Fire Weather was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize (and for the Hilary Weston Nonfiction Prize in Canada) and has won a bunch of other awards.
Eri .webp)
Eric Bédard
La Presse has recently been covering the plan of the Quebec government of Francois Legault to create a new national museum for Quebec, one said to be "not dedicated to the history of Quebec but rather to that of the Quebec nation" ("le futur musée ne sera pas consacré à l’histoire du Québec, mais plutôt à celui de la nation québécoise").
It is already getting pushback, notably in an opinion piece in La Presse from 36 historians and cultural figures led by historians Catherine LaRochelle and Camille Robert: "Will the contents reflect the state of historiography or will they propose a return to the old national history centred on great events and heroes?" ("Est-ce que les contenus refléteront l’état de l’historiographie ou proposeront-ils un retour au vieux récit national centré sur les grands évènements et les héros?")
The association of Quebec First Nations has also questioned the project declaring that they are not merely the prehistory of Quebec and demanding that recognized Indigenous historians be included in the project. But a Culture Ministry spokesperson specified, "This will not be a museum of the history of the occupation of the territory of the valley of the St. Lawrence, but a museum of the history of our nation, la nation québécoise."
Premier Legault was pretty clear where he stood on that question. My intention, the one I am giving myself, is that the Québécois come from here saying to themselves, 'I'm proud to be Québécois." (« Mon objectif, celui que je me donne, c’est que les Québécois sortent d’ici en se disant “je suis fier d’être québécois”»)
And Eric Bédard, the notable Quebec historian who heads the comite scientifique for the museum, specified that the point is a history of a people of French language and culture." («Le but est de proposer une histoire d’un peuple de langue et de culture françaises») and suggested that the First Nations perhaps represent "the prehistory of Quebec."
Bédard, a noted scholar of Quebec history who now teaches in TELUQ, the distance education arm of the Universite de Quebec, is a figure without many counterparts in English Canada, a widely published scholar who also has a substantial public profile through writing, broadcasting, and commenting regularly about history in major French-language media.
Myrna's book started from a box full of family photographs and grew into a deep dive into her forebears both in Alberta and in Ukraine. Having always assumed that her Ukrainian connections had all been beaten down peasants liberated by the the opportunity to immigrate to Canada's Golden West at the start of the 20th century, she instead found Ukrainian Kostashes who were poets, journalists, radicals and much else, and deeply involved in centuries of Ukrainian events.
She also revises the history of her Alberta Kostashes, having become aware that all that fertile land east of Edmonton that they took up and farmed had been home and land to Cree people, who had been concentrated on reserves barely fifteen years earlier. It is, that is, a more political, more thoughtful, and less entirely celebratory work than most family history turns out to be.
When she published the book, Myrna left out the photos that inspired it, concerned they would "compete" with her prose images. Faced with a chorus of "Where are the pix????" she has made them available on a website.
I wrote a bit about Ghosts in a Photograph previously on this site.
Our colloquium a year ago on Henry Dundas was powerful and I think really caused the City of Toronto to reverse its decision on renaming Dundas Street. And our series on Macdonald in the fall brought together some of Canada’s leading historians who, each in their own way, showed that our colourful first prime minister was instrumental, indeed essential, in building the country we have today. [i.e., -- trigger alert -- "Macdonald Saved more Indigenous Lives than any other Prime Minister"]
Now we will turn our attention to Egerton Ryerson, as well as looking again at Macdonald’s role in the crisis faced by Canada’s Indigenous Peoples in the 1880s.
Recently I've been writing a piece on the historic sites work of Parks Canada. I'm more and more struck by the wisdom of the mantra "commemoration not celebration" that gradually came to direct its efforts at sites across Canada. And I'm ever more profoundly out of sympathy with the determination that Historical Education means insisting that history is celebrating winners and dismissing all others.
There is, indeed, a case for saying that Henry Dundas's opinions on slavery were more ambiguous than has been claimed by those who would change the name of Dundas Street. And that Egerton Ryerson was not in fact the father of residential schools. And, yes, that John A. Macdonald was instrumental, even essential.
But to leap from that to insist that any name-changing, any review of our civic iconographies, is the killing and cancelling of the past -- I find that hard to grasp. There is something else at work here.
We used to have an iconic building in Toronto, rich in associations for millions of people, part of our history. And then the Leafs moved from Maple Leaf Gardens, and their new home became the "Air Canada Centre." And then was rebranded "the Scotiabank Arena" (not to be mistaken for the Scotiabank Theatre nearby, or the Scotiabank bank tower between them). We used to have the iconic Skydome, named by a public competition that involved thousands of votes to commemorate the world's first retractable-roof stadium. Then somebody made it merely one of a number of Rogers Centres across Canada, no doubt to be abruptly renamed at the next corporate reshuffle. Who will kill the late Ted Rogers?
When will the Canadian Institute protest these killings of history?
Names change as culture changes. Mr Dundas has his street (and town, and even an inlet in Nunavut) because he was one of the patrons of a British colonial official eager to put a British imprint on a new colonial creation in the 1790s. He's had a good run. It's not his Toronto anymore, and today we have different traditions to imprint on our cities. Just as Iqaliut surely seems more appropriate than "Frobisher Bay," (as it was called for about 45 years), and just as Boulevard Rene-Levesque is more natural to modern Montreal than Dorchester Street could be, why cannot we choose names for our streets and institutions that reflect modern Toronto and modern Canada?
Cost you $125 to be told why we can't, I guess.
