Getting from A to B just got harder
$6.50 LLiteraryR Review ofC Canada Vol. 15, No. 9 • November 2007 Leslie Campbell Naomi Klein: The shocking sequel H.V. Nelles Rediscovering Sir John A Jeffery Ewener The Islamic roots of western science Joyce Kline The bad boys of modern art Michael Bell Gwynne Dyer dissected Jason Bristow Are we nationalists or not?
+ Ken McGoogan’s northern excavations + David Dyzenhaus on the fog of apartheid + Brian Flemming on securing borderlands + Mark Lovewell on Champlain and Hudson + fiction reviews by Nancy Richler and Anne Marie Todkill + poetry by Karen Connelly, Robyn Sarah, Barry Dempster and John Barton + responses from Erna Paris, Mark Jaccard, James Laxer, Publications Mail Agreement #40032362 RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESSES TO Patrick Brethour, Todd Hirsch, Reg Whitaker, Bob Watts and Vanessa Watts LRC, CIRCULATION DEPT. PO BOX 8, STATION K TORONTO, ON M4P 2G1 Literary Review of Canada 581 Markham Street, Suite 3A Toronto, Ontario m6g 2l7 e-mail: [email protected] reviewcanada.ca T: 416 531-1483 F: 416 531-1612 LLiteraryR Review ofC Canada Editor Vol. 15, No. 9 • November 2007 Bronwyn Drainie [email protected] Assistant Editor Alastair Cheng 3 Audacious Undertaking 17 dancer Contributing Editor A review of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster A poem Anthony Westell Capitalism, by Naomi Klein John Barton Associate editor Leslie Campbell 18 family Resemblances Robin Roger 6 the First Northern Magus A review of Holding My Breath, by Sidura Ludwig, and Poetry Editor Molly Peacock A review of Richard Gwyn’s John A, The Man Who The End of East, by Jen Sookfong Lee Made Us: The Life and Times of John A. Macdonald, Nancy Richler Assistant Poetry Editor Moira MacDougall Volume One, 1815–1867 copy editor H.V. Nelles 19 homage to a Magic Medium A review of Late Nights on Air, by Elizabeth Hay Madeline Koch 9 fences and Neighbours Anne Marie Todkill ProofReaders A review of Borderlands: Comparing Border Security Ted Brown, Alastair Cheng, Lauryn Drainie, in North America and Europe, edited by Emmanuel 20 Getting from A to B Madeline Koch, Lorna MacPhee, Natalie An essay Szoldra, Jeannie Weese Brunet-Jailly Anthony Perl research Brian Flemming Lauryn Drainie, Evan Wargon 23 the Young Englishman Publicity 10 the Bad Boys of Modern Art A review of God’s Mercies: Rivalry, Betrayal in the A review of Anarchy and Art: From the Paris Kevin Watt Dream of Discovery, by Douglas Hunter [email protected] Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall, by Allan Mark Lovewell Design Antliff James Harbeck Joyce Kline 24 Excavating the North ADVERTISING/SALES A review of Hummocks: Journeys and Inquiries Among 12 the Apocalyptic Eschatologist Michael Wile the Canadian Inuit, by Jean Malaurie, translated by Phone: 416-531-1483 • Cell: 416-806-6178 A review of Gwynne Dyer’s The Mess They Made: The Peter Feldstein, and Travelling Passions: The Hidden [email protected] Middle East After Iraq Life of Vilhjalmur Stefansson, by Gísli Pálsson, trans- publishers Michael Bell Mark Lovewell lated by Keneva Kunz [email protected] 14 the Politics of the Ordinary Ken McGoogan Helen Walsh A review of Ja, No, Man: Growing Up White in [email protected] Apartheid-Era South Africa, by Richard Poplak 26 It Seems We Really Care Advisory Council A review of Canadas of the Mind: The Making and David Dyzenhaus Michael Adams Unmaking of Canadian Nationalism in the Twentieth Ronald G. Atkey, P.C., Q.C. 16 the War Century, edited by Norman Hillmer and Adam Alan Broadbent, C.M. A poem Chapnick James Gillies, C.M. Carol Hansell Karen Connelly Jason Bristow John Honderich Sandy Houston 16 Breakfast and Morning Paper 28 intellectual Archeology Donald Macdonald, P.C., C.C. A poem A review of The Dialogue of Civilizations in the Birth Trina McQueen Robyn Sarah of Modern Science, by Arun Bala Susan Reisler Jeffery Ewener Grant Reuber, O.C. 17 Blue Rose Don Rickerd, C.M. A poem 30 Letters & Responses Mark Sarner Barry Dempster Erna Paris, Reg Whitaker, Patrick Brethour, Reed Scowen Mark Jaccard, James Laxer, Todd Hirsch, Anthony Westell Vanessa Watts and Bob Watts Poetry Submissions The Literary Review of Canada accepts poetry submis- sions by email from May 1 to October 1 each year, although it solicits poetry year round. Send submissions Cover art and pictures throughout the issue by Erratum to [email protected] in a single Word file as an attachment and include the poems in the body of the Tom Pokinko. The final sentence of “Canada’s Candide,” email as well. The LRC does not review poetry. Tom Pokinko has been illustrating for the LRC since 2003. His other clients include the essay by John Richards in our October founded in 1991 by p.a. dutil issue, should have read: “There is room in The Literary Review of Canada is published 10 times a Maisonneuve Magazine and the United Nations Association in Canada. He also designs year by the Literary Review of Canada Inc. posters, including a painting used for a conference poster timed to coincide with the the West both for Henri de Navarre and for Montreal Jazz Festival. Tom is also finishing a master’s degree in Hindu ethics at McGill Voltaire’s Candide, content de cultiver son annual subscription rates jardin.” We regret the error. Canada $57; the rest of the world US$57. Libraries in University’s Faculty of Religious Studies.
