Book Reviews
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BOOK REVIEWS Sojourning Sisters: ministers) from Nova Scotia shaped The Lives and Letters British Columbia and, as a result, Canada. In placing teachers (and of Jessie and Annie McQueen clergy) at the heart of nation building, Jean Barman Barman emphasizes the important role of church and school in incorporating Toronto: University of Toronto British Columbia into the Canadian Press, 2003. 336 pp. Illus., maps. nation. She argues that "British $50.00 cloth. Columbia's absorption into Canada in the years following the completion of BY SUZANNE MORTON the transcontinental railway derived McGill University far more from inconspicuous women like Jessie and Annie McQueen than EAN BARMAN'S Soujourning Sisters it did from the public pronouncements Jis an important book that merits of fellow Nova Scotians like George a wide audience, consisting of both Munro Grant" (129). Women such as those interested specifically in British Annie and Jessie McQueen gave a new Columbia and those interested in nation its meaning. Canadian history writ large. It recasts As Scottish Presbyterians from Pictou the notion of nation-building and draws County, the McQueen sisters came the spotlight away from politicians and from a culture that emphasized literacy, business elite to focus it on ordinary religion, responsibility, and domesticity. people. Using rich and textured sources, Compared to the world they would Barman follows the lives and letters of enter in British Columbia, their world two sisters who leave Nova Scotia in in Pictou County was "homogeneous 1887-88 for the improved economic and self-referential" (16), and some of prospects offered by teaching posts in the most striking aspects of Soujourning British Columbia. The completion of Sisters are Barman's discussions of their the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885 encounter with "the other" - whether linked the interior of British Columbia Aboriginal peoples or the frontier. As and rural Pictou County in Nova Scotia, Barman regularly reminds us, Annie and created the opportunity for two and Jessie took their cultural baggage young female sojourners to leave their with them. Jessie eventually returned family homestead yet still maintain a to Pictou County to care for an aging connection to it. While their actions parent and a sister; Annie, however, were prompted by particular economic stayed in British Columbia, married, had difficulties, their departure, and the three children, was widowed, gradually exodus of other young women in similar entered public fife as a reformer, and, strained circumstances, played a role in in 1919, became the provincial director Canadian nation-building as local of the Homes Branch of the Soldiers' schools brought British Columbia into Settlement Board. the Canadian nation in an immediate The McQueen sisters give us a sense and direct way. of the ties that reached across the new Barman argues that the dispropor nation. People and goods travelled back tionate number of schoolteachers (and BC STUDIES, no. 141, Spring 2004 IOS soâ BC STUDIES and forth; lilac blooms for a wedding Barman has original insights into British came from Saint John, cloth that was Columbia and the process of nation- cheaper in the East than in the West building, and she skilfully translates was available locally, and used news the lives of Annie and Jessie McQueen papers and magazines kept sojourners into stories of nation builders. connected to Eastern events and people. People also moved back and forth with surprising frequency, and the McQueens' Constance Lindsay Skinner: British Columbia included cousins, old neighbours, clergy, and a niece. In the Writing on the Frontier McQueen family, money flowed east as Jean Barman the BC teachers' salaries helped support those in Pictou County. Barman con- Toronto: University of Toronto standy emphasizes the enduring strength Press, 2002. 359 pp. Illus. $50 cloth. of a daughter's obligations, which did not easily weaken, great distance and time BY MARGARET PRANG notwithstanding. These filial bonds were University of British Columbia> cemented with guilt, duty, and respect Emerita ability, and they were balanced by effusive expressions of affection. HE SUBTITLE of this biography It is not surprising that, as a Nova Thas several meanings. Constance Scotian historian (who is also using Lindsay Skinner (1877-1939) lived on a many of the same letters for her own variety of frontiers - geographical, so research), I would urge Barman to cial, literary, and imaginative. Skinner broaden the perspective of her conclu occupies a minor place in the canon sions. If schoolteachers such as Annie of American literature but, until now, and Jessie McQueen helped absorb has been almost unknown in her native (or incorporate) British Columbia into Canada. I confess to wondering, initially, Canada, then it is also important to note whether the talents of an accomplished that the experience of going west also scholar were well spent