I don't give a lot of respect to the view counter over on the right hand side of this page. I presume that quite a bit of whatever it reports there is inflated by flybys from Russian scammers and robot spiders and all the other weird phenomena of the internet.
But still, when I noticed that recently the counter ticked over to two million views since 2010, I did think, "Not bad for the longest running unsubsidized Canadian history blog on the 'net." Also: 2010 is the date I installed the view counter -- the blog itself dates back to 2004. October 8, 2004 I see on checking back. A twentieth anniversary looms.
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| Me and my fellow traveller at Piazza Navona in Rome |
The extent of the Roman ruins in the city of Rome are truly amazing but they rather overwhelmed me, even with a very hardworking guide one day. The city of Rome, however, is a delight to stroll around in.
Even in April the number of visitors in Rome -- and also in Naples and Venice -- is overwhelming. I don't know how the locals stand us all the time, but even the waiters and the street vendors are friendly, in my experience.
And, Toronto civic leaders take note, yesterday one of Rome's major boulevards was closed to vehicles from Piazza Venezia to beyond the Colosseo, for walkers and later a concert. Visitors and locals alike made abundant use.
Back to history blogging soon.
Russ Chamberlayne checks in to ask 'enviously': "Did your tour of Pompeii leave you wondering if costumed guides in a 'living museum' setting would enhance the experience?"
Yes, sort of. I did sense at Pompeii that immersive feeling that can happen at a well-run reconstruction or preservation site. (And there has been a fair amount of undisguised stabilization and reconstruction work where required at Pompeii.)
But costumed re-enactnent is difficult to bring off well, and proportionately harder as the time and culture gap grows. Would they speak Latin? The theatre at Pompeii is preserved-reconstructed. I wonder if costumed actors could (or do) produce Pompeian scenes there sometimes.
We did the "second part" of Pompeii yesterday. That is, we went to MANN, the Museo Archaeologicio Nazionale Napoli. It is where most of the 'moveables' of Pompeii ended up: silver, bronze, iron, ceramics, glass, and also scores of mosaics and frescoes removed from walls and floors over the centuries of excavation there. We were told there is two hundred more years of excavation possible -- a newly opened house was presented to the media just the other day.
Today: Another fast train back to Rome. Home on Sunday.
I sorta knew better, but before going there I still tended to think of Pompeii based on a lot of other archeological sites: basically a hole in the ground where you look down at some uncovered stones in lines.
Todi has three sets of walls. Just traces of the paleo-Etruscan wall, but the Roman walls are mostly intact, and the medieval ones are even bigger and better. Which rather sums up a lot of the history of Italy. The walls may be decorative now (though they do help limit car access), but they were not always. Todi has seen a lot of armies go by.
One of those armies, just eighty years ago, included my own father, who came through in June 1944 in a Sherman tank as part of Sixth Armoured Division of the British army, driving hard for Northern Italy after the stalemate at Cassino was finally broken late in May.
But somewhere north of Todi his tank was destroyed and he spent two weeks in the Ospidale di Todi. (It now serves as government offices, and there's a new regional hospital a few miles away.)
The other day the host at our accommodation, the wonderful Residenzia San Lorenza Tre, told us her mother aunt and grandmother served at the Ospidale, first helping the German wounded, then the British. At that point I seemed to get something in my eye and couldn't speak for a few moments. Happy to say my father survived his wounds and came away with a lifelong affection for things Italiano.
Todi is a great place to visit even without this kind of connection. Views, history, architecture, food (!), hospitality second to none. Wouldn't have missed it for the world.
Could post about a thousand pix about this place, and each would deserve about a thousand words. Here' s a couple of pix:
Venice is sinking, no doubt, but I'm pretty sure the tilt to the left here is my sloppy camerawork. The doge's palace, at centre, was really more a place of government than a palace, since the doges were elected for limited terms and had their own palazze, so it's full of council rooms and Senate chamers and courts of appeal, all well explained to suggest how a sort of republic lasted a thousand years or so. Great collection of Old Masters too.
A little canalside cafe, this one on the adjacent island of Mutano, one of a million in Venezia. More substance soon. But if you get the chance, don't pass on either Rome or Venice. Next stop: a little off the beaten path.
So it turns out bopping around Italy with my girl is more appealing than stopping to tap out one-finger posts on a tablet when we have wifi. So much to see, so much to eat, so many steps to tally. Gotta rest sometime. However:
We spent a few days in Rome under wonderful blazing sun and mid 20s temperatures. Stayed in a charming residential neighborhood and saw a lot of the classics: Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, and some quieter places too. Liked this 'look what's down at the end of the street' shot.
Then we jumped on one of these Frecciarossa high-speed trains and blitzed off to Venice at 300 kph.
It's a little different this time. There will be a hiatus on Canadian history news and views for a couple of weeks. But while we are on the road, I'm going to try posting some short travel-diary entries here. I'm travelling with only phone and tablet, so entries are likely to be short, but I hope there will be photos.
And where we are going is Italy. So there should be something to see, or so I've heard.
Next post, assuming all goes right with the tech: ROME
It's a remarkable book: a political biography of a familiar-looking kind. Except the subject is indigenous, an English-speaking Metis raised in a mostly traditional life with indigenous grandparents all over his family tree -- and therefore a new and fresh kind of political biography.
Friesen seems to have mastered every possible source and every possible interpretation of John Norquay, and that makes it a long and detailed life story. I haven't even got to his premiership yet, but what I have read so far seems remarkable new and absolutely authoritative. This will be the basic book on early Manitoba for a very long time, I think