of the conditions of the most immediate time, will never enable us to penetrate its semantic depths....Works break through the boundaries of their own time” (4). 8. In Canada: The Empire of the North, Laut writes, “a nation can live only as it trades what it draws from the soil” (vii). And in The Canadian Commonwealth, where Laut discusses reciprocity and “americanization,” she writes, “I was a free trader and had been trained to love and revere [Sir Wilfred] Laurier from childhood” (90). 9. Holquist describes heteroglossia as “the base condition governing the operation of meaning in any utterance. At any given time, in any given place, there will be a set of conditions— social, historical, meteorological, physiological—that will insure that a word uttered in that place and at that time will have a meaning different than it would have under any other conditions” (428). 10. J. D. Logan and Donald G. French, eds. Highways of Canadian Literature: A Synoptic Introduction to the Literary History of Canada (English) from 1760 to 1924 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1924) 273. 11. Nearly a century after Laut participated in the construction and the deconstruction of some of these “shared stories” that are, as Robert Kroetsch tells us, “basic to nationhood,” the novel and the nation continue to explore other ways of being. In “Disunity as Unity: A Canadian Strategy” in The Lovely Treachery of Words: Essays Selected and New (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1989) 21-33, Kroetsch suggests that “Canadians cannot agree on what their meta-narrative is... insome perverse way, this very falling-apart of our story is what holds our story together.” This decentering or lack of unity, suggests Kroetsch, is exactly “what gives new energy to countries like Canada” (22). In a similar fashion, this is what Bakhtin believes breathes life into the novel. 12. See Gary Saul Morson and Caryl Emerson, Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990). Morson and Emerson suggest that Bakhtin defines his favourite heroes as “always liminal, always on a boundary” (51). See also Victor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Chicago: Aldine, 1969) and Dramas, Fields and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society (New York: Cornell University Press, 1974). Turner borrows the term liminality from Arnold van Gennep’s concept of rites of passage or transition rites, those observances that accompany every

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change of state or social position. Sexlessness, classlessness and anonymity are highly characteristic of the liminal or threshold figure. 13. Anthropologists Shirley Ardener and Edwin Ardener refer to the “wild zone” as that “continuous periphery of culture’s clearing” where disruptive forces exist. 14. This phrase is used by Laut in Freebooters of the Wilderness (Toronto: Musson, 1910) 382. 15. See Tom Marshall, Harsh and Lovely Land: The Major Canadian Poets & the Making of a Canadian Tradition (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1979). 16. In The New Dawn (1913) the fugitive feminine is Madeline Connor, an artist who is described as “a mountain flower.” She is compared to an Alpine meadow “fresh and brilliant and unfrosted after a snow.” Mrs. Louie Ward, who represents the world of wealth and materialism, is, in contrast, compared to “an orchid”, “a hot-house plant, over-atmosphered, [which has] taken generations of culture to bring her out, proud and gorgeous and splendid” (299). In Canadian history, there are many stories about women forced to masquerade as men in order to enter wilderness communities. In 1738, twenty year old Esther Brandeau, disguised as a young boy, arrived in Quebec on a ship from France. See B.G. Sacks, History of the Jews in Canada, trans. Ralph Novak (Montreal: Harvester House, 1965). And in the Hudson’s Bay papers there is a story about Isabel Gunn (known also as Mary Fubbister, John Fubbister and Isabella Gun), a young woman from Scotland who masqueraded as a man in order to seek employment with the company while she searched for her runaway lover. Her true identity was revealed when she went into labour and gave birth. See “Isabel Gunn,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography, ed. Frances G. Halpenny (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1983) Vol. V (1801-20), 394 and A Harvest Yet to Reap: A History of Prairie Women, eds. Linda Rasmussen, Lorna Rasmussen, Candace Savage and Anne Wheeler (Toronto: The Women’s Press, 1976), 12. John Richardson in Wacousta (1832) and Gilbert Parker in Seats of the Mighty (1896) are just two nineteenth-century writers who use masquerading women in their fictions. 17. Laut, “New Nation to the North,” Review of Reviews 37 (May 1908): 557-60. 18. See Arthur T. Adams, ed., The Explorations of Pierre Esprit Radisson (Minneapolis: Ross & Haines, 1961), 161-205 and Grace Lee Nute, Caesars of the Wilderness (New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1943). Laut’s narrative contains many of the situations and happenings described by Radisson in his “Fifth Voyage” to the North in the years 1682 and 1683. In 1682, La Chesnaye organized the Compagnie du Nord to push the English out of Hudson Bay. That same year the first ship sailed from Quebec for the Nelson River in the North. Commanded by Radisson, who had rejoined his countrymen, this voyage was successful. In the Bay, Radisson and his men captured a Hudson’s Bay Company ship and a New Englander interloper and seized their furs. 19. See Bakhtin, “From the Prehistory of Novelistic Discourse” 69. This term refers to a moment of mutual illumination, what Holquist describes as the “major relativizing force in de- privileging languages. When cultures are closed and deaf to one another, each considers itself absolute; when one language sees itself in the light of another [and when one character sees himself in the light of another], “novelness” has arrived” (430).

Bibliography Adams, Arthur T., ed., 1961. The Explorations of Pierre Esprit Radisson. Minneapolis: Ross and Haines. Ardener, Edwin, ed., 1971. Social Anthropology and Language. New York: Tavistock Publishing. Ardener, Shirley, ed., 1981. Women and Space: Ground Rules and Social Maps. London: Croom Helm. Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M.M. Bakhtin. Ed. Michael Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press. —. 1984. Rabelais and His World. Trans. Hélène Iswolsky. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Ballstadt, Carl, ed., 1975. The Search for English-Canadian Literature: An Anthology of Critical Articles from the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Basset, Isabel. 1975. Introduction. Janey Canuck in the West. Ed. Clara Thomas. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. Blodgett, E.D. 1982. Configuration: Essays on the Canadian Literatures. Toronto: ECW Press. Brooke, Frances. 1769. The History of Emily Montague. London: Dodsley.

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Brown, Jennifer. 1980. Strangers in Blood: Fur Trade Company Families in Indian Country. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Buss, Helen. 1990. “Women and the Garrison Mentality: Pioneer Women Autobiographies and their Relation to the Land,” in Lorraine McMullen (ed.), Re(Dis)covering Our Foremothers: Nineteenth-Century Canadian Women Writers. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press. Butler, William Francis. 1872. The Great Lone Land: A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Low and Searle. Canuck, Janey [Emily F. Murphy]. 1922. Seeds of Pine. Toronto: Musson. Davidson, Cathy. 1986. Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Duffy, Dennis. 1986. Sounding the Iceberg: An Essay on Canadian Historical Novels. Toronto: ECW Press. Duncan, Sara Jeannette. 1890. A Social Departure. London: Chatto and Windus. Frye, Northrop. 1971. The Bush Garden: Essays on the Canadian Imagination. Toronto: Anansi. Innis, Harold. 1930. The Fur Trade in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Johnston, Jean. 1960. Wilderness Women: Canada’s Forgotten History. Toronto: Little, Brown and Company. Kirby, William. 1877. The Golden Dog: (Le Chien d’or); A Romance of Old Quebec. New York: Lovell, Adam, Wesson. Kroetsch, Robert. 1989. “Disunity as Unity: A Canadian Strategy” in The Lovely Treachery of Words: Essays Selected and New. Toronto: Oxford University Press. Laut, Agnes C. 1900. Lords of the North: A Romance of the Northwest. Toronto: Briggs. ——. 1902. Heralds of Empire; Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade. Toronto: Briggs. ——. 1902. The Story of the Trapper. Toronto: Briggs. ——. 1904. Pathfinders of the West; Being the Thrilling Story of the Adventures of the Men Who Discovered the Great Northwest, Radisson, La Verendrye, Lewis and Clark. Toronto: Briggs. ——. 1908. The Conquest of the Great Northwest; Being the Story of the Adventurers of England Known As the Hudson’s Bay Company. New Pages in the History of the Canadian Northwest and Western States. 2 vols. New York: Outing. ——. 1909. Canada, the Empire of the North; Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion’s Growth from Colony to Kingdom. Boston and London: Ginn. ——. 1910. The Freebooters of the Wilderness. Toronto: Musson. ——. 1913. The New Dawn. New York: Moffat, Yard. ——. 1915. The Canadian Commonwealth. Toronto: McLeod & Allen. ——. 1921. Canada at the Crossroads. Toronto: Macmillan. ——. 1921. The Fur Trade of America. New York: Macmillan. Legge, Valerie. 1990. “The Fugitive Feminine in Early Canadian Writing: Vision, Performance and Masquerade.” PhD dissertation, Memorial University of Newfoundland. Logan, J.D. and Donald French, eds., 1924. Highways of Canadian Literature. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. Mandel, Eli and David Taras, eds., 1987. A Passion for Identity: An Introduction to Canadian Studies. Toronto: Methuen. Marshall, Tom. 1979. Harsh and Lovely Land: The Major Canadian Poets & the Making of a Canadian Tradition. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. McMullen, Lorraine, ed., 1990. Re(Dis)covering our Literary Foremothers: Nineteenth-Century Canadian Women Writers. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press. —— and Sandra Campbell, eds., 1991. New Woman: Short Stories by Canadian Women 1900- 1920. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press. Mitcham, Allison. 1983. The Northern Imagination: A Study of Northern Canadian Literature. Moonbeam: Penumbra Press. Morson, Gary Saul and Caryl Emerson. 1990. Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Murray, Heather. 1986. “Women in the Wilderness,” in Shirley Neuman and Smaro Kamboureli (eds.), A/Mazing Space: Writing Canadian, Women Writing. Edmonton: Longspoon/Newest Press. 74-83. Neuman, Shirley and Smaro Kamboureli, eds., 1986. A/Mazing Space: Writing Canadian, Women Writing. Edmonton: Longspoon/Newest Press. Newman, Peter C. 1987. Caesars of the Wilderness: Company of Adventurers. Vol. II. New York: Viking. Nute, Grace Lee. 1943. Caesars of the Wilderness: Medard Chouart, Sieur Des Groseilliers and Pierre Esprit Radisson, 1618-1710. New York: D. Appleton-Century Company. O’Hagan, Thomas, ed., 1901. Canadian Essays: Critical and Historical. Toronto: William Briggs. Ondaatje, Michael. 1990. Introduction. From Ink Lake: Canadian Stories. Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys.

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Parker, Sir Gilbert. 1896. Seats of the Mighty. London: Methuen & Company. Richardson, John. 1832. Wacousta or, The Prophecy; A Tale of the . London: Thomas Cadell. Shields, Carol. 1990. “‘Thinking Back Through Our Mothers’: Tradition in Canadian Women’s Writing”. Re(Dis)covering our Literary Foremothers: Nineteenth-Century Canadian Women Writers. Lorraine McMullen (ed.). Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press. 9-13. Spiller, Robert E. 1955. The Cycle of American Literature: An Essay in Historical Criticism. New York: Macmillan. Thomas, Clara, ed., 1910. Janey Canuck in the West. Emily Ferguson [Murphy]. London: Cassell. Van Kirk, Sylvia. 1980. Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur Trade Society, 1670-1870. Winnipeg: Watson and Dwyer. White, Hayden. 1986. “The Historical Text as Literary Artifact,” in Hazel Adams and Leroy Searle (eds.), Critical Theory Since 1965. Tallahassee: Florida State University Press. 395- 407.

150 Review Essay Essai critique Jocelyn Létourneau

Le temps du lieu raconté. Essai sur quelques chronologies récentes relatives à l’histoire du Québec*

Les chronologies ne sont pas neutres1. Il existe ainsi, dans la culture historique des Québécois francophones, un certain nombre de dates consacrées. Celles-ci constituent autant de repères qui permettent à des locuteurs-participants d’une communauté de communication de se situer par rapport à la temporalité narrative de leur groupe présumé ou recherché d’appartenance. Elles leur servent aussi à se reconnaître comme ayant évolué au même rythme, comme ayant connu le même destin et comme ayant partagé le même espace d’expériences tout en cheminant vers le même horizon d’attente. Ces dates sont pleines de sens. Elles sont des déclencheurs narratifs, on ne les efface ni ne les remplace sans provoquer des déchaînements de passions. Ces dates sont des balises grâce auxquelles les groupes se situent par rapport à Eux-mêmes dans leur trajectoire historique et se positionnent aussi par rapport aux Autres dans la trajectoire historique universelle. Ces dates sont en fait des catégories fondatrices sur lesquelles les groupes élèvent leur représentation identitaire et bâtissent leur genèse. Mil-sept-cent-cinquante-neuf, 1763, 1791, 1837-1838, 1840,1867,1960,1982,voilàautantdebornesquiscandent,dansl’histoireetla mémoire collectives des Franco-Québécois, les péripéties d’un peuple apparemment soumis à l’exil dans son propre espace originel puis arraché à sa destinée et conscrit pour le bénéfice des intérêts d’un État assimilateur; un peuple redevenu, avec la Révolution tranquille, commandeur de sa propre histoireavantd’êtreànouveau,parl’épisodedurapatriementdelaconstitution, contraintdeseranger,inéluctablementvictimedesmanipulationsdel’Autre2. De telles périodisations — positives ou négatives, offensives ou défensives, universalistes ou localistes, c’est finalement selon la conscience historique que les groupes développent d’eux-mêmes ou selon celle qu’on leur prête et qu’ils assimilent — se rencontrent chez les Américains et les Français, chez les Allemands et les Canadiens, bref partout. La raison est bien simple à comprendre. Coloniser le passé par le temps d’une narration importe autant que se nommer et s’instituer physiquement dans un territoire3. C’est injecter du sens là où il n’y aurait qu’un flux intarissable de moments et de passages consécutifs sans continuités et sans ruptures, sans dedans ni dehors et sans frontières, donc sans conséquences et sans permanence. C’est contribuer à conceptualiser une réalité qui autrement s’appellerait Absence ou Personne, Licence ou Zone Franche, Timeless ou Nowhere, donc s’apparenterait à du Néant.

International Journal of Canadian Studies / Revue internationale d’études canadiennes 15, Spring/Printemps 1997 IJCS / RIÉC

Le lieu a besoin d’un temps pour prendre une consistance linéaire et s’endurcir sur le mode d’une histoire sensée, causative, transmissible et compréhensible. Il lui faut, par l’intermédiaire de « chronologues » patentés, créer sa temporalité. Or, puisqu’elle n’est pas naturelle, c’est-à-dire qu’elle appartient à l’histoire qui est faite du passé plutôt qu’au passé lui-même, cette temporalité nevadesoi.Elleestaussidélicateàfixerquelelieuestarduàcirconscrire4.

I Dans son Histoire du Canada depuis sa découverte jusqu’à nos jours5, François-Xavier Garneau proposait déjà, aussi tôt que le milieu du XIXe siècle, une première périodisation établissant une succession conséquentielle des événements porteurs de la destinée canadienne-française. Cette périodisation était structurée autour d’un moment dramatique de rupture, celui de la Conquête anglaise. Avec Garneau, les ferments d’une chronologie nationale étaient posés. La société était nationalisée, c’est-à-dire qu’elle était réputée fonctionner à l’heure de la nation en déficit d’accomplissement. Cette date butoir allait être inlassablement reprise par les successeurs du célèbre auteur, nonobstant leurs partis pris idéologiques. Il faut comprendre que, à l’époque, l’objet des historiens était, plus que n’importe quoi d’autre, l’étude de la politique nationale, et,parcebiais, l’étude delaconstruction etdeladissolution des nations. Mais, dans le cas qui nous occupe, il y avait plus : la Conquête était présentée comme un épisode de basculement, comme une bifurcation fondamentale, comme une reprogrammation du devenir de tout un peuple dont l’histoire devait être grande — et l’avait été jusque-là! — elle aussi. La Conquête ne marquait pas la disparition d’une nation, elle signifiait sa mise en tutelle. Elle inaugurait une lutte d’émancipation qui passait d’abord par la survivance. Surtout, cette lutte appelait une solidarité de la part des héritiers. La prise en charge de cet héritage allait se manifester, toujours selon le récit de la « nation en quête d’avenir », de manière légaliste par le biais d’une lutte parlementaire acharnée (confirmée et accentuée par l’Acte constitutionnel de 1791) et de façon dramatique aussi par l’insurrection armée de 1837-1838. En fait, la nation se construisait en même temps que sa temporalité et ce, dans une véritable dialectique tautologique : ni l’une ni l’autre n’existait en soi, mais l’une par rapport à l’autre, l’une grâce à l’autre. Dans la mesure où l’histoire — celle de Groulx6, celle des Frères des Écoles chrétiennes, celle des Clercs de Saint-Viateur et de combien d’autres7 — s’en tenait à cette temporalité de la nation, et puisqu’elle l’imposait comme seule temporalité référentielle, il n’y avait, sur le plan des mégareprésentations tout au moins, qu’un temps vraiment critique, qu’un temps résolument significatif, celui vers lequel tout convergeait, l’alpha et l’omega de la socialité, et c’était celui de la nation8.Le découpage temporel choisi semblait essentiellement technique, voire objectif : il marquait, disait-on, les tribulations politiques du groupe. En réalité, la temporalité retenue, celle d’un monde réifié — le monde de la nation unanimiste et monovalente qui se meut comme une entité univoque dans le théâtre de l’histoire —, synthétisait un ensemble de temporalités concrètes qui renvoyaient à autant de mondes vécus constituant l’interface parfois complémentaire, parfois contradictoire, du premier. Mais de ces mondes vécus et de leurs espaces-temps labiles il n’était peu ou pas question. Le contexte

154 Essai sur quelques chronologies récentes relatives à l’histoire du Québec

signifiant dans lequel se déroulait l’histoire n’était autre que celui de la nation se déployant dans l’espace-temps de sa na(rra)tion. La force tranquille de la vie quotidienne, désespérante voire insoutenable aux idéologues par sa sagesse, était engloutie dans le grand récit galvanisant du peuple à la recherche des conditions de sa survivance9. Ce n’est qu’avec les années 1960 que d’autres repères et découpages temporels furent proposés, sans toutefois que la temporalité nationale — une chronologie de malheurs et de vicissitudes — ne perde son statut hégémonique de cadre focal unificateur et synthétique du groupe. Inspirés par les problématiques des Labrousse et des Braudel, qui insistaient sur les rythmes lents de l’évolution humaine, Fernand Ouellet10 et Jean Hamelin11, de manière à la fois complémentaire et différente, « découvrirent » d’autres durées et contextes historiques par lesquels il était possible de cerner les dynamismes centraux de l’évolution du Canada français. Selon leur perspective, la Conquête, épisode politique incontournable sur le plan politique — et, ajouterions-nous maintenant, ineffaçable sur le plan mémoriel — ne coïncidait pas avec le moment initial, sorte de « Temps1»delapériphérisation d’un espace et d’une société. Pour un Ouellet, par exemple, le siècle de l’après Conquête se situait dans la continuité de l’avant. Cette interprétation, remettant en cause la primauté d’une chronologie essentiellement politique centrée sur un événement fondateur, n’était pas sans provoquer ces gens qui, comme les Brunet, Séguin, Frégault et leurs épigones, estimaient que la Conquête restait le fait marquant d’une époque, sinon d’une destinée12. Déboulonner 1759, voire même seulement relativiser cette date, était un acte politique avant d’être une opération scientifique. C’est en effet par rapport à ce moment inaugural que s’enchaînait une suite événementielle faite d’Empêchement, de Déchéance et de Minorisation. Un parcours fort différent de celui qui marquait l’histoire de l’Autre — une histoire de Progrès, d’Avancement et de Succès — et dont les Creighton, les Lower et les McInnis se faisaient les chantres13. C’est ainsi que soixante-quinze ans après la Confédération, deux anciennes races et deux anciennes religions se rencontraient pour vivre, côte à côte, chacune sa légende14. Le statut de la Conquête dans l’évolution historique du Canada français n’allait pas mourir au chapitre. Cette question prit en effet la forme d’un débat envenimé auquel participèrent, dans les années 1970, Gilles Paquet et Jean- Pierre Wallot, mais pour la reformuler. Capitalisant sur leurs recherches antérieures, ceux-ci en vinrent à proposer, au début des années 1980, un cadre chronologique original, explicitement conceptualisé, pour aborder « l’expérience socio-économique du Québec »15. Ce cadre chronologique reposait sur l’identification des procès historiques, contingents et institués, ayant caractérisé le développement de la province. Ce cadre n’était pas établi en fonction des démarcations politiques habituelles, niveau superficiel de l’histoire, mais à la suite du repérage des « périodes de discontinuités » ayant marqué le substrat matériel de la socio-économie québécoise et définirent ses « tonus » successifs. Selon Paquet et Wallot, plutôt que de s’en tenir à ces moments présumés importants qu’étaient 1760, 1763, 1840 ou 1867, il était préférable, pour saisir les forces motrices animant le mouvement de l’histoire, d’identifier les « régimes de fonctionnement » ayant scandé l’évolution du

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Québec. Ces régimes étaient les suivants : économie-comptoir, socio- économie duale, capitalisme commercial, capitalisme industriel et socio- économie d’information. Ces régimes étaient séparés par quatre discontinuités ainsi jalonnées : tournant du XVIIIe siècle, tournant du XIXe siècle et troisième tiers du XIXe siècle, troisième tiers du XXe siècle. Suivant le contexte temporel préconisé par les deux auteurs, les événements politiques comme tels étaient réinsérés dans des trames structurelles d’évolution, y compris les grands procès d’institution des sociétés, qui étaient largement conditionnants des phénomènes de surface. Certes, il ne s’agissait pas de nier la factualité de la capitulation de Montréal, du Traité de Paris, de l’Acte d’Union où de l’entrée en vigueur de l’AANB. Mais il ne fallait pas non plus ériger ces événements en bornes monumentales ni leur attribuer le statut de grand code explicatif d’ou sortait l’histoire pour y revenir. On saisit bien l’importance de la démarche de Paquet et Wallot. Leur périodisation autorisait une nouvelle narration du passé. Celle-ci pouvait se faire selon une intrigue différente, à partir de nœuds articulants ou désarticulants inaccoutumés. Surtout, cette périodisation n’était pas fixée à l’axiomatique nationaliste. Le Québec fonctionnait désormais à l’heure américaine et occidentale16.

II Jusqu’à un certain point, si l’on s’en tient aux temporalités synthétiques du moins17, la collectivité québécoise hésite toujours, en cette fin de siècle, entre deuxchronologiesquicontribuentàlamettreenscènesousdesjoursetdesétats différents. La première chronologie, résolument politique, insiste sur le caractère troublé d’une histoire à quatre temps : le Régime français, le Régime anglais, la Confédération, la Révolution tranquille et ses suites. Cette chronologie ponctue la narration de la majorité des ouvrages offerts en pâture au public averti et aux élèves18. Elle constitue également l’un des principes cardinaux utilisés par les spécialistes pour établir leurs classements bibliographiques19.Il est vrai que l’on a proposé, depuis quelques temps, une variante à cette périodisation, soit celle de découper l’époque contemporaine (de 1867 à nos jours) en deux tranches de longueur à peu près égales : de la Confédération à la Crise de 1929, des années trente à aujourd’hui20. Cette périodisation a certainement eu pour conséquence de relativiser, au moins dans les milieux savants, cette idée selon laquelle tout (re)commençait au Québec avec la Révolution tranquille21. La question de l’accession du Québec à la modernité est d’ailleurs au centre des préoccupations des historiens actuels, que ce soit directement ou par la bande22, et elle commande largement les découpages chronologiques auxquels ils ont recours pour établir les temporalités les plus pertinentes touchant à l’évolution de la « province ». Si l’année 1930 semble être celle qui obtient l’adhésion du plus grand nombre23, 186724, 1895-190025, l’entre-deux guerres26 et 193927, pour ne nommer que celles-là, constituent d’autres alternatives pour faire débuter la modernité québécoise28. Certains vont jusqu’à réenvisager toute l’histoire du XIXe siècle sous le prisme de la diversité et du progrès, protocatégories d’une problématique implicite de modernisation29. En fait, l’on est à se demander si le couple tradition-

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modernité constitue un angle d’approche fécond pour saisir les dynamismes de changement dans l’histoire du Québec30. La seconde chronologie, élaborée à partir de la prise en compte de facteurs économiques et sociaux structurants, met en lumière la parenté d’évolution de l’espace québécois avec d’autres socio-économies du même genre — ce qui n’exclut pas que la socio-économie québécoise possède des traits distinctifs — et inscrit sa destinée dans un temps universel, tout au moins occidental, principalement atlantique et nord-américain. L’effort le plus manifeste d’ériger cette chronologie en nouvelle temporalité opérationnelle a certes été celui de John Dickinson et de Brian Young31. Dans un article incisif32, ceux-ci ont plaidé pour l’utilisation d’une périodisation ramenant l’évolution historique du Québec dans le sillage des grandes mutations qui ont scandé le développement du capitalisme et de l’industrialisation en Occident. Selon leur perspective, il y aurait lieu de comprendre l’histoire du Québec à partir des transformations survenues sur le plan des systèmes de production et d’échange plutôt qu’à partir de la « chronologie tyrannique » de 1663, 1760, 1791, 1840 et 1867. Dans ce contexte, six périodes — possédant chacune une certaine unité et cohérence du point de vue des relations économiques et sociales qui s’y déroulent — seraient identifiables. Ces périodes sont les suivantes : l’époque des systèmes socio-économiques indigènes (avant 1650), l’époque pré- industrielle (1650-1810), la transition vers le capitalisme industriel (1810- 1880), l’époque du capitalisme industriel (1880-1930), la modernisation (1930-1960) et le Québec contemporain (de 1960 à nos jours). En usant de ce découpage, la Confédération — pour prendre cet exemple — trouverait son sens historique dans les grands procès d’institutionnalisation propres à l’industrialisation et à la formation des États au XIXe siècle plutôt qu’elle ne s’expliquerait comme la conséquence d’une volonté d’embrigadement d’un peuple par un autre et ce, sous l’empire d’un fédéralisme assimilateur. S’enracinant dans un très grand nombre de travaux qui ont eu pour effet de remettre en cause la vision canonique d’un Québec « attardé » par rapport à un continent « avancé », et donc de reprendre la narration de l’histoire de la province à l’aune d’une problématique « optimiste » plutôt que « pessimiste »33, cette périodisation n’a pas été sans provoquer des réactions. Dans le compte rendu qu’il a commis de l’ouvrage de Young et Dickinson34, J.I. Little conteste ainsi le découpage chronologique retenu. Si l’historien a peu à dire sur la logique matérialiste plutôt que « politique » sous-tendant la démarche des auteurs, il ne partage pas le choix technique des dates. Selon le professeur de l’université Simon Fraser, Young et Dickinson « mettent l’accent sur chaque période dans son ensemble et non sur les dates charnières ». Lui- même aurait défini d’autres jalons chronologiques. Au fond, il ne s’agit ici que d’une objection mineure, infiniment discutable. En fait, le commentaire le plus virulent contre cette périodisation révisionniste — et contre le contexte interprétatif dans lequel elle s’insère — est certainement venu de Ronald Rudin. Dans un texte d’abord publié en anglais dans la Canadian Historical Review35, et repris plus tard en français dans le Bulletin d’histoire politique36, Rudin a dénoncé le côté excessif des « révisionnistes » qui cherchent à normaliser le parcours historique de la collectivité québécoise. Selon Rudin, l’insistance exagérément portée aux facteurs structurels a entraîné l’abandon

