Local and Regional

SOCIAL STUDIES 485 LOCAL AND REGIONAL Michael S. Cross The pre-centennial crop of local and regional books holds out both a promise and a threat of what we may expect in the inevitable flood of centenary literature. In the three works conceived as centennial projects , and the several more obviously stimulated by the coming celebrations , the quality ranges from very good indeed to very mediocre. In other words, centennial books in the local and regional category may be expected to be not much different from those of any other yearbut in greater profusion. A work cutting across regional lines is the centennial project of the Canadian Good Roads Association, Edwin C. Guillet's The Story of Canadian Roads (University of Toronto Press, pp. x, 246, $8.50) . Mr. Guillet, Canada's most indefatigable amateur historian, has produced a book tbat is probably typical of the light, sketchy centenary efforts, but one surely better presented than most. It is a remarkably handsome book, with nearly two hundred excellent illustrations. The pictures are really the best part, for the text does not go beyond a brief history of road-building. The book prOVides pleasant light reading, but for the student serves merely to emphasize the need for a serious study of the role of roads in Canadian development. Three books of a biographical nature provide interesting contrasts. Two deal with provincial premiers-Farmer Premier: Memoirs of E. C. Drury (McClelland & Stewart, pp. 198, $6.00) and Paddy Sherman's Bennett (McClelland & Stewart, pp. xii, 316, $7.50). Drury, United Farmers' premier of Ontario, 1919-23, tells very little about the issues and policies of his time but gives a unique picture of the character and motivations of a populist politician. Sherman, on the other hand, is excellent in unravelling complex issues like the Columbia River Treaty fight but fails to deliver the keys to understanding the strange mind of the British Columbia strong man, W. A. C. Bennett. For Drury, it was a simple world of black and white, and politics was the battleground of the forces of good-represented by the virtuous Free Trade Farmersand the forces of eVil-represented by the protectionist financiers, the 486 LETTERS IN CANADA back-room boys, the cities, all summed up by Drury as the "Money Power." Bennett is also a populist, like Drury, believing in short-<:ircuiting courts and legislatures by direct appeals to the people. But the similarity ends there. If Drury was simplistic in his approach, Bennett seems almost Byzantine in the indirection of his politics. The "farmer premier" was a liberal of the old school, dedicated to the principles of laissez-faire. Bennett, a conservative, has always been pragmatic in the extreme, and in his fight against socialism has adopted more socialist, interventionist policies than perhaps any other premier. In their very different ways, both made successful premiers, as both books, in different ways, make worthwhile contributions. Another autobiographical work is The News Game (Clarke, Irwin, pp. xii, 196, $4.95) by Roy Greenaway. A highly successful reporter for the Toronto Star from 1918 to 1965, Greenaway tells of the spectacular days of his paper's rise to dominance in Canadian journalism, the days of swashbuckling newsmen and brilliant scoops. Despite the author's disjointed, journalistic prose, this fiction-like era lives again in his rambling reminiscences of the major news stories of his career. Some of the most notable of Canadian characters are here in all their eccentricities: the famous, like Banting, Mitchell Hepburn, Hemingway; and the even more intriguing infamous, like the dashing bandit Red Ryan and the incredible con-man, Herbert John Nelles. A highly entertaining book. The Atlantic region has been generally well served by writers in 1966. Easily the most publicized book of the year is Farley Mowat's bestseller, Westviking: The Ancient Norse in Greenland and North America (Little, Brown and Company, pp. xviii, 494, $10.00). After years of talking with animals, Mowat has now taken to conversing with long-dead Vikings. In this fictionalized history, he follows them in their approaches to North America and attempts to solve the puzzle of the locations of their landings. With considerable research, he has come up with plausible guesses about the sites of the Vinland of Leif Eriksson and of Karlsefni's landings, both in Newfoundland. Mr. Mowat's guesses are plaUSible, but they remain only guesses despite the author's pretensions to infallibility. This is the One major drawback to the book: a dogmatism which