Canadians and Their Pasts 9781442667648

Table of contents :
Contents
List of Tables
List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Canadians and Their Pasts
1. History in Public
2. Everybody’s Doing It
3. The Problem of Trust
4. Family History in a Globalizing World
5. Collective Remembering in Three Canadian Communities
6. Places and Pasts
7. Immigration and Historical Memory
8. The Presence of the Past in International Perspective
Conclusion: Making History
Appendix 1: Short Form Questionnaire
Appendix 2: How We Did the Survey
Notes
Works Cited
Contributors: Canadians and Their Pasts
Index

Citation preview

CANADIANS AND THEIR PASTS The Pasts Collective Margaret Conrad, Kadriye Ercikan, Gerald Friesen, Jocelyn Létourneau, Delphin Muise, David Northrup, and Peter Seixas

What role does history play in contemporary society? Has the frenetic pace of today’s world led people to lose contact with the past? A highprofile team of researchers from across Canada sought to answer these questions by launching an ambitious investigation into how Canadians engage with history in their everyday lives. The results of their survey form the basis of this eye-opening book. Canadians and Their Pasts reports on the findings of interviews with 3,419 Canadians from a variety of cultural and linguistic communities. Along with yielding rich qualitative data, the surveys generated revealing quantitative data that allows for comparisons based on gender, ethnicity, migration histories, region, age, income, and educational background. The book also brings Canada into international conversation with similar studies undertaken earlier in the United States, Australia, and Europe. Canadians and Their Pasts confirms that for most Canadians, the past is not dead. Rather, the study reveals that our histories continue to shape the present in many powerful ways. margaret conrad is an emerita professor in the Department of History at the University of New Brunswick. kadriye ercikan is a professor of Measurement, Evaluation, and Research Methodology in the Department of Educational & Counselling Psychology and Special Education at the University of British Columbia. gerald friesen is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Manitoba.

ocelyn létourneau is Canada Research Chair in the History and Political Economy of Contemporary Quebec and a professor in the Department of History at l’Université Laval. delphin muise is an emeritus professor in the Department of History at Carleton University. da id northrup is associate director of the Institute for Social Research at York University. peter seixas is Canada Research Chair in Historical Consciousness and a professor in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy at the University of British Columbia.

Canadians and Their Pasts The Pasts Collective

MARGARET CONRAD, KADRIYE ERCIKAN, GERALD FRIESEN, JOCELYN LÉTOURNEAU, DELPHIN MUISE, DAVID NORTHRUP, AND PETER SEIXAS

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

© University of Toronto Press 2013 Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com Printed in Canada ISBN 978-1-4426-4726-8 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-4426-1539-7 (paper)

Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper with vegetable-based inks

Publication cataloguing information is available from Library and Archives Canada

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for its publishing activities.

Contents

List of Tables vii List of Figures ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction: Canadians and Their Pasts 3 1 History in Public 11 2 Everybody’s Doing It 29 3 The Problem of Trust 48 4 Family History in a Globalizing World 67 5 Collective Remembering in Three Canadian Communities 84 6 Places and Pasts 105 7 Immigration and Historical Memory 120 8 The Presence of the Past in International Perspective 138 Conclusion: Making History 152 Appendix 1: Short Form Questionnaire 161 Appendix 2: How We Did the Survey 175 Notes 179 Works Cited 207 Contributors 219 Index 221

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List of Tables

2.1 Engaging with the Past: Participation Rates over the Last Twelve Months 2.2 Interest in the Past 2.3 Importance of Various Pasts 2.4 Interest in and Importance of History and Various Pasts by Education 2.5 Interest in and Importance of Pasts by Age 3.1 Most Trustworthy Source of Information about the Past by Age 3.2 Most Trustworthy Source of Information about the Past by Education 3.3 Most Trustworthy Source of Information about the Past by Income 3.4 Most Trustworthy Source of Information about the Past by Level of Interest in the Past 5.1 Interest in and Importance of History: Aboriginal Respondents 5.2 Interest in and Importance of History: Acadian Respondents 5.3 Interest in and Importance of History: Quebec Respondents 5.4 Importance of the Past: Quebec Compared to the Other Provinces by Age 6.1 Interest in and Importance of History and the Past by Province 6.2 Participation of Canadians in Activities Related to the Past by Province 6.3 Importance of the Past of the Province and the Past of Canada by Province and Mobility Status 7.1 Country of Birth for the One Hundred Peel Sample Respondents

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7.2 Engaging in the Past: Participation Rates by Sample Type and Place of Birth 7.3 Interest in and Importance of History by Place of Birth (national survey) 7.4 Interest in the Past by Ethnicity and Time of Immigration 7.5 Importance of Various Pasts by Ethnicity and Time of Immigration 8.1 Comparative Rates of Engagement in Activities in Three Countries 8.2 Engagement in Activities in the United States and in Canada by Education Level 8.3 Most Important Past to Know about or Important Past

List of Figures

2.1 Engagement by Educational Status 3.1 Trustworthiness of Sources of Historical Information 3.2 Reasoning about Trustworthiness by Age 3.3 Reasoning about Trustworthiness by Education 3.4 Types of Responses by Education 7.1 Interest and Importance by Generation and Immigrant Status 8.1 Comparative Trustworthiness of Information 8.2 Very Trustworthy by Age in Canada 8.3 Average Trustworthiness by Age in the United States 8.4 Most Important Past: Canada and the United States

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Acknowledgments

The members of the Canadians and Their Pasts collective are indebted to a great many people for making this project possible. Most importantly, we are grateful to the 3,419 respondents who answered our survey. At a time when “cold calls” from opinion seekers and marketers are an almost daily annoyance, the willingness of so many people to talk in such personal terms to our interviewers was heartening. Their thoughtful responses to our questions enabled us to probe into the role that history plays in their lives more deeply than we could initially have imagined. Without the support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), our ambitions to explore the presence of the past in the lives of Canadians would never have been achieved. A CommunityUniversity Research Alliance (CURA) grant funded our six-year collaboration, which included a major telephone survey. Recommended to us as the best that Canada had to offer in the field of academic surveys, the Institute for Social Research (ISR) at York University was central to developing the survey and understanding the mass of data it produced. ISR Project Manager John Pollard believed in our project, inspired our energies, and demonstrated a level of professionalism and friendship that is awesome in the genuine sense of that word. We are also indebted to ISR’s partners Jolicœur & Associés in Montreal, who conducted most of the interviews in French with about 15 percent of our respondents. Six universities supported our project through financial and in-kind contributions, none more generously than our host Université Laval. In all, more than fi y graduate students assisted in our research and three of them became co-authors of research papers: Natalie Dubé and Keith Owre, University of New Brunswick, and Jeremy Wiebe, University of

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Manitoba. During the first two years of the grant, Tristan Landry, then a postdoctoral student at Université Laval (now a faculty member in the Department of History, University of Sherbrooke), was instrumental laying the administrative foundations for the project. Our research was immensely enriched by our project partners and their representatives, which include: Terry Bishop-Stirling, David Bradley, James Hiller, and Jeff Webb, Association of Heritage Industries, Newfoundland & Labrador and Newfoundland Historical Society; Maurice Basque and Marc Robichaud at the Institut d’études acadiennes, and Jeanne-Mance Cormier and Hélène Savoie at the Musée Acadien, Université de Moncton; Lucie Daignault and Andrée Gendreau, Musée de la civilisation, Quebec City; Jack Jedwab, Executive Director, Association for Canadian Studies, Montreal; Lon Dubinsky, Canadian Museums Association, O awa; Pierre Thibodeau, Parks Canada; Josie Premzell, Peel Heritage Complex; Ann Dadson, Historica-Dominion Institute; Winona Wheeler, Athabasca University and University of Saskatchewan; Roger Gibbins, Canada West Foundation; Will Garre Pe s and Rob Schoen, the Kamloops-Thompson Regional Historica Fair Commi ee and Thompson Rivers University’s Centre for the Study of Multiple Literacies; Margaret Inoue, Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, Vancouver. Lon Dubinsky and Margaret Inoue, who represented the project partners on our executive commi ee, were particularly generous in their efforts to make our project be er. We also want to thank our international collaborators for their continuing participation in conversations with us and for the excellent advice they offered. Three of the pioneers in using surveys to explore the presence of the past were particularly helpful: Paula Hamilton and Paul Ashton, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia, and David Thelen, professor emeritus of history at Indiana University. We are also grateful to Kenneth Dewar, Barbara Tessman, and Pilvi Torsti, who read an earlier version of our manuscript and offered valuable suggestions for improvement before we sent it to a publisher. With the help of Len Husband, editor at the University of Toronto Press, our manuscript received a timely response and was honed even further by the insightful comments of four anonymous reviewers. We owe a special thanks to three people who helped us through the final editorial processes. Project manager David Zielonka accommodated our various concerns and corrected errors and omissions with uncommon patience and good humour. In her usual efficient way, Sandra Barry produced a detailed index in less than a week a er receiving the page proofs, ensuring that we would meet tight deadlines. Finally, we are grateful to Mae Lum for shaping the final version of the page proofs.

CANADIANS AND THEIR PASTS

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Introduction: Canadians and Their Pasts

Throughout our lives the past is with us, from the most trivial of experiences to the most profound. Its legacies include our DNA and the scars on our bodies, the cultural traditions that bind our families and communities, and the laws that govern the public sphere. We are reminded of the past in street names and license plates; we see images from the past in museum halls and movie theatres; and we hear voices of the past in today’s arguments over rights reclaimed and wrongs to be redressed. In recognizing the presence of the past in our daily lives, William Faulkner said it well: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”1 Every person embodies – sometimes consciously, more o en unconsciously – beliefs and assumptions based on interpretations of the past. Further, we act upon these beliefs and assumptions, both individually and collectively. Countries fight wars over deeply embedded understandings of history; truth and reconciliation commissions struggle with conflicting views of what happened in the past; and, as the citizens of Japan, Germany, Russia, and South Africa can a est, regime changes force the rewriting of history textbooks used in schools. Like all subjects of intellectual inquiry, history can be turned to good or ill; it is never a static truth. The absence of ongoing critical perspectives on the past can leave citizens prey to phony arguments manufactured by demagogues. If someone begins a comment with “History proves that ... ” there is reason to be suspicious. Historian Eric Hobsbawm suggests, indeed, that history can be the “raw material for nationalistic or ethnic or fundamentalist ideologies, as poppies are the raw material for opium addiction.”2 Reflecting on how history operates in our lives helps to guard against such addictions.

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The past is thus ever present, and yet its meanings are ever more contested. This insight leads to a host of questions, none of which has easy answers. What role does history play in our lives? Are we paying less a ention to the past than our forebears did? How do we acquire knowledge about the past? What tools do we use to distinguish between true and false claims based on history? Do our perceptions of the past differ sharply from region to region, in comparison to people in other parts of the world, or by income, education, and gender? In short, how do people situate themselves in time, and construct a sense of the past that is usable in the present? One trend is clear. In recent years, most governments, including Canada’s, have spent surprising sums cultivating the public memory of past events – in schools, museums, historic sites, and the electronic media – that they think their citizens should know and believe. Support for “public” history in Canada is manifested in such capital-intensive projects as CBC’s Canada: A People’s History, the History Channel and its French language counterpart Historia; the founding of Canada’s National History Society and the Historica-Dominion Institute; and federal funding for new museums focusing on human rights, immigration, and war. Polling data suggests that ordinary Canadians embrace these initiatives; visit museums, historic sites, and commemorative celebrations in impressive numbers; and are themselves o en engaged in researching family and community histories.3 In a world dominated by change, interpretations of the past, some of them highly contentious, appear to be both interesting and relevant. We have only a passing and partial understanding of how Canadians make sense of the past. Although we may know that thousands of students participate annually in Heritage Fairs, that Aboriginal treaties have relevance to current political realities, and that heritage industries are a major staple of Canada’s burgeoning tourist sector, we are less certain about the focus of people’s engagement with the past, popular perceptions of the trustworthiness of historical sources, how people reconcile conflicting narratives about past events, and the ways that people use the past to construct their individual and collective identities. With the help of a national survey conducted by the Institute for Social Research based at York University in Toronto, we set out to explore these questions. Our research was informed by similar investigations in Europe, the United States, and Australia and by insights from recent studies on public history, history education, collective memory, and historical consciousness.4 One of our conclusions – an

Introduction

5

important one – is that the past is not forgo en. While much-publicized surveys have reported that more than half of us cannot name Canada’s first prime minister or the date when women became eligible to vote in federal elections, they fail to capture the nature of citizen interest in and engagement with the past. Our investigation suggests that Canadians, like people in Australia and the United States, are profoundly interested in the histories of their families and the larger groups to which they belong. History and Memory Human beings are immersed in cultures whose traditions evolve – either slowly or rapidly – over time. In recent decades, the consciousness of ceaseless, accelerating change has created new relationships between past and present. Compared to more homogeneous groups shaped mainly by face-to-face communications, members of today’s societies, buffeted by demographic mobility and globalized information systems, are likely to experience a gap between themselves and their forebears: alienation and difference are the fields on which a sense of connection and identity must be built. One function of public, collective memory is to reaffirm those connections and shore up those identities, but the result can sit uncomfortably with the critical and reflective methodology that accompanies academic historical inquiry.5 Memory and myth, which focus on notions of origins, inheritance, and boundaries, support people in their efforts to belong to families, religious groups, local and regional communities, and the nation, while at the same time defining those who are excluded. Their currency is belief; their goals are continuity and connection over time; their successes are coherence and homogeneity across the community.6 In contrast to memory, critical history as practiced in academic institutions belongs, in the words of the French scholar Pierre Nora, “to everyone and no one.”7 Academic history, as it has evolved over the past two centuries, dwells in the consciousness of profound and irreversible change over time, distance between past and present, and the recognition that we are historical beings swimming in a sea of change. While a clear distinction between memory and history provides theoretical clarity, the real story is messier. The two sets of practices inevitably overlap and coexist in the lives of most Canadians, and in the work of academic historians.8 No ma er how “objective” they try to be, scholars cannot avoid concerns of the present as they pursue their questions about the past.9 What is more, scholars who have examined

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people’s collective remembering have argued convincingly that there is nothing “traditional” about much of tradition: it is invented and nurtured in the service of current political ends.10 Outside of the academy, many people make a great effort to preserve traces of the past, seeking connections that define identities, even as they engage in activities – visiting museums and historic sites, for example – that thrust them into critical analysis of the meanings and messages of history. And public historians, those who curate the historical exhibits and interpret the historic sites that entertain as they also instruct, occupy a field situated between these two approaches to the past. Thus, when a family visits Batoche National Historic Site, the Plains of Abraham, or the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, they may be confronted with long-gone events whose legacies shape contemporary collective identities, but they may also find their assumptions challenged by new evidence suggesting that their beliefs about the past can no longer be supported.11 So, we all live with both memory and history – with the seamless connections of memories that belong to us and inform our identities, and with the critical efforts to explain the forces and ideas that shaped – and continue to shape – the complex, changing world we inhabit today. This study aims to uncover how this interplay actually works in the minds of Canadians. The Survey The Canadians and Their Pasts project emerged in the wake of several similar investigations undertaken in response to changes in historical scholarship and teaching. A European group, Youth and History, surveyed thirty-two thousand students in twenty-seven countries in the early 1990s and published an influential discussion of the findings in 1997.12 In the same period Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen tried to discover “the actual content of popular historical consciousness – the ways that Americans use and think about the past and whether or not Americans are, in fact, disengaged from or indifferent toward the past.”13 Their widely acclaimed book, The Presence of the Past, published in 1998, documented an active interest in the past among Americans, but not necessarily the history that preoccupied politicians and officials in ministries of education.14 A year later, Paul Ashton and Paula Hamilton embarked on an inquiry on “how Australians think about, evaluate, and use the past,”15 which drew heavily on the American study.

Introduction

7

The Canadian project, funded in part by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Community-University Research Alliance grant, began shortly a er the Australians published their findings in 2003. Given our interest in Canadian regional and cultural identities, we sampled four hundred adults from each of five regions of the country (Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario, the Prairies, and British Columbia) for a nationally representative sample of two thousand. In addition, we undertook three special samples (one hundred for each) of Acadians in three New Brunswick communities, immigrants in the Peel Region of the Greater Toronto Area, and Aboriginal people in and near Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. As the project got underway, Parks Canada offered to help the Pasts team to delve more deeply into the interests and activities of immigrant and urban Canadians by surveying one thousand adults living in five of the largest urban areas in the country: Montreal, Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver. Altogether, we surveyed 3,419 Canadians in interviews lasting, on average, twentytwo minutes. The questionnaire was designed in seven parts to address a broad range of issues and to permit a variety of analyses (see Appendix 1). While most questions were forced-choice, several open-ended questions allowed respondents to express their thoughts more fully. These responses were taped and transcribed. The opening questions asked whether the respondent was interested in history generally, in Canadian history, and in family history. The second part surveyed respondents’ participation in a variety of activities related to the past, such as collecting photographs, compiling genealogies, and visiting museums. A third section took one of the activities in which respondents participated and asked how the activity helped them understand the past; whether they could recall “a person, event or something else about the past” that was very important or meaningful; and what they thought about school history classes. In the fourth section, we solicited opinions about the trustworthiness of various sources of information about the past and how respondents might resolve disagreements about “what is most likely to have really happened.” The fi h section probed which pasts – family, religion, ethnic group, province, region, nation, and country of birth, if the respondent was not Canadian-born – were most important. The sixth part was designed to explore historical consciousness – that is, how we use the past to think about our lives in the present. To address this ma er, we asked respondents whether history is a part of their everyday life or is evoked only when they

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Canadians and Their Pasts

are participating in past-related activities such as visiting museums; whether conditions are ge ing be er or worse over time; and what is important to be handed on to the next generation. In the final section, the survey collected demographic information, which enabled us to parse the answers more closely.16 As the foregoing suggests, the study is based on a large representative survey: interviewers spoke to one in every ten thousand Canadians. More than half (53 percent) of the people who received calls from our interviewers agreed to answer our survey, an above average response for this kind of investigation. The findings suggest that the number of past-related activities in which Canadians are engaged is extraordinary. Generalizing from our representative sample, more than fi een million adult Canadians are keeping something special to pass on to others, more than ten million are working on collections related to the past, and a like number had visited places from a family past in the previous year. Even more surprising, perhaps, is that nearly half of those who responded to the survey reported that they had recently visited a museum or historic site. Participation in past-related activities is not tied to particular social groups or backgrounds, but there are revealing differences among Canadians based on age, education, and gender. While we learned much from the Rosenzweig and Thelen study of the United States, our survey differed in significant ways.17 The American team systematically avoided the term “history,” a er finding that it was associated in the minds of some respondents with the school subject, conjuring up ghosts of memorized dates, boring teachers, and dusty archives. In their effort to elicit Americans’ “connection” to the past, they avoided “history’s” connotations of distance, personal irrelevance, and academic expertise. We acknowledge that many Canadians may be alienated from formal history, but we did not begin with this assumption. Instead, we were interested in how people employ some of the tools from the academic discipline – the awareness of perspective and the use of evidence, for example – to help them sort out what accounts of the past are worth believing. Accordingly, we used the terms “history” and “the past” interchangeably, but we did so only a er having tested this approach. We offered a clear statement at the beginning of the interview, using the terms interchangeably: “We’d like to ask you some questions about the past. By ‘past’ we mean everything from the very recent past to the very distant past, from your personal history to the history of Canada and other countries.” In selected questions, for a randomly selected one third of

Introduction

9

the sample, we used the word “history” – that is, the interviewers said, “We’d like to ask you some questions about history. By ‘history,’ we mean ... ”; in another third, “the past” was used; and, for the final third, the wording was “history and the past.” The findings reveal no statistically significant differences among responses of the three groups who were asked the questions in the three wording variations.18 With our introductory remarks to guide them, our respondents, it seems, were as at home with “history” as they were with “the past.” The Book In this book we discuss key aspects of Canadians’ engagement with history. The first chapter outlines how Canadians became heritage enthusiasts in the second half of the twentieth century, consuming public history as represented in print, on screen, and in institutions such as schools, museums, and historic sites. In the second chapter we analyse what the respondents to our survey told us about their activities and a itudes relating to the past. Chapter 3 turns to issues of trust in the histories that circulate in the public sphere, and how respondents sort through differing interpretations of the past. The next four chapters examine engagement with the past in relation to Canadians’ most salient collective identities: family, cultural/linguistic groups, and place. As will be apparent in chapter 4, the past of families occupies a prime position. Using our supplementary samples, chapter 5 addresses collective historical identities through an examination of three cultural groups: Aboriginal, Acadian, and francophone Québécois. Chapter 6 turns to the question of the degree to which a sense of place – region, province, rural or urban community – shapes responses to the survey, and chapter 7 focuses on how recent immigrants reconcile the past of their old and new homelands. In the final chapter, we compare, where possible, Canadian findings with similar surveys in the United States and Australia. We summarize our findings and reflect on their implications in the conclusion. Since we cra ed our chapters to “stand alone,” readers who swallow the book in one gulp will be obliged to endure some repetition of statistical information. Our survey research was enriched with projects conducted by twelve community partners located across the county. Their interests ranged broadly, from memory keepers for small communities in Newfoundland and Labrador to a Web site on the fi een volumes of testimony provided to the McKenna-McBride Royal Commission, 1913–16, a major

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source for Aboriginal land rights research in British Columbia, created by the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs.19 Without such partners to keep our academic feet on the ground, this project would have been far less focused. Why Does This MaĴer? This study is only a snapshot in time. It cannot make claims about changes in the way people engage the past. What it does do is offer insights into how the past is connected to our lives in the present. While the range of citizen engagement with the past is impressive, the majority of Canadians rely primarily on family history to anchor themselves in time and place, sometimes to set the record straight, and o en just to pass the time. The history of Canada and of the respondents’ religion tied as distant seconds as interesting and important pasts. This finding raises questions about the role of national narratives in the lives of Canadians.20 In the context of ongoing globalization, the boundaries of nation-states are increasingly contested, but the significance of a national past should not be underestimated. As we hurtle into an uncertain future, one of the tools in our survival kit, for old and new Canadians alike, is a sense of the shared experiences, both good and bad, that brought us to northern North America. Chance and circumstance landed some families here. Others arrived through deliberate intention and hard-won struggle. Still others claim residence since time immemorial. Whatever the context, the pasts that led to our present life in this place called Canada provide at least some shared questions whose answers will shape our futures. Public institutions that shore up our collective memory present opportunities for participating in this discussion. Reflecting on the past is a learned skill, and many Canadians are adept at it. Others have only an unconscious sense of the role that history plays in defining their identity and agency. Canadians weave fabrics of meaning from a warp of personal, deeply felt, highly connected memories and a woof of critical, distant, disconnected histories. Few skills serve citizens be er than to be able to sort through the historical contexts that set the stage for the present and future. As a vehicle for legitimizing or destabilizing power relations, maintaining or undermining community identities, and challenging the way we see ourselves collectively and individually, history can take us in many directions. With so much at stake, how we go about engaging the past ma ers a great deal to all of us.