157 IJCS / RIÉC presque complet des facteurs culturels comme source d’explication du passé québécois. La périodisation retenue, essentiellement centrée sur l’idée de « normalité d’une société évoluant au même rythme que les autres », a entraîné une sous-estimation des conflits ethniques, de la ruralité, de l’influence déterminante de l’Église et de l’anti-étatisme dans l’histoire du Québec. Aux dires de Rudin, 1960 a vraiment constitué un moment de rupture avec un passé qui, tout en étant marqué par certaines caractéristiques « universelles », était néanmoins singulier à bien des égards37. Inutile d’ajouter que le débat ouvert par le professeur de l’Université de Concordia a entraîné son lot de répliques et qu’il est loin d’être terminé38. En certaines occasions, il arrive que d’autres chronologies — et donc que d’autres ensembles, structures et régimes de faits — soient proposées pour situer et ponctuer l’évolution historique du Québec. Dans son ouvrage de synthèse intitulé Visions nationales. Une histoire du Québec39, Susan Mann Trofimenkoff a ainsi eu recours à une périodisation sourde, sorte de chronologie effacée qui agit comme support empirique plutôt que comme marqueur téléologique. Dans son récit présenté comme une histoire sociale et intellectuelle du Québec, le temps signifiant est celui qui balise l’action d’acteurs construisant ce qu’il conviendrait d’appeler des espaces de communication, d’interlocution publique et de pensée. Pour prendre un exemple parmi tant d’autres, 1952, qui marque le début de la télévision au Canada, apparaît comme le moment inaugural d’un mouvement de restructuration majeur du champ culturel québécois. Dans ce nouvel espace civique, où les idées échappent au contrôle des pouvoirs précédents, les visions du monde changent. Ce faisant, de nouvelles représentations naissent qui informent l’action des acteurs; cette dialectique entre l’action, la représentation et la conscience s’effectue dans une inflation constante de signes, de références et d’horizons qui élargissent et complexifient singulièrement l’expérience historique des sujets. Pour l’auteure, la périodisation la plus intéressante serait probablement celle qui coïnciderait avec les phases d’extension ou de repli, en tout cas de redéfinition du groupe par lui-même ou par ses grands paroliers, ce qui est une façon d’admettre et de reconnaître que les idées mènent le monde tout autant que les actions le façonnent! Cette prémisse semble également inspirer Yvan Lamonde dans sa tentative de « chrono-logiser » l’histoire du Québec en s’attachant à repérer les trames constitutives de l’expression publique des citoyens du Québec et ce, pour la période biséculaire de 1760 à 196040. Selon Lamonde, ces trames se résument aux courants suivants : le nationalisme et ses corollaires (colonialisme, impérialisme, régionalisme, souverainisme); le libéralisme et la démocratie; le catholicisme et l’ultramontainisme; le laïcisme; le continentalisme ou l’attraction états-unienne; la pensée sociale et économique; la modernité. Quant à la « chrono-logique » de cette histoire socio-culturelle du Québec, elle s’organise autour de six périodes : 1760-1815, 1815-1840, 1840-1880, 1880- 1929, 1929-1945, 1945-1960. Il serait trop long de décliner les justifications apportées par l’auteur pour fonder cette temporalité, hachurée, de l’évolution historique du Québec sur le plan des courants d’idées et des pratiques culturelles qui s’y sont succédés. Suffit-il de rappeler qu’elle reprend en partie seulement la trame politique établie par les tenants de l’axiomatique

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nationaliste et moins encore les discontinuités socio- économiques identifiées par les partisans de l’approche institutionnaliste ou systémiste41. Serait-ce qu’à chaque problématique il est une temporalité appropriée et pertinente? Sans aucun doute. Cette position se vérifie certainement lorsqu’on s’arrête aux repères temporels utilisés par le Collectif Clio pour découper, en périodes signifiantes, l’histoire des femmes au Québec42. D’une part, les dates marquantes de cette histoire ne coïncident pas avec la temporalité nationale hégémonique qui est, comme on le sait, une temporalité masculine43. D’autre part, les durées dans lesquelles les femmes inscrivent leurs pratiques, leurs représentations et, probablement aussi, leur conscience historique, sont spécifiques à leur condition sociale et culturelle, de même qu’à leur imaginaire. La traite des fourrures, les guerres, la responsabilité ministérielle, la construction des chemins de fer, voilà autant d’épisodes qui ne sont pas signifiants du point de vue de l’histoire des femmes. Cette histoire se dessine selon un temps différent : ses jalons sont déterminés par les changements survenus dans les façons de naître, de grandir, d’accoucher, de travailler, bref par l’ensemble des questions qui sont au cœur de la mémoire et de l’engagement des femmes plutôt qu’au centre de l’action des hommes44. Ce sont ces problématiques qui permettent de comprendre la condition historique des femmes. Même la Révolution tranquille, ce moment réputé de grand basculement et de recommencement, n’est pas retenue comme repère chronologique dans l’histoire des femmes. Aux dires des membres du Collectif Clio, « 1960 n’est pas, pour les femmes, une date vraiment importante car comme bien d’autres groupes, la “Révolution tranquille”, elles l’avaient commencée bien avant qu’on en parle. De plus, elles découvriront plus tard que, malgré son idéologie égalitariste, la dite Révolution tranquille aura mis en place des institutions créant un nouveau double standard, une nouvelle place, différente mais inférieure, pour les femmes45. »

III Quelles que soient les tentatives mises de l’avant pour développer de nouvelles périodisations et temporalités afin d’envisager l’évolution historique du Québec dans son temps long, elles n’ont pas réussi à déloger les chronologies dominantes. Au milieu des années 1990, la majorité des synthèses et manuels scolaires en usage au Québec français proposent des repères on ne peut plus traditionnels qui permettent à tout un chacun de « remonter » ou de « descendre » le temps selon un parcours codé et balisé, connu et reconnaissable46. Cela est vrai aussi dans le cas des manuels et des synthèses utilisés au Canada anglais47. Il semble difficile de sortir des périodisations qui se sont, avec le temps, cristallisées sous la forme d’axiomatiques historiques et narratives, mémorielles et identitaires48. Ne pas avoir recours à ces périodisations, c’est en quelque sorte donner au lecteur une boussole qui lui indique une direction inconnue plutôt que le Nord. C’est risquer de le perdre au moins comme sujet national. Si tous admettent qu’il est important de se souvenir, encore faut-il se rappeler correctement les choses!49 Dans l’espace public commun, l’histoire est après tout perçue comme la science exacte des dates, des événements et de la mémoire (sic).

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Les contextes temporels sont importants, car, en érigeant des bords et des limites à la factualité du passé, ils en mobilisent la matière en vue d’une quête et d’une recréation de sens qui n’était pas immanent à l’effectuation des faits et gestes des acteurs ayant vécu le passé dans son déroulement circonstanciel. David Lowenthal a brillamment soutenu ce théorème en définissant le passé comme un « lieu étranger »50. Dépendamment des contextes temporels choisis, les événements prennent des significations variables. Un événement n’existe d’ailleurs jamais en soi, il est, comme Marshall Sahlins l’a souligné, « une relation entre quelque chose qui se produit et une structure. Il est une transformation du phénomène en-soi en une valeur chargée de sens, d’où découle son efficacité propre51. » De ce point de vue, il est intéressant d’observer le jeu de polycontextualisation auquel s’est livré Jacques Godbout, à propos de 1759, dans son documentaire intitulé Le Sort de l’Amérique52. À force de multiplier les angles d’approche et d’ajouter des prises de vue, le spectateur est dérouté. L’addition de repères ne repaît nullement sa mémoire mais l’égare et la dissout au contraire dans un anéantissement identitaire. Sans possibilité de se saisir pour Soi dans le temps d’une narration de Soi, le spectateur, interpellé comme sujet historique, perd sens. Voilà pourquoi Godbout apparaît comme un « traître » — selon le qualificatif de son jeune assistant Philippe Falardeau. Le documentariste est un traître parce qu’il n’assume pas son rôle de « grand parolier ». Il laisse le groupe — ici les Québécois francophones — sans miroir pour se regarder et dialoguer avec lui- même. Sans récit et sans chronologie établie, voire fixée, le narrateur ou le chronologue n’offre pas au groupe la possibilité de se donner une consistance dans l’image mimée qu’il exécute de lui-même53. Sans récit et sans chronologie, il n’y a plus de passé, ou alors il y en a tellement qu’ils s’annulent lesuns lesautres, cette infinité depossibles ouvrant leVide comme horizon. Or, l’individu, comme le sujet historicisé, répugnent à l’Absence. Un monde sans écho et sans repère, sans odeur et sans saveur, est un monde en voie de désintégration, un monde en proie aux langoliers, ces non-êtres qui nettoient le temps de toute Présence et qui préparent l’avènement de l’Inexistence comme référence54. L’Inexistence est la négation, l’antithèse de l’Être. Voilà pourquoi exister suppose probablement — que l’on accepte mal cette thèse ne signifie pas qu’elle soit fausse — adhérer à une conscience de la frontière. L’établissement de chronologies participe de cet exercice de construction de l’Être, elle est une arme dans la lutte de l’Être contre la Mort. S’il est inutile de s’interposer dans ce combat éternel du Temps découpé et raconté contre le Non-Sens, il est important de dénoncer les chronologies insensées. Il est surtout essentiel d’empêcher que les chrono ne muent en chromo...55

Notes * Le lecteur devra considérer que, dans cet article, nous abordons une matière complexe et très vaste sans nullement prétendre la couvrir de manière exhaustive. 1. À ce sujet, voir Chronotypes. The Construction of Time, sous la dir. de John Bender et David E. Wellbery, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1991; Krzysztof Pomian, L’ordre du temps, Paris, Gallimard, 1984; Constructions sociales du temps, sous la dir. de Florence Piron et Daniel Arsenault, Sillery, Septentrion, 1996. Voir également les livraisons de la revue Time and Society, publiée depuis 1992. 2. Cette trame temporelle et narrative, qui conforme largement la mémoire collective et la culture historique des Québécois francophones, ressort clairement des mémoires déposés

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devant la Commission sur l’avenir politique et constitutionnel du Québec. Voir l’étude minutieuse réalisée par Jacinthe Ruel, « Entre la rhétorique et la mémoire : usages du passé et références à l’histoire dans les mémoires déposés devant la Commission sur l’avenir politique et constitutionnel du Québec (1990) », Discours social/Social Discourse, 6, 1-2 (1994), p. 213-242. Pour un exemple récent de la prégnance de cette temporalité référentielle, citons cet extrait de l’« Appel aux historiens et historiennes pour le Oui », publié par le Regroupement des historiens et historiennes pour le Oui dans le Bulletin d’histoire politique, 4, 3 (printemps 1996), p. 93-94 : « Parce que, depuis la défaite militaire de 1760, les Québécoises et Québécois n’ont jamais pu décider du cadre constitutionnel qui animerait leur activité socio-économique, leur culture et leur développement; depuis ce temps, en 1763, en 1774, en 1791, en 1840, en 1867 comme en 1982, toutes les constitutions de leur histoire leur ont été imposées. » 3. Jane Jenson, « Naming Nations. Making Nationalist Claims in Canadian Public Discourse », Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, 30, 3 (1993), p. 337-358; Graeme Wynn, « Maps and Dreams of Nationhood : A (Re)View of the Historical Atlas of Canada », Canadian Historical Review, 76, 3 (septembre 1995), p. 482-510. 4. À ce sujet, voir J. Létourneau, avec la participation d’Anne Trépanier, « Le lieu (dit) de la nation : essai d’argumentation à partir d’exemples puisés au cas québécois », Revue canadienne de science politique, 30, 1 (mars 1997), p. 55-87. 5. Québec, éditeurs différents, 1848-1852, 4 tomes. 6. Histoire du Canada français depuis la découverte, Montréal, L’Action nationale, 1950- 1953, 4 tomes. 7. Il est impensable dans le cadre de cet article de résumer la matière des ouvrages, notamment celle des manuels scolaires, parus dans la première moitié du XXe siècle. Pour une entrée en la matière, voir néanmoins J. Létourneau, « Nous autres les Québécois. La voix des manuels d’histoire », Internationale Schulbuchforschung, 18, 3 (1996), p. 269-287. 8. À ce sujet, voir Serge Gagnon, Le Québec et ses historiens de 1840 à 1920, Québec, PUL, 1978. 9. Dans un ouvrage fort intéressant par les perspectives qu’il ouvre, Jacques Mathieu et Jacques Lacoursière ont bien fait ressortir l’importance pourtant déterminante de la vie quotidienne dans la structuration des représentations populaires, celles-ci ne coïncidant pas nécessairement avec l’identité qui était par ailleurs octroyée au « peuple ». Voir Les mémoires québécoises, Québec, PUL, 1991. 10. Histoire économique et sociale du Québec, 1750-1860, Montréal, Fides, 1966. 11. Économie et société en Nouvelle-France, Québec, PUL, 1960. Voir aussi J. Hamelin et Yves Roby, Histoire économique du Québec, 1851-1896, Montréal, Fides, 1971. 12. À ce sujet, voir Michel Brunet, « The British Conquest, Canadian Social Scientists and the Fate of the Canadians », Canadian Historical Review, 40, 2 (juin 1959), p. 93-107; voir aussi Guy Frégault, La société canadienne sous le régime anglais, Ottawa, Société historique du Canada, 1954, « Brochure historique no 3 ». Plus généralement, voir l’ouvrage de Jean Lamarre, Le devenir de la nation québécoise selon Maurice Séguin, Guy Frégault et Michel Brunet, 1944-1969, Sillery, Septentrion, 1993. 13. À ce sujet, voir Carl Berger, The Writing of Canadian History : Aspects of English-Canadian Historical Writing, 1900-1970, Toronto, Oxford University Press, 1976. Voir aussi Jean- Paul Bernard, « L’historiographie canadienne récente (1964-1994) et l’histoire des peuples du Canada », Canadian Historical Review, 76, 3 (septembre 1995), p. 321-353. 14. Locution inspirée du célèbre roman de Hugh MacLennan, Deux solitudes, nouv. éd. revue et corrigée, Montréal, Boréal, « Bibliothèque québécoise », 1992 [1945]. 15. « Sur quelques discontinuités dans l’expérience socio-économique du Québec : une hypothèse », Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique française, 35, 4 (mars 1982), p. 483-521. 16. On sait que la perspective temporelle et que la thèse préconisée par Paquet et Wallot ne firent pas l’unanimité. Il suffit de suivre le débat qui les opposa à Fernand Ouellet pour s’en convaincre. Dans un ouvrage plus récent (Peasant, Lord and Merchant : Rural Society in Three Quebec Parishes, 1740-1840, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1985), Allan Greer émet lui aussi quelques réserves à l’endroit du travail des deux historiens, notamment en regard des catégories normatives (d’inspiration « polanyiste») qu’ils utilisent.

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17. Car il existe une foule de temporalités alternatives, spécifiques ou microscopiques le plus souvent, à l’intérieur desquelles les acteurs situent leur praxis, ordonnent leur vie et bâtissent leur conscience historico-biographique. 18. Marcel et Dominic Roy, Je me souviens. Histoire du Québec et du Canada, Saint-Laurent, Éditions du renouveau pédagogique, 1995; Yves Tessier, Histoire du Québec : d’hier à l’an 2000, Montréal, Guérin, 1994; Gérard Cachat, À la recherche de mes racines, Montréal, Lidec, 1984; Jean-François Cardin et al., Le Québec : héritages et projets, Montréal, HRW, 1994; Histoire du Québec, sous la dir. de Jean Hamelin, Montréal, Éd. France-Amérique, 1977; Gilles Bourque et Anne Legaré, Le Québec. La question nationale, Paris, Maspero, 1979; Denis Monière, Le développement des idéologies au Québec, des origines à nos jours, Montréal, Québec/Amérique, 1977; Françoise Tétu de Labsade, Le Québec, un pays, une culture, Montréal, Boréal, 1989. Nous pourrions allonger la liste ad nauseam. 19. C’est le cas du Guide d’histoire du Québec du Régime français à nos jours, publié sous la dir. de Jacques Rouillard, Montréal, Méridien, 1991, et de la Bibliographie de l’histoire du Québec et du Canada, 1981-1985, publiée sous la dir. de Paul Aubin et de Louis-Marie Côté, Québec, IQRC, 1990, 2 tomes. La périodisation retenue par Aubin et Côté est la suivante : préhistoire, ethnohistoire, explorations, colonisation française, colonisation anglaise, confédération. 20. Cette périodisation a été consacrée au moment de la publication, par Paul-André Linteau et al.,del’Histoire du Québec contemporain, Montréal, Boréal, 1979 et 1985, 2 vol. Elle a été reprise par Jean Provencher dans sa Chronologie du Québec, Montréal, Boréal, « Bibliothèque québécoise » 1997 [1991], et par plusieurs autres auteurs. Dans son Histoire des idéologies au Québec aux XIXe et XXe siècles (Montréal, Boréal, 1993), Fernande Roy associe également l’entre-deux guerres, et notamment la crise des années 1930, à une période de mutation d’un libéralisme conservateur vers un libéralisme plus émancipateur. 21. Toutes les enquêtes, systématiques ou informelles, auxquelles je me suis livré indiquent que cette relativisation n’a pas gagné, ou si faiblement, les milieux non universitaires. 22. J. Létourneau, « La production historienne courante portant sur le Québec et ses rapports avec la construction des figures identitaires d’une communauté communicationnelle », Recherches sociographiques, 36, 1 (1995), p. 9-45. 23. Voir les travaux mentionnés à la note 20. 24. Jean Hamelin et Jean Provencher, Brève histoire du Québec, Montréal, Boréal, 1986. 25. Yvan Lamonde, « La modernité au Québec : pour une histoire des brèches, 1895-1950 », dans L’avènement de la modernité au Québec, sous la dir. de Y. Lamonde et Esther Trépanier, Québec, IQRC, 1986. Voir aussi, dans ce même volume, les articles de J. Allard, de E. Lavoie et de E. Trépanier. Lamonde justifie ainsi sa périodisation:«Auterme de cette réflexion, la modernité a enfin une temporalité, une détermination dans le temps. Émergeant, pour l’essentiel, du débat entre régionalisme et exotisme, au début du XXe siècle, cette modernité se nomme en pointillé, jusqu’à la crise de 1929, participe ensuite à la recherche d’un “nouvel ordre” et met un terme à une “quarantaine” culturelle dans la décennie des années 1940. Les brèches qui s’additionnent, depuis un demi-siècle, atteignent, au seuil des années cinquante, une ouverture critique, irréversible, qui culminera en débâcle après 1960. » 26. Jean-François Cardin et Claude Couture, avec la collaboration de Gratien Allaire, Histoire du Canada. Espace et différences, Québec, PUL, 1996, p. 265 et ss. 27. Robert Lahaise, La fin d’un Québec traditionnel, 1914-1939, I. Histoire : Du Canada à « Notre État français », Montréal, L’Hexagone, 1994. 28. Notons la chronologie originale proposée par Gilles Laporte et Luc Lefebvre dans leur synthèse intitulée Fondements historiques du Québec (Montréal, Éd. de la Chenelière, 1995). Cette chronologie est jalonnée par les dates charnières suivantes : 1810/1880/1945. Les justifications qu’ils mettent de l’avant se présentent ainsi : « L’approche chronologique a perpétué une histoire essentiellement politique, où les jalons principaux (1760, 1867, 1960) ne rendaient pas compte des transformations profondes que connaissait la société québécoise. Nous proposons un découpage de nature socio-économique, qui se distingue franchement du découpage politique. Dans la première partie [du livre], qui couvre la période allant de 1810 à 1880, on découvre que le Québec est marqué par une société rurale repliée sur elle-même et par une société urbaine axée sur le commerce de quelques denrées de base. La province est alors à la recherche d’un cadre politique qui puisse rendre compte de

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sa dualité sociale et ethnique. Dans la deuxième partie, qui couvre la période allant de 1880 à 1945, on apprend comment le Québec s’intègre à une économie canadienne qui tente de se diversifier et de s’industrialiser. Bon nombre de Québécois font alors l’expérience de la vie urbaine et du travail salarié, alors que l’État provincial prend conscience de la faible marge de manœuvre que lui alloue la Confédération de 1867. Dans la troisième partie, qui couvre la période de 1945 à nos jours, on voit une société caractérisée par l’essor d’une économie de services et par l’affirmation du groupe francophone aux points de vue social, culturel et politique. Le nationalisme canadien et le souverainisme québécois plongent en effet leurs racines dans le second conflit mondial. » 29. Voir, entre autres, Serge Courville et Normand Séguin, Le monde rural québécois au XIXe siècle, Ottawa, Société historique du Canada, 1989, « Brochure historique », no 47; Serge Courville, Jean-Claude Robert, Normand Séguin, Atlas historique du Québec. Le pays laurentien au XIXe siècle : les morphologies de base, Québec, PUL, 1995. 30. Claude Couture et Claude Denis, « La captation du couple tradition-modernité par la sociographie québécoise », dans Canada : Theoretical Discourses/Discours théoriques, sous la dir. de Terry Goldie, Carmen Lambert et Rowland Lorimer, Montréal, Association d’études canadiennes, 1994, p. 105-132. 31. Brève histoire socio-économique du Québec, Sillery, Septentrion, 1992 [1988]. Notons aussi l’ouvrage de Robert Armstrong, Structure and Change. An Economic History of Quebec, Toronto, Gage, 1984. 32. « Periodization in Quebec History : A Reevaluation », Québec Studies, 12 (printemps-été 1991), p. 1-10. 33. Nous avons longuement abordé cette question dans notre article déjà cité, « La production historienne courante portant sur le Québec ». 34. Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique française, 43, 1 (été 1989), p. 125-127. 35. « Revisionism and the Search for a Normal Society : A Critique of Recent Quebec Historical Writing », Canadian Historical Review, 73, 1 (1992), p. 30-61. 36. « La quête d’une société normale : critique de la réinterprétation de l’histoire du Québec », Bulletin d’histoire politique, 3, 2 (hiver 1995), p. 9-42. 37. Plusieurs auteurs refusent de revenir sur cette idée d’associer 1960 à un moment de rupture. Voir, entre autres, Michael D. Behiels, « Quand l’histoire nationaliste devient mythe et propagande », Bulletin d’histoire politique, 3, 1 (automne 1994), p. 115-123; Nelson Wiseman, « A Note on “Hartz-Horowitz” at Twenty : The Case of French Canada », Revue canadienne de science politique, 21, 4 (décembre 1988), p. 795-806. Pour un aperçu général de la vision du Québec telle qu’elle a été projetée par l’intelligentsia canadienne-anglaise, voir Serge Denis, Le long malentendu. Le Québec vu par les intellectuels progressistes au Canada anglais, 1970-1991, Montréal, Boréal, 1992. Il semble de toute façon qu’il soit fort difficile de se défaire de la métaphore de la « Grande noirceur » et de la « Révolution tranquille » pour envisager l’histoire du Québec contemporain, car les catégories qu’elle mobilise sont rien de moins que les catégories centrales d’une construction historique du Soi collectif dans un nouveau rapport avec l’Autre. À ce sujet, voir J. Létourneau, « La Révolution tranquille, catégorie identitaire du Québec contemporain», dans Duplessis et le duplessisme, sous la dir. de Alain G. Gagnon et Michel Sarra-Bournet, Montréal, Québec- Amérique, 1997. 38. Pour en avoir une idée, voir la livraison d’hiver 1995 du Bulletin d’histoire politique (4, 2), entièrement constituée de réponses à Rudin. Voir aussi J. Létourneau, « Des récits d’histoire », Bulletin d’histoire politique, 4, 3 (printemps 1996), p. 69-75. 39. Montréal, Trécarré, 1986 [trad. française de The Dream of Nation. A Social and Intellectual History of Quebec, Toronto, Gage, 1983]. 40. Voir son texte « L’histoire culturelle et intellectuelle du Québec : tendances et aspects méthodologiques », dans Y. Lamonde, Territoires de la culture québécoise, Québec, PUL, 1991, p. 16. 41. Pour rester dans le domaine de l’histoire culturelle, mentionnons qu’Andrée Fortin, dans son ouvrage intitulé Passage de la modernité. Les intellectuels québécois et leurs revues (Québec, PUL, 1993), identifiait trois grandes périodes correspondant à trois modes d’intervention des intellectuels dans le social : a) la prémodernité, qui va de la naissance de la presse au Québec (à la toute fin du 18e siècle) à la fin de la Première Guerre mondiale (1917-

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1918); b) la modernité, qui va des années 1920 à la fin des années 1970; et c) la postmodernité, qui recoupe la période contemporaine. 42. Cette périodisation retient les dates suivantes : 1607/1701/1832/1900/1940/1969/1979. Voir Micheline Dumont, Michèle Jean, Marie Lavigne, Jennifer Stoddart (Collectif Clio), L’histoire des femmes au Québec depuis quatre siècles, Montréal, Les Quinze, 1982. 43. À ce sujet, voir Homi K. Bhabha, « DissemiNation : Time, Narrative and the Margins of the Modern Nation », dans Nation/Narration, Londres, Routledge, 1990; Julia Kristeva, « Le temps des femmes », dans 33/44. Cahiers de recherche des sciences des textes et documents, 5 (hiver 1979), p. 15-19. 44. Dans leur ouvrage intitulé Les femmes au tournant du siècle, 1880-1940. Âges de la vie, maternité et quotidien (Québec, IQRC, 1989), Denise Lemieux et Lucie Mercier ont également retenu ces critères « privés» pour aborder, dans un livre empreint d’intimité, l’importance décisive des apprentissages familiaux, des premières fréquentations, du mariage, des naissances, de la maternité, etc., dans le cycle et l’itinéraire de vie des femmes. Cela ne veut évidemment pas dire que les femmes ne participent pas d’une mouvance politique globale et n’usent pas, dans leur gouverne personnelle, des repères politiques consacrés quand cela leur sert. On doit toutefois convenir que ces bornes ne leur permettent pas de conceptualiser, et donc de quérir et d’ordonner le sens de leur vie, sur un mode qui leur soit satisfaisant. 45. Collectif Clio, L’histoire des femmes au Québec depuis quatre siècles, op. cit., p. 360. 46. Cela est vrai, en particulier, de la série d’ouvrages à grand succès de Jacques Lacoursière, Histoire populaire du Québec, tome I : Des origines à 1791, tome II : de 1791 à 1841, tome III : de 1841 à 1896, Sillery, Septentrion, 1996-1997. 47. Pour un aperçu critique et fort lucide de la situation, voir « New Wine or Just Old Bottles ? A Round Table on Recent Texts in Canadian History», Revue d’études canadiennes, 30, 4 (hiver 1995-1996), p. 175-201. Il n’existe pas pour l’instant de livre de synthèse portant sur l’histoire des anglophones du Québec qui repose sur l’utilisation d’une temporalité originale. Dans son ouvrage intitulé The Forgotten Quebecers. A History of English- Speaking Quebec, 1759-1980 (Québec, IQRC, 1985), Ronald Rudin reprend une périodisation traditionnelle (1759-1867, 1867-1980) et rapporte l’histoire des anglophones aux luttes d’affirmation ou d’émancipation des francophones. Il est vrai que, dans un chapitre portant sur l’importance des anglophones dans l’économie montréalaise, il use d’une chronologie plus empirique qui suit l’apogée (1867-1914), la stabilisation (1914- 1960) et le déclin relatif (1960-1980) de cette communauté au sein d’un espace métropolitain. 48. Il serait intéressant de voir quel fut l’impact des chronologies utilisées pour rendre compte des temporalités spécifiques à chaque région du Québec sur le plan des structures temporelles référentielles des habitants des « pays du Québec». On sait que la collection d’histoires régionales réalisée et publiée sous l’égide de l’Institut québécois de recherche sur la culture (maintenant INRS-Culture et société) propose un ensemble de périodisations empiriques qui s’articulent aux temporalités vécues à l’échelle des espaces régionaux plutôt qu’à la temporalité « nationale». 49. N’est-ce pas le conseil amical que le ministre Bernard Landry donnait à la nouvelle lieutenant-gouverneur du Québec, madame Lise Thibault, peu avant son assermentation à ce poste? À la suite d’une remarque jugée « indélicate » de Son Excellence relativement au fait que « les Québécois avaient été chanceux que l’Angleterre fusse leur monarque plutôt que la France », le ministre—originaire d’Acadie il faut l’admettre—répliquait : « C’est oublier toutes les tentatives d’assimilation de la couronne britannique et de ses agents. C’est oublier les Patriotes de 1837, les engagements violents, les pendaisons et l’exil. C’est oublier l’Acte d’Union, qui a forcé le Québec à s’unir à l’Ontario, alors que l’Ontario était endetté et qu’ils nous ont endettés en même temps. L’Acte d’Union par laquelle ils voulaient nous faire perdre notre majorité en nous fondant dans un grand tout. C’est oublier le Rapport Durham. C’est oublier le jugement du Conseil privé, qui a amputé le Québec du Labrador. » Et le ministre de recommander à madame Thibault « de se rafraîchir la mémoire, de retourner à ses livres d’histoire, de consacrer ses temps libres à la lecture des Brunet, Séguin, Lacoursière, Vaugeois, Lamarche et autres. » Propos rapportés par Pierre O’Neil dans Le Devoir, 25-26 janvier 1997, p. A-5. 50. The Past is a Foreign Country, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1985.