detraclS from an otherwise enjoyable bit of historical detective work. Newfoundland in a later period receives a scholarly treatment in Gertrude E. Gunn's The Political History of Newfoundland, 18321864 (University of Toronto Press, pp. viii, 249, $4.75), the eighth volume in the series Canadian Studies in History and Government. SOCIAL STUDIES 487 Not only is this the first intensive treatment of the period, it is probably the best serious work yet to appear on the history of the island province. Studying the sectarian politics which dominated Newfoundland, it provides a test-case study of the conditions prevalent all over British North America. Miss Gunn also offers conclusive evidence-if more were needed-of the disastrous incapacity of the Colonial Office in this period. Policy regarding the Gulf area at a later time is the subject of The St. Pierre and Miquelon Affaire of 1941 (University of Toronto Press, pp. xvi, 219, $6.00) by Douglas G. Anglin. It is a less successful study of policy, however, than the Newfoundland book. Although subtitled A Study in the Diplomacy of the North Atlantic Quadrangle, it does little to illuminate the relations between the various nations involved. Professor Anglin appears too much a nationalist to accept the Atlantic community as it was in 1941, with Canada incapable of playing a leading and independent role. Detachment and objectivity are lacking as Anglin shows a strong animosity towards appeasers and the Vichy French. The reader is left unconvinced: unconvinced that the Free French were as effective and unified a force as Anglin's emphaSiS on de Gaulle would imply; unconvinced that the moral issue On the islands was so clear-cut; unconvinced that the affaire was as important as Anglin obviously considers it. The final book on the Atlantic region is one of the most pleasant surprises of the literary year. Esther Clark Wright has produced her best book in The St. John River and Its Tributaries (privately published, pp. iv, 218, $4.50). Despite an impressive bibliography, it is not a scholarly work; it contains little historical material not found in W. O. Raymond's classic, The River St. John. But nO one has caught the beauty and the appeal of the St. John as has Mrs. Wright. A leisurely ramble up-river, the narrative combines historical discourses on the early settlers with personal reminiscences and makes a superb guide book to the region. Mrs. Wright is a fine writer, with a lazy grandeur to her prose. It is to be hoped that some commercial publisher will give this work the wider circulation it merits. Quebec is the subject of five books. Two deal with the period following the Conquest, and both are welcome additions to the literature. After several disappointing efforts, the Canadian Centenary Series has recovered its promise with Hilda Neatby's solid study, Quebec: The Revolutionary Age, 1760-1791 (McClelland & Stewart, pp. xii, 300, $8.50). Her emphasis is on the sweeping changes of the thirty years covered in her book-the rise of new staples, the adjustment of French 488 LETTERS IN CANADA Canadians to a new empire, and the aftermath of the American Revolution . It is largely orthodox political history, in the tradition of Miss Neatby's mentor, A. L. Burt. But she has gone beyond Burt, in the light of recent research, and her book probably will replace his The Old Province of Quebec as the standard work. Although conventional in approach, Professor Neatby deals very well with the current controversies raging about this period. In particular, she is effective in combatting the theories of Michel Brunet on French-Canadian nationalism and On the "decapitation" of French Canada after 1759. The second book on the post·Conquest era deals directly with these controversies. The French Canadians, 1759-1766: Conquered? Half-Conquered? Liberated? (Copp Clark, pp. viii, 148, $1.95), edited by Cameron Nish, is the first volume in a new documents series, Issues in Canadian History. Designed as a Canadian equivalent of the familiar Problems in American Civilization volumes, the series gets off to a good start with this book. All the major viewpoints are here, in well-selected excerpts and with intelligent, unobtrusive introductions by Professor Nish. Considerably less satisfying is the second volume of yet another series, the Romance of Canadian Cities. Kathleen Jenkin's Montreal: Island City of the St. Lawrence (Doubleday, pp. xvi, 559, $6.75) delivers little of the real romance of the city. The dynamics of metropolitan growth, the interaction of French and English, these are ignored in this superficial