1 History in Public

“I like to watch documentaries about the old times and I do like to visit museums,” an immigrant from Hong Kong living in the lower mainland of British Columbia told us. She judged museums to be the most trustworthy source of historical information but understood that claims about the past should be interrogated from a variety of angles and was aware that she might draw upon multiple sources to analyse any topic being investigated. While she considered family history to be central to her identity, she valued religious history above all other approaches to the past and concluded that the larger story of humankind was the most important legacy to be passed on to the next generation. It would be the responsibility of people coming a er her, she reasoned, “to pick whatever they believe or which area they are ... interested to know more.” Like many others who responded to our survey, this woman possessed an impressive historical consciousness that drew upon information about the past circulating in the public sphere and upon her own historically focused activities and world view. The findings from our survey suggest that her historical thinking is a fair reflection of how a significant minority of Canadians engage the past. For the purposes of this study, we use the shorthand term “public history” to describe the institutions and media that support citizen engagement with the past.1 From our survey, we learned that Canadians visited museums, historic sites, and archives in impressive numbers, read books and watched movies focusing on historical themes, and were turning increasingly to the Internet to explore the past. Most of our respondents had also taken history courses in school and some at universities. But what was the consequence? To answer this question,

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we outline in this chapter the national context in which so many of the survey respondents became heritage enthusiasts and then reflect on the survey’s findings concerning the many ways that people engage the past “in public.” We conclude by exploring what our survey suggests will almost certainly loom even larger in the future of public engagement with the past: the all-knowing Internet. History and Nation The expansion of public history in Canada and throughout the world is one of the important developments of the last century.2 It is linked directly to the cultivation of a sense of citizenship, to artistic creativity, to the pursuit of profit, and to satisfying individual quests for identity. These diverse ends are achieved by the maintenance or creation of many different “communities of remembering,” ranging from the local to the global, whose imaginings are communicated in a variety of ways. As our survey clearly demonstrates, Canadians have a remarkable ability to communicate, reproduce, experience, and explore historically informed impressions.3 Cranky disagreements about public depictions of the past (e.g., the Canadian War Museum’s exhibit on strategic bombing during the Second World War or the portrayal of past atrocities in the Canadian Museum of Human Rights) reflect citizen interest in the past that ranges well beyond a preoccupation with family history.4 Indeed, the Hong Kong immigrant quoted earlier reminds us that the entire universe has a past and that approaches to the meaning of existence, including the religious thinking of humankind, are represented in various narratives of change over time. The vast majority of respondents to our survey came of age in Canada a er the Second World War.5 In this period, Canadians became increasingly conscious of their country’s changing place in the world and supported efforts by governments, corporations, and communities to construct narratives explaining their historical context. The overwhelming influence of American culture, especially with the advent of television, served as a powerful catalyst for a greater investment in public history in Canada. In 1949 the federal government established a royal commission to study national developments in the arts, le ers, and sciences. Headed by Vincent Massey – scion of the farmimplements giant Massey-Harris – the royal commission report, submi ed in 1951, recommended policies to strengthen Canadian cultural production, including state control over television stations, federal

History in Public

13

grants to universities, the establishment of a national library, and increased funding to the National Film Board, the National Museum, and the Historic Sites and Monuments Board. The federal government acted on this advice and, in 1957, used the windfall estate taxes of two recently deceased entrepreneurs, Isaac Walton Killam and Sir James Dunn, to create the Canada Council, a government agency to support the arts, broadly defined. A decade later, the one hundredth anniversary of Confederation provided another major impetus for the Canadianization of cultural institutions. During and immediately a er the Second World War, a spate of new school and university textbooks on the nation’s history appeared and writers of fiction, such as Thomas Raddall and Hugh MacLennan, found an audience at home and abroad for their works set in Canada’s past.6 Typical of the new passion for heritage, as the historian Brian McKillop points out, was the popularity of Pierre Berton’s books, which, beginning in the late 1950s, defined the high points in Canada’s national development, among them the War of 1812, the Klondike gold rush, the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the Ba le of Vimy Ridge, and the Great Depression.7 Following centennial celebrations, which included the hugely successful world’s fair Expo ’67, held in Montreal, the “Canadianization movement” went from strength to strength.8 Debates over content regulations for Canadian media in the late 1960s, the Hodge s (1968) and Symons (1975) reports on the lack of Canadian content in school and university curricula, and Quebec’s Quiet Revolution, which called into question Canada itself, brought a new consciousness of the country’s distinctiveness. Governments gradually recognized that history could play a central role in conveying messages that served national unity and national aspirations.9 Early in the 1970s a National Museums Policy added unprecedented federal government support for heritage-related activities, a strategy for empire building that was followed by other federal government departments and by all the provinces through various cost-sharing arrangements.10 While hardly a consistently applied set of policies across time and space, national heritage and culture policies elevated Canadian history to a primary role in the new politics of national identity, leading to the creation of a federal department of Canadian Heritage in 1996.11 In contesting the Canadianization project, Quebecers also turned to history as an ally. The Jean Lesage administration (1960–6) created both a Ministry of Culture and a Conseil des arts du Québec in 1961.

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By the end of the 1960s, the mission of the national archives had been revamped and a Bibliothèque nationale du Québec established. In addition to Télé-Québec (created by Maurice Duplessis in 1945 as a provincial counterpart of CBC/Radio-Canada), a new and all-encompassing broadcasting agency – Radio-Québec – was launched in 1968 by the Daniel Johnson administration. Its first major production, En montant la rivière, was a twenty-six-episode series on Quebec history aired on forty-two stations across the province. With the opening of the Musée de la civilisation in 1982, the Parti Québécois under the leadership of René Lévesque added another flagship institution designed to maintain “la mémoire du Québec” – a key ingredient in Québécois identity. The impact of these initiatives can scarcely be overestimated. Bombarded by books, movies, radio and television programming, museums, historic sites, and school curricula – all promoting Quebec history – the generations coming of age in the 1960s and therea er in the province arguably became the most historically conscious of Canadians, but as Québécois rather than Canadians. History ma ered in Quebec, especially when it underscored the unique culture of its people and the hardship their ancestors had experienced at the hand of their multiple adversaries – be it “les maudits Anglais” (evoking oppression), “les maudits Français” (abandonment), “les maudits Américains” (cultural alienation), or “les maudits autres tout court” (domination at large). To give emphasis to the necessity of remembering past transgressions and to mark the shi in collective identity, the province replaced the rather romanticized phrase “La belle province” on its license plate with the mo o “Je me souviens” in 1978. By the end of the century, history in its multiple manifestations was everywhere all the time. Cable television offered new channels in both French and English devoted to history, and the Internet began to develop as a medium for dramatically increasing public access not only to Canada’s history but also to the global past. In this context, Canadian history was promoted on a grand scale. To celebrate the millennium, CBC/Radio-Canada produced Canada: A People’s History/Le Canada: Une histoire populaire, thirty-two hours of prime-time narration of the sweep of the nation’s past. Earlier, Epopée en Amérique, a series of twelve programs on the history of Quebec from New France to the Quiet Revolution, had been broadcasted on Télé-Québec. The series was researched and narrated by Jacques Lacoursière, a prominent public historian, who became a household name in Quebec.

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Promoting Canada’s past was not only a state-sponsored effort. The experience of two referenda on Quebec sovereignty (1980 and 1995) encouraged private interests to invest in Canadian history as a means of shoring up national cohesion. In 1986 the Bronfman family established a foundation that sponsored Heritage Minutes, which were widely aired in movie theatres and on television. The Foundation evolved into Historica, an organization established in 1999 to support a be er understanding of Canada’s past. In 1997, the Dominion Institute, initially privately funded, was created by a group of young Torontobased professionals concerned about what they saw as the erosion of a common public memory and civic identity. It followed on the heels of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s decision in 1994 to provide funding to Canada’s National History Society. Based in Winnipeg, the Society transformed the company’s in-house publication, The Beaver, into a popular magazine devoted to Canadian history, and launched other initiatives designed to promote interest in the nation’s past. With its publication in 1998, J.L. Granatstein’s book Who Killed Canadian History? became a powerful inducement for school boards across the country to re-evaluate the place of Canadian history in their curricula.12 Meanwhile, universities taught an ever-expanding number of courses in Canadian history and encouraged their students to pursue graduate programs in the field. Testimony to the new interest in history is the finding that nearly half of the respondents to our survey had taken a history course a er graduating from high school. In a remarkably short time, trends in scholarship spilled over to the growing pantheon of public institutions, where social history approaches raised awareness of the distinctive pasts of Aboriginal peoples, ethnic groups, women, the working class, and local communities. These new interpretations of the past served as a source of empowerment for many people and dovetailed with their interest in personal and family histories.13 While Canadians have an interest in the past that extends well beyond national boundaries, a taste for historical inquiry into Canada’s past has been carefully cultivated in recent decades and is difficult for anyone to avoid. Consuming Public History Our survey documents the extraordinary extent of citizen engagement with public history. In the previous twelve months, four out of five

16

Canadians and Their Pasts

respondents had watched movies, DVDs, or television programs relating to history; more than half had read a book with a historical theme; half had visited a historical site; nearly as many had visited a museum; one in twelve had played video or computer history games that were set in the past. Those who reported using the Internet to explore the past or visiting an archive o en did so in pursuit of family history, but these activities pointed to major efforts to carry their research beyond family resources. Respondents reported that they belonged to local history, preservation, or heritage societies; a ended history seminars and reading clubs; collected artefacts and explored historical topics that caught their a ention – all suggesting that we had only scratched the surface of a general interest in the past that filled many leisure hours.14 Movies figure prominently in many people’s sense of the past. As Robert A. Rosenstone argues, film is a powerful medium for influencing how we “see” and “experience” history. Almost everyone in North America now has a mental image of the Second World War or the sinking of the Titanic that reflects the way these events have been portrayed by blockbuster Hollywood films. Movies draw viewers into the past by individualizing events so that people can identify with protagonists and their moral dilemmas. “On the screen,” Rosenstone maintains, “history must be fictional in order to be true!”15 The Canadian film industry, especially in English Canada, is less successful in fixing the nation’s past in our imaginations, but a few respondents mentioned CBC docudramas, which, like documentaries, have become identified as genres in which Canadians excel. A Saskatchewan woman reported viewing Prairie Giant: The Tommy Douglas Story, which aired in March 2006. Although this docudrama generated heated debate about the way that script writers played fast and loose with the facts relating to Saskatchewan premier James Gardiner, our respondent judged the film as “good.” Few respondents claimed, as did a young man from Edmonton, that “a historical movie was instrumental in me choosing ... my future path. It was just a film that I watched when I was twelve years old and that had a defining impact on sort of my vision of my future.” Nevertheless, television served as a point of reference for many people, who reported watching the History Channel and CBC documentaries, and taping for future viewing programs on such topics as Canadian art, military history, and the civil rights movement in the United States. More importantly, most Canadians, who now live with television and the Internet

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in their homes, participate vicariously in historical events as they unfold. “I’m distracted,” a woman from Manitoba told the interviewer, “because I’m watching this breaking news on television which is just terrible. ... A bridge just collapsed in Minneapolis. Oh, my god!” Despite the popularity of new media, books still served as a conduit to the past for more than half of our respondents. The survey question was broadly framed to include both fiction and non-fiction publications, but some respondents were careful to make a distinction between the two. “I don’t read normal books; I read history books,” an older Ontarian of German heritage told the interviewer. “I read about the Mayas, the Aztecs, the Romans, the Germans, the Phoenicians. ... I’m very interested in all the history ... because I work on the basis that ... what happened in the past ... will happen again. History repeats itself ... so I think it gives me a broader knowledge to know more history.” For a small subset of the survey sample, the interviewer asked for the name of the last book read. Almost one third of the respondents identified historical accounts of events or places. About the same percentage reported reading books of historical fiction. One in four respondents had recently read a biography, and just over one in ten reported reading books with a military focus. In answers to other questions, respondents mentioned a few historians by name, among them Pierre Berton, Jack Granatstein, Jacques Lacoursière, and Margaret MacMillan. Others reported the titles of community histories that they had read, and a few mentioned the Bible, which they regarded as both a comprehensive history and a moral compass for the present. Historical novels, like movies, serve as a popular vehicle for approaching the past and have even led to the creation of historic sites devoted to imaginary characters. One respondent mentioned Le Pays de la Sagouine, located in Bouctouche, New Brunswick, which was inspired by Antonine Maillet’s fictional Acadian washerwoman. Another fictional character rooted in the Maritimes, the spirited orphan Anne Shirley, prompted one Alberta woman to visit the birthplace of Lucy Maud Montgomery in Prince Edward Island. “That was very important to me,” she added. Nearly half of the respondents to our survey reported having visited historic sites and museums in the previous year, mentioning, among others, Louisbourg, Pier 21, Kings Landing, the Plains of Abraham, the Canadian War Museum, the Museum of Civilization, Wanuskewin Heritage Park, Batoche, and the Gulf of Georgia Cannery.

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As is discussed in more detail in chapter 3, many respondents to the survey trusted museums and historic sites above all other sources of information, expressing confidence in the expertise of the professional historians who curated museum exhibitions and animated historic sites. The immediacy of the experience in these institutions also hammered home the relevance of history for many respondents, some of whom believed that they were being offered unmediated access to the “real thing.” As one man claimed, “Well, in museums, they usually have something that you can see in front of you that relates to the past, likely an old tractor or an old rifle or something. You know, it’s to see; it’s something that’s right there.” In choosing historic sites as the most reliable source of information on the past, a respondent from Ontario emphasized the emotional connection that being on the spot carried for him: “You stand on the shore of James Bay and think this is the trail that Henry Hudson had to walk down. That stuff just puts hackles up my back. I think it’s where the first explorers landed. It’s an incredible feeling right there. I’m not sure if everybody feels that, but I did.” We probed the museum experience more fully in a partnership with the Canadian Museums Association by conducting a series of focus groups with museum volunteers and frequent users of museum resources.16 When we asked about their engagement with museums, respondents commonly replied that exposure to museums at an early age had an important impact on their continued involvement. They remained engaged because museums had become part of their experience early in life.17 In a spirited exchange between two participants in the Winnipeg focus group, a female teacher reported, “Everything that I am comes from the past. ... So I think that’s the link that you should try to make somehow, that’s what draws people into it.” A man in the group was troubled by this approach, arguing that “traditionally museums have been about the collision of people with interesting objects and specimens” and that to move “completely away from the artifactor object-centred interpretation” would be a “loss.” He “hoped” there would “always be a place ... like this [Manitoba Museum], which is a trustee for the community ... its ... material past.” The connection between object and viewer was particularly close in another of our partner projects. At the Musée Acadien in Moncton, Jeanne-Mance Cormier and Hélène Savoie assessed the historical understanding of more than two hundred fi h-grade francophone students before and a er they had viewed an exhibition on Acadian history. Many of these students were direct descendants of those who survived

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the British expulsion of French se lers from the Atlantic region in the mid-eighteenth century. Not surprisingly, then, the museum visit had an immediate and demonstrable impact, enabling students to grasp more fully the context of family practices, symbols, and public anniversaries associated with their ancestors that competed with a more generalized global culture for their a ention.18 In another partner project, this one with the Université de Moncton’s Institut d’études acadiennes, ninetysix francophone high school students in New Brunswick answered twenty multiple-choice, short-answer, and open-ended questions probing their historical consciousness. The majority of them displayed a well-developed sense of their cultural identity, with the Deportation being, by far, the most mentioned historical event in their past and 1755 the date most o en cited.19 While most of the students identified themselves as Acadian, a few nevertheless saw themselves first as “citizens of the world,” a finding confirming that identities are always in constant motion, adapting and changing to meet current conditions. Most minority ethnic groups in Canada are not as well served as the Acadians with institutions designed to document and communicate their pasts. At the Peel Heritage Complex, a project partner located in the city of Brampton, Ontario, we built on the institution’s earlier work with immigrants, who found it difficult to identify with the museum’s exhibits, which focused primarily on the region’s nineteenth- and early twentieth-century history. Following two focus group discussions, representatives from several immigrant groups were encouraged to insert their own experience of coming to Peel into the pioneer story displayed in the museum. The success of this exhibition, along with a symposium designed to examine the results, has prompted a broader overhaul of the museum’s programming to encourage more engagement with the past by the various ethnic communities that now make up the majority of the people living in the area.20 Answers to the open-ended questions in our survey encouraged us to be careful about drawing hard and fast lines between what we distinguish as family and public history and between various approaches to the past. For most people, these are all part of a whole. Indeed, the most common reason for our respondents’ visits to public archives was to complete research on the family past. And, inevitably, Canadian history blends into many other pasts. Thus, a woman from British Columbia whose husband had Sco ish roots reported that she had spent two summers researching in archives in Edinburgh and considered writing a book on John A. Macdonald’s family. She was also “fond” of Ian

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Canadians and Their Pasts

Rankin, whose novels “depict it [Edinburgh] fictionally so brilliantly.” Another respondent with a Sco ish background wanted us to know that her favourite movie was Braveheart, in which viewers are told “at the beginning of the movie that the stories from the past ... [are by] whoever won the ba les ... they get to spin their own story.” She then added without prompting, “That’s like the Bible as well.” Schooling The history taught in schools is arguably the most significant public history we have. To one degree or another, it is compulsory, policy-driven, and systematically presented (at least potentially), an almost universal experience, and one that is enjoyed – or endured – over a protracted period of time. Since the survey was limited to adults eighteen years of age and older, none of the participants spoke of learning history in school as a current activity. We did, however, ask respondents to reflect on when they studied history at school, and slightly more than half of our respondents recalled a teacher, class, or event that they found particularly engaging. While “history is boring” may be a staple critique of the subject, it is also the case, as evidenced by the survey results, that many remember a teacher who made history interesting and important. History classes in school figured prominently in answers to other survey questions, and two of our partner projects specifically focused on students, opening a window on their historical consciousness. Surprisingly, education policymakers know very li le about what is going on in history classrooms across the country, and even less about what students think about their history classes. There is nothing comparable in Canada to the monumental Youth and History project, which surveyed thirty-two thousand students across twenty-seven countries in Europe and the Middle East.21 We must look back more than four decades, to A.B. Hodge s’s study of 1968, to encounter any systematic investigation of “the influence of formal instruction in developing the feelings and a itudes of young Canadians toward their country and its problems, and the knowledge on which these a itudes are based.”22 The survey in no way serves as a corrective to this investigative failure, but offers some insight on the impact of school history on historical consciousness. Inevitably, memories of school history were mixed. A British Columbia woman, deeply involved with her family’s history (her grandparents having emigrated from Russia), claimed, “School ... was

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sort of like the birth of my interest in historical stuff.” The interest and engagement that school history initiated for this respondent complemented the notion of school as a place where critical investigation of the past might take place. A Nova Scotia respondent recalled that school provided him with tools to go beyond official, accepted points of view, enabling him to consider several different perspectives: “My history teacher ... had, other than the curriculum ... documentation and books ... and ... had other ... information that he would use ... and that way you had different sources.” Others were less positive: “Everything I learned in school meant li le or nothing to me.” Or it focused on the wrong topics: “When I went to school, they never really talked about Canada much ... it should be about their own heritage of Canada ... you should know more about Canada than anything else.” One Ontario respondent regre ed the dullness (“wasn’t too interested in history when I was in school”) but speculated that today’s children must feel differently: “I think the kids of today are finally clicking into what the war was, the Great War, two wars, the war that ended all the wars, ha, ha! Now we got another war on our hands and so they’re relating now to what the old guys did to fight for this freedom in this day and age. ... [I]t must be really, really exciting.” In addition to recollections from their own childhoods, respondents made reference to history in schools today. A few commented warmly, as parents, on their own children’s school history, which had turned into a significant “activity related to the past” for the parents. An Alberta mother helped her daughter with a project; others helped children on homework and research, another accompanied her children on school field trips to museums and a “historic farm.” A British Columbia parent, eager to convey the family’s Chinese heritage, helped a son find “some old photos” for a school project. School history offered a similar opportunity for an Acadian parent: “We’re Acadians. So they’re learning it at school. ... we’re studying it with them now, so it’s their past, like their heritage.” Several Ontarians spoke of working on family trees as school projects. “It brought back all the memories of my grandfather, her great-grandfather,” said one. When participants shi ed from their own children to “kids, these days” in general, there was a dramatically different tone, largely elegiac, about how much things have changed – “their learning is altogether different from what I learned” – how li le today’s students know, or how li le they are taught: “Unfortunately, there’s not that much history being taught in schools right at the moment, but I do think that they

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should know about John A. Macdonald and how Canada was formed and all about the Hudson’s Bay Company and who discovered the Fraser River and all the explorers, and unfortunately that’s not really being taught.” A woman from Prince Edward Island was still more sweeping: “I find there’s too few Canadian school kids right now that know anything about Canadian history at all.” Her voice was echoed on the West Coast: “When I listen to young children today ... they have absolutely no clue what was going on fi y years ago ... but they know everything about a computer. So there’s ... there’s ... not enough history ... that gives them any guidance.” Schools are quintessentially public institutions for conveying history. They are thus key targets for the expression of anxieties about what will be understood by the next generation.23 Yet, as with museums, film, and books, history taught in today’s schools o en has a peculiarly personal, familial, and ethnic dimension to it. To come closer to the lives of students (as museums have come closer to the communities in which they are embedded), the experience of history in schools includes family trees, ethnic histories, interviews with grandparents, and communitybased research projects. While some of the Canadians we spoke with bemoaned this me-focused turn (calling for less Grandpa, more John A.), there are just as many who embrace it. Skillful history teachers understand how to help students to link their family and community stories of immigration, hardship, survival, and achievement to larger themes in Canadian and world history. The differences between the personal and public need not signal separation. Rather, they provide opportunities for creative dialogue. Two initiatives associated with our project, both supported in part by our partner Historica (now Historica-Dominion Institute), aimed directly at working with and promoting this dialogue in the history education of young Canadians. The Historical Thinking Project, based at the University of British Columbia, sought to transform history in schools into a more active subject, where students would have opportunities to investigate problems, analyse evidence, and construct historical interpretations. It a empted to make explicit, for schoolteachers and their students, the processes of critical historical thinking: the use of evidence, the assessment of historical significance, and the weighing of ethical obligations inherited from the past. In this model of historical pedagogy, the notion of “historical agency” expands the engines of history from a few power-wielding men to the actions and movements of large numbers of people, and thus fosters students’ understanding

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of their own place in history. Provincial ministries of education and – in their wake – history and social studies textbook publishers have been receptive, incorporating these ideas into new documents and texts.24 Heritage Fairs, conducted across Canada, took an even more direct route, promoting the involvement of students (grades 4–9) in history presentations and displays on topics of their own choosing, frequently family and local histories. In a study of one hundred participants in the 2009 National Fair (selected from their regional competitions), our partners based in Kamloops found family history to be a key nexus.25 One participant thought it “interesting that my family came from nothing to something.” Another appreciated “how much family history I have.” For some, the connections among family, community, and a larger history reframed the challenge of understanding the past: “I see history as something more interesting now. ... something not just black and white with unknown faces.” Another opined, “I have a personal connection with all of the people that I met. I kind of faced what they did and maybe took some memories off their shoulders. I showed that there was knowledge and light being brought to some subjects that some people may think are forgo en.”26 Both the Historical Thinking Project and the Heritage Fairs started from the assumptions that young people should and could learn to be active “history-makers,” building meaningful, evidence-based accounts and presentations, and that from engagement in the local and personal, they could build bridges to larger Canadian and global pasts. In this, they shared beliefs with many expressions from the survey participants. History and the Internet The Internet as we know it has existed for about three decades, and the most popular search engine, Google, has been around only since 1998. Wikipedia, the all-purpose, open-source encyclopedia, with more than twenty million entries, was formally launched in 2001. These developments are so recent that their implications for our understanding of the past are only slowly being grasped, but there is no question that the Internet and its related technologies are emerging as the major route to engagement with the past. Fully 40 percent of our respondents reported using the Internet in the preceding twelve months (2006–7) to look up something about the past. This is an amazing number, especially when