164 Essai sur quelques chronologies récentes relatives à l’histoire du Québec

51. Des îles dans l’histoire, Paris, Gallimard, Le Seuil, Éditions de l’ÉHÉSS, 1989, p. 13-14. 52. Office national du film du Canada, 1996, 90 minutes. 53. À ce sujet, voir J. Létourneau, Christina Turcot et Stéphanie Vagneux, « Le sort du passé. À propos du dernier film-documentaire de Jacques Godbout », Cahiers d’histoire du Québec au XXe siècle, 7 (printemps 1997), p. 209-212. 54. Idée inspirée de l’intrigue d’un récit de Stephen King, Les langoliers, présenté sous la forme d’une télésérie à la télévision de Radio-Canada en février de 1997. 55. Par chromo, nous entendons une espèce de matrice idéologique qui, en s’endurcissant dans l’entrecroisement des discours sociaux, devient prêt-à-penser se substituant à la raison scientifique tout en jouant le rôle d’axiomatique référentielle.

165 Open Topic Articles Articles hors-thèmes Michael A. O’Neill

Stepping Forward, Stepping Back? Health Care, the Federal Government and the New Canada Health and Social Transfer1

Abstract This paper examines the changing role of the federal government in health care policy and the factors that explain this change with particular reference to the 1996 introduction of the Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST) and the Mulroney (1984-1993) and Chrétien (1993-1997) governments. The paper argues that the CHST marks the end point of a longer process of federal withdrawal from national health care policy. The paper further argues that as a result of its policies Ottawa has wounded its future steering capacity in the health policy field in addition to weakening its main policy instrument, the Canada Health Act.

Résumé Le présent article passe en revue l’évolution du rôle du gouvernement fédéral dans les politiques sur les soins de santé ainsi que les facteurs qui expliquent cette évolution. L’auteur renvoie particulièrement au Transfert canadien en matière de santé et de programmes sociaux (TCSPS), introduit en 1996, de même qu’aux gouvernements Mulroney (1984-1993) et Chrétien (1993- 1997). L’article allègue que le TCSPS marque la fin d’un plus long processus de retrait du fédéral dans le dossier des politiques nationales en matière de soins de santé. L’article allègue également que, par suite de ses politiques, Ottawa a miné sa capacité de chef de file dans le domaine des politiques sur la santé en plus d’affaiblir son principal outil politique, la Loi canadienne sur la santé.

Canadians are understandably very proud of their health system for it has managed to provide them with high-quality medical care irrespective of means or region. In just over twenty years, Medicare has become a defining characteristic of what it is to be Canadian.2 However, by 1996, the coincidence of federal restraint of health transfers, provincial budgetary restraint policies and the tone of the media’s coverage3 of health issues created a public perception that Medicare was in crisis. Moreover, while the changes occurring in Canada’s health care system were managed by provincial governments, the financial conditions underlying these health system reforms raise questions concerning the federal government’s role as the guarantor and principal funder of health services. In light of this situation, this paper examines two issues: firstly, how has the role of the federal government changed since it entered the health policy area in 1957? Thus, the reliance on the steps metaphor. Secondly,

International Journal of Canadian Studies / Revue internationale d’études canadiennes 15, Spring/Printemps 1997 IJCS / RIÉC what factors explain this changing role? This issue is particularly probed in the period following the election of the Mulroney government in 1984 through to the end of the Chrétien Liberal’s first term in office. It will be argued that since 1977, but more so since 1984, the main explanatory factor underlying federal policy has been Ottawa’s budgetary rather than social priorities. Moreover, the budgetary focus has served to reposition health care within a more rigid division of jurisdictions between the federal and provincial governments. By reducing its financial support for Medicare, Ottawa concomitantly reduced its policy-making capacity in health and increased that of provincial governments. This development reversed over twenty years of federal participation in national health policy. This paper discusses this changing federal role in light of the introduction of the CHST. It concludes that as a result of its funding decisions, the federal government has not only abdicated an important steering role in national policy but has also weakened its existing policy tools sufficiently to undermine, to the point of making impossible, future federal leadership in this important area of social policy.

Two Steps Forward: The Politics of Creation and Expansion Prior to the late 1940s, the role of government in the area of health was fairly minimal with that of the federal government limited to responsibility for the health of Canada’s Native populations and members of the armed forces.4 Before the outbreak of war in 1939, neither level of government thought much of personal health services as an area for public programs. However, as the conflict came to an end, public disquiet about the future shape of post-war Canadian public policy grew. In particular, Canadians feared a return to the social and economic deprivations of the Depression. Canadians, Ottawa was being told, “wanted a different society once the war was over.”5 Within this political and social climate emerged two determining factors that would prove catalytic to the development of public health insurance: first, many of the public’s demands for improved social programming were channelled into increasing support for the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and its broad social welfare state agenda—a fact quickly realized by the Conservative Party which steered leftwards in order to cut off the CCF’s electoral advantage. The Liberal Party and government, expecting its management of the war effort to be sufficient to ensure its own electoral advantage, did not at first try to emulate the Conservative’s swing left. Upon this public and political climate landed the second catalyst, the publication in Great Britain of the Beveridge Report on Social Insurance and Allied Services.6 As Taylor notes, Prime Minister Mackenzie King was personally influenced by the issues raised and recommendations made in Beveridge’s report which he saw as consistent with his own goals for post-war Canadian society.7 The Cabinet, however, resisted King’s proposals for a program of social services comparable to Britain’s due to the attendant pressure on Ottawa’s finances. However, electoral imperatives swayed the Cabinet to accept the Prime Minister’s wish to include limited social reforms, excluding health insurance, in the Party’s 1945 election platform. The Liberal’s narrow victory in this contest—coupled with the gains made by the CCF and Conservatives—quelled Cabinet’s opinion against social reforms as the King

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government announced its intention to place health insurance on the agenda of the Federal-Provincial Conference on Post-War Reconstruction.8 However, a jurisdictional dispute concerning taxing powers scuttled King’s plan and the federal government’s proposals were shelved.9 Such federal-provincial disagreement over how to ultimately pay for health insurance would persist throughout the history of Medicare. Failure to achieve agreement on a workable national funding arrangement left the issue of health insurance with provincial governments. Thus, the Province of Saskatchewan was the first to enact hospitalization insurance in 1946 and medical care insurance in 1962.10 Saskatchewan’s policies would serve as models for its neighbours and eventually for the national plans. Federally, the context surrounding the establishment of hospitalization insurance mirrored that which had prompted King’s proposals. The mounting electoral appeal of the CCF’s social policy platform—enhanced by the demonstrated success of hospitalization insurance brought about by Saskatchewan’s CCF government—coupled with the Conservatives’ endorsement of such a plan—prompted the Liberal government to seek intergovernmental agreement on a funding formula to extend hospitalization insurance to all the provinces.11 In April 1957, the House of Commons passed the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostics Services Act or HIDSA. HIDSA established a funding program whereby Ottawa defrayed approximately fifty percent of the cost of provincial hospital insurance plans. However, this conversion came too late for the Liberal government which was defeated by the Conservatives in the following election. Thus, the Conservative government was primarily responsible for completing the agreements with the provinces to make national hospitalization insurance a reality across Canada. As the first successful foray by Ottawa into health insurance, HIDSA’s cost-sharing formula would serve as the model when medical care insurance was first discussed. Like HIDSA, the extension of federal health care policies to include medical care also resulted from political and electoral prerogatives. From the experience of HIDSA and the developments in Saskatchewan, the then opposition Liberals came to realize the broad public appeal of social programs and, under Lester Pearson, the Party added to its platform a plan for the establishment of medical care insurance. This addition was not made without opposition from the Party’s more fiscally conservative wing.12 However, despite Pearson’s strategy to listen to his Party’s right wing and forestall delivering on this promise, the results of the 1963 vote—minority government—forced his government to rely on support from the CCF’s successor party, the New Democratic Party (NDP), in exchange for which he had to deliver on the promised medical insurance.13 As background to this decision were the recommendations of the 1964 Royal Commission on Health Services. The Commission strongly supported a universal, publicly funded medical insurance system. In 1966, the federal government presented and passed the Medical Care Insurance Act,or Medicare, which set out the basic conditions which the provinces had to satisfy in order to qualify for federal government funding. Ottawa’s contribution

171 IJCS / RIÉC toward medical insurance was set at fifty percent of the average national cost of providing the plan.14 Unlike HIDSA, which most provinces welcomed, Medicare caused reverberations along the federal-provincial fault line. Some provinces, Ontario and Quebec in particular, were vehemently opposed to another federal intrusion in a provincial field of jurisdiction. This reaction was grounded in their objections to the federal government’s decision to create a supplementary tax to pay for the new program. The disagreements were profoundandinthecaseofQuebecretardeditsentryintoMedicareuntil1971.15 In the end, the provinces bent to their own electorates and intergovernmental agreements soon brought comprehensive medical insurance to all Canadians. But while under HIDSA and the Medicare Act approximately half of provincial health expenditures were assumed by Ottawa, these agreements did not specify how the provinces were to raise the funds to meet their portion of health care expenditures. Thus, some provinces opted for annual health insurance premiums while others funded their health services from general taxation. Later, some of the provinces would begin to introduce a price mechanism, such as user charges for hospital stays and physician extra-billing, in order to hold the line on health costs. These practices would run head-on into Medicare’s stipulation that direct charges to patients “should never be large enough to deter people from seeking care.”16 This stipulation would prove to be the source of thelastmajorfederallegislativeinitiativeinhealth,the1984CanadaHealthAct. The development of Medicare highlights the main features of Canadian federalism. Firstly, the division of powers between both levels of government permits a degree of policy innovation at the provincial level. In this instance, policy innovation percolated upwards from Saskatchewan to other jurisdictions and then nationally. Secondly, the federal government, through its spending power, retains the ability to influence this process of policy innovation and diffusion while at the same time imposing a degree of conformity among provincial governments. In this instance, both HIDSA and the Medicare Act, recognizing the provinces’ constitutional prerogative in matters of health care delivery, set down only minimal conditions on the provinces in order to receive federal funding. As a result, although the core of health services are covered by Medicare—for example, visits to physicians—public coverage of non-core services varies among the provinces. For example, dental and optical services are publicly insured in some provinces but not others. Thus, as Roemer notes, it is an error to speak of aCanadian health insurance system, when there are, in fact, twelve different systems of varying comprehensiveness.17 Additionally, the previous discussion highlights the importance of electoral politicsasthecatalystforMedicaresinceelectoralconsiderationspromptedthe parties to alter their policies and contributed to the opening of policy windows18 which governments used to proceed with policy change and innovation. Clearly, the pressures of achieving power were critical to the decisions taken in 1945, 1955 and 1966 to proceed with the introduction of health insurance—although the first post-war attempt ended in failure. Electoral politics would later play a role in the Trudeau government’s decision to further

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entrench Medicare through the introduction of the Canada Health Act and the Chrétiengovernment’sresponsetothereportoftheNationalForumonHealth. As can be seen from this short overview, the early history of Canada’s health insurance system was marked by a pattern of federal-provincial accommodation. However, this accommodation would break down when fiscal issues intruded. As such, early reticence by Ontario and Quebec to join the federal Medicare plan harks back to the provincial rejection of King’s 1946 proposals. From 1966 onwards, the intergovernmental dialogue concerning health insurance would increasingly focus on these fiscal issues—a focus concretized in federal policy with the creation of the Established Programs Financing (EPF) in 1977. In short, HIDSA and Medicare marked forward steps on the part of the federal government in this area of social policy. Through its financial commitment Ottawa gained a measure of steering capacity as its dollars gave it access to the decision-making process in an area of provincial jurisdiction.

One Step Back: Established Programs Financing and the Politics of Constraint The period which saw the creation and development of Medicare was one of strong economic growth in Canada. Government revenues were equally strong and permitted the expansion of social programs19 with little thought to capping federal contributions to cost-sharing agreements with the provinces. By the 1970s, the oil-shock induced world economic recession ended Canada’s post- war economic growth. With the country mired in recession and stagflation, the first hints that the federal government needed to reassess its spending began to emerge. Foremost among the areas of concern was Ottawa’s ability to continue meetings its commitment to federal-provincial cost-sharing programs. In particular, Ottawa was concerned that it had little or no control over the level of provincial spending. As long as a province followed Ottawa’s program guidelines,thefederalgovernmentwasresponsibleforhalfthecost.Infact,this was not a new realization on the part of federal policy as the 1969 Task Force on the Cost of Health Services had concluded that Ottawa was overexposed to provincial health spending and therefore needed to restructure its contribution to health insurance.20 Ottawa’s response to this situation was the creation of EPF. EPF shifted Ottawa’s financial responsibility from the conditional grants outlined in HIDSA and Medicare to new “block funding” where Ottawa transferred to the provinces a set amount of cash to disburse provided they met federal criteria,21 thus insulating Ottawa from the actual costs of medical and hospital care. The EPF had two main components, cash transfers and tax points (an additional inducement included a payment of $20 per capita for the inclusion of extended health care services into the EPF arrangements). Under EPF the federal government established a total dollar amount equivalent to its share of total health spending under the 1957 and 1966 agreements. This total was then divided equally between a cash payment and a transfer of tax points.22 Over time the cash portion of EPF would be reduced, thereby forcing the provinces to lean increasingly on their own resources—in part composed of

173 IJCS / RIÉC their newly acquired tax points23—to maintain existing levels of health services. The provinces were understandably unwilling to significantly alter the funding programs established in the previous decade, especially since these programs were the price of federal intrusion in areas in which they had constitutional jurisdiction. On the other hand, the move to block funding increased provincial flexibility in planning their social programs.24 Provinces which had wanted out of conditional grants because of the obligation to pursue programs largely designed by the federal government found in EPF a new latitude in their policy making. While the creation and expansion of Canadian health insurance can be seen as responses to electoral and political imperatives, the creation of the EPF was a response to a situation exogenous to politics. Simply put, the ramifications on the Canadian economy of the global economic crisis of the 1970s significantly undermined Ottawa’s economic and social steering capacity. Although the overall impact of the Trudeau government’s spending compressions were in no way as severe as those which marked the post-1984 period,25 they reflected a reversal of priorities on the part of Ottawa—social programming would become increasingly subservient to fiscal planning. This change represented a shift in economic and political thinking comparable to that found in Britain—and across the West—at about the same period.26 Additionally, the creation of EPF is an important example of Ottawa unilaterally changing the rules to suit its particular policy priorities. Although the switch to the EPF was ostensibly founded on an intergovernmental agreement, underlying this agreement was Ottawa’s determination to change the structure of health financing unilaterally27 and, as a consequence, its own role in national health policy. Under these terms the provinces had little choice but to reach agreement with Ottawa. Despite the sword of unilateral action that hung over their heads, the provinces emerged from the EPF discussions with approximately the same level of funding as under Medicare and HIDSA. But, when in 1981 the federal government made the post-secondary education portion of the block grant subject to its anti-inflation program, the base amount of the EPF dropped.28 The slow process of chipping away at Medicare funding had begun. The creation of EPF is critical to the overall examination of federal health policies for two reasons. Firstly, it highlights a desire on the part of Ottawa to disengage from the direct funding of health services and overall Medicare policy making. This was further emphasized when, as a consequence of the creation of EPF, the responsibility for federal transfers for social programs shifted from the Department of Health and Welfare to the Department of Finance. Henceforth, the federal role in health policy would be defined in strictly financial/fiscal terms rather than social terms. In the evolution of Canadian health insurance, EPF marks Ottawa’s first real step backward. Secondly, as the decision to make transfers subject to anti-inflation policy highlights, the EPF had created a policy tool over which Ottawa had sole control. The importance of this would be critical to the penalties created by the

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Canada Health Act and more so to the overall policies of the Mulroney government.

Another Step Forward: The Canada Health Act and the Politics of Consolidation If the EPF marked Ottawa’s response to exogenous economic conditions, its decision to introduce legislation safeguarding Medicare’s principles can be seen as a response to electoral and political imperatives similar to those of the 1950s and 1960s. However, the conditions leading up to the introduction of the Act, user-charges and facility fees, were the result of prior federal policy in the form of the EPF. Moreover, the Canada Health Act, was made necessary by the ambiguity of the conditions outlined in the HIDSA and Medical Care Insurance Act, and by changes in the level of federal financial support in the wake of the introduction of EPF. In particular, by not specifying how the provinces were to fund their share of health insurance, HIDSA and Medicare made it possible for professionals and institutions to directly charge patients for certain health services. The EPF, for its part, by delinking federal health funding from provincial expenditures, opened the possibility for provincial governmentstoredirectfederalmoneysforhealthtootherareasofspending. While the Canada Health Act sought to consolidate and strengthen the principles of HIDSA and Medicare, at the outset the conditions necessitating this response were exogenous to both the federal and provincial governments. Namely, the same economic conditions which had brought about the introduction of the EPF (inflation and economic stagnation accompanied by erosion of state fiscal capacity) continued to affect the Canadian economy after 1977. Provincial governments—just as Ottawa—were also forced to re-assess their spending programs in order to meet these exogenous constraints. Therefore, at the outset of the 1980s, provincial governments had to deal with reduced federal transfers due to the introduction of EPF just as their economies were also stagnating thereby limiting the value of their newly awarded tax points.29 In response, provincial governments were increasingly considering demand-side measures to reduce health spending through the introduction of user-charges and facility fees. Provincial governments also restrained fee increases for physicians although some permitted doctors to seek compensatory extra-payments from their patients.30 As early as the 1979 election campaign, voices from a variety of quarters began questioning provincial use of federal transfer funds. In particular, there existed a widespread opinion that provincial governments were diverting these funds into other areas of spending. These concerns emanated particularly from citizens groups such as Friends of Medicare and later a labour-supported group, the Canadian Health Coalition, which at one point had over 2.5 million members.31 While Ottawa seemed primarily concerned about the diversion of EPF funds, for these citizens groups, the primary threat to Medicare came from the extra fees and charges which they successfully portrayed as impediments to access. The main political pressure exerted by this and other groups, combined with political pressure from the New Democratic Party, forced the then Conservative government of Prime Minister Joe Clark to establish a

175 IJCS / RIÉC commission of inquiry, chaired by the same Emmett Hall whose 1964 Royal Commission had paved the way for medical care insurance, to look at the issue of provincial use of federal Medicare funds, extra-billing and hospital user fees. The Commission made two key observations: the provinces were not diverting federal funds away from Medicare, but the practices of extra-billing and user charges were indeed an impediment to access to health care.32 By the time the Commission submitted its report, another election had been called and the Liberal Party was once again in office in Ottawa. A federal- provincial meeting was called to discuss the findings of the report, but this meeting ended with only Saskatchewan disposed to ban user-charges and physician extra-billing. Although the federal-provincial conference had ended without an agreement, the Minister of Health, Monique Bégin, was undeterred as she continued to pressure her Cabinet colleagues and the Prime Minister to act decisively along the lines of Hall’s recommendations. However, although Hall’sreportmetwithwidepublicapproval,itwasthereactionoftheprovincial governments which the federal government was watching and this reaction was overwhelmingly negative.33 It must be recalled that at the time relations between Ottawa and the provinces, particularly Alberta and Quebec, were strained over constitutional and energy policy. Concerned about starting another jurisdictional row with the provinces, action on the user-fees and charges was reserved. Between the release of Hall’s report and the Liberal government’s introduction of the Canada Health Act the tone of the public and political debate concerning Medicare continued to escalate. Federal overtures to the provinces were shot down, for example following the release of the Preserving Universal Medicare White Paper, while public pressure, fanned by the NDP and Canadian Health Coalition, urged the federal government to act.34 While the issue swirled in the public and political realms, Canada’s economy once again began to sour. With the clock running out on his mandate, the Prime Minister was swayed by Bégin’s arguments, especially as the Cabinet came to realize that defending Medicare was politically advantageous in the prevailing economic conditions.35 In addition, Trudeau was hoping to trap the Tory opposition into voting against the Canada Health Act, but Brian Mulroney’s party voted with the government. The Progressive Conservative’s support for the Canada Health Act is important, for it marked the party’s first statement of policy on Medicare under the leadership of Brian Mulroney. This position was subsequently understood by many commentators to apply to all of Canada’s social programs. In lining his party up in favour of the Canada Health Act, Mulroney stated, “Medicare is a sacred trust which we will preserve.”36 The Canada Health Act introduced a ban on user-fees and extra-charges which Ottawa backed-up with a dollar for dollar penalty mechanism. In addition, the new Act consolidated federal health insurance legislation and more precisely defined the conditions for federal transfers.37 While the EPF had marked a liberalization of provincial spending discretion for health and post-secondary education,theCanadaHealthActseemedtoreversethatdynamic.Thismarked a return of an active federal presence in the area of health care policy after its partial withdrawal in 1977.

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In terms of my discussion the case of the Canada Health Act is particularly interesting as its highlights both the ability of the federal government to act in matters of health policy but also that this reaction was necessitated by Ottawa’s own previous actions. Just as in 1957 and 1966, the Canada Health Act was clearly a legislative response to a political problem fed by mounting public opinion concerning the state of Medicare. That the conditions at the heart of provincial recourse to out- of-pocket disbursements by patients were in part the result of Ottawa’s creation of EPF never truly entered the debate, with the possible exception of the Canadian Medical Association’s (CMA) campaign against the Act.38 This does not mitigate the Act’s contribution to safeguarding and strengthening Medicare. It does, however, as in the previous episodes, make Ottawa’s policy innovations in this field subject to the electoral timetable. Nothing unique or exceptional underlies the primarily political motivations for the Canada Health Act—politics being the core of most policy decisions. However, the Act is important because it defined a benchmark against which future governments—provincial and federal— would be seen to be managing health care. Furthermore, it marks the last major positive action by Ottawa in the health care field. From 1984, onwards the prevailing economic and political climate would make social policy more greatly contingent than ever on fiscal goals. In fact, Ottawa’s determination to safeguard Medicare and reassert the federalprerogativeinhealthpolicywouldnotoutlivethechangeingovernment brought about by the September 1984 election.

Two Steps Back: Mulroney and the Politics of Restraint It has been noted that social policy in general, and health in particular, was not a priority for the Mulroney government.39 Rather, the policy priorities of the Tory government centered on dealing with Canada’s budget deficit and national debt. This concern had been central to the Conservative Party’s strategy throughout the 1984 election campaign and, after only a few weeks in office, the government concretized these priorities in an economic statement and an agenda paper entitled A New Direction for Canada.40 Where the government’s policies impacted on health was through its fiscal restraint agenda, especially through its curbs on the EPF. These cuts to the EPF, in the form of modifications to the EPF’s escalator, cumulatively reduced transfers to the provinces. In so doing, the federal government was moving a portion of its spending to the next level of government, a practice which has been termed “deficit offloading.”41 As the costs of providing health services continued to rise, the provincial governments were left carrying an increasingly large share of the overall burden of the health system. In the end, the provinces had to cut services, increase taxes or increase their deficits to compensate for restraint in federal transfers.42 The Mulroney government’s fiscal rebalancing began in earnest with Finance Minister Michael Wilson’s first full budget in 1985. As a result of his policies, the EPF formula was altered three times between 1985 and 1991. These changes were unilateral and caught the provincial finance and health ministers

177 IJCS / RIÉC largely by surprise. Thus, in fiscal year 1986-87, the Mulroney government reduced the EPF escalator by two percent less than GDP growth. This was followed in 1989-90 with a further reduction of the EPF escalator by one percent. In 1990-91, the knife was set aside in favour of the icebox as the per capita entitlements of the EPF formula were frozen. In all, these measures contributed to a $41 billion reduction in federal cash transfers to the provinces—a cash shortfall the provinces had to offset from their own resources.43 The consequences of the federal government’s funding decision were felt across the country as provincial governments attempted to hold their expenditures in check while at the same time maintaining a comprehensive health system which conformed to the Canada Health Act. Although at first the provinces were able to absorb the federal cuts to health transfers, by 1993, this ability was severely stretched. As a Health Canada study noted: The control in the growth of federal transfers may have provided incentives for the provinces to reduce their health expenditures [. . .]. This trend line should be more evident in 1994 and 1995 when reductions in health expenditures announced by many provinces are to be realized.44 In short, the net effect of the Mulroney government’s policies led to the provincial restructuring drives and the alarming consequences reflected in the media headlines noted earlier. At this time, and particularly in the latter half of the 1980s, a growing number of provinces began to take liberties with the spirit, if not the letter, of the Canada Health Act. As the Mulroney government proceeded to restrain federal contributions to health care, the issue of its commitment to the Canada Health Act gained in salience.45 In an era when the financial commitment of the federal government was being reduced, many provinces demanded the right to look at other revenue sources, including various patient charges. Thus, during the Mulroney government, several internal and external debates surrounded the ban on user fees and charges in a period of fiscal austerity.46 More inclined towards demand-side solutions than its predecessors, the Mulroney government closed its eyes on flagrant violations of the Canada Health Act.47 From the outset, Mulroney’s first health minister, Jake Epp, outlined his desire for a more conciliatory federal position in relations with the provinces in matters relating to health funding and the health system in general.48 While publicly committed to the ban on user charges,49 Epp was also willing to show some “leeway in interpreting the Act.”50 It is further interesting to note that in 1991, while no longer Health Minister, Epp would himself come out in support of user fees.51 Epp’s successors, Perrin Beatty and Benoît Bouchard, closely towed the government’s public line on the issue of safeguarding national standards and maintaining the ban on user fees and charges. The appointment of Bouchard also marked a change in style from his predecessors as he is widely credited with striking a more definite position against any derogation to the Canada Health Act.52

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However, despite the reassurances of its health ministers, the Mulroney government finally realized that its successive cuts to the EPF were limiting its ability to enforce the Canada Health Act. This was acknowledged by Finance Minister Michael Wilson in his 1991 budget speech. The Government’s solution was to make all federal transfers, not just those earmarked for health, susceptible to withholding should a province not comply with the Act.53 The Mulroney government’s period in office marks two important steps back for Ottawa’s role in national health policy. The first, its decision to restrain its contributions to Medicare, reduced its ability to influence provincial decision making. The second, was its lax enforcement of the Canada Health Act’s ban on extra charges despite public assurances to the contrary from Ministers of Health Epp, Beatty and Bouchard. This was highlighted by the newly elected Liberal government’s decision to penalize Alberta and British Columbia for contraventions of the Act between 1990 and 1993.54 But, Ottawa’s continued withdrawal from the health policy arena would not end with the election of the Chrétien Liberal government in October 1993.

