Revisiting Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town

The PLEA Vol. 37 No. 2

Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town

Stephen Leacock’s has proven to be one of Canada’s most venerable works of fiction. Written in 1912, this collection of interconnected short stories about small-town Canada has never been out-of-print. Mordecai Richler may have best- explained the book’s longevity when he said that it is “as much good honest fun to read today asSunshine it was whenSketches first published.”

can be understood to be more than just a good-natured satireThe of small-town PLEA SunshineCanada. It Sketches can help of us a Littleexamine Town the roots, benefits, and limits of Canada’s liberal democratic tradition. From prohibition debates to elections to reconciliation, this issue of uses to ask how have we succeeded as a liberal democracy? And how can we do better? PM40030156 Welcome to Mariposa Montreal Star

SunshineSome time Sketches around of New a Little Year’s Town Day 1912, the commissionedStar Stephen Leacock to write a series of interconnected short stories. Over the course of six months and for $600, Leacock created . One chapter was published in the every second Saturday from February 17 to June 22, 1912. It was re-published in book form on August 9, 1912. Set in the fictional town of Mariposa, the first chapter opens by saying “I don’t know whether you know Mariposa.Sunshine If not, Sketchesit is of no consequence, for if you know Canada at all, you are probably well acquainted with a dozen towns just like it.” However, there is little question that the setting and the characters of are largely based on one particular town: Orillia, Ontario. About 100 kilometres north of Toronto, Orillia is whereSunshine Leacock Sketches spent most of his summers.

Orillia’s reaction to was varied. Some residents appreciated being Leacock’s inspiration. They even wanted in on the joke. ForOrillia example, News Leacock Packet said that Orillia lawyer Mel Tudhope “wrote me a mock letter threatening to sue me for libel against these people.” As well, a review of the book in the December 12, 1912 said “there is no room for resentment, in fact Orillians are rather proud to think that Orillia is the ‘little town,’ which has been immortalized as a type of Canadian life.” Globe and Mail However, not everyone in Orillia was tickled. The local barber—who became a character in the book—told the in 1951 that “I used to talkSunshine to the fellowSketches while I was shaving... but I never thought he was going to put it all in a book.” And one local in particular— Leacock’s mother Agnes—was reportedly not happy with how mocked Orillia’s Canon Greene, even though she liked the book as a whole. Nevertheless, Canon Greene himself reportedly never resented Leacock’s portrayal of him. Sunshine Sketches Regardless, it was clear to the people of Orillia that they were being mocked. This probably contributed to changes made to when it was converted from serial to book. Several character names were changed to obscure Leacock’s Orillian inspirations. According to Leacock, the “names were too transparent.... it was only in fun but it led the publishers to think it wiser to alter the names.” Sunshine Sketches Humor and EvenHumanity though Leacock was mocking his fellow Orillians in , Leacock most likely had good intentions. As heSunshine says in Sketches the preface to his book , “the essence of humor is human kindliness.” To be sure, there is a critique of people and a critique of society in . Even so, Leacock portrays Mariposa as a community of kindly people with forgivable flaws. As D.H. Carr wrote in the introduction to the book’s 1960 educational issue, Leacock “is having fun, but it is fun with something he loves—the life, in all its patterned variety, of a little Ontario town he knows with easy and perfect intimacy.”

Discuss Sunshine Sketches Sunshine Sketches 1. Leacock wrote in 1912. Given the time and the author: Sunshine Sketches a) What perspectives would be dominant in ? b) What perspectives would be left out of ?

2 c) How would this shape the overall narrative of the book? plea.org Just Some Goings on in Mariposa Marine Disaster! The Great Church Fire! Election!