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we consider that the Internet is so recent that it did not merit a specific question in the American and Australian surveys. Like all new forms of communication, the Internet and the system of interlinked hypertext documents on the World Wide Web is cutting a broad swath across everything we do on this planet. We were surprised by the range of interest in and the speed of adaptation to the new medium. When inquiring about photographs, a woman from Dieppe, New Brunswick, reported that she had recently encountered them on Facebook (est. 2004), where a group had posted “old photographs of Richibucto, and those areas that concern me because I lived there for 18 years.” It was not only the young who turned to new communications technologies. In their pursuit of “memory keepers” in the province’s rapidly shrinking rural communities, our Newfoundland Historical Society partners discovered that one octogenarian shared his research via the Web.27 Respondents to the survey explained that they published the results of their research – interviews, images, genealogies, and primary documents – online for the benefit of their family, friends, colleagues, and the wider world. Many video games, another phenomenon of the digital age, are situated in historical time (e.g., Empire Earth and Civilization). While they have yet to become the primary route for accessing the past, they are becoming a major avenue for historical consciousness for the mostly young men who are devoted to them. Canada plays a significant role in the video gaming industry, replacing Great Britain as the third-ranked computer game producer in the world in 2010.28 Our survey, which suggests that 8 percent of our respondents played such games, brought no enthusiastic testimony to the impact of gaming on historical consciousness. This anonymous le er writer to The Walrus magazine in 2011 hints at the potential: “Before I began playing Civilization, I had no interest in history or world events. Through the game, I began to understand more about how governance works. I learned the importance of public policy, and that agreements made in diplomatic talks are o en not set in stone. I developed a sense of how populations grow and civilizations progress. I became more interested in politics, and went out of my way to learn more about history and world leaders. These interests have enriched my life and, I think, made me a be er person.”29 Although games with a historical message may well be the way of the future, Web sites and specialized applications are the major gateways for raising historical consciousness in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Another partner in our project, the Union of British

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Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC), digitized for Web site delivery the sixteen volumes of testimony provided to the Royal Commission on Indian Affairs, 1913–16 (commonly called the McKenna-McBride Commission).30 These records provide vivid evidence – in testimony, maps, and photographs – of conflicts over Aboriginal title and rights in the early twentieth century. In making the entire resource accessible online, the UBCIC provided important tools for legal arguments on current land claims, and for numerous local bands working on their own histories. The very scale and scope of the Royal Commission collection made it challenging to use in teaching school students what is, in any case, a difficult topic. Through the Web site, the UBCIC was able to support education, research, and advocacy based on the idea that Aboriginal title and rights predated European contact, and that they dictate – morally and legally – negotiation prior to any alienation of lands. Unlike the philosophical position of universal human rights, which sees only “equals in this land,” theirs is a fundamentally historical one, in that it can be understood only in the context of the historical record. Respondents mentioned the Internet positively in answer to the question asking whether conditions had improved or become worse over time, but their assessment of the new medium was mixed. While most saw it as a communications breakthrough, even a vehicle for reducing social tensions, others saw it as a troubling device, distracting people from face-to-face relationships and what really ma ered in life. In the questions concerning how trustworthy various historical sources “are for you,” the Internet ranked far below teachers, family stories, books, museums, and historic sites. Very few people suggested that they would turn to the Internet to resolve conflicting claims about the past. Respondents were o en leery of what they found in cyberspace, but they, like the researchers in this project, o en turned to it first when researching a new topic. Without question, the digital revolution has increased the numbers of people “doing history.” The Web brings together public history and family history in a new way and has had a democratizing effect on the use of archives. While those researching family trees and family histories could always visit an archive, they can now do it in their homes with the new communications technologies. They are no longer obliged to travel long distances or to enter a public space in which they might feel uncomfortable. Moreover, the Internet ties together different ways of engaging the past. Museums and historic sites are now represented “online,” we can see a movie or read a book about the past

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on our computer, and we can then go to the Web to search for more information. What are the implications for public history of this rapidly expanding Internet use? With new communications technologies dissolving the boundaries between professional and amateur historians, some scholars express concern that amateurs can easily circumvent the customary gatekeepers in editorial offices and publishing companies by placing their historical material directly online. That some of this production is unreliable adds insult to injury by calling into question hard-earned academic authority.31 In the worst-case scenario, the new technologies are predicted to lead to a “wholesale privatization of culture” that transforms the “mechanisms of social memory,” damages people’s sense of their communities, and diminishes their own identities.32 Does such a profound impact trump the potential of the Internet to democratize the practice of history and allow academic historians to reach and interact with a broader audience, one that seems to be increasingly receptive to academic research? Our survey cannot answer this important question, but it suggests that all citizens need to be active in shaping how the digital revolution plays out in our lives. What MaĴers? Several open-ended questions allowed respondents to comment more generally about the importance of the past. One key question reads, “Some people think it is important for the next generation to know about history and the past. What is it about history that you think should be handed down to the next generation?” The interviewers’ additional prompt, if needed, read, “It could be anything, from your personal past to the past of your community or even the world. Just anything that you think, in any aspect of life, should be handed down to the next generation.” To get a handle on the responses, we picked a random sample of slightly more than 10 percent of the interviews to probe more deeply. Nearly half of the 345 respondents had li le to offer, while the other half was split three ways, making autobiographical, national, and global observations.33 Many of these respondents spoke of the sacrifices made by individuals and families in wartime and the opportunities for today’s children that had been made possible by previous generations. Assuming that the question about what should be handed down contained a national implication, an Ontario woman’s reply was typical of the roughly one in seven respondents who spoke

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of Canada’s historical context. “All the facts I guess. What creates the country. What makes the things happen, or what creates the change. And it’s good to know, you know, why the country is the way it is.” A similar assumption underlay the words of an Alberta woman: “The knowledge of how our country became to be a country, the freedoms and privileges we have within our countries, what other countries do and don’t have and as well as some sort of connection to the past if it’s like a lineage or whatever because most of the people in Canada have immigrated here at one point or another.” Some respondents offered more extensive comments, placing Canada’s history in an international context. Explaining what the next generation should know about the past, a British Columbia man stated the following: Well, there should be love and respect for it [history] ... a clear understanding that it plays a crucial role in ... who you are ... how we got here, and therefore where it is that we’re going or likely to go ... this is all cliché ... [you] probably picked that up [from other respondents] but those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it ... Say we forgot something like ... the Holocaust, or, say, people came to Canada and didn’t know the genesis of this country and about the founding peoples ... how democracy developed ... That could have hugely negative repercussions. So, not knowing history I find extremely disturbing. What about labour [history]? ... People are forge ing things ... Why do we have a 40 hour work week? ... there are just so many examples ... and if you don’t know the background of it ... you could ... it can be lost, you know.

This man’s thinking carried him from respect for the past, an assertion of its value, to awareness of the Holocaust – a ma er of international history – to several national experiences, including Canada’s Aboriginal and labour histories. Almost certainly, the post-war a ention to Canadian history in schools and other public institutions, and the effective use by public historians of such communications media as museums, television programs, and popular books, contributed to this nuanced response.

‫ﱸﱷﱶ‬ As the foregoing suggests, many Canadians have developed a high degree of engagement with history as it is conveyed through public

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institutions and media, old and new. While they may recall few details about supposed touchstones of the country’s political history, they nonetheless draw upon impressions gathered from a myriad of sources to construct their multiple versions of imagined communities. Whether established institutions tasked with conveying the past in public can withstand the extraordinary impact of the Internet, which has altered so much, so quickly, and with so li le concern for time-honoured traditions, remains a central question for anyone concerned about the presence of the past.

2 Everybody’s Doing It

“History,” Margaret MacMillan asserted in 2007, “is widely popular these days.”1 A decade earlier, David Lowenthal concluded: “All at once heritage is everywhere.”2 Both historians were reflecting on the near universal engagement with the past that has become part of everyday life in the Western world. While much of this engagement is driven by commercial or political motives, ordinary Canadians a est in myriad ways – ranging from a endance at Remembrance Day ceremonies to subscriptions to Ancestry.ca – that history ma ers. It is not surprising, then, that almost all Canadians who responded to our survey were able to report that they engaged with the past in one way or another. In this chapter we provide an overview of some of the major findings from our survey before moving to more detailed discussion in subsequent chapters. Engaging with the Past As Table 2.1 indicates, most of the survey respondents reported a high level of involvement in activities relating to the past, and especially in activities relating to family history. Four in five had looked at old photographs of buildings, places, family members, or friends in the previous twelve months, and three quarters reported keeping heirlooms. More than half had visited places from their family past that held special meaning for them such as a school, family farm, cemetery, burial ground, and old fishing or hunting places. Similar numbers were documenting family history through scrapbooks, cookbooks, diaries, or home movies. Even more noteworthy, one in five respondents reported

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Table 2.1. Engaging with the Past: Participation Rates over the Last Twelve Months* Activity (listed in order as asked in the survey) Looked at old photographs Kept something meaningful to pass on (heirlooms) Prepared a family scrapbook, or involved in other activities to preserve the past Watched movies, videos, DVDs, or TV programs about the past Used the Internet to look up or post information about the past Played video or computer history games Read books about the past Visited a museum Visited a historic site Visited a place from the family’s past Worked on your family tree/completed genealogical research Written or visited a public archive Done any other activities related to the past (Number of respondents)

Percent 83 74 56 78 40 8 53 43 49 57 20 15 25 (3,119)

*Unless indicated otherwise, the data for this and other tables are for the national sample of 3,119 interviews. The data are “weighted” to reflect the population distribution of the country. See Appendix 2 for details on why and how the weights were calculated. Complete wording for the activity questions is provided in Appendix 1.

working on a family tree or genealogy in the previous twelve months and others reported having a completed family tree in hand. Participation in public and popular history, beyond the focus on the family, was also high. Four in five respondents watched a movie, video, DVD, or a TV program about the past in the previous year, and half had read books about the past. Nearly half of the respondents had recently visited historic sites and museums. Fi een percent of those interviewed had visited archives; most of these visits were through Web sites and related to genealogical research. Eight percent of respondents, disproportionately young men, reported that in the last twelve months they had played video or computer history games that were set in the past. Forty percent of respondents reported using the Internet to explore the past. Given the growing popularity of the Internet, we were not surprised to learn that almost two thirds of those who reported searching the World Wide Web to explore the past did so five or more times in the previous year.3 Respondents sometimes talked about watching historical movies or reading books about the past, and then surfing the Internet for more

Everybody’s Doing It

31

information. As one respondent put it, he “would check the Internet and ... cross-reference with some books.” Respondents reported that the Internet has changed the way they find information: “Now I’d probably use the Internet to find a book and then I’d go through the book.” Clearly, the Internet has opened up an important new way of exploring the past and the general public has seized this opportunity.4 This was particularly true for respondents in two of our special samples. Half of the recent immigrant sample in the Peel Region of Ontario and half of the Aboriginal sample in Saskatchewan told interviewers that they had used the Internet to explore the past over the previous twelve months. When asked about “other activities,” respondents o en confirmed answers given in earlier questions and linked activities together, particularly when these activities centred on family life. This question also captured a diverse range of activities, which included belonging to local history, preservation, or heritage societies; collecting stamps, coins, badges, medals, and other artefacts; making objects such as needlework, quilts, and woodwork to preserve and bequeath; a ending history seminars; and “just keeping things in an old shoe box.” One respondent mentioned that she collected old clothing and teacups, and that these two interests came together when she helped to organize Victorian tea parties. Another respondent described how driving in the countryside helped him to think about the past, as he observed “old buildings, the styles of the barns and churches.” In summary, participation in multiple family-related activities was high, with 44 percent of the respondents reporting that they participated in all three of the most common family-related activities: looking at old photographs, keeping heirlooms, and documenting family history. Fewer respondents, but still just over one in five, reported engaging in all three of the most popular activities relating to public history in the previous year: reading a book about the past, visiting a museum, and visiting a historical site. Only 1 percent of respondents reported “no” to all thirteen questions on pursuits relating to the past, and 70 percent of the respondents reported that they engaged in five or more activities. Looking at old photographs, keeping heirlooms, reading books, or watching movies about the past does not necessarily mean that the past is a meaningful part of a person’s life, but judging from the explanatory comments provided by respondents, many Canadians regard the historical aspect of these activities as central to their engagement.

32

Canadians and Their Pasts

Certainly, the time and energy devoted to the pursuit of the past are o en substantial. A Ukrainian-Canadian respondent in his mid-fi ies from Manitoba told the interviewer that he had been working on his family’s history for more than ten years. In that time, the family had held two reunions and had shared information on computer files, which were now available “365 days a year.” He explained that he had “just heard about ancestry.ca on the radio about a week ago,” and that he had bought a membership and “keyed it in and there’s Grandfather’s name ge ing off the boat in Montreal [in 1896].” He conceded that, in the larger scheme of his family’s history, finding the name of the ship “was a tidbit that somehow was lost,” but there is no denying his excitement about his latest find. Feeling Connected to and Understanding the Past A er inquiring about their involvement in activities relating to the past, respondents were asked if this participation helped them to understand the past or helped them to understand themselves, and if engaging in these activities made them feel connected to the past. Each respondent was asked to think about just one of the activities in which he or she had participated: looking at photographs, using the Internet to explore the past, reading books, visiting museums, and visiting historic sites. With respect to the question about connection to the past, about one quarter of the survey respondents said that they felt participating in the activity made them feel “very connected” to the past, and about half reported that participation made them feel “somewhat connected” to the past. Their connection to the past varied by activity. Only 15 percent of the respondents said they felt “very connected” to the past when using the Internet, but more than twice as many respondents said they felt “very connected” to the past when visiting historic sites. The thrill of actually standing on the spot where historical events occurred was conveyed by a number of respondents. An eighty-four-year-old man from a small town in Ontario reported, Well, you’re right there, that is where it happened. There’s an aura about that ... I think a good example is in St John’s, Newfoundland. They say at this point, the first explorers landed here, and it didn’t mean a hundred yards down, it meant right there, right there, that’s where the trail was. And I thought, “That’s something!” ... That stuff just puts hackles up my back. ... I’m not sure if everybody feels that, but I did.

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The sense of awe and emotional connection resulting from being “right there” is what Laurajane Smith calls a “moment of heritage.” As Smith points out, these personal connections are not constrained by a historian’s concern for accuracy but rather touch people because of the meaning the object or event has for them in the present.5 When responding to questions about the extent to which engaging in history-related activities helped them understand the past, one third of the survey participants said engaging in history-related activities helped them understand the past a “great deal” and almost another third said it helped them “a lot.” Again, the response varied according to the activity. Respondents were more likely to say visiting museums and historic sites helped them understand the past “a great deal,” and were less likely to say Internet use and looking at photographs did so. Reading books fell in the middle. Respondents were much less likely to report “a great deal” when assessing these activities as ways for understanding themselves. Only one fi h indicated that participation helped them understand themselves “a great deal,” compared to the one third who said engaging in these activities helped them understand the past “a great deal.” As was the case for feeling connected to the past, the Internet scored poorly. Few people reported that exploring the past on the Internet helped them understand who they were or helped them connect to the past. Not surprisingly, the activity that respondents were most likely to identify as helping them understand themselves “a great deal” was looking at old photographs, but that activity scored only slightly higher than visiting historic sites or reading books about the past. The questions on understanding and connectedness add perspective and context to the participation questions. Although the vast majority of respondents reported participating in history-related activities, only a minority felt they learned “a great deal” about the past or felt “very connected” to the past by doing so. An even smaller minority said they had learned “a great deal” about themselves by engaging in these activities. These sobering numbers must be placed alongside the rich stories told by some of the respondents who clearly linked their family history to who they were and connected their family history to a larger past. Interest in the Past The first three questions in the survey asked respondents how interested they were in history and the past in general, in the history and

34

Canadians and Their Pasts

Table 2.2. Interest in the Past Past

Responses

Percent

The past in general

Very interested Somewhat interested Not very/not at all interested* Very interested Somewhat interested Not very/not at all interested* Very interested Somewhat interested Not very/not at all interested*

33 52 15 52 39 9 32 54 14 (3,119)

Family’s past

Canada’s past

(Respondents, each question)

*Includes a very small number of “don’t know” and “refused to answer” responses.

past of their family, and in the history and past of Canada. Given the findings about participation and family-related activities, it is not surprising that interest in family history was significantly higher than interest in Canadian history and interest in history in general. Just over one half of Canadians indicated they were “very interested” in family history, whereas only one third indicated they were “very interested” in Canadian history or history in general (see Table 2.2). Less than one in ten respondents reported that they had no interest in family history or refused to answer the question, and only one in seven indicated that they had no interest in either Canadian history or history in general. The relationship between the interest in history generally and participating in activities is instructive. Respondents who reported that they were “very interested” in history were more likely, by 10 to 20 percentage points, to have participated in past-related activities than the “somewhat interested” group, and 20 to 40 percentage points more likely than respondents who said that they had no interest in history. Fi y-seven percent of the respondents who reported limited interest in history and the past had seen a movie, video, DVD, or TV program about the past in the last twelve months, while 77 percent of those who were “somewhat interested” and 89 percent of those who were “very interested” had done so. The greatest difference between those who had no interest in history in general and those who were “very interested” in history was

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35

in the likelihood that they had read a book about the past in the previous year. One quarter of those not interested in history had read a book, half of those who were “somewhat interested” had done so, and 71 percent of those who were “very interested” in the past had read one or more books about the past in the previous twelve months. While the differences were not always as large, being “very interested” in the past was also associated, at a statistically significant level, with taking part in more family-related activities. The proportion of respondents scrapbooking or otherwise documenting their family history, from those with no interest in history, to those who were “somewhat interested,” to those “very interested,” was 40 percent, 56 percent, and 64 percent, respectively. As these figures suggest, many of those who claim no interest in history generally are still involved in documenting their family history, suggesting that they see their family history as something quite distinct from “history” in general. Based on the relationship between interest in history/past and consuming, documenting, and interpreting the past, as measured in the activity questions, it is clear that when respondents told us that they were “very interested” in history their answers were based on action. Being interested in the past was not a polite response to a survey question; rather it was evidence of a person for whom the past is meaningful and important. While a high level of interest in family history was also a statistically significant predictor of greater engagement with the past, the differences were not as consistent or as large as for the general interest in history and the past question. Those who were “very interested” in family history were much more likely to be keeping heirlooms (17 percent higher), scrapbooking or otherwise documenting family history (21 percent higher), and working on a family tree (19 percent higher) than those who were only “somewhat interested” in family history. Respondents “very interested” in family history were no more likely to have watched a movie about the past in the past twelve months than respondents who were only “somewhat interested” in family history. They were, however, more likely to have seen such a movie than those respondents who had no interest in family history. When it came to reading books about the past or visiting museums and historic sites, those who were “very interested” in family were only 5 to 8 percentage points higher than those who were only “somewhat interested.”

36

Canadians and Their Pasts

Although the magnitude of the effect was lower, interest in Canadian history also predicted engagement. Participation rates in the activities for those who were “very interested” in Canadian history were 4 to 11 percentage points higher than those who were “somewhat interested.” As was the case for those with an interest in history generally, and in family history, those who expressed li le interest in Canadian history were much less likely to be engaged. Importance of Various Pasts We also asked respondents to comment on how important different pasts were to them.6 Consistent with our results for activities and interest in the past, respondents were most likely to say the past of their family was “very important” (see Table 2.3). Only 6 percent of respondents rated the past of their family as “not very” or “not at all important.” A er family, the past that was most o en rated as “very important” was the past of Canada at 42 percent. Province scored lower at (35 percent). The multicultural nature of Canada was evidenced by the finding that 39 percent of the interviewees rated the past of their ethnic or cultural group as “very important.” These respondents represented fi yseven identities, among them long-established groups of immigrants to Canada such as the Irish and Chinese, and more recent immigrants such as Jamaicans and Filipinos. While the past of one’s religion or spiritual tradition was less likely to be identified as a very important past Table 2.3. Importance of Various Pasts Level of importance (percent) Past Family Religion or spiritual tradition Ethnic or cultural group Province of residence Canada Country of birth (if not Canadian-born)

Very important

Somewhat important

Not very/ not at all*

66 32 39 35 42 59

28 33 42 50 48 30

6 35 19 15 10 11

*Includes a very small number of “don’t know” and “refused to answer.” Number of respondents is 3,119, except for last question, where it is 581.

Everybody’s Doing It

37

by survey respondents, a substantial minority (32 percent) said it was “very important” to them. This figure may seem high in light of the decline in church a endance in Canada over the past fi y years,7 but an interest in the past of one’s religion or spiritual tradition is not necessarily the same as regular a endance at a place of worship. Further, immigrants were especially likely to rank the past of their religion as important. When respondents born outside of Canada were asked to rate the importance of the past of their country of birth, 59 percent said it was “very important.” These immigrants, on average, gave lower ratings to the importance of the past of Canada than they did to the country in which they were born, but they also were as likely as nonimmigrants to say the past of Canada was “very important” (44 percent). Immigrants were similar to other Canadians in expressing interest in multiple pasts. More than half of the respondents told us that three or more pasts were “very important” to them. The relationship between the immigrant experience and engagement in the past is explored in chapter 7. Respondents were also asked if there were any pasts, other than the ones asked about, that were important to them, and nearly one third answered affirmatively. The most frequent “other past,” which accounted for just over one half of the responses, was a place that related to family history, such as the past of a community where they grew up, the city in which they now live, or places and countries that their family had come from. About 15 percent of the respondents who indicated an interest in an “other past” expressed interest in the past (and present) of Canadian Aboriginal peoples.8 This interest reflected an understanding that Canadian history predated the European arrival. As one respondent succinctly put it, “They are Canada.” About 10 percent expressed an interest in the past of friends. Small numbers mentioned an interest in the past of immigrants, the British, Jewish people, world wars, explorers, religions other than their own, language, and music. A er asking respondents to rank the importance of the various pasts listed in Table 2.3, we asked them to decide which one was “most important” to them. Family past was the choice of almost two thirds of the respondents. Only two other pasts were selected: 10 percent mentioned the past of Canada and a similar proportion the past of the respondent’s religion/spiritual tradition. Very few respondents indicated that the past of their country of birth (if not Canada) or the region they identified with was their “most important” past. Fourteen percent of the respondents did not rate any of the pasts we asked about as very

38

Canadians and Their Pasts

important, nor did they, when asked, identify any other past that was important to them. Those who reported that a past was important to them were asked why this was so. The answers were almost always about identity: it is who they are, where they came from, their roots; it is knowing themselves by knowing their past and wanting to pass this knowledge on to future generations. Respondents who selected the past of Canada as the “most important” past most frequently gave explanations that referred to being “born and raised here.” While some of these answers also made reference to parents and children, others talked about the past being important because Canada is a “wonderful” or “fascinating” or “good” country, and expressed pride and ownership, stating “this is my country.” A few respondents saw Canada as encompassing the “whole picture, the nation,” rather than “li le pieces” and felt that Canada’s past “makes us unique as a nation.” When speaking of the past of their religion, especially among Christians, respondents noted it made them “part of something that’s much bigger than just me, much bigger than just a city or a country. It’s a life and it’s two thousand years.” For these respondents, religion was seen as transcending the whole life course. Social Demographic Characteristics When four of every five Canadians report that they looked at old photographs or had watched a movie about the past in the last year, we can be quite confident that for these activities large numbers of both men and women, the old and the young, and those with high and lower levels of education had looked at photos and watched movies. For activities that fewer respondents engage in, such as visiting museums or historic sites or reading books, it is possible that only those with higher incomes or levels of education engage in the activities. So for each of our activities we reviewed participation rates by seven demographic traits: education, income, gender, age, ethnicity, religion, and whether they had children. Education Education is a powerful predictor of participation in past-related activities. Respondents with a university education were three times more likely as respondents with less than high school education to have visited museums, historic sites, or archives in the previous year and twice

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39

as likely to have read books about the past. The percentage of university graduates who looked at old photographs or were keeping heirlooms was higher than those with less than high school education to a statistically significant level. As seen in Figure 2.1, in almost all cases, an increase in educational achievement was matched by an increase in participation. The relationship between education and interest in the past in general was much like that found for education and participation in activities related to the past (see Table 2.4). Those with the lowest levels of education were least likely to report that they were “very interested” in the past in general, and those with the highest levels of education were most likely to report they were “very interested.” Our findings also mirror the research that confirms a relationship between education and the likelihood a person will visit historical sites and museums.9 Since research suggests that higher levels of education are associated with higher earnings, be er health, a more cosmopolitan outlook, more involvement in leisure pursuits such as visiting museums and reading books, and a greater degree of reflectivity about life, this finding is not surprising.10 Education was not associated with interest in family history or Canadian history. Unlike engagement and interest in history, there was no relationship between the level of one’s education and the likelihood of saying that Figure 2.1. Engagement by Educational Status