A Further Step Back: The Chrétien Liberals and the CHST In some measure, the Mulroney government’s record on social programs funding—and health care in particular—contributed to the Conservative Party’s staggering election defeat of 1993. In its place, Canadians opted for the Liberal Party under the leadership of Jean Chrétien. As its election manifesto,55 the so-called Red Book, reminded voters, the Liberals had been the party behind the construction of national health insurance and Canadians widely expected the Liberal Party to end the Tories’ restraint of Medicare funding and reassert Ottawa’s role in health policy. A Liberal government, the Red Book promised, would be firmly committed to the five principles of Medicare and would “not withdraw or abandon the health care field,” but would take a firm stand against any and all forms of patient charges.56 Confirmation of this stand seemedtocomeintheformofOttawa’sdecisiontopenalizeAlbertaandBritish Columbia for violations of the Canada Health Act.57 Another signal of Ottawa’s renewed desire to re-engage itself in the area of health policy was the establishment of the National Forum on Health in June 1994.58 Chaired by the Prime Minister, the Forum was given a broad mandate to assist government to “develop a new vision for Canada’s health system for the 21st Century.”59 However, the provinces’ decision not to participate in the Forum—coupled with Ottawa’s other actions in the area of health and social policy—seemed to curtail the value of the Forum’s contribution to policy development. Prior to its election in October 1993, the Liberal Party had argued that much of the pressure being exerted on provincial health systems originated in the Mulroney government’s decision to restrain federal transfer payments for health. By contrast, the Red Book committed the Liberal Party to “a continuing andmeaningfulparticipationinthefundingofhealthcare.”60 However,oncein office the Liberal government continued in the way of its predecessor and it too would make the fight against the federal deficit a priority over the continued funding of health care.61 Among the measures introduced as part of this policy

179 IJCS / RIÉC was the creation of the Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST), the most significant change in federal-provincial fiscal arrangements since EPF. As a resultoftheCHST,Ottawa’sfinancialstakeinMedicarewasfurthereroded. Although the Red Book called for a re-negotiation of federal-provincial arrangementsforsocialprograms,manyweresurprisedwhenFinanceMinister Paul Martin announced plans in his second Budget Speech of February 1995 to create a new block transfer to replace the EPF. The new CHST created a single federal payment covering health, post-secondary education and welfare. As was the case with the EPF, the new CHST would consist of a transfer of tax points and cash.62 The lumping together of these transfers was significant for the CHST eliminated a direct federal stake in individual areas of social policy. Just as the EPF had freed the hands of the provinces from the conditions of HIDSA and the Medicare Act, the CHST liberated provincial social policy from federal controls. In short, the CHST broke down the walls separating program areas—walls which could be seen as curtailing policy innovation and responses to circumstances at the provincial level, but walls which also ensured that only minimal disparity between provinces would exist in areas of social programs. For example, with the CHST, provinces could now raid the funds for post-secondary education to pay for health insurance while increasing student fees to offset the shortfall thus created. With the introduction of the CHST the Liberal government was in effect extending the cuts to health transfers which had begun under the previous Conservative government. With the CHST the provinces would experience a net loss of between $4.5 billion and $7 billion, depending on the calculations used,63 in annual federal funding. A loss which the provinces would either have to make up out of their own resources or through reforms of their social programs. In the area of health, the most politically important aspect of the CHST was the establishment of a guaranteed cash floor of $11 billion for federal funding. This amount is smaller in real terms than at any time since 198564 thereby showing the Chrétien government to have pushed down federal transfers even harder than its Conservative predecessors. This guarantee was meant to reassure provincial governments concerned about the dwindling federal share of health expenditures while at the same time maintaining a sufficient financial presence on the part of the federal government with which to enforce the Canada Health Act. However, uncertainty remains on both counts among both provincial governments and health policy advocates.65 With the coming into force of the CHST on April 1, 1996 the Chrétien Liberals took a further step backwards for the federal role in health. From the outset, it had been understood that Ottawa’s dollars were the glue that held Medicare together as a national program. And, as long as its financial contribution remained, Ottawa’s steering role in health policy was assured. In one sense, therefore, Ottawa’s financial contribution was very much the price of entry into a provincial field of jurisdiction. And, while on the surface the National Forum on Health appears to indicate a return to the federal role in the development of national health policy, the creation of the CHST, and the further cuts to federal transfers inherent in it, suggests otherwise. By reducing the flow of federal dollars, the CHST weakens both Ottawa’s policy capacity and its ability to

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enforceexistingnationalstandardsasoutlinedintheCanadaHealthAct.Asthe Mulroney era Taskforce on Program Review noted in 1985, any reduction in federal funding would virtually eliminate the federal government’s leverage in enforcing national standards.66 Without stick nor carrot, Ottawa’s role in national health policy would become increasingly marginal. Even the Chrétien Liberal’s guarantee of a continued cash component for health is of questionable policy utility if its value is eroded by inflation. Although opinion polls show that Canadians continue to resist shifts away from Medicare’s principles and values,67 the dwindling amount of money allocated to it by Ottawa has already resulted in health service cuts68 which may only be exacerbated by the CHST’s further reductions. If fiscal considerations can be labelled the primary motivation behind the decision of the Chrétien government to reduce health care funding, the same electoral and political imperatives which had marked other policy initiatives also needed to be addressed. Although Canadians, it appeared, could be sold on the need for deficit reduction, polls continued to indicate a high degree of support for the principles of universal medicare. These same polls were also showing increasing concern about both Ottawa’s ability to guarantee Medicare’s principles and the provinces’ willingness to continue offering the same panoply of health services as in the past.69 In this context, the introduction of the CHST both undermined Ottawa’s main policy tool—funding—at the same time reducing the provinces ability to maintain services. With an election call looming, these concerns needed to be addressed. The key to successfully navigating these politically choppy waters arrived in the form of the final report of the National Forum on Health. Shortly after the release of the Forum’s report, the Minister of Health, David Dingwall, seemed to endorse two of the Forum’s main recommendations: home care services and pharmaceutical insurance (pharmacare). These two elements, the Forum report suggested, were an expansion consistent with the logic of Medicare and would, over time, help reduce the overall costs of health insurance.70 The Minister would further expand on the Liberal government’s plans for Medicare in a speech in April 1997. In his speech, Dingwall would commit his government to bringing about pharmacare and home care programs in which the government would “do its part and contribute financially.”71 The speech also included a commitment to preserving Medicare’s principles— including a continued strict enforcement of the Canada Health Act’s ban on user fees and charges.72 On the issue of funding levels, the Forum echoed the concerns from many quarters and called not only for an end to federal cutbacks but also for an increase of $1.5 billion in Ottawa’s cash contribution. Recognizing that there was “no magic number” when it came to funding levels, the Forum concluded that Ottawa’s cash floor of $11 billion was too low to adequately meet provincial needs and future requirements.73 The Minister was less committal stating that: the era of transfer cuts is over [emphasis in original]...[In] fact the transfers will begin to grow within three years ...Aguaranteed cash floor is in place. This cash floor will ensure a continuing federal role in

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health, something Canadians overwhelmingly see as a duty of their federal government.74 This statement by the Minister is interesting for it asserts the federal determination to maintain a policy lever to ensure provincial compliance with the Canada Health Act’s principles yet evades the more important policy issue of how much funding Ottawa was willing to commit to maintain provincial health services without their recourse to additional sources of funding.75

Conclusion: Further Steps The advent of the CHST marks the end of a longer process of federal withdrawal from social policy in general and health in particular. Ironically, the CHST marks a reversal of the Liberal Party’s traditional position concerning social programming and a break with its Red Book promise to continued and predictable federal funding for health care. Gone are the policies that marked the involvement of the federal government in fields of provincial jurisdiction for the benefit of Canadians. In their place is a public policy which sets fiscal imperatives ahead of social needs—a point explicitly made by Jean Chrétien in reply to questions concerning his government’s health policy.76 Beyond simply a change in public policy priorities, the advent of the CHST, also marks a further change in the involvement of the federal government in health policy. Thus, through the CHST the federal government has sufficiently reduced its financial participation in the health sector so as to make greatly difficult, or at least not very meaningful, any attempt to withhold federal transfer funds for violations of the Canada Health Act. The creation and administration of Medicare proved that governments could work together to better the lives of Canadians—irrespective of traditional divisions like region, language or ethnic roots. However, the policies pursued by Ottawa since 1984 have reduced the influence of the federal government over the future direction of Medicare. In that sense, what marks the Mulroney- Chrétien policies is the creeping return of 92.7—that is a de facto return to the strict constitutional division of powers which assigns health squarely to the provinces. Thus, although Ottawa could not wind-up Medicare, with the exception of its dwindling financial stake, Ottawa no longer has the policy tools necessary to stop a province from restructuring its heath system to make Medicare an empty shell. Here is precisely where many Canadians fear the system is headed.77 As Thomas Courchene writes succinctly, the consequence of the Mulroney-Chrétien policies has been to make the Canada Health Act obsolete.78 In this sense, even if the federal government chooses to heed the advice of the National Forum and increase the CHST’s cash floor to $12. 5 billion, as noted above, this amount is still proportionately lower in real terms than at any time since 1985.79 Another interesting element to emerge from the Chrétien government’s first term in office concerns its management of the politics of health care. With DavidDingwall’sendorsementofpharmacare,thegovernmentappearstohave opted for expansion at the expense of possible further retrenchment of core medicalservicesandcoverage.Thus,whileOttawaavoidsblameforprovincial

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restructurings of health services—in large part due to Ottawa’s imposed funding cuts—it plays the political card with Canadians and in the process gains praise by promising to increase social protections for Canadians. In short, since 1984, through a series of policy decisions, including the restrainingandfreezingofprogrambudgetsandlaxenforcementoftheCanada Health Act, Ottawa has changed the nature of the federal government’s participation in social programming. No longer is the federal government to be an active participant in designing social policy. This marked a shift in the overall vision of government. The days of government as an enabler and guarantor of citizens’ welfare, especially after 1984, to those of government as prudent financial administrator. This change in priorities may prove most dramatic for the nation’s health insurance system as the country adjusts to a changing global political economy.

Notes 1. In addition to the sources identified below, this article is based upon a series of interviews conducted in the summer of 1994, January 1995 and autumn of 1996 with current and former federal government officials and members of interest groups involved in health policy. As the interviewees accepted to participate in this research with the understanding their comments would be treated confidentially, these individuals will not be cited. Thank you to Alan Maslove, Kenneth McRoberts and the reviewers of this Journal for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Thanks also to Sean Houlahan for editorial support. 2. Maclean’s, 1 July 1994, 10-15; Toronto Star, 29 November 1996, A27. 3. Recent headlines from Canadian dailies highlight this sense of emerging crisis. For example: “Health Care nears crisis in funding” (Halifax Daily News, 14 May 1996, 14); “Plus de 900 patients en attente d’une chirurgie cardiaque” (Le Journal de Montréal, 27 April 1996, 2); “Doctors to ration services” (Sudbury Star, 24 July 1996, A1); “Survey says funding cuts putting patients in danger” (Calgary Sun, 25 April 1996, 21); “Don’t become sick or old in Alberta” (Edmonton Journal, 3 January 1996, A9). 4. Garth Stevenson, G. (1988), “The Division of Powers,” in R.D. Olling and M.W. Westmacott, eds., Perspectives on Canadian Federalism, (Scarborough, 1988), 36-37. 5. Jack Granatstein, Canada’s War: The Politics of the Mackenzie King Government 1939- 1945, (Toronto, 1975), 251. 6. Gwendolyn Gray, Federalism and Health Policy: The Development of Health Systems in Canada and Australia, (Toronto, 1991), 30. 7. Malcolm G. Taylor, Health Insurance and Canadian Public Policy: The Seven Decisions that Created the Canadian Health Insurance System and their Outcomes, (Montreal, 1987), 9-10. 8. Gray, Federalism, 32. 9. Carolyn J. Tuohy, Policy and Politics in Canada: Institutional Ambivalence, (Philadelphia, 1992), 109-110. 10. See Taylor, Health Insurance, 69-104, 239-331. 11. Gray, Federalism, 36. 12. Gray, Federalism, 42-43. 13. Taylor, Health Insurance, 333-334. 14. See Ann Crichton et al. (1990), Canada’s Health System, (Ottawa, 1990), 33-35. 15. Tuohy, Policy and Politics, 112. See also, Taylor, Health Insurance. A major disagreement between the Quebec government and its medical profession further contributed to this delayed entry into the program. 16. Gwendolyn Gray, “Privatization: An Attempt that Failed,” Politics, 1987, Vol. 22, No. 2., 15-28. 17. Milton I. Roemer, National Health Systems of the World, (Oxford, 1991). 18. See John W. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policy, (New York, 1994). 19. Robert Bothwell et al., Canada since 1945, (Toronto, 1987), 477.

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20. Crichton, Canada’s Health System, 34. 21. Crichton, Canada’s Health System, 34. 22. Alistair Thomson, Federal Support for Health Care: A Background Paper, (Ottawa, 1991), 17. Under the EPF, the total entitlements of the provinces were calculated based on the average federal per capita contribution for the base year 1975-76, cumulatively increased year by year according to an escalator corresponding to a moving average of the gross GNP over three years. 23. Tax point transfer involved the federal government reducing its personal and corporate tax rates by a set percentage, which provinces then took up by increasing their respective tax rates. In 1977, the federal government agreed to cede 13.5 points of personal income tax and 1 point of corporate income tax. 24. Michael Butler, “The Current Predicament in Fiscal Federalism,” Policy Options, (December, 1993), 22-26. 25. See Donald J. Savoie, The Politics of Public Spending in Canada, (Toronto, 1990). 26. See Peter A. Hall, “The Movement from Keynesianism to Monetarism: Institutional Analysis and British Economic Policy in the 1970s,” in Sven Steinmo et al, eds, Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis, (Cambridge, 1992), 90-113. 27. Tuohy, Policy and Politics, 113. 28. Michael Rachlis and Carol Kushner, Strong Medicine, (Toronto, 1993), 31. 29. Taylor, Health Insurance, 434. 30. See Taylor, Health Insurance, 435-437. 31. Gray, Federalism, 117. 32. Taylor, Health Insurance, 428-429. 33. Gray, “Privatization,” 22. 34. Taylor, Health Insurance, 438-439. 35. See Paul Barker, “The Canada Health Act and the Cabinet Decision-Making Style of Pierre Elliot Trudeau,” Canadian Public Administration, 1989, Vol. 32, No. 1, 84-103. 36. Canada, House of Commons, Debates, 9 December 1983, 44. 37. Taylor, Health Insurance, 441-443. 38. Taylor, Health Insurance, 443-444. 39. Personal communication, former federal health minister, January 1995. 40. Canada, A New Direction for Canada: An Agenda for Economic Renewal, (Ottawa, 1984). 41. Paul Boothe and Barb Johnson, “Stealing the Emperor’s Clothes: Deficit Offloading and National Standards in Health,” Commentary, 41 (March ,1991). 42. Michael Butler, “The Current Predicament in Fiscal Federalism,” Policy Options, (December, 1993), 22-6. 43. Boothe, “Deficit Offloading,” 3. 44. Health Canada, National Health Expenditures 1973-1994, (Ottawa, 1994), 8. 45. Michael A. O’Neill, “Health as an Irreversible Part of the Welfare State: Canadian Government Policy under the Tories,” International Journal of Health Services, Vol. 26, No. 3 (1996), 551. 46. Personal communication, former federal health minister, January 1995; senior Health Canada official, summer, 1994. 47. See Canada, Canada Health Act Annual Report, (Ottawa, years 1988-1992). 48. Personal communication, senior Health Canada official, summer 1994. See also Toronto Star, 18 September 1984, A12. 49. Canada, House of Commons, Debates, 9 December 1987, 11625. 50. One former federal health minister described Epp’s attitude to the enforcement of the Act as “less interventionist, he would rather wait than act.” 51. Winnipeg Free Press, 21 April 1991, 1. 52. Calgary Herald, 12 November 1991, A6. Personal communications, representatives of the Canadian Medical Association, Canadian Hospital Association and the Canadian Nurses’ Association, summer 1994. Also, Benoît Bouchard, Healthy Canada, (Ottawa, 12 May 1993). 53. Canada, House of Commons, Debates, 26 February 1991, 17695. 54. Health Canada, News Release No. 1994-14 (19 May 1994); Health Canada, News Release No. 1995-67, (16 October 1995).

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55. Liberal Party of Canada, Creating Opportunity: The Liberal Plan for Canada, (Ottawa, 1993). 56. Liberal Party, Creating Opportunity, 77, 79. 57. Health Canada, News Release No. 1994-14, (19 May 1994). 58. Health Canada, News Release No. 1994-19, (29 June 1994). 59. National Forum on Health, Fact Sheet. 60. Liberal Party, Creating Opportunity, 80. 61. The comments of Prime Minister Chrétien during a December 1996 television appearance highlight this point. Infomart, Transcript of CBC Television’s The National: Townhall with Prime Minister Chrétien, (10 December 1996). 62. Odette Madore, The Canada Health and Social Transfer: Operation and Possible Repercussions on the Health Care Sector, (Ottawa, 1995), 6. 63. Madore, The Canada Health and Social Transfer, 7. 64. Health Canada, National Health Expenditures, Table 3A. 65. Ottawa Sun, 14 January 1996, 15; Ottawa Citizen, 13 January 1996, A1. The federal contribution is guaranteed to be no less than $11 billion over the five years of the federal- provincial funding arrangement according to public statements by Health Minister David Dingwall. 66. Canada, Improved Program Delivery: Sports and Health. A Study Team Report to the Task Force on Program Review, (Ottawa, 1985), 14. 67. Toronto Star, 29 November 1996, A27. 68. Health Canada, National Health Expenditures, 8. 69. Personal communication, Health Canada official, Autumn 1996. 70. Forum national sur la santé, La santé au Canada: un héritage à faire fructifier. Rapport final du Forum national sur la santé, (Ottawa, 1997), 23; See also Forum national sur la santé, La santé au Canada: un héritage à faire fructifier. Rapport de synthèse et documents de référence, (Ottawa, 1997). 71. David Dingwall, Building a Better Health System for Canadians, (Toronto, 22 April 1997). 72. Dingwall, Building. 73. Forum national, La santé, 13. 74. Dingwall, Building. 75. In an election campaign commitment, the Prime Minister, Jean Chrétien, promised to increase the CHST’s cash floor to $12.5 billion in line with the National Forum’s recommendations. Barrie Examiner, 30 April 1997, 21. 76. Informart, Transcript of CBC Television’s The National. 77. Maclean’s, 2 January 1995, 10-12. 78. Thomas Courchene, Redistributing Money and Power: A Guide to the Canada Health and Social Transfer, (Toronto, 1995), 80-1. 79. Health Canada, National Health Expenditures, Table 3A.

185 Mark E. Rush

Citizenship and Rights in Canada and the United States: Managing the Tension that Haunts International Law

Abstract The alien rights debate is commonly cast in favor of the fundamental rights of aliens or the sovereign rights of citizens. Resolving the controversy in such a manner is impractical because both sides of the debate embody compelling human rights claims. However, it can be managed if we preserve the distinction between persons and citizens. While this may upset alien rights advocates, it is important to note that this distinction is reflected in the constitutions of both Canada and the United States as well as international human rights documents. The paper assesses the manner in which the supreme courts of Canada and the United States have sought to manage the alien rights dilemma within the confines of their respective constitutions.

Résumé Le débat sur les droits étrangers penche souvent en faveur des droits fondamentaux des étrangers ou des droits souverains des citoyens. Il n’est pas pratique de tenter de résoudre la controverse de cette façon puisque les deux parties qui s’affrontent campent des positions probantes en matière de droits humains. Cependant, il est possible de « gérer » la situation en préservant la distinction entre « personnes » et « citoyens ». Bien que cette solution puisse déranger les défenseurs des droits étrangers, il est important de noter que cette distinction est reflétée dans les constitutions canadienne et américaine ainsi que dans les documents internationaux sur les droits humains. Dans le présent article, l’auteur évalue la manière dont les cours suprêmes du Canada et des États-Unis ont cherché à gérer le dilemme des droits étrangers en se basant sur leurs constitutions respectives.

The debate over alien rights has developed in fits and starts—most recently, in reaction to two key events in the United States. First, in 1983, the Supreme Court ruled that Texas could not deny access to free public education to the children of illegal (undocumented) aliens (Plyler v. Doe). More recently, the people of California passed Proposition 1871 which would deny illegal aliens access to welfare and other aspects of public largesse. In Canada, the alien rights debate has focussed less on the issue of illegal immigrants than on balancing the Charter’s commitments to an expansive notion of equality of persons and the sovereignty of the provinces (Tessier). While much scholarly commentary is sympathetic to the plight of aliens—regardless of whether they were legally admitted to a country—a IJCS / RIÉC continuum of opinion can be developed which represents three principal views of the tension between the universal equality rights of persons and the rights of citizens to self-determination and sovereignty. Lonely advocates of restricting alien rights are Peter Schuck and Rogers Smith who, in Citizenship without Consent, argue against birthright citizenship. Instead, they propose a model of citizenship based on mutual consent between members of an existing polity and outsiders seeking admission. As well, Jacobson (1996:9) acknowledges the need to preserve sovereignty as a basic building block of the international order. Michael Walzer (upon whom just about every participant in the alien rights debate relies to support an argument) contends that sovereignty—and the right to exclude aliens—is a key component of self-determination In opposition to Schuck and Smith, we find critics such as Elizabeth Hull, Joseph Carens and Linda Bosniak who lament any discriminatory regulations which, based on citizenship distinctions, establish a “caste system” of rights. Finally, critics such as Gerald Neuman, Gerald Rosberg and Jamin Raskin occupy a middle position. They argue that governments are obliged to recognize certain rights of persons to the extent that these persons either contribute to a state’s common weal or are affected by its policies. In moving from Hull, Carens and Bosniak, through Neuman, Rosberg and Raskin to Schuck and Smith and Walzer, we see the focus of concern shift from the plight of supplicant aliens who seek to improve their lives by gaining access to freedoms or welfare to the plight of citizens who wish to preserve and protect the integrity of the society they may have built. While each point along the continuum is subject to serious challenges, this paper suggests that the tension between the universal rights of persons seeking access to polities and the sovereign rights of citizens cannot be “resolved.” Instead, it can only be “managed” by establishing a balance between the two competing interests. Such a balance requires the preservation of a distinction between citizens and persons. While this distinction may upset alien rights advocates, it is important to note that it is reflected in the constitutions of both Canada and the United States as well as international human rights documents. Despite this, there is no gainsaying the fact that the jurisprudence of both countries has thus far failed to set forth a coherent doctrine of citizenship rights. But this is due, in large part, to the inability of either judiciary to agree upon and set forth a consistent and usable notion of equality that accommodates necessary differences based on citizenship while militating against patently unconstitutional discrimination (Beatty 1996, 351). In managing the tension between the particular rights of citizens and the universal rights of persons, the courts of both nations have sustained a plenary national power to restrict immigration (Fong Yue Ting, Mathews, Union Colliery, Lavoie). However, when confronted with attempts by states or provinces to restrict access to employment, welfare, the franchise or other rights to citizens (or, at least, state or provincial residents) the courts have struggled to set forth a consistent measure for balancing the sovereign rights of

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the states or provinces with the constitutional equality rights of all persons (Andrews, Morgan; Ambach, Griffiths, Sugarman). This difficulty springs from the acknowledgment by both supreme courts that, while immigration is largely a political matter for national governments to address—and therefore subject to relatively few constitutional restrictions—the treatment of lawfully admitted aliens is certainly subject to constitutional restrictions. Accordingly, American and Canadian courts originally approached questions of alienage discrimination more in terms of resolving disputes over federal divisions of power than in terms of equality rights of persons.2 Since the current debate is energized by the plight of and reaction to illegal aliens, discourse focuses on whether any differentiation between persons is morally justifiable under any scheme of equality— regardless of whether they were lawfully admitted to a country. The jurisprudential difficulties reflect the absence of a coherent theoretical conceptualization of what constitutes membership in a community. With regard to legally admitted residents, critics generally agree that they ought to have access to all public benefits (Guendelsberger, e.g.). For the most part, legally admitted United States residents do have broad access to the public services that citizens enjoy (Note 1989; Aleinikoff 1989, 865-66). However, critics such as Carens and Bosniak would expand the scope of alien privileges further— even to illegal immigrants. Focussing on whether or not aliens have achieved (or should be regarded as having achieved) membership status in a nation (and therefore should be afforded more of the privileges normally reserved for citizens) overlooks the fact that citizenship itself is not always a sufficient criterion for exercising the full complement of rights in a constitution. For example, despite their commitments to different visions of equality (Beatty), Canadian and American courts have thus far managed to strike essentially the same practical balance betweentheimpulsetominimizediscriminationamongpersonsandtheneedto preserve the integrity of citizenship. This paper discusses the tensions that inhere in American and Canadian jurisprudence regarding aliens. The accommodation by both courts of the competing interests of sovereignty/citizenship and universal rights of persons lays the groundwork for a much more workable approach to the alien rights problem than any alternative proposed by critics who would resolve the tension in favour of the nation-state of the supplicant alien. The distinction between citizens and persons acknowledges the need to maintain the sovereignty of the nation-state. To the extent that alien rights advocates attack the nation-state and citizenship as inherently unjust and discriminatory, they ultimately threaten the viability of the rights claims they seek to protect. The enforcement of universal human rights depends on the preservation of limited, discrete, particular rights of citizenship. If citizenship is diluted, so too is the capacity of nation-states to enforce the universal rights that alien advocates proclaim.

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Citizens and Aliens: Theoretical Perspectives Critics who contend that states ought to liberalize their procedures for granting citizenship are especially concerned with the inequality that inheres in notions such as “citizenship” and “sovereignty.” In Without Justice for All, Elizabeth Hull notes: Aliens will never receive the treatment that befits their human status until [the United States] experiences a fundamental institutional and philosophical reorientation. This reorientation depends upon two related phenomena. One [sic] the Supreme Court must assume greater responsibility for the rights of noncitizens....Two[sic] the United States and eventually every other country must cease to revere, and indeed genuflect before, the twin altars of “citizenship” and “sovereignty” (1985, 148). Linda Bosniak laments the fact that reserving certain privileges for citizens serves only to create “caste” systems of rights that are inherently unjust. She argues that debating the justification of alienage discrimination essentially puts the cart before the horse: “The very existence of alienage is a product of this world because the government designates aliens as such in the exercise of its immigration power” (1994b, 1055). Contending that universal equality—not national sovereignty—ought to be the measure by which alienage policies are justified, she calls for an examination of the relationship between the government’s power to regulate its border and its power to control the composition of the national community, (1994b, 1047). A more qualified vision of alien rights is espoused by writers such as Jamin Raskin, Gerald Rosberg, Gerald Neuman and Alexander Aleinikoff. While acknowledging anationalrighttopoliceimmigration,theycasttherelationship between “persons” and “nations” (and logically, “citizens”) in terms of what Robert Dahl described as the “doctrine of affected interests”: “everyone who is affected by the decisions of a government should have the right to participate in that government” (Dahl 1970, 64). With regard to extending the right to vote to noncitizens, Raskin and Rosberg argue that resident aliens ought to be granted the right to vote—at least in local elections—because they have consented to abide by the laws of the community in which they live (Raskin, 1394). Drawing a parallel to the American revolutionaries’ cries of “taxation without representation,” Raskin contends that consistency would dictate that the descendants of those patriots ought to show the same sympathy for resident aliens who are governed and taxed without representation. To reinforce this view, Raskin cites Judith Shklar: “No historically significant form of government or of citizenship is in principle incompatible with the exclusion of large groups of people, but natural rights theory makes it very difficult to find good reasons for excluding anyone from full political membership in a modern republic” (Raskin, 441, n. 270). This expansive vision of rights places the onus on the excluding community to justify its contention that maintenance of its political integrity requires discrimination against resident noncitizens.

