Canada: The Land and the People

302 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY nothing to the book's literary merit. The author offers us alternative morals to his tale. "If you're really serious about goin' back to the Navy, mate," he sagely observes at one point, "then at least hold out for a commission." Later, however, in mellower mood, he assures us that "bein' a ratin' was such a humanizing experience," a conclusion which his narrative scarcely supports. CHECK-LIST OF TITLES CAsSIDY (G. L.), Warpath: the story of the Algonquin Regiment, 1939-1945; photographs by ARNOLD ToDD, cartoons by JoHN IRELAND (published under the direction of the Algonquin Regiment Veterans Association; Toronto, Ryerson, xviii, 372 pp., $5.00). GooD (M. T.), Men of valour; ill. by GEORGE PEPPER (Toronto, Macmillan, xiv, 137 pp., $2.50). HILLSMAN (J. B.), Eleven men and a scalpel (Winnipeg, the author, 627 Medical Arts Bldg.; Columbia Press, 144 pp., $2.50). MuRRAY (W. W.), The history of the 2nd Canadian Battalion (East Ontario Regiment), Canadian Expeditionary Force, in the Great War, 1914-1919 (Ottawa, Historical Committee, 2nd Battalion, C.E.F.; Mortimer Ltd., 1947, xx, 408 pp.). PuGSLEY (W. H.), Sailor remember (Toronto, Collins, vi, 185 pp., $3.75). THE REGIMENTAL HISTORY OF THE GoVERNOR GENERAL's FooT GUARDS (Ottawa, Historical Committee, c/o the Treasurer, Lieut.-Col. E. Lisle, 59 Finlay Ave., x, 268 pp., ill., maps). STACEY (C. P.), The Canadian Army 1939-1945: an official historical summary; ill. with paintings by Canadian Army war art· ists; maps drawn by Lieutenant C. C. J. BoND (Ottawa, King's Printer, xix, 354 pp., $2.50). STEVEN (W. T.), In this sign; foreword by Lieutenant-General CHARLES FouLKES (Toronto, Ryerson, xiv, 182 pp., $3.50). 6. Canada: The Land and the People C. W. DuNN AND THE EDITOR Canadian settings offer ample opportunity for those who wish to write local histories, travel books, or memoirs. We now realize that Canada , like the United States, is not a cultural melting-pot but a cultural tapestry. Immigrant cultures have in part survived, in part undergone change, and in part coalesced with neighbouring cultures; and the resultant complex national pattern cannot be comprehended, either by academic analyst or by lay reader, until the individual strands of the tapestry have been adequately described. Fourteen books published in Canada since the Quarterly's previous survey may be mentioned here as contributions to this important task, although not all of these, of course, are important books. Bruce Hutchison in his revision of The Unknown Country has added some new information, chiefly about post-war immigration and politics, to his graceful and original survey of Canada. (Both the blurb and the preface, with a modesty as unaccountable as it is inconvenient, leave the reader to discover these additions by the process of collation with the earlier edition.) William R. Watson has attempted, with much less success, a similar impressionistic coast-to·coast description of the country in And All Your Beauty; but the trailer in which the narrator and his wife travel and the accompanying dog obtrude themselves annoyingly without adding the LETTERS lN CANADA: 1948 303 piquant humour obviously intended; and the chance acquaintances whose information about the local scene is recorded are incredibly and almost intolerably encyclopaedic. Ernie, for instance, who drives them from WelIand to Niagara, relates with unflagging precision the dates of construction of the old Weiland Canal and of the new one, its draught, its length, its lift, the number and nature of its locks and their rate of filling, the length of the Niagara River, the size of the upper four Great Lakes in relation to the other bodies of fresh water in the world, the meaning of the Indian name Niagara, the depth of the gorge as compared to Victoria Falls, the width and height of the American Falls and the Horseshoe Falls, the date of the Falls' discovery by the white man, and a joke about honeymooners. Presented thus, information makes but little impact. Nova Scotia, exceeding the other provinces, is represented by six books. Thomas H. Raddall's Halifax) Warden of the North) published opportunely close to the two hundredth anniversary of the city (June 21, 1949), in...