When the Mariposa Belle sinks The nearly-bankrupt in less than six feet of water, a Church of England Church botched rescue effort ends with When a federal in Mariposa burns to the the rescuers needing to be rescued election is called, ground under suspicious too. Once the passengers are the campaign in circumstances. Fortunately safely off the ship, the Mariposa Mariposa sees facts for the congregation, the Belle floats free from the lake being pushed aside in church is insured for twice bottom and carries on to the favour of meaningless its replacement value. The dock.Sunshine Sketches statistics, candidates insurance company goes to embracing shady court to halt the payout, but ’ marine electioneering tactics, Judge Pepperleigh throws out disaster is an anagram of and voters throwing the case and saves the church several steamboat sinkings the public interest from insolvency.Sunshine Sketches on Lake Simcoe and Lake aside and casting their Couchiching in Leacock’s time. ballots purely out of self- Just like in , However, the 1898 sinking of interest. St. James’ Anglican Church in the Longford may be closest Orillia suffered a fire in 1906. to the Mariposa Belle. The Historian Jack GranatsteinSunshine However, unlike Mariposa’s Longford got stuck on a Lake Sketchescalled the election church fire, St. James did Couchiching sandbar. A campaign in not burn to the ground. And lifeboat was sent, and once “the definitive unlike Leacock’s story, the the passengers disembarked analysis” of Canada’s fire at St. James was not the boat floated free. 1911 federal election. This insurance fraud. In fact, St. election pitted Sir Wilfred James was forced to make • Laurier’s Liberal government financing plans to fund the The rescue boat that against Robert Borden’s church’s restoration. was provided decades Conservatives. That election’s earlier to Mariposa by the debate largely focussed on • Macdonald government trade with the United States The insurance company sinks when trying to and government patronage. tries to get out of paying save the Mariposa Belle. the congregation’s claim. This reveals that public • Do insurance companies safety plans can also The voters of Mariposa view want to maximize their have shortcomings. their own personal gain as more client’s benefits? Do they What should the role of important than the broader want to minimize their the state be in ensuring interests of society. What is the own payouts? Or is the public safety? risk to society as a whole if citizens truth somewhere in fail to consider the common good between? when casting ballots?

3 plea.org Prohibition A History of Prohibition and Liquor

Regulation Societies in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa have been consuming alcohol for at least 5,000 years. Alcohol in North America is a different story. On Turtle Island—the land we Stephen Leacock was a fierce now call Canada—Indigenous people did not brew alcohol. opponent of prohibition. In his 1919 Alcohol was introduced to the land by Europeans. For essay “The Tyranny of Prohibition” he most of the time since alcohol’s introduction, government claims that “the fundamental fallacy of has been regulating it. While the government’s reasons prohibition is that it proposes to make for regulation are varied, two overriding themes can be a crime of a thing which the conscience seen: alcohol causes harm to individuals and to society of the great mass of individuals when misused, and alcohol is a source of revenue for the refuses to consider as such.” For government. Leacock, the heavy regulation of Government regulations on alcohol have not always been liquor was draconian because people applied equally. Historically, these regulations have been would find it regardless of whether or most discriminatory towards Indigenous people, and not the government tried to restrict SellingCanada’s of race-based Strong Liquors alcohol to lawsthe Indian only began Ordinance to be unravelled Sunshineit. Leacock’s Sketches hostility towards over- in the 1950s. One of the first discriminatory laws was the regulation of liquor can be seen in of 1777. . Issued by the British governor in Quebec, this law banned Josh Smith, Mariposa’s hotelier, refuses the private sale and distribution ofIndian liquor Act to of Indigenous 1876 to close his bar at the regulated hours. people. The Indian Department became the sole supplier of Smith’s “moral code was simplicity alcohol to Indigenous people. The went itself,—do what is right and take the further. It completely prohibited Indigenous people from consequences.” To Smith, doing what buying or drinking alcohol unless they gave up their Indian is right is locking the bar’s doors after status. Though these laws were said to be a response to the all the regulars are inside the bar, negative effects that alcohol had on Indigenous people, the being served. The regulars in Smith’s laws were underpinned by the false and racist “firewater beverage room include the town’s myth,” described by University of Nevada researcher Joy Judge Pepperleigh. Unfortunately for Leland as a tendency throughout history to view Indigenous Smith, he mistakenly locks the doors one night before Judge Pepperleigh is inside the bar. The enraged judge then saw to it that the law would be followed: Smith is found guilty by Pepperleigh’s court for serving liquor after hours. Smith saves his liquor licence through an elaborate scheme to rally the locals to his cause.