account. More attention is paid to the role of French Canadians in The Clergy and Economic Growth in Quebec, 1896-1914 (Les Presses de I'Universite Laval, pp. x, 348, $12.00) by William F. Ryan. The author attempts to prove that the Catholic church was not the reactionary force in economic life that it has so often been pictured to be. He includes some very useful material on economic growth, espeCially in the St. Maurice valley and the Lake St. John region. But his argument is unconvincing: he never effectively comes to grips with the underlying philosophy of the church. The final work on Quebec is almost impossible to categorize. Jean Le Moyne's Convergence: Essays from Quebec, translated by Philip Stratford (Ryerson, pp. xiv, 256, $4.00), was first published in French in 1961, and won the Governor-General's award for French language nonfiction . It is a curious blend of personal reminiscences, theology, philosophy , and mystic musings. The intensity of Le Moyne's Catholicism, the unashamed emotionalism of his religiOUS experiences, could perhaps have come only from a French Canadian. But he does not consider himself a Quebecois, but rather a citizen of North America and of the SOCIAL STUDIES 489 world, a citizenship he wishes all French Canadians to share. The book raised a storm in Quebec, for it attacks many of the treasured heritages of French-Canadian life: clericalism; the close-knit Quebec family; French-Canadian nationalism (which he characterizes as an expression of the deep alienation of Quebec society). The English-Canadian reader will not feel this sense of outrage, but he will find the book confusing, frustrating, difficult. Yet he may end, with Le Moyne, preaching to himself "in season and out of season certain good news-the good news of liberty and unity." Three of the books on Ontario concern the history of cities. A centennial project of the city of Hamilton is Marjorie Freeman Campbell's A Mountain and a City: The Story of Hamilton (McClelland & Stewart, pp. xii, 3S I, $8.S0). One can only hope the city has better luck with its major centennial effort, the restoration of Dundurn Castle. Unlike Jenkin's diffuse and superfiCial study of Montreal, the Hamilton book completely bogs down in minutiae. Of a decidedly superior quality, however, are two works On Toronto. Henry Scadding's Toronto of Old Originally appeared in 1873. It has now been re-issued, abridged and edited by Professor F. H. Armstrong (Oxford University Press, pp. xxxiv, 396, $7.50). After the passage of almost a century, Scadding remains a brilliant classic, the best history of early Toronto. His rambles along the main thoroughfares of the city are filled with incisive inSights into the social and political life of a growing metropolis. And it is graceful reading, the work of a charming and urbane Victorian gentleman. A companion piece is presented by Edith G. Firth in The Town of York, 1815-1834 (The Champlain Society for the Government of Ontario, University of Toronto Press, pp. xc, 381, $7.9S). This is the second volume of Miss Firth's researches, a book in 1962 having covered the history of York from 1793 to 181S. In a scholarly and highly informative introduction, she draws a fine picture of early Toronto, a picture supplemented by the variety of well-chosen documents in the second section of the book. Her primary concern is with two aspects of the town's life: the development of a British community and the burgeoning of urban problems. With its meticulous research, lively interest, and excellent editing, The Town of York is a model of local history. It would be a great service if the Champlain Society could convince Miss Firth to carry her story beyond 1834 in other volumes. A Toronto suburb is the subject of A History of Scarborough (Scarborough Public Library, pp. xviii, 327, $4.50) edited by Robert R. Bonis. It is a conventional local history, written for use in the town- 490 LETTERS IN CANADA ship's schools. James Scott's The Settlement of Huron County (Ryerson, pp. xvi, 328, $5.00) is extremely disappointing. Huron County, the centre of the grandiose experiment of the Canada Company in the early nineteenth century, is a classic study in settlement problems. But none of the significance emerges in Scott's book, which is limited not only by a parochial approach but also by a profusion of factual errors. Lighter in intent, but far more successful in execution, is the sentimental reconstruction of the steamboat era on the Trent waterway, John Craig's By the Sound of Her Whistle (Peter Martin Associates, pp. 190, $7.50) . In its nostalgic way, this book does