80% less than hs

high school

post high school

university

60%

40%

20%

0% photos

movies

heirlooms

books

scrap books

historic sites

museums

internet

family places

family tree

archives

40

Canadians and Their Pasts

Table 2.4. Interest in and Importance of History and Various Pasts by Education Less than high school Percent saying “very interested” in: 25 Past in general Family past 50 Canada’s past 32

High school

Post–high school (no degree)

University degree

28 52 33

32 50 30

43 55 35

65 28 37

66 35 44

32 41

36 43

(1,062)

(883)

Percent saying past was “very important”: 69 66 Past of family Past of religion 41 30 Past of ethnic or 39 34 cultural group Past of province 46 34 Past of Canada 51 36 (Number of respondents)* (402) (747)

*Does not total 3,119 as a small number of respondents did not answer the education question.

the past of the family was “very important.” Sixty-six percent of high school graduates said the past of the family was “very important,” the same percentage reported by university graduates. To the extent that there is a relationship between education and the likelihood of saying a past was “very important,” those with the lowest levels of education gave the highest importance ratings for ethnicity, province, and Canada. The relationship between education and interest in history is strongest when history is least circumscribed. As educational achievement increases so does the likelihood of reporting that history, broadly defined, is “very interesting.” Respondents who were very interested in history described it as something deserving of a ention, something to discover, and something to understand and to learn more about. It seems, in sum, that one has to be carefully taught to engage the past in its broadest sense. Income Although income and education were closely linked, there were nuances with respect to income that are worth mentioning. Income is a predictor of participation for some history-related activities, most notably museum a endance. Sixty percent of those at the highest annual

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household income level (over $120,000) said they had visited a museum in the previous year. This was two and a half times higher than the 24 percent of those with the lowest level of income (under $20,000). Keeping heirlooms was also associated with income but less dramatically so: 63 percent of those with a household income under $20,000 were planning to pass on heirlooms, compared to 84 percent for those with household incomes over $120,000. A similar pa ern between income and participation exists for looking at old photographs, visiting historic sites and places from the family’s past, and going to movies or watching TV.11 For the remaining activities, documenting family history, genealogical research, use of the Internet, computer history games, reading books, visiting the archives, and participation in other activities, income was not a significant predictor of engagement. We also found li le evidence that income levels were systematically related to the degree of interest or the level of importance assigned to various pasts.12 Gender As we expected, men and women reported different levels of engagement with the past. Female respondents were more likely to participate in history-related activities than men, especially if the activities concerned the family. Two thirds of women reported that they had worked on scrapbooks, diaries, family histories, and home movies in the last twelve months, but only half of the male respondents had done so. Ten percent more women than men reported keeping heirlooms. When it came to looking at old photographs, visiting places from their family’s past, and working on genealogical research or a family tree, the differences were marginal but tipped slightly in the direction of women. Men were more likely than women to report using the Internet to explore the past, to play computer history games, to have read books about the past, and to have watched movies or TV programs about the past, but not dramatically so. For these activities women’s participation rates were 5 to 7 percentage points lower than men.13 Women were also more likely to report more interest in the past of their family, and were more likely to say the past of the family was “very important” to them. Fi y-nine percent of women reported they were “very interested” in family history, and 73 percent indicated that the past of their family was the past they saw as being “most important” (for men, the figures were 42 percent and 57 percent, respectively). Women were less likely to say they were “very interested” in the past generally than men (30 percent to 37 percent), and they were less likely

42

Canadians and Their Pasts

to say they were “very interested” in the history of Canada, by a difference of 5 percentage points. There was no statistically significant difference between women and men in the likelihood of saying Canada’s past or the past of their province of residence was “very important.” Women were more likely to say the pasts of their religion and ethnicity were “very important pasts,” but, again, the differences, at 4 percentage points, were small. Gender differences are neither static nor universal, but rather socially constructed and dependent upon context. As documented in chapter 5, men in the Acadian sample were closer to women in the extent to which they engaged in activities relating to family history, which was not only important to individual identity but also a key factor in establishing a cultural identity. Of course, most of the activities on our list, such as scrapbooking and watching history movies, are relatively recent phenomena, and enthusiasm for them may change according to gender and over time. Computer history games, which emerged from military culture, have been developed with men and boys in mind, but may eventually become less gender-specific in their focus. What is clear, as Paul Ashton and Paula Hamilton point out in their discussion of engagement with the past in Australia, is that computer games, which now rival movies in generating profits, will have an increasingly significant impact on the historical understandings of future generations.14 Parents and Childless Adults As might be expected, parents were more likely to report engagement in activities that preserved the past than childless adults. They were more likely to say they were keeping heirlooms (79 percent for parents to 58 percent for nonparents), preparing scrapbooks (62 percent to 42 percent), and working on a family tree (22 percent to 14 percent). With respect to other forms of engagement, parents were no more likely than nonparents to look at old photographs, visit a museum, a historic site, a place from the family’s past, or an archive, or read a book about the past. Parents predictably were more likely than nonparents to say they were “very interested” in family history and to report that the past of the family was “very important.” Parents were also more likely to say the past of their religion was “very important” than were nonparents. For the other pasts and interest questions, no differences exist between parents and nonparents. On occasion, a respondent would add context

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to a response by saying “since I became a mom,” or a similar aside to help explain why they felt the past of their family, religion, or ethnic background was very important. Age Not surprisingly, respondents under thirty years of age were generally less engaged in the past than their elders (see Table 2.5). The young were 10 percent to 18 percent less likely than other respondents to be keeping heirlooms, preparing scrapbooks, working on a family tree, or making home movies. It was not the case, however, that there were increases in participation rates as we moved up each age cohort. The pa ern for heirlooms was fairly typical. Fi y-six percent of those between eighteen and twenty-nine were keeping heirlooms, and the figure for those thirty to thirty-nine years of age was 74 percent, a figure similar for all other age groups.15 The general finding was not that as age increased so did participation, but rather that the youngest were different from all other age groups.16 The youngest respondents reported more use of the Internet to look up information about the past (47 percent) than every age group except those who were thirty to thirty-nine years of age, for whom Internet use was 58 percent. The youngest respondents, more than any other age group, also reported playing computer history games about the past. Respondents seventy-five and older participated less in most of the history-related activities. For example, on average, they were about 14 percent less likely to have visited places from their family past, to have visited museums, and to have visited historic places in the last twelve months. These differences can be accounted for mainly by lower levels of education of older people, but it is also likely that some of the older respondents have difficulty ge ing around these venues. When asked about interest in the past and importance of various pasts, older respondents were more likely than other respondents to say they were “very interested” or that these pasts were “very important” to them. As can be seen in Table 2.5, for all of these questions, older respondents were at one end of the spectrum and younger respondents were at the other, but, again, the differentiation between respondents aged thirty to seventy-four was not that large. Age and interest in the past of Canada have a more distinct pa ern than found for the other

44

Canadians and Their Pasts

Table 2.5. Interest in and Importance of Pasts by Age 18–29 Percent saying “very interested” in: Past in general 20 Family past 37 Canada’s past 22

30–39

40–50

51–64

65–74

75+

30 55 25

33 51 28

35 52 35

45 57 46

37 63 49

66 31 40

66 31 38

69 35 43

79 47 51

32 40 (765)

36 43 (843)

48 50 (323)

56 62 (242)

Percent saying past was “very important”: Past of family 56 68 Past of religion 21 32 Past of ethnic or 28 37 cultural group Past of province 24 30 Past of Canada 30 35 (Number of respondents)* (409) (489)

*Total does not equal 3,119 as a small number of respondents did not provide their year of birth.

interest and importance questions. For these questions each increase in age was matched by a step up in interest and importance. Ethnicity When asked to what ethnic or cultural group they belonged, our 3,119 respondents offered 102 possibilities, sometimes conflating ethnicity with places, or offering multiple backgrounds. The most common responses were English, Sco ish, Irish, French, German, Ukrainian, and Italian. Respondents who self-identified as “Canadian” were second in number only to those who said they were English. Did respondents who chose to label themselves as Canadian stand out from other respondents? The short answer is no. They did not reside in a particular province, were no more likely to live in urban or rural se ings, and did not come from a particular age group or educational background; they were no more likely to participate in activities related to the past, or to be interested in history and the past. They were, however, 7 percent less likely than other respondents to say the past of their ethnic or cultural group and the past of their religion were very important to them. And, conversely, they were 7 percent more likely to say the past of Canada was very important to them.

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European ethnocultural groups were many, and most had only small numbers of individuals in our sample, which limited the extent to which we could probe deeply into ethnicity. In general, differences between these groups were minor and not remarkable. Jewish respondents, most of whom also identified with a European ancestry, were somewhat more likely than other European respondents to engage with the past as measured by viewing photos, keeping heirlooms, watching movies, and visiting museums, historic sites, and places from their family’s pasts. They also reported more interest in history than other European respondents, but approximated the average Canadian interest in history. In general Chinese, Indian, Caribbean, Middle Eastern, and African respondents were not sharply different from each other or other respondents. In comparison to other respondents, members of these five groups were less likely to visit historical sites and places from their family’s past, or to work on their family tree. Fewer visits to places from the family’s past likely reflect the cost constraints. It may be the case that historic sites in Canada, which largely reflect events involving European and (less so) Aboriginal peoples, do not resonate as much with people from other cultural backgrounds. Perhaps as a reflection of the immigrant status of many of the members of these five groups, they report more use of the Web to look up or post information about the past. Differences between the five groups were found, but they were neither sustained nor statistically significant. All five groups did have higher percentages of people saying the past of their religion and the past of their ethnocultural group were very important in comparison to Canadians as a whole. This was particularly true for Caribbean, African, and Middle Eastern respondents. Since these three ethnic groups included a high proportion of people who had recently arrived in Canada, it may be their recent immigrant experience rather than their ethnic group membership that explains this difference. The intersection between time of immigration, ethnicity, and relationship to the past is explored in chapter 7. Religion In response to the question, “Could you please tell us your religion or spiritual tradition, if you have one?” almost one in five of those interviewed indicated they did not have a religion. As a group, respondents

46

Canadians and Their Pasts

who professed not to have a religion were no more or less likely than other respondents to participate in most of the activities. They had somewhat lower participation rates for keeping heirlooms and preparing scrapbooks. There was no difference between the groups with respect to reporting that they were very interested in the past, the family’s past, or the past of Canada, or in identifying the past of Canada as being very important. Those who did not profess a religion were, however, about 10 percentage points less likely to say their family past, the past of their ethnic or cultural group, and that of their province were very important pasts. It was also the case that those who do not profess a religion were about 10 percentage points less likely to have children, and not having children was also associated with lower levels of participation rates in family activities and interest in the past of the family. As one would expect, those without a religious affiliation were almost four times less likely to say the past of their religion was “very important.” We placed respondents who reported their religion into three groups: Roman Catholics (40 percent), Protestants (22 percent), and “other” religions (19 percent). The last group contains a large number of different religions and is not a homogeneous group. Respondents identifying with one of the religions in the “other” category were twice as likely to be born outside of Canada. A er taking into account place, birth, and education, there were no meaningful differences between the three religious groups with respect to participating in the activities. Catholics were slightly less likely than Protestants to report an interest in the past, their family’s past, and the past of Canada. Members of the “other religions” group were more likely to say they were very interested in the past of their ethnic or cultural group and their religion or spiritual tradition. There was no difference between the groups when it comes to identifying the past of Canada as being “very important.”

‫ﱸﱷﱶ‬ What can we make of this statistical evidence? Clearly, Canadians value history and engage it in their everyday lives in many ways, especially in ways that focus on their family past. This participation keeps historical memory alive and serves as a context for individual identity. Visits to historic sites and museums enable Canadians to understand and feel connected to a broader past. While education and gender

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47

correlate with levels of engagement, we would be wrong to dwell on the differences among Canadians in their relationship to history. A vast majority of people everywhere in the country have turned to the past to help them situate themselves in a rapidly changing present, to connect themselves to others, and to fill their leisure hours.

3 The Problem of Trust

Earlier chapters demonstrate that Canadians care a lot about the past. But whom or what do they trust to tell them the truth? How do they view the accounts of the past they encounter in museums and historic sites, told by parents and professors, or read on the screens of computers and pages of books? Do they approach these histories with faith, scepticism, or cynicism? How do they differentiate between faulty accounts built on a basis of blatant prejudice or self-interest (personal or institutional), and those that are products of open investigation and critical analysis? In short, how well do they sort through the problem of historical veracity, a problem that has been made worse in recent years by the sheer number of stories that circulate in the electronic cacophony that defines contemporary public culture? The word “history” in the English language refers both to the past itself – what happened – and to the stories and claims that we make about what happened. In this ambiguity lies the problem of historical trust: how to understand the relationship between the vast, inchoate, unorganized mass of “what happened,” and what people today have to say about it, how they remember it. The problem is complicated by our knowledge that as soon as we start using language (or pictures or other symbols) to talk about “what happened,” it is already on its way to becoming “history” – a story. In this sense, the past is gone; what we have in the present is history.1 There is a massive body of work exploring this problem in the philosophy of history, some wri en by historians, some by philosophers.2 During the late 1980s and 1990s, as the enthusiasms of academic postmodernism raged through the historical profession, some scholars took the extreme position that our stories in the present simply had no

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connection to the past that they purported to represent. History was fiction, disguised as something else.3 This tide of extremism with respect to the problem of historical representation has largely subsided, but it has le some beneficial consequences, notably a new awareness among historians about the subjectivity of their own work. This awareness has several dimensions. First, historians acknowledge their own roles in constructing narratives (the story does not simply exist in the past, to be discovered). Second, they are highly aware of their own positions, both in society and in history. We live in a “historiographic age,” as Pierre Nora has called it, where the works of earlier historians are understood as the limited products of their own cultural moments.4 If earlier historians so obviously failed the test of “objectivity,” then historians today must be circumspect in making truth claims for their own work. Historians’ contributions are contingent, but nevertheless (at least potentially) significant for their own times. Finally, historians are more self-conscious about how they use sources. They acknowledge not only that their interpretive lenses belong to the present but also that there are gaps and silences in the archives themselves. In this respect, the legacy of postmodernism has been to push historians further in the close reading of sources that has been the mainstay of the discipline since its inception. Thus, the problems of knowledge of the past and trust in its representations in the present are thorny and tangled, even for those who spend their lives working in this field.5 How about the rest of us? The part of the questionnaire that investigated “trust” began with six questions asking participants to assess the trustworthiness of teachers, family stories, Web sites, non-fiction history books, museums, and historic sites as sources of information about the past. If they rated two or more “very trustworthy,” they were then asked, “Which is most trustworthy?” The last two questions, open-ended, were designed to explore respondents’ reasons for trusting sources. The first simply asked why they trusted the source they had identified as “most trustworthy.” The second posed a problem: “People do not always agree about what happened in the past. When people disagree about something that happened in the past, how do you think they can find out what is most likely to have really happened?” Tackling this problem required people to articulate how they arrived at a valid account, but from a slightly different angle. In the first section of this chapter, we discuss which kinds of sources people found trustworthy for information about the past, with a

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preliminary description of the kinds of reasoning they gave for their responses. In the next two sections, we analyse that reasoning more deeply, using their responses to the two open-ended questions. What Sources Do People Trust? Are there certain sources of information about the past that people are more likely to trust? Based on responses to the survey, we can say very clearly that there are. More than 60 percent of respondents found museums “very trustworthy.” Historical sites were a close second, with more than half the respondents considering them “very trustworthy,” followed by non-fiction books, family stories, teachers, and Web sites, in that order. Unwilling to commit unconditionally, other respondents considered the sources we inquired about as “somewhat trustworthy.” Teachers, family stories, Web sites, and non-fiction books all hovered at about 50 percent of the sample expressing this qualified trust.6 Web sites were, by a large margin, least frequently considered “very trustworthy” and most frequently considered “not very trustworthy.” Summarizing this comparison, we can see that two sources – museums and Web sites – stood at opposite ends of a “trustworthiness” spectrum in the eyes of most Canadians (see Figure 3.1). Figure 3.1. Trustworthiness of Sources of Historical Information 80% very trustworthy

somewhat trustworthy

not trustworthy

60%

40%

20%

0%

teachers

family stories

Internet sites

nonfiction books

museums

historic sites

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As part of the survey, respondents explained their trust in different sources. People offered two predominant kinds of reasons for trust in museums. One involved their institutional context, including the role of experts, the research time and effort invested, and problems of reputation and public embarrassment if they got things wrong. “Well,” said one British Columbian, “usually, they’re funded by ... a university or a college or an established educational entity.” Put another way, this was “accountability.” More commonly, respondents commented on the presence of artefacts as a powerful justification for trustworthiness. One Newfoundlander said, “Because they usually contain, they usually have the historical items there, so you can see that it’s from the past and so, of course, it will be accurate.” For many, the artefact’s presence itself was sufficient to generate trust: “I walk in there; I look at the historical facts – they’re right there.” Others mentioned that artefacts enabled them to make their own interpretations: “They’re not interpreting it as much as a book or the Internet might, so someone can look at the pictures and make up their own mind.” Some respondents gave justification for artefacts in historical sites that went a step further than that for artefacts in museums: “I think because there’s ... physical artefacts o en on site. And so, I guess I can see some of the evidence of the past right there ... you see it and absorb the information in context as opposed to seeing a dish in a case in a museum ... Like, in context, I think that’s why the physical evidence is there and you absorb the whole atmosphere of it.” Those who most trusted schoolteachers o en did so because of their training, or the time and research that teachers put into their planning and preparation. “They probably research their findings, you know, to relate it to their students,” one Albertan commented. The role of “research” was, not surprisingly, common across other sources as well. In justifying trust in non-fiction books, a respondent from British Columbia asserted, “Well, because the authors have to do a lot of research before they have their printed material.” Comments like these acknowledge not only the author’s research but also, like many justifications for museums, the institutional checks and balances in place to create a trustworthy account for publication. Teachers, historical sites, books, and museums all garnered trustworthiness on the basis of institutional support, the research which people thought they required, and the expertise of those responsible. Historical sites and museums had the additional justification on the basis of artefacts, the surviving traces of the past.

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Family stories were quite different. A woman from Saskatchewan offered typical reasoning for trust in family stories, expressed in the first person (“We try and keep them ... accurate.”). She invested a personalized trust in people with whom she had deep connection and identification: “I would say about personal past that stories are generally passed down through the generations, and I think for the most part we try and keep them as accurate as possible, and it gives us insight into the people that they were, the people that we become, where we come from.” A respondent from British Columbia spoke of the richness of family stories, elaborating, as many did, beyond the question of trust itself: Because it brings character in[to] the equation, because I think history is more than facts and events. I think it’s how people were thinking at the time and how people related to one another, and you can learn that through a family story be er than you could reading what date something happened. So just learning about what people were thinking as it was happening rather than just how it went down.

Many others were even more straightforward: “My mom doesn’t lie,” said one, and another replied, “Because they’re my family.” At times, there seemed almost a diametric opposition, between those who placed trust in institutions because they had “less of a personal connection” and are “not just people relying on their memory,” while others placed trust in their family precisely because they were. The contrast between trust in family stories and trust in other sources is manifested in another way. Canadians who consider family stories most trustworthy are demographically different from those who consider other sources, and particularly museums, to be so.7 About twice as many respondents seventy-five years and older, compared to every other age group, identified family stories as most trustworthy, and these older respondents were also about half as likely to identify museums as most trustworthy (see Table 3.1). Respondents with less than high school education were more likely to identify family stories as most trustworthy and less likely to identify museums as most trustworthy (see Table 3.2). Similarly, among respondents with different income levels, larger proportions of lower-income respondents identified family stories as most trustworthy, while a smaller proportion identified museums as most trustworthy. Not surprisingly given the relationship between age, education, and income, a larger proportion of respondents with lower

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Table 3.1. Most Trustworthy Source of Information about the Past by Age 18–29

30–39

40–50

51–64

65–74

75+

8 16 3 10 31 11 (323)

9 27 1 5 17 11 (242)

Percent distribution* Teachers Family stories Web sites Books Museums Historical sites (Respondents)**

4 10 1 25 29 12 (409)

4 16 1 18 33 9 (489)

5 15 1 13 36 12 (765)

3 11 1 13 33 12 (843)

*Columns do not total 100 percent as not all respondents identified a single source as being most trustworthy. **Total does not equal 3,119 as a small number of respondents did not provide their year of birth.

Table 3.2. Most Trustworthy Source of Information about the Past by Education Less than high school

High school

Post–high school (no degree)

University degree

Percent distribution* Teachers Family stories Web sites Books Museums Historic sites (Respondents)**

7 20 2 11 21 11 (402)

6 14 2 12 29 12 (747)

4 14 1 16 36 11 (1,062)

4 13 1 15 34 11 (883)

*Columns do not total 100 percent as not all respondents identified a single source as being most trustworthy. **Total does not equal 3,119 as a small number of respondents did not answer education question.

incomes identified family stories as most trustworthy, while a smaller proportion identified museums as most trustworthy (see Table 3.3). Finally, respondents who expressed no interest in the past (N = 46) were markedly different from the rest of the sample, but aligned along the same division. A larger proportion identified family stories as most trustworthy (compared to those with higher levels of interest in the past), while a smaller proportion of those respondents identified museums as most trustworthy (see Table 3.4).

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Table 3.3. Most Trustworthy Source of Information about the Past by Income 65

40%

20%

0%

museums

personal/family high school teachers

nonfiction books

Internet

historic sites

higher levels of trust in personal accounts and family stories. While older Canadians placed more trust in family stories, they placed less trust in all other sources of information about the past than did younger Canadians (see Figure 8.2). As in Canada, larger proportions of respondents sixty-five and older in the United States most o en rated personal accounts as trustworthy sources of information (see Figure 8.3).

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Figure 8.3. Average Trustworthiness by Age in the United States 10 18 to 29

30 to 44

45 to 64

>65

8

6

4

museums

personal accounts

(mean score on a ten point scale)

high school teachers

nonfiction books

Education is also related to the level of trust Canadians assign to various sources of information about the past. Fewer people over sixty-five have higher levels of education, and people with lower levels of education generally place less trust in other sources of information about the past. In the United States, the findings are more complicated. Museums, personal accounts, and teachers were assigned similar degrees of trustworthiness by people with different education levels, but respondents with higher education levels were more likely to trust books as sources of historical information than people with lower levels of education. And Americans, whatever their level of formal education, did not vary in their estimates of the trustworthiness of personal accounts and family stories. Canadians who possessed more formal education (completed high school or more) were less likely to trust such sources than those with lower levels of education. This finding parallels the stronger association between education and engagement in activities related to the past for Canadians compared to Americans. A possible reason for these differences may be the wording of the questions about personal and family trustworthiness. In the American survey, these sources were referred to as “personal accounts from grandparents or other relatives.” In the Australian and Canadian surveys the term “family stories” was used.

