Title: The Canadians
Author: Patrick Watson
Publisher: McArthur & Company, Toronto
Pages: 336, softcover
ISBN: 1-55278-170-4
Price: $19.95

Review by Orland French
Originally published in The Globe and Mail

The promotional material for The Canadians, Biographies of a Nation, contains this telling sentence: “This book marks the beginning of a series sure to be a hit with students, teachers and all fans of Canadian history.”

Right away, we’re into a learning mode. The key words are “students” and “teachers”. Couldn’t it be just fun to read? Apparently not. History cannot be presented simply for our enjoyment. Like eating cod liver oil and bran buds, knowing our Canadian history will be Good For Us.

Click to the XFL and pass the potato chips.

Strangely enough, the message in the promo literature contradicts the book’s purpose, which is to present Canadians as anything but pallid people.

As long as we keep reminding ourselves that Canadian history isn’t dull, we’ll always harbour a lingering doubt that maybe it is. Some of us never thought our history was dull, except that we had teachers who made it sound so. Like this one, a certain educator named Maurice Hutton, who said in 1935 that “Canadian history is as dull as ditch water and her politics is full of it.” Well, okay, the second part may be true.

Gradually, we’re getting over our perception of ourselves as the most boring people on earth. The scintillating series A People’s History on CBC Television demonstrated that we no longer have to employ talking heads to tell us why we’re not boring. We just tell our story and let the facts speak for themselves.

The Canadians, the print version of a series on History Television, contains 16 well-written and entertaining stories about interesting people. The pilot project for The Canadians series was about Francis Rattenbury, the architect of the British Columbia legislature and the Empress Hotel in Victoria, B.C. “That story is an astounding pastiche of murder, adultery and genius, and an effective antidote to the poisonous canard about Canadians being dull,” writes Watson.

As a national resolution for the 21st century, let us dispense with references to that poisonous canard and get on with it. Let us acknowledge that Canadian history is exciting, thrilling, provocative, breathtaking, stirring, moving, howling, ranting, inflammatory, inflammable and, yes, orgiastic. It is peopled with characters who are cruel, caring, sadistic, supportive, bloodthirsty, brotherly, greedy and gracious.

Let us have no more producers who are transfixed by the perception of Canadians being listless sluggards. To be fair, maybe they’re only using a marketing ploy, along the lines of, “Look, we think we’re dull but we’re not, and I’ve got the movie/book/TV series to prove it.”

The proof is plentiful. The characters in The Canadians are lesser-known today, in many cases unknown, but at one time they had achieved a certain level of social prominence in Canada and even internationally. They all have quirks worth writing about, or televising, but guess what? Many of them were frauds, or at least possessed a public persona which was fraudulent. Perhaps that’s what makes them fascinating to ordinary folks.

The most obvious was Grey Owl, who after many years of masquerading as an Indian, turned out to be an Englishman in moccasins.

The renowned and respected Canadian poet Pauline Johnson travelled widely and lived well on her reputation as an Indian princess. There was not then, nor is there now, any such thing as an Indian princess. She was part Indian, it is true, and she was a poet, although her work would not likely survive critical scrutiny today. But it was good enough to take her to the stage in England, where white aristocratic audiences were convinced they had glimpsed the taming of a noble savage.

Sir Sam Hughes, Canada’s minister of the militia during the First World War, lacked the skills of a military leader, an oversight obvious to everyone except himself. Under today’s intense media glare he probably wouldn’t survive a week in cabinet, but he was arguably responsible for decisions which cost thousands of Canadian soldiers their lives. Among the worst of these was his stubborn defence of the Ross rifle which constantly jammed or even blew up in the faces of soldiers. Eventually he was regarded as totally wacko but that didn’t prevent him from keeping his seat in Parliament.

Bible Bill Aberhardt talked his way into the premiership of Alberta, preaching a strange blend of politics and theology which eventually produced the Social Credit Party. He believed it would work, although analysis showed it to be fiscally fraudulent.
Dai Vernon was a fraud of a different sort, a man who made his living in magic. He played before thousands of Americans and he made thousands of American dollars, entertaining wealthy audiences with a repertoire of baffling magic tricks.

The book’s characters are captivating and there are thousands more like them with stories untold. In case you wish you had caught the originals on television, it is only by fascinating happenstance that the book has appeared just before rebroadcasts this spring.

Sharp as a tack, these Canadians. Not dull. Never were.