more to recreate the atmosphere of the nineteenth century in Ontario than many a more weighty study. The pleasures and the hardships of what the author obviously considers "the good old days" come through vividly in his warm prose and in the splendid sketches by his cousin and collaborator, Fred Craig. Only three books represent the prairies, but all are of high quality. J. G. MacGregor has resurrected the reputation of an important Canadian pioneer in his biography of Peter Fidler: Canada's Forgotten Surveyor , 1769-1822 (McClelland & Stewart, pp. xx, 265, $10.00). Although less famous, Fidler did as much to chart the West as David Thompson and, as MacGregor presents him, had a considerably more pleasant personality. Perhaps of chief historical importance is the inSight MacGregor brings to the desperate strategic struggle of the rival fur companies for control of the resources of the W est, a struggle in which surveyors like Fidler played a crucial role. The Depression on the prairies is the subject of James H. Gray's poignant The W inter Years (Macmillan of Canada, pp. xii, 220, $4.95). Witty, touching, it is a brilliant portrayal. No other book takes the reader so deeply inside the minds of the people who lived through the agony of the Depression, no other source gives us so much appreciation of the heritage of that decisive decade. A minor masterpiece, it should be on the reading list of any Canadian who hopes to understand how this country has become what it is. Finally we have All Things Common: The Hutterian Way of Life (University of Minnesota Press [Toronto: Copp Clark], pp. xvi, 233, $5.75) by Victor Peters. This sympathetic analysis of Hutterite history, and of the Hutterites' role in Canada today, also provides food for thought. The liberality of North American society is open to question when one reads of the ceaseless persecution of these people for their one crime-the refusal to give up their unique way of life. British Columbia and the North are dealt with in four books. The stories are slight in Mildred Valley Thornton's Indian Lives and Legends SOCIAL STUDIES 491 (Vancouver: Mitchell Press, pp. xviii, 301, $9.50), but her paintings of Indians are colourful and evocative. Nature writer R. M. Patterson, author of The Trial to the Interior (Macmillan of Canada, pp. xvi, 255, $6.00), combines descriptions of the present·day Cassiar region of British Columbia with historical sketches of its primitive past in this account of a trip by canoe and riverboat on the Dease and Stikine rivers. Of more lasting importance are two works on the Arctic. L. H. Neatby's Conquest of the Last Frontier (Longman's, pp. xviii, 425, $10.00) is a narrative of Arctic exploration from 1853 to 1918. Rarely have the difficulty of Arctic navigation, the hardship of the glacier treks, been drawn so graphically. The strange, driving ambitions of the American and Norwegian explorers come alive in Neatby's fine book. In an age when crusades are few, there is a peculiar fascination in the sagas of Peary and Amundsen and Stefansson, a fascination Neatby shares and evokes for his readers. There are no sagas or romance in the second book on the Arctic, a serious study of the future of the regionThe Arctic Frontier (University of Toronto Press, pp. x, 311, $7.50), edited by R. St. J. Macdonald. A co-operative effort of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs and the Arctic Institute of North America, it brings together eleven essays by experts on the North to analyze its potential. The basic message is contained in an esssay by Michael Marsden on the resources of the area, when he remarks, "It is still difficult to impress upon the public and industry at large that the most essential quality of the Arctic is not cold, or gold, or polar bears, but a central position in the world community." While constantly emphasizing the problems to be faced, the experts hold out the promise of the Arctic as a transportation route and as a source of natural wealth, as well as stressing its strategic importance in the modem world. Some important, some unimportant, some exciting, many dull-this was the local and regional crop for 1966. Remembering the Neatby books, Wright's St. John River, Firth, and The Winter Years, perhaps, after all, we need not shudder too Vigorously in contemplation of the centenary Hood ahead. MILITARY HISTORY Richard A. Preston The most significant and important military study produced in Canada in 1966 was undoubtedly General Burns's Megamurder (Clarke, Irwin, pp. xvi, 288, $5.00) which, in more senses than one, is in a class by itself. ...