©2007 The Literary Review of Canada. All rights, including transla- We acknowledge the financial We acknowledge the assistance tion into other languages, are reserved by the publisher in Canada, support of the Government of of the OMDC Magazine Fund, the United States, Great Britain and all other countries participating in the Universal Copyright Convention, the International Copyright Canada through the Canada an initiative of Ontario Media Convention and the Pan-American Copyright Convention. Nothing Magazine Fund towards our Development Corporation. in this publication may be reproduced without the written permis- editorial and production costs. sion of the publisher. ISSN 1188-7494 The Literary Review of Canada is indexed in the Canadian Literary Periodicals Index and the Canadian Index and is distributed by Film and Television Tax Credits Disticor and Magazines Canada. Ontario Media Development Corporation
Literary Review of Canada Discovery Spotlight
The Young Englishman A new exploration history links the careers of Champlain and Hudson. Mark Lovewell
spiracy against him, inexperience as a mariner on using several of the crewmembers for future God’s Mercies: was not one of them. By the time he took on Hudson Bay forays. Their case was also aided by Rivalry, Betrayal in the Dream of Discovery the Discovery’s command, he had headed three the fact that two of the conspiracy’s main insti- Douglas Hunter expeditions for English and Dutch merchants: gators had died on the return voyage, making it Doubleday Canada an attempt at a transpolar passage by way of the possible to lay all of the blame at their feet. But, 416 pages, hardcover remote Svarlbard islands and two attempts to sail as Hunter makes clear, this questionable denoue- isbn 9780385660587 across the top of Asia. On the last, after being ment was also due to a corrupt High Court of the stymied yet again by Arctic ice, he had made an Admiralty far more lenient toward conspiracies unplanned detour to North America’s eastern aboard commercial expeditions than when deal- n 1612, Samuel de Champlain was in France coast, where, to the great benefit of his Dutch ing with naval mutinies. when he learned some startling news. A masters (as surprised as they were when they Turning to the French side of his story, Hunter Iyouthful employee, Nicolas de Vignau, had finally learned it), he discovered and explored the reveals similar talents in sketching the myriad been sent to live with an Algonquin tribe far river named in his honour. intrigues that Samuel de Champlain and his up the Ottawa River. He had now crossed the Now he was again working for the English, allies faced in their colonization efforts. His por- Atlantic to inform Champlain that he had trav- charged with surveying the strait south of Baffin trait of Champlain is a highly sympathetic one, elled with his hosts to a northern sea, where he Island. On completing this task, the Discovery as he sketches a career that began in the service had seen the wreck of a small English boat and turned south into the bay beyond. Hudson of France’s Henry IV, followed by a gradually been shown the scalps of those in it. All had been insisted on sailing down its entire length, then expanding role in France’s New World ventures. killed except a boy who had been passed on to a spent precious weeks at its southern end in an Now Champlain was again navigating tricky neighbouring tribe. This tribe, said Vignau, was apparent attempt to find a navigable river. His political waters with his usual aplomb, making now willing to present the boy to Champlain to exact reasoning is hard to divine, since the bulk full use of Vignau’s tale and its provocative con- cement an alliance with the French. of his logbook was later confiscated by the muti- nection with the lost Hudson party to maintain Champlain was intrigued, aware that scant neers, but Hunter contends he was searching for needed royal support. months earlier the ship of English explorer one or more large lakes further south, where he Coincidentally, as Hunter mentions, Henry Hudson had returned to London report- hoped to find a westward channel to the Pacific. Champlain and Hudson had once come close ing its discovery of a vast bay on the northern This plan, argues Hunter, represented the same to meeting, separated by just 130 kilometres and edge of the Americas. There had also been news basic agenda Hudson had in mind back in 1609, seven weeks as one charted the upper reaches of of mutiny: seven crew members as well as the which was to find the continent’s inland lakes and the Hudson River soon after the other visited the captain and his young son had been cast off in a head west—an ambition based on conjectures shores of Lake Champlain. Although Champlain small shallop somewhere in the bay. Mustn’t this gleaned from a map drawn by English cartogra- would not have realized just how near they had be the boy Vignau was speaking of? And since pher Edward Wright in 1599, as well as snippets of come to one another, he knew the basic facts of there could be no doubt that it was, what valuable geographical information found in Champlain’s Hudson’s earlier journey. As someone so strategi- knowledge had