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The relative lack of trust in formal sources of information about the past was most clearly expressed by Aboriginal respondents in both the United States and Canada. In the American study, Oglala Sioux rated all sources of information about the past, except personal accounts and family stories, less trustworthy than did their compatriots in the national sample. Aboriginal respondents in Canada also trusted family stories to a greater extent than Canadians generally. Although the Australian figures are not available, Maria Nugent reports that respondents to the Aboriginal survey expressed less trust in museums and other historical institutions and valued family stories more than other respondents in their sample.17 One of the findings in all three surveys that prompted serious reflection was the relative lack of trust in teachers as sources of historical information. Nearly one third of Canadians rated teachers as “very trustworthy,” but when asked to identify the most trustworthy source of information about the past only 5 percent of Canadians identified teachers. High school teachers also fared badly in the Australian study, where only 14 percent of the respondents rated them as trustworthy. In the United States, as in Canada and Australia, high school teachers ranked below museums and eyewitness accounts as trustworthy sources of historical information. Important Pasts There was surprising consistency in what respondents identified as “the most important past” in Canada or “most important past to know about” in the United States (see Figure 8.4). In both countries, the family past was identified as the most important (Canada 66 percent and US 60 percent). The Australians refrained from asking such a point-blank question, but in responses to various questions about historical content and interest it seems clear that Australians also have strong allegiance to family history. The large difference between Canadians and Americans in selecting their country’s past as the most important past (9 percent Canada and 22 percent US) may be due to both the differences in how the questions were posed and the larger number of response options presented in the Canadian study. While the Americans were asked which past is most important to know about (“Knowing about the past of which one of the following four areas or groups is most important to you,”

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Figure 8.4. Most Important Past: Canada and the United States

80% 60%

United States

Canada

40% 20% 0%

family

race/ethnicity

community*

country

religion

other

none**

* Province and region in Canada ** no single past rated as most important

with the four areas identified as family, race/ethnicity, community, and country), the Canadian respondents were asked how important different pasts were (“How important is the past of Canada, the past of your family,” etc.). In total Canadians were asked about the importance of as many as eight different pasts (twice the number asked in the American study). The Canadian survey presented three of the same categories as the American survey: family, race/ethnicity, and country. Instead of community, the Canadian survey explored the importance of the past of the province. The Canadian survey also presented respondents with additional options: the past of their religion or spiritual tradition, the importance of the past of their birth country (if not Canada), the relative importance of any region they identified as being important, and any other past that they had identified as being significant. Religion or spiritual tradition was identified as most important by 8 percent of the Canadians, second a er family’s past and equal to the number who selected the country’s past. There was also some variation among the Canadian and American demographic groups in their selection of the “most important” past. The significant variations between the two countries were related to age and education but not to gender. In both countries women were

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more likely than men to identify the family’s past as the most important and men were more likely than women to identify the country’s past as the most important. While the Australian study cannot be directly compared with respect to “most important” pasts, it offers an interesting contrast to the North American pa ern. Australian women were more likely than Australian men to consider their nation’s history as “very important” (69 percent for women compared to 58 percent for the national sample), while men expressed relatively greater enthusiasm for European history. Younger and older generations in Canada differed from their American counterparts in identifying the most important past. A higher percentage of Canadians sixty-five or older identified family’s past as most important (57 percent) compared to Canadians who were forty or younger (30 percent). In contrast, younger Americans (twenty-nine years and younger) were more likely (50 percent) to identify the family’s past as most important compared to 65–66 percent of the other age groups. Although the differences between Canadian and American age groups were small, they were statistically significant. There was also a difference between the two countries in how education was related to the importance given to the family’s past. Canadian respondents with higher levels of education were somewhat less likely to identify the family’s past as most important compared with those with lower levels of education (51 percent and 50 percent for those with post – high school and university degrees as compared to 55 percent and 56 percent for those with less than or just high school graduation). Americans who had a ended educational institutions beyond high school were more likely to identify the family’s past as most important (67 percent to 70 percent) compared to Americans who did not complete high school (52 percent). While the Aboriginal groups surveyed in Canada and the United States were alike in identifying the family past as the most important past, they differed in the ways they compared to their respective national samples as well as in the ways they ranked most important pasts. In the American survey, there were large differences between the proportions of Native Americans and the respondents in the national sample in three of the four pasts that were identified as most important to know about. In the Canadian survey, the differences between the national sample and the Aboriginal sample were very small: about 4 to 5 percent more of the Canadian Aboriginal respondents identified

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Table 8.3. Most Important Past to Know about or Important Past US national

Pine Ridge Oglala Sioux

Canada national

Canada Aboriginal

Percent distribution Family Race/ethnicity Community/province region Country (Number of respondents)

66 7 4 22 (808)

50 38 7 5 (186)

62 3 5 9 (3,119)

61 8 1 9 (100)

the past of their ethnic or cultural group and region and province as most important (see Table 8.3). Although the Canadian Aboriginal respondents expressed similar concerns about the oppression of the predominant white culture, this did not result in large differences between the responses of the Canadian Aboriginal and national samples on the importance of the nation’s past. There were some striking differences between the Native American sample and the Canadian Aboriginal sample. A much greater proportion of Canadian Aboriginals identified their family’s past as most important (59 percent compared to 50 percent among the Oglala Sioux), and a much greater proportion of Oglala Sioux identified the past of their race/ethnic group as most important (38 percent compared to 7 percent). These differences may be partly due to the phrasing of questions in the two surveys: Americans were asked about which pasts were “most important to know about” whereas Canadians were asked which were the “most important” pasts. For example, some of the Oglala Sioux respondents may have identified the past of their race/ ethnic group as most important to know about, but if they had been asked which past was most important, more of them may have selected the family’s past. These differences may be also partly due to an additional 14 percent of Canadian Aboriginals identifying the past of their spiritual and religious tradition as most important. In the Final Analysis As the foregoing suggests, the surveys reveal several noteworthy differences in the way citizens engage the past in Australia, Canada, and

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the United States. The importance accorded to national history seems to be lower in Canada than in the other two countries, and, compared to the Americans, education played a more significant role in determining engagement with the past among Canadians. There was also a difference between the United States and the other two countries in the trust respondents accorded to personal and family stories. Americans were much more likely to associate high levels of trustworthiness with personal and family stories compared to Australians and Canadians. Notwithstanding these differences, the consistency among the three countries in pa erns of engagement with the past is what is most striking. In Australia, Canada, and the United States, the most common activities in which people engaged included looking at old photographs and watching movies or television programs related to the past; women were more likely to be involved in family-related activities; and family history surpassed all other approaches to the past. In all three countries people felt most connected to the past when they visited historic sites and looked at old photographs; museums were identified as most trustworthy sources of information about the past; and personal accounts and family stories as sources of information about the past were rated more highly by older people and Aboriginal groups. These similarities should come as no surprise. All three countries were once colonies of Great Britain, have English as a common language, and are described as immigrant societies. Each has experienced conflict between Aboriginal and se ler communities, has democratic forms of government, and relies heavily on the rule of law. By global standards, these are highly developed countries, whose populations enjoy access to a wide range of institutions devoted to exploring the past. Although the history presented in these institutions is sometimes contested, the institutions themselves are respected by a majority of citizens, some of whom believe that they can actually have an impact on what pasts are conveyed in the public sphere. One conclusion is clear. History ma ers to many people in the three nations surveyed about the presence of the past. As Hamilton and Ashton argue, contemporary challenges to cultural identities and social authority along with institutional shi s in the context of globalization and rapid technological change may well help to explain the historical turn in Western societies.18 It is impossible to say whether other regions of the world will follow this trend. In the initial stages of our collaboration, one of the team members investigated the presence of the past in

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lives of Turkish and Greek Cypriots, two ethnic groups in conflict. This research highlighted a great divide between perceptions of the recent past on the island of Cyprus and how the two ethnic groups made connections between the past and the present. This finding suggests that there are more chapters to be wri en on historical consciousness and on how it might aid us in developing life-affirming ways of living together on the planet.19

Conclusion: Making History

Our project was designed to probe how Canadians engage with the past in their daily lives. At the beginning we speculated that by placing Canada in an international conversation on citizen engagement with the past we could make an important contribution to the academic study of memory and historical consciousness. As time went on, our ambitions grew. We began to see our work as addressing how Canadians use history to situate themselves in the present and plan for the future. It is not uncommon to hear challenges to the humanities as subjects of study. Indeed, in the past three decades, humanities disciplines, such as history, literature, philosophy, and religion, have become a much smaller part of our career-focused universities. Science, technology, business, and medicine are invariably represented as more important to individual and societal well-being than disciplines that reflect upon important questions relating to the human condition on this planet.1 For us, this hierarchy of value is troubling. We maintain that history – as a means of analysis, as a body of knowledge, and as a foundation for both individual identity and group solidarity – offers ways of accessing life-affirming values honed by millennia of experience. What happens in a world where we live in an eternal present, unable to grasp the outline of the human record? We wondered if our research could contribute to a conversation about the role of history in making sense of our current condition. We decided that the first step would be to clarify what Canadians understood by the concept and the discipline. History is a form of social knowledge that enables people to locate themselves as individuals in time and space. It also assists citizens, acting as members of communities, in their debates about public policies, priorities, and goals. We believe that too many Canadians, leaders as

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well as citizens, underestimate the importance of these simple truths. We would like to encourage them to reflect more deeply on their understandings of the past – of their families, of their communities, of their international contexts. Such reflection opens the door to re-evaluating the slippery nature of “History” and reassessing how claims about its contents are deployed to shape the present. Like the societies with which people identify, history is in a constant state of reconstruction. Benedict Anderson, in his highly influential book Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, outlined the processes by which people are socialized to imagine themselves as citizens of a nation.2 Censuses and maps, museums and monuments, newspapers and other media, histories and holidays, he argued, help to shape a common sense of national identity among individuals who would never personally know most of the people in their imagined community. In the three decades since Anderson published his book, scholars have noted that such devices can also be used to shore up other identities and that the communications revolution has complicated efforts by national authorities to shape the public imagination. The relationship between citizen and nation is changing, in Canada as elsewhere. In directing this transformation, the past will play a part, either consciously or unconsciously. Citizens need to be prepared to evaluate various claims about the past. To cite just one example, monarchical symbols and the country’s military heritage have acquired a higher profile in recent years.3 In 2011 the federal government decided to return the “Royal” designation to the Canadian navy and to require that a portrait of the queen be displayed in Canadian embassies around the world. What does this rebranding of Canada mean and is it an appropriate strategy to encourage social cohesion in the twenty-first century? The use of evocative, history-laden symbols is not value-free. We should all feel comfortable in assessing claims and counterclaims about the place of the past in the present. This book is based on a particular kind of research tool, the survey. The weakness of such a tactic is that we spoke only briefly – an average of twenty-two minutes – to each respondent. The strength is that we developed a representative sample of all Canadians. In this compilation of more than three thousand narratives, we have been able to discern the outlines of a national perspective and the contours of the various communities from which it is drawn. For analytical convenience, we made distinctions among people’s history, public history, and academic history. Although the boundaries

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separating these categories are blurred, the distinctive tendencies of the three approaches are clear. People’s history, the way in which most people engage with the past most of the time, commences with the self and the family and moves out to the wider world. It is built on our memories, family stories, and the various activities, including genealogy, that underlie our own connections to society at large. Public history is the enterprise conducted by governments on behalf of an entire community and, increasingly, by activists and corporate interests who wish to promote particular kinds of historical understanding. It begins with a cultural producer’s determination to create and distribute versions of the past for broad public consumption. Academic history, meanwhile, is commi ed to a quest for truth, a project that has been likened to nailing jelly to a wall. The writing and teaching of academic history are subject to vigorous debate and constant revision; it is forever incomplete, inadequate, and, for some, alluring. This book has a empted to use the critical perspectives of academic history as a lens through which to clarify what is happening when individuals and societies engage with the past for either personal or public purposes. Many respondents to the survey, about one in three, asserted that they were “very interested” in history. Given their answers to our questions about activities, this was not mere lip service: for them, the past is interesting, meaningful, and important. About one in six respondents said they were not interested in history or the past, but even most of them had participated in at least a few of the activities we enumerated. Education, gender, income, age, religion, and ethnicity were reflected to some degree in Canadians’ responses. Women were more likely than men to be active memory keepers, especially in relation to the family’s history. Increased years of schooling were a predictor of one’s interest in the past. Age also ma ered: younger respondents were less likely to acquiesce in the judgments of museum curators, teachers, and other authorities, whereas respondents over sixty-five were less likely to trust any sources of information about the past – except for family stories. Since earlier studies had confirmed that most people are interested in the past of their families, this similar finding for Canada was not surprising, but the range of activities associated with that engagement and the emotion it evoked for some of our respondents were o en breathtaking. We came away from the data collection process, which involved no fewer than a quarter-million answers to questions, with evidence that most Canadians were quite ready to explain what was important to them about the past, when they felt most connected to it, and whether things were ge ing be er or worse with the passage of time.

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Public history played a large role in our inquiry. Of the many themes in the “history of public history” in Canada, four had particular resonance: the state as a contributor to the development of public history since the Second World War; the power of television as a means of communicating perceptions of the past; the increasing involvement of private interests in the circulation of versions of the past; and the mushrooming influence of the World Wide Web. Government programs – federal, provincial, and municipal – have funded an extraordinary expansion of history-related cultural institutions, including museums, historic sites, libraries, archives, and arts councils. Television, the dominant communication technology of the age, has been employed by both public and private broadcasters to cultivate awareness of specific images, characters, and circumstances. Private interests, such as the CRB Foundation, Canada’s History Society, and Historica-Dominion Institute, have sought to introduce selected, carefully framed, o en politically driven or ideologically conscious themes into the public conversation about history. And the Web has been a juggernaut: this fourth influential factor, just being consolidated as we conducted our survey, carries with it implications which are becoming more sweeping with every passing year. One particularly rich interview, with an Aboriginal woman from Saskatchewan, provided observations that exemplified important themes with which we wrestled throughout the study. A forty-nineyear-old parent with a university education, born in Ontario and thus belonging in the category of “mover,” she seemed to have a clear understanding of the complexity of our questions. The interview began with activities related to the past: “Well, I have a collection of photos that I’m just sorting and organizing still in the last week. Family members from two and three generations back.” She kept “furniture from my great-great-grandparents, teacups, china, photographs, jewellery.” She found them meaningful “only to the extent that stories that are shared are told, where they came from, why they helped the people in their lives, and then how they were passed down through generations. Sort of traces people’s moves ... and ties.” She also recalled travelling with her father “through the area where his great-grandfather homesteaded, and he showed me landmarks and told me stories of family members, and we visited three graveyards to look at family headstones and take care of the graves.” The past clearly entered this respondent’s life as powerful autobiographical and family memories. But her story did not stop there. She found the past in cultural activities – the round dance, pipe ceremony, powwow – that tied her

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to community traditions. And beyond the community, she explored the past through books (most recently she had read Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone, about the life of a “boy soldier” in Africa) and public institutions (her last visit: the Art Gallery of Regina). Furthermore, she had ways to connect local, community-based history and her family’s concerns to a larger national history: “To me 1885 is very significant because it marks ... in a linear ... time, when the Canadian government ordered troops to a ack Aboriginal people. It’s not so long ago, you know, for some of us, just a few generations, and it was a time when ... culture was changing rapidly, so ... people had to adapt to changes. So 1885 is as significant to me as 1867, the Confederation of Canada.” Finally, she had the intellectual resources to tackle these layers of history and the potential disjunctions and contradictions among them, offering a sophisticated approach to historical puzzles: “You must triangulate the information, look at it from multiple sources.” And she reported having consulted “history books, census records, homestead records, family documents, and family members” to do so. This one interview highlighted personal and community histories and related them to a larger national narrative, suggesting the individual’s ability to handle historiographical or methodological questions that would arise if she pursued the investigations further. When we began this project, we understood that people would rate their family past as their highest priority. We found plenty of evidence of people’s interest in autobiography and family history, including perhaps a visit to a cemetery, as the Saskatchewan respondent mentioned, or an ancestor’s recipes, or a relative’s genealogical research. But we also found that the interviews wove an extraordinary Canadian tapestry as people spoke of the specific relationships and communities they felt keenly about. In their explanations of how the past figured in their daily lives, the trope of selfish individualism and the charge that they lacked an appreciation of the community’s past were not sustained. Rather, interest in family history o en seemed to be an avenue into the community, a point of entry and a means of access rather than a mirror or a dead end. The Saskatchewan interview quoted earlier should be seen as the observations of someone who recognized the links between personal or family stories and events that belonged in a wider frame. Respondents were able both to establish the facts of “history” and to distinguish such public contexts from stories about a personal “past.”

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Many respondents to the survey shared the kinds of interests and abilities that the Saskatchewan woman represented. Yet there were also noteworthy variations. Only about a quarter of all the respondents, for example, approached the problem of resolving conflicting historical accounts with solutions that matched her sophistication. Significant differences emerged in the kinds of sources that were most trusted: respondents with less schooling tended to trust family stories more, and museums less, than those who had spent more years in educational institutions. The presence of artefacts, the availability of multiple sources, and the opportunity to analyse primary sources meant more, generally, for the la er. These survey results suggest policy implications in several arenas. Professionals who have an interest in promoting a endance at museums and historic sites can take heart that, unless public policies change dramatically, Canadians will probably continue to hold these institutions in high regard and visit them regularly, especially at their Internet sites. Exhibits and programs that link personal and community pasts to larger national and international stories may not only draw the largest crowds but also perform a key educational function by promoting understanding of links between the local and the global, the personal and the public. The popularity of these institutions lies in their power to influence Canadians’ reflections on the past, and thus on their identities. Broader state policy around historical commemoration – evident, for example, in events associated with Quebec’s founding in 1608 and the War of 1812 – has demonstrated the Canadian government’s continuing interest in mobilizing the power of the past to shape contemporary identities and loyalties. While this quest might engender fears of an Orwellian propaganda machine, our project offers a different vision of state policy and its relation to popular understandings of the past. The survey showed that many Canadians, particularly those with more schooling, viewed the stories conveyed by textbooks and teachers, family and friends, museums and monuments as being open to interpretation, challenge, and critique. Their expressed interest in “multiple sources,” “primary sources,” “archives,” and “the real thing” (i.e., artefacts) suggested that they could wield the tools necessary to interrogate claims about the past; they could use evidence to assess contending historical interpretations. As a twenty-first-century democratic state, Canada should promote precisely such critical historical practices. Our strategy should be to encourage citizens’ engagement in active

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interrogations. While the “new museology” has already embraced open and transparent source work in museums and historical sites, there is room both for them and for other sites of public commemoration to move further in this direction. Because the survey was aimed at those over eighteen years old, it did not directly address questions of history education policy. Nevertheless, the impact of education was significant in responses to many questions, suggesting that history curriculum and teacher training should be on the policy agenda in thinking about the future of the past. In his 1968 study of Canadian history education, A.B. Hodge s criticized the prevailing school practice of passive memorization of a “dry as dust” march through Canadian political history, stripped of historiographic controversy. While more social history has been incorporated since the 1960s, school history curricula could further highlight the skills essential to critical historical thinking, so that the next generation is even be er equipped to confront the jingoistic claims of a history constructed to promote partisan ends. The book devotes several chapters to analysing variations in responses to our survey by self-defined communities within Canada. These responses demonstrate, if ever proof were needed, that the past is a crucial component of many groups’ self-identification. Frenchspeaking Acadians in New Brunswick, Aboriginal people in central Saskatchewan, and francophone Québécois illustrated how individuals in self-conscious groups have acquired an awareness of historical tone, if not of specific events, as they have developed their own perspective upon the wider world. We recognize that members of many, many communities would respond with similarly distinctive answers while drawing upon the particular events, personalities, symbols, and works of art that constitute their heritage. While we learned that place of residence and mobility played a role in our respondents’ perceptions of the past, conventional generalizations about urban-rural differences and Maritime/Prairie “regional” cohesion were not sustained. The most significant impact of “imagined geographies” was reflected in the answers of respondents east of the O awa River, who expressed greater interest in their province’s past than did those who lived west of that line. And those who moved from their birth province expressed greater interest in history, their family past, and the past of Canada. As a result we think it is likely that movers’ greater interest in history might be a measure of how they compensated for being in transition.

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We had planned from the beginning of the project to study the adjustment of immigrants. Although they were interested in the past of their birth countries and wanted to teach their children about those nations, faiths, and cultures, immigrants who had stayed longer in Canada (we chose a dividing line of ten years) were more likely to express interest in Canada’s past. As with those who had moved within Canada, immigrants also seemed to rely more on historical activities as a means of compensating for their mobility than did their long-established neighbours. When we embarked on this project, our goal was to place the Canadian survey in an international context. Most directly, the survey enabled us to compare the presence of the past in Canada to the United States and Australia, where comparable research had been undertaken. The similarity of findings is not surprising. These three countries have high levels of economic development and literacy; all have allocated impressive resources to museums, historic sites, and public history; and all have broad historical trajectories as se ler countries with Aboriginal populations and continuing immigration. We would not expect similar findings in societies with recent traumatic experiences, such as Bosnia and Somalia, or where the foundations of the present are being revised continuously, as in Palestine, Russia, and South Africa.4 People with greater levels of awareness of the contested past may express lower levels of trust in formal sources of information such as museums, historic sites, and textbooks. In the survey findings of both the United States and Canada, Aboriginal groups had lower levels of trust in official sources of information about the past and higher levels of trust in family stories or personal accounts. We can think of many other reasons why the presence of the past may be expressed differently in different cultures and societies. For example, some of the highest participation rates in the United States, Australia, and Canada were related to family reunions, writing diaries and cookbooks, and looking at old photographs. In countries with lower levels of income and literacy, where the extended family lives in one place all the time, and where history is commonly conveyed through oral communication, visual arts, performance, and other mnemonic devices, such activities may not be the most common ways of engaging with the past. Interest in the past may also be defined and expressed differently. In countries with fresh evidence of losses from recent wars, or with large refugee populations, the term “interest,” itself, would seem inappropriate as a way of capturing people’s involvement with the

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past. Here, the presence of the past o en has an immediate and visceral impact on everyday life, creating acute uncertainties about the future. What can we conclude? Our survey illuminates a number of important themes that have been prominent in media commentary in recent years. Have people lost contact with the past as a result of today’s extraordinary changes in communication? We say, emphatically, no. Do they express any interest in Canada’s history? Yes, quite clearly they do. Are ethnic and religious loyalties evident in the pa ern of their responses? Yes, without question, but regional and linguistic differences were not as significant as we had anticipated. Do immigrants differ in some way from the Canadian-born in their relationship to the past? Not nearly as much as has been suggested in public debates in other countries. Do interprovincial migrants have a distinctive view of Canada’s past? Yes, like immigrants, they express greater interest in Canada’s past than many of their fellow citizens. Do Canadians differ from Americans and Australians? In some ma ers, yes, but the bigger story is the presence of an internationally shared perspective. Ultimately, we can conclude that history plays a significant role for many people in providing meaning in their fast-changing world. For some it may be a substitute for religion that in an earlier time offered context and comfort, but our survey suggests that many respondents used history to supplement their spiritual beliefs about the place of human beings in the universe. At the heart of this outlook is awareness of the past: people live with history in the present; the past lives within us all. From this assertion, unremarkable in its wording, but significant in its implications, a myriad of consequences arises for all those – citizens, teachers, curators, policymakers, volunteer associations, private institutions, historians – involved in the production, communication, and contemplation of history. The Canadians and Their Pasts study speaks confidently to those who dedicate themselves to finding ways of informing and entertaining, of combining rigour and fun, in their daily work on historical messages. The past is not past. History – as people’s knowledge, as medium of public conversation, as academic pursuit – lives.

Appendix 1: Short Form Questionnaire

Questionnaire This is an abbreviated version of the questionnaire. While it includes the main text of all questions and substantive response categories, most of the interviewer instructions and skip pa erns have been dropped to enhance readability. Response categories are not indicated for questions that only allowed for a “yes” or “no” answer. Respondents could answer “don’t know” or could refuse to answer any question. A complete version of the questionnaire is available from the Institute for Social Research, York University, TEL Building, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto ON, M3J 1P3. Interviewer: Enter respondent’s gender. For some questions, we would like you to answer in your own words. And to make sure we correctly record your answers, we would like to tape what you say. Is this okay with you? [If not answered “yes”]: That’s okay, not everyone agrees to be taped. But we would still like to interview you, but of course we will NOT tape anything. Section A: General Interest in the Past We’d like to start by asking you some questions about [the past]. By past we mean everything from the very recent past to the very distant

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past, from your personal and family history to the history of Canada and other countries. Note: In questions a1, a2, and a3, one-third of respondents are asked about “history,” one-third about “the past,” and one-third about “history and the past.” Response categories a1 to a3 very interested, somewhat interested, not very interested, not at all interested a1 In general, how interested are you in [history]? Would you say: a2 How interested are you in your family’s [history]? a3 How interested are you in Canada’s [history]? Section B: Activities Related to the Past Now some questions about activities related to the past that you may have done. b1 During the last twelve months, have you looked at old photographs of buildings, places, family members, friends, and so on? b2 [if “yes” at b1] Can you please tell us about the last time you looked at these old photographs. For example, did you do this by yourself or with other people? What was the occasion? (Interviewer enters text) b3 Is there something important or meaningful that you are keeping to pass on to your children, to other family members, or to close friends as a reminder of the past? b4 Are you preparing a family scrapbook, cookbook, keeping a diary, writing a family history, making home movies, or are you involved in other activities to preserve the past?