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Gerald Neuman argues similarly in Strangers to the Constitution where he states that “no human being subject to the governance of the United States should be a stranger to the Constitution” (189). He explains that “current constitutional doctrine is unclear about whether the constitutional rights of aliens impose constraints on the substantive criteria adopted by Congress for the admission, exclusion, and deportation of aliens” (118). Yet, he argues that an approach to human rights based upon a “mutuality of obligations” between states and persons has informed the American Court’s alien rights jurisprudence and has led to the Supreme Court’s acknowledging that aliens “both inside and outside the borders of the United States enjoy the protection of certain constitutional rights” (118). Neuman’s “mutuality of obligations” approach echoes the doctrine of “affected interests” and can lead to similarly problematic considerations. Dahl acknowledged that the doctrine, if applied consistently, could result in virtually any person’s having a legitimate claim to participate in the American political process. So long as it could be shown that a policy had an impact on someone’s life—regardless of that person’s residence or citizenship—he or she would have a legitimate claim to participate in the political process. Neuman does perceive state obligation in such broad terms. Thus, he goes so far as to suggest that foreigners seeking visas should be afforded due process rights insofar as their petition for entry into the United States has brought them into contactwith(and,therefore,subject,somewhattothegovernanceof)thenation (127-128). Similarly, he contends that the children of illegal aliens should be granted the benefits of citizenship essentially as a fait accompli. Since they are within the jurisdiction and impacted by the policies of the nation, there is no justifiablebasisonwhichtorelegatethemtoanhereditarysecond-classstatus. Thus, in moving from Hull and Bosniak to Neuman, Raskin and Rosberg, we see a shift in emphasis. Hull and Bosniak proceed from an assumption that persons have an a priori entitlement to access to resources or privileges that might better their lives. It is, they argue, unfair that the “haves” should erect obstructions to “have nots” who merely seek to obtain the same privileges held by the haves. Neuman, Raskin and Rosberg qualify this to the extent that they base any claim of right on the existence of a relationship between a nation and noncitizens/nonresidents who are affected by the nation’s actions. However, the thesis of mutual obligation that underpins Neuman, Raskin and Rosberg is cast in terms that are very one-sided. As described by Neuman, mutuality of obligation begins, essentially, because a nation exists. Once it exists, it will, unavoidably, have an impact on the lives of anyone with whom it comes in contact. However, the same may be said for anyone who comes in contact with a nation. Accordingly, as it is presented, the mutuality of obligation approach to alien rights does not move us very far from the position occupied by Hull and Bosniak. Nations are described as being bound to recognize rights-claims which have arisen because an individual is able to say that the nation has impacted him or her. However, the nation has no ability to avoid incurring such obligations because, as the mutuality of obligation thesis suggests, its mere existence may be the source of the impact upon which a

191 IJCS / RIÉC rights-claim is based. Thus, the nation is encumbered regardless and the rights claims are, for all intents and purposes, a priori. The establishment of such a priori claims against a state—especially, for example, by virtue of birth—is the impetus for Schuck and Smith’s assertion that citizenship should be established on the basis of a mutuality of consent, not obligation. Based on this, Schuck and Smith argue against unlimited and unqualified birthright citizenship because it encourages illegal immigration and undermines the sovereign rights of citizens. Schuck and Smith wrote in reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision in Plyler v. Doe, where it struck down a Texas law that authorized local school districts either to prohibit illegal aliens from attending public schools or, at least, to charge them tuition. The basis for the restriction was fiscal: the children were not legally admitted into the nation and it was costing Texas to educate them. In responsetotheFourteenthAmendmentclaimbroughtonbehalfofthechildren, Texas responded that insofar as the aliens were not legally admitted to the country or the state, they were not, technically, “in the state’s jurisdiction.” Therefore, they were not entitled to the equal protection of the laws granted by the Fourteenth Amendment because its text refers specifically to persons “within the state’s jurisdiction.” The Supreme Court acknowledged that “persuasive arguments support the view that a State may withhold its beneficence from those whose very presence within the United States is the product of unlawful conduct” (219). However, it ruled that a state could not justify such treatment of the children of illegal aliens who had no control over their coming into the country. At the least, those who elect to enter our country by stealth and in violation of our law should be prepared to bear the consequences, including, but not limited to, deportation. But, the children of those illegal entrants are not comparably situated....Even if the State found it expedient to control the conduct of adults by acting against their children, legislation directing the onus of a parent’s misconduct against his children does not comport with fundamental conceptions of justice (220). The court acknowledged that it is necessary for states to distinguish between different classes of citizens, noncitizens and residents: “a legislature must have substantial latitude to establish classifications that roughly approximate the nature of the problem perceived” (216). However, it said that this authority did not extend so far as to permit states to create classes of people to whom the law’s protections did not apply: To permit a State to employ the phrase “within its jurisdiction” in order to identify subclasses of persons whom it would define as beyond its jurisdiction, thereby relieving itself of the obligation to assure that its laws are designed and applied equally to those persons, would undermine the principal purpose for which the Equal Protection Clause was incorporated in the Fourteenth Amendment. The Equal Protection Clause was intended to work nothing less than the abolition of all caste-based and invidious class-based legislation. That objective is fundamentally at odds with the power the State

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asserts here to classify persons subject to its laws as nonetheless excepted from its protection (213). Schuck and Smith contend that Plyler diluted citizenship and the sovereign rights of citizens. Plyler (and arguments by those who applaud the decision) creates a right to membership in a community without recognizing a right of existing members to self-determination (101-108). Thus, the vision of membership and entitlement set forth in Plyler, like that manifested by advocates of the “mutuality of obligation” thesis, favours individual rights of membership at the expense of group rights of self-determination. Schuck and Smith seek to reconcile the competing concerns of transcendent human rights and government by consent. However, in the end, their rejection of birthright citizenship is grounded more on a concern to minimize the threat they perceive from undocumented aliens’ gaining access to the welfare state than on setting forth a consistent, practical theory. Thus, they acknowledge that a consistent application of their consent-based theory could result in foreboding difficulties such as involuntary expatriation of citizens or the unjust exclusion of persons who are entitled to citizenship (101-103). To get around such problems, Schuck and Smith qualify their theory in order, for example, to assure birthright citizenship to the children of citizens. For this, they are taken to task by critics (Schwartz) who contend that once constraints on a state’s ability to regulate its membership—and, therefore, constraints on a polity’s right to self-determination—any additional, morally justified restraint ought to be applied as well. Joseph Carens contends that “[p]eople who live in a state for any significant period of time become members of that society, although membership may be acquired in other ways as well. All members of a society are morally entitled to citizenship” (1989, 33). Thus, he continues: “once one starts with a commitment to liberal principles of individual freedom and the moral equality of all human beings, one is well on the road to the conclusion that political membership should be determined on the basis of individual consent, no matter how expansive a view one takes of the state’s functions” (1987b: 418). Similarly, Raskin argues that “the differences between citizens and noncitizens are probably much less significant than we often imagine” (1447). As well, Justice William Brennan contended that the Fourteenth Amendment “expressly equates citizenship only with simple residence” (Zobel v. Williams, 69). However, Carens and Brennan do acknowledge that citizenship is a special type of membership, one that “requires a higher and deeper commitment both by the individual to the society and by the society to the individual” (Carens 1989, 34). Similarly, Brennan acknowledged that states may make “reasoned distinctions between citizens...[i]nsofar as those distinctions are rationally related to the legitimate ends of the State” (Zobel, 70). Such qualifications alter the terms of the alien rights debate. The debate is as concerned with establishing membership in a community as it is with determining whether and how citizenship should play a role in the distribution of privileges among a society’s members. This is addressed thoroughly by a source common to virtually all participants in the alien rights debate: Michael Walzer.

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In Spheres of Justice, Walzer (1983) develops the issue of alien rights in terms of the plight of the guest worker. However, in doing so, he distinguishes between two stages of admission to a society: immigration and naturalization. Walzer’s concern is with the injustice that develops when a country which permits immigration and potentially unlimited residence, denies the possibility of citizenship to its permanent resident aliens. Insofar as aliens are governed and in residence, says Walzer, they are entitled to some say in the political process: “men and women are either subject to the state’s authority, or they are not; and if they are subject, they must be given a say, and ultimately, an equal say, in what the authority does” (61). Walzer does make the case for reasonable constraints on the process by which aliens can apply for citizenship. However, critics of such restraints tend to ignore or gloss over this aspect of Walzer’s theory. For example, in the United States, resident aliens may naturalize after five years so long as they can demonstrate good moral character and basic English proficiency (8 U. S. C. §§ 1423(1), 1427(a)(3) (1988)). While Raskin describes any waiting period as “tyrannical,” (1448) Walzer concedes that states need only to provide aliens with the opportunity to become citizens: Participants in local economy and law, they ought to be able to regard themselves as potential or future participants in politics as well. And they must be possessed of those basic civil liberties whose exercise is so much preparation for voting and office holding. They must be set on the road to citizenship. They may choose not to become citizens, to return home or stay on as resident aliens...theprinciple of political justice is this: that the process of self-determination through which a democratic state shapes its internal life, must be open, and equally open, to all those men and women who live within its territory, work in the local economy, and are subject to local law. Hence, second admissions (naturalization) depend on first admissions (immigration) and are subject only to certain constraints of time and qualification, never to the ultimate constraint of closure (60-61, emphasis added). Yet Walzer contends that, ultimately: the right to choose an admissions policy is...notmerely a matter of acting in the world, exercising sovereignty, and pursuing national interests. At stake here is the shape of the community that acts in the world, exercises sovereignty, and so on. Admission and exclusion are at the core of communal independence. They suggest the deepest meaning of self-determination. Without them, there could not be communities of character, historically stable, ongoing associations of men and women with some special commitment to one another and some special sense of their common life (61-62). Walzer acknowledges that morally-based limits may apply to the methods in which states control immigration (34-40). However, while Bosniak cites these limits as supporting her thesis (Bosniak 1994b, 1070), the key element of the limits Walzer describes is that they are the product of internal policymaking decisions by the citizens of a nation. The constraints are not driven by the vision of equality that animates her argument.

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Thus, Walzer substantiates the legitimacy of a state’s distinguishing citizenship from residence and, accordingly, requiring citizenship as a basis for the acquisition and exercise of certain privileges, such as the right to vote. Accordingly, insofar as aliens choose not to become citizens, they voluntarily choose not take on the responsibilities that come with the citizenship-based privileges that they seek. Yet, Walzer does not draw this conclusion. While he acknowledges an unfettered right of nations to control their borders, he contends as well that this discretion is quite constrained when it comes to dealing with what can be done or denied to aliens once they become residents (62).Hesuggeststhat,afteraperiodoftime,residentaliensoughttobeafforded virtually the same rights and privileges as citizens (58-9) regardless of whether or not they choose to naturalize. Holding permanent residents to the “second class status” that they agreed to when they were admitted, says Walzer, would be unjust. Thus, at least with regard to legally admitted aliens, Walzer’s theory does support Bosniak, Raskin, Neuman and Rosberg who seek to minimize the distinctions between resident aliens and citizens. Still, Walzer’s acknowledgment of a virtually plenary power over immigration establishes a basis on which such distinctions can be justified. If the power to admit is plenary, it seems that the power to admit with restrictions is equally absolute. Accordingly, while Walzer contends that, for all intents and purposes, lawful presence in a community establishes a fundamental right to the opportunity for full admission, his argument also suggests that the nature of that presence can be limited at the time of admission. Therefore, mere presence can be read as infinitely meaningful or virtually meaningless, depending on which aspect of Walzer’s argument one chooses to rely. The significance of one’s presence within the geographic confines of a nation touches upon the jurisdictional issue that was the heart of Texas’ argument in Plyler. Yet, insofar as Plyler places great emphasis on an individual’s geographic presence, it is anomalous. As early as 1884, the United States Supreme Court concluded that a claim to citizenship had to be based upon more than mere presence. In Elk v. Wilkins, the Court contended that “no one can become a citizen of a nation without its consent” (103). As a result, native Americans who were members of tribes were not recognized as American citizens and could not obtain citizenship simply by leaving the tribe. While native Americans were certainly born within the United States, they were not subject to its jurisdiction in the sense contemplated by the Fourteenth Amendment. Schuck and Smith rely on Elk to substantiate their assertion that birthright citizenship is not an unqualified right and that Plyler was an anomaly. Since a nation cannot possibly have consented to admit the children of illegal aliens, they conclude that they cannot gain the protections offered by that nation’s constitution. Yet, Elk raises important considerations for Walzer who, on the one hand, supports a strong immigration power but considers residence a sufficient basis for asserting rights claims.

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In the same way that Walzer does not effectively address the question of illegal immigrants, he does not address the dilemma posed by Elk. The power over admission that Walzer supports suggests that one’s presence in a community can be justified as a matter only of consent. But Elk clearly was in the United States; then again, he was not. His geographic presence was the result of consent manifested in a treaty between the United States and an Indian tribe. But, the treaty essentially prevented Elk from “immigrating” and changing nationalities. Thus, Walzer’s vision not only establishes a principled basis for discriminating against illegal aliens—regardless of how long they have been present in a community—but also places inherent limits on the virtually unlimited scope of the rights claims that “mutuality of obligation” or “affected interests” would acknowledge. Yet, his insistence that legally established presence creates a basis for rights claims does support arguments such as those of Raskin and Neuman. Ultimately, however, Walzer does little more than balance the different emphases that characterize the alien rights continuum. A gray area remains in which the self-determination rights asserted by Schuck and Smith seem to supersede the claims of illegal aliens, but similarly seem constitutionally encumbered by legally admitted aliens who wish to become, in the Orwellian sense, “more equal.”

American and Canadian Jurisprudence The Courts of the United States and Canada have also managed to strike a balance among the diverse concerns that animate the alien rights debate. Despite the different conceptions of equality that inhere in their jurisprudence (Beatty, Lepofsky, Smith), the American and Canadian Supreme Courts have arrived at strikingly similar positions in balancing the broad claims of the rights of “persons” to equality with the rights of “citizens” to discriminate in favour of themselves. In this respect, both courts have incorporated Walzer’s distinction between unconstrained authority over immigration and constrained authority over residents. In Mathews v. Diaz (1976), a unanimous American Court sustained federal residency restrictions on alien access to Medicare. It emphasized that alien rights are grounded principally in the due process protections of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. In this respect, alien rights are inherently negative in the sense that they are the manifestations of restrictions which impose standard operating procedures on the federal and state governments: “Even one whose presence in this country is unlawful, involuntary or transitory is entitled to [Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment due process protections]” (Mathews 77). However, while aliens are entitled to due process of law, they are not entitled to the substantive benefits conferred upon citizens: “The fact that all persons, aliens and citizens alike, are protected by the Due Process Clause does not lead to the further conclusion that all aliens are entitled to enjoy all the advantages of citizenship” (78). In particular, said the Court,

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the fact that Congress has provided some welfare benefits for citizens does not require it to provide like benefits for all aliens. Neither the overnight visitor, the unfriendly agent of a hostile foreign power, the resident diplomat, nor the illegal entrant, can advance even a colorable constitutional claim to share in the bounty that a conscientious sovereign makes available to its own citizens and some of its guests (81). Thus, in the eyes of the American Court, aliens who seek admission to the nation are mere seekers of privilege and have no constitutional rights regarding the dispensation of their application. (See Landon, 32.) Similarly, in Lavoie v. Canada (1995), the Supreme Court of Canada upheld section 16(4)(c) of the Public Service Employment Act R. S. C. 1985, which gave Canadian citizens preference in hiring for federal public service jobs. The Court’s opinion echoed Mathews when it supported the government’s claim that: [b]ecause citizenship is a distinctive concept, it is impossible to achieve complete equality between citizens and non-citizens without abolishing the concepts that distinguish citizenship. Therefore, for citizenship to remain a viable concept, some distinctions must be recognized as compatible with the equality principle and reconcilable with s. 15(1) of the Charter (92). The Lavoie Court also acknowledged that it could not claim any superior authority upon which to challenge the reasoning of the federal Parliament with regard to immigration: the court is in no better position than Parliament to decide whether the right balance has been struck or the right means has been chosen to accord a preference to Canadian citizens with respect to public service employment as an entitlement of citizenship and an enhancement toward naturalization. In this regard, the court considers that the government had a reasonable basis for the choice that it has made and that the choice impairs constitutionally protected rights as little as possible (116). Thus, both Supreme Courts defer to the plenary power of the national government and, thereby acknowledge virtually no constitutional restrictions on immigration power. In this respect, they echo the distinction that Walzer makes. However, they have been quick to restrict attempts by states or provinces to place limitations on privileges and rights afforded to legally admitted resident aliens. For example, in Mathews, the American Court contended that state attempts to restrict alien access to welfare would not be sustained because they would encroach upon federal prerogatives in setting immigration policy: Insofar as state welfare policy is concerned, there is little, if any, basis for treating persons who are citizens of another State differently from persons who are citizens of another country. Both groups are noncitizens as far as the State’s interests in administering its programs are concerned. Thus, a division by a State of the category of persons who are not citizens of that State into subcategories of United States citizens and aliens has no apparent justification, whereas a

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comparable classification by the Federal Government is a routine and normally legitimate part of its business. Furthermore, whereas the Constitution inhibits every State’s power to restrict travel across its own borders, Congress is explicitly empowered to exercise that type of control over travel across the borders of the United States (Mathews, 85. Italics added.). Accordingly, the relationship between a nation and its residents is different than that between a nation and those who aspire to be admitted to it. Both courts suggest that, until the person is actually admitted by the national government, he or she has no rights to claim. However, once an alien is admitted, he or she is afforded certain procedural rights automatically. Thus, while aliens are not entitled to federal substantive rights, they are apparently entitled to state or provincial substantive rights unless the state or province has a compelling interest for restricting alien access. But, this distinction is not absolutely clear. For example, the Mathews Court found it necessary to resolve what appeared to be a contradiction between the Mathews decision and that rendered in Shapiro v. Thomson (1969), where it ruled that states could not restrict the access of new residents (who were American citizens) to welfare assistance because such policies impinged upon what the Court described as a fundamental right to interstate travel. The Mathews Court suggested that “resident aliens” and “citizens of other states” were equally protected from state discrimination; therefore, both were, for all intents and purposes, granted the right of access to public coffers. However, the Court went on to explain that there were limits to the equality that the two groups shared. In a footnote at the end of Mathews, the Court pointed out that the right to interstate travel was still a citizen’s right and was not necessarily reserved as well to resident aliens: In Shapiro v. Thompson, we held that state-imposed requirements of durational residence within the State for receipt of welfare benefits denied equal protection because such requirements unconstitutionally burdened the right to travel interstate. Since the requirements applied to aliens and citizens alike, we did not decide whether the right to travel interstate was conferred only upon citizens. However, our holding was predicated expressly on the requirement that “all citizens be free to travel throughout the length and breadth of our land uninhibited by statutes, rules, or regulations which unreasonably burden or restrict this movement” (Mathews at 86, citing Shapiro at 629. Italics added.) Thus, the privileges and rights to which resident aliens are entitled and the sovereign rights of states and provinces remain unclear. At first blush, the Court’s reasoning reflects Walzer’s assertion that long-time residents are entitled to virtually all privileges afforded to citizens. Yet, in contrast to Walzer, the Court still maintained that certain privileges, such as the right to interstate travel and the right to vote, remain attached to citizenship. The Canadian Court’s jurisprudence regarding provincial laws which prefer provincial residents is similarly fuzzy. The key difficulty encountered by both Courts lies in the fact that, since both nations are federally organized, their jurisprudence must respect the constitutionally implicit—albeit limited—self-

198 Citizenship and Rights in Canada and the United States determination rights of provinces and as well as the constitutionally explicit commitments to equality.

Prerogatives of the American States As early as 1886, the Court declared in Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886) that lawfully admitted resident aliens were “persons” insofar as the Fourteenth Amendment declared that a State could not “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws” (369). The Court struck down a municipal regulation of laundry operations because it was enforced discriminatorily against Chinese laundry operators. This reading of the Fourteenth Amendment imposes certain standard operating procedures on the states. However, it was not clear whether it imposed certain affirmative duties on them as well. While a state was bound to respect the procedural premises which underlie the constitutional notion of due process, the question remained whether the residents of a state could pool resources for their collective good and restrict access to the benefits from such resources. In Graham v. Richardson (1971, 372), the Court ruled that “classifications based on alienage, like those on nationality or race, are inherently suspect and subject to close judicial scrutiny.” It therefore struck down Arizona and Pennsylvania statutes which restricted resident aliens’ access to welfare benefits. The decision reflected Walzer’s distinction between the status of alienswhohaveandhavenotbeenadmittedtoacountry.TheCourtfocussedon the impact of the states’ laws on the ability of Congress to administer immigration and naturalization. Insofar as Congress had admitted the alien plaintiffs without placing any indigence-based restriction on their status, it ruled that the states could not justify creating an alienage-based barrier to welfare (377). Having established the aliens’ rights to equal access to welfare, the Graham Court then addressed whether states could justify any citizenship- based restriction on public benefits. It pointed out that, in the past, it and other Courts had acknowledged that states might have had “special public interest” reasons for restricting access to certain privileges. Citing Crane v. New York (1915), the Court indicated that alienage discrimination was sometimes justifiable: To disqualify aliens is discrimination indeed, but not arbitrary discrimination, for the principle of exclusion is the restriction of resources of the state to the advancement and profit of the members of the state. Ungenerous and unwise such discrimination may be. It is not for that reason, unlawful....Thestate, in determining what use shall be made of its own moneys, may legitimately consult the welfare of its own citizens rather than that of aliens. Whatever is a privilege rather than a right, may be made dependent upon citizenship (373). But, in Graham, the Court emphatically rejected “the concept that constitutional rights turn upon whether a governmental benefit is a right or a privilege” (374). In so doing, it expanded the rights of supplicants seeking access to state privileges and largesse, while emasculating the rights of citizens of particular states to develop their own common weal.

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In Sugarman v. Dougall (1973), a divided Court struck down a New York State law which prohibited the employment of aliens in competitive civil service positions. The division within the Court focussed on 1) whether the Court should continue to regard aliens as a suspect class (as it had established in Graham) and 2) where to draw the line between permissible and impermissible restrictions based oncitizenship andthepolitical/fiscal nature oftherestriction. Citing Graham, the Court “recognized a State’s interest in establishing its own form of government, and in limiting participation in that government to those who are within the basic conception of a political community” (642). However, the Court concluded that New York had no rational basis for making a universal, citizenship-based restriction (645). Aliens could still be refused or discharged from public employment “if the refusal to hire, or the discharge, rests on legitimate state interests that relate to qualification for a particular position or to the characteristics of the employee” (647), but equal protection forbade the establishment of a class-based distinction. In in re Griffiths (1973), the Court struck down a Connecticut statute which had establishedcitizenshipasaprerequisiteforpracticinglawinthestate.Thecourt stated that “[i]n order to justify the use of a suspect classification, a State must show that its purpose or interest is both constitutionally permissible and substantial, and that its use of the classification is necessary to the accomplishment of its purpose or the safeguarding of its interest” (722). Echoing Graham, the Court concluded that while Connecticut could determine the eligibility of applicants to the bar on a case by case basis, it could not justify the implementation of a wholesale ban on resident aliens’ access to it. The Court relied on the fact that lawyers were neither “officials of the government” nor “so close to the core of a political process as to make [them] formulator[s] of government policy (729). Therefore, while the Court respected the legitimate concerns of states to ensure that the governors actually be members of the polity over which they governed, it now expressed a willingness to second-guess state decisionsregardingwhatexactlyconstitutedagovernmentofficialorfunction. In Nyquist v. Mauclet (1977), the Court applied this calculus to strike down another New York State law which banned resident aliens from receiving state financial assistance for higher education. While the majority struck down the law on grounds similar to those set forth in Sugarman and Griffiths, the dissents contended that, the restriction was a reasonable exercise of state power because the state had merely required the appellees to make a choice: insofar as they chose freely to retain their foreign citizenship, they had no grounds to challenge their ineligibility for financial aid. Furthermore, Justice Burger resurrected the privilege-right distinction and asserted that, in the absence of any fundamental right, the Court could not justify applying strict scrutiny to state legislation: “Where a fundamental personal interest is not at stake—and higher education is hardly that—the State must be free to exercise its largesse in any reasonable manner” (14). Nyquist seems to have brought about a sea change which was grounded on an appreciation for the rights of self-determination and self-government of state residents/citizens. In several ensuing cases, the Court used the rights-privilege distinction to sustain citizenship-based restrictions. In Foley v. Connelie

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(1978), the Court sustained a New York statute that required all state police officers to be American citizens. The Court explained that certain citizenship- based restrictions, such as those on the franchise, access to the ballot or the “nonelective offices” noted in Sugarman, were absolutely necessary to the protection of the enterprise of self-government: This is not because our society seeks to reserve the better jobs to its members. Rather, it is because this country entrusts many of the most important policy responsibilities to these officers, the discretionary exercise of which can often more immediately affect the lives of citizens than even the ballot of a voter or the choice of a legislator. In sum, then, it represents the choice, and right, of the people to be governed by their citizen peers (296). Along with a new appreciation of self-government rights came a willingness to give states the benefit of the doubt regarding what constituted a government function or official. In Ambach v. Norwich (1978), the Court sustained a New York law which conditioned eligibility for a public school teaching position upon one’s having acquired or intending to seek citizenship. In that case, the Court acknowledged the necessity of distinguishing between citizens and noncitizens: The distinction between citizens and aliens, though ordinarily irrelevant to private activity, is fundamental to the definition and government of a State. The Constitution itself refers to the distinction no less than 11 times...indicating that the status of citizenship was meant to have significance in the structure of our government. The assumption of that status, whether by birth or naturalization, denotes an association with the polity which, in a democratic republic, exercises the power of governance....This form of association is important; an oath of allegiance or similar ceremony cannot substitute for the unequivocal legal bond citizenship represents. It is because of this special significance of citizenship that governmental entities, when exercising the functions of government, have wider latitude in limiting the participation of noncitizens (75). In his dissent in Ambach, Justice Blackmun tried to distinguish between procedural protections that extended to aliens and privileges of citizenship that do not. Citing Court history that went back as far as Yick Wo v. Hopkins,he explained that the Court tended to uphold only those citizenship-based restrictions that were intimately related to state functions, such as that upheld in Foley. Citing Sugarman, he contended that there are “those employments that a State in its wisdom constitutionally may restrict to United States citizens, on the one hand, and those employments on the other, that the State may not deny to resident aliens” (84). Insofar as certain state functions can reasonably be said to require citizenship for the fulfillment of their responsibilities, a state could justify discrimination against aliens. Blackmun’s response illuminates the difficulty inherent in applying the test set forth in Griffiths: by what criteria do we identify key state functions or distinguish between a right and a privilege? The Court has maintained that the states are constitutionally entitled to “preserve the basic conception of a political community (Dunn, 344). Blackmun himself had stated elsewhere that

201 IJCS / RIÉC states are entitled to structure relations exclusively with their own citizens or create effective programs for solving local problems and distributing government largesse because such policies “reflect the essential and patently unobjectionable purpose of state government—to serve the citizens of the State” (Reeves, 442). But, if members of the court were still willing to second guess policies designed by citizens to protect and administer a common weal, then the self-determination rights of which the Court spoke were clearly imperilled. Inperhapsthestrongestreassertion oftherights-privilege distinction, theCourt upheld a California law requiring all “peace officers,” including probation officers, to be citizens (Cabell, 1982). Speaking for the Court, Justice White elaborated on the “basic governmental process” distinction developed in Foley and Ambach: The exclusion of aliens from basic governmental processes is not a deficiency in the democratic system but a necessary consequence of the community’s process of political self-definition. Self- government, whether direct or through representatives, begins by defining the scope of the community of the governed and thus of governors as well: Aliens are by definition those outside of this community. Judicial incursions in this area may interfere with those aspects of democratic self-government that are most essential to it (439-40).

Canada’s Provinces: Andrews and Morgan Canada’s jurisprudence is torn in a similar manner. In Andrews v. Law Society of British Columbia (1989), the Canadian Court struck down British Columbia’s requirement that all members of the bar be Canadian citizens. Yet, in Morgan v. Attorney General for (1975), it sustained a PEI statute which limited the rights of nonresidents of PEI (both citizens and aliens) to hold land. Morgan was decided essentially as a federalism case. The Court argued that the power of a province to regulate land ownership “is not contested” (533). It acknowledged that the land ownership restrictions could be read as conflicting with the federal government’s powers over naturalization and citizenship.3 However, in a clear manifestation of the Canadian doctrine of federalism as expressed prior to the Charter, the Court argued that the powers reserved to the provinces could not be overridden by the federal government: The federal power, said the Court, “may not be invoked to give aliens, naturalized persons or natural-born citizens any immunity from provincial regulatory legislation, otherwise within its constitutional competence simply because it may affect one class more than another or may affect all of them alike by what may be thought to be undue stringency” (538-39). Critics might contend that decisions such as that in Andrews, as well as the protection of mobility rights in section 7 of the Charter, undermine the provincial powers established in Morgan.InAndrews, a divided Court contended that resident aliens were “discrete and insular” minorities who come within the protection of section 15 of the Charter (24, 32-33). Echoing Morgan,

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the Court sympathized with British Columbia’s desire to protect the integrity of provincial interests. However, the majority did not see how restricting access to the bar was vital to doing so. As LaForest stated: There is no question that citizenship may, in some circumstances, be properly used as a defining characteristic for certain types of legitimate governmental objectives...citizenship is a very special status that not only incorporates rights and duties but serves a highly important symbolic function as a badge identifying people as members of the Canadian polity. None the less, it is, in general, irrelevant to the legitimate work of government in all but a limited number of areas. By and large, the use in legislation of citizenship as a basis for conditioning access to the practice of a profession, harbours the potential for undermining the essential or underlying values of a free and democratic society that are embodied in s. 15 (40). The reasoning in Andrews closely resembled Justice Blackmun’s calculus in Ambach. In seeking to distinguish between justified and unjustified discrimination based on citizenship, the Court sought to differentiate between key governmental functions (which needed the assured loyalty that came with citizenship)andotherfunctionsoractivitiesofthestatethatdidnotrequiresuch loyalty (27-28). Thus, in the spirit of the American decision in Griffiths, the Canadian Court applied a rational basis test to the legislation in question. However, the decision suffered the same inconsistencies as that of American counterpart insofar as it, too, failed to set forth a clear means for determining when a province is entitled to decide the scope of self-government. Thus, Canada’s jurisprudence embodies the same difficulties and tensions as its American counterpart. Both Courts recognize a virtually unfettered national power to control immigration and place restrictions on the rights immigrants may exercise. Yet, both contend that, once they have been admitted, there are limits to the restrictions that can be imposed on aliens. Interestingly, both Courts have argued that provinces and states may not prevent legally admitted resident aliens from pursuing a livelihood (Takahashi, Andrews, Griffiths). But, to the extent that both courts contend that the right to travel is restricted to citizens (Mathews, Shapiro, Chiarelli, Hogg 1992, 1006), they have created a jurisprudential tension. The American Court’s recognition of a state right to self-determination clearly conflicts with the equality rights and right to a livelihood that it has recognized of all persons who are legal residents. Similarly, Section 6(2) of the Charter grants to persons who are permanent residents the rights to reside and gain a livelihood in any province. Yet, Section 6(3)(b) grants the provinces authority to establish reasonable “residencyrequirements.”Thus,Sections6and15wouldappeartoconflictasa result of the Andrews decision. A good example of the Canadian Court’s difficulties appears in McIntyre’s opinion in Andrews. He condemns discrimination based on personal characteristics (such as alienage) because it “withholds or limits access to opportunities, benefits, and advantages available to other members of society” (18, emphasis added). However, McIntyre does not go on to develop his reference to “other members of society.” He clearly regards resident aliens as

203 IJCS / RIÉC members of the polity. However, he maintains that they do not have the special status that comes with citizenship which “requires the taking on of obligations and commitments to the community...aswell as the rejection of past loyalties, may reasonably be said to conduce the desired result” (29).