John Hudson gained while being first exploratory record, Des Sauvages, published cally minded, Champlain could not have failed kept a prisoner? in 1603. to note this English captain’s success in planting Douglas Hunter employs this arresting epi- “Hudson had never intended to be back in foreign flags uncomfortably close to New France sode as the central thread in his account of England after eight months and a basic recon- from opposite sides of the compass. But now French and English exploratory ventures dur- naissance,” says Hunter. “He was seizing the Champlain was committed to ensuring that his ing the first decades of the 17th century. Having Discovery voyage as if it were his last chance rival’s personal tragedy would work in France’s made his reputation as a business writer with at a grand success.” As for his crew, alarm was favour. books on the Molson family’s history and the growing that their captain’s delay now consigned As soon as he alighted in Quebec in 1613, he Nortel meltdown, he now joins Canada’s stable of them to months-long imprisonment in alien sur- began organizing his journey up the Ottawa to exploration historians with a work that combines roundings. The winter, when it arrived, was even visit Vignau’s Algonquin hosts. On reaching this scholarly rigour and fresh insight—especially in harsher than feared. By late spring, scurvy had destination, however, Champlain discovered that, dealing with Henry Hudson’s final voyage, whose arrived and starvation loomed, provoking insur- once in the company of the Algonquins, Vignau details have always been controversial given the rection plans. Early one June morning, impatient was forced to admit his northern journey was a self-serving nature of the surviving primary to take advantage of the ice-free passage north, lie, while the Algonquins had no desire to facili- documents. Meticulously sifting through this the conspirators herded Hudson, his close allies tate Champlain’s planned meeting with the tribe material, Hunter has produced a riveting account and several of the extremely ill into the small who Vignau had said were holding the English of probable events aboard Hudson’s Discovery shallop, cut its tow line and watched as the cast- boy. His immediate hopes dashed, and angered during the fateful months the ship spent in aways first pursued them northward and then put as well as flummoxed by his assistant’s easily Hudson Bay. in for the bleak shore, never to be seen again. punctured duplicity, Champlain had to return As Hunter is careful to emphasize, whatever Hunter adeptly details not just the rebellion down the Ottawa with little to boast of except mistakes Hudson made in inflaming the con- and the perpetrators’ difficult homeward journey a renewal of his contacts with this important but the aftermath once the Discovery docked in tribe, as well as an extension of his travels to new Mark Lovewell teaches at Ryerson University and is co- London. The survivors were saved from the gal- territory. Looking back later on this incident, publisher of the LRC. Currently on sabbatical, he is writing a lows through the machinations of their employ- Champlain would wonder whether Vignau’s con- book on Canada’s North. ers—some of them key political figures—intent fession of his dishonesty, first made in full view
November 2007 23 Discovery Spotlight of his angry Native hosts, had been too fulsome. individual initiative of the explorers themselves. ing hints and possibilities.¹ For example, some of Perhaps portions of the young man’s concocted For this reason alone, as well as for many others, the Cree occupants of the village of Wemindji, tale were based on some actual report Vignau had the motives and beliefs of men like Hudson and on James Bay’s western shore, presume they are heard, but he had then become too embarrassed Champlain will always hold special significance, descended from Hudson. Meanwhile just outside to divulge these kernels of truth after his betrayal while adding considerable popular lustre to their community is a nondescript spot in the of Champlain had been revealed. If so, neither books such as Hunter’s. And Vignau’s story itself lonely wilderness, which, for as long as anyone Champlain nor anyone after him was ever able can be seen as more than just a narrative device. can remember, has been known by the Cree name to know for sure, while Vignau himself dropped For who is to say that more light might not still Waamistikushish, or “young Englishman.”m completely from view. be shed on its veracity? Hunter does not go into Despite this lingering mystery, Hunter’s use these details, but local lore suggests that Hudson of this episode and the events surrounding it and his castaways may have spent some time on Note help reveal how much the exploration of this Charlton Island near the bay’s southern end, and 1 This lore is outlined in Corey Sandler’s Henry Hudson: Dreams and Obsession — The Tragic Legacy of the New era transcended national boundaries, and how tangible remains may yet have to be found to World’s Least Understood Explorer (New York: Kensington, crucially it was shaped by the personalities and prove this. All that exists at present are tantaliz- 2007).