4 plea.org people as “more constitutionally prone to develop were an exercise in futility. Some people made their an inordinate craving for liquor and to lose control own alcohol or imported it from other jurisdictions. overIndian their behaviour Act when they drink.” And because alcohol was still available in pharmacies for medicinal use, some people simply obtained The ’s prohibition did not stop Indigenous prescriptions from their doctors to buy alcohol. people from drinking alcohol. It merely pushed For example, in 1920 Ontario doctors prescribed drinking into the shadows. A bootlegging trade 650,000 bottles of liquor. There was a 50% rise in popped up to supply alcohol on reserves, and prescriptions over the Christmas holidays. Indigenous people who visited cities and towns were often able to find suppliers in town. In communities where prohibition was not in place, alcohol was tightly regulated. The regulations For the settlers in Canada, alcohol laws were proved hard to enforce, and were often ignored. For also omnipresent. However, they were seldom as example, saloon-keepers regularly served alcohol draconian as the laws that applied to Indigenous after the regulated closing hours. When saloon- people. Generally governments had little interest keepers were caught in the act, commissioners often in banning alcohol from settlers altogether, largely had trouble getting witnesses to testify because the due to the revenue created by liquor licenses and witnesses did not want their local bar to close. alcohol sales. However, prohibitionists succeeded in making laws more restrictive. Prohibitionists were a The excessive liquor regulation during the late powerful political force in the late 1800s and early 1800s and early 1900s shows how difficult it is for 1900s. They were made up of a peculiar alliance of laws to be enforced when they are strongly opposed people: capitalists who did not want their workers by many members of a community. Even though drinking due to effects on productivity, women’s alcohol was very strictly regulated or banned in groups who were frustrated with abusive husbands many places across Canada, people who wanted it who spent their earnings on alcohol, and religious would find it. And because governments wanted the groups that rejected alcohol altogether. Together, revenues from alcohol sales, they had little incentive they pressured the public and lobbied various levels to limit or ban the sale of alcohol. These realities of government to limit or halt alcohol sales. As a not only help explain the progressive loosening of result many places in Canada became “dry” in the liquor regulations over the past 100 years, but can late 1800s and early 1900s. However, much like also bring some insight into the evolution of laws the attempts to prohibit Indigenous people from surrounding marijuana today. drinking, attempts to prohibit settlers from drinking

Discuss

1. Josh Smith was breaking the law. a) Was he doing “what is right”? Sunshine Sketchesb) What can you do if you believe a law runs against the moral compass of your community? 2. What similarities are there between liquor prohibition and regulation in the time of and the regulation of marijuana or other substances in Canada today?

3. What role should the law have in regulating substances? 5 plea.org Fundamental Freedoms in Canada

When the Church of England in Mariposa finds Leacock discusses people’s rights to itself in financial difficulty, local banker Henry believe what they wish: Mullins organises a Whirlwind Campaign to raise A man has just as much right to money. With nobody actually raising funds, the declare himself a socialist as he Whirlwind Campaign eats through its meagre has to call himself a Seventh Day donations and ultimately winds down with an Adventist or a Prohibitionist, or a empty bank account. The fundraiser is a disaster, Perpetual Motionist. It is, or should and the church ends up with only $100. be, open to him to convert others to While the Whirlwind Campaign is meant to his way of thinking. It is only time to restrain him when he proposes benefit the Church of England,Sunshine members Sketches of the Presbyterian Church are welcomed into to convert others by means of a the campaign. As it says in , shotgun or by dynamite, and by “Anyway it would have been poor business forcible interference with their own to keep a man out of the lunches merely on rights. Canadian account of his religion. I trust that the day for CharterLeacock’s of view Rights is largely and Freedomsconsistent with that kind of religiousSunshine bigotry Sketches is past.” Charterthe rights now enshrined in the This belief in —that people . The are entitled to their own views and should guarantees Canadians the following fundamental freedoms: not be discriminated againstThe because Unsolved of Riddlethem—is of Social consistent Justice with Leacock’s views • freedom of conscience and religion on freedom of association. In • freedom of thought, belief, opinion , Leacock’s 1920 book and expression, including freedom on regulating and redistributing wealth to of the press and other media of ensure fairness for workers and the poor, communication • freedom of peaceful assembly • freedom of association

These freedoms mean that Canadians are free to believeCharter things, free to organise groups, and free to try to change people’s minds. However, the says that “reasonable limits” can be placed on these freedoms. Freedoms may be limited if to do so is demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. This is why, for example, hate speech is not allowed in Canada. Discuss

1. Why are these freedoms vital for a functioning society? 2. What kind of limits to these freedoms do you believe are justified in a free and democratic society? 3. Are there ever circumstances where violence is justified as a means to bring about 6 change? plea.org Historical Wrongs and Reconciliation

