The Goose Volume 13 | No. 2 Article 4 1-20-2015 Conversations with a Dead Man: The Legacy of Duncan Campbell Scott yb Mark Abley Rebecca Phillips West Virginia University at Parkersburg Part of the Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, Nature and Society Relations Commons, and the Place and Environment Commons Follow this and additional works at / Suivez-nous ainsi que d’autres travaux et œuvres: https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose Recommended Citation / Citation recommandée Phillips, Rebecca. "Conversations with a Dead Man: The Legacy of Duncan Campbell Scott yb Mark Abley." The Goose, vol. 13 , no. 2 , article 4, 2015, https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol13/iss2/4. This article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Goose by an authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Cet article vous est accessible gratuitement et en libre accès grâce à Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Le texte a été approuvé pour faire partie intégrante de la revue The Goose par un rédacteur autorisé de Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Pour de plus amples informations, contactez [email protected]. Phillips: Conversations with a Dead Man A Dead Poet’s Society responsible for overseeing the residential schools that removed Conversations with a Dead Man: The Indigenous children from their parents Legacy of Duncan Campbell Scott by in an attempt to speed up the process MARK ABLEY of assimilation. Although assimilation Douglas & McIntyre, 2013 $32.95 represented the conventional wisdom of Scott’s day, Abley documents the Reviewed by REBECCA PHILLIPS harm caused by this now-discredited policy and uses the results of his work to Liberals in the US often have a confront Scott’s ghost. somewhat rosy view of Canada. A lower At Scott’s first manifestation in rate of violent crime, national health Abley’s Montreal living room, he care, and the “greenness” of cities like explains his desire to restore his Victoria—the site of the 2009 ASLE reputation and gives Abley the conference—can make Canada seem assignment of learning as much as he idyllic. Signs in modern cities identifying can about the posthumous shift in his First Nations territories, the creation of status. Abley claims ignorance and sets Nunavut, and the involvement of First out on a research project, establishing Nations in public decision-making seem the pattern of the book: each discussion to signal a treatment of Aboriginal with Scott’s ghost leads to the peoples different from the US exploration of another aspect of experience. While Canada can seem to Canada’s history with respect to outsiders to have escaped the worst Aboriginal peoples, as well as effects of colonialism, Mark Abley’s information about Scott’s life and his compelling Conversations with a Dead role in that history. Man: The Legacy of Duncan Campbell Readers who know Scott only as Scott demonstrates the naïve inaccuracy a poet may be surprised at his political of this view. In this page-turner work of involvement; readers who know him creative nonfiction, Abley wrestles with only as one of the ten worst Canadians the legacy of the major poet that a 2007 may be surprised at his complexity. The article in Canada’s History magazine man who wrote lovingly of “Indian listed as one of the “10 Worst Place-Names” (although Abley seems Canadians.” unfamiliar with Lydia Howard Huntley Scott (1862-1947) appears in Sigourney’s earlier poem on the same Abley’s book as a revenant, permitted topic when he asks of Scott, “[H]ow to return from the dead in an attempt many other writers, anywhere in the to clear his name. The book alternates English-speaking world, would have Scott’s appearances in these novelistic written an ode in praise on indigenous scenes with chapters detailing Abley’s names?”) also oversaw an agency that research into the earlier writer’s life and overlooked the sexual abuse of children times. Famed in his own day as a poet and attempted to eliminate cultural and patron of the arts, Scott spent fifty- practices such as the potlatch. Abley the two years of his long life in government character, like Abley the journalist and service, during which time he was poet, has difficulty understanding how Published by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2015 1 The Goose, Vol. 13, No. 2 [2015], Art. 4 someone who could write with such conversations in which nineteenth- seeming sympathy about Aboriginal century ideas about the “vanishing peoples and languages could be so Indian” confront more recent history cavalier about the destruction of and contemporary ideas about cultural Aboriginal cultures. In his attempt to genocide, a concept that confuses and come to terms with this conflict, he offends Scott’s ghost. When Abley explores a difference between the quotes a Truth and Reconciliation conventional wisdom of the nineteenth Commission report that describes the century and that of our own day—if residential schools’ purpose as “to such wisdom in fact exists. For Scott, as separate children from the influences of for most of his contemporaries, their parents and their community, so anything that increased the rate of as to destroy their culture,” Scott’s assimilation into mainstream (generally initial response is simply “Yes.” He goes Anglophone) Canadian society was likely on to ask “Where is the abuse in a good thing. Pluralism as a cultural preparing children to take their place in ideal did not yet exist. a modern society. ? Where is the Despite his obvious disapproval abuse in giving them the opportunity to of Scott’s ideas and the results of his win a place in Canadian society?” Abley work on the lives of Aboriginal peoples, himself does not escape contradictions: Abley is careful to position the earlier when he laments that only 1 in 25 of writer and bureaucrat in the context of Aboriginal people attend university, his time. Scott was a dedicated social Scott is delighted that four percent have servant who attempted to balance obtained that credential. He also points competing interests. As an advocate for out the contradiction in Abley’s criticism what he no doubt saw as the of giving Aboriginal children a “white” “protection” of Aboriginal peoples, he education while arguing that more strengthened the reserve system. As a should seek higher education. budget watchdog, he requested funding Perhaps most importantly, Abley for needed projects, but not so much raises the question of how future funding that it would endanger generations will view those of us living Canada’s World War One efforts. As a today. After accusing Scott of citizen aware of public opinion, he intellectual laziness and lack of moral hesitated to take on the religious courage by asserting, “You carried your organizations that were ignoring the chains within you. You believed the abuse of children in the residential lies of the empire you served,” Abley schools they administered. As a poet, he tells him that “I don’t like to imagine wrote admiringly of Canada’s natural what my ghost might need to ask a beauty and certain aspects of its century from now.” This awareness of Indigenous cultures. At the time of his his (and our) own limitations informs retirement, Scott was one of the most the book. Abley never allows the admired men in Canada. contemporary reader to become smug Perhaps the most interesting about our societies’ increasing pluralism parts of the book are the imagined or other seeming advancements. A conversations between Abley and Scott, quote from a letter Scott wrote to Elise https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol13/iss2/4 2 Phillips: Conversations with a Dead Man Aylen, the young woman who became Victorian might react to our world and his second wife, poignantly sums up the its cultural attitudes, as well as the danger facing all of us: “I know now that impasses that such conversations might I have never fought against anything nor reach. When Scott states, “I tried to worked for anything but just accepted keep faith with the highest and drifted from point to point.” As Tim achievements, the shining ideals of our DeChristopher notes in the Summer civilization,” the reader comes away 2014 issue of Yes! Magazine, the baby with a sense of how those ideals have boom generation has done little to changed over the last century. address the environmental problems being left for younger people to face; Works Cited we have only a limited right to criticize the shortcomings of the people who DeChristopher, Tim. “First the Anger, came before us. Then the Love: Why Climate Change is Conversations with a Dead Man Personal.” Yes! Summer 2014: 10-15. is obviously not a conventional Print. academic biography, but Abley is careful to document the research that went REBECCA PHILLIPS is a professor at into it. The end matter includes West Virginia University at Parkersburg, extensive source information so that where over the last quarter-century she interested readers can pursue the issues has taught every course in the English raised. The conversations, based as they curriculum but Milton, Literary Criticism, are on fact, give a sense of how an and Ancient World Literature. intelligent, well-meaning, and well-read Published by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2015 3.