Conclusion: Rights, Privileges and Sovereignty The glaring difficulty that plagues both Courts’ decisions lies in the absence of any clear criteria for discerning when a state may reasonably distinguish among classes of legal residents. Nonetheless, both Supreme Courts do recognize, at least in principle, a provincial/state right of self-determination. Thus, both Courts continue to seek a means of managing the tensions built into their respectiveconstitutionsbetweentherightsofpersonsandtherightsofcitizens. AlienrightsadvocateswouldcertainlychallengedecisionssuchasMorganand Ambach while celebrating Andrews and Sugarman or Griffiths. Ironically, advocates such as Neuman (1996) and Henkin (1994) call—at least in regard to the United States—for a “constitutionalization” of immigration power. By putting immigration “under the protective wing of the Constitution,” says Henkin,wewould“discouragemantrasof‘sovereignty’and‘nationalsecurity’ as substitutes for constitutional principle” (338). However, it is important to note that the constitutions of Canada and the United States make distinctions not only between the rights of persons and the rights of citizens, but also establish hierarchies of rights for which citizenship is necessary but not sufficient. Thus, while alien rights advocates may cite international human rights documents such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to sustain their assertions that nations may not restrict alien access to welfare and education rights (Knight, 1995), they overlook the fact that such documents not only distinguish between the rights of citizens and the rights of individuals, but also establish rights to self-determination which would justify citizenship-based preferences.4 In Section 6 of the Canadian Charter, for example, we see several gradations of mobility rights as applied to citizens and landed immigrants. Section 3 limits the right to vote only to citizens. Section 23 allocates minority language education rights among groups of citizens based on the nature of one’s education and whether one is a citizen by birth or naturalization. The American Constitution makes similar distinctions. Article II states that only citizens by birth may be president. Age restrictions exist on the right to vote in federal elections, and the Thirteenth, Nineteenth and Twenty-fourth Amendments were necessary to prevent franchise restrictions based on race, gender or wealth. Similarly, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights make distinctions between citizens and persons. Especially important for the purposes of this paper is the recognition of a right of self-determination: “All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right, they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”5 The right of a community to protect its political

204 Citizenship and Rights in Canada and the United States integrity which underpins franchise decisions resonates with what Thomas Franckreferstoasaninternationalcommitmentto“creatingtheopportunityfor all persons to assume a responsibility for shaping the kind of civil society in which they all live and work” (Franck, 79). Thus, an important aspect of the right to self-determination and sovereignty seems to be a clear distinction between the rights of all persons and those special rights and privileges that come with citizenship. In Mathews and Lavoie, both Supreme Courts maintained that national governments had the authority to make such distinctions while provincial or state governments did not. This appears to be a double-standard only insofar as it reflects the absence of a federalism component in Walzer’s theory. Critics and theorists address the rights of aliens and citizens in the abstract and essentially at the level of the nation-state. Such an approach conceives of the alien rights issue only in terms of national borders. The existence of constitutionally protected internal borders in federal nations complicates the alien rights issue and results in jurisprudential anomalies that are not easily resolved by reliance on arguments such as those set forth by Carens and Bosniak which fail to account for the balance that must be struck between competing human rights of self-determination and equality. Criticisms of Canadian and American jurisprudence reflect the struggle of both Courts to reconcile tensions built into their constitutions between federalism and human rights and between the rights of citizens and those of persons. Both Courts have acknowledged that there are certain basic human rights such as due process. However, they have also maintained that there are certain constitutional rights and substantive entitlements that may be reserved to citizens. While this may appear to be a reasonable means of managing the tensions, it still leaves us with no clear judicial statement concerning the nature and scope of citizenship and sovereignty because both Courts have yet to set forth clear distinctions between rights and privileges and vital and nonvital state functions. The American Court’s decision in Plyler v. Doe may draw praise from Henkin, Carens, Neuman and Bosniak because it brings the Constitution’s equal protection clause not only to bear on immigration but also on state attempts to prosecute persons who violate immigration restrictions. Nonetheless, it remains a potential threat to self-determination. Insofar as the Court created a cause of action against state governments for illegal aliens, it essentially challenged the integrity of the national government’s authority to proscribe certain types of immigration and thereby define the scope of its polity. Alien rights advocates fail to perceive that, in their zeal to remove all inequalities that result from sovereignty and citizenship, they actually imperil thehumanrightsthattheyseektoprotect.Withoutstates—popularlygoverned, democratically elected, sovereign states—there will exist no accountable bodies that can protect human rights. The jurisprudence and constitutions of Canada and the United States, as well as the text of human rights documents, show that controversies between citizens and aliens involve two distinct types of rights. Alien claims are grounded on rights that are described in general,

205 IJCS / RIÉC universal terms. However, those general rights claims can be acknowledged and enforced only if there also exist particular rights reserved to some persons by virtue of their membership in a sovereign community. Accordingly, an ironic tension exists: fundamental human rights cannot be enforced or protected unless particular, citizenship-based rights are enforced discriminatorily. This tension within the American and Canadian constitutional frameworks is hardly unique; its intractability is symptomatic of broader crises of liberal commitments to human liberty on the one hand and rights of self-determination on the other. Unless alien rights advocates acknowledge the necessity of this rights dichotomy, they may find that the realization of their goals will imperil the rights they seek to protect.

Notes 1. Proposition 187 is codified at Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code section 10001.5 (Deering Supp. 1995) and Cal. Health & Safety Code section 130 (Deering Supp. 1995). In response to California’s Proposition 187, see, e.g., Note, 1995. “The Constitutionality of California’s Proposition 187: An Equal Protection Analysis,” California Western Law Review 32:129; Note, 1995. “Unenforced Boundaries: Illegal Immigration and the Limits of Judicial Federalism,” Harvard Law Review 108: 1643; “Comment: Closing the Doors to the Land of Opportunity: the Constitutional Controversy Surrounding Proposition 187,” University of Miami Inter-American Law Review 26 (1994-95): 363; Note, 1995. “Citizenship as a Weapon in Controlling the Flow of Undocumented Aliens: Evaluation of Proposed Denials of Citizenship to Children of Undocumented Aliens Born in the United States,” George Washington Law Review 63:551; Phillip J. Cooper, 1995. “Plyler at the Core: Understanding the Proposition 187 Challenge,” Chicano-Latino Law Review 17:64; Anne Paxton Wagley, 1995. “Newly Ratified International Human Rights Treaties and the Fight Against Proposition 187,” Chicano-Latino Law Review 17:88; T. Alexander Aleinikoff, 1995. “The Tightening Circle of Membership,” Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly 22:915; Stephen H. Legomsky, 1995. “Ten More Years of Plenary Power: Immigration, Congress, and the Courts,” “Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly 22:925; Karl Manheim, 1995. “State Immigration Laws and Federal Supremacy,” “Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly 22:, 939; Michael A. Olivas, 1995. “Storytelling Out of School: Undocumented College Residency, Race and Reaction,” “Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly 22:1019; Margaret H. Taylor, 1995. “Detained Aliens Challenging Conditions of Confinement and the Porous Border of the Plenary Power Doctrine,” “Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly 22:1087. In response to the American Supreme Court’s controversial decision in Plyler v. Doe (striking down a Texas Law which denied public education benefits to the children of undocumented aliens), see, e.g., “Symposium: Strangers to the Constitution: Immigrants in American Law,” University of Pittsburgh Law Review 4 (Winter, 1983): 163. 2. For example, in Union Colliery and Tomey Hanna, the Privy Council resolved the restrictions on alien employment on the basis of whether the provincial labour laws in question impinged upon federal citizenship powers. Similarly, in cases such as Hines v. Davidovitz and Takahashi v. Fish and Game Commission, the American Court addressed whether the state restrictions based on alienage could be perceived as interfering with federal immigration authority. 3. See, e.g., Union Colliery v. Bryden (1899) where the Privy Council struck down a British Columbia law that prohibited the employment of Chinese persons in mines. Cases such as this were approached as federalism disputes. Accordingly, in later cases such as Cunningham v. Tomey Homma (1903), the Council upheld similar provincial restrictions on employment whose impingement on the federal naturalization power was regarded as minor, if not incidental. 4. U. N. T. S. No. 14668, vol 999 (1976), p. 171 and U. N. T. S. No. 14531, vol 993 (1976), p. 3, respectively. 5. See the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, part I, Article 1.1.

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References Alexander Aleinikoff, 1989. “Here and There: Federal Regulation of Aliens and the Constitution,” American Journal of International Law 83:862. David M. Beatty, 1996. “The Canadian Conception of Equality,” University of Toronto Law Journal 46:349. Linda Bosniak, 1988. “Exclusion and Membership: The Dual Identity of the Undocumented Worker under United States Law,” Wisconsin Law Review 1988:955. ______, 1994a. “Immigrants, Preemption and Equality,” Virginia Journal of International Law 35:122. ______, 1994b. “Equality and the Difference that Alienage Makes,” NYU Law Review 69:1047. William Rogers Brubaker, ed., 1989. Immigration and the Politics of Citizenship in Europe and North America. Lanham, MD. University Press of America. Joseph Carens, 1987a. “Aliens and Citizens: The Case for Open Borders,” The Review of Politics 49:251. ______, 1987b. “Who Belongs? The Theoretical and Legal Questions about Birthright Citizenship in the United States,” University of Toronto Law Journal 37:413. ______, 1989. “Membership and Morality: Admission to Citizenship in Liberal Democratic States,” in William Rogers Brubaker, ed., Immigration and the Politics of Citizenship in Europe and North America. Lanham, MD. University Press of America. ______, 1996. “Realistic and Idealistic Approaches to the Ethics of Migration,” International Migration Review 30:156. Robert Dahl, 1970. After the Revolution? New Haven: Yale University Press. Thomas M. Franck, 1992. “The Emerging Right to Democratic Governance,” American Journal of International Law 86:46. John W. Guendelsberger, 1993. “Equal Protection and Resident Alien Access to Public Benefits in France and the United States,” Tulane Law Review 67: 669. Louis Henkin, 1994. “Comment: An Agenda for the Next Century: The Myth and Mantra of State Sovereignty,” Virginia Journal of International Law 35: 115. Peter W. Hogg, 1992. Constitutional , Third edition. Scarborough, Ontario: Carswell. Elizabeth Hull, 1985. Without Justice for All. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. David Jacobson, 1996. Rights Across Borders. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Stephen Knight, “Proposition 187 and International Human Rights Law: Illegal Discrimination in the Right to Education,” Hastings International and Comparative Law Review 19 (1995):183. Zig Layton-Henry, ed., 1990. The Political Rights of Migrant Workers in Western Europe. London: Sage. M. David Lepofsky, 1992. “The Canadian Judicial Approach to Equality Rights: Freedom Ride or Roller Coaster?” Law and Contemporary Problems 55:167. Sanford Levinson, 1989. “Suffrage and Community: Who Should Vote?,” Florida Law Review 41:550. Gerald Neuman, 1996. Strangers to the Constitution. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Note, (1989). “Membership Has Its Privileges and Immunities: Congressional Power to Define and Enforce the Rights of National Citizenship,” Harvard Law Review 102:1925. Jamin B. Raskin, (1993). “Legal Aliens, Local Citizens: The Historical, Constitutional and Theoretical Meanings of Alien Suffrage,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 141:1391. Gerald M. Rosberg, 1977. “Aliens and Equal Protection: Why Not the Right to Vote?,” Michigan Law Review 75:1092. Michael Scaperlanda, 1996. “Partial Membership: Aliens and the Constitutional Community,” Iowa Law Review 81:708. Peter Schuck and Rogers Smith, 1985. Citizenship Without Consent. New Haven: Yale University Press. David S. Schwartz, 1986. “The Amorality of Consent,” California Law Review 74:2143. Judith Shklar, 1991. American Citizenship. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Kevin Tessier, 1995. “Immigration and the Crisis in Federalism: A Comparison of the United States and Canada,” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 3:211. C. Lynn Smith, 1992. “Adding a Third Dimension: The Canadian Approach to Constitutional Equality Guarantees,” Law and Contemporary Problems 55: 211. Michael Walzer, 1983. Spheres of Justice. New York: Basic Books.

Human Rights Documents International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

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Court Cases: Canada Lavoie v. Canada [1995]125 D. L. R. (4th) 80. Chiarelli v. Canada [1992] 1 S. C. R. 711. Andrews v. Law Society of British Columbia, [1989] 56 D. L. R. (4th) 1. Morgan v. Attorney General for Prince Edward Island [1975] 55 D. L. R. 527. Cunningham v. Tomey Hanna, [1903] A. C. 151. Union Colliery v. Bryden [1899] A. C. 580.

Court Cases: United States LULAC v. Wilson, CV. 94-7569 (18 January 1995) Landon v. Plasencia, 459 US 21 (1982) Zobel v. Williams 457 US 55 (1982) Chavez v. Cabell-Salido 454 US 432 (1982) Plyler v. Doe 457 US 202 (1981) Ambach v. Norwick, 441 US 68 (1978) Mathews v. Diaz 426 US 67 (1976) Reeves v. Stake 447 US 429 (1980) Foley v. Connelie 435 US 291 (1978) Nyquist v. Mauclet 432 US 1 (1977) Sugarman v. Dougall 413 US 634 (1973) in re Griffiths 413 US 717 (1973) Dunn v. Blumstein 405 US 330 (1972) Graham v. Richardson 403 US 356 (1971) Takahashi v. Fish and Game Commission 334 US 410 (1948) Hines v. Davidovitz 312 US 52 (1940) Crane v. New York 239 US 195 (1915) Yick Wo v. Hopkins 118 US 356 (1886) Elk v. Wilkins, 112 US 94 (1884)

208 David G. Delafenêtre Daisy L. Neijmann

The Netherlandic and Scandinavian Transition in Canada: A Sociological and Literary Perspective1

Abstract This article provides a theoretical framework to Netherlandic- and Scandinavian-Canadian patterns of adaptation, as well as an indication of their cultural reflection through a comparison of Dutch-Canadian and Icelandic-Canadian literature. An outline of the main features of the integration of these two “invisible” groups into Canadian society is used to conceptualize the Netherlandic and Scandinavian transition in Canada. A comparative analysis of the development of Dutch-Canadian and Icelandic- Canadian literature demonstrates to what extent and in what way writers from both groups have dealt with their ethnic background and its preservation in Canada in their literature. The outcome of the adaptive process and contemporary situation of Canadians of Dutch and Scandinavian descent is emphasized in the context of the ideological concept of multiculturalism, and we assess its influence on the development and reception of Dutch-Canadian and Icelandic-Canadian literature.

Résumé Le présent article présente un cadre théorique pour analyser les tendances canado-néerlandaises et canado-scandinaves en matière d’adaptation et fait ressortir les manifestations culturelles de celle-ci grâce à une comparaison entre les littératures canado-hollandaises et canado-islandaise. Un survol des principales caractéristiques de l’intégration de ces deux groupes « invisibles » au sein de la société canadienne permet de « conceptualiser » la transition que vivent les Néerlandais et les Scandinaves au Canada. Une analyse comparative du développement des littératures canado-néerlandaise et canado-islandaise démontre dans quelle mesure et de quelle façon les écrivains provenant de ces deux groupes ont traité de leur origine ethnique et de sa préservation au Canada. Le résultat de ce processus d’adaptation et de cette analyse de la situation contemporaine des Canadiens d’origines néerlandaise et scandinave est abordé à la lumière du concept de multiculturalisme. Les auteurs évaluent son influence sur le développement des littératures canado-hollandaise et canado-islandaise ainsi que sur l’accueil dont elles font l’objet.

Previous studies have underlined the negative or at least indifferent attitudes of Canadians of Northern and Western European origins towards ethnic maintenance.2 This is particularly true for Netherlandic and Scandinavian Canadians who are often regarded as the “champions” of assimilation and,

International Journal of Canadian Studies / Revue internationale d’études canadiennes 15, Spring/Printemps 1997 IJCS / RIÉC consequently, as supporters of the Anglo-conformity or melting pot options.3 Some academics have even gone so far as to blame Canadians of Germanic origins for their civil disobedience to the principles of multiculturalism.4 On the whole, the disinterest in the retention of their ancestral culture shown by invisible ancestry groups has led scholars of ethnicity to conclude that their contributions to Canada have been limited.5 We will argue, however, that this traditional image of Netherlanders and Scandinavians does violence to the reality of their impact on Canadian society. Our purpose is, first, to present an alternative interpretation of the Netherlandic and Scandinavian transition and to discuss its main feature, intermarriage. We will also examine the contemporary outcome of what we call the “transcultural”attitudesofNetherlandicandScandinavianCanadians.Second, we intend to illustrate the Scandinavian and Netherlandic acculturative process through a discussion of Dutch-Canadian and Icelandic-Canadian literature. Finally, we will briefly examine the influence of the institutionalized mosaic on both literatures.

Part I : The Transcultural Dynamics of Netherlandic and Scandinavian Adaptation In 1982, the Journal of Canadian Studies published a special issue devoted to the first decade of multiculturalism. Three articles provided an assessment of the field of Canadian ethnic studies. In one of these papers, it was argued that, due to the pressure of multicultural interests, some phenomena were systematically ignored by Canadian scholars of ethnicity.6 In this regard, another contributor found it surprising that research on intermarriage had so far been scarce despite the available evidence of high rates of exogamy among Canadians.7 Finally, it was suggested that the study of invisible groups such as the Dutch and the Scandinavians should be encouraged in order to understand the total ethnic dimension in Canada.8 The findings and conclusions of these three authors could well be linked since it is the main contention of this section that the implications of the intermarriage pattern of Netherlandic and Scandinavian ancestry groups in Canada have been consciously avoided by scholars of Canadian ethnic studies in the 1970s and 1980s. Before proceeding with the discussion, however, it is important to underline the difference between ethnic and ancestry group. In this paper, the term “ancestry group” refers to a statistical category used in Canadian censuses to classify persons according to their ethnic origins. As such, an ancestry group differs from the concept of “ethnic group” which implies a notion of common identity among a majority of members of a given ethnic origin. The term of ethnic group has often been erroneously used in the analysis of census data where ancestry groups have been equated with ethnic groups. Since 1871, Canadians have been asked to report their ethnic origins and not the ethnic group with which they identify. However, this important distinction was overlooked when multiculturalism was first introduced in Canada. It is possible to trace the roots of the problem back to the 1960s. The early phase of multiculturalist experiments was characterized by two diverging interpretations of cultural pluralism. The first understanding of

210 The Netherlandic and Scandinavian Transition in Canada

cultural diversity was based on the notion that each individual should be treated equally regardless of his or her ethnic origins. In addition to this right, everyone was free to maintain one’s ethnicity or not. However, this freedom of integration was superseded by a second understanding of ethnic diversity, the mosaic ideology, which regarded Canada as an ethnic mosaic. Accordingly, Canadians were expected to see themselves as members of ethnic groups since ethnic maintenance was central to the theory of the mosaic. This vision of Canadaprevailedinthepolicydevelopmentsofmulticulturalisminthe1970s. However, in the explosion of ethnic studies which followed the establishment of a multicultural policy, it very soon emerged that the Netherlandic and Scandinavian patterns of adaptation in Canada did not fit the mosaic assumption that immigrant groups and their descendants had formed cohesive ethnic groups.9 Some academics undertook the task of creating an experience for Netherlandic and Scandinavian Canadians which would correspond to the theory of ethnic maintenance. This approach is particularly evident in the works published on Orthodox Calvinists who represent only a minority of Dutch-Canadians.10 This dubious academic enterprise focused on those aspects of the Netherlandic and Scandinavian immigrant experiences which could give the impression of a distinct ethnic group. Moreover, due to their prescriptive approach in favour of the mosaic theory, the few studies on the Netherlandic and Scandinavian presences in Canada that do exist have failed to capture the essential dynamics of these groups’ transition. The fact of the matter is that the Netherlandic and Scandinavian adaptation to Canada has never been one of ethnic maintenance but rather transcultural integration. This adaptive process can be defined as a generational transition which combines an individual integration into an evolving Canadian culture and a shift from ethnic to Canadian identity. This pattern implied a willingness on the part of immigrant generations to transfer from their homeland some of their values or skills to the Canadian setting while at the same time blending with the host society and other immigrants. The same argument pertains to Icelandic- and Dutch-Canadian literatures (see Part II). The result of transcultural integration was not complete assimilation but a “transfusion” that would eventually lead to the formation of a new, distinctive Canadian culture.11 It is important at this point to stress that the historical integration of multigenerational ancestry groups such as Netherlandic and Scandinavian Canadians differs from the classical assimilationist ideologies.12 In particular, the transcultural adaptation defined above is to be distinguished from the melting pot imagery which also implies a merging of ethnic groups to form a new culture. However, the melting pot theory was based on an established and static notion of Canadianism as exclusive as the policy of Anglo-conformity. By contrast, the transcultural adaptation takes into account the dual dynamics of a convergence to Canadian identity while the indigenous culture simultaneously undergoes a transition with the infusion of elements from immigrant cultures and new aspects introduced by successive Canadian-born generations.13 That is why we prefer to speak of a “transvergence” to characterize both the Netherlandic- and Scandinavian-Canadian transition. This model is also in opposition to the theory of divergence implied by the mosaic rhetoric where immigrant groups become subsequently ethnic groups

211 IJCS / RIÉC whosecultureisperpetuatedintergenerationallyandalwaysdiffersfromthatof the mainstream group. The current policy of multiculturalism attempts to promote the mosaic “ideal” but, as previous models, it fails to take into account Canadian social reality. Moreover, the multicultural policy creates a hierarchy of “ethnic groups” where individuals are expected to conform to a process of segmentation in Canadian society along ethnic lines. In this context, one understands why, today, Canadians of Netherlandic and Scandinavian origins are the pariahs of multiculturalism whereas they had previously been the preferred groups of the proponents of assimilationism. But both assimilationist and mosaic assumptions were flawed. For its part, the transcultural concept addresses the dimensions of the Netherlandic- and Scandinavian-Canadian experienceanddistancesitselffromtheinfluenceoftheideologyoftheday. The ethnic transfer previously outlined enables us to reassess the Netherlandic and Scandinavian impact on Canada. For example, the transitory nature of the economic contributions of Netherlanders and Scandinavians makes them no less valuable than more visible signs of ethnic presence. Typical of this is the impact made by Danish and Dutch immigrants on Canadian agriculture in the 1950s.14 The Danes and Dutch brought with them a long tradition in the dairy industry which was adapted to the Canadian environment. Simultaneously, their expertise was soon transmitted to Canadian farmers. Although the Danish and Dutch character of this transmission was to disappear, as it was in the case of most contemporary Icelandic- and Dutch-Canadian writing (see below)15, its long-term effects have been essential. The partial adoption of majority values was part of this mutual process of adaptation which comprised a selective transfer of ethnic values to the mainstream. Perhaps the most obvious feature of the transcultural integration of Netherlandic and Scandinavian Canadians has been their readiness to intermarry. Although this intermarriage pattern had previously been documented, the fiction that Netherlandic and Scandinavian Canadians constituted continuing separate ethnic groups was maintained by the fact that, until 1971, census data on the ethnic origins of Canadians were traced through the paternal line and respondents were only allowed to report one origin.16 Not onlywasthisproceduredownrightsexistbutitgaveamisleadingappearanceof “ethnic purity,” understood as the complete transplantation of immigrant cultural baggage and its maintenance by their descendants in Canada.17 Moreover, the large wave of Danish and Dutch in the 1950s provided the temporary illusion of an ethnic revival for the Scandinavian and Netherlandic ancestry groups. The influx of Dutch and Danish speakers had naturally increased the numerical strength of Netherlandic and Scandinavian linguistic groupings. Very soon, however, the great majority of post World War II immigrants from the Netherlands, Belgium and the Scandinavian countries adopted an official language. Nevertheless, some scholars suggested that multiculturalism would make Canadians of Netherlandic and Scandinavian origins think of themselves as members of ethnic groups.18 The future would prove them wrong. Paradoxically, it was during the following decades of multiculturalism that the artificial character of the“culturalmosaic”wouldbethrownintolightandthattherealoutcomeofthe Netherlandic and Scandinavian transition would be underlined.

212 The Netherlandic and Scandinavian Transition in Canada

Interestingly, the changes that affected successive censuses from 1971 to 1991 progressively broke down the myth that Canada would remain a multicultural society in the sense that a separation of ethnic groups had been maintained by marriage within their own group. Once again, the Netherlandic and Scandinavian adaptive process would directly challenge that assumption. The first sign of the gap between mosaic theory and Canadian social reality was presented in a monograph on ethnicity and language based on the 1971 census data. By 1971, English was the home language of 89.7% and 96.8% of Netherlandic and Scandinavian ancestry groups respectively.19 Since 1971, the Netherlandic and Scandinavian languages in Canada have declined further and seem to have reached a bottom line. The small numbers of Netherlandic and Scandinavian immigrants to Canada in recent years account for the fact that those languages have not yet completely disappeared from Canada. The latest studies on language maintenance indicate that Netherlandic and Scandinavian Canadians have the lowest transmission rate of mother tongue to their children and they display the highest intergenerational language transmission to English. Moreover, the retention of Netherlandic as well as Scandinavian languages is largely dependent on high age groups which indicates that those languages are not transmitted to the younger generations.20 This language shift was partly the result of the intermarriage pattern of Netherlandic and Scandinavian Canadians. However, it was not until the late 1980s that this phenomenon would be clearly exposed in Canadian censuses. The most important development occurred in 1981 when for the first time the ethnic origins of Canadians were traced through both maternal and paternal lines and when multiple responses were allowed.21 Unfortunately, respondents werenotinstructedtoreportasmanyoriginsaspossible.Thisomissionresulted in an underestimation of the number of people of mixed origins (Table 1). However, the move of statisticians towards providing a better picture of Canadian social reality was further improved in 1986. This time respondents were encouraged to declare as many origins as possible. This procedure which was repeated in 1991 made it possible to examine the extent of ethnic mixing and revealed how misleading the 1971 data were. In the space of 20 years, the Netherlandic ancestry group thus ‘increased’ by more than 500,000 respondents (125.8%) whereas the number of Canadians of Scandinavian origins increased by 300,000 (86.4%). From 1971 to 1990, only 24,080 immigrants came from the Netherlands whereas 13,256 persons immigrated to CanadafromtheScandinavian countries.22 Thedramatic numerical increaseof Netherlandic and Scandinavian ancestry groups was due to large numbers of multiple responses: 62.8 % of Netherlandic Canadians and 75.7% of Scandinavian Canadians were of mixed origins in 1991 (Table 1). Most important for a perspective into the future was the fact that 78.2% and 92.7% respectively of the Netherlandic and Scandinavian ancestry groups under 24 years of age were of mixed origins (Table 2).