When Europeans arrived in North America, they give us all a sense of humility as we look to the past, considered Indigenous peoples to be “savages” the present, and the future. and inferior civilisations. To Europeans, their land was virtually empty or “terra nullius,” an idea used One way society is now looking to the past, present, in international law to justify taking over land. The and future is with the help of the Truth and racist view of a few “savages” scattered about an Reconciliation Commission. They tell us: empty land was the basis of the European approach reconciliation is about establishing and to Indigenous peoples for hundreds of years: it was maintaining a mutually respectful relationship the accepted view in respectable intellectual circles, between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples it was upheld in court cases, and it was assumed to be in this country. In order for that to happen, there the truth by the vast majority of Europeans. has to be awareness of the past, acknowledgement Sunshine Sketches of the harm that has been inflicted, atonement for Like far too many Canadians of the past, Stephen Leacock the causes, and action to change behaviour. held many of these views. makes this evident in the passage “You get that impression Passages such as Judge Pepperleigh’s description— simply because the judge howledThe Dawnlike an of Algonquin Canadian possibly referring to a war cry given that the HistoryIndian when he saw the sprinkler running on the lawn.” Algonquins were embroiled in many famous wars— As well, Leacock’s 1914 book perpetuated false views of Indigenous people in referred to Indigenous people as “savages,” general and Algonquin people in particular. and repeated the claim that there were only 20,000 Algonquin is an umbrella term for a cultural and Indigenous people across Canada at the time of contact. Remembering Leacock linguistic group of Indigenous peoples that include With the big picture, Leacock was wrong. Conversely, the Mississauga, Ojibwe, Cree, Abenaki, Micmac, Anderson’s shares stories of him Malecite, Montagnais, and Blackfoot. They have lived being kind to Indigenous people. Ralph Curry’s Leacock for at least 8,500 years on the land commonly known biography mentions that his mother Agnes—a guiding today as southern Quebec and eastern Ontario. force in Leacock’s life—was highly regarded by the Algonquin was considered a root language for many people of the Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation. Indigenous languages. Learning it was key knowledge And Leacock was friends with Jake Gaudaur, the Métis for fur traders pressing deeper into North America. Nation of Ontario world champion rower who Leacock Far from being a cry of anger, Algonquin language lionised in his essay “Bass Fishing on Lake Simcoe.” was important for building relationships between Nevertheless, Leacock’s kindness in person does not Europeans and Indigenous people. negate his problematic views. As historian Margaret Despite the deep history and cultural importance of MacMillan says, “history reminds us that deeply held the Algonquin and other Indigenous languages, at beliefs can often be deeply wrong, and they often least ten Indigenous languages have gone extinct in can be held by very clever, very powerful people who the past century. Of the 90 or so that remain, almost have sources of all sorts of information and they still all are endangered. get it wrong.” For MacMillan, this reality can help Discuss Sunshine Sketches

1. What kind of harm could passages like the one in cause? 2. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommends funding be put in place to preserve and teach Indigenous languages. How would expanding language instruction help build a mutually-respectful relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people?

3. How else can we change our actions to atone for past wrongs? 7 plea.org More to Learn!

Extraordinary Canadians, an 18-volume biography series edited by John Raulston Saul, includes a volume on Stephen Leacock. AccordingLittle Mosque to Saul, on “Stephen the Prairie LeacockSchitt’s set aCreek pattern forKim’s Canadian Convenience comics and comicCorner writers Gas that goesMohawk on to Girlsthis day.” Consider more recentMotorcycles comedic portrayals and Sweetgrass of Canadian communities, such as the CBC’s , , and , CTV’s , APTN’s , or Drew Hayden Taylor’sSunshine Sketches . Sunshine Sketches 1. What characteristics do recent examples share with ? 2. Do the similarities between recent examples and tell us anything about Sunshinewhat defines Sketches us as Canadians? 3. Do the similarities between characters from recent examples and characters from tell us anything about human nature? New from PLEA

Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town These pages have only introduced a few ways to think about . For high school teachers, PLEA has an new, full-length learning resource dedicated to Stephen Leacock’s book. Reading questions, in-depth discussions of pertinent issues, and critical writing topics Sunshine Sketches are developed for each of the book’s sketches. Ideal for of a Little Town: highFind school it online English or or order cross-curricular your copy units at ofplea.org study! THE LEARNING RESOURCE

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