on raising contributed to making these Nova Sco Skinner's profile. My question was soon tian women Canadian. In the end, I am answered. Jean Barman's credentials as intrigued, but perhaps not completely a historian of British Columbia, her convinced, by the central argument. knowledge of women's history, and her I remain sceptical about the ultimate literary skills are happily joined in this influence of these Nova Scotian female valuable and fascinating volume. teachers, as British Columbia's domi- Constance Lindsay Skinner was nantiy male, secular, and heterogenous born to pioneering parents in the culture appears to be the antithesis of the Cariboo and, at age ten, moved with society from which these women came. her family to Victoria and subsequently It is not clear that British Columbia to Vancouver, a young city still closely ever came close to conforming to the bound to the frontier. There the Skinner vision of Canada that these women family was joined by Maggie Alexander, carried, and both of them appear to be the "half-breed" daughter of a Hudson's transformed by British Columbia at least Bay Company trader in northern British as much as they may have transformed Columbia. Constance and Maggie grew it. This reservation notwithstanding, So up like sisters, an experience reflected in journing Sisters is a magnificent piece of Skinner's lifelong interest in race and historical interpretation and storytelling. hybridity. Book Reviews so/ From her earliest years Skinner read memories were suffused with a good deal avidly in her father's library and always of imagination. knew she wanted to be a writer. Before So, too, were her novels, notably Red she was twenty, Skinner was writing for Willows (1929), a tale about the trans Vancouver newspapers and then moved formative possibilities of the frontier, to Los Angeles, to Chicago, and eventu where races were blended to create a new ally to New York in 1912. Through these culture. As with all her work, this one years Skinner struggled to advance be was distinguished by its full depiction yond journalism into what she saw as of women in frontier life. Sales of the her true vocation as a writer of poetry, book were small. Equally disappointing plays, short stories, and novels. was the popular response to Songs of the A major barrier for a single woman Coastal Dwellers (1930), a selection of trying to make a life in writing was the her "Aboriginal" poems, which Skinner hostility of the male literary establish considered "brilliant." To her distress ment towards women aggressive enough neither volume was awarded the Pulitzer to invade the literary marketplace. Prize she so much coveted. Nevertheless, the rise of popular maga Possibly Skinner's most enduring zines brought Skinner some success as claim to fame was the Rivers of America a short-story writer; her poetry won series, which she conceived and edited. recognition in both London and New The series was an immediate and lasting York; and some of her plays reached success. Sixty years later, the Library of the stage. The Vancouver audiences Congress paid tribute to Skinner as who, in the spring of 2003, saw the "one of the first women to hold a top first Canadian performance of her play job in the U.S. trade-book publishing "The Birthright" (1906) witnessed a pro industry."< Author: Source of quote? > vocative drama about Aboriginal-White Barman describes Skinner as standing relations in northern British Columbia, "at the edge of fame" and shows the courageous for its time. Over the years, heavy price she paid to get that far. Her her eight novels for juveniles became a private life was limited. Along with an stable financial support. intense pace of writing and editing, her Later she achieved prominence as financial survival also demanded the a historian through the Chronicles of constant promotion of herself and her America series published by Yale Univer work, and the defence of her reputation sity Press, for which she wrote Pioneers of and status, mainly against male scepti the Old Southwest (1919) and Adventures cism. Much of her social life was related of Oregon: A Chronicle of the Fur Trade to this objective. The great love of her (1920). Skinner prided herself on writing life was the famed explorer Vilhjalmur "experiential history" in contrast to what Stefansson, who embodied her ideal of she considered to be the "dryasdust" "frontier masculinity." But she had to work of the academic historians (nearly settle for a spasmodically supportive all male) who increasingly dominated friendship. historical writing. More than a decade Barman suggests that, had financial later, she claimed that her Beaver, Kings, considerations not compelled her to and Cabins (Macmillan, 1933) was the first publish in so many genres, Skinner full account of the North American fur might have been more successful. Be trade. More than any other of her works, that as it may, she did succeed, against it drew on her memories of growing up the odds, in living "a writing life." Now, on the BC frontier.