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b5a [refers to b3 or b4; question skipped if both b3 and b4 answered “no”] Can you please tell us about what you are [keeping/preparing]? (Interviewer enters text) b5b And why is this meaningful for you? (Interviewer enters text) b6 Now a question about watching movies, videos, DVDs, or TV programs ABOUT THE PAST. This could include movies about a past event or a person, documentaries, biographies, dramas, and so on. Have you watched any of these in the last twelve months? b7 [if “yes” at b6] About how many movies, videos, DVDs, and TV shows ABOUT THE PAST have you watched in the last twelve months: one, two or three, four or five, or more than five? b7a [if “yes” at b6 and only asked of small subset of the respondents] Can you please tell us the name of the last movie, video, DVD, or TV program ABOUT THE PAST that you saw? (Interviewer enters text) b8 In the last twelve months, have you used the Internet to look up or post information ABOUT THE PAST? Interviewer: If required, this includes looking up your family history, searching for information about a historical person, event or place, or posting information about these topics on the Web. b9 [if “yes” at b8] About how many times have you used the Internet to explore the past in the last twelve months: one, two or three, four or five, or more than five? b10 What about playing video or computer HISTORY GAMES, have you played any of these in the last twelve months?

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Interviewer: If required, video history games can be played on Xbox, PlayStation, etc. Examples include Age of Empire, Civilization 1, 2, 3 and 4, games about WWII and Vietnam, and so on. This includes online computer history games. b11 Now we want to ask about reading books ABOUT THE PAST. This includes books about historical events or persons, biographies and memoirs, historical novels, and so on. In the last twelve months have you read any books like this? b12 [if “yes” at b11] About how many of these kinds of books have you read in the last twelve months: one, two or three, four or five, or more than five? B12b [if “yes” at b11 and only asked of small subset of the respondents] Can you please tell us the NAME of the last book like this that you read? (Interviewer enters text) b13 During the last twelve months, have you visited any museums in Canada or elsewhere? b14 [if “yes” at b13] How many times have you gone to museums in the last twelve months: one, two or three, four or five, or more than five? b14a [if “yes” at b13 and only asked of small subset of the respondents] Can you please tell us the NAME of the last museum you visited? (Interviewer enters text) b15 Now, a question about visiting historic sites. Historic sites include pioneer villages, forts, cultural and archaeological sites, monuments, aboriginal heritage sites, and so on. Have you visited any of these places in the last twelve months? b16 [if “yes” at b15] How many times have you visited these places in the last twelve months: one, two or three, four or five, or more than five?

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b16b [if “yes” at b15 and only asked of small subset of the respondents] Can you please tell me the name or the location of the historic site you visited? (Interviewer enters text) b17 What about places from your family’s past that may have special meaning to you, such as an old house or neighbourhood, a family farm, a cemetery or burial ground, schools, old fishing or hunting places, and so on. Have you been to any of these places in the last twelve months? b18 During the last twelve months, have you worked on your family tree or completed any other genealogical research? b19 Have you wri en to or visited a public archive, or looked up information on an archive’s Web site, over the past twelve months? b19a [if “yes” at b19 and only asked of small subset of the respondents] Can you please tell us the NAME of the archive you wrote to, visited, or looked up on the Web? (Interviewer enters text) b20 Over the last twelve months, have you done any OTHER activities related to the past, such as cra s, hobbies, or collections, or taken part in groups which study or preserve the past, and so on? b21 [if “yes” at b20] Can you tell us about these activities or events? (Interviewer enters text) Interviewer probes: What is the activity or event about? Does it relate to you or your family? (If yes, how?) b22a [Aboriginal sample only] Have you participated in any traditional activities (pow wows, dances, etc.) over the past twelve months?

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b22b [if “yes” at b22a] Could you please tell us which traditional cultural activities you have participated in? (Interviewer enters text) Section C: Understanding the Past To be asked questions c1 to c3, respondents had to answer “yes” to one or more of questions b1 (old photographs), b8 (Internet), b11 (books), b13 (museums), and b15 (historic sites). If respondent answered “yes” to more than one of these questions, they are then asked about one of the activities, based upon a random selection. We would now like to ask how the activities you do that are related to the past help you to understand the past, understand yourself, and feel connected to the past. By the past we mean everything from the very recent past to the very distant past, from your personal and family history to the history of Canada and other countries. c1 When you [refers to activity from Section B], how much does this help you to understand the past: a great deal, a lot, some, a li le, or not at all? c2 When you [refers to same activity from Section B], how much does this help you to understand who you are: a great deal, a lot, some, a li le, or not at all? c3 When you [refers to same activity from Section B], does this make you feel: very connected to the past, somewhat connected to the past, or make no difference? c4 Now, we would like you to think about a time IN YOUR LIFE when a person, event, or something else about the past might have been very important or very meaningful to you. Is there a time like this that you can tell us about?

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c5 [if “yes” at c4] Please tell us about this time, person or event. (Interviewer enters text) Interviewer, if needed: What is it about this time, person, or event that is especially meaningful for you? c6 When you studied history at school, was there a teacher, class, or event that you found particularly interesting? c7 [if “yes” at c6] Could you please tell us who or what that was? c8 [if answered “teacher” at c7] Was this a teacher at an elementary school, high school, college, or university? Section D: Trustworthiness of Sources of Information About the Past Now, I’m going to ask how trustworthy, in general, different sources of information ABOUT THE PAST are for you. For each, please tell us if you think it is very trustworthy, somewhat trustworthy, not very trustworthy, or not at all trustworthy. (The order in which questions d1 to d6 are asked is randomized.) d1 What about school history teachers, in general, would you say they are very trustworthy, somewhat trustworthy, not very trustworthy, or not at all trustworthy? d2 What about family stories, in general, would you say they are . . . d3 What about Internet sites, in general, would you say they are . . .

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d4 What about information provided in fact-based historical books, would you say it is . . . d5 What about museums, would you say they are . . . d6 What about information provided at historical sites, in general, such as the information on plaques, wri en materials, and so on, would you say it is . . . d7a [if more than one source rated as very trustworthy] Of those sources listed as very trustworthy [Interviewer reads list], which is most trustworthy? d7b [skipped if no source rated as very trustworthy] Can you please tell us why you think [the most trustworthy source] is a very trustworthy source of information about the past? (Interviewer enters text) d8 People do not always agree about what happened in the past. When people disagree about something that happened in the past, how do you think they can find out what is most likely to have really happened? (Interviewer enters text) Section E: The Importance of Various Pasts Next, we’d like to ask you about some areas of history and the past that might be important to you. For each, please tell us if it is very important, somewhat important, not very important, or not at all important to you. (The order in which questions e1 to e5 are asked is randomized.) e1 How important is the past of your family to you: very important, somewhat important, not very important, or not at all important to you?

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e2 How important is the past of your religion or spiritual tradition to you? e3 How important is the past of your ethnic or cultural group to you? e4 How important is the past of [province in which respondent currently lives] to you? e5 How important is the past of Canada to you? e6a Is there a particular region of Canada that you identify with or feel a part of e6b [if “yes” at e6a] What is that region of Canada? List of regions provided and interviewer enters other text answers. e6c [if “yes” to e6a and respondent did not identify their province of residence at e6b] How important is the past of [region from previous question] to you: very important, somewhat important, not very important, or not at all important? e7a [only asked of respondents in Newfoundland and Labrador] Were you born in Newfoundland and Labrador, another province in Canada, or another country? e7b [asked unless Newfoundland or Quebec respondent] Were you born in Canada? e7c [only asked of respondents in Quebec] Were you born in Quebec?

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e7d [only asked if e7c answered “no”] Were you born in Canada? e8 [only asked if not born in Canada] How important to you is the past of the country where you were born: very important, somewhat important, not very important, or not at all important? e9 Are there any OTHER places or groups of people related to the past that are very important to you that we have not talked about? e10 [if “yes” at e9] Please tell us about this past. (Interviewer enters text) Interviewer probes: Why is this past important to you? Does this past relate to you or your family? (If yes, how?) e11 [only asked if two or more pasts rated as “very important”] Which of the following pasts is MOST important to you? Interviewer lists all pasts rated as “very important” by respondent. e12 [not asked if no past rated as “very important”] Could you please tell us why the past of [most important past identified in e11] is most important to you? (Interviewer enters text) e13a [Acadian respondents only] In the last five years, did you participate in any activities that celebrated or commemorated Acadian heritage and history? e13b [if “yes” at e13a] Which activities involving Acadian heritage or history did you participate in? e13c [if “yes” at e13a] Could you please tell us what you might have learned about your Acadian background through these activities?

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Section F: The Sense of the Past Note: For questions f1 to f4, one-third of respondents are asked about “history” one-third about “the past,” and one-third about “history and the past.” f1 Now, a few questions on your views about history and the past. First, please tell us which of the following two statements comes CLOSEST to describing you: one: you think about [history] as part of your everyday life; OR two: you mostly think about [history] when you go to museums or see a documentary and so on? f2 People believe different things about [history] and the way the world has changed over time. Some people believe things have improved over time, others think things have become worse, or that there has not really been that much change. What about you, do you think things have improved, become worse, or that things have not changed much? f3a [if “improved” at f2] Could you please tell us what kinds of things you think have improved? (Interviewer enters text) f3b [if “worse” at f2] Could you please tell us what kinds of things you think have become worse? (Interviewer enters text) f3c [if “some things beĴer/some worse” at f2] Could you please tell us what kinds of things have improved and what has become worse? (Interviewer enters text) f4 Some people think it is important for the next generation to know about [history]. What is it about [history] that you think should be handed down to the next generation? (Interviewer enters text) Interviewer, if needed: It could be anything, from your personal past to the past of your community or even the world. Just anything that you think, in any aspect of life, that should be handed down to the next generation.

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Section G: Biographical Data g1 These last questions will help us understand how good a job we have done in talking to a cross section of people in Canada. First, in what year were you born? g2a In what province of Canada were you born? g2b [if born in Canada and province of birth does not equal province of interview] How old were you when you moved to [current province of residence]? g3 [if born in Canada] Were both, one, or neither of your parents born in Canada? g4 [if not born in Canada] In what year did you move to Canada? g4b [if not born in Canada and recent immigrant/Peel sample] In what country where you born? g5 What is your ethnic or cultural group? Interviewer, if required: Are you Italian, Polish, Chinese . . . ? List of ethnic groups provided and other text answers allowed; interviewers enter up to four mentions in questions e2 to e5. g6 Could you please tell us your religion or spiritual tradition, if you have one? g7 What is the language that you speak most o en at home?

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g9a Do you have any children? g9b [if “yes” at g9a] How many of your children are under sixteen years of age? g10 What is the highest grade of school or level of education you have obtained? g11 Since you completed high school have you completed any courses in history? g12 Do you have a computer with Internet access in your home? g13 What is your main occupation or job? income1 How much was your total household income before taxes for the year ending December 31, 2006? Please include income from all members of the household and from all sources, such as savings, pensions, rent, as well as wages. income2 [if “refused” or “don’t know” at income1] We don’t need the exact amount; could you tell me which of these broad categories it falls into: 1...less than $20,000 2...between $20,000 and $40,000 ($39,999.99) 3...between $40,000 and $60,000 4...between $60,000 and $80,000 5...between $80,000 and $100,000 6...between $100,000 and $120,000, or 7...more than $120,000? d don't know or refused

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postal_code Can you tell me your postal code please? g18 We hope to talk to some people about the topics covered in this interview a second time. Would you be interested in talking with us again?

Appendix 2: How We Did the Survey

Introduction The PASTS survey was designed to explore how Canadians engage the past in their everyday lives. While the telephone interviews averaged twenty-two minutes, 10 percent took thirty or more minutes to complete. Interviews were conducted primarily at the Institute for Social Research (ISR) at York University in Toronto. About 15 percent of the interviews, including most of the Quebec and Acadian interviews, were completed by Jolicœur & Associés in Montreal. Sample Design A list of residential telephone numbers in Canada was used as a surrogate for a list of households in Canada. By randomly selecting telephone numbers we had a random selection of households. When more than one person eighteen years of age lived in a household, interviewers randomly selected the survey respondent by conducting the interview with the adult who would have the next birthday. The two thousand interviews completed as part of the national sample were allocated equally among five “regions” (Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario, the Prairies, and British Columbia). By allocating the same number of interviews in each region (four hundred), we maximized our ability to make statistical comparisons between the regions. As the project got underway, Parks Canada commissioned an additional one thousand interviews in the metropolitan areas of Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver. Since the same questionnaire and respondent selection procedures were used for this

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metropolitan supplementary sample, the data have been combined with the national sample of two thousand, resulting in a data file with three thousand interviews. Given the overrepresentation of the smaller regions and the overrepresentation of the five largest cities, it was necessary to weight the data before national estimates were made. As with any Canada-wide survey, important groups such as First Nations that cross regional boundaries, recent immigrants who tend to cluster in big cities, and communities with long histories such as Acadians have limited representation. To obtain at least a glimpse into some of these communities, we conducted three supplementary samples of interviews with one hundred Acadians in New Brunswick, one hundred recent immigrants in the Region of Peel (immediately west of Toronto), and one hundred members of First Nations in and around Saskatoon. (For ease of analysis, these interviews have been added to the data file, but they are not included in the weighted data used for national estimates.) The survey is available in Appendix 1 and on the ISR Web site: www. isr.yorku.ca/projects/pasts/index.html. Questionnaire Design A typical PASTS survey respondent answered about seventy questions. (The number of questions asked of each respondent varied depending on answers to previous questions.) For most of the questions respondents either gave Yes/No answers or were asked to select a response from a list provided by the interviewer. For several key questions, respondents were encouraged to answer in their own words. (In the argot of the survey researcher, open-ended questions.) While many respondents were succinct, answering in a few words or a sentence, others gave longer and more complex answers. To ensure the answers to the open-ended questions were captured completely, they were audiotaped and transcribed. About 90 percent of our respondents agreed to have their responses taped. When respondents did not agree to being taped, interviewers typed the gist of their responses to the open-ended questions directly into a computer file. The questionnaire for the PASTS survey was developed by the research team over a number of months. Some of the questions are borrowed from, or inspired by, Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen, The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), and Paula Hamilton and Paul

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Ashton’s study of Australians and the past reported in Cultural History 22 (2003). Other questions were designed specifically by the PASTS research team for the Canadian survey. Partners, advisory board members, and colleagues provided useful suggestions. We developed at least twice as many questions as were used in the final questionnaire. In designing the questionnaire we were cognizant of the trade-off between survey length and willingness on the part of the public to participate in a survey. While a longer questionnaire would have allowed for coverage of some topics in greater depth, or the inclusion of more topics, it would have also reduced the proportion of Canadians willing to participate in the survey. We wanted to have as wide a cross section of Canadians as possible, including respondents with high and low levels of education, from families that had been in Canada for generations as well as more recent immigrants, the employed as well as the unemployed. A shorter survey allowed us to maximize our chances of ge ing average Canadians to complete the survey. Six pretests of the questionnaire were completed between September 2006 and March 2007. Two of the pretests were conducted in French; the remaining four were in English. We completed four “think aloud” or cognitive group interviews, in which respondents were encouraged to explain their understanding of the intent of the questions and how they arrived at their answers. (Two of the cognitive tests were in English, and two were in French.) Most of the PASTS team investigators were also interviewed so that they could evaluate the questionnaire from the viewpoint of a survey respondent. Investigators also listened to pretest interviews and were debriefed by the interviewers. Data Collection Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) techniques were used in the collection of the data. With CATI, a central computer delivers the questions to each interviewer’s work station and records the answers in a central data file. CATI automates the flow of the questionnaire – for example, skipping questions that are not appropriate based on answers to previous questions. This allows interviewers to focus on reading the questions, listening to the respondent, and entering responses correctly. We also used CATI to ameliorate any question order effects. For example, when asked a series of questions about trustworthiness of various historical sources, some respondents used the answer to their first question as a benchmark and rated other

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sources relative to the ranking they gave for the source asked about in the initial question. In our survey, we used CATI to ensure that each source of historical information was found at the top, bo om, and in the middle of the list of questions, thus removing order effects from overall ratings of trustworthiness. Data collection for the national sample commenced in March 2007, and in September 2007 for the urban supplementary sample, and interviewing for these samples was completed in April 2008. Interviewing for the Aboriginal sample started in November 2007, and interviewing for the Acadians and recent immigrants samples started in April 2008. Data collection for all three of these supplementary samples was completed by July 2008. To maximize the chances of ge ing a completed interview from each telephone number in the sample, call a empts were made during the day and the evening for both week- and weekend days. On average, fi een calls were made over many weeks before we gave up on the possibility of ge ing an interview. Efforts were made to “convert” refusals when respondents and/or households initially refused to participate. Using reverse directories, we located addresses for households in which a refusal was obtained and le ers were sent to introduce the survey. An interviewer then called and a empted to convince the potential respondents to complete the interview. Almost 20 percent, or 550, of all the interviews were completed in households where the initial contact resulted in a refusal to participate in the interview. The response rate, calculated as the number of completed interviews over the estimated number of eligible households contacted, was 55 percent for the national sample and 52 percent for the urban sample. The rates for the First Nations, the recent immigrant Peel sample, and the Acadian samples were estimated at 65 percent, 60 percent, and 55 percent, respectively. In a time of rapidly declining response rates, our rates compare favourably to those obtained in other surveys of this nature.

Notes

Introduction 1 William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun (New York: Random House, 1951), 80. 2 Eric Hobsbawm, On History (London: Abacus, 1998), 6. 3 Hill Strategies Research Inc., “Museum and Art Gallery A endance in Canada and the Provinces,” Research on the Arts 1, no. 3 (2003), www. hillstrategies.com, and Jacques Ewoudou, “Understanding Culture Consumption in Canada 2005,” Statistics Canada research paper, 2008, www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/81-595-m/81-595-m2008066-eng.htm. 4 Following a trajectory which traces its roots to French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs and German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer, but which was also suggested by American historian Carl Becker, a recent outpouring of studies in collective memory and historical consciousness has a empted to probe how those without any formal training in history understand and use the past in their daily lives. Much of this work has involved probing the meanings embodied in memorials, monuments, museums, film, and school textbooks. Maurice Halbwachs, Les Cadres sociaux de la mémoire (Paris: Alcan, 1925); Hans-Georg Gadamer, “The Problem of Historical Consciousness,” in Interpretive Social Science: A Second Look, ed. Paul Rabinow and William M. Sullivan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 82–140; and Carl Becker, “Everyman His Own Historian,” American Historical Review 37, no. 2 (1932): 222–36. 5 French historian Pierre Nora put it this way: “Memory and history, far from being synonymous, are ... in many respects opposed. Memory is life, always embodied in living societies and as such in permanent evolution, subject to the dialectic of remembering and forge ing, unconscious of the distortions to which it is subject ... History, being an

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intellectual, nonreligious activity, calls for analysis and critical discourse ... Memory wells up from groups that it welds together ... By contrast, history belongs to everyone and to no one.” Pierre Nora, Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past, ed. Lawrence Kritzman, trans. Arthur Goldhammer, vol. 1 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 3. David Lowenthal draws a similar stark divide, though he calls the memories that belong to particular groups “the cult of heritage.” David Lowenthal, Possessed by the Past: The Heritage Industry and the Spoils of History (New York: Free Press, 1996), 1. In his less polemical work, The Past Is a Foreign Country (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), Lowenthal explores the nuances of various approaches to the past in a more thorough and complex way. Hans-Georg Gadamer maintains that “the appearance of historical selfconsciousness is very likely the most important revolution among those we have undergone since the beginning of the modern epoch.” “Problem of Historical Consciousness,” 89. There have been a number of explorations of this relationship, perhaps the most extensive by Jörn Rüsen. See Allan Megill, “Jörn Rüsen’s Theory of Historiography: Between Modernism and Rhetoric of Inquiry,” History and Theory 33, no. 1 (1994): 39–60. In Philip Gardner’s discussion of Gadamer’s hermeneutics, historical distanciation is the “dialectical counterpart” to memorial belonging. See Philip Gardner, Hermeneutics, History and Memory (London: Routledge, 2010). For an alternative conception of distance, see Mark Salber Phillips, On Historical Distance (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013). See, for example, Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American Historical Profession (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983). David Thelen, “Learning from the Past: Individual Experience and Re-enactment,” Indiana Magazine of History 99, no. 2 (2003): 155–65. Magne Angvik and Bodo von Borries, eds., Youth and History: A Comparative European Survey on Historical Consciousness and Political A itudes among Adolescents (Hamburg: Körber-Sti ung, 1997). Roy Rosenzweig, “How Americans Use and Think about the Past: Implications from a National Survey for the Teaching of History,” in Knowing, Teaching, and Learning History, ed. Peter N. Stearns, Peter Seixas, and Sam Wineburg (New York: New York University Press 2000), 263.

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14 Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen, The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998). 15 Paul Ashton and Paula Hamilton, “At Home with the Past: Background and Initial Findings from the National Survey,” Australian Cultural History 23 (2003), 7. 16 The survey is available online at h p://www.canadiansandtheirpasts.ca/ goals.html. Preliminary findings from the survey are discussed in Gerald Friesen, Del Muise, and David Northrup, “Variations on the Theme of Remembering: A National Survey of How Canadians Use the Past,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 20, no. 1 (2009): 221–48, and Margaret Conrad, Jocelyn Létourneau, and David Northrup, “Canadians and Their Pasts: An Exploration in Historical Consciousness,” Public Historian 31, no. 1 (February 2009): 15–34. 17 See chapter 8, this volume. 18 This issue has been addressed in more detail in Peter Seixas, Kadriye Ercikan, and David Northrup, “History and the Past: Towards a Measure of Everyman’s Epistemology” (paper presented to the American Educational Research Association, New York City, 27 March 2008), h p://www.canadiansandtheirpasts.ca/publ_download/history. 19 Our partners include the Association of Heritage Industries, Newfoundland & Labrador, and Newfoundland Historical Society, St John’s; Musée acadien, and Institut d’études acadiennes, Université de Moncton; Musée de la civilisation, Quebec City; Association for Canadian Studies, Montreal; Canadian Museums Association, O awa; Historica-Dominion Institute, Toronto; Canada West Foundation, Calgary; the Kamloops-Thompson Regional Historica Fair Commi ee and Thompson Rivers University’s Centre for the Study of Multiple Literacies, Kamloops; Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, Vancouver; and Parks Canada. 20 This question has raised considerable debate among Canadian historians. See, for example, Michael Bliss, “Privatizing the Mind: The Sundering of Canadian History, the Sundering of Canada,” Journal of Canadian Studies 26, no. 4 (Winter 1991–2): 5–17, and J.L. Granatstein, Who Killed Canadian History? 2nd ed. (1998; Toronto: HarperCollins, 2007). For a rejoinder see A.B. McKillop, “Who Killed Canadian History? A View from the Trenches,” Canadian Historical Review 80, no. 2 (June 1999): 269–99. For an outline of the Quebec version of the debate, see Jocelyn Létourneau, “The Current Debate on History Education in Quebec,” in New Possibilities for the Past: Shaping History Education in Canada, ed. Penney Clark (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2011), 81–96.