Excavating the North Two writers uncover more pieces in the puzzle of Arctic history. Ken McGoogan
items into our day packs, Kamookak picked up came the decisive moment of his career, when Hummocks: Journeys and Inquiries the plaque and set off across the tundra at a pace starting in 1950, he spent his first winter among Among the Canadian Inuit I immediately pronounced unsustainable. He had the Inuit, and collected genealogical accounts Jean Malaurie, covered a kilometre by the time we two stragglers from eleven settlements scattered over 775 square Translated by Peter Feldstein set out. We expected that Kamookak would pause kilometres. Through the next two and a half McGill-Queen’s University Press to rest and let us catch up, but after half an hour, decades, the erudite Frenchman would conduct 378 pages, hardcover he showed no signs of slowing. We maintained 31 expeditions to the Arctic, many of them on isbn 9780773532007 a rigorous pace, the antiquarian-adventurer his own. Cameron Treleaven and I, but Kamookak, who As well, he would launch a magnificent book- Travelling Passions: The Hidden Life of appeared to glide effortlessly over the land, some- publishing venture, the Terre humaine geography Vilhjalmur Stefansson how increased his lead. series; create and direct the Centre for Arctic Gísli Pálsson Treleaven and I looked at each other. The mis- Studies in Paris; and, at the request of Russian Translated by Keneva Kunz chievous Inuk, we realized simultaneously, had authorities, become director and honorary life University of Manitoba Press no intention of allowing us to catch him. Like president of the Polar Academy of St. Petersburg, 374 pages, hardcover a competitive bicycle racer in a championship which trains the natives of Siberia. In 2005, France isbn 9780887551796 race, Kamookak was trying to break away from celebrated Malaurie for having established a new, the pack. He was bidding to become the only interdisciplinary approach to anthropology, hon- one of us actually to carry the Rae memorial to ouring him with four books, five television docu- ne morning in August 1999, on the west its destination. In Fatal Passage, I tell the whole mentaries, an academic conference and a major coast of Boothia Peninsula in the high story. I mention it now because the moment of exhibition at the Bibliothèque nationale de France. OArctic, three men prepared to set out realization came back vividly when I read French Malaurie’s own published works include Call of from a rough camp to honour the explorer John explorer Jean Malaurie insisting that the compet- the North: An Explorer’s Journey to the North Pole, Rae. We were going to erect a plaque marking itive Inuit live for adventure and challenge: “The a large-format book featuring 300 colour photos, the spot where, in 1854, Rae discovered the final Inuk is in constant rivalry, trying to be the best, at and The Last Kings of Thule, which appeared in link in the Northwest Passage—the only channel the risk of losing his life through an excess of dar- English in 1982. Something of a palimpsest, this then navigable. A few days before, in the town ing … he is motivated by a desire for renown.” book chronicles his first winter among the Inuit, of Gjoa Haven, roughly 115 kilometres southwest That observation, obviously true to my own but also draws on several later expeditions, and is across Rae Strait, we had attached the aluminum experience, is one of countless insights contained rightly considered his magnum opus. plaque to a waist-high stand of welded steel, in Hummocks: Journeys and Inquiries Among the The new book, Hummocks, published in creating an unwieldy unit that weighed at least Canadian Inuit, which is one of two books to France in 1999 and now appearing in English for 15 kilograms. Now, as we broke camp, the Inuk appear recently about life at the top of the world. the first time, is drawn from the same ocean of Louie Kamookak fashioned a rough sling out of In English-speaking Canada, Malaurie (born in experience and revisits much of the territory as a sweatshirt, and we agreed to take turns carrying Mayenne, France, in 1922) is not nearly as cel- the earlier work. And those reading Malaurie for this awkward creation to its destination “tradi- ebrated as he should be. A near contemporary of the first time might be wise to begin with The tional Inuit style.” Farley Mowat, whom he lauds for his “forceful Last Kings of Thule. They should also approach While the two southerners stuffed last-minute expression of solidarity with the Inuit,” Malaurie knowing that, while Malaurie has done crucially fought in the French Resistance during the important scientific research, he does not shine Ken McGoogan has won numerous awards for his books on Second World War, and then studied geography as a writer. His books are rich in insight, com- northern exploration, including the Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize, the University of British Columbia Medal for Canadian and science. passion and detailed observation; but they are Biography and the Pierre Berton Award for History. He is at In the late 1940s, he took part in two French descriptive and analytical, and lack a unifying www.kenmcgoogan.com. geographical expeditions to Greenland. Then narrative or even a coherent polemic.
24 Literary Review of Canada