Northern Visions: New Perspectives on the North in Canadian History 9781442602779

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Northern Visions

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Northern Visions New Perspectives on the North in Canadian History E D I T E D BY

Kerry Abel and Ken S. Coates

broadview press

Copyright © 2001 Kerry M. Abel and Ken Coates. All rights reserved. The use of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without prior written consent of the publisher—or in the case of photocopying, a licence from CANCOPY (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency) One Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, Ontario M5E IE5—is an infringement of the copyright law.

CANADIAN CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA

Main entry under title: Northern visions: new perspectives on the North in Canadian history Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-55111-401-1 i. Canada, Northern—History. I. Abel, Kerry M. (Kerry Margaret). FC3956.N677 2001 FIO9O.5.N668 2001

II. Coates, Ken.

971-9

^0-932849-1

BROADVIEW PRESS, LTD. is an independent, international publishing house, incorporated in 1985. North America Post Office Box 1243, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada K9J jus 3576 California Road, Orchard Park, NY 14127 Tel: (705) 743-8990 Fax: (705) 743-8353 [email protected] www.broadviewpress.com

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Broadview Press gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Ministry of Canadian Heritage through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program. Cover design by Zack Taylor, Black Eye Design. Cover photograph © 1999 PhotoDisc, Inc. Typeset by Zack Taylor, Black Eye Design. Printed in Canada

Contents 7

Introduction: The North and the Nation Kerry Abel & Ken S. Coates

23

Winter and the Shaping of Northern History: Reflections from the Canadian North Ken S. Coates & William R. Morrison

37

A Very Long Journey: Distance and Northern History Bill Waiser

45

Parks Canada and the Commemoration of the North: History and Heritage David Neufeld

77

Change, Continuity, Renewal: Lessons from a Decade of Historiography on the First Nations of the Territorial North Mary-Ellen Kelm

91

Inuit History in the Next Millennium: Challenges and Rewards Shelagh D. Grant

107

Women, Gender, and the Provincial North Nancy M. Forestell

i iy

Creating New Angles of Repose: Northern Canadian Communities in a National Context Charlene Porsild

127

History and the Provincial Norths: An Ontario Example Kerry Abel

141

Alaska and the Canadian North: Comparing Conceptual Frameworks Stephen Haycox

159

Whither the Northern Natives in Russian History? Aileen A. Espiritu

177

Reflections on a Career of Northern Travelling, Teaching, Writing, and Reading Bruce Hodgins

187

Notes

217

Contributors

219

Index

INTRODUCTION

The North and the Nation Kerry Abel and Ken S. Coates

"... north, to muskeg and stunted hackmatack, and then the whine of icy tundra north to the pole— despotic land, inhuman yet our own ..." —Dennis Lee, Civil Elegies and Other Poems1

Canadians have long held ambivalent feelings about the North. At times we have celebrated our northernness as a key part of what makes us unique. At other times, the North has been a symbol of sterility or danger lurking at the margins of our complacency. For many Canadians, the North is a treasure chest of natural resources riches ripe for removal. For others, it is a homeland to protect and cherish. It is hardly surprising that Canadian historians have reflected this ambivalence in their work. At one time, they celebrated the epic story of the pioneers who fought against the North to establish commercial ventures like the fur trade and the farm. Then interest shifted to the more explicit construction of a national identity, and the North was used for its symbolic value. But for the most part, historians were not interested in the North for its own sake or even for the role that northern realities had played in the development of the nation. Beginning in the 19605, historian W.L. Morton led the way in calling on Canadian historians to reassess their thinking about the North. The North needed to be better understood, argued Morton, because it was not at all marginal to the story of nation then being told by people like Donald Creighton and Arthur Lower. Indeed, Morton proposed that the North was central to the story of Canada. Geographically, Canada is assuredly a northern nation. Climatically, 7

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it is evident that this country is shaped by its relationship to winter. From seventeenth-century fur trading posts to twenty-first-century diamond mines, the North has played a significant role in Canada's economic development. And as a symbol, the North has clearly played an important role in the formation of Canada's intellectual and popular culture. Yet despite repeated efforts by historians from W.L. Morton to Morris Zaslow and Bruce Hodgins, the North remains a marginal place in the nation's understanding of its past. It is indeed strange, this quixotic relationship Canada and Canadians have with their northland. It is one thing to complain, as northerners have often done, about the lack of attention to the sub-Arctic and Arctic regions of the country. It is something else again to explain exactly how and why the North is important to Canada and Canadian history. This volume, prepared by a group of Canada's senior northern scholars and some of the promising new historians in the field, endeavours to challenge established assumptions about this region. It is wrong to argue that the North has been neglected, for the region figures prominently in Canadian fiction, painting, movie-making, and general imagery. Yet we manage somehow simultaneously to celebrate and ignore our northern areas. We mythologize the North, and then overlook its economic importance. We are awestruck by the physical beauty and frightened by the extremes of winter, but we pay little heed to the lessons for all of Canada to be learned from the historical evolution of the North. The essays in this collection explore significant themes and issues in northern history that deserve to be more widely known. They draw attention to the importance of the North as a reflection of national identities and aspirations, as a key building-block in the construction of the Canadian economy, and as a homeland to Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people with their own independent perceptions of North. Northern historians do not expect that the profession at large will reconceptualize national history as a consequence of our research on specific themes in regional development. Rather, we believe most strongly that Canadians should recognize that there are key aspects of national history that are explained and illuminated by a recognition of northern history. The North is a significant part of Canada. As W.L. Morton argued over 30 years ago, it affects even those parts of Canada that are not specifically northern. The region frames Canadians' sense of identity and influences our understanding of our place in the world. We need, therefore, to better place the region within Canadian history, to learn more about the activities of 8

INTRODUCTION

northern indigenous peoples and newcomers, and to understand much better why relatively few Canadians have ventured into northern regions. We also need to compare our northern experience with that of other nations, like Russia and the United States, in order to appreciate what is unique about our relationship and what is shared. The North and the Nation: Historical Lessons from the Canadian North Canadians stand to learn a great deal from a better understanding of the Canadian North. Many of the themes and subjects highlighted in the essays that follow illustrate how northern events have national significance. As the contributors have demonstrated, understanding the Canadian North helps explain both regional and national developments. The balance that is struck between regional and national perspectives is a crucial one; to date, most historical work has stressed how the nation has affected the North, with only rare efforts being made to document how the North has influenced national developments. Here, in summary, are some of the ways in which northern history and northern Canada generally speak to major themes in the history of Canada. HUMAN ADAPTATIONS TO CLIMATE AND GEOGRAPHY

Canada is defined, in substantial measure, by its response to winter. Although historians and other scholars have given this theme scant attention, it is clearly one of the defining characteristics of this nation. (And what does it say that there are two major works on the impact of snow on American history and no comparable study of the Canadian situation?) Some of the most remarkable adaptations of First Nations people permitted them to travel, live, hunt, fish, and thrive in winter environments. In the far North, in fact, spring and fall were far more difficult seasons than winter, which the Inuit in particular made the centrepoint of their existence. Europeans, in contrast, found winter difficult, unnerving, threatening, and ultimately frightening. The first explorers and settlers struggled to survive—many perishing when they failed to cope with the bewildering environment—and proved determinedly slow in adapting European styles and techniques to northern circumstances, or in simply abandoning them in favour of indigenous models. Throughout Canadian history, winter forced adaptations, however reluctant, as newcomers came to terms with living in a northern environment. Those adapta9

NORTHERN V I S I O N S

tions were never more critical than in the sub-Arctic and Arctic, where poor preparation sometimes resulted in human catastrophes. One of the central struggles in Canada's past, then, has been the effort to conquer winter, to resist its limitations, and, through technology or determined effort, to overcome its harsh realities. There is an important thread running through northern history of newcomers seeking to convert the North into a southern environment, an effort undertaken initially by missionaries but not accomplished in a substantial way until the post-World War II resource boom. While this struggle was most acute and most pressing in the North, it was a contest waged across the country, although perhaps less rigorously on the west coast, where winter is seen as an irritant rather than a formidable foe. Learning how to live with winter should be one of the basic themes in the historical understanding of Canada. Among northern historians, the topic is central (if rarely the primary focus of historical investigations) and figures prominently in discussions about the evolution of the regional order. Distance, too, has been an important but neglected theme. The idea of "vast" expanses in the North is so commonly repeated as to have become a cliche, but rarely do we stop to contemplate what lies behind the concept. What have the enormous distances between northern communities meant for their inhabitants? And how have distances from large population centres affected economic and political decisions about the North? Both real and imagined distance have shaped Canadian responses to the North as well as patterns of northern history. CANADA AS A COLONIZING POWER

In geographic terms, Canada is the largest colonizing power in the contemporary world. The Yukon, Northwest Territories (NWT), and Nunavut are all colonies of the federal state, and even with recent important steps toward regional autonomy, they remain subject to Ottawa's control. Scholars have devoted a great deal of attention, in Canada and elsewhere, to the forces of international colonialism; they have given far less attention to the processes of internal colonization. But because none of the territories has the revenue to even approach "have" status in Confederation, Canadian authorities have a unique opportunity to define and impose the nation's will on a regional population. In Quebec or British Columbia, provincial governments stood between the people and the federal power. In the Yukon or

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INTRODUCTION

NWT (before Nunavut), in contrast, the territorial administrations were federally dominated, commissioners had exceptional authority, and even the seat of authority was elsewhere: in the case of the NWT until the mid-1960s, even the territorial capital was in Ottawa. Canada's colonies, therefore, provide unique insights into the vision and the ambitions of the federal government. It was in the territories, more than any other part of the country, that the federal government could prescribe laws and regulations, establish policing systems, and shape the regional society most profoundly. During the Klondike Gold Rush, the Canadian government used its authority to impose a veritable police state on the region, in an effort to ensure that the Yukon developed a Canadian character. And so it has gone through the post-Confederation history of the region, with the territorial north serving as a canvas for southern priorities. In issues ranging from bilingualism (both the Yukon and NWT offer extensive services in French) to Aboriginal land rights (most of the modern treaties are in northern regions), the federal government has imposed its views, policies, and assumptions on the region, attempting to make the Canadian North a reflection of Canadian aspirations. Logically, therefore, an understanding of the North provides an excellent window on national ambitions and priorities, and an opportunity to see the idealized Canada that successive federal governments hoped to establish. CANADA'S NATIONAL ASPIRATIONS AND FRONTIER DEVELOPMENT

Ironically, Canada has become a northern colonizing power almost by default. After Rupert's Land was acquired from the Hudson's Bay Company, government policy was directed and devised almost exclusively toward agricultural settlement and the North was largely ignored. Acquisition of the Arctic archipelago from Britain in 1880 seems to have been a non-event for Canadians then and now; the British government had initiated the project when it was asked to grant land to two mining entrepreneurs and decided the time had come to head off potential sovereignty challenges but also to avoid the costs of governing the region. The Canadian government then proceeded to largely ignore its new responsibility. Historians have been just as silent on the subject of northern territorial acquisition and administration. Canadians are routinely taught about the manner in which British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, the prairie provinces, and Newfoundland were added to the Dominion. But how many know about the long-standing battle over Labrador, the ii

NORTHERN VISIONS

debate with several Scandinavian countries over the Arctic Islands, or about the northward extension of Ontario, Quebec, and Manitoba? Canada's acquisition of its northern territories and subsequent haphazard administration speaks volumes about the ways Canadian politicians and the public saw the nation. Canadians were primarily concerned about keeping the land out of the hands of others, but had no clear idea of what to do with it or its inhabitants. Beyond a few isolated individual voices, there was no great clamour for a northern expansionist dream. The nation became seized with northern fervour only when outsiders—Norwegians or, most commonly, Americans—sought to control the land. The lack of vision or imagination was a mixed blessing for northern Aboriginal peoples. Certainly, it kept the Canadian state from interfering in their lives for much longer than might otherwise have happened, but at the same time, northerners were unable to get the attention of the state at times of crisis when help was genuinely required. A recognition of this narrowness of vision is the starting point to considerable new insight into one of the dominant themes in Canadian history: the process of nation-building. CANADA'S RESPONSE TO THE FIRST NATIONS

In recent years, much attention has been paid to the nature and consequences of Canada's policies for First Nations people. In the provincial and territorial North, Aboriginal people constitute a substantial percentage of the total population, and have played a greater role in regional development in the twentieth century than has been the case in other parts of the country. The federal government, however, was reluctant to extend the full weight of its policies into northern regions. Indeed, officials in the Northern Development branch successfully advised against the extension of "Indian" policy to the Inuit, arguing that Indian policy had been a failure, creating only poverty and dependence; the time had come to try a new experiment and support the indigenous Inuit economy for as long as possible. Indian policy as applied in the North was a much fuzzier affair. What Canadians now understand to be national policies for Aboriginal peoples—from residential school education through to reserve regulations, band council governments, and the technically formidable influence of Indian agents—applied at least theoretically to northern Indians. But most First Nations people in the North did not feel the full extent of federal government authority until after World War II. The government's rationale for largely ignoring northern indigenous 12

INTRODUCTION

peoples was fairly simple: it cost too much, it was logistically extremely difficult, and there was no evidence that the policies being attempted in southern Canada would work (if they worked anywhere) in the North. Understanding any government policy requires knowledge of two connected elements: the philosophy and politics of the initial policy and the actual administration and implementation of that policy. Much of Canada's fascination with Indian policy has focused on the first aspect. When the second aspect has been studied, it is typically considered in a southern setting. And the Inuit policy has been almost entirely overlooked. Given the number of First Nations in Canada who lived, until relatively recently, in remote and northern locations, this emphasis gives a misleading impression of the reality of federal Indian administration. The view from the North, where the federal government did as little as it could until faced with the new social realities of the post-World War II development boom, helps balance the misleading impression of uniform national systems and regulations. Similarly, the experience of northern First Nations peoples provides additional insights into indigenous-newcomer relations in Canada. The remarkable history of the Inuit people has not yet been fully incorporated into our understanding of Canadian history. Their creative and commercial response to the whaling industry, the twentieth-century silver fox trade, and the post-World War II market for indigenous art revealed a willingness to adapt to European influences, while they retained a strong commitment to land and culture. If Inuit history is ignored, so too is the story of the massive disruptions of indigenous communities that followed the advance of the mining frontier. Historical coverage is particularly limited in comparison to the extended discussions of the impact of agricultural settlement on First Nations in southern Canada. Across the middle and far North, miners brought rapid and often destructive change. As the gold miners moved north through British Columbia and the Yukon, and as the developers searched for workable claims across northern Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba, they disturbed indigenous communities and made little effort to accommodate the original people in the new economy. This pattern accelerated after World War II (and continues to the present time, albeit under more critical scrutiny than in the past), as the boom in base minerals prices resulted in the opening of new mines across the region. These aspects of the indigenousnewcomer relationship rarely filter through in discussions of the national experience, even though they affected very large numbers of 13

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First Nations people and provide revealing insights into national priorities and assumptions. THE CONTINUING INFLUENCE OF THE POST-1870 FUR TRADE

Until the publication of A.J. Ray's The Canadian Fur Trade in the Industrial Age,2 Canadian historians had maintained a remarkably narrow view of the history of the fur trade. Research stopped at 1870, due it seems to the sale of Rupert's Land and the coming of Confederation but, more likely, because the Hudson's Bay Company records were opened only to that date. An entire generation of furtrade historians operated on the assumption that 1870 represented a watershed in the development of the industry and therefore the country. Whether or not the assumption was true stood largely unexamined. The reality, of course, is rather different. Although the dynamics of the fur trade changed, due in part to the changing nature of the Hudson's Bay Company and the extension of competition, the fur trade remained a cornerstone of northern Aboriginal life. Moreover, it retained its central place well into the twentieth century. The industry suffered a serious decline after World War II as a result of changing fashion preferences, but even then it continued in many parts of the North. The social and cultural dynamics of the fur trade—the focus for arguably the richest historiography of preConfederation Canada—remain substantially unstudied for the period after World War II, despite the industry's continued importance. As a consequence, historical understanding of the fur trade remains significantly incomplete. The demise of the fur trade as the central element in Aboriginal economic life—a phenomenon of the 19505 and not the 18705 as in much of the rest of Canada—is a vital story in itself. When the fur trade finally succumbed to the ravages of the resource boom, changing federal Aboriginal policies and the expansion of non-Native society in the Canadian North, the transition was extremely traumatic. The collapse of the fur trade in the North coincided with the extension and elaboration of the welfare state, an event and process of fundamental importance to contemporary Canada. For First Nations people and for the North generally, the juxtaposition of these developments ushered in a new economic and social age in the North, often in dramatic and traumatic fashion.