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Notes to Pages 11–13 1. History in Public

1 Margaret Conrad, “Public History and Its Discontents, or History in the Age of Wikipedia,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 18, no. 1 (2007): 1–26. See also Paul Ashton and Hilda Kean, eds., People and Their Pasts: Public History Today (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), and Nicole Neatby and Peter Hodgins, eds., Se ling and Unse ling Memories: Essays in Canadian Public History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012). 2 Jonathan F. Vance, A History of Canadian Culture (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2009). 3 The four verbs are part of Raymond Williams’s definition of “culture” as “the signifying system through which necessarily (though among other means) a social order is communicated, reproduced, experienced and explored.” Raymond Williams, Culture (Glasgow: Fontana Paperbacks, William Collins Sons, 1981), 13. 4 “Navigating Historical Controversies with Integrity,” Public History in Canada, 2008, h p://www.chashcacommi ees-comitesa.ca/public_history/ papers.html. 5 More than 40 percent of those who responded to the survey were born between 1947 and 1967, making them the core of the so-called baby boom generation who took their schooling from the mid-1950s through the late 1970s. 6 José Igartua, The Other Quiet Revolution: Nationalism in English Canada, 1945–1971 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006). A politically centred treatment of the same issues can be found in Sylvia Bashevkin, True Patriot Love: The Politics of Canadian Nationalism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), and C.P. Champion, The Strange Demise of British Canada: The Liberals and Canadian Nationalism, 1964–1968 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010). For a nuanced theoretical perspective on this same phenomenon in late twentieth-century Britain, see Tim Edensor, National Identity, Popular Culture and Everyday Life (Oxford: Berg, 2002). 7 A.B. McKillop, Pierre Berton: A Biography (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2008). 8 Jeffrey Cormier, The Canadianization Movement: Emergence, Survival, and Success (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004). 9 Ryan Edwardson, Canadian Content: Culture and the Quest for Nationhood (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008). 10 Terry Cheney, “The Presence of Museums in the Lives of Canadians, 1971–1998: What Might Have Been and What Has Been,” Social Trends 12, no. 48 (2002): 37–67.

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11 National heritage discourses in the contexts of multicultural and Aboriginal policies are critiqued by Eva Mackey, The House of Difference: Cultural Politics and National Identity in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), and Daniel Francis, National Dreams: Myth, Memory and Canadian History (Vancouver: Arsenal Press, 1997). 12 J.L. Granatstein, Who Killed Canadian History?, 2nd ed. (1998; Toronto: HarperCollins, 2007). 13 Margaret Conrad, “A Brief Survey of Canadian Historiography,” in New Possibilities for the Past: Shaping History Education in Canada, ed. Penney Clark (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2011). See also Carl Berger, The Writing of Canadian History: Aspects of English-Canadian Historical Writing since 1900 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986), and Donald Wright, The Professionalization of History in English Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005). 14 John Doyle, “One Will Get You Three If You Fund the CBC,” Globe and Mail, 16 June 2011, R2, referring to a Deloi e-Touche study on the economic impact of the CBC/Radio Canada, and to Hill Strategies Research, A Statistical Profile of Artists in Canada (Hamilton: Hill Strategies Research, 2009). According to the Hill report, “In 2005, two-thirds of Canadians read a book (66.6 percent), one in two a ended a performance by professional artists or a cultural festival (48.8 percent), and one in four visited an art gallery (26.7 percent).” 15 Robert A. Rosenstone, Visions of the Past: The Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 70. 16 Lon Dubinsky, who represents the Canadian Museums Association in the Canadians and Their Pasts project, worked with co-investigator Del Muise to conduct focus groups hosted by museums in six locations across the country: New Brunswick Museum (Saint John), Musée de la civilisation (Quebec), Écomusée du fier monde (Montreal), Peel Heritage Centre (Brampton), Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature (Winnipeg), and Kamloops Art Gallery (Kamloops). Nearly one hundred people, recruited by local museum staff, participated. 17 The Official Directory of Canadian Museums and Related Institutions/Répertoire officiel des musées canadiens et institutions connexes (O awa: Canadian Museums Association/ Association des musées canadiens, c. 1984–1999). 18 Jeanne-Mance Cormier and Hélène Savoie, ”De l’influence d’une visite au musée sur la conscience historique des élèves du primaire,” Revue canadienne de recherche sociale/Canadian Journal of Social Research 4, no. 1 (Spring 2011): 42-72. 19 Marc Robichaud, “L’histoire de l’Acadie telle que recontée par les jeunes francophones du Nouveau-Brunswick: Construction et déconstruction

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d’un récit historique,” Acadiensis 40, no. 2 (été/automne 2011): 33–69. See also Patrick D. Clarke, “Sur l’identité et la conscience historiques des jeunes Gaspésiens,” in Les jeunes à l’ére de la modialisation: Quête identitaire et conscience historique, ed. Bogumil Jewsiewicki and Jocelyn Létourneau (Sillery: Septentrion, 1997), 71–125. See “Passages to the Past,” Peel Art Gallery Museum + Archives, h p://www.pama.peelregion.ca/en/exhibitions/pastexhibitionsandprojects .asp, notably the exhibitions “Coming to Peel” and “I do, I do.” Magne Angvik and Bodo von Borries, eds., Youth and History: A Comparative European Survey on Historical Consciousness and Political A itudes among Adolescents (Hamburg: Körber Sti ung, 1997). A.B. Hodge s, What Culture? What Heritage? (Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, 1968), 1. This insightful observation is made by Anna Clark, History’s Children (Sydney: New South, 2008). See Peter Seixas, “A Modest Proposal for Change in Canadian History Education,” International Review of History Education 6 (2010): 11–26. Rob Schoen et al., “Visible Listening: Observing, Documenting, and Reflecting on Children’s Historical Inquiry” (paper presented at the International Institute for Qualitative Methodology’s 2009 Advances in Qualitative Methods Conference, Vancouver, BC, 8–10 October 2009). All quotations from Schoen et al., “Visible Listening.” Terry Bishop-Stirling, “Memory Keepers in Newfoundland and Labrador” (lecture, Canadians and Their Pasts Annual Meeting, Quebec City, 25 October 2008). Computer Games and Canada’s Digital Economy: The Role of Universities in Promoting Innovation, Report to the Social Science Humanities Research Council Knowledge Synthesis Grants on Canada’s Digital Economy, 1 December 2010, h p://circa.ualberta.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/ ComputerGamesAndCanadasDigitalEconomy.pdf. Anonymous, The Walrus 8, no. 3 (April 2011), 11. The potential of history gaming is explored in Kevin Kee and Nicki Darbyson, “Creating and Using Virtual Environments to Promote Historical Thinking,” in Clark, New Possibilities for the Past, 264–81, and Kevin Kee et al., “Towards a Theory of Good History through Gaming,” Canadian Historical Review 90, no. 2 (June 2009): 303–26. Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, McKenna-McBride Royal Commission: Minutes of Decision, 1913–1916, h p://www.ubcic.bc.ca/ Resources/final_report.htm.

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31 For an exploration of these issues in the Australian context, see Paul Ashton and Paula Hamilton, History at the Crossroads: Australians and the Past (Sydney: Halstead Press, 2010). 32 Paul Gilroy, Darker Than Blue: On the Moral Economies of Black Atlantic Culture (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2010), cited in Marina Warner, “In the Time of Not Yet,” London Review of Books 32, no. 24 (16 December 2010): 15–18, h p://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n24/marina-warner/in-the-time-of-not-yet. On the challenge posed by the commercialization of the Internet, see Eli Pariser, The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You (New York: Penguin, 2011). 33 We grouped the responses in four categories: a) general references, not specifically national in context – 50 percent; b) autobiographical references – 19 percent; c) global and thematic (e.g., religion, gender) references – 14 percent; and d) national references – 14 percent. The analysis is based on 345 interviews in the second batch of transcripts, which includes interviews collected in the broad middle rather than the beginning or end of data collection. Although the batch is not representative in terms of place of residence or sociodemographic characteristics, it does contain interviews from across the country, including interviews with men and women, those with high and low levels of education, and those who reported that they were very interested (or not so interested) in history. A stricter sampling of the transcripts might alter the relative ranking of the categories, but it is unlikely that important ideas have not been identified in this exploratory effort. 2. Everybody’s Doing It 1 Margaret MacMillan, The Uses and Abuses of History (Toronto: Penguin, 2008), 3. 2 David Lowenthal, Possessed by the Past: The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), xiii. 3 The Web, as we know it today, has been around for about thirty years, and the most popular search engine – Google – was incorporated on 4 September1998. See h p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ Google. 4 For comment on the role of the Internet in exploring history, see Margaret Conrad, “Public History and Its Discontents or History in the Age of Wikipedia,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 18, no. 1 (2007): 1–26.

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Notes to Pages 33–9

5 Laurajane Smith, Uses of Heritage (New York: Routledge, 2006), especially pages 2 and 158 for specific references to heritage moments and their accuracy. 6 To reduce potential order effects – where the answers to subsequent questions are constrained by answers to previous questions – the order in which the questions about different pasts were presented to respondents was randomized in the questionnaire. (The questions about the past of their regions and place of birth for immigrants were always asked last.) For a review of question order effects in surveys, see Howard Schuman and Stanley Presser, Questions and Answers in A itude Surveys (Orlando: Academic Press, 1981), and Seymour Sudman, Norman M. Bradburn, and Norbert Schwarz, Thinking about Answers (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996). 7 Reginald W. Bibby, Restless Gods: The Renaissance of Religion in Canada (Toronto: Novalis, 2004). 8 John Ralston Saul goes so far as to suggest that the impact of Aboriginals is such that “we are a métis civilization.” A Fair Country: Telling Truths about Canada (Toronto: Viking Canada, 2008), 3. 9 See William S. Hendon, Frank Costa, and Robert Allan Rosenberg, “The General Public and the Art Museum,” American Journal of Economics and Sociology 48, no. 2 (2006): 230–43, and Hill Strategies Research Inc., “Museum and Art Gallery A endance in Canada and the Provinces,” Research on the Arts 1, no. 3 (2003), 1-18, see in particular pages 2-3 and 6-7, h p://www.hillstrategies.com. 10 According to sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, the clear relation between taste and education is a “self-evident fact.” Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (London: Routledge, 1984), 11. For a general review on education and life outcomes, see Ernest T. and Patrick T. Terenzini, How College Affects Students: Findings and Insights from Twenty Years of Research (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991). On education, political orientation, and tolerance, see Paul M. Sniderman, Richard A. Brody, and Philip E. Tetlock, Reasoning and Choice: Explorations in Political Psychology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991). For education and political participation, see Thomas Ehrlich, ed., Civic Responsibility and Higher Education (Phoenix: Oryx, 2000). On health and education, see Dennis Raphael, ed., Social Determinants of Health: Canadian Perspectives (Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press, 2004). For education and leisure see Juliet B. Schor, “Overturning the Modernist Predictions: Recent Trends in Work

Notes to Pages 41–3

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and Leisure in the OECD,” in A Handbook of Leisure Studies, ed. Chris Rojek, Susan M. Shaw, and A.J. Veal (New York: Palgrave, Macmillan, 2006), 203–15. For a specific reference to education and participating in the arts, including visiting museums and reading books, see pages 178–80. For these activities we have confirmed that the relationship between higher incomes and participation exists even a er we take into account education differences. This has been done by using a logistic regression model to test the relative effect of income, education, and all of the demographic variables on participation. In this chapter, and in those that follow, we are mindful of the results of the regressions whenever we claim that a demographic variable is related to participating in an activity or being interested in a past. To review the results of this regression, see David Northrup, “Canadians and Their Pasts,” Canadian Journal for Social Research: Measuring History 4, no. 1 (2011): 6–19. On the use of this regression technique, see David W. Hosmer and Stanley Lemeshow, Applied Logistic Regression, 2nd ed. (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000). There was variation in interest and importance by income but not in any kind of interpretable pa ern. For example, the percentage saying they were very interested in Canadian history, from lowest to highest levels of income, were 38, 32, 27, 33, 38, 34, 28, and 32, respectively. In the logistic regression models, income was found not to be a statistically significant predictor for most of the activities, as well as in the interest and importance questions. In this text, we report differences by gender or the other demographics only when they reach a level of statistical significance and are large enough to be substantively meaningful. An explanation of the use of statistical significance in the social sciences can be found in David S. Moore, George P. McCabe, and Bruce A. Craig, Introduction to the Practice of Statistics, 6th ed. (New York: Freeman, 2009). See, in particular, chapter 6. Paul Ashton and Paula Hamilton, History at the Crossroads: Australians and the Past (Ultimo, Australia: Halstead Press, 2010), 120. The percentage figures for the other four age groups were 78, 77, 75, and 77, for the forty to fi y, fi y-one to sixty-four, sixty-five to seventy-four, and over seventy-five years of age groups, respectively. This finding is consistent regardless of whether we use the six age groups or exact age. In regression models age is a large and statistically significant factor only in explaining participation for Internet use and playing computer history games.

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Notes to Pages 48–54 3. The Problem of Trust

1 This problem is explored in David Lowenthal, The Past Is a Foreign Country (New York: Cambridge, 1985). 2 See, for example, Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob, Telling the Truth about History (New York: Norton, 1994), and Brian Fay, Philip Pomper, and Richard T. Vann, eds., History and Theory: Contemporary Readings (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1998). 3 See Hayden White, The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), and Keith Jenkins, Rethinking History (London: Routledge, 1991). Postmodernism’s brief obituary appears in Lynn Hunt, “Where Have All the Theories Gone?,” Perspectives of the American Historical Association, 40, no. 3 (March 2002): 5–7. For a recent recapitulation, see Keith Jenkins, Sue Morgan, and Alun Munslow, eds., Manifestos for History (New York: Routledge, 2007). 4 Pierre Nora, Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past, ed. Lawrence Kritzman, trans. Arthur Goldhammer, 3 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996–8). 5 On the problems posed by postmodernists’ enthusiasms in the 1990s, see Peter Seixas, “Schweigen! Die Kinder! Or Does Postmodern History Have a Place in the Schools?,” in Knowing, Teaching and Learning History: National and International Perspectives, ed. Peter Stearns, Peter Seixas, and Sam Wineburg (New York: New York University Press, 2000). 6 One might speculate that it would depend which museum or Web site or book one was considering, but few respondents, for each of these sources, said, “It depends” on the particular museum or Web site or book. The relative absence of “it depends” results from our question wording, in which we instructed respondents to tell us “in general” about how trustworthy various sources were and our reminders that we were asking about “Web sites in general,” as well as “history teachers in general” and so on. 7 The “most trustworthy” variable was derived from other variables. Most respondents named more than one source as very trustworthy. Question D7a asked those respondents who had named more than one source “very trustworthy” which of those was “most trustworthy.” For the remaining respondents, who nominated only one source as very trustworthy, that source was assumed to be the “most trustworthy” one. 8 Those who are older than sixty-five are less likely to have higher levels of education, so the associations of trustworthiness of family sources and

Notes to Pages 55–6

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museums with age and education are confounded – that is, individual effects of these variables cannot be identified without further analysis. This subsample of 393 comprised the earliest Anglophone interview transcripts available, during the extended process of completing the interviews. It is important to consider whether this convenience subsample was significantly different from the entire survey sample. We compared it with the 2,726 who were not included in the subsample. There were no statistically significant differences in gender (40 percent vs 44 percent male), income (respective income categories, lowest to highest, 21 percent vs 25 percent, 38 percent vs 36 percent, 21 percent vs 22 percent, and 21 percent vs 18 percent), and education (respective education categories, lowest to highest, 11 percent vs 13 percent, 24 percent vs 24 percent, 34 percent vs 27 percent, and 29 percent vs 28 percent). There were small, statistically significant differences in age (the qualitative sample was slightly older) and in the level of “interest in the past” that they expressed (the qualitative sample slightly more interested). The la er differences may be a ributed to the fact that these early respondents were generally those who agreed to the interview on the first telephone call; as the interviewing process continued, people who had declined on the first a empts agreed to be included (but were not part of our subsample). There was also the difference in language, in that the 393 were entirely Anglophone. By the time we reached the end of the subsample of 393, the codes we had defined were adequate to incorporate each new case. Each response was given up to three codes. Two researchers completed the coding independently. Coders then discussed each of the cases where their types diverged, and reached a corrected, consensus decision. The consensus is what is reflected in the quantitative figures that follow A.L. Strauss and J. Corbin, Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory, 2nd ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 1998). Those familiar with the work of Peter Lee, Rosalyn Ashby, and the CHATA project will recognize the influence of their work on what follows. See, for example, Peter Lee and Rosalyn Ashby, “Progression in Historical Understanding Among Students Ages 7–14,” in Knowing, Teaching, and Learning History: National and International Perspectives, ed. Peter Stearns, Peter Seixas, and Sam Wineburg (New York: New York University Press, 2000), and Peter Lee, “Pu ing Principles into Practice,” in How Students Learn, ed. M.S. Donovan and J.D. Bransford (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2005). Our actual codes for “claiming faith” were “faith in [x]” where “x” stands for a teacher, a museum, or other source, and “authority of the state.”

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Notes to Pages 57–64

13 Codes for “experts and witnesses” were authority of a witness, authority of experts, education and training, wri en sources, “more facts, less bias,” and family stories. 14 These were not references to the multiple interpretations of different historians, which did not occur in response to this question. 15 Codes for “investigation of sources” included, “objects and artifacts,” primary sources, archives, references (in books), and “multiple perspectives.” 16 Codes for “community of inquiry” included the idea that “many people” were involved in its production, that “much time and research” had gone into producing or verifying the claims, that public reputations would be at stake if there were problems, and that the research, evidence, and/or views were “up to date.” 17 There is a statistically significant correlation with age (p-value < 0.01). 18 Thomas Haskell, ed., The Authority of Experts: Studies in History and Theory (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984). Also see note 3. Again, the variation in age may just be an expression of variation in education levels, described ahead. 19 Significance defined as p-value < 0.01. 20 See h p://www.cha-shc.ca/public_history/papers.html. 21 Codes for “dead ends and dismissals” included “I don’t know,” there’s “no way,” common sense, “research it,” and “you would need a witness.” We debated about whether “research it” might be an indicator of a more powerful approach. Where respondents went on to describe how or where they would research it, we did not use that code. If, however, they said only, “research it,” the code was used. It may be the case that “research it” meant much more than “common sense” or “I don’t know.” 22 Codes for “limited strategies” included going to a specific kind of source (like “books”) except when the specific source was “archives,” “get the facts,” “you have to consider multiple perspectives,” and “go to a number of sources” (with neither of the last two suggesting what to do with the multiple perspectives and sources), and the sceptical notion that “winners write the history.” 23 Codes for “active investigation” included using multiple sources and suggesting what might be done with them, interrogating primary sources, verifying and corroborating accounts with other sources, and consulting archives. 24 Sixty-nine percent of respondents giving “active investigation” responses on “conflicting accounts” also provided “investigation of sources” or “community of inquiry” responses to the “most trustworthy” question, indicating some consistency between the two sets of responses. Elsewhere,

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however, there were weaker correlations. Most troublingly, the majority (60 percent) of those who provided “dead ends and dismissals” responses to the “conflicting accounts” question gave “investigation of sources” or “community of inquiry” responses to the question of “most trustworthy.” These inconsistencies point to the imprecision that comes from using responses to any one question as a measure of any particular individual’s approach to the past. Though both the “most trustworthy” and “conflicting accounts” questions targeted trust, the kind of thinking that they required from the respondents may have differed. As well, the manner in which we coded and assigned types may have been problematic in ways that still lie hidden. 4. Family History in a Globalizing World 1 Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, ed. and trans. Lewis A. Coser (1925; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). 2 The most recent reflection on this ma er can be found in an influential essay by Ian McKay, “The Liberal Order Framework: A Prospectus for a Reconnaissance of Canadian History,” Canadian Historical Review 81, no. 4 (December 2000): 617–45, and responses to it, including Jean-François Constant and Michel Ducharme, eds., Liberalism and Hegemony: Debating the Canadian Liberal Revolution (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009). See also Steven Rose, “Memories Are Made of This,” in Memory: An Anthology, ed. Harriet Harvey Wood and A.S. Bya (London: Cha o & Windus, 2008), 54–67. 3 Sabine Moller, “The GDR in Family Memory” (paper presented in a panel on “The German ‘Aufarbeitung’: Accounting for the GDR Past a er 1989,” GSA, Washington, DC, October 2009). 4 Nicolas Denys, The Description and National History of the Coasts of North America, ed. William F. Ganong (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1908), 401. 5 That is, 88 percent of respondents to the survey. 6 Pierre Nora, “Reasons for the Current Upsurge in Memory,” Eurozine, 14 April 2002, www.eurozine.com. 7 For an excellent summary of family history in the Canadian context, see Be ina Bradbury, “Social, Economic, and Cultural Origins of Contemporary Families,” in Families: Changing Trends in Canada, ed. Maureen Baker (Toronto: McGraw Hill-Ryerson, 2005), 71–98. 8 Heather Murray, Not in This Family: Gays and the Meaning of Kinship in Postwar North America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010).

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Notes to Pages 70–80

9 For a useful reflection on American family life and the rituals it embodies, see John R. Gillis, A World of Their Own Making: Myth, Ritual, and the Quest for Family Values (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997). 10 Tessa Morris-Suzuki, The Past within Us: Media, Memory, and History (London: Verso, 2005), 88–9. For a more detailed discussion of this topic, see Martha Langford, Suspended Conversations: The A erlife of Memory in Photographic Albums (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001). 11 “C’est pour plus tard, quand que la génération de mes petits-enfants vont peut-être les regarder tous que j’ai fait pour savoir qui ce qui était qui.” 12 Karina Hof, “Something You Can Actually Pick Up: Scrapbooking as a Form and Forum of Cultural Citizenship,” European Journal of Cultural Studies 9, no. 3 (2006), 364. 13 Hof, 365. 14 Buzzy Jackson, Shaking the Family Tree: Blue Bloods, Black Sheep and Other Obsessions of an Accidental Genealogist (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010), 6, 62–74. A brief overview of the directory can be found at www.irongate.com/pubs.html. 15 There is a vast literature on the evolution and impact of life writing as represented in diaries and journals, especially as it relates to women. In the Canadian context, see Kathryn Carter, ed., The Small Details of Life: Twenty Diaries by Women in Canada, 1830–1996 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002). 16 For insights on food and family life in a Canadian context, see Natalie Cooke, What’s to Eat? Entrées in Canadian Food History (Montreal: McGillQueen’s University Press, 2009). 17 “Oui quand même beaucoup, de ... choses politiques, dans les gros débats qu’il y a eu ou dans les grosses élections qu’il y a eu, là. ... J’encadre des archives de journaux de René Lévesque.” 18 “Oui, mes sorties de pêche avec mon père, me ons. Quand j’étais petit garçon.” 19 “Parce que les familles sont supposées de donner des bons, des bons renseignements de qu’est-ce qui s’est passé.” 20 “Bien parce que ça l’englobe un peu le passé d’où je viens, de mon origine, du passé de ma famille. Ça l’englobe le Canada, le Québec, l’Italie. Donc ça fait partie de moi quand même.” 21 Alan Atkinson, “Heritage, Self, and Place,” Australian Cultural History 23 (2003): 161–72. 22 Maria Nugent, “Aboriginal Family History: Some Reflections,” Australian Cultural History 23 (2003), 144.