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Table 1

Dutch and Scandinavian Ancestry Categories, 1971, 1981, 1986 & 1991, Canada

Ethnic origin 1971* 1981** 1986 % 1991 % Dutch Total 425,945 NA 881,940 100.0 961,595 100.0 Dutch Unmixed NA 408,235 351,765 39.9 358,180 37.2 Dutch Mixed NA NA 530,175 60.1 603,415 62.8 Scandinavian Total 384,790 NA 609,180 100.0 717,200 100.0 Scandinavian Unmixed NA 282,795 183,340 30.1 174,375 24.3 Scandinavian Mixed NA NA 425,840 69.9 542,825 75,7 *: Paternal descent only; **:Paternal & maternal descent Source: Statistics Canada, Catalogues 92 723 (1971), 92 911 (1981), & 93 315 (1991); Michel Ledoux & Ravi Pendakur, Multicultural Canada: A Graphic Overview, Ottawa: Multiculturalism and Citizenship, 1990 for the 1986 Census data.

Table 2

Dutch and Scandinavian Ancestry Categories by Age Groups Showing Proportion of Mixed/Unmixed Descent, 1986 & 1991, Canada

Dutch Dutch Scandinavian Scandinavian Age group Type 1986 1991 1986 1991 less 24 years Unmixed 26.8 21.8 9.7 7.3 Mixed 73.2 78.2 90.3 92.7 25-44 years Unmixed 44.9 43.5 25.2 21.5 Mixed 55.1 56.5 74.8 78.5 45-64 years Unmixed 61.0 58.0 53.4 44.3 Mixed 39.0 42.0 46.6 55.7 65 & + Unmixed 59.9 62.0 74.5 68.9 years Mixed 40.1 38.0 25.5 31.1 All Unmixed 39.9 37.2 26.3 22.8 Mixed 60.1 62.8 73.7 77.2 Source: Statistics Canada, Catalogues 93 109 (1986) & 93 315 (1991).

The main reason for the difference between both groups is that the majority of Scandinavian immigrants came to Canada before World War II whereas the bulk of Netherlandic immigration occurred after the war. This factor accounts for the greater degree of mixed ancestry among Canadians of Scandinavian origins. In any case, the historical process of ethnic mixing questions the legitimacy of the mosaic. The inescapable reality of mixed ancestry thus calls for a reappraisal of the notions of ethnicity and identity for Netherlandic and Scandinavian ancestry groups.

214 The Netherlandic and Scandinavian Transition in Canada

The ancestral diversity of Netherlandic and Scandinavian Canadians implies that the ethnicity of a majority of second and subsequent generations of Canadians of Netherlandic and Scandinavian origins has progressively becomeinsignificant.Theexpressionofanancestralethnicityremainsoptional and often takes on a silent and private form.23 This invisible ethnicity challenges the prescriptive mosaic ideology where Canadians are supposed to conform to one stereotyped ethnicity regardless of the heterogeneity and remoteness of their origins. Indeed, the proponents of the mosaic vision of Canada have shown an obvious disregard for the very diversity of those individuals who are ethnically Canadian. The explanation given for the inclusion of the ethnic origin question exemplifies this official attitude: “This question provides information which can be used extensively by ethnic or cultural associations in Canada to study the size, location, characteristics and other aspects of their respective groups.”24 Multicultural programs support the public and symbolic ethnicity of ethnic lobby groups. However, ethnic community leaders defend the interests of a minority of the Scandinavian and Netherlandic ancestry categories. Here, it is essential to define the concept of ethnic community. As we have seen, few persons of Netherlandic and Scandinavian ancestry categories could be described as “ethnics” which implies that the use of “ethnic group” to refer to this social group is not valid. Hence the need to speak of “ethnic community” to refer to this minority section of ancestry categories whose primary identity is “ethnic.” Despite the fact that few Netherlandic and Scandinavian Canadians would identify with the goals of ethnic organizations which receive public funding, the official policy of multiculturalism favours the ethnic community model. These interest groups are in no way representative of the great majority of their so-called constituencies. By favouring the ethnocentric character of “pure” ethnicity, Canadian governments currently ignore the very meaning of “multicultural” for individual Canadians, that is, the diversity and mixity of their origins. In this sense, the ancestral ethnicity and indigenous identity of Canadians of Netherlandic and Scandinavian origins can be seen as the result of a dynamic transgenerational process of transformed cultural identification. As a result of this ancestral shift stemming from the first generation which has attenuated the ethnicity of Netherlandic and Scandinavian Canadians, their Canadian identity has conversely been strengthened. The progressive disappearance of the ethnic specificity of Netherlandic and Scandinavian immigrant influences should therefore not be regarded as “ethnic loss” but as “Canadian gain.” Furthermore, the consequences of this transgenerational process of ethnic mixing are important to emphasize. The majority of sociologists tend to agree that ethnic intermarriage reduces rather than enhances ethnic identity among the offspring of such marriages.25 In this respect, the traditional school of ethnic research mistakenly maintained that census data on the ethnic origin of Canadians constituted proof that Canadians did identify primarily as “ethnics.”26 Some scholars began to view the “single response category” as the core ethnic group believing that these unmixed or “pure” respondents were more likely to identify as “ethnics.”27 The final blow to these illusions occurred during the tests conducted prior to the 1991 census.28

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Forthefirsttime,StatisticsCanadatestedanethnicidentityquestion.However, the mark-in box “Canadian” was shown as the last entry and this undoubtedly reduced the number of respondents who chose to identify themselves that way. Nevertheless, this test revealed that only 37.4% of Canadians of Dutch origin chose to identify as Dutch. The corresponding data for the Scandinavian ancestry group were 36.4% (Table 3). In most cases, this shift from Netherlandic or Scandinavian to Canadian identification had already taken place by the first generation. The trend towards increasing self-identification as Canadian is very clear from generation to generation.29 However, this identity transfer should not be considered as a step towards an established Canadian conformity. On the contrary, it denotes an integration to a dynamic version of Canadianism.

Table 3

Comparison of Selected European Ethnic Ancestry and Ethnic Identity Groups, 1986 & 1988, Canada (excluding and )

Ethnic Category 1986 Census 1988 NCT 1988 NCT / 1986 Ethnic Ancestry Ethnic Identity Census (%) Dutch 879,720 329,000 37,4 Scandinavian* 211,470** 77,000** 36.4** Irish 3,611,890 1,167,000 32.3 Italian 1,006,000 704,000 70.0 German 2,460,210 974,000 39.6 Polish 610,915 277,000 45.3 Scottish 3,906,475 1,361,000 34.8 Ukrainian 958,715 521,000 54.3 * The Finnish ethnic origin group was included with Scandinavian figures. **Includes only unmixed responses. Source: Pamela M. White, National Census Test Report: Ethnic Origin, Ethnic Identity, July 1989, Tables 3 & 6.

The identity shift from ethnic to indigenous is crucial for our understanding of the present situation of Canadians of Netherlandic and Scandinavian origins. Even for those individuals who still have a silent or personal ethnic feeling, such as writers David Arnason and Aritha Van Herk (cf Part II), the primary identity is also Canadian. Ironically but not surprisingly, these non-hyphenated NetherlandicandScandinavianCanadianswhodisplaythegreatestdiversityof origins have been overlooked by the proponents of multiculturalism.30 Considering the results of the 1988 census test and of the 1991 census, one would have hoped that Statistics Canada would have gone one step further in enabling Canadians to describe their identity. However, the pressure from the ethnic lobby led to a bad compromise for the 1996 census. “Canadian” was included as an accepted response for the ethnic origin question. However, a

216 The Netherlandic and Scandinavian Transition in Canada

more appropriate ethnic identity question would have provided a better understanding of the differences between ancestral ethnicity and current ethnic identity.

Part II: Transcultural Patterns in Dutch-Canadian and Icelandic- Canadian Literature Significantly, the implications of the Netherlandic and Scandinavian transition and its outcome in the present multicultural context are reflected in the development of Dutch- and Icelandic-Canadian literature. The Icelandic immigrants to Canada produced a voluminous quantity of literature in Icelandic during the first decades of immigration, at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. Literature had been the main vehicle for cultural expression in and it retained its central function in Canada. Much of the early writing, however, dealt with the invention and construction of a new cultural identity. The focal question in many literary works was how to adapt and become Canadian citizens while preserving the best of the Icelandic cultural heritage.31 Indeed, the ideology soon developed that the ’ main contribution to Canadian culture was to be a literary one, on a level to be recognized by the Canadian literary establishment, an ideology reflective of transcultural integration on a literary level. Writers such as Stephan G. Stephansson and Jóhann Magnús Bjarnason regarded themselves as pioneers in the physical as well as in the literary sense, and used literature as a medium to root Icelanders in their new Canadian environment by poetically/fictionally negotiating, exploring and re-creating the often painful but also exhilarating transition from Icelandic to Canadian Icelandic identity in the linguistic security of their native Icelandic.32 The first major writer to exit the realm of Icelandic and enter the Anglophone world was Laura Goodman Salverson. Her debut immigrant novel The Viking Heart (1923) attempts to translate one group’s immigrant experience into a Canadian idiom. At the same time, the novel, like its contemporaries in Icelandic, seeks to locate the group in Canada and justify its inclusion in the dominant culture and society as Canadians with an Icelandic heritage, by demonstrating its sacrifices, achievements and contributions.33 Significantly, Icelandic-Canadian reactions to Salverson’s work were very critical, and in many ways revealing of the Icelandic-Canadian “ethnic strategy” that had gradually evolved: ethnicity was an in-group concern, while assimilation was the policy for the outside, public, Anglo-Canadian world.34 The criticisms also expose the factionalism within the Icelandic community as to what exactly “Icelandic” was to constitute in Canada. Contrary to Icelandic Canadians, Netherlandic Canadians produced hardly any literature in Dutch or English during their early immigrant years before World War II. Immigration was limited to comparatively small numbers at the time, with no one main area of settlement, and since literature in the Netherlands had mostly been the domain of the higher educated, there was little to promote literary production on a large scale. The Dutch were also divided along the lines of religion, class, etc., even before they immigrated to Canada. The only immigrant writing in Dutch consists of letters written to Dutch newspapers or

217 IJCS / RIÉC friendsandrelativesduringthefirstdecadesofthecentury.Someofthiswriting has only recently been translated and published. The letters of Willem de Gelder (1910-13) and the columns of Jane Aberson (1929-36) give a good indication of the initial Dutch transition in Canada through hard work and quick cultural assimilation.35 These letters confirm the impression that there was little interest in retaining Netherlandic culture in Canada, which is not to say that they expressed uncritical Anglo-conformity: both writers criticized to varying degrees the culturally superior attitude of the Anglo-Celtic majority group in Canada. Rather, the Dutch were almost obsessed with the desire to socially re-create themselves as New Canadians, by which they appear to have understood a much wider transcultural sense of Canadian identity.36 This attitude is echoed in the first Dutch-Canadian immigrant novel by Maxine Brandis called Land For Our Sons. Published in 1958, it is the first Dutch- Canadian piece of writing in English. Like The Viking Heart but even more so, this novel sets out to prove the commitment of its immigrant protagonists to becoming Canadian citizens who are a valuable contribution to their new country. Whereas in The Viking Heart there still lingers an ideal of a dual loyalty, in Land For Our Sons there is no sense of loss or regret, only the celebration of a new life in a new country. Indeed, Brandis admonishes those Dutch immigrants who do not immediately make an effort to integrate into Canadian society, and she sees little value in the ideal of cultural retention among immigrants: It is very nice of the Canadians to say that immigrants should be allowed to hold on to their old customs...butlooking at it from another angle I feel strongly that it is to the immigrant’s benefit—and in the end to the country’s, too—that he should conform to his new surroundings. If he hollers, let him holler—he hollers anyway!37 Although the attitude expressed by Brandis may seem inordinately drastic in today’s multicultural climate, it does reflect the adaptive patterns of Netherlandic immigrants generally as outlined above. The narrator and her husband, for instance, begin speaking English at home on their very first day in Canada in order to facilitate the integrative process for their children. Even in literature, it is certainly not as unusual as one might be led to believe. As contemporary writer Daphne Marlatt has observed, the immigrant imagination (which she opposes to the émigré imagination), rather than bound up in the place left, embraces the new place it enters: “It seeks to enter into its mystery, its this-ness, to penetrate it imaginatively even as it enters from outside.”38 Interestingly, both Brandis and Salverson were native speakers of Dutch/Icelandic, who chose to adopt English, thereby consciously opting to participate and contribute to Canadian literature as they documented their own and their group’s experience, achievements and acculturation. Never diminishing the sacrifices involved in the immigrant experience or denying the value of their cultural backgrounds, they embrace on a literary level a new Canadian identity for themselves and their children, as their compatriots did on a social level, thus reflecting the low cultural and linguistic retention rates amongfirstandsecondgenerationNetherlandicandScandinavianCanadians.

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The literature produced by second- and third-generation Icelandic Canadians after Salverson, viz between 1940 and 1970, is nearly all in English and has little “ethnic” content as such. However, Enoch Padolsky has drawn attention to the fact that literary texts reproduce the acculturative stances of ethnic authors in various, complex ways, such as the choices made with regard to form, genre, theme and outlook, in which they will differ from majority writers.39 For instance, the awareness of a multidimensional sense of self (of being, for instance, Canadians of—part—Icelandic or Dutch descent) is often extended to the social and geographical environment.40 This is demonstrated in earlyIcelandic-CanadianliteratureinEnglish,whichexpressesacelebrationof things Canadian that reveals an outlook founded upon the sacrifices with which they were won. The outlook and choice of that Canadian subject-matter, too, in many cases reflect a more recent, non-colonial immigrant past, in that its interpretation of what constitutes “Canadian” is wider than that found in most Anglo-Canadian writings of the time, as in Kristine Kristofferson’s novel Tanya (1950), which focuses on inter-racial tensions that erupt in a small community in northern Manitoba, and ’s writings, which celebrate culture and at the time opened up an almost completely unknownpartoftheCanadianlandscapetothefieldofCanadianliterature.41 Canadians of Dutch descent only really began to produce literature after 1970. Interestingly, this literature reflects a similar Canadian authorial stance and intended readership as that found in early Icelandic-Canadian literature in English, which, as census data (quoted above) suggest, could very well be attributed to the fact that the authors in both cases were second- or third- generation Canadians. The early works of Marianne Brandis (This Spring’s Sowing, 1970) and Peter van Toorn (In Guildenstern County, 1973) appear thoroughly Canadian in their structure, imagery and thematic concerns, and the samecanbesaidaboutwhatisprobablythemostwidelyknownauthorofDutch descent, Aritha van Herk (Judith 1978; No Fixed Address, 1986).42 Although their writing shows little tangible evidence of “Dutchness,” again, it does reflect an outlook and cultural basis that often differs from that of the dominant culture. Thus, these Dutch-Canadian authors recreate a Canadian social and geographical landscape that has been shaped by an immigrant rather than an established Anglo-Canadian past. Van Toorn and van Herk’s works express a fascination and exuberance with Canadian landscapes and wilderness and a gusto at the possibilities of exploration and new vistas that recall the immigrant’s hard-won achievement of these, so different from a more established colonial mentality focused on the culture lost rather than on a country and culture gained.43 Around this time, in the wake of Pierre Trudeau’s announcement of the multicultural policy in 1971, Canadian authors of Icelandic descent begin to incorporate more recognizably Icelandic-Canadian elements in their work. Bill Valgardson, a fourth-generation Icelandic Canadian on his father’s side, published several short story collections which recreate both the physical and psychological landscape of immigrant communities in the Manitoba Interlake area, including Icelandic Canadians as well as, for instance, Ukrainian and Native Canadians (Bloodflowers, 1973; God is not a Fish Inspector, 1975). David Arnason, a fourth-generation Icelandic Canadian from Gimli,

219 IJCS / RIÉC reconstructs a personal as well as a community Icelandic past in his postmodern works, using contemporary literary theories about marginal writing (Marsh Burning, 1980; Fifty Stories and a Piece of Advice, 1982). Their literary use of an Icelandic background is noteworthy and suggests that the mosaic ideology may initially have worked as a catalyst. Of particular interest is the fact that Valgardson’s work is much more saliently “ethnic” than Arnason’s, seeing that Valgardson is of mixed origins while Arnason is not, which seems to contradict the census data of cultural maintenance among people of diverse origins. Valgardson himself has attributed this to the traditional, ideological support of literary activities within the Icelandic community, which was, certainly at the time when he began to write, not forthcoming from the larger Canadian community. At the same time there are indications that, for Valgardson, writing has been a way of finding an integrated identity, of achieving a more total sense of self through his fiction. Arnason’s Icelandic background, on the other hand, is only part of a larger Prairie Canadian identity and thus surfaces only occasionally in his literary works.44 The Prairie Canadian affiliations of Valgardson and Arnason reflect the generally much greater regional affiliations among Icelandic-Canadian authors than among Dutch-Canadian authors, who appear to embrace a much more general “Canadian-ness.” This may perhaps be explained by the fact that the main area of Icelandic settlement was on the Prairies, and the Icelandic- Canadian experience has, therefore, largely been a Prairie one while Netherlandic Canadians were more evenly spread throughout Canada. While it is true that both Vanderhaeghe and van Herk closely identify with a Western Canadian identity that could be termed regional, certainly in van Herk’s fiction, that identification appears as much broader and less specifically localized than that in Icelandic-Canadian writing.45 A slightly different slant is added by Kristjana Gunnars, often called an Icelandic-Canadian author, although she is a recent immigrant of mixed Icelandic and Danish descent and with a largely urban experience. She has translated the immigrant experience of alienation and dislocation into contemporary Canadian literature which structurally and linguistically tries to push and crack the boundaries of the traditional Anglo-Canadian mould (The Axe’s Edge, 1983; The Nightworkers of Ragnarök, 1985).46 It is interesting to note that, like Valgardson, Gunnars is more obviously “Icelandic” in her writing, since both writers are of diverse origins. For Gunnars, writing also seems to constitute a medium to achieve a form of integration, or, in Daphne Marlatt’s words, an expression of the immigrant imagination’s desire to “knit” together “two (at least!) selves somehow,” while the traditional Icelandic support of writing has likely been a determining factor in her ethnic affiliation too.47 In this respect, it would appear that the introspective nature of literature, as a medium for the exploration, negotiation and reconstruction of issues like culture and identity, causes literary patterns to deviate from the social patterns of adaptation. In the course of the 1980s, more works by authors of Dutch descent began to appear as well, although few of them have any Dutch content. In 1982, Guy Vanderhaeghe, of part Flemish descent, won the Governor General’s Award

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for his first book of short fiction called Man Descending.48 Vanderhaeghe’s fiction has much in common with that of Valgardson in the way that it explores and mythologizes the sufferings and hardships of the victims of an impersonal social and geographical landscape, the awareness of which Valgardson (1987) has attributed to the heritage of an immigrant experience that begins in death and imposes on its people the burden of achievement and the taboo of grief and failure. Aritha van Herk has also pointed to the existence of silenced, “covert” stories alongside the exterior, “overt” stories in immigrant fictions. Van Herk regards immigration as an act of imagination and fictionalization, the immigrant writing him/herself into a new being in an act of invention as well as denial and erasure.49 For van Herk, like for Ondaatje, the immigrant past is embedded in historiography rather than in history, with the overt and covert stories tightly interwoven: “To write the immigrant self is to engage in an active fiction, however physical and representative, to fiction a present and a future out of a self-censored past.”50 Not surprisingly, the works that do have more recognizably Dutch content are all authored by Dutch immigrants. Only Hugh Cook’s Cracked Wheat and Other Stories (1985), however, would classify as “ethnic” literature in the multicultural sense, something that can be explained by his Dutch-Reformed background, as some orthodox groups segregated themselves from the larger Canadian society for religious reasons and thus, unlike most Netherlandic immigrant groups, did form ethnic communities. Cook’s stories are a literary exploration of the Dutch Calvinist heritage in Canada as experienced by immigrant children who try to knit together the subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, differences of an inner, ethnic-religious and an outer, secular-Canadian world.51 In the poetry of Maria Jacobs, the sense of an integrated Canadianism is occasionally weighed down or interrupted by an Old World history that exerts its influence through fragmented memories, lingering linguistic remnants that break through or inform the English, and a broad, inclusive cultural frame of reference (What Feathers Are For 1986; Iseult We Are Barren 1987). Only her first book, Precautions Against Death (1983), is set in the Netherlands and deals with childhood memories from World War II. It is, however, linked to Canada in that the liberation of the Netherlands by Canadian soldiers forms the main catalyst for future immigration.52 In 1986, Netherlandic Press published the first in a series of anthologies of Dutch-Canadian writing as a response to the absence of Dutch-Canadian literature in Canadian surveys. These publications have helped make the contribution of Dutch Canadians to the Canadian literary mosaic more widely known and accessible. Characteristically, this is the stated goal of the anthologies, rather than an intention to point out the degree of “Dutchness” in the writing of Dutch Canadians.53 Netherlandic Press has also helped introduce new writers, sometimes with success, as in the case of the poet Diane Brebner (Radiant Life Forms, 1990).54 Brebner admits in an interview that she was not really conscious of being a “Dutch-Canadian” until she was approached by the Press.55 Her poetry contains a symbiosis of dual experience that reflects in many ways the Dutch integration in Canada, where a strong kinship with the Canadian land and wilderness is connected to a sense of belonging to a long Old World history of ideas.56 The concern with an Old World cultural history

221 IJCS / RIÉC appears to be more pronounced in the writing of urban authors such as Gunnars, Jacobs and Brebner, and seems to contribute to a sense of alienation and/or duality, although this is less strongly present in the work of Brebner who is not an immigrant. The works of these writers suggest that an urban environment increases the experience of cultural alienation. The reception of both Icelandic-Canadian literature and Dutch-Canadian literature has been problematic. Earlier authors such as Salverson and Brandis were excluded from the Anglophone canon. Although regional literary critics were more accommodating, authors were still hardly taken seriously by the Canadianliteraryestablishmentaslateasthe1970sandearly1980s.57 Scholars of ethnic and post-colonial literature have during recent years pointed to the problem of ingrained ideas about literary excellence which in many cases appear to prevent recognition for ethnic writing. In a discussion of the critical neglect of ethnic writing, especially ethnic women’s writing, in Canada, Gunnars suggests that “[w]ithin the whole multicultural debate, it is still a fact that much ethnic writing is ignored because it has elicited no interest” and she concludes: Within this spectrum, the ethnic writer cannot be sure whether she is recognized because she is not good, or because she is ethnic...The literary establishment presumes, and this to a large degree pretense, that there is such a thing as an objective standard. The issue of politics is mixed with notions of excellence and artistic judgement.58 With the institutionalization of the mosaic, however, another problem surfaced. From being virtually ignored, Icelandic-Canadian authors now began to feel pressured to be “ethnic” in their writing. Gunnars complained in an interview about the way multiculturalism tyrannized the way in which one’s own culture was experienced, and felt she was being ghettoized: “In Canada you sometimes need to resist being pegged out of existence by cultural assumptions if you belong to a distinct ‘ethnic’ group.”59 Elsewhere she stated: “An ‘ethnic’ writer always struck me as somehow not a full member of the writing community in Canada and the term itself seemed tainted with a vague form of racism.”60 Valgardson has pointed out how the painful complexity of being of mixed origins and the consequent desire for integration is completely ignored in the celebration of a superficial notion of ethnicity.61 To avoid such pressure and ghettoization, it seems that Icelandic-Canadian authors have begun to move away again from the confines imposed by “ethnic” writing. More recent publications show a near absence of visible ethnic content, such as Gunnars’ Zero Hour (1991) and The Substance of Forgetting (1992), Valgardson’s The Girl with the Botticelli Face (1992) and David Arnason’s The Pagan Wall (1992). Similarly, Marion Johnson (The Book of All Sorts, 1989) and Martha Brooks (Paradise Café and Other Stories, 1988; Two Moons in August 1991) show minimal interest in their Icelandic heritage as a source of inspiration for their writing.62 The contribution of Dutch-Canadian authors has been largely ignored by both mainstream and minority Canadian literary critics throughout. No critical discussions of Dutch-Canadian literature exist, and we know of no critical discussions of ethnic literature that include Dutch-Canadian writing. Of the

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two multicultural anthologies of Canadian writing to date, Other Solitudes (1990) and Making A Difference (1996), only the latter includes an author of Dutch descent (Aritha Van Herk).63 One might well wonder why; even if the editors were mainly interested in writing which clearly deals with ethnicity on one or more levels and which would at the same time satisfy certain demands for artistic quality, certainly authors like Maria Jacobs and Cornelia Hoogland could have been considered. Even the writing of van Herk and Vanderhaeghe has received much less critical attention than one might expect, seeing that, for instance, Vanderhaeghe has twice received a Governor General’s Award (in 1996 for The Englishman’s Boy). Obviously, the literary impact of Canadians of Dutch descent is there, just like their economic contributions, though it has been minimized by scholars. Interestingly, the works of contemporary authors born in Canada of Icelandic and Dutch descent are regarded as part of Canadian literature in their countries of “origin.” In Iceland, Salverson, Valgardson and Arnason while attracting more attention than other Canadian writers because of their background, are read and studied as part of a Canadian literary tradition. Gunnars, however, is still regarded as a (partly) Icelandic writer, presumably because she was born and brought up in Iceland, is a native speaker of Icelandic and has remained in close contact with the Icelandic literary community.64 In Flanders and the Netherlands, too, the works of authors like Vanderhaeghe and van Herk are considered part of Canadian literature, and although, again, their background contributes to an added curiosity whereby they have received relatively more attention as Canadian writers than elsewhere, attention does tend to focus much more on their writing than on the question of their origins which is usually dealt with in a sentence or two.65 While it is true that Anglo-Canadian literary criticism has now begun to formulate approaches and theories to accommodate ethnic writing, most of the theories and discussions appear to be based on the thematic and formal representations of the differential concept of ethnicity versus majority. As such, they exclude and/or are irrelevant to Dutch-Canadian and Icelandic- Canadian literature.66 This minimal interest on the part of Canadian scholarship in the literary contribution of Canadians of Dutch and Icelandic descent echoes the general neglect of Netherlandic and Scandinavian ancestry groups in the sociological sphere, and for apparently the same reason: their willingness to embrace a larger, inclusive Canadianism went at the expense of a visible ethnic specificity. Although Icelandic-Canadian writers have tended to be more obviously “ethnic” during the last decades, largely due to the traditional, ideological role literature has played for Icelandic Canadians, they are obviously unhappy with the resulting marginalization of their work as “ethnic” rather than Canadian writing. Dutch-Canadian literature, where visible “ethnic” content is only latently present if not absent, has been virtually ignored. Rather than being identified as “others” (“ethnic”) in a multicultural context, Icelandic-Canadian and Dutch-Canadian writers allow for a continuous intercultural exchange within a dynamic Canadianism.

Conclusion Icelandic- and Dutch-Canadian literature generally reflect the acculturative patterns of Netherlandic and Scandinavian Canadians. As Canadians, most

223 IJCS / RIÉC contemporary authors of Dutch and Icelandic descent reject the static, segregative concept of a self-generated ethnicity promoted by the official mosaic ideology, in favour of a more dynamic, transcultural sense of self that is constantly re-interpreted in a Canadian literary context. In this regard, their concerns over the trend of multiculturalism in its current form in Canada are based on the acculturation patterns shared by many Canadians of Netherlandic and Scandinavian origins whose hyphen has disappeared through a pattern of transcultural adaptation. As writer Ven Bengamudré puts it: “Transculturalism assumes that there is a process of change and of evolution which is necessary among these different cultures and that eventually we stop being Indo- Canadian or Ukrainian-Canadian; we simply become human.”67 While it is truethattheScandinavianandNetherlandictransitionhasbeenfacilitatedbyits northwestern European background, the significance of the phenomenon of ethnic mixing for other ancestry groups has just begun to be addressed by some scholars.68 In any case, as this comparative study has set out to demonstrate, the Netherlandic and Scandinavian transition strongly suggests that to view the Canadian population as divided into segmented ethnic groups is mistaken. As such, it will hopefully encourage Canadianists to respond to Canadian transcultural dimensions.

Acknowledgement An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Canadian Studies held at the Université du Québec à Montréal on 7-10 June 1995. The authors would like to thank Professor J.D. Wilson of the Department of Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia for his helpful comments on earlier drafts of the article, and Professor Herman Ganzevoort (University of Calgary) and Hendrika Ruger (Netherlandic Press, Windsor, Ontario) for their generosity in providing source materials that were instrumental to the research for this paper.