14

INTRODUCTION

HUMAN IMPACT ON THE ENVIRONMENT

Until recently, Canadian historians paid little attention to environmental matters, but as they begin now to expand their studies, northern themes should figure prominently. The North is an extremely fragile environment. Ecological marks made early in the period of European expansion can still be seen, for the newcomers did not learn quickly from the Inuit and other First Nations how to move gently across the land. We need to understand more about this fragility and the processes that have changed northern ecosystems. There is another intriguing aspect of northern environmental history. With some exceptions—the career of Martin Frobisher is a notable one—the North has rarely been the first area chosen by outsiders for exploration. In fact, the history of resource development in this country is basically one of scouring the temperate zones, moving slowly and cautiously into sub-Arctic regions, and then, reluctantly, attempting to explore the Arctic. As a consequence, the North serves as a symbol and a warning bell for the exhaustion of resources. Whalers plundered herds along both coasts at more southerly latitudes and then, driven by scarcity and high prices, expanded first into the Eastern Arctic, then into Hudson Bay, and later into the whalerich waters off Herschel Island and the Mackenzie River delta. Oil and gas exploitation appears to be following a similar pattern. As most of the readily accessible regions have been thoroughly explored and exploited, the sector has begun to move into the high Arctic. The North has been, from earliest times, at the nexus of the conflict between resource use and environmental protection. Stark images of northern beauty convinced many that the land would and should remain untouched by human development. At the same time, the very inaccessibility and wildness of the far North excited adventurers and travellers, who scoured the rivers, lakes, and coastline and paid top dollar to hunt for trophy moose and sheep. In more recent times, they come in luxury cruise ships and professionally-run whitewater rafting expeditions, drawn by the mystique of the North and the thrill of the wilderness. In the process, these travellers and environmentalists continue the effort to explain, defend, and protect the northern environment, just as developers continue their efforts to identify and exploit the wealth that lies under the permafrost. The Canadian North serves as a major battleground in the struggle between development and preservation, continuing a tension that has existed since the first outsiders viewed the potential and the beauty of the region. 15

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TRANSIENCY AND CANADIAN EXPERIENCES OF THE NORTH

The fact that the population of the far North is small has often been used a justification for the limited attention given to the region by the state. With the entire population of the territorial North smaller than that of Mississauga, Ontario or Surrey, BC, it has been relatively easy to dismiss the North as insignificant. Adding the northern areas of the provinces to the equation increases the total population—perhaps to something approaching that of Calgary, Alberta—but the main point remains. Very few Canadians live in the North. The nature of northern life, however, creates a curious multiplier effect in terms of Canadian involvement with the region. Transiency dominates northern non-Aboriginal society. People are constantly moving, heading North for a year or two and then relocating to southern Canada. In part, this transiency is a result of the economy. Mining is inherently unstable, made more so by the large number now working in fly-in camps. Tourists come north in droves in June, July, and August, but disappear as quickly as they come. Transiency has been part of the northern reality since the arrival of the fur traders, and has important implications for northern society and for the country as a whole. All regions of the country seek stability, for it is from long-term residence that cultural roots develop and political ideas and movements emerge. Quebec, the Atlantic provinces, Ontario, and the prairie provinces have these elements. British Columbia struggles with continued population flux, but even there, multi-generational provincial families are to be found in growing numbers. But across the North, transiency remains the dominant characteristic, creating social mobility and cultural flexibility and sustaining assumptions about continuing change. The North has lacked the stability to mount a sustained protest against southern authority, although the situation appears to be changing, in large part through the political empowerment of First Nations. But transiency has also had an impact on the wider nation. Through the constant flow of people in and out of the North, many more Canadians have had northern experiences or knowledge of another's northern experiences, than the small population numbers in the North would suggest. Furthermore, transiency is not unique to the Canadian North; in fact, it was one of the dominant themes of nineteenth-century Canadian life. Understanding the effects of the continual movement of large sections of the northern population offers useful insights into similar social patterns elsewhere and in other times.

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INTRODUCTION

Canada as a Circumpolar Nation Ironically, as a northern nation, Canada is not particularly "northern." While we produce some artistic and cultural artifacts (films, novels, poetry, and popular television programs) derived from our northern experiences, we have very little northern architecture, limited support for northern scientific research, and little desire to live and travel in the North. It is Rovanemi, Finland that houses a huge commercial Santa Glaus centre and a remarkable Arctic research facility; Canada's best Arctic research institute is housed in Calgary, Alberta. Sweden has long had an ice hotel (which Canada has only recently imitated) and actively promotes winter tourism to its citizens; Canadians line up for planes to Cuba and Mexico. The University of Tromso in Norway is an internationally-ranked research and teaching institute located north of the Arctic Circle; until the establishment of the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George, BC, in 1994, Canada had no fullfledged university with a central commitment to northern studies. Australia, through its Antarctic research commitments, probably has a larger polar studies group than Canada. The United States funds significantly more northern research than does this country, and the University of Alaska in Fairbanks is an important scientific and social scientific research centre. Russia, even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, struggles to maintain large industrial cities in northern regions; Canada increasingly favours fly-in camps which permit workers to live in southern cities and to travel north only for work periods. And although Canada has assumed a prominent role in international Arctic politics, we have shown little imagination in applying the ideas generated at international gatherings to our own north. So while other northern countries celebrate their nordicity, Canada tends to shy away from its northern realities. Lest anyone believe that conditions will soon change, one need only point to two elements: the longevity of Canada's unfriendly attitudes to its northern lands and the changing cultural mosaic of the general population. Canada did not embrace the North when its population was dominated by immigrants from northern and eastern Europe, peoples whose experience and background prepared them for northern conditions. As immigration from Caribbean, African, and southeast Asian nations increases in Canada, the likelihood of these newcomers breaking the Canadian mould and reaching out for northern opportunities seems remote.

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NORTHERN VISIONS

Historians and other scholars bemoan the fact that Canadians ignore their north as much as possible, but have not really explained the phenomenon very well. Alone among the northern nations, Canada appears afraid of its north, unaware of its possibilities, repelled by the extremes of winter and not enticed by the charms of summer. Perhaps because almost all of our country is wintry to some degree, people do not feel the need to increase the quota of winter and cold in their lives by embracing even more of it; Toronto has winter enough for most Canadians. The North, it seems, is a necessary evil, a burden of history and geography, and a constant reminder of Canada's failures. Explaining this pattern of northern neglect will require greater comparative study. For it is by examining the social, cultural, and economic dimensions of Sweden, Finland, Norway, and other northern countries that we will learn more about what has happened in Canada. Clearly, the exploration of this history is worthwhile: to understand our relationship with the region that dominates the landscape, national imagery, and national mystique is, ultimately, to better understand the country as a whole. INSIGHTS FROM THE CONTEMPORARY NORTH

There are lessons to be learned from the contemporary North as well, for the region is in the process of re-inventing itself. From the arrival of the first Europeans, northern history was shaped by the actions, assumptions and plans of outsiders. That is beginning to change. The creation of Nunavut in the eastern Arctic has established one of the largest indigenous-controlled jurisdictions in the world. Treaty settlements, the restructuring of the Northwest Territories government, and the Yukon's efforts to redraft the Yukon Act represent an assertion of regional autonomy in the territorial north that would have seemed inconceivable 40 years ago. Instead of reacting to southern developments, the North is both setting the regional agenda and, in the process, providing models of potential national and international significance. While the territorial north has matters rather well in hand, attention might well shift to the provincial north, a vast band of land stretching from Labrador to the Queen Charlotte Islands that may well be the poorest and least politically powerful region in the country. The northern battles of the forthcoming years promise to be vigorous and fundamentally important and will undoubtedly attract increased interest. Struggles between environmentalists and developers over northern resources have already established a tone, process, 18

INTRODUCTION

and model for similar conflicts in the rest of the country; however, northern scientific work, which was once a shining light for Canada's research community, has been dramatically reduced. At one level, reduced funding has eviscerated many promising research programs and has forced Canada to surrender vital momentum at precisely the time the rest of the world is beginning to look with renewed interest and concern at Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. At the same time, regional and indigenous demands that local knowledge be incorporated into scientific and academic investigation have forced a reconceptualization of the research enterprise and resulted in the establishment of a model of cross-cultural and scientific-community research that is attracting international attention. Political experiments, ranging from the Inuit-controlled government of Nunavut to the consensus administration of the NWT, continue to draw attention. Less dramatic but potentially more revolutionary has been the manner in which Yukon First Nations and non-Native people have integrated their affairs, throwing off decades of marginalization and creating a new model of political and cultural cooperation. Far from being of marginal interest, the North is now producing models of national importance. REDISCOVERING CANADA AS A NORTHERN NATION

For several brief but now mostly forgotten periods in Canada's history, the country has been fired with enthusiasm about the North. These episodes typically centred on resource developments: the discovery of gold in the Klondike (an episode which has entered the historical canon, yet there are university texts in Canadian history which do not mention it), oil in the Mackenzie valley, gold and other precious minerals in the provincial north, the postwar boom in base metals production, oil and natural gas in the high Arctic, and diamonds in the Northwest Territories. During these fits of enthusiasm, which rarely lasted for long, Canadians and their leaders toyed with the idea of the country's northern destiny. At various times, national politicians like John Diefenbaker called on the nation to seize its northern opportunities. But the idealism soon faded in the chill of Arctic winter, and the population of Canada settled into the comfort of the Canada-USA border zone. Recent developments raise questions about the future of Canadian nordicity. Will the establishment of Nunavut on April i, 1999, the settlement of northern treaties, and the extension of responsible government to the North bring the region more firmly into national 19

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focus, or do these initiatives actually represent a decline in national commitment to the region? Will the competing influences of eco-tourism, environmental awareness, and the relentless pursuit of raw materials result in a Berger-esque Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry conflict over the ecological future of the region, or will these battles be fought locally between groups of northerners and without significant southern attention? Will Canadians join with Germans, Americans, Japanese, and others in becoming enthralled by the mysteries and beauty of the sub-Arctic and Arctic, or will they continue to flee in droves from Canadian winters to the warm and expensive pleasures of southern holiday resorts? Will Canada awake to the potential of, and the responsibilities for, the North, or will the region remain a rather insignificant political appendage to the country as a whole, tolerated rather than embraced, celebrated in cultural terms but largely ignored politically and economically? The messages for Canadian history and Canadian historiography are not reassuring. At no point in the nation's history has there been a concerted and determined effort to incorporate the North in the country as a whole. Canada has, at times, been far too busy with southern issues and crises to concern itself with the black-fly swarm of minor irritations coming from the northern reaches of the nation. Canadians love to have others write about the North. Canadians collect photography books, art work, and explorers' diaries that illustrate the beauty and the trauma of northern life. But Canadians rarely travel to the region, and have done little to incorporate the North into their general concept of the country. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Canadian historians have made only passing stabs at finding a place for the North in their rendering of national history. The central challenges of Canadian history are presented as agrarian, industrial, political, urban, and, in recent years, illustrative of the tensions of gender, class, and ethnicity. Running across and through all of these themes, however, is the understated reality of Canadian life. This is an overwhelmingly northern nation, and the threat and opportunities presented by the Canadian North have long played a significant role in the evolution of the nation. The Canadian North exists at many levels. Geographically, it is a state of mind. Most often, it has been a symbol, at turns celebrated and feared. It adds to the list of things that make us different from the United States, and is therefore part of the armour of Canadian nationalism. The North is also a physical reality, a generator of climate, and an imposing presence that reminds us, constantly, of our size and national challenges. In certain ways, the North is also a sign 2,0

INTRODUCTION

of our failure: a symbol of what we have not done, where we have not been, and what remains to be undertaken. Considered in this way, and placed alongside that ambivalent Canadian attitude toward nation and nationalism, the North emerges as one of the central and defining characteristics of Canada as a whole. It shapes all of Canadian society, and has an importance that stretches far beyond its extensive physical borders. The North is the Canada that was, the Canada that could have been, and the Canada that is not. To fail to incorporate the North into one's understanding of Canada is, we would argue, to misunderstand one of the fundamental realities of Canadian history and to turn the nation's back, yet again, on its basic nordicity, its northern heritage, and its northern destiny.

