Three ideas of nature in Canada, 1893–1914

Three ideas of nature in Canada, 1893-1914 GEORGE ALTMEYER The interaction between man and his natural environment is an integral part of the Canadian experience. Economically, Canada has been developed through the exploitation of a series of natural resources: cod, beaver, timber, and, most recently, mineral deposits. Certain geophysical characteristics of the country have served as the basis for both national and continental political models; an east-west waterway functioning as the underlying premise of the former, four northsouth "barriers of nature, wide and irreclaimable wildernesses or manifold chains of mountains" 1 utilized as the rationale of the latter. In its rude beginning, Canadian writing - explorers' diaries, natural histories, guide books, immigration tracts and essays on hunting and fishing - centred upon the practical aspects of man's relationship with wilderness. In subsequent years a persistent theme of Canadian literature has been to discern what effect life in that yvilderness has had on the collective national consciousness .2 Likewise, Canadian painting, from Paul Kane to the Group of Seven and Emily Carr, has found its most enduring expression in the portrayal of Canada's natural heritage. When viewed in this perspective, it is with some consistency that Canada is identified by two wilderness symbols: the beaver and the maple leaf. Yet, no matter how thoroughly one documents the significant role played by the natural milieu in Canada's economic, political , literary and artistic development, an important question remains: how have Canadians themselves perceived their relationship with Nature? According to the given interpretation , Canadians view Nature in a negative, even frightening manner. Based primarily on literary sources, this viewpoint depicts Nature as a hostile, terrifying monster, which threatens the very existence of those who Journal of Canadian Studies dare intrude upon its domain. In a review which appeared in 1943, Northrop Frye first set forth the central thesis of this interpretation . After reading the selections in A. J. M. Smith's Book of Canadian Poetry, Frye somberly concluded that "Nature is consistently sinister and menacing in Canadian poetry";3 that, in fact, "the outstanding achievement of Canadian poetry is in the evocation of stark terror"4 in regard to Nature. Frye identifies the immediate source of this terror as the frightening loneliness of a huge and thinly settled country. But, as he explained in more detail elsewhere, at a more profound level, the "tone of deep terror in regard to Nature ... is not a terror of the dangers or discomforts or even the mysteries of Nature, but a terror of the soul at something that these things manifest."5 The reason for this deeper fear of Nature, Frye claims, is historical. Canada began as a group of small, outpost communities set amidst a menacing continent which could be penetrated , but, unlike the American example, could not be pushed back. The all-pervasive insecurity inherent in such isolation compelled Canadians to retain a psychological, as well as a political and economic connection with England. Forced always to cling to the mother country for security, Nature became, for Canadians, the evil antithesis of all they most cherished in English society: order, security and, above all, civilization. In short, Frye's thesis claims that, because Canadians did not make the psychological break with Europe through revolution, they could not face the harsh realities of North American Nature with the same positive attitude as the Americans. Frye's conception of Nature as a reservoir of a "vast unconsciousness" of sinister intent , has coloured all subsequent attempts to investigate the theme of Nature in Canadian literature.6 In her book, Beyond the Land Itself, Marcia B. Kline uses the idea of Nature as a malevolent force to explain the differences between Canadian and American attitudes toward Nature. Contrasting the 21 romance novels of John Richardson and James Fenimore Cooper, the works of Susanna Moodie and the American, Caroline Kirkland, and various other nineteenth century poets and novelists, she finds that, unlike American literateurs who exhibit a positive attitude towards Nature, Canadian writers see Nature as "part of a world that is terrifying, hostile to human values and human endeavour, and inferior to civilization ."7 In a similar manner, Margaret Atwo_od , in advancing her thesis that Canadians...