Notes 1. For our present purposes, Netherlandic Canadians refer to Canadians of Dutch, Flemish, and Frisian origins; Scandinavian Canadians include persons of Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish ancestry. Due to insufficient data for the Flemish and Frisian origin groups, only Dutch figures are presented in the tables. 2. Leo Driedger, The Ethnic Factor: Identity and Diversity (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1989) 53; Jeffrey G. Reitz, The Survival of Ethnic Groups (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson) 65-66. 3. K. G. O’Bryan, J. G. Reitz and O. Kuplowska, Non-Official Languages: A Study in Canadian Multiculturalism (Ottawa: Minister Responsible for Multiculturalism, 1976) 53, 173 & 298; Herman Ganzevoort, A Bittersweet Land: The Dutch Experience in Canada, 1890-1980 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1988) 112; Manfred Prokop, The German Language in Alberta: Maintenance and Teaching (Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press, 1990) 64; Howard Palmer, “Ethnicity and Pluralism in North America: A Comparison of Canadian and American Views,” in Rob Kroes and Henk-Otto Neuschäfer, eds., The Dutch in North America: Their Immigration and Cultural Continuity (Amsterdam: VU University Press, 1991) 451. 4. Manoly R. Lupul, “Multiculturalism and Canada’s White Ethnics,” Canadian Ethnic Studies 15, 1 (1983) 103-104; Harmut Froeschle, “The German-Canadians: A Concise History,” in German-Canadian Yearbook, Volume 12 (Toronto: Historical Society of Mecklenburg Upper Canada, 1992) 70-71; Grant R. Cassidy, “Multiculturalism and Dutch Canadian Ethnicity in Metropolitan Toronto,” in Herman Ganzevoort and Mark Boekelman,

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eds., Dutch Immigration to North America (Toronto: Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1983) 197-219. 5. Peter Toner, “Lifting the Mist: Recent Studies on the Scots and Irish,” Acadiensis 18, 1 (Autumn 1988) 216. 6. Norman Buchignani, “Canadian Ethnic Research and Multiculturalism,” Journal of Canadian Studies 17, 1 (Spring 1982) 29. 7. Alan B. Anderson, “Canadian Ethnic Studies: Traditional Preoccupations and New Directions,” Journal of Canadian Studies 17, 1 (Spring 1982) 9. 8. Howard Palmer, “Canadian Immigration and Ethnic History in the 1970s and 1980s,” Journal of Canadian Studies 17, 1 (Spring 1982) 46. Britanno-Celtic ancestry groups along with Canadians of Germanic descent are often referred to as “invisible”. 9. In addition, the tendency of Canadian ethnic studies to concentrate on social problems has not made the Netherlanders and Scandinavians good peoples upon whom to focus study; see: Robert F. Harney, “Preface,” in Herman Ganzevoort and Mark Boekelman, eds., Dutch Immigration to North America (Toronto: Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1983) viii. This is particularly evident if one looks closer at the experience of other Northwestern Europeans in Canada. Contrary to Finns or Germans, Netherlandic and Scandinavian immigrants were virtually never considered as enemy aliens. Symptomatically, the Finnish and German experiences during the periods of nativism have been well documented thanks to a large number of material available. 10. See, for example, K. Ishwaran, Family Kinship and Community: A Study of Dutch- Canadians (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1977). This overgeneralization of minority phenomena such as ethnic endogamy within ancestry groups is also visible in the studies of Jorgen Dahlie on Scandinavian Canadians. For a critique of Scandinavian-Canadian historiography, see David G. Delafenêtre, “The Scandinavian Presence in Canada: Emerging Perspectives,” Canadian Ethnic Studies 27, 2 (1995) 34-58. 11. Richard Ogmundson, “On the Right to be a Canadian,” in Stella Hryniuk, ed., Twenty Years of Multiculturalism: Successes and Failures (Winnipeg: St. John’s College Press, 1992) 46. 12. Howard Palmer, “Reluctant Hosts: Anglo-Canadian Views of Multiculturalism in the Twentieth Century,” in Gerald Tulchinsky, ed., Immigration in Canada: Historical Perspectives (Toronto: Copp Clark Longman, 1994) 301-309. 13. For a discussion of transcultural integration, transfusion and transvergence, see David Delafenêtre, La population fenno-scandinave du Canada: Origines et intégration, Thèse de Doctorat (Centre d’Etudes Canadiennes, Institut du Monde Anglophone, Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, 1996) 443-457. 14. Erik Helmer Pedersen, “Danish Farmers in Canada,” in Henning Bender & Birgit Fleming Larsen, eds., Danish Emigration to Canada (Aalborg: Danes Worldwide Archives, 1991) 163; Margaret Edith Ginn, Rural Dutch Immigrants in the Lower Fraser Valley, MA Thesis (The University of British Columbia, 1967) 156. 15. Kirsten Wolf, “Icelandic-Canadian Literature: Problems in Generic Classification,” Scandinavian Studies, 64, 1992, 452. 16. Both Netherlandic and Scandinavian ancestry groups had already the highest intermarriage rates before WWII as shown in census monographs for 1921, 1931, and 1941. William Burton Hurd, Origin, Birthplace, Nationality, and Language of the Canadian People (Ottawa: Dominion Bureau of Statistics, 1929) 116-130; Racial Origins and Nativity of the Canadian People (Ottawa: Dominion Bureau of Statistics, 1942) 104-125; Ethnic Origin and Nativity of the Canadian People (Ottawa: Dominion Bureau of Statistics) 14-18. Some studies have highlighted the continuing and increasing intermarriage of after 1945: Warren E. Kalbach, “Propensities for Intermarriage in Canada, as Reflected in the Ethnic Origins of Husbands and their Wives: 1961-1971,” in K Ishwaran, ed., Marriage and Divorce in Canada (Toronto: Methuen, 1983) 196-212; Madeline A. Richard, Ethnic Groups and Marital Choices: Ethnic History and Marital Assimilation in Canada, 1871 and 1971 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1991); Edward N. Herberg, Ethnic Groups in Canada: Adaptations and Transitions (Scarborough: Nelson Canada, 1989) 184- 194. 17. John Kralt, “Netherlanders and the Canadian Census,” Canadian Journal of Netherlandic Studies 3, 1-2 (Fall 1982/Spring 1983) 41.

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18. Herman Ganzevoort and Mark Boekelman, eds., Dutch Immigration to North America (Toronto: Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1983) xi; Jorgen Dahlie, “Scandinavian Immigration, Assimilation and Settlement Patterns in Canada: Large Landscape, Limited Impact,” Siirtolaisuus/Migration 4 (1984) 11; John S. Matthiasson, “Icelandic Canadians in Central Canada: One Experiment in Multiculturalism,” Western Canadian Journal of Anthropology 4, 2 (1974) 58. 19. John Kralt, Ethnic Origins of Canadians (Ottawa: Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, 1977) 43. 20. Ravi Pendakur, Speaking in Tongues: Heritage Language Maintenance and Transfer in Canada (Ottawa: Dept. of Multiculturalism and Citizenship, 1990) 22; John Kralt & Ravi Pendakur, Ethnicity, Immigration and Language Transfer (Ottawa: Dept. of Multiculturalism and Citizenship, 1991) 13. 21. Although this new method was clearly an improvement, some scholars complained about the lack of historical comparability between the censuses, see Bohdan S. Kohdan, “Ukrainians and the 1981 Census Ethnic Origin Question,” Journal of Ukrainian Studies 10, 2 (Winter 1985) 5-6; William Darcovich, ed., and the 1981 Census: A Statistical Compendium (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1988) 6 & 109-113. 22. 9246 immigrants arrived from Belgium during the same period, see Immigration Statistics, Annual reports (1971-1976), Dept. of Manpower and Immigration, (Ottawa: Information Canada); (1977-1990), Dept. of Employment and Immigration, (Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services). 23. Janny Lowensteyn, “Dutch Ethnicity in Montreal: Its Persistence, Meaning and Uses,” Canadian Journal of Netherlandic Studies 3, 1-2 (Fall 1981/Spring 1982) 24-33; Will C. Van Den Hoonaard, Silent Ethnicity: The Dutch in (Fredericton: New Ireland Press, 1991); Anne Brydon, “Celebrating Ethnicity: The Icelanders in Manitoba,” in Gurli A. Woods and Peter Ohlin, eds., Scandinavian-Canadian Studies, Volume 4 (Ottawa: Association for the Advancement of Scandinavian Studies in Canada, 1991) 1-14. 24. Centre for Ethnic Measurement, Canadian Census Ethno-Cultural Questions 1871-1991 (Ottawa: Statistics Canada, n.d.) 69. 25. Jay Goldstein and Alexander Segall, “Ethnic Intermarriage and Ethnic Identity,” in Jean E. Veevers, ed., Continuity and Change in Marriage and Family (Toronto: Holt, Rinehart and Winston of Canada, 1991) 165-166; Jeffrey G. Reitz and Raymond Breton, The Illusion of Difference: Realities of Ethnicity in Canada and the United States (Toronto: C. D. Howe Institute, 1994) 51-55. 26. Herberg, op. cit. 22. 27. Bohdan S. Kordan, “Ukrainians in Canada: 1981 Census Profile,” Journal of Ukrainian Studies 13, 2 (Winter 1988) 70. 28. Edward T. Pryor, Gustave J. Goldmann, Michael J. Sheridan, and Pamela M. White, “Measuring Ethnicity: is ‘Canadian’ an Evolving Indigenous Category?” Ethnic and Racial Studies 15, 2 (April 1992) 228. 29. O’Bryan, et. al., op. cit. 100-101; In this study, 52.6% of first generation Dutch Canadians and 58.1% of their Scandinavian counterparts did identify as Canadian. By the second generation, these proportions had respectively increased to 65.9 and 67.5%. Finally, 79.3% and 70.1% of the third generation of Dutch and Scandinavian ancestry groups considered themselves as ‘Canadians’. 30. This procedure dates back to the preparation for the Book IV of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, see Joseph Di Santo, “Non-Hyphenated Canadians—Where Are You?” in James S. Frideres, ed., Multiculturalism and Intergroup Relations (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1989) 145-146. 31. On this subject see, for instance, Kirsten Wolf, “Heroic Past—Heroic Present: Western Icelandic Literature,” Scandinavian Studies 63 (1991) 432-52. 32. Jóhann Magnús Bjarnason, Ritsafn [collected works], 6 vols, ed. Árni Bjarnarson (Akureyri: Bókaútgáfan Edda, 1970-82); Stephan G. Stephansson, Andvökur, 6 vols (Reykjavík/ Winnipeg: Nokkrir Íslendingar í Vesturheimi, 1909-1938). For a discussion of the re- creation of Icelandic identity in Icelandic-Canadian immigrant writing see Daisy Neijmann, “In Search of the Canadian Icelander: Writing an Icelandic-Canadian Identity into Canadian Literature,” ‘The Icelandic Connection’, Canadian Ethnic Studies, Special Issue (Forthcoming).

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33. Laura Goodman Salverson, The Viking Heart, New Canadian Library 116 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1975). 34. See Gerald Friesen, The Canadian Prairies, A History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984), 262; and Brydon, “Celebrating Ethnicity.” For a more elaborate discussion on the reception of Salverson’s work in the Anglo-Canadian and Icelandic-Canadian literary communities, see Daisy L. Neijmann, “Laura Goodman Salverson, Guttormur J. Guttormsson, and the Dual World of Second-Generation Canadian Authors,” Scandinavian- Canadian Studies 8 (1995) 19-36. 35. The following writings have been translated and published: Jane Aberson, From the Prairies With Hope, ed. Robert E. VanderVennen, trans. Aberson (Regina: Canadian Plains Research Center, University of Regina, 1991); Willem de Gelder, A Dutch Homesteader on the Prairies, trans. and ed. Herman Ganzevoort (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973); Herman Ganzevoort, “Canada: The Last Illusion” (part of the letters of Frans Van Waeterstadt), Canadian Ethnic Studies 11, 1 (1979) 131-40. For a general introduction into Dutch-Canadian pioneer writing see Herman Ganzevoort, “Dempsey-Tunney and the Emigration Question: Dutch Immigrant Correspondents in 1920’s Canada,” Canadian Ethnic Studies 20, 1 (1988) 140-52. On Dutch ethnicity in Canada see René Breugelmans, “Integratie, taal- en kultuurbewustzijn bij de Nederlands-Vlaamse etnische groep in Kanada,” Ons Erfdeel 11, 3 (1968) 29-39; Herman Ganzevoort, “The Dutch in Canada: The Disappearing Ethnic,” in The Dutch in America: Immigration, Settlement, and Cultural Change, ed. Robert P. Swierenga (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1985) 224-39; and van den Hoonaard, Silent Ethnicity: The Dutch of New Brunswick. 36. “Obsessed” is the term used by Aritha van Herk in her introduction to To All Our Children: The Story of the Postwar Dutch Immigration To Canada, by Albert VanderMey (Jordan Station, Ont.: Paideia Press, 1983) 11-12. 37. Maxine Brandis, Land For Our Sons (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1958) 76-77. Brandis’ later short stories, which were originally published in the Atlantic Advocate and also deal with the Dutch immigrant experience in Canada, were collected and published together with excerpts from Land For Our Sons under Brandis’ original name Madzy Brender à Brandis in The Scent of Spruce (Windsor: Netherlandic Press, 1984). 38. Daphne Marlatt, “Entering In: The Immigrant Imagination,” Canadian Literature 100 (Spring, 1984) 219. This is, in our view, exactly opposite to what the multiculturalist policy would have immigrants do. 39. Enoch Padolsky, “Canadian Minority Writing and Acculturation Options,” in Literatures of Lesser Diffusion/Les littératures de moindre diffusion, ed. Joseph Pivato (Edmonton: Research Institute for Comparative Literature, University of Alberta, 1990), 58. In this article, Padolsky analyzes the relation of acculturation processes to Canadian minority writing. His analysis is one of very few that can be successfully applied in interpretations of Dutch-Canadian literature, since it takes into account several levels, or “options,” of acculturation as possible underlying dynamics of literary texts, including different levels of “transition” and “(apparent) assimilation.” According to this analysis, Dutch- and Icelandic- Canadian literature in English would both fall under the “transition” and “(apparent) assimilation” categories, dependent on the various individual authors, with the possible exception of Kristjana Gunnars (see later in this article), whose writings share certain characteristics with the “separation” category of writers in exile. 40. As Padolsky notes: “minority writers and readers, regardless of their positioning in the grid [outlining acculturation options], are more likely to be aware experientially of the nature of acculturation for minorities than majority writers and readers. It is this which in my view contrasts, for example, the sympathetic portrayal of aboriginal situations in the works of Ryga, Wiebe, Suknaski, Gunnars, Valgardson, etc. with the equally sympathetic (but majority) portrayals of the aboriginal situation in Laurence or Roy” (62). Along these same lines, Valgardson has observed that “[t]oo often...weacknowledge ethnic influences only when the subject matter of the art is identifiably about the immigration experience or the artist is dressed in ethnic clothes. We do not recognize that the truly profound ethnic influence, like a powerful current under a still surface, is constantly at work. This influence partially determines at least the following: what kind of art is produced, what is seen, what is not seen, or, if seen, is or is not acknowledged, what is regarded as worthy subject-matter, what is not, what the attitude is toward landscape and human activity and what the

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relationships of the two will be and, particularly, what the underlying judgements will be by which all of this is evaluated. As artists of our culture, it is important that we acknowledge this but also move beyond it, not only to enter but to create the possibility of the greater society . . .,” “An Immigrant Culture: Reconciling Diverse Voices,” Lecture delivered at St. John’s College (University of Manitoba, November 1987) 1. Although he writes from an American perspective, Michael Fischer, too, remarks that minority writing is increasingly concerned with “an insistence on a pluralist, multidimensional, or multi-faceted concept of self: one can be many different things, and this personal sense can be a crucible for a wider ethos of pluralism,” in “Ethnicity and the Arts of Memory,” in Writing Culture, eds. J. Clifford and G.E. Marcus (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986) 196. This articulates very well the attitude of many Dutch- and Icelandic-Canadian authors: a close affinity with a pluralist Canadianism rather than a narrow sense of ethnic self. 41. Kristine Benson Kristofferson, Tanya (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1950); Vilhjalmur Stefansson, The Friendly Arctic: The Story of Five Years in Polar Regions (New York: Macmillan, 1943). Stefansson’s contribution to Canadian literature has been acknowledged by several Canadian critics such as T.D. MacLulich, “Reading the Land: The Wilderness Tradition in Canadian Letters,” Journal of Canadian Studies 20,2 (1985) 29-44; and W.J. Keith, who credits Stefansson with having recreated the North in his writings from the point of view of adaptation rather than of conquest or biased interpretation, “Nature and the Literary Imagination,” in Nature and the Literary Imagination, Papers from the First Northern Literary Symposium, ed. Vincent D. Sharman (North Bay: Nipissing University College, 1984) 28-29. 42. Marianne Brandis, This Spring’s Sowing (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1970); Peter van Toorn, In Guildenstern County (Montreal: Delta Canada Press, 1973); and Mountain Tea and Other Poems (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1984); Aritha van Herk, Judith (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1978); and No Fixed Address, An Amorous Journey (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1986). 43. This aspect of “ethnic” writing is discussed by Wil M. Verhoeven in a thought-provoking paper which compares the different acculturative stances of authors Michael Ondaatje and Bharati Mukherjee, “How Hyphenated Can You Get? A Critique of Pure Ethnicity,” Mosaic, 29, 3 (1996) 97-116. As Verhoeven points out, Mukherjee’s concept of ethnicity is one in which a self-generated ethnic Self is posed against a dominant Other, a concept which pre- supposes ethnic conflict. The influence of ethnic origins in Ondaatje’s writing, on the other hand, can be found in the literary process of self-creation and self-discovery. Ethnicity in Mukherjee’s work, in other words, is a static, self-evident concept, whereas in Ondaatje it appears as a constructed, dynamic concept. Verhoeven’s argument recalls Werner Sollors observation that “by and large, studies tend less to set out to explore [ethnicity’s] construction than to take it for granted as a relatively fixed or, at least, a known and self- evident category,” “Introduction: The Invention of Ethnicity,” in The Invention of Ethnicity, ed. Sollors (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989) xiii. 44. Daisy L. Neijmann, The Icelandic Voice in Canadian Letters, Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1997. 45. Van Herk’s fiction is set in the North, the West Coast, Alberta, etc. Part of the explanation for this difference could also be that Dutch culture, despite its sometimes considerable local variants, has, at least until very recently, tended to be quite centralized (the importance of regionalism in Canadian literature always has to be explained to Dutch readers), and that, as a result, the Dutch perceived a larger, encompassing Canadian identity where many Canadians do not. 46. W.D. Valgardson, Bloodflowers (Ottawa: Oberon, 1973); and God is not a Fish Inspector (Ottawa: Oberon, 1975); See also Red Dust (Ottawa, Oberon, 1978) and Gentle Sinners (Ottawa: Oberon, 1980); David Arnason, Fifty Stories and a Piece of Advice (Winnipeg: Turnstone Press, 1982); and Marsh Burning (Winnipeg: Turnstone Press, 1980); Kristjana Gunnars, The Axe’s Edge (Victoria: Porcépic Press, 1983); and The Nightworkers of Ragnarök (Victoria: Porcépic Press, 1985); see also Settlement Poems 1 and 2 (Winnipeg: Turnstone Press, 1980). 47. Daphne Marlatt, “Entering In: The Immigrant Imagination,” p. 223. For the movement towards integration in Gunnars’ work see also Judith Owens, “‘Drawing/In’: Wholeness and Dislocation in the Work of Kristjana Gunnars,” in Kenneth James Hughes, ed.,

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Contemporary Manitoba Writers: New Critical Studies, (Winnipeg: Turnstone Press, 1990) 64-78. 48. Guy Vanderhaeghe, Man Descending (Toronto: Macmillan, 1982). See also The Trouble With Heroes (Toronto, Macmillan, 1983); and My Present Age (Toronto, Macmillan, 1984). 49. Valgardson, November 1987. For more elaborate discussions of the binary tensions in immigrant fiction, particularly those between success and failure, silence and speech, and death and rebirth, see also Robert Kroetsch, “The Grammar of Silence: Narrative Patterns in Ethnic Writing,” Canadian Literature 106 (Fall, 1985) 65-74; and Tamara J. Palmer, “The Fictionalization of the Vertical Mosaic: The Immigrant, Success, and National Mythology,” in Literatures of Lesser Diffusion, 65-101. For an earlier discussion of ethnic writing as a literary genre concerned with defining itself see Eli Mandel, “Ethnic Voice in Canadian Writing,” in Identities: The Impact of Ethnicity on Canadian Society, ed. Wsevolod Isajiw (Toronto: Peter Martin, 1977) 57-68. 50. Aritha van Herk, In Visible Ink, Cryptofictions, Writer as Critic Series 3 (Edmonton: NeWest Press, 1991) 187. 51. Hugh Cook, Cracked Wheat and Other Stories (Oakville, Ont.: Mosaic Press, 1985). 52. Maria Jacobs, What Feathers Are For (Oakville, Ont.: Mosaic Press, 1986); Iseult We Are Barren (Windsor: Netherlandic Press, 1987); and Precautions Against Death (Oakville, Ont.: Mosaic Press, 1983). World War II plays an important role in much Dutch-Canadian literature. The Canadian liberation of the Netherlands forged strong emotional ties on the part of many Dutch people, and induced many to immigrate to Canada after the War. In works such as those by Maxine Brandis, her daughter Marianne Brandis (Special Nests, Windsor: Netherlandic Press, 1990), and Maria Jacobs, the war takes on a symbolic meaning and becomes the legitimation for Dutch immigration to Canada and for the strong urge among Dutch immigrants to assimilate and contribute to the good of Canadian society. 53. The series of Dutch-Canadian anthologies, edited by Hendrika Ruger and published by Netherlandic Press, includes Buffaloberries and Saskatoons: Stories and Poems from Western Canada by Dutch Canadians (1991); Distant Kin: Dutch-Canadian Stories and Poems (1987); Dutch Quintet: A Collection of Poems and Short Stories by Dutch Canadians (1990); Dutch Voices: A Collection of Stories and Poems by Dutch-Canadians (1989); From A Chosen Land: A Dutch-Canadian Anthology of Poetry and Prose (1986); and Transplanted Lives: Dutch-Canadian Stories and Poems (1988). 54. Other new writers introduced by Netherlandic Press include Pleuke Boyce (Dutch Medley: Poems and Stories, 1986); and Edith van Beek (Points of White, 1988). Cornelia Hoogland has recently had her first book of poetry published by Turnstone Press (The Wire-Thin Bride, 1990). 55. John Vardon , “An Interview with Diane Brebner,” The New Quarterly 13.1 (1993) 12-28. 56. Diane Brebner, Radiant Life Forms (Windsor: Netherlandic Press, 1990); The Golden Lotus (Windsor: Netherlandic Press, 1993). 57. Konrad Gross observes: “It seems that anglophone scholars have found it difficult to accommodate the ethnic factor in their aesthetic approaches, and the impetus for a revision of long cherished critical practices has come from the regional fringes (and chiefly from the Canadian West with perhaps the most intense historical exposure to ethnic experience) and from critics with affiliations to an ethnic community,” “The Burden of Memory: Ethnic Literature in Multicultural Canada,” in Anglistentag 1991, Proceedings of the Conference of the German Association of University Professors of English 13, ed. Wilhelm G. Busse (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1992) 373. On the relationship between ethnic and mainstream Canadian literature see, for instance, Tamara Palmer and Beverly J. Rasporich, “Ethnic Literature,” in The New Canadian Encyclopaedia, 2nd edition, Vol. 1 (Edmonton: Hurtig Publishers, 1988) 725-28; C.H. Andrusyshen, “Canadian Ethnic Literary and Cultural Perspectives,” in The Undoing of Babel: Watson Kirkconnell, The Man and His Work, ed. J.R.C. Perkin (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1975) 31-49; Barbara Godard, “The Discourse of the Other: Canadian Literature and the Question of Ethnicity,” The Massachusetts Review 31 (1990) 153-84; Francesco Loriggio, “History, Literary History, and Ethnic Literature,” Literatures of Lesser Diffusion, 21-45; and Hutcheon’s introduction to Other Solitudes: Canadian Multicultural Fictions, eds. Hutcheon and Richmond (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1990). The collections A/Part: Papers from the 1984 Ottawa Conference on Language, Culture and Literary Identity in Canada,” Canadian

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Literature, Supplement 1 (May, 1987); and Identifications: Ethnicity and the Writer in Canada, ed. Jars Balan (Edmonton: Canadian Institute for Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, 1982) provide a helpful general idea of the different authorial views on the subject of ethnicity in writing and its reception in mainstream Canadian literature. For a more elaborate discussion of the reception of Icelandic-Canadian literature by the Canadian literary establishment, see Neijmann, “The Icelandic Voice in Canadian Letters,” and Wolf, “Icelandic-Canadian Literature: Problems in Generic Classification,” 439-53. 58. Kristjana Gunnars, “Ethnicity and Canadian Women Writers,” Room of One’s Own 14, 4 (1991) 41, 50. 59. David Demchuk, “‘Holding Two Ropes’: Interview with Kristjana Gunnars,” Prairie Fire 5, 2-3 (1984) 32. 60. “Words on Multilingualism,” Prairie Fire 5, 2-3 (1984) 8. 61. Judith Miller, Interview with W.D. Valgardson, in Other Solitudes: Multicultural Fictions, eds. Linda Hutcheon and Marion Richmond (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1990) 137- 39. The celebration of the fallacious concept of pure ethnicity as embedded in multicultural policy has recently come under attack from other writers as well, notably from Neil Bissoondath, Selling Illusions: The Cult of Multiculturalism (Penguin, 1994). 62. W.D. Valgardson, The Girl with the Botticelli Face (Vancouver/Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre, 1992); Kristjana Gunnars, The Substance of Forgetting (Red Deer: Red Deer College Press, 1992); and Zero Hour (Red Deer: Red Deer College Press, 1991); David Arnason, The Pagan Wall (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 1992); Marion Johnson, The Book of All Sorts (London, Ont.: Nightwood, 1989); Martha Brooks, Paradise Café and Other Stories (Saskatoon: Thistledown Press, 1988); and Two Moons in August (Vancouver/Toronto: Groundwood Douglas & McIntyre, 1991). 63. Making a Difference: Canadian Multicultural Literature, Smaro Kamboureli, ed., (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996). One author of Netherlandic descent is included in an anthology that features more than 70 authors in total, and contains, for instance, four authors of Icelandic descent (Salverson, Valgardson, Arnason and Gunnars). 64. Gudrun Gudsteinsdottir, Dept. of English, University of Iceland, personal interview, May 1997. Gunnars’ position is demonstrated by her inclusion in the collection Icelandic Writing Today, Sigurdur A. Magnusson, ed., (Reykjavík: s.n., 1982). 65. See, for instance, Graa Boomsma, “De Canadese Verbeelding in Opmars: Een Inleiding,” Bzzletin, 52 (Jan. 1998, special issue on Canadian Literature) 1-17, which does not even mention the Netherlandic background of Vanderhaeghe and van Herk; Charles Forceville, “Ik denk dat we iets verloren hebben door het heldendom af te schaffen,” Interview with Guy Vanderhaeghe, Nieuwe Wereld Tijdschrift (October 1987) 14-18; Geert Lernout, “Sneeuw en Tranen: Guy Vanderhaeghe,” De Vlaamse Gids 72, 4 (1988) 30-35; A. van den Hoven, “Aritha van Herk’s novel Judith in English and its Dutch Translation,” Canadian Journal of Netherlandic Studies, 3, 1-2 (1981-82) 84-86. We were unable to trace evidence of the reception of Maria Jacobs in the Netherlands. Seeing that her position is similar to that of Gunnars, it would seem likely that she is regarded as at least partly a Dutch author; she translated, for instance, her debut collection Precautions against Death into Dutch herself (Vijfenvijftig Sokken, Amsterdam: De Harmonie, 1986). The translation has been out of print for several years. 66. Notable exceptions are the analyses offered by Padolsky, Kroetsch, and Palmer. 67. Daniel Coleman, “Writing Dislocation: Transculturalism, Gender, Immigrant Families: A Conversation with Ven Begamudré,” Canadian Literature, 149 (1996) 36-38. 68. Karol Kròtki & Dave Odynak, “The Emergence of Multiethnicities in the Eighties,” in Shiva S. Halli, Frank Trovato & Leo Driedger, eds., Ethnic Demography: Canadian Immigrant, Racial and Cultural Variations (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1990) 383-398.

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