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CHAPTER ONE

Winter and the Shaping of Northern History: Reflections from the Canadian North Ken S. Coates and William R. Morrison

Early in this century, the American author Jack London, who had travelled in northern Canada during the Klondike gold rush, wrote a story called "To Build a Fire." A man travelling alone in the North during the winter falls through the ice of a sub-Arctic creek. Wet and freezing, he knows he must get warm and dry, or die. His fingers numb, he struggles to build a fire, using his dwindling supply of matches. On the last match, a small pile of twigs catches fire, and soon he has a roaring blaze. Steam begins to rise from his clothes; soon he will be dry and safe. Unfortunately, however, he is not a very experienced northerner, and has built his fire under a tree whose branches are heavily laden with snow. Without warning, the snow above him gives way and falls on the fire, instantly smothering it. He is doomed; a simple but fatal error in dealing with the North has killed him.1 Taking the average temperatures in the country as a whole, Canada is the coldest country in the world, and particularly in the northern part of the country, winter is the dominant season. Since the earliest days of human habitation in the North, the dark and cold months of winter have influenced social and economic life, shaped the response of outsiders to the region, and have forced newcomers to adapt to the realities of Arctic and sub-Arctic living. From the seasonal movements of Inuit hunters to the attempts of British explorers to survive in a land they did not understand, from the springtime arrival and fall departure of tourists, geological teams, scientists, construction workers and others, winter has remained a prominent, indeed the dominant, factor in the evolution and development of northern society. "Winter" and "northern" tend to be synonymous in Canada, for although it is not always winter in the North, it is for a great deal of 23

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the time, and it is winter that in large part makes the North northern. Without winter, the North is only a direction, not a place; the two are thus inseparable. In the nineteenth century, Canadian nationalists, looking for something to distinguish this country from others (particularly the United States), hit upon the North as a foundation of our national identity. As the historian Carl Berger observed, The adjective "northern" came to symbolize energy, strength, self-reliance, health, and purity, and its opposite "southern," was equated with decay and effeminacy, even libertinism, and disease. A lengthy catalogue of desirable national attributes resulting from the climate was compiled. No other weather was so conducive to maintaining health and stimulating robustness Compared even to the "warm, moisture-laden atmosphere of the British isles," the sharp clear air of northern America was calculated to make perception more clear and more penetrating. "The Canadian is supereminently quickwitted," wrote one observer, because the very air of the country has "tonic properties." To speak of winter in Canada is to speak of the obvious. No Canadian can be blind to the realities of the coldest season or to its impact on the people, society, and economy of the North. Those who write on purely northern subjects—Arctic exploration, for example—have outlined in great detail the ravages and hardships of the winter months, particularly as they have affected inexperienced Europeans who have ventured into the region. Those who have written on gold rushes, mining exploration, and construction projects both civil and military know well the influence of seasonal rhythms on history. But as is sometimes the case with historical analysis, the prominent and obvious features exist without systematic commentary or detailed consideration. Here we propose to provide a preliminary outline of the impact of winter on human life in northern Canada and, in doing so, to begin a discussion of the broader role that winter has played in the shaping of northern history. In recent years, a number of scholars have begun to examine the role of winter in history. Blake McKelvey's Snow in the Cities: A History of America's Urban Response? Bernard Mergen's Snow in America,4 and Ruth Kirk's more general work, Snow? provide a promising start to this field of inquiry. Their studies have focused on more southerly regions, but they have provided a good framework for the pursuit of the subject in regions where winter is more severe,

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and where the impact of the season on human activity is more pronounced. Their studies have already drawn important conclusions: that winter worsened the gap between the rich and the poor, that it established a seasonal economic cycle that determined the nature of business and labour, that it shaped attitudes toward charity, and that it shaped the attitudes of urban government toward seasonal adaptation. Winter, these authors contend, conditioned national and regional attitudes, reinforcing the North American self-image of hardiness, determination, and adaptability. Coming to terms with winter has presented a series of technological challenges in transportation, communications, construction of homes and other buildings, urban design, and snow removal. The ability, or lack thereof, to respond to these challenges has played an important role in the history of North American society. This is particularly true in the Canadian Arctic and sub-Arctic regions, where human society has been compelled to cope with extreme cold, long periods of darkness, and many months of winter. The struggle with winter in these regions has largely been unexamined by scholars, perhaps because it is so much a part of Canadian life that it has seemed unremarkable, and has been dealt with implicitly rather than explicitly. In this chapter we hope to move winter from the background— a mere stage-setting for historical events—to the foreground where it belongs. Our contention is that the main determining factor in the development of human societies in the Canadian North is the reality of winter, and that the season has thus played a fundamental role in determining the nature, the extent, and the character of northern Canadian life. Nowhere is this more true, of course, than in the history of Canada's indigenous peoples. Indigenous cultures have been, in ways that newcomer societies have never been, attuned not only to the perils, but also to the opportunities of winter. For winter was not simply a time of hardship and peril; it could also be a time of ease and opportunity. First Nations people in Canada adapted to their environment in many ways, reflecting the impact of winter in everything from their seasonal movements to their methods of transportation, from their clothing to their housing. The Inuit were, much to the wonder of Europeans, perfectly adapted to their seemingly perilous environment. To the Inuit, winter was not the most difficult season; spring and fall were more so. Winter was the main season, the one which was incorporated as the centrepiece of their way of life, when travelling was easy and dwellings could be made on the spot with a cutting instrument and a supply of suitable snow. The Inuit devel25

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oped exceptional techniques for making clothing, winter shelters, sleds, hunting implements, and the other necessities of life. Newcomers to the region, struggling to deal with northern winter, and with their own entrenched attitudes of colonial superiority to indigenous people, nevertheless marvelled at the ability of the Inuit to survive and even flourish in the winter months. The Dene, living in the sub-Arctic regions to the south of the Inuit, made much less of an impression on the early Europeans, for their adaptations to winter seemed much easier. Living in the forests as they did, they had adequate supplies of heat and shelter, and their adaptations to winter were thus less dramatic. While Europeans were always fascinated by igloos, the Inuit snow houses, they rarely commented on what they considered to be the primitive tents or shelters of the First Nations of the boreal forest. These dwellings, they believed, were much inferior to the ingenious igloos, as simply inferior versions of European dwellings. The fact that both kinds of dwellings served their residents well was less important than the exoticism of the igloo. It is one of the great cliches of northern history that the indigenous people adapted well to their surroundings and developed economic and social systems that were perfectly in tune with it. Winter is the great proof of this assertion, for it was this season that tested the ingenuity of indigenous societies in many different ways. Long periods of extreme cold required the development of harvesting techniques that were unique in the world. The danger of blizzards during periods of travel affected their lives. Winter's impact on the movements of animals and birds, and on accessibility to fish and marine life, exerted an exceptional influence on the lives and the life patterns of northern indigenous peoples. Nearly thirty years ago, the anthropologist Marshal Sahlins, in his book Stone Age Economics, spoke of the Dene as "the original affluent society."6 His thesis was that these northern dwellers, far from being a starving, destitute people who spent every waking hour searching for a meagre food supply, had more leisure time than Europeans did during the contact period, and more time in fact for cultural and other leisure activities than our society today. The reason for this paradox was simple enough: the Dene were not a materialist society; they needed only food, shelter, the means to make fire, and the material for clothing. All these wants were satisfied by a work week which consumed perhaps 15 hours. Because their survival depended on a high degree of mobility, they did not accumulate possessions that they could not easily carry; their very survival depended on a 26

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simple, direct way of life. It is, in a way, ironic: whereas our modern adaptation to the North involves a tremendous amount of technology (special clothing, elaborate and expensive equipment, and a complicated support infrastructure), the Dene adaptation was exactly the opposite: a minimalist adaptation that stripped life to its essentials. It seems a simple idea once someone points it out, but it speaks to the vast gulf between European culture and that of the first peoples of northern Canada. Of course, this minimalist way of life owed nothing to genetics, and everything to environment; Aboriginal peoples who lived in more benign parts of the Western Hemisphere indulged in prodigies of monument-building and accumulation of material wealth that rivalled those of the Roman Empire. First peoples in northern Canada adapted to their environment, therefore, not because of any inherent racial virtue, but simply because they had to in order to survive. In contrast, newcomers to the region brought much less refined adaptive skills. For Europeans, the rapid and easy conquest of the more southerly parts of North America engendered a contempt for "natives" and a confidence, bordering on arrogance, that nature was easily conquered, and that the natives knew nothing that a European needed to learn. Not all felt this way, of course, for the fur trade in particular was based on indigenous technology, and it was hard to ignore the superiority of, for instance, the canoe as a means of transport. But the North seemed so bleak and empty to the Europeans, and its inhabitants so primitive, that it was difficult for Europeans to believe that they had anything to learn from them. For too long, for instance, the British spurned Inuit footgear, made of caribou skin, light, warm, and easily dried, in favour of clumsy leather boots in which their feet froze. Eventually Europeans learned lessons from the Inuit, but these lessons were hard, painful, and a long time coming. The best example of this hard lesson is the career of Sir John Franklin (1786-1847). Interestingly, this unlucky explorer is the most famous in the long history of European exploration of the Canadian North, not because of his accomplishments, though his life was not without these, but because of the manner of his death. Since it is not known exactly where, when, or how he died, his fate is one of those "mysteries" that continues to attract popular interest, and expeditions are still sent north to find the exact location of his doomed ships and to find other traces of his last expedition. Franklin had a long and mostly successful career. He joined the Royal Navy at the age of 14, and served honourably in battles from Copenhagen (1801) to New Orleans (1815). In 1818, 1819, and 1825 he participated in and then 27

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led expeditions to the Northwest Passage, Hudson Bay, and the Mackenzie Delta, and then served a term as governor of Van Diemen's Land. The disaster that overtook Franklin and his crew in the expedition of 1845 was perhaps inevitable. It was not that it was badly planned or badly led, for despite Franklin's defects as a commander, he was experienced in Northern exploration, brave, and conscientious. It was simply that the whole concept was wrong. Its very size—around 130 men—made it terribly vulnerable. Franklin's two ships brought with them everything that the men could possibly need, but when the ships became trapped by ice, the supplies were bound to run out, and then the men were doomed, for a crew of that size could not possibly live off the land. It is true that the British contempt for indigenous technology led them to spurn skin clothing and the use of dogs for transportation, an attitude which helped to kill Robert Scott sixty years later. It is also true that the Franklin expedition seemed to go out of its way to show this contempt by bringing European trinkets with them. In a truly bizarre episode, the members of the expedition who were still alive in the spring of 1848, three years after the expedition had been launched, tried to trek south to the nearest fur-trade post, inexplicably dragging with them a whaleboat containing silverware and Delftware tea cups, until they died. But as Vilhjalmur Stefansson liked to point out—and as his own career proved—a small group of men living off the land was the only sure recipe for success in the North, and even then (something he tended to downplay) there was always an element of luck. In order for a large group of people to live in the North in European style, one needed ships and airplanes to bring in southern supplies and comforts. It was with good reason, therefore, that Europeans came to the Canadian North with some apprehension. They knew enough about winter in the southern parts of the country, where it is bitter in comparison with more salubrious zones, to be wary of the far northern regions. Once the fantasies of open polar seas had been laid to rest, the prevailing attitude developed that the northern regions were virtually uninhabitable, an attitude which the sparseness of the population only reinforced. The explorers themselves added strength to this view. At times it benefitted them to exaggerate the harshness of their northern experience, since in doing so their accomplishments seemed more impressive. Artists and writers in the nineteenth century in particular emphasized the grandeur and the terrors of nature in the North, establishing a conceptual foundation for 28

Coates & Morrison WINTER AND THE SHAPING OF NORTHERN HISTORY

understanding the region that lingers to the present. Theirs was a North of extremes: brilliant summer nights, depressingly dark winter days, dangerous rivers, massive icebergs, endless herds of caribou, ferocious polar bears, and the like. Men such as Franklin, Mackenzie, and Rae created evocative word pictures designed to portray an impressive landscape to their readers. Sometimes they (or their editors) altered their diaries for publication to make the land seem more forbidding than it actually was. These descriptions—powerful, dramatic, exaggerated, and focused on northern exceptionalism (that which made the North different from other regions)—entrenched the image of the North as an inhospitable and dangerous, albeit dramatically beautiful, land. More to the point, they created the impression—one which is not totally inaccurate —of the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions as lands of perpetual winter. Douglas Owram, in his excellent study of the intellectual history of the prairie West, argued that John Franklin's published account of his 1819-21 expedition (a travelogue full of accounts of inconceivable hardship and winter suffering) helped solidify the impression that all of the Canadian Northwest, from the Great Lakes to the Arctic, was a winter wasteland. Over the following generations, writers found that there was a market for thrilling tales from high latitudes, and the image established by the early explorers was reinforced. Writers wrote about the physical beauty of the North, but they also always wrote about its dangers and limitations. The basic attributes of the northern climate, cold and snow, are partly a test of technology—the capacity to provide enough shelter, food, and clothing to sustain life. But they are also a test of humanity, and it was here, in the sphere of human adaptation to winter, that the season exacted its most dramatic toll on the newcomers. The indigenous people of the North had found mechanisms for coping with winter. The value attached to communal life and to storytelling, for instance, provided them with the social outlets necessary to deal with the long, though familiar, winter season. Newcomers, however, had few or no such mechanisms. For them, the onset of winter (and some Arctic expeditions remained locked in ice for two or more winters) presented a difficult challenge. The season forced Europeans into tightly confined social spaces. Sailors, for instance, were trapped below decks with each other, cold, cramped, and often unhealthy or half-starved. With no women or children, and often without much recreation or diversion, their winters were miserable tests of endurance.