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23 Margaret Conrad et al., “‘I Want to Know My Bloodline’: New Brunswickers and Their Pasts,” Journal of New Brunswick Studies 1 (Fall 2010): 1–28, h p://w3.stu.ca/stu/sites/jnbs/index.html. 24 “Parce-que c’est simplement à comprendre d’où je viens, qui je suis, et puis ça me confirme l’importance de ma culture.” 25 A recent exploration of the complexity of “culture keeping” for families involved in international adoptions can be found in Heather Jacobson, Culture Keeping: White Mothers, International Adoption, and the Negotiation of Family Difference (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2008). 26 “Les familles qui ont été séparées une de l’autre, et se retrouve en Gaspésie, elles se sont trouvées aux Iles de la Madeleine, ils ont été déportés à la Louisiane ... tout les cousins acadiens qui se retrouvent partout, c’était a partir du moment de la déportation, ou ils se sont sauvés et se sont en allés ailleurs.” 27 On the changing nature of family life in see Daniel Dagenais, The (Un) Making of the Modern Family, trans. Jane Brierley (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2008). 28 Jocelyn Létourneau and David Northrup, “Québécois et Canadiens face au Passé: similitudes et dissemblances,” Canadian Historical Review 92, no. 1 (March 2011): 163–96. 29 José Igartua, The Other Quiet Revolution: National Identities in English Canada, 1945–71 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006). 30 Included in this 6 percent figure are those who indicated that this history was “not very important,” that they “don’t know,” or “refused to answer.” Only 6 of the 3,119 respondents in the national sample refused to answer the question on the importance of family history. 31 Roy Rosenzweig, “Everyone a Historian,” in The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life, ed. Roy Rosenzweig (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 178. 5. Collective Remembering in Three Canadian Communities 1 The Saskatchewan Aboriginal survey paralleled the American study, which interviewed 186 Sioux on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and 28 in Minneapolis. We thank Jeremy Wiebe, University of Waterloo, for his assistance with the transcription and analysis of the interviews in this Saskatchewan survey. 2 We wrote the chief and council on each reserve and obtained permission to conduct interviews. Two Aboriginal research assistants then followed

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a “walk/drive pa ern,” traversing the roads and knocking on doors at a regular interval calculated from the target number of respondents and the number of dwellings. Members of receptive households were given an explanatory leaflet and invited to participate in a telephone interview at a later date. About 55 percent of the sample was drawn from these reserves. Another group of volunteers (about 30 percent of the total) was recruited in Saskatoon, where research assistants set up tables at various locations frequented by Aboriginal people, including the Indian and Métis Friendship Centre, the University of Saskatchewan, White Buffalo Youth Lodge, and Packham Place, a complex with many businesses owned by and employing First Nations people. Again, names and telephone numbers were collected and leaflets handed out. And about 15 percent of the sample was obtained by telephoning Saskatoon residents whose distinctive surnames are most likely to belong to families long resident on the central Saskatchewan reserves. Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, “Maskêko-Sâkahihnihk: One Hundred Years for a Saskatchewan First Nation,” in Perspectives of Saskatchewan, ed. Jene M. Porter (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2009), 75–109. Winona Wheeler, presentation at the Canadians and Their Pasts annual meeting, Toronto, 6–8 December 2007. Question A2: “How interested are you in your family’s history: very interested, somewhat interested, not very interested, not at all interested, don’t know, refused.” The most popular selection by other Saskatchewanians as the most trustworthy source of information about the past was museums, the choice of 37 percent, compared to 13 percent of Aboriginal respondents. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was formally established by the Canadian government in 2008. See h p://www.trc.ca. John S. Milloy, A National Crime: The Canadian Government and the Residential Schools System, 1879–1986 (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1999), and J.R. Miller, Shingwauk’s Vision: A History of Native Residential Schools (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989). Aboriginal respondents had considerably lower regard than Saskatchewan non-Aboriginal respondents for the trustworthiness of schoolteachers, historical books, museums, and historical sites. Twice as many nonAboriginal Saskatchewanians as Aboriginals said teachers were “very trustworthy” (31 percent to 16 percent), while a quarter of Aboriginal respondents told us teachers were either “not very” or “not at all” trustworthy (25 percent, compared to 6 percent of non-Aboriginals).

Notes to Pages 89–91

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10 And 10 percent thought they were either “not very” or “not at all” trustworthy. Fact-based historical books fared only somewhat be er: the proportion of Aboriginals who said they were very trustworthy was 11 percent lower than Saskatchewan non-Aboriginals (28 percent to 39 percent). 11 Aboriginal leaders from other bands and districts – Poundmaker, Big Bear, Crowfoot, Peguis, Ahab Spence, Jean Cuthand Goodwill – were not mentioned. And the powerful stories that have circulated in recent decades, such as the works of Maria Campbell, the memoirs of Edward Ahenakew and Ila Bussidor, and the leadership of John B. Tootoosis, do not appear in the transcripts; Maria Campbell, Hal reed (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1973); Edward Ahenakew, Voices of the Plains Cree (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1973); Ila Bussidor and Ustun Bilgen Reinart, Night Spirits: The Story of the Relocation of the Sayisi Dene (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1997). We would like to acknowledge the contributions of Dr Winona Wheeler, University of Saskatchewan, and Dr Mary Jane McCallum, University of Winnipeg, to the preceding paragraphs. 12 One man’s response to the question about a “meaningful time or person”: “I guess I went out and interviewed a guy about the repatriation of One Arrow’s remains from Winnipeg. He was a chief ... whose land was out by Batoche, which is about, you know, forty minutes north of Saskatoon, and he was imprisoned because of his role in the rebellion, and they dug up his body and brought it back home, repatriated his body. So I was up at One Arrow Reserve, standing by his grave, in an area soaked with history, talking to an elder about One Arrow and the history of the First Nations people in that territory.” 13 It is interesting to look at examples of contemporary Ininew history in Saskatchewan. Examples include Winona Wheeler, “Cree Intellectual Traditions in History,” in The West and Beyond: New Perspectives on an Imagined Region, ed. Alvin Finkel, Sarah Carter, and Peter Fortna (Edmonton: AU Press, Athabasca University, 2010), 47–61; Turpel-Lafond, “Maskêko-Sâkahihnihk”; and Doug Cuthand, Askiwina: A Cree World (Regina: Coteau Books, 2007). 14 On the thorny issue of the number of Acadians at the time of the deportation, see Stephen A. White, “The True Number of Acadians,” in Du Grand Dérangement à la Déportation: Nouvelles perspectives historiques, ed. RonnieGilles LeBlanc (Moncton: Chaire d’études acadiennes, Université de Moncton, 2005), 21–56.

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15 John Mack Faragher, A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from Their American Homeland (New York: W.W. Norton, 2005). Politics and society in the colonial period are explored in John G. Reid et al., The ‘Conquest’ of Acadia, 1710: Imperial, Colonial, and Aboriginal Constructions (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004). See also two books by Naomi Griffiths, The Contexts of Acadian History, 1686–1784 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1992) and From Migrant to Acadian: A North American Border People, 1604–1755 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004). The larger Acadian story is outlined in Jean Daigle, ed., Acadia of the Maritimes: Thematic Studies from the Beginning to the Present (Moncton: Chaire d’études acadiennes, Université de Moncton, 1995). 16 Dieppe = 32; Petit Rocher = 35; Caraquet = 33. We are grateful to Natalie Dubé, University of New Brunswick, for the transcription of the Acadian survey. 17 For more on this ma er, see Margaret Conrad et al., “‘I Want to Know My Bloodline’: New Brunswickers and Their Pasts,” Journal of New Brunswick Studies 1 (Fall 2010): 1–28, h p://journals.hil.unb.ca/ index.php/JNBS/article/view/18188. We are grateful to Natalie Dubé, University of New Brunswick, for the transcription of the Acadian sample survey. 18 Although the numbers are too small to make a definitive statement, the Acadians in the New Brunswick sample differ less dramatically from their anglophone neighbours. The explanation for this difference between the two samples seems to lie in our choice of Acadian communities for our special sample. At best, the national survey would have captured 3 percent of the residents in Dieppe, Caraquet, and Petit-Rocher, who seem to have a much closer relationship with the past than francophones living elsewhere in the province. Some of the Acadians who answered the provincial survey may well have been assimilated into anglophone communities, and, as scholars have pointed out and our survey seems to confirm, Acadians in New Brunswick are not as homogeneous as we might expect. On issues of Acadian identity and regionalisms, see Maurice Basque and Jacques Paul Couturier, eds., Les territoires de l’identité: Perspectives acadiennes et françaises, XVIIe–XXe siècles (Moncton: Chaire d’études acadiennes, 2005), and Patrick D. Clarke, “Régions et régionalismes en Acadie: culture, espace, appartenance,” Recherches Sociographiques 41, no. 2 (2000): 299–365. On one of the Acadian regions of New Brunswick not covered in our Acadian survey, see Béatrice Craig et al., The Land in Between: The Upper St. John

Notes to Pages 93–4

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River Valley from Prehistory to World War One (Gardiner, ME: Tilbury House, 2009). “Ç’était peut-être deux jours passés. C’était ... une photo du Château Albert. C’est présentement. On a un village acadien, le site historique, puis le Château Albert est au village acadien.” In question C1, which asked respondents to rate how much activities in which they participated helped them to understand the past, both the New Brunswick and the Acadian samples were similar to the national survey in which about 60 percent responded “a great deal” or “a lot.” Not surprisingly, respondents in the Acadian sample were more likely than those in the provincial sample to respond “a great deal” or “a lot” to C2 (61 percent to 44 percent), which asked how much a particular activity helped them understand “who you are.” (The national rate was 41 percent.) “Ici à Petit-Rocher, on ferme la rue à 3h l’après-midi jusqu’a 6h–6h30. Les gens se promènent dans la rue habillés avec les couleurs de l’Acadie. À 6h, ce sont des discours officiels. C’est le Tintamar. Le Tintamar ... ç’est faire le plus de bruit possible. Chacun se promène avec son chaudron ... ou tout ce qui peut faire du bruit ... Tout le village se trouve au centre du village. On peut marcher dans la rue, les voitures doivent faire un détour. Il y a des chants dans la rue, la musique, les violons.” “On a des réunions des LeBlanc. On a été aux fêtes des Acadiens le 15 août. C’est tous les ans: un gros party! C’est toutes des choses acadiennes, toutes des chansons françaises. Ils viennent jouer ... it’s a good time.” “J’ai su que j’étais une descendante de M. Daniel LeBlanc de la France ... dans les années 1600. Puis c’est parce que je savais qu’il y avait deux descendants de Leblanc, deux chaînes, puis moi je suis sur le bord de Daniel. Je savais pas ça. Puis je trouve ça très intéressant ... que j’ai de la parenté avec plusieurs LeBlanc dans la région.” “Ca, ça existe chaque cinq année. La dernière qu’on a eue, c’était en 2004. ... Dans la région, il y a 2009 qui s’en vient à Caraquet, Nouveau-Brunswick. Donc c’est concentré spécifiquement sur les familles acadiennes, généalogie, l’historique acadien. Chaque famille doit avoir l’historique. Il fait les grosses, grosses fêtes de familles, les grosses fêtes ... . Ça était la Louisiane, ça était au Nouveau-Brunswick, ça était l’Amérique.” “C’était à l’occasion du Congrès mondial acadien de 1994. Et puis j’ai regardé des photos. J’étais impliqué dans l’organisation ce e année-là. Et j’ai regardé justement un peu d’histoire de ce e belle rencontre qu’on a eue en 1994.”

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26 “Albums familiaux, les grands événements qui peuvent se passer dans notre communauté, surtout sur le bord de la francophonie, c’est-à-dire, les événements comme le congrès mondial acadien, et toute rencontre de famille, et toute rencontre culturelle qui touche un peu notre héritage acadien.” 27 “Je pense qu’on a un lien avec le passé et que dans le fond ça connecte et ça branche avec notre futur. Alors il faut ... C’est important de garder notre culture, de savoir qui on est et ou on vient pour s’assurer d’un futur solide; et puis aussi je pense dans notre culture, étant un francophone acadien, on veut partager ce e culture-là.” 28 Note that 79 percent of Acadian respondents said family history was “very important” to them, higher than the national sample of 66 percent. 29 Forty percent of Acadians said religion was very important, vs 52 percent of New Brunswick residents; in the national survey, 33 percent of Canadians selected this ranking. 30 Acadians selected “very important” for the history of their province in greater numbers than did other Canadians: Acadian 54 percent, national sample 36 percent. 31 Ronald Rudin, Remembering and Forge ing in Acadie: A Historian’s Journey through Public Memory (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009). 32 “Le monsieur qui a écrit ‘De temps la mère robe e.’ Une chanson acadienne. C’était André Theborthe de notre famille.” 33 Donald J. Savoie, I’m from Bouctouche, Me: Roots Ma er (Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009), 244–54. 34 Student-related projects undertaken by two CURA partners, Institut d’études acadiennes and Centre d’études acadiennes Anselme-Chiasson et Musée acadien, indicate that young people also have a strong sense of their Acadian heritage but that some of them see themselves as “citizens of the world,” a harbinger of where we may all be headed. 35 The 2006 Census shows the mother tongue of the top four ethnic groups in the allophone category as Italian, Spanish, Arabic, and Chinese. 36 Jocelyn Létourneau, “What Is to Be Done with 1759?,” in 1759 Remembered: Interpreting the Conquest, ed. Phillip Buckner and John G. Reid (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012), 279-302. 37 For a more detailed discussion of findings from the survey relating to Quebec, see Jocelyn Létourneau and David Northrup, “Québécois et Canadiens face au passé: similitudes et dissemblances,” Canadian Historical Review 92, no. 1 (March 2011): 163–96. 38 Jacques Rouillard, “Le révolution tranquille, rupture ou tournant?,” Journal of Canadian Studies 32, no. 4 (Winter 1998): 23–51, and Jocelyn Létourneau, “Quieter Revolutions,” The Walrus (October 2010): 50–4.

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39 Jacques Mathieu and Jacques Lacoursière, Les mémoires québécoises (Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval, 1991). 40 When in France, in summer 2008, promoting the four hundredth anniversary of the founding of Quebec City, Governor General Michaëlle Jean explicitly associated this historical event with the birth of Canada. Accordingly, she implied that her office was connected with that of Samuel de Champlain, first governor of the country, a statement criticized by some observers but assumed to be the case in some of the publications of Rideau Hall. 41 Jocelyn Létourneau and Sabrina Moisan, “Young People’s Assimilation of a Collective Historical Memory: A Case Study of Quebeckers of FrenchCanadian Heritage,” in Theorizing Historical Consciousness, ed. Peter Seixas (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), 109–28. 42 “Pour moi, le passé le plus important est le passé du Québec. Parce que je suis indépendantiste. Alors si on veut justement être capable de bien faire notre souveraineté, notre indépendance, [de] rallier des gens à ta cause, bien il faut que tu ailles une certaine connaissance [du passé].” 43 “Personnellement, c’est [le passé de la] nation [qui est le plus important pour moi], bin la nation québécoise. ... Les Plaines d’Abraham, l’invasion anglaise, le début du Canada, la fin de la Nouvelle-France. Après ça, c’est tout ce qui a amené depuis c’temps-là, j’veux dire, le débat linguistique, les rebellions des Patriotes en 1867 [sic], la fondation, bin, pas la fondation, mais la constitution du Canada qui a été ramenée unilatéralement par le Canada anglais en 1982, Et le référendum de 83, euh plutôt de 95.” 44 The following example is typical of what we want to illustrate: “Je suis un musicien d’une certaine réputation, qui a un passé intéressant pour ma famille et pour le pays aussi. Il y a des documents qui sont partis pour les archives d’O awa. C’est plus important pour l’histoire que pour moi et je pense que je fais un peu partie de l’histoire.” 45 “C’est important de savoir de où est-ce qu’on part de France, que c’est Jacques Cartier qui est arrivé au Québec. Je suis partie de ce point là, jusqu’à aujourd’hui.” 46 Jocelyn Létourneau, “The Debate on History Education in Quebec,” in New Possibilities for the Past: Shaping History Education in Canada, ed. Penney Clark (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2011), and Gérard Bouchard and Charles Taylor, Fonder l’avenir : le temps de la conciliation, Rapport de la commission de consultation sur les pratiques d’accommodement reliées aux différences culturelles (Québec: Gouvernement du Québec, 2008); Gérard Bouchard and Charles Taylor, Building the Future: A Time for Reconciliation, Report of the Consultation Commission on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences (Quebec, Government of Quebec, 2008).

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1 Eli Mandel “Images of Prairie Man,” in A Region of the Mind: Interpreting the Western Canadian Plains, ed. Richard Allen (Regina: Canadian Plains Studies Centre, 1973), 206. Another o -quoted aphorism is Northrop Frye’s statement: “Identity is local and regional, rooted in the imagination and in works of culture.” Northrop Frye, “Preface” in The Bush Garden: Essays on the Canadian Imagination (Toronto: Anansi, 1971), ii–iii. Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (1974; Oxford: Blackwell, 1991). 2 For another discussion of the relevance of region in the twenty-first century, see Gerald Friesen, “Space and Region in Canadian History,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 16, New Series (2005): 1–22. 3 For a more extensive discussion of the limitations inherent to the reality of the Prairies, see two articles by Gerald Friesen, “Defining the Prairies, or Why the Prairies Don’t Exist,” in Towards Defining the Prairies: Region, Culture, and History, ed. Robert Wardhaugh (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2001), 13–28, and “Cultural Diversity in Prairie Canada and the Writing of National History,” in Thinkers and Dreamers: Essays in Honour of Carl Berger, ed. Gerald Friesen and Doug Owram (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011), 245–67. See also Randy Widdis, “Globalization, Glocalization and the Canadian West as a Region: A Geographer’s View,” Acadiensis 35, no. 2 (Spring 2006): 129–37. 4 Corey Slumkoski, Inventing Atlantic Canada: Regionalism and the Maritime Reaction to Newfoundland’s Entry into Confederation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011). 5 The “importance” given to the past refers to an implied judgment, a qualitative opinion, and an implicit categorization by the respondent. By affirming that a past is important, the respondent somehow takes a position, renders a decision, and commits to a past. The “interest” demonstrated towards the past by the respondent denotes a more general, indefinite feeling towards a past, a feeling of less consequence. 6 Jocelyn Létourneau and David Northrup, “Québécois et Canadiens face au passé: similitudes et dissemblances,” Canadian Historical Review 92, no. 1 (March 2011): 163–96. 7 See Margaret Conrad et al, “‘I Want to Know My Bloodline’: New Brunswickers and Their Pasts,” Journal of New Brunswick Studies 1 (Fall 2010): 1–28, h p://w3.stu.ca/stu/sites/jnbs/en/index.aspx. See also Reginald W. Bibby, Restless Gods: The Renaissance of Religion in Canada (Toronto: Novalis, 2004). 8 Two papers, prepared for the Canadians and Their Pasts project, addressed neonationalism in Newfoundland and Labrador: Carolyn

Notes to Pages 111–20

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12 13

14

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Lambert, “The Emergence of Nationalism in Newfoundland and Labrador,” and Colin Preston, “Convergent Worlds: Contention and Faith in Labrador” (unpublished manuscripts, 2010). See also Jerry Bannister, “Making History: Cultural Memory in Twentieth-century Newfoundland,” Newfoundland Studies 18, no. 2 (2002): 175–94; Shane O’Dea, “Culture and Country: The Role of the Arts and Heritage in the Nationalist Revival in Newfoundland,” Newfoundland Studies 19, no. 2 (2003): 378–86; and Sean T. Cadigan, “Regional Politics Are Class Politics: A Newfoundland and Labrador Perspective on Regions,” Acadiensis 35, no. 2 (Spring 2006): 163–8. For a perceptive survey of Ontario’s position in Canada, see Peter A. Baskerville, Sites of Power: A Concise History of Ontario (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2005). This argument is most fully articulated by Ian McKay in Quest of the Folk: Antimodernism and Cultural Selection in Twentieth-century Nova Scotia (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1994). The 2001 to 2006 figures referenced in this section are based on data from Statistics Canada at h p://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/ cst01/demo56b-eng.htm. For insights on demography and regions, see Jean Barman, “A British Columbian View of Regions,” Acadiensis 35, no. 2 (Spring 2006): 144–56. Immigrants are excluded from this analysis and we do not have data that allows us to identify respondents who moved from, and then returned to, their province of birth. We nevertheless wonder if such behaviour comes from a common regional identity and some allegiance to the notion of Atlantic Canada or, rather, whether it arises from socio-economic conditions shared by the inhabitants of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador. On the slippery notion of an Atlantic region, see Margaret Conrad and David Northrup, “Fail Again: Fail Be er: Atlantic Canadians and Their Pasts,” in Shaping an Agenda for Atlantic Canada, ed. John G. Reid and Donald J. Savoie (Halifax: Fernwood, 2011), 137–64; Margaret Conrad, “Regionalism in a Flat World,” Acadiensis 35, no. 2 (Spring 2006): 138–43; and Ian McKay, “A Note on ‘Region’ in Writing the History of Atlantic Canada,” Acadiensis 29, no. 2 (Spring 2000): 89–101. 7. Immigration and Historical Memory

1 Tina Chui, Kelly Tran, and Hélène Maheux, Immigration in Canada: A Portrait of the Foreign-born Population, 2006 Census Findings, at www12. statcan.ca/census-recensement/2006/as-sa/97-557/index-eng.cfm. On immi-

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gration generally, see Nine e Kelley and Michael Trebilcock, The Making of the Mosaic: A History of Canadian Immigration Policy, 2nd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010); Jeffrey G. Reitz, Raymond Breton, Karen K. Dion, and Kenneth L. Dion, Multiculturalism and Social Cohesion: Potentials and Challenges of Diversity (New York: Springer, 2009); Franca Iacove a Gatekeepers: Reshaping Immigrant Lives in Cold War Canada (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2006). A regional history of the integration process is Royden Loewen and Gerald Friesen, Immigrants in Prairie Cities: Ethnic Diversity in Twentieth-century Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009). William Kymlicka has wri en extensively on Canadian multiculturalism. See in particular Finding Our Way: Rethinking Ethnocultural Relations in Canada (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) and Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). Adrienne Clarkson, Room for All of Us: Surprising Stories of Loss and Transformation (Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2011). This national sample of immigrants also has limitations. It contains too few immigrants from any single country or group of closely related countries to permit comparisons of ethnic or cultural groups. Moreover, it must be noted that some of these newcomers arrived when they were children and then went to school, gained employment, and raised a family in Canada, while others have been in the country for only a year or two. The figures for the cities noted in this paragraph are for Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs). Arvin Prasad and John Yeh, “Leadership and Collaboration on Immigration in Peel Region,” 68–71; Myer Siemiatycki, “Urban Citizenship for Immigrant Cities: One Resident, One Vote in Municipal Elections,” 75–8; Brian K. Ray, “So Where Is Ethnocultural Diversity in Canadian Cities?,” 83–8, all in Welcoming Communities: Planning for Diverse Populations, ed. Caroline Andrew, Sandeep Agrawal, and John Biles, Special edition of Plan Canada (O awa: Canadian Institute of Planners, in collaboration with Citizenship and Immigration Canada, ca. 2008–9), 69, 77. It should be noted that, given the complications inherent in the process, it takes at least four or five years and perhaps several more for immigrants to become Canadian citizens. And some choose not to do so. By this rough calculation, it is likely that about one half of our respondents were not yet citizens. For an examination of the relations between immigration status and income, see Garne Picot and Feng Hou, “The Rise in Low-income Rates among Immigrants in Canada,” Statistics Canada, catalogue no. 198 (Analytical

Notes to Pages 122–32

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8

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Studies Branch Research Paper Series, O awa, 2003). Jeffrey G. Reitz and Rupa Banerjee, “Racial Inequality, Social Cohesion, and Policy Issues in Canada,” in Belonging? Diversity, Recognition and Shared Citizenship in Canada, ed. Keith Banting, Thomas J. Courchene, and F. Leslie Seidle (Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 2007), 489–545. Gerald Friesen, Citizens and Nation: An Essay on History, Communication, and Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 2000), especially 167–216. We should note that this same pa ern is evident among the relatively young sample of Aboriginal respondents in Saskatchewan. The Peel research did not accord with the national survey on the question we asked about interest in history “in general.” On this question, more Ontario respondents (all the Ontario proportions are taken from the Ontario residents in the national sample) than Peel respondents said they were either “very interested” or “somewhat interested” (88 percent of Ontarians to 78 percent in the Region of Peel). New immigrants may have felt that expressing interest in the past of the province and Canada as a whole was the “correct” answer – that is, the “right thing to say.” While it is important to acknowledge social desirability as a possible explanation for some respondents’ answers, it seems unlikely that this would account for all of the difference between immigrants and other respondents. For a review of social desirability in survey research, see Norman M. Bradburn and Seymour Sudman, Improving Interview Method and Questionnaