So, recently (as in, within the last week or so), I've become obsessed with refuting something the venerable Gen-X-er Chris Elson, PhD. said in a lecture that took place in September of last year. Yes, I realise this is kind of strange, but I have a bad habit of remembering throw-away lines from Canadian Studies lectures more than the actual content I'm supposed to be studying. The joys of being in a guinea-pig degree program, I guess.
(A side note: Dalhousie's Canadian Studies program isn't bad, it's just very new. Like baby fauns trying to walk for the first time: Sometimes it works, sometimes the program goes careening into trees at top speed.)
Anyway. In Adrienne Clarkson's 1999 installation speech she makes a comment about Canada: the Northern nation. I was going to quote it, but I've got class in 45 minutes and I cannot for the life of me find the bloody phrase in either of my copies of the speech without rereading it, apparently.
(Another side note: my copy of
Great Canadian Speeches is an abridged text. Full drafts of speeches are not to be found within. I am slightly steamed now.)
When Chris read us that part he scoffed a little and said that was probably just her saying nice things, since as we are all aware, Canada is generally a border-hugging nation. If you look at
population maps you can actually see a pretty decent replica of Canadian settlement patterns, so long as you ignore the weird western penchant for settling just above the hospitable zone (ie: Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton). Over the year it's been argued time and time again that nothing in the life of the average Canadian bears any resemblance to our "Great Northern Nation." If you grab a lawyer in Toronto, or an accountant in Vancouver he's not going to be able to tell you what Yellowknife looks like. Probably not even Churchill, unless he really likes polar bears.
The problem with this argument is sort of an odd one, because it has nothing to do with geography. Yes, you can point to the oil camps in Rainbow Lake and the inuit all through the High Arctic (though one usually only brings up the latter when slagging off the good ol' government), but that's a moot point. The easiest way to start picking apart the dismissive, realist attitude towards the "Northern Nation" is actually through someone from southern Ontario.
Oh, John Ralston Saul. How you save my ass.
In his
Introduction to a much longer article R.S. says something oddly potent, considering how dry this discussion is:
"Culture is not about propaganda. It is neither definable nor controllable. it comes out in thousands of forms. The resulting overall impression is the image or culture of a country. The culture of a people defines itself through its expression."
I'm in love with this argument, because it's the best pwn of everyone who whines about anything, including this "imaginary" northern ideal.
We are what we imagine, more or less. And if you read the poetry, listen to the music and talk to the people the north is EVERYWHERE. My arch-nemesis, the snow-despair metaphor is only the tip of the iceberg... so to speak.
We're a nation that's obsessed with our own winter and we have been for a very long time, though not always with the bleak, stark, Atwood-esq melancholy of recent years. There's too much to say on this in the time I've got, but I'm going to throw out a few points gleaned from Cana3010, my much more illuminating second core-course.
1) Canadian culture finally stops relying on European motifs in the early-mid 20th century. Before that, especially in music, the most Canadian composers (ie: Champagne and MacMillon) are doing is taking local folk tunes and Euro-izing them. While this does create a distinctly Canadian music, it also makes the whole art beholden to what the masters in Paris, Munich and Oslo can teach our best and brightest. And what the masters can teach, of course, has precious little to do with what's new and exciting and innovative. So the concertos and quartets based on Qubecious fiddling and Newfoundland sea shanties sounds like 19th century parlour music.
In 1945. During the advent of abstracted 12-tone music we're still aping the Romantics. Um.
It's the visual artists who stop aping first. And by painters, I'm stuck referring to the Group of 7. I long for a day when I can speak on something else. Sigh. But what's interesting is that the (non-economic) G7 find new ways to represent Canada in, wait for it, a new way of showing us what snow looks like using shades of white alien to Romantic paintings, but recognizable to anyone who's stood in a field at twilight.
SNOW.
...ahem. The style they work in isn't new, exactly. But it's original at the same time. As my prof put it (since I cannot phrase it better) the G7 finds a way to participate in the international style without running along behind it. It shows Canada in ways that are up to date, modern, innovative. And it does it, often, by painting icebergs.
2) If you ask a modern Canadian what makes them think of Canada, half of them seem to want to say "ice skates".
Where we live physically and where we go in our heads isn't the same. But why go somewhere that requires a parka?
There's more to this, more to say and point out. But I really need to put on a shirt and head to class, so we'll see if I can't save some of it for later...