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Winter created a uniquely northern social world, one marked by isolation and loneliness, by a struggle to survive and hang on until spring, by a fear of cold and snow, and by outbursts of what writers called "cabin fever."8 Expedition commanders who were aware of this problem arranged activities for their crews: plays, lessons of various kinds, and busy-work around the ship were offered as an antidote to the mind-numbing boredom of winter captivity. In the scattered settlements, the presence of fur traders, missionaries, and Mounted Police officers provided a wider social sphere, though one which was closed to indigenous people. Along the gold-bearing creeks of the Yukon, where miners lived uncomfortable lives searching for the strike that would bring both wealth and escape from the North, men lived alone or in pairs, working so hard that they rarely took time to protect themselves socially from the dreariness of winter. Some newcomers did adapt to winter, adopting indigenous clothing and learning to adjust to the seasonal rhythms. But for the most part, people who lived in the North did so only temporarily, so few felt the need to make the necessary adaptations. Most who came to the North brought southern things with them, so that in Canada some northern towns look like transplanted southern towns (especially the ones built for non-Native rather than indigenous people), the houses, community plans, and public buildings just like those of southern communities. Few newcomers opted to live with the indigenous people, or to live as they lived, nor was there much effort expended to develop housing or other technologies that were specifically meant for northern settings. The goal of newcomers was not to adapt to the North, but by the use of technological superiority or the expenditure of a great deal of money, to conquer the North and make it irrelevant to them. However, as many found out, it was possible to keep winter outside the house, but it was not possible to escape it. The main impact of winter on the non-indigenous society of the Canadian North was the creation of a seasonal order, a way of life geared to seasonal dictates in a manner that did not exist in the south. The North had its seasonal rituals: freeze-up in the fall, the spring break-up, the preparation of stacks of firewood and supplies of food for the long cold season. Until the advent of bush planes in the 19305, northern transportation was locked into the dictates of winter. In the spring, rivers opened, bringing food, supplies, and workers to northern communities. Along the Arctic coast, the movement of ice made ocean navigation possible, or, if it failed to move, impossible. In some sectors, particularly the mining industry in the Yukon, winter 30

Coates & Morrison WINTER AND THE SHAPING OF NORTHERN HISTORY

imposed limits on work, since it was impossible to carry out dredging and hydraulic operations in the winter. Winter therefore created a seasonally transient society in parts of the Canadian North. Workers in several industrial sectors came north only for the summer, and left again in the fall. This was particularly true of the Yukon gold sector, but it was also true of the men who operated the river steamboat service. Even the Yukon's two judges took turns living "outside" in the winter, and eventually they came north only in the summertime; trials waited until the ice left the river. Fur traders, missionaries, and police officers were compelled by the nature of their work to spend the whole year in the North, and some truly came to appreciate the region. A few fell in love with the North, and spent the rest of their lives there. Others, particularly Roman Catholic priests, were assigned to northern missionary work, learned the indigenous language, and spent decades working with the First Nations. The missionaries belonging to other denominations, however, often served in the North with one ear cocked for a call to a church in kinder climates, and some stayed barely long enough to learn a few words of the unfamiliar languages. For many northerners, northern work was not a permanent choice, and they left for the south after a year or two. These two forms of transiency—seasonal movements between north and south to capitalize on summer work or business opportunities, and the mobility of short-time northern residents—became the dominant features of non-indigenous life in the North, and they remain so to this day. Winter, then, created social instability and flux, with all of the political, cultural, social, and economic implications associated with movement of this type. Many people who were assumed to be longterm northerners spent a good part of each year—half or more—in the South, and organized their lives so as to avoid most of the northern winter. When in October 1918 the Canadian Pacific steamer Princess Sophia sank near Juneau, Alaska, killing all 354 people on board, the subsequent class action suit (which was ultimately unsuccessful) against the company required that a biography of each victim be drawn up. It was discovered that many long-term residents of the North, people who had considered themselves northerners for up to twenty years, had spent every June but few or no Januarys in the region, preferring to winter in Victoria or Seattle.9 Northern Canada until quite recently attracted only a few permanent non-indigenous settlers, and of those a good number married into the indigenous population. The result was that the majority nonindigenous population had little vision of the future of the region and 31

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little commitment to building a permanent society, and indeed lived in a society which had little stability. In contrast, the indigenous people retained their commitment to the region, providing much of what continuity it possessed. It was in this way that winter set the parameters for northern society; its non-indigenous population was characterized by seasonality, impermanence, and a lack of commitment to the region. The pattern, established in the early days, of "making a killing, not a living" became a hallmark of the regional order. To be sure, there were always visionaries and northern promoters who saw through the ice and cold, believing that the North had a grand future as the source of Canada's future prosperity, and indeed the wellspring of the country's identity. One such man, both visionary and promoter, was Vilhjalmur Stefansson (1879-1962), the Canadian-born Arctic explorer and entrepreneur. Stefansson embraced the North with a passion, falling in love with it on his first trip there as a member of a 1906 expedition to the Beaufort Sea. Stefansson's fame rested on his accomplishments as an explorer and also on his genius for publicity and self-promotion. Those who came to the North in his era and later seem to have regarded it either as a horrible place to flee from at the first opportunity or to endure as a martyrdom, or else they found it the best place in the world. Stefansson was in the latter category, though his enthusiasm sometimes led him astray. At one point after his second (1908) expedition, he announced that he had found the Inuit of Victoria Island to have lighter complexions and hair than other Inuit, and speculated that they might be descendants of the lost Norse of Greenland. The press announced that Canada had a race of "blond Eskimos," a story which Stefansson never lived down, and which brought him a good deal of animosity from academic anthropologists, who resented his brashness and envied his fame. One of his books, The Friendly Arctic, the story of five years in Polar regions, painted a picture of a benign, accessible land, posing no danger to the hardy and the intelligent. Many ridiculed Stefansson's vision, and it is true that he was lucky as well as determined, and that some of his wilder schemes for the North—a commercial reindeer herd, and the acquisition of Wrangel Island, north of Siberia, for Canada—were abject failures. He was in fact morally responsible for the deaths of a number of men who participated in his Wrangel Island scheme. Still, he did find a receptive audience, though more in the United States than in Canada. His most visionary book, The Northward Course of Empire,11 offered a dream of the peopling and development of the Arctic and sub-Arctic,

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presenting this idea as not only practical, but inevitable. Stefansson rejoiced in the North, and in winter. The region and its climate provided him with a career, with professional and personal fulfilment. After the Canadian Arctic Expedition of 1913-18, which was the high point of his career, he spent the rest of his long life as an advisor to government, not to the Canadian authorities, who shunned him, but to the US army. He ended his days as resident sage at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, where he taught undergraduates how to make igloos on the campus. But few Canadians shared his vision of the North as a "Polar Mediterranean," to quote one of his more imaginative slogans. Winter in southern Canada was enough for them, and most recoiled at the thought of living in the frozen reaches of the true North. The past half-century has witnessed some dramatic changes in northern living. Affluence and technological innovation rather than changing attitudes have provided the means of combatting the most severe disadvantages of northern life. Improvements in transportation technology, particularly air travel and coastal shipping, have made it possible to move more goods into the Canadian North, and at a faster rate. Scheduled air service has made it easy to go north, and also to flee the region, at will; no longer do people stand on the river banks watching the last ship depart for the south, as they did in the central Yukon until 1940, knowing that they were imprisoned in the North for the next six months. Improved housing design, including the development of effective insulation, triple-paned windows, more efficient furnaces, and the like, have made northern housing more comfortable, though housing still mirrors southern designs. Modern affluence has resulted in the provision of much better facilities, including schools, stores, and recreational complexes, that have significantly reduced the difference between northern and southern living. Many northerners and other Canadians are wealthy enough to repeat the historical migrations, but now do so as "snowbirds," travelling on holiday or even for most of the winter in southern climates. The Canadian Snowbirds Association claims that there are 800,000 Canadians who spend at least one month of every winter in the southern United States. It is clear then that one popular method of adaptation to winter is simply to flee from it. New communications technologies have tied the North into the national and international worlds: the satellite telephones that Inuit carry with them when they take their snowmobiles out on the land, the television networks that bring fifty channels into some of the most remote communities in the world. The isolation of the North is no more. 33

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In the present day, substantial strides have been taken toward defeating winter in the Canadian North, or at least in taming it. Northern non-indigenous residents earn wages that are higher than the national average, and enjoy, for the most part, a prosperous lifestyle. If their reason for living in the North ends, as for instance with the closure of a mine, they usually leave. It is money and job opportunities that draw most people to the North, not the lure of the region itself, though for a significant minority the opposite is true. For those who remain in the North throughout the winter—and, as in the past, not all do—technology has created a southern world in an Arctic and sub-Arctic setting. The residents of the new North are better positioned to enjoy the beauty of the land and the opportunities for recreation and outdoor activity, knowing that they can retreat to the comfort of an artificial environment. It is too much to say that winter has been totally defeated; in fact one might claim that it is in many ways as challenging as ever. Occasional storms, such as the ice storm that devastated Eastern Canada in January 1998, remind us that all of Canada, not just the North, is a northern country where winter can kill. Winter still shapes economic activity, determines the movements of much of the population, and thus influences the core of our society. The contrast with the northern experience of the nineteenth century, however, is striking. Northerners then were constantly at the mercy of the elements, dependent on indigenous technology for survival, if they had the sense to adopt it. Now they do not need it, in fact, and increasingly the indigenous population has become dependent on the introduced technology. Where then does winter fit in the history and the future of the Canadian North? Canadians tend to be an anxious people, lacking in self-confidence, and have long debated the nature and meaning of being a Canadian, striving earnestly, and perhaps tiresomely, to discover the "Canadian identity." For some, the North and winter have held the key to the Canadian character, either because they see it shaping the very fabric of our life, or because our rejection of the North and winter is a classic indication of our national inability to develop that which is most important to our past and future. It is clear that winter has played a major role in shaping human society in the Canadian North, and by extension, in all of Canada. In the broadest of senses, winter was a dominant limiting factor, along with distance, isolation, and the absence of agriculture, in the development of the North. But what is lacking here is an understanding of the

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nuances, the exceptions, and the specific patterns relating to human adaptation to winter. Historians will learn more when they begin to explore the individual response to winter, to consider the reaction to winter within the various segments of northern culture—fur traders, whalers, police, missionaries, miners, government officials, transportation workers— and to examine how technological and social change affected the ability of indigenous people to cope with winter. The historical experience of other northern countries, where indigenous and nonindigenous people mingled over time, will provide a vital comparative dimension to this question, and will provide an opportunity to consider the degree to which the Canadian pattern of northern and winter activities is unique to this country. The writing of northern history, as with many other fields of inquiry, remains wedded to notions of national exceptionalism. We seek to describe what is Canadian about the Canadian North, rather than trying to describe what is northern about most of Canada. Historians of the Arctic and sub-Arctic around the world work in areas that share a common element: the experience of winter and the reality of the northern environment. The comparative study of winter provides a unique and important opportunity for northern scholars to consider one of the key elements in the shaping of northern society while at the same time examining the degree to which national and regional adaptations stand apart from a more general pattern of the southern occupation of the North. Winter has shaped and influenced northern societies throughout history. Canadian artists and writers have played with the love/hate dichotomy that has long characterized national attempts to understand the North. But the basic facts have not changed. Despite technology, mid-winter temperatures are just as cold, the blizzards just as dangerous, the aurora borealis just as beautiful, and the season just as long as when the ancestors of the Inuit first set foot on this land. The ability to escape winter by fleeing inward to modern buildings or by flying to Hawaii has changed but not eliminated the effect of winter on northern life. As we continue the task of exploring the historical reality of winter in the Canadian and Circumpolar world, we may hope to come closer to understanding the social adaptations to environment that stand at the centre of northern experience. In the process, and by highlighting the role of winter in the history of the North, we can capture the reality of the harshest season and better explain the significance of winter in the shaping of northern history.

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CHAPTER TWO

A Very Long Journey: Distance and Northern History BillWaiser1

On April 14, 1999, the Toronto Globe and Mail carried a letter in which an irate reader accused Canada's so-called "national newspaper" of striking another blow in the war to alienate Northern Ontario from the rest of the province. "In your feature," Stephen Chase of Thunder Bay scolded, "Sandy Lake Reserve, the birthplace and early home of Norval Morrisseau, is described as being 'near Thunder Bay.' If you check your atlas, you will find that this is like saying Toronto is near New York City. The distances are about the same."2 Chase had good reason to be annoyed. But this general ignorance about the North, let alone the distances to and within the region, is really nothing new. Take a look at the weather map in the daily newspaper in most Canadian cities, such as the Saskatoon Star Phoenix, and you'll discover that the North has been deliberately excised in favour of the entire continental United States. Most Canadians probably don't even notice or, for that matter, care; after all, seventy-five per cent of Canada's population lives south of the 48th parallel. This "distance" between the North and the Canadian consciousness was regarded by the late W.L. Morton as a contradiction in Canada's history. Dismayed by the growing continentalism of the postwar period and determined to assert our identity as a separate North American people, Morton began to argue that the North was the formative influence in Canada's national development. In his 1960 presidential address to the Canadian Historical Association, for example, he observed that "Canada is a northern country with ... a northern way of life and a northern destiny."3 This idea also informed his 1961 collection of essays on The Canadian Identity. But his most insistent—some might argue controversial—comments about Canada's northern character were delivered at a 1969 symposium sponsored by 37

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the Royal Society of Canada on the influence of climate on Canadian culture. "Any satisfactory interpretation of Canadian history," he announced, "must include the influence of the 'North' on Canadian history."4 Bill Morton's interest in northern history at the height of his career was neither accidental nor superficial. Rather, according to intellectual historian Carl Berger, it was "a logical outgrowth of his tendency to see national developments from regional perspectives There were strong continuities ... between his 'western' and 'national' studies."5 These continuities included a profound interest in the concept of distance and the crucial role that it played in prairie history, especially during what he identified as the "colonial phase" when aggrieved westerners in the latter part of the nineteenth century had to contend with a distant and seemingly insensitive federal government.6 In fact, when Morton lectured about the beginnings of western agrarian protest during his days as Vanier Professor of Canadian History at Trent University in the early 19708, he spoke of "the tyranny of distance" in an effort to make undergraduate students better understand and appreciate the conditions and difficulties of the western frontier. He also employed the same analytical concept when he was called upon to lecture about Canada's North in Trent's fledgling Canadian Studies program. For Morton, the parallels between the West and the North were striking and undeniable—and distance was one of the defining features of both regions. Distance is both a physical reality and a state of mind, what one Australian historian has described as a "two-handed sword."7 There are the hard facts of distance: the miles or kilometres, both square and linear. Canada's North, in this respect, has been amply endowed. The total area of Arctic Canada (3.9 million square kilometres) represents almost forty per cent of Canada's land mass, while the length of the Arctic coastline (over 160,000 kilometres) constitutes two-thirds of the longest coastline in the world. The Arctic archipelago, transferred to Canada from Great Britain in 1880, is four-fifths of a million square kilometres in area—one and a half times the size of any one of the three prairie provinces. Baffin Island, where Elizabethan mariner Martin Frobisher thought that he had discovered gold, is twice as big as the United Kingdom. Hudson Bay, on the other hand, is almost half the size of the Mediterranean; it is little wonder, then, that early explorers entering the inland sea thought that they had found the passage to the Orient. Then, there are the distances to and within the region. A flight from Yellowknife to Ottawa is equivalent to a trip from Paris to Cairo, while Whitehorse to Ottawa is the same distance

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Vfoiser A VERY LONG JOURNEY: DISTANCE AND NORTHERN HISTORY

travelled by an Edmontonian on a winter vacation to Cuba. Iqaluit, until recently, was governed from Yellowknife—the same distance as from Ottawa to Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, where regional unrest was concentrated at the time of the 1885 North-West Rebellion. The distance from Iqaluit to Ottawa is little shorter—it is comparable to the distance covered by Napoleon and then Hitler on their illfitted marches on the Russian capital. It should be emphasized, however, that these statistical comparisons deal with the macro level, and that isolation at the regional or local level is more pronounced and therefore more challenging. Certainly, Quebec geographer Louis-Edmond Hamelin recognized it as such in his award-winning study, Canadian Nordidty, in which he identified accessibility (other than by airplane) as one of the ten variables in his "valeur polaire" index used to measure a community's nordicity.8 Distance is also a mental construct. The most obvious examples are "inside" and "outside," the terms used by northerners for coming in or gping out of the North. For non-northerners, though, there is also the idea of "conceptual distance,"9 what W.H. New describes in his book Land Sliding as the distance between the land and the observer. When Euro-Canadian fur traders first encountered the open, treeless prairies, for example, they did not know how to make sense of the grasslands and dismissed the region as barren, arid, or sterile. In other words, when the European sense of dimension and appearance was applied to unfamiliar landscape, it was found wanting. The same phenomenon occurred in northern Canada. Because the arctic landscape was "beyond the limits of European standards both of propriety and design,"10 non-northerners felt distanced from the environment and described what they saw, or more correctly, what they thought they saw, based on the cultural norms of their day. The northern landscape consequently became a "verbal territory as well as a physical one,"11 and distance was a crucial part of both images. Nor was distance something that was fixed in time. Observers spoke glowingly of the "distant" future, when the great northland would be made productive and support a thriving population.12 Although distance is regularly mentioned in historical studies, it is usually restricted to a few pages in an introductory paragraph or chapter and has enjoyed limited use as an analytical tool. Interestingly, much of the early work on the role of distance was done by scholars in Australia and New Zealand. In 1960, the University of Auckland hosted a series of lectures by various specialists on the impact of remoteness on New Zealand's natural and human history; the papers were later published as Distance Looks Our 39

NORTHERN VISIONS

Way, most noteworthy for its description of New Zealand society as "last, loneliest, most loyal."13 The more famous and influential study was Geoffrey Blainey's The Tyranny of Distance: How Distance Shaped Australia's History. Dividing the continent's history into two parts, "Destiny and Distance" and "The Taming of the Distance," Blainey ably demonstrated why distance was one of the determining factors in Australia's history. "Distance itself may not explain why they [events] happened," he argued, "but it forces a search for new explanations."14 For Blainey, evaluating the impact of distance was not a simple case of geographical determinism. It was not only geography that was an issue in his classical work, but the way in which Australians constructed the meaning of their geography. Australians, for example, not only experienced isolation from Britain; they also made that experience their own, internalized it as part of their identity, and acted according to their understanding of it. As Blainey aptly observed, "Distance has been tamed more quickly on the map than in the mind."15 The concept of distance has also figured in some of the historical writing on nineteenth-century imperialism. In The Culture of Time and Space, 1880-1918, Stephen Kern explained how the diminution of distance was seen by some as leading to a growing sense of community and unity in the world; others, however, predicted that shrinking distances would lead to growing international conflict, as evidenced by the scramble for Africa.16 Daniel Headrick drew similar links between distance and technology in his two books, The Tools of Empire and The Tentacles of Progress. Distance was one of the major obstacles to securing and maintaining overseas empires, but technological advances not only made conquest of remote lands and their people possible, but facilitated and stabilized linkages between isolated regions and colonial powers. What railways carried, for example, was less important than what they stood for.17 Canadian scholars, especially those studying remote regions, have also grappled with distance and its implications, both real and imagined. A few examples must suffice. In a 1994 essay in The Northern Review, Ken Coates proposed a conceptual framework for the study of northern/remote regions, in which he identified distance as one of the four major themes that need to be addressed in future work in the field.18 Yet in much of his own writing on the North, Coates (with William Morrison) has devoted more attention to the issue of transiency, a concept that is not necessarily related to distance. Geoff Weller has also emphasized the pivotal role of remoteness in his examination of Canada's provincial norths and proposed that many of the

40

Waiser A VERY LONG JOURNEY: DISTANCE AND NORTHERN HISTORY problems of the region must be viewed through the lens of distance.19 Perhaps the most provocative work is Cole Harris's recent essay collection, The Resettlement of British Columbia. In a chapter entitled "The Struggle with Distance," Harris suggests that the post-contact history of British Columbia is essentially the story of the battle against distance. Because of the problems of access imposed by British Columbia's rugged terrain, the outside world was effectively excluded from the interior. It was only when the barrier of distance was breached that newcomers could take possession of the land, albeit gradually, and impose their ways. That is why white society devoted so much energy and expense to subduing distance. "The conquest of distance," Harris explained, "was at once a central motor of colonization ... and of modernization."20 The concept of distance holds perhaps even greater promise as an analytical tool for northern history. By examining different aspects of the region's history from the perspective of distance (or remoteness or isolation), scholars will be able to offer some fresh insight into some of the major themes, events, or issues in northern history, as well as help make sense of northern traditions, peculiarities, and grievances. Indeed, the role of distance in shaping and defining the history of northern Canada—as both a negative factor and creative force— needs to be considered in a more comprehensive fashion; distance is not a one-dimensional factor. Some examples might be instructive. The Norse were the first known Europeans to attempt to colonize eastern North America a millennium ago. Surviving archaeological evidence indicates that the Norse were active not only in Greenland, but that their presence extended south to Newfoundland and Labrador and west to Baffin Island and possibly Ellesmere Island. Scholars have been intrigued by the fact that the Norse did not persist in their efforts to colonize North America further, especially when they had successfully settled an equally-forbidding landscape in Iceland. Alfred Crosby, in Ecological Imperialism, blamed distance. "Because it [North America] was too far away," he noted, "they could reach it, but not grasp it."21 The Russian American Company encountered the same problem on the other side of the continent in the early nineteenth century. Although the company enjoyed monopoly trade privileges and readily exploited the rich sea otter population of the Bering Sea, it languished because the supply line between St. Petersburg and the Alaskan colonies was over 16,000 kilometres long. Distances in both cases, then, acted like an elastic tether that had been stretched to its limit. The 1845 Franklin expedition tried to free itself from this kind of constraint—thumbing its 41

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nose at distance—by carrying its world aboard ship and downplaying the need for any land support. But when the party went missing, the British Admiralty was confronted with a problem made worse by distance—trying to find a single point in the vast Arctic expanse. Northern resource exploitation activities had similar problems with distance. The Hudson's Bay Company was faced with a huge problem of geography in the Canadian sub-arctic, especially in bringing the trade of the Yukon River basin into its trade network in the mid-nineteenth century. The company had to coordinate travel over long distances and at the same time ensure that the trade turned a profit. In the end, the company had to settle for a seven-year cycle between the time of purchase of trade goods in London and the time the furs traded for those goods were sold on the London market.22 Clearly, HBC operations were based on different concepts of space and time: what was a reasonable distance to carry on the trade and what was a reasonable amount of time to travel the distance. Arctic whalers, meanwhile, tried to overcome the distance to and from the whaling grounds by wintering over in Hudson Bay or on Herschel Island off the Yukon coast. This practice not only enabled whaling ships to increase their catch, but more importantly resulted in a unique set of relationships between the mostly-American whalers and the local Aboriginal population. The fact that this activity was carried out in a distant part of the North also meant that it was beyond the consciousness, if not the reach, of the Canadian state. Not so for disease: the new diseases carried by the whalers quickly infected hundreds of vulnerable Inuit, including those who had never come into direct contact with the kabloona. Distance was also seen as a positive factor, especially when it came to expanding the boundaries of the young Dominion after Confederation. When Canada grew seven times in size with the acquisition of Rupert's Land and the Northwestern Territory in 1870, federal politicians described the vast region as Canada's natural frontier, as the means to greatness. Similar sentiments about Canada's continental destiny were expressed a decade later when the British claim to the Arctic archipelago was transferred to Canada. The fact that the imperial order-in-council did not specify the geographical limits of the islands did not matter; in fact, it was probably a good thing. According to Stephen Kern in The Culture of Time and Space, distance in the late Victorian era was equated with bigness and the values of freedom, prosperity, and security.23 What better protection could Canada ask for on a continent dominated by the United States? Canada's northern inheritance, with its unfathomable distances, 42

Waiser A VERY LONG JOURNEY: DISTANCE AND NORTHERN HISTORY

meant that the Dominion's future was limited only by the lack of imagination. The story of the Klondike Gold Rush and the emergence of Dawson City also revolves around distance. Outside perceptions of the Yukon at the time of the gold discovery, including the location and richness of the find, were compounded by distance. In fact, it could be argued that many a Klondike myth—such as the popular image of Dawson as a wild and woolly mining community—was a creation of distance. Getting to the isolated goldfields was also a formidable challenge. Just ask NWMP Inspector J.D. Moodie, who spent 14 months investigating the "back door" route from Edmonton, only to arrive at Dawson City after the rush was over. Then there was the distance between the miners and the Aboriginal population— a situation that led to displacement, marginalization, and, in one instance, murder, as documented in an oral account collected by anthropologist Julie Cruikshank.24 One of the most intriguing aspects of the gold rush experience, however, is how Dawson City defied distance. Well-to-do newcomers in the early twentieth century tried to recreate the best features of Edwardian society—with its social clubs, formal balls, and "at homes"—at the junction of the Yukon and Klondike rivers. Laura Berton, for example, was initially surprised to learn that a good evening gown was an essential part of a woman's wardrobe in Dawson.25 Newspapers, in the meantime, fought a circulation battle over coverage of the Spanish-American War. And in an effort to make the surrounding landscape feel more like home, familiar English place names were given to geographical features. Cruikshank has likened this process to spreading graffiti on the land.26 All of these examples, it will be noted, deal with the pre-twentieth-century North. Some might argue that with the advent of distance-diminishing technologies, especially since World War II, distance has been effectively tamed. Others might suggest that time has replaced distance as a measure of inconvenience today in the North. That extra hour spent waiting at the Whitehorse airport is now seen as an annoyance, even though one can travel further in a day than was possible in a month a century ago. Distance is a long way, though, from being conquered in northern Canada and remains a force to be reckoned with. Nunavut, for example, is able to operate a decentralized government and involve as many Inuit as possible in the administration of the new territory only because of a communications network based on the Anik El satellite—and at a cost of almost 200 times more than sending a message over land lines in southern Canada.27 Distance to markets also remains a disincentive to

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the development of diversified northern economies. Instead, the territories rely primarily on abnormally large or rich resource deposits that make the costs of extraction and transportation financially feasible, but are still nonetheless vulnerable to wide price fluctuations on the international market. No, distance is an everyday fact of northern life and the compression of the time-space equation has done little to nullify its impact. The biggest challenge today for people working in the field of northern history is the apparent distance that exists between northerners and non-northerners—as evidenced by the exchanges in the fall of 1998 on the internet discussion group called H-Canada about plans for a workshop on northern history to be held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Canadian Historical Association. Northern researchers raised questions about who is best qualified to speak about the nature and place of northern history, and took issue with the location of the workshop in Sherbrooke, Quebec. It seems as if the strong sense of colonialism and paternalism that has fuelled northern political evolution in recent decades has spilled over into the research, writing, and promotion of northern history. This development is disheartening and potentially divisive. Northern history, despite the promising work in the field over the past few years, continues to be ignored as part of Canada's national story. If the trend is to be reversed—if northern history is to be considered as part of our national history—then northern historians, wherever they might be based, must work together to ensure a broader public understanding of that northern history within Canada and the wider world. We need to be sensitive to the view of the North, from both inside and outside, and ensure that the defining features of northern Canada, such as distance, are used as analytical tools to force a reconsideration of standard interpretations about the region and its history. We need to exchange ideas and challenge one another, but also encourage work in the field to produce a more sophisticated and detailed understanding of Canada's North. As one of the contributors to the H-Canada discussion observed, who is doing the writing of northern history is less important than who is listening and learning from the work. That is the real problem of distance facing northern historians. And unless we try to lessen the distance between our work and our audience, it will be a very long journey.

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CHAPTER THREE

Parks Canada and the Commemoration of the North: History and Heritage David Neufeld

Every human group holds a set of intellectual tools based upon the experience and example of its forebears to guide relations within itself and with the wider world. This counsel from the past plays a dual function. First, it provides members with a sense of group identity and articulates a set of values that help individuals to live a fulfilling life. This set of values has been described as heritage. Second, it provides members with the skills to enable more effective interaction with the surrounding environment and larger society. This capability is drawn from what we know as history.1 To preserve these beliefs and to ensure they live into the future, communities develop a host of resilient activities, rituals, and ceremonies that become embedded in language, institutions, and place. The preservation and representation of these beliefs are central features of cultural reproduction. Modern societies often consider that it is the responsibility of good government to support this cultural reproduction through, among other things, programs to commemorate places and events that are deemed significant. The government of Canada has used various commemoration programs to both develop and sustain a national identity and to foster regional cultural identities. In meeting the need for commemoration, the Canadian government began establishing national parks in the late nineteenth century to emphasize the geographic heritage of place. By the early twentieth century, as protection was extended beyond scenic wonders to historic places, the politics involved in the process of defining sites became increasingly problematic. The Historic Sites and Monuments Board (HSMBC), an appointed body of regional experts, was established in 1919 to consider and recommend sites, events, and people for the government's recognition. Since that time, this advisory body has tried to balance the needs of politics and bureaucratic stewardship to find the 45

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right balance of history and heritage. Not surprisingly, the question of what beliefs should be represented and by whom has changed over the eighty years since the establishment of the Board. What exactly should the balance be between history and heritage? Certainly, both history and heritage have always been integral components of the national commemoration program. Parks Canada has made an important contribution to the process through providing historical research that has been used to identify the relationships between the site and the larger community and to explain these to visitors. In order to establish whether something is historically significant, an understanding of the role of the different forces that shaped Canada is required. At Parks Canada, professional researchers utilize a range of archival and community sources to produce an explanation of what has happened and how things came to be.2 However, historic site designation also has to contend with the place of heritage. Largely unattainable by traditional methods of historic research, but equally important to a designated place, is the process of determining the heritage values associated with that place. Groups embrace and celebrate their past for the contribution it makes to their group coherence and identity. The responsibility for the articulation of these values rests with the group, and is often restricted to the group. Historian David Lowenthal emphasizes that herein lies the distinctive character of heritage: "Heritage passes on exclusive myths of origin and continuance, endowing a select group with prestige and common purpose ... heritage is diminished and despoiled by export."3 While not visible to the public, and often not even an explicit part of the national commemoration process, the overall direction and purpose of the national historic sites program have been shaped largely by distinctive voices proclaiming their heritage. In its representation of Canada's North there has been a dynamism in the National Historic Sites Program as history and heritage are used to determine the purpose of a site. In the past, history in the North was often used as an extension of southern ideas of what Canada is and how the North has contributed to this vision. It is only in the last few decades that a distinctly northern heritage voice has been able to make effective and meaningful contributions to the national discussion on the North. There has been a broader recognition of the North as another region in the country with its own sense of identity and its own view of how things came to be. The development of the national historic sites commemoration program in the North has been driven by two main objectives. First is the fostering of a national understanding of our history: how the 46

Neufeld PARKS CANADA AND THE COMMEMORATION OF THE NORTH

place, person, or event has shaped the present. Through a public representation of the past, site visitors are asked to acknowledge and respect those who made a contribution to the nation. A second objective, however, is the community's private desire to forward community values and models which they use to guide their lives to their children and grandchildren. Historical research serves a useful purpose in the commemoration of historic sites only insofar as it contributes to both these ends. The Players in National Commemoration In considering the contribution of the national commemoration program to Canadians' understanding of northern history and heritage, we need to know about the players involved. The Parks Canada program of historic site commemoration originated before World War I. The Dominion Parks Branch, a part of the Department of the Interior, was initially charged to protect some of the splendours of the western mountains. Rocky Mountains Park (later expanded and now known as Banff National Park) was established in 1887 and sev~ eral other park reserves in the region followed soon after.4 By the first decade of the new century, the Branch was interested in gaining more popular support for its work and sought ways of reaching out of the West to the more populous East. A program of new national parks (featuring the geographic national heritage) in the east was deemed too expensive and difficult to attempt. Instead the Branch suggested the establishment of parks to commemorate history throughout eastern Canada.5 At the same time there was a growing historical consciousness amongst eastern Canadians, expressed by a demand that the government provide support to regional initiatives for the presentation of national history and the preservation of selected historic sites. Activists in Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritimes were especially prominent in demanding action. As a result of direct popular action, the Parks Branch acquired Fort Chambly in Quebec and Fort Anne in New Brunswick as national park properties.6 To control the growing regional political pressure for action and to facilitate the Parks Branch's desire to reach into the East, the government proposed a formal process to identify and preserve Canadian heritage. Though delayed by the war, the Historic Sites and Monuments Board was established in 1919.,7 The Board, consisting of knowledgeable individuals, was appointed to advise the minister on noteworthy aspects of Canadian history and to recommend mean-

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ingful ways of commemoration. It was also intended to serve as a politically neutral body to deal with regional pressure groups. Reflecting the political pressure for preservation and commemoration, the Board's initial membership included members only from Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. In 1923, F.W. Howay was appointed to represent British Columbia, the Board's first expansion beyond the original complement. Howay was also expected to represent western and northern Canada. Driven by a combination of nascent nationalism and a sense of cultural leadership, these members felt "commemoration served a useful patriotic function in educating citizens about common traditions."8 Not surprisingly, the common traditions commemorated in this period reflected those of the St. Lawrence Valley and the Maritimes. There was intense national pride in the postwar period. Canada had fielded a substantial military force in France and looked for some Imperial recognition of this new national status. Nevertheless, the country remained attached to its transatlantic links to Britain, and much of the Board's work in the 19205 also displayed a powerful anti-American sentiment. Sites recommended for commemoration in Ontario focused on the seminal role of the United Empire Loyalists in shaping modern Canada and its political traditions, and the militia "victories" of the War of 1812. Further east, attention was paid to the early contributions of French settlers, the battles of the French and English wars, and the contributions of the Atlantic provinces.9 Thus through its structure of regional representation, the Board remained sensitive to local heritage claims on its attention and actively promoted regional versions of Canadian national history. This dual characteristic of national and regional commemoration remains a prominent element in the Board's continuing work.10 Variations on this bicameral vision of national history caused problems, particularly when heritage and history conflicted. In the 19305 the Board stirred up controversy in Saskatchewan when it recommended an alien, that is eastern Canadian, interpretation for the commemorations of the North-West Rebellion of 1885. Identified in the early 19205, the battle sites were originally selected to represent the legitimate expansion of the Canadian state. However, the publication in 1936 of G.F.G. Stanley's regional perspective on the resistance forced a re-evaluation of the understanding of these sites in national history. The resulting furor over what national history should address led to the creation of new seats on the Board for both Manitoba and Saskatchewan in 1937 and a re-affirmation that the question of national significance would continue to be defined by

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each region of the country. The Manitoba and Saskatchewan seats were followed by Alberta in 1944 and Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island in 1950.12 From limited beginnings, the agency that administers national parks and historic sites has grown to be one of the Canadian government's single largest among the land and resource management agencies. Through its history the departments responsible for these protected areas have used the Parks Branch to forward government policy in various ways. In the initial period under the Department of the Interior (until 1936) and the Department of Mines and Resources (1936-50), the branch was too small to be much of a player in government and was largely ignored. However, the creation of the Department of Northern Affairs and Natural Resources in 1953, with its mandate to increase the emphasis on northern Canada,13 began to change the official perspective on the role of parks and historic sites. The subsequent re-organization of the department in 1966 into Indian Affairs and Northern Development reflected the growing government concern with northern matters. From the early 19505 there was increasing public interest in the value and possibilities of northern Canada. Canadians were growing tired of a history that was concerned only with Canadian links to European wars, and were looking for a history that emphasized Canadian distinctiveness and independence. The North was perceived as an area without a past and hence a major contributor to what made Canada distinct. Furthermore, as the 19505 boomed, the North was increasingly seen as the country's economic future, a place just waiting for an aggressive program of resource development. The stunning victory of John Diefenbaker's Conservatives in 1958 was built partially upon his promotion of a "northern vision" for Canada. Gordon Robertson, deputy minister of Northern Affairs and Natural Resources, concluded a presentation in 1960 with the observation, "We own the north It belongs to us. Canadians for this reason, must look to the north to see what it is good for, to see how to use 14

it.-

In the desire to open up the North, the government not only developed a range of new policies and programs, but also made use of existing programs. The national commemoration program was drawn into the department's activities. Although there were regular warnings from Board members about the dangers of centralizing the direction of national historical commemoration,15 the department moved ahead with plans to conscript national parks and historic sites into the northern development process. History, along with minerals, 49

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water power, and timber, became one of the North's exploitable national resources. Heritage was set aside. The Federal Commemoration of Northern History How had the North been commemorated by the nation before the rise of government interest in mid-century? What themes or interests had been represented? And who had determined the history of the North? By 1955 the Historic Sites and Monuments Board had identified twenty-five northern events, people, and places deemed to be of national historic significance.16 The Historic Sites Branch acquired ownership of three of these: Prince of Wales Fort and York Factory on Hudson Bay and Fort St. James in northern British Columbia. An additional twelve sites were marked with a plaque, most at northern locations. The remainder were officially commemorated only through the minister's approval of the Board's recommendations (see Appendix i). The northern site commemorations in this period were exclusively in the Canadian Northwest. The fur trade in the northern parts of the western provinces and the various trade routes emptying into Hudson Bay accounted for ten of these. Another nine designations described voyages of exploration and discovery. Of these, five were directly related to the Northwest Passage. Another four celebrated the extension of southern administration and government into the North. Finally, individual commemorations acknowledged the work of the Oblate missionary Adrien-Gabriel Morice and the wartime partnership between Canada and the United States in the construction of the Alaska Highway. Although northerners were contacted for information on a number of these commemorations, it was the southern Board members and managers within the parks branch who identified these sites and the reasons for their importance. What is striking about this early commemorative approach to the North is how different it was from that followed in the south. In the south, the regional heritage interests were the determining factor in selecting and celebrating Canadian national history, while the North was perceived as a place where regional heritage interests were irrelevant and national visions of history could define what mattered there. The heritage values of the North were not consulted or even expected to exist. In effect, the historic sites program was utilized to explain the prominence and importance of the south exclusively.

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PARKS CANADA AND THE COMMEMORATION OF THE NORTH

To mid-century and beyond, it was the influence of professional Canadian historians and their ideas on metropolitanism and the staple theory and the imperatives of Dominion government interest that shaped the commemoration of northern history. Harold Innis's seminal work in the 19205 and 19305 that described the economic history of Canada connected the exploitation of the country's originally abundant natural resources with the importance of the transatlantic communication links back to the centre of the British Empire in England.17 His subsequent work, and that of his intellectual offspring, expanded the idea to include such other staple industries as the Atlantic cod fishery (Innis, 1940), the timber trade (Arthur Lower, 1932), and the mercantile empire of the St. Lawrence valley (Donald Creighton, 1937). All of these works focused upon the importance of the St. Lawrence as the core of the Canadian economic and political system. The resulting historiographic direction, described as the "Laurentian thesis," became the central analytical framework for the study and understanding of Canadian history until the 19605. The Laurentian thesis grew out of the primary concern of Canadian intellectuals in the first half of the century—the fixing of Canada as a distinct and organically logical country in its own right. The thesis incorporated the transcontinental transportation system of rivers, and later railways, and built upon trade and communication in defining what seemed the logical boundaries of early Canada. This approach also emphasized the importance of the major metropolitan centres of the country, all located in the St. Lawrence Valley, that extended their influence outward into the periphery of the country, knitting it into a single national entity. On the darker side, the Laurentian thesis was a distinct nationalistic reaction against the republican environmental determinism of the frontier thesis of American historian Frederick Jackson Turner. However, by emphasizing the importance of the connection to the metropolitan centre, the Laurentian thesis was anti-regional in its understanding of the country. Not surprisingly, commemorations based on this historiographic representation of the country tended to emphasize the role of the expanding centre rather than the regions themselves. The northern commemorations also served Dominion government ends. From the 18705, when the British government had transferred its claims over the Arctic to Canada, there had been periods of acute concern over national sovereignty in the North.18 This concern permeated the civil service. In the early 19205, J.B. Harkin, Director of National Parks and secretary for the HSMBC, also sat on the government's Advisory Committee on Wildlife. While negotiating 5i

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international migratory agreements, he became uneasy about the legitimacy of Canada's northern claims.19 And in 1930 when the Norwegian challenge to the ownership of the Sverdrup Islands was rebuffed, the HSMBC designated Parry's 1819 winter camp at Winter Harbour on Melville Island as a site of national historic significance, thus reinforcing Canada's Arctic claims. Four subsequent commemorations of British Arctic exploration and the search for the Northwest Passage to 1945 continued the department's use of northern historic sites as assertions of Canadian arctic sovereignty. Commemorations of the North to mid-century were largely extensions of central Canadian interests. While not a conscious denial of northern heritage, the lack of northern representation or consultation on issues of northern concern by the commemoration program effectively denied the region anything beyond a supporting role in Canadian history. In fact, the commemorations were clearly designed for the south. This pattern was cogently reinforced in early 1963 when the Historic Sites Division of the National Parks Branch reviewed a draft departmental economic development proposal for northern national parks and historic sites.20 The Division chief noted: the primary objective of the Historic Sites Division is the commemoration of history. The weight of its work is thus directed to those parts of Canada which have been settled the longest. On this scale, the Division ranks the north last. Furthermore, because it places its primary emphasis on the commemoration of sites, events, buildings and people, rather than in the commemoration of ways of life as such, it has found little reason for taking much interest in the north.

The contribution of the past to identity in the North, that is, to the heritage of its inhabitants, was similarly dismissed. The opportunity to ensure that both history and heritage were represented was being missed.

The Klondike Gold Rush After a gloriously colourful gold rush explosion at the turn of the century, by 1912 Dawson and the Klondike Goldfields had settled into the more mundane existence of a corporate mining camp. Then war cut off capital investment and postwar inflation further eroded the attractiveness of northern dredge mining. By the early 19205, the

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Dawson children on their decorated bicycles in the Discovery Day parade of 1949Yukon Archives, Lewis Billard Collection.

Klondike mining industry was in a shambles.22 The community, anxious to remain a viable entity, sought some alternatives. The experience of the gold rush remained the single, central event of history in the territory at the time. With the presence of much of the population and an economy directly associated with placer gold, it is no wonder that the discovery was of great importance. The community recognized, and celebrated, the importance of the gold rush in their lives. In 1912, the Territorial Council designated Discovery Day (August 17) as a public holiday, an affirmation of the heritage importance of the event in defining the goals of the newcomers in Yukon society. The annual Discovery Day parade in Dawson reinforced the creation of their northern society and celebrated their values of individual freedom and self-government.23 The subsequent opening of Robert Service's rustic cabin in Dawson for tourists not only reinforced the importance of this event locally, but also, through 53

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YOOPs (Yukon Order of Pioneers) organizing before their hall in Dawson for the start of the 1985 Discovery Day parade. Perre Berton, author of Klondike, is at the head of the parade carrying the YOOP flag. Parks Canada.

the popularity of Service's poetry, celebrated gold-rush history with outsiders.24 Although of limited economic value, by the early 19205 cultural tourism came to be considered a helpful supplement to the local economy. The Dawson Daily News editorialized in June 1921 under the headline "Pleasing the Tourist" that "the tourists distribute many a good dollar incidental to each day's sightseeing."25 The first Dawson tourism association, the Yukon Boosters' Association and Front Street Intelligencer League, was established the following spring. 6 To assist in the development of points of interest for visitors, acting Gold Commissioner G.I. McLean, the territory's chief administrative officer, suggested in the fall of 1925 that a bronze tablet be set in a boulder to commemorate the Klondike discovery. F.W. Howay, the British Columbia member of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board, quickly acknowledged the national historic significance of the discovery and started research for a suitable plaque inscription.27 Howay spent almost a year collecting letters from Yukon oldtimers and reviewed numerous historical sources in trying to determine who discovered the gold and where. He appears to have wandered innocently into a quagmire and was soon well aware of the difficulties and thankless nature of assigning historical credit for the

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Neufeld PARKS CANADA AND THE COMMEMORATION OF THE NORTH

Figure 1 DISCOVERY CLAIM PLAQUE TEXT UNVEILED IN 1932

To the memory of the indomitable prospectors and miners, who braving hardships, crossed over the Chilkat and Chilkoot passes into the unexplored valley of the Yukon, and thus paved the way for the discovery in 1896 of the rich gold fields with which the names Robert Henderson and George W. Carmack are inseparably connected. famous discovery. In the end, he concluded it was not possible. In preparing his plaque text, Howay decided to avoid the discovery itself and focus instead on the less troublesome, more easily described history of the exploration activity that preceded discovery. In a letter to J.B. Harkin, he reported: "We are purposely avoiding the Klondike rush of '98 and doing homage to those who pioneered the way."28 The resulting plaque was unveiled in Dawson as part of the Discovery Day celebrations of 1932 (see Figure i). Clearly, describing an historical event to define regional heritage values was not a simple matter. Although Yukon placer gold mining had enjoyed a revival of fortunes during the Depression, by the early 19505 it began a long slide to economic oblivion. In Dawson, the community again turned to its heritage resources, and the national government, as a possible avenue of salvation. George Black, the Yukon Member of Parliament, initially proposed a national commemoration plan to promote tourism, but this was rejected by the HSMBC in 1953.29 Nevertheless, growing interest in architectural preservation rising from the recommendations of the Massey Commission on Canadian culture and the arts and changing government attitudes to the North brought Yukon issues back to the attention of the Board by the end of the decade.30 In the summer of 1959, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker went on a wide northern circuit trip to seek opportunities for advancing his "Northern Vision." He was especially taken with the possibilities of rescuing Dawson, and a flurry of tourist investment and related commemorative activity followed. The Palace Grand Theatre and Robert Service's cabin in Dawson were both recommended as national historic sites by the Board and four sternwheeler river boats in Whitehorse were also acquired for preservation. Alvin Hamilton, minister of Northern Affairs, addressed the Board at its November meeting: "The Yukon, particularly areas related to the Gold Rush 55

NORTHERN V I S I O N S

Figure 2 DISCOVERY CLAIM PLAQUE TEXT UNVEILED IN 1962

Tipped off by veteran prospector Bob Henderson, George Carmack and his fishing partners, Skookum Jim and Tagish Charlie, searched the creek gravels of this area. On August 17, 1896, they found gold and staked the first four claims. A few days later at Fortymile, Carmack, in his own name, registered the Discovery Claim where this monument now stands. Within days Bonanza and Eldorado Creeks had been staked from end to end and when the news reached the outside the KLONDIKE GOLD RUSH was on. Era, have [sic] tremendous tourist potential. It is essential that a true historical picture be extracted from this image of romance and legend. The Board is asked to give this matter thought. Since this is a federally-controlled region consideration could be given to adapting municipal regulations to the needs of historical preservation." The Board obediently fell into the northern development lock step and recommended that Dawson be regarded as a "historical complex" of national historical significance.31 This, along with the coincident Dawson Festival, was the first step in a massive federal program of tourism development that inadvertently swept aside the community's own sense of itself. In Dawson, a kind of heritage guerrilla warfare resulted.32 The Dawson Festival, initiated in 1959, was an idea developed in Ottawa. Planning proceeded without any local consultation and the event was announced by the minister in March I96o.33 The key feature of the Festival was to be a major off-Broadway production, Foxie, for the Palace Grand Theatre. A number of expensive retail outlets were also persuaded to set up seasonal operations in Dawson.34 The planners, however, were frustrated in their attempts to galvanize support for the Festival in the local community. In the fall of 1961, just months before the Festival was to open, its president harangued a public meeting in Dawson, '"whether the people of Dawson want it or not, they had a Festival on their hands' ... because Pierre Berton, the Minister and the press said so."35 The Festival failed economically, but the commemoration of the gold rush continued to be the main element of Dawson's conversion to a tourist destination. Parks Canada became the lead agency to fulfill this transformation. Buildings in Dawson were purchased and

56

Neufeld PARKS CANADA AND THE COMMEMORATION OF THE NORTH Figure 3 DISCOVERY CLAIM PLAQUE TEXT APPROVED IN 1972

The names Robert Henderson, Skookum Jim, Tagish Charlie and George Carmack are inextricably linked to the discovery of gold on Bonanza Creek. Henderson was the first to systematically explore the gold bearing potential of the region, only to have the major find elude him. Then on 17 August 1896 Jim struck gold, and with Charlie and Carmack staked the first claims. A few days later at Forty Mile, Carmack in his own name registered the Discovery Claim where this monument stands. Within days Bonanza and Eldorado Creeks had been staked and when the news reached the outside the Klondike Gold Rush was on. restored, sections of the goldfields were put into federal reserves, and an interpretation program was established to present Klondike history. Parks Canada also re-opened the issue of commemorating the actual discovery of gold. On July 2, 1962, Walter Dinsdale (minister of Northern Affairs) and Klondike old-timer Harry Leamon unveiled a new plaque on what was thought to be the site of the original discovery claim (see Figure 2).36 The new plaque grasped the nettle of discovery gently by mentioning a host of people involved. However, ten years later the plaque was revised by the HSMBC, following historical research by Parks Canada, and the discovery was attributed to Keish, better known as Skookum Jim, a Tagish First Nation man (see Figure 3). There was an immediate uproar across the Yukon as people demanded respect for their history. Ken Snider, the Yukon observer at the Board meeting, protested the text vigorously and requested that the words "Jim struck gold" be removed because of the possibility of local controversy; he stated that in the opinion of the people of Yukon Territory, the Board was "tampering with history."37 Art Fry, a gold miner in the Klondike operating on Bonanza Creek, staked what he declared was the real discovery site and refused to consider any applications for commemoration by Parks Canada. In fact, Mr. Fry's will stipulated that the claim be passed on to a community group with the stipulation that Parks Canada never obtain control of it.38 While this series of events is often interpreted as just another example of a white majority wanting to keep Aboriginals out of their 57

NORTHERN VISIONS

history, a more subtle reading offers another perspective. The Yukon and Historic Sites Monuments Board, a citizens' group established in 1971 to advise the Yukon government, complained that they were tired of outside groups interpreting and making up their history: You must realize that we who live here, sometimes second and third generation, get very exasperated with professionals from the "outside" spending a few weeks in the country, reading a few books and then submitting this sort of material We might ask are we to only have two short years of the Gold Rush as our history? ... we do feel, as persons in the authentic preservation of our history, that we should be given an opportunity • • • • • 39 to participate in its preservation.

This appeal was recognized and in 1975 a Board seat for the Yukon was established.4 Associated with the Dawson commemoration was the far more expansive concept for a Klondike Gold Rush International Historic Park. Designed to promote heritage tourism in both Alaska and Yukon, joint planning between the US National Park Service and Parks Canada began in 1969.41 A year later the Canadian Provisional Development Plan stated that the "Park" was "to encompass the whole Gold Rush route between Skagway and Dawson City," including the Chilkoot Trail, the Yukon River route to Dawson and elements in Dawson and on Bonanza Creek. Joint promotion of the route and a coordinated interpretation completed the cooperative character of the project.42 A decade later, during the Parks Canada Centennial celebrations, the gold rush retained centre stage in the commemoration forum. In 1985, the Klondike Heritage Mail Run left Seattle and travelled through Skagway and down the Yukon Paver by boat. Special guests and events were laid on. One event which did not go quite as planned, however, was a dinner and overnight stay at Fort Selkirk. The Selkirk First Nation had been invited to join the group for the celebration but the band graciously declined, noting that its efforts to participate in overall planning for Fort Selkirk "had fallen on death [sic] ears. To participate at this time in ceremonies would only smack of tokenism."43 Like the miners in the goldfields, the Selkirk First Nation refused to accept the southern interpretation of its history or to compromise its interest in its heritage. With such broad local passive resistance to the national commemoration program, one may ask exactly what was being celebrated. 58

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While the gold rush was clearly part of the history of the North, the national and international commemoration of the history of this event through the 19608 and 19705 focused on national identity, rather than any regional expression of that history. On the surface, the story told of the race into the North for gold. However, a more detailed exploration of the nature of the commemoration reveals a series of more subtle themes. These include the role of inland water and rail transportation in connecting the North to the south, corporate industrial development of the North by the south, and finally, the celebration of modern urban development in the North supported by southern government forms. In fact what was being commemorated in many respects was the national industrial development dreams of the 19505 and 19605. The emphasis on commemorating the gold rush had thrown the regional identity of northern peoples into a deep shadow. The contest over meaning in historical commemoration has not been unique to Canada, of course; Americans have had similar experiences. In the summer of 1998, President Clinton opened the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Monument in Washington. The planning of the monument was never dull. For the first time, a first lady was commemorated in a presidential monument. Eleanor Roosevelt was depicted wearing her favourite coat with the fox-fur boa; the statue was modified after the loud protests of the anti-fur groups in the capital. Nor was Roosevelt himself left out of the scramble. Groups representing the disabled argued that it would be important to present the President in his wheelchair, a fact which the President himself had worked diligently to minimize and hide from public view. It seems that modern needs were superseding the image of FDR as a symbol of leadership during the near-collapse of the American economy and society in the Depression, or his place as guide while the state expanded its role in a revitalized nation. One letter-writer to the Washington Post noted, "As a monument to the 19905, I think it couldn't be better."44 Northern Aboriginal Heritage The Parks Canada operation in Dawson still struggles with its legacy of a southern vision, but it now works cooperatively with regional groups to incorporate regional visions more effectively into the notion of both regional heritage and national significance. One of the most important changes has been in dealing with Aboriginal history. Today, national historic sites in the North do not only commemo59

NORTHERN V I S I O N S Table 1 NORTHERN ABORIGINAL SITES DESIGNATED BY THE HSMBC

Original Commemorative Intent

Date

Commemorative Purpose

1956

Discovery of Coppermine River —Hearne and Matonabbee Sea Horse Gully—Dorset and Pre-Dorset remains Inukshuk group of 100 at Enusko Point Kitwanga Fort Arctic exploration and Inuit culture Herschel Island Bering-Yukon Refugium Eastern Arctic whaling industry Bloody Falls, prehistoric fishing/hunting sites Igloolik Island Kittigazuit Port Refuge Thule migration Kitwanga totem poles Ebierbing and Tookoolito, helped explorers Ipirvik and Taqulittuq, helped explorers Matonabbee, helped Hearne Peter Pitseolak Blacklead Island whaling Kekerton Island whaling Hay Paver mission sites, mission buildings, Dene community Skookum Jim Arviat and Qikiqtaarjuk Inuit summer occupation sites Fall Caribou Crossing Inuit hunting site Grizzly Bear Mountain and Scented Grass Hills (x2) Deline fishery Nagwichoonjik

1969 1969 1971 1972 1972 1976 1976 1978 1978 1978 1978 1978 1981 1981 1981 1981 1981 1985 1985 1992 1994 1995 1995 1996 1996 1997

60

culture contact archaeology archaeology archaeology culture contact culture contact archaeology shared activity archaeology archaeology archaeology archaeology archaeology ethnography culture contact culture contact culture contact artist shared activity shared activity community culture contact community community community community community

Neufeld PARKS CANADA AND THE COMMEMORATION OF THE NORTH

rate newcomers, but northern Aboriginal commemorations are fairly recent additions to the system. The first was declared only in 1956. Nearly 30 sites with a northern Aboriginal connection are currently commemorated. And while the designations have not been subject to the same departmental imperatives for development, there have been several important influences affecting their selection (see Table i). Nominations to the early 19805 (18 of the total 30) commemorated the importance of northern indigenous peoples exclusively from a newcomer or non-regional perspective. An analysis of these early commemorations illustrates three general themes: culture contact, shared activity, and archaeology. From this analysis it can be seen that history, that is, an attempt to explain why things are the way they are, was the prime determinant in the early northern Aboriginal commemorations. More recently, heritage, or the recognition of those identity components of the past, has been acknowledged in the Parks program's commemoration of Aboriginal sites. The first commemoration that noted Aboriginal presence was the designation in 1956 of Samuel Hearne's "discovery" of the Coppermine River. The role of the Chipewyan chief Matonabbee in guiding Hearne and negotiating with other northern people on Hearne's behalf was noted. Matonabbee was subsequently given his own commemoration for this assistance to Hearne in 1981. The theme of Aboriginal support for northern exploration was reinforced in the 1972 commemoration of Arctic exploration. Nine years later, specific commemorations to honour the service of two Inuit couples to northern explorers were added. The shared or cooperative nature of cross-cultural northern resource exploitation was also underscored in the 1976 commemoration of eastern Arctic whaling. In 1985, the commemoration of whaling activity was expanded by the designation of both Blacklead Island and Kekerton in Nunavut. In all of these instances, the support of indigenous peoples in the exploration of their homelands and the exploitation of northern natural resources by Euro-Canadians is being commemorated. Another set of designations in this period highlighted archaeological research into the populating of the Canadian Arctic. During the 19505 and 19605, there had been a number of studies of important culture sites and resources in northern Canada, and archaeologists complained that there was little legal protection for these important cultural resources on Crown lands. They called on the HSMBC to designate archaeological sites in the North as a form of protection for cultural sites with high research value. The identification of Dorset and pre-Dorset remains near Churchill was commemorated in 1969, 61

NORTHERN VISIONS

while the role of the Bering-Yukon Refugium and the Thule migrations in shaping Arctic populations was recognized in the late 19705. Various professionals thus protected and promoted the subjects of their work on northern history by requesting designations that would recognize their subjects' significance to the nation's history. Since the late 19805, the Historic Sites and Monuments Board and Parks Canada have reconsidered the direction of the national designation program. Several under-represented groups (including women, ethnic minorities, and Aboriginal peoples) were identified as possibly being interested in the program. In the North, an active program to support Aboriginal cultural research and foster nominations for sites was initiated. Generally the most interesting are those nominations with the most active community involvement: that is, where the community sees some heritage value in having a site designated. One notable success is Nagwichoonjik National Historic Site in the far northwestern Northwest Territories. The Gwichya Gwich'in nominated and manage the site. The Gwichya Gwich'in live in the lands at the confluence of the Teetl'it gwinjik (Peel River), Tsiigehnjik (Arctic Red River), and Nagwichoonjik (Mackenzie River). Their long presence in these lands has allowed them to construct a cultural identity intimately woven into the living landscape and maintained through the subsistence practices and life ways of the people. Their rich oral tradition describes the origins and shaping of the world, their relations with neighbouring people, and their welcoming of newcomers from far away. In addition, they have a deep environmental knowledge that rises from their intimate and detailed familiarity with their lands, the seasons, and the various animals, plants, and minerals that live with them there. Their presence on the land is marked by the remains of ancient quarries for stone tools, the sites of their fish and winter camps, and the trails that connect the extended families who continue to live there.45 Over time the Gwichya Gwich'in developed a range of activities and associations with their lands that acted as tools or methods of cultural reproduction, that is, ways of passing on their values, their skills, and their heritage to their children and grandchildren. These include the direct association of their oral history with regional landmarks, the use of place names as mnemonics, and the regular passing along of these stories to youth by the Elders in the relaxed and intimate family atmosphere of fish and winter camps. The continued use of the land and rivers for subsistence, however, has been subject to considerable change in the last 30 years. The central elements of cultural 62

Neufeld PARKS CANADA AND THE COMMEMORATION OF THE NORTH

Tools of the trade—Fish Camp on Nagwichoonjik (Mackenzie River). Parks Canada.

reproduction have frayed, as communication and transportation links to the larger world have strengthened and new forms of resource development have grown up beside the old subsistence patterns. Children do not spend as much time at camps and the Elders have lost some of their traditional roles as the people settle into larger communities with public schools and television. In the late 19805, there was growing concern amongst Gwich'in Elders and others about this apparent erosion of Gwich'in culture and language.46 In the 1992 Gwich'in Assembly, following the signing of the Gwich'in Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement, the Gwich'in Tribal Council established the Gwich'in Social & Cultural Institute (GSCI) with the mandate "To document, preserve and promote the practice of Gwich'in culture, language, traditional knowledge, and values." The principles guiding their work within the community include highlighting the important role of the Elders as teachers, protecting their lands, ensuring that knowledge of family history is kept, and recognizing the responsibility of all Gwich'in for this work. The community also acknowledges the importance of cross-cultural understanding and awareness between Gwich'in and non-Gwich'in before a better world can be built.47 The GSCI has outlined an ambitious and far-reaching program of cultural renewal that recognizes the importance of both heritage and history in the future of the Gwichya Gwich'in.

63

NORTHERN V I S I O N S

One aspect of this approach or strategy is their use of the National Historic Sites Program. Initially, the GSCI worked with the program to gain modest support for an ongoing Gwich'in oral history project. As their project progressed, the GSCI felt that a national historic site might be a useful element in education programs for their children while it would also assist in enhancing cross-cultural understanding and awareness. To this end, they established a community committee of Elders and young adults to consider what might be nominated as a site. A report on this process noted: At the outset, the Elders were uncomfortable with the idea of identifying and commemorating only one place as a national historic site. The idea that one place on the land was more important than another was considered strange as was the idea that the commemoration of Gwichya Gwich'in history and culture could be represented by a single site. "All the land is important," they said. However, they agreed to participate as they perceived this as a unique opportunity to document and promote Gwich'in culture and history at both the local and the national level. They felt strongly that this commemoration would help to educate both visitors and children in the local schools about their own history and culture. As the committee's discussions proceeded, they decided to focus on places close to the community They did this so that they could share their culture and history with visitors, yet at the same time retain control and ensure that the community would benefit. Consequently, discussions focused on the Mackenzie Paver.

The GSCI forwarded a nomination for Nagwichoonjik as a national historic site in 1997. Nagwichoonjik, "a big water flowing through a big country," creates a dramatic slash through the Gwichya Gwich'in country. Even at low water, the flow is enormous and the spring flood raises water levels by some ten to fifteen metres. The river is bounded by an almost continuous wall of high cliffs from Thunder River, some 140 kilometres upstream from Tsiigehtchic. The Lower Ramparts, just above Tsiigehtchic, rise 100 metres above low water. Below Tsiigehtchic, the land gradually flattens and at Point Separation, the cusp of the delta, the valley broadens and elevation has retreated far from the river. These cliffs are cut frequently by the many creeks draining into the river, each opening offering a place for a fish camp or a trail-head into the lakes and country beyond. 64

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Young Gwitch'in girl stalking a seagull in Nagwichoonjik National Historic Site. Parks Canada.

To the Gwichya Gwich'in, Nagwichoonjik is part of their home. The river is an avenue to their country, providing access to many of the trail-heads and family camps. It is also an important source of food, the inconnu or "connie" fish still providing a dietary mainstay. Like much of the country, the river is layered with meanings—stories tied to place and marked by place names, subsistence skill sets, family camps, and nearby, the ancestors' graves. As one writer put it, "Through the nomination, the Gwichya Gwich'in were able to satisfy their own way of looking at the land as a whole—with people, their cultures and the land intimately intertwined." Their emphasis on the identification and interpretation of sites along the river also enhances visitors' knowledge and appreciation of the Gwichya Gwich'in and their land. It appears there has been an effective integration of the national historic site program into the life of the community.49 In January 1998, Nagwichoonjik was declared a National Historic Site by the Minister of Canadian Heritage. Conclusion National historic designations play a dual role in shaping our understanding of Canada. By presenting the history of Canada and by laying out forces that have shaped the present, they provide citizens with an opportunity to consider and understand not only why things are the way they are, but also how they themselves can effect meaningful change. Also, by acting as anchors for the heritage of Canadians, these sites provide a variety of communities with a public

65

NORTHERN VISIONS

commitment to respect their values and life-ways. National historic designations reinforce the vivacity of the cultural mosaic that is our national identity. The commemoration of sites in Canada's North through this century echoes many familiar themes in Canadian history. A review of the origins of these designations also provides some interesting insights into how Canadians have viewed and understood the North in the twentieth century. There are national historic commemorations presenting the far-flung extensions of eighteenth-century European world wars, sites and plaques highlighting Euro-Canadian prowess in exploration, and celebrations of the successful exploitation of northern resources. There are sites illustrating the life of the North's earliest inhabitants. More recently, northern Aboriginal people themselves have begun to present their own stories through the national historic system. It is also interesting to see how and why the program of historical site designation has been used. Who has taken advantage of the national historic sites system and what objectives did they have? Were the national designations helpful in reaching these objectives? And how has the program evolved in response to changing expectations? The national historic designation program was initially established to extend the reach of the Dominion Parks Branch to all Canadians and to recommend to the government appropriate ways of commemorating Canada's past. With over 1700 geographically dispersed designations, historic commemorations have now reached across the country. With the gradual, if occasionally reluctant, extension of representation on the Historic Sites and Monuments Board, the system is proactively attempting to make the system more widely available to Canadians. Initially, the system was used in the North by southern Canadians to justify their vision of Canada as a northern nation. Hence, the designation system was an imperial extension of southern values and perceptions onto northern places and people. Northern exploration was celebrated as a component of national sovereignty and the Klondike gold rush was depicted as a precedent and justification for the northern development policies of the 19505 and 19608. The extension of science into the North, though more subtle, was effectively part of the same process. Archaeologists used designations as a form of protection for culture sites with high research value. Through these sites, they promoted their professional theories of northern migrations and lifeways. Nevertheless, while southerners nominated these sites, many of these designations also have value for northerners and, over time, were adapted to meet northern needs as well. 66

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More recently, northerners, and especially Aboriginal communities, are beginning to see the program as a useful tool for cultural reproduction. As northern communities evolve to meet contemporary changes, they are exploring the value of designations for their own heritage purposes. With these values foremost in their minds, they are calling on managers of northern national historic sites to provide programs for community youth, to support Elder involvement, and to develop a calendar of activities that reach out to the local community. The community priority is to identify cultural values and to pass on a sense of identity to the young. A national historic site that fails to deliver on these elements serves little purpose and will not be supported by the community. While heritage concerns are being met, the question of historical representation remains. How and where can history and heritage intersect? By presenting their history to the larger public, communities gain an acknowledgment of their existence and foster an informed respect for their interests. Thus a celebration of heritage to meet internal community needs and a presentation of history to cement positive relations with the wider world can be combined in an effective national historic site designation. The role of the public historian in mediating the complex interplay of program, participants, and audience demands both the recognized research and writing skills of the profession and an awareness of, and sensitivity to, the community's heritage interests. A Parks Canada historian must remain aware of the institution's role in presenting an accurate picture of place, person or event to the broader public, while remaining sensitive to the definitions of heritage that the community has evolved. To this end it is important for the public historian to gain a detailed background knowledge of the history that has shaped the region or people represented by the site. Without this clarity, the presentation to visitors will remain unconvincing and false and the objective of gaining wider acknowledgement and respect for the host community will have failed. At the same time the Parks Canada historian must develop a working relationship with the community. Community confidence in the process will ensure that their heritage needs are identified and enshrined in some form. The site designation program cannot fulfill all the heritage needs, but it must recognize their existence and foster the use of the designation for these purposes. It is the historian who can facilitate this conversation between program and community. It is the historian who can ensure that both history and heritage are addressed. 67

Appendix 1 NATIONAL COMMEMORATION OF HISTORY AND HERITAGE IN CANADA'S NORTH, 1920-1997 Date

Commemoration

Location

Commemorative Intent

1920

Fort Churchill

MB, Churchill

1920 1923

Prince of Wales Fort Explorations of Mackenzie

MB, Churchill BC, Prince George

1926

Yukon Gold Discovery/Claim

YT, Bonanza Creek

1929

Collins Overland Telegraph

BC, Quesnel

1930

Parry's Rock Wintering Site

NT, Winter Harbour

1932 1933

Norway House Methye Portage

MB, Norway House SK, La Loche

1936 1936

York Factory Hearne, Samuel

MB, York Factory MB, Churchill

1937

Dawson, Dr. George Mercer

NS, Pictou

1937

Simpson, Thomas

MB, Winnipeg

1938

Belcher, Sir Edward

NS, Halifax

1938

Steele, Sir Samuel

ON, Orillia

Built by Samuel Hearne, 1763, reached by rail in 1929 18th-century stone fur trade fort on Hudson Bay Discovered Mackenzie River (1789), reached Pacific overland Gold reported in 18408, expanded in 18705, rush in 1897-98 Intended link to Europe and America via Russia, abandoned 1867 Wintering site of William Parry's expedition of the Northwest Passage, 1819 Major 19th-century Hudson's Bay Company post Only practical link from east to Athabasca region, 1778-1820 HBC principal fur trade depot from 1684-18708 Explorer, Coppermine River; Governor, Fort Prince of Wales, 1745-92 Director of the Geological Survey of Canada, 18491901 Arctic explorer, charted the western Arctic coast, 1808-40 Canadian-born naval officer and surveyor; led Franklin search 1799-1877 Soldier, Superintendent of NWMP (1885-1903), 1849-1919

1943 1945 1948

First eastward Northwest Passage Franklin, Sir John Morice, Adrien-Gabriel, OMI

NT, Beechey Island BC, Fort St. James?

1948

Ross, James Hamilton

SK, Regina

1948 1951

Fort St. James Pond, Peter

BC, Fort St. James SK, Prince Albert

1953 1953

Fort Reliance Fidler, Peter

NT, Reliance SK, Meadowlake

1954

Alaska Highway i

YT, Soldiers Summit

1954

Alaska Highway n

BC, Contact Creek

1954 1956

SK, Ile-a-la-Crosse NT, ?

1957

Ile-a-la-Crosse Discovery of Coppermine River Frobisher, Sir Martin

NT, Iqaluit

1957 1959

Moose Factory Buildings Dawson Historical Complex

ON, Moose Factory YT, Dawson

1960

Bush Pilots of Canada

NT, Yellowknife

1961

Bernier, Capt. Joseph-Elzear

QC, L'Islet

SK, Regina

Arctic voyage of the St. Koch, Vancouver to West Sydney, 1940-42 Explorer, charted Arctic coast, lost in 1845, 1786-1847 Oblate missionary in northern BC, Athapaskan dictionary, 1859-1938 Member, North-West Council, Commission of Yukon, 1856-1932 1806 fur trade post founded by Simon Fraser Explorer and fur trader, one of NWCo founders, 1740-1807 Oldest continuously operating HBC post, 1833 HBC trader on Saskatchewan and Churchill rivers, 1769-1822 Joint US-Canada defence project, 1941-43, Dawson Creek to Fairbanks Joint US-Canada defence project, 1941-43, Dawson Creek to Fairbanks HBC fur trade site Samuel Hearne and Matonabbee, overland from Prince of Wales Fort, 1771 Arctic explorer, led 3 expeditions, first charting of Eastern Arctic, 1539-94 1673, second HBC post in Canada Important urban complex from the Klondike Gold Rush Vital role in charting and developing the Canadian North Establishing Canadian sovereignty over Arctic archipelago, 1852-1934

Date

Commemoration

Location

Commemorative Intent

1961

S.S. Keno

YT, Dawson

1962 1962

St. Roch S.S. Klondike

BC, Vancouver YT, Whitehorse

1964

Stephansson, Stephan G.

MB, Arnes

1964 1967

Frobisher Site Walsh, James Morrow

NT, Kodlunarn Island SK, Fort Walsh

1967

Dredge No. 4

YT, Bonanza Creek

1967 1967 1968

Transportation in the Yukon Chilkoot Trail Fur Trade

YT, Whitehorse BC, Chilkoot QC, Lachine

1969

Slave River Rapids

NT, Fort Smith

1969

Discovery of Mackenzie River

NT, Fort Providence

1969 1969 1969 1969

Fort McPherson Inuksuk Fort Simpson Bartlett, Captain Robert Abram Sea Horse Gully Remains Holy Trinity Church

NT, Fort McPherson NT, Enukso Point NT, Fort Simpson NF, Brigus

Importance of river transport, 1922 wooden steamboat First vessel to navigate NW Passage from west to east Importance of river transport, largest and last commercial YT steamboat Arctic explorer (1906-07, 1908-12, 1913-18), 18791962 Martin Frobisher habitation and iron smelting, 1576-78 NWMP Superintendent, YT Commissioner (189799), 1840-1905 Importance of dredging operations (1899-1966), evolution of goldmining Paddlewheeler, railway and air travel networks Transportation route to Klondike gold fields An important industry during most of Canada's history Only obstacle to navigation from Lake Athabaska to Arctic Ocean Discovered 1789 by Mackenzie, followed to Arctic Ocean HBC post, 1840 Inuit complex of 100 stone landmarks NWCo (1804) and HBC (1922) posts Explorer, Peary Expedition, Arctic voyages, 18751946 Large Dorset and Pre-Dorset site Early Anglican mission church in the west

1969 1970

MB, Churchill SK, Stanley Mission

197°

Tyrrell, Joseph Burr

YT, Dawson

1970

Hopedale Mission

NF, Hopedale

1970

Ogilvie, William

YT, Dawson

1971

Parry, Sir William Edward

NT, Melville Island

1971 1972

Kitwanga Fort Button, Sir Thomas

BC, Kitwanga MB, York Factory

1972

Davis, John

NT, Pangnirtung

1972

Baffin, William

NT, Pangnirtung

1972

Foxe, Luke

NT, Henrietta Maria?

1972

Ross, Sir James Clark

NT, Spence Bay

1972

Herschel Island

YT, Herschel Island

1972

No site selected

1972

McClintock, Sir Francis Leopold McClure, Sir Robert John

1972

Ross, Sir John

NT, Spence Bay

1972

Arctic Exploration and Inuit Culture

No plaque planned

No site selected

Explorer, historian with the GSC (1882-99), 1858-1957 Important Moravian mission established 1782 (3 buildings) Surveyor, author, commissioner of Yukon, 1846-1912 Arctic explorer, led 3 Northwest Passage expeditions, 1790-1855 Tsimshian village Arctic explorer, 1612 expedition discovered Nelson Paver, 1580-1634 Arctic explorer, three Northwest Passage expeditions, 1550-1605 Arctic explorer, mapped Hudson Strait and Davis Strait, 1584-1622 Arctic explorer, discovered Foxe Basin, "North-West Fox," 1586-1635 Arctic explorer, sailed with Parry, led 1848 Franklin search, 1800-62 Canadian sovereignty in western Arctic, intercultural contact, whaling Arctic explorer, commanded 1857-59 final Franklin search, 1819-1907 Arctic explorer, crossed Northwest Passage in search of Franklin, 1807-73 Arctic explorer, led Northwest Passage trips, Franklin search, 1777-1856 Contact between explorers and Inuit

-