Our Canadian Girl: Technologies of Memory for Cartographies of Distress

Our Canadian Girl is a historical fiction series written for elementary and middle-school age readers. This article analyzes how the books function as a "technology of memory" for creating the Canadian national imaginary. The fictional girl heroines reflect idealized versions of the Canadian national character. At the same time, the books struggle to narrate the tensions and injustices of Canada's history as a white settler nation. I conclude that history is used to tell a story about present-day worries and desires, reinforcing the continuity of gender and the nation in the current time of intense globalization and social change.