Modeling Authority at the Canadian Fisheries Museum, 1884-1918 by William Knight A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario © 2014, William Knight Abstract This dissertation charts the history of the Canadian Fisheries Museum, established in Ottawa in 1884. Initially assembled for the 1883 International Fisheries Exhibition in London, the Fisheries Museum was a hybrid of natural history museum and industrial exhibition that modeled fish and fisheries as national possessions under progressive state administration. In 1918, after an extensive renovation, the museum was closed and the collection dispersed. The Fisheries Museum’s demise raises questions about museological permanency and power, particularly the authority of natural history museums to produce what Jens Andermann calls “hegemonic figurations” of nature and nation. This study—focused on the museum’s practices of curating, collecting, cataloguing, modeling, and exhibiting—examines how the museum navigated its material and conceptual challenges as it sought to model Canada’s aquatic nature. These included the museum’s spatial constraints, the authenticity of fish models, the museum’s competing local and national roles, the professionalization of government science, and the gendered shift from production to consumption in fisheries administration. These challenges necessitated an ongoing project of remodeling as the Fisheries Museum sought to stabilize and maintain its authority. Remodeling also shaped the construction of curatorial authority, evidenced in the career of Andrew Halkett. Halkett, a self-trained naturalist and member of the Ottawa Field-Naturalists’ Club, negotiated changing ideals of masculine identity as he rose from a clerical position to become the museum’s curator, engaged in Arctic expeditions and acclimatization. This dissertation resurrects a “lost” museum, with exhibits spanning fish culture, whale skeletons, and fish restaurants at the ii Canadian National Exhibition. Drawing on museum studies, environmental and fisheries history, state formation, and gender studies, it reveals the Fisheries Museum as an arena where ideas about fish, the role of state administration, and the construction of masculine authority were tested and contested. iii Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for a Joseph Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship. This dissertation would not have been possible without the Council’s generous support. I also thank Carleton University for scholarships, including the Shannon Scholarship in Canadian Social History, as well as teaching assistantships. I also recognize the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs for two Graduate Student Travel/Research Bursaries, which supported research and conference travel. I extend my thanks to Carleton University’s history department. The department gave me opportunities to teach and learn, and ones I did not expect, including working with Jim Opp on the Rideau Timescapes iPhone app. I also want to thank John Walsh and Andrew Johnston for advice and support. I will never forget my first Canadian history seminar with Bruce Elliott and Marilyn Barber. I also wish to thank Dominique Marshall and Tim Cook for their interest in my project. Special thanks are reserved for Joan White, Regina Aulinkas, and Irene Sanna who kept the administrative machinery turning. They patiently showed me how to operate the photocopier several times, and forgave my other trespasses, minor and major. To my supervisor Joanna Dean I owe a great debt. She took my sudden changes of direction in stride and gave me room to explore and think. She graciously allowed me to teach her course in Canadian environmental history. In 2012, we co-curated an exhibit at Ottawa’s Bytown Museum on Joanna’s research on urban trees: it was a hectic, but immensely rewarding experience and I thank her for the opportunity and latitude she iv allowed me as her collaborator. Her comments, queries, edits, and challenges have given this dissertation much needed structure and focus. I must make special mention of the Network in Canadian History and Environment—otherwise known as NiCHE. I have benefitted enormously from my involvement with NiCHE for both social and scholarly contacts. I have received financial support for trips to Vancouver, Toronto, Cambridge, and most memorably Iceland. I acknowledge Alan MacEachern, Stéphane Castonguay, Dean Bavington, Ruth Sandwell, and Colin Duncan among others, for their interest and support. I thank Chantal Dussault, Ted Sypniewski, Andrée Bisson, and Michel Gosselin at the Canadian Museum of Nature. Chantal was especially helpful and enthusiastic about my research; she also discovered the single photograph of the Fisheries Museum’s interior. Michel Gosselin gave me a tour of the storage facilities and contributed valuable insights about the museum. I also thank the staff at Library and Archives Canada, Gregory Ami at the American Museum of Natural History, Michael Anderson of the Yale Peabody Museum, and Robert Smythe of the City of Ottawa. I thank my graduate student colleagues who provided support and advice: Madelaine Morrison, Amanda Sauermann, Maureen Mahoney, and David Banoub. Ryan Katz-Rosene deserves special thanks for guest lecturing while I was coming to grips with fatherhood. I also thank Jonathan Iraguei for his help. I turn finally to my family to whom I owe everything: my mother Joan Knight, and my loving and supportive sisters Katherine, Susan, Ruth, and brother David. My mother Joan has waited five years for the conclusion of this project with growing excitement. She has been a life-long source of unconditional love and support. From her I v have learned many things: faith, compassion, how to keep house, a love of birds. I have several dedications to make. First to my late brother, Andrew Dennis Knight. Andy, my younger brother, who died in 1984. Andy taught me to value and love life, and to cherish my loved ones. I also remember my beloved father, Derek William Knight, who died in 1985. He demonstrated patience and charity throughout the 23 years I was blessed to be his son. I hope he would be proud of me and I dedicate this dissertation to him and my mother Joan. I reserve my final thank you, and final dedication, for Beth Robertson, my loving partner and wife. Beth rescued me and this project when it seemed to be going off the rails. She supported me unreservedly, even as she laboured to complete her own dissertation—and while she was pregnant. She showed amazing strength and courage in defending her dissertation and giving birth to our daughter Tamar, all within 36 hours. I will never forget March 8 and March 9, 2013 as Beth first delivered her Ph.D. and then the lovely Tamar. As for Tamar, no words can describe what she has brought into our lives. Except, of course, these two: chumbly wumbly! vi Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iv Table of Contents vii List of Figures x 1 Chapter: Introduction 1 1.1 Contexts and arguments 6 1.2 Historiography 18 1.3 Organization and summaries 32 1.4 Sources 38 1.5 Conclusion 40 2 Chapter: Administering Fish 41 2.1 Fisheries Administration 43 2.2 Moses Perley 49 2.3 Pierre Fortin 55 2.4 Samuel Wilmot and fish culture 61 2.5 Exhibiting Fish Culture 69 2.6 The “systematics of fisheries” 77 2.7 Canada at the London Fisheries Exhibition 81 2.8 Conclusion 95 vii 3 Chapter: Exhibiting Authority 98 3.1 The Whitcher-Wilmot Dispute 100 3.2 Repatriation to Ottawa 106 3.3 Edward Prince 118 3.4 Andrew Halkett 125 3.5 Apprenticeship 138 3.6 Conclusion 152 4 Chapter: Collecting and the Scientific Field Naturalist 154 4.1 Mapping National Fish 156 4.2 Opportunistic Collecting 164 4.3 Polar Expedition Collecting 175 4.4 Collecting and Acclimatization 185 4.5 Conclusion 199 5 Chapter: Modeling, Remodeling, and Display 202 5.1 Remodeling Space and Prestige 204 5.2 “The Question of Fish Exhibition” 213 5.3 American Taxidermy and Canadian Fish 222 5.4 Scaling the Fisheries in Models 235 5.5 Building a Whale 241 5.6 Conclusion 249 viii 6 Chapter: Consuming at the Canadian National Exhibition 251 6.1 Contexts for Consumption 253 6.2 Modernization and Consumption 259 6.3 The CNE Fisheries Exhibit 267 6.4 “Fish and How to Cook It” 272 6.5 The Fish Restaurant 278 6.6 Controlling Food 284 6.7 Fish and War 288 6.8 Conclusion 294 7 Chapter: Conclusion 296 Bibliography 309 ix List of Figures Figure 1 Bird’s-eye and plan views of Samuel Wilmot’s Newcastle hatchery. Source: Canada, Report of Fish-Breeding in the Dominion of Canada 1877 (Ottawa: MacLean, Roger & Co., 1878) 24-26. 73 Figure 2 Samuel Wilmot’s miniature fish-hatchery exhibit at the 1883 International Fisheries Exhibition. Source: LAC, accession number 1975-271. 87 Figure 3 The Fisheries Building. Source: LAC, accession number 1966- 090 NPC. 111 Figure 4 Interior of the Canadian Fisheries Museum, c. 1907. Source: Source: Canada, Forty-Seventh Annual Report of the Department of Marine and Fisheries 1913-14 (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1914) 1. 201 x Chapter One: Introduction In 1929, Andrew Halkett retired after a 51-year career in Canada’s fisheries department. The Toronto Globe dedicated two articles to Halkett, who had risen over the course of his working life from clerk to the rank of “Associate Zoologist.” Celebrating Halkett’s “faithful, outstanding and distinguished service,” the newspaper stressed his courage, noting that Halkett had “reached within 10 degrees of the Pole” on one expedition. “Possessing an adventurous spirit and a courage that was ever dauntless,” The Globe related, “Mr. Halkett fearlessly braved many dangers and with a smile shouldered risks as he attempted scientific investigations.”1 The Globe, however, failed to mention the Canadian Fisheries Museum, a place that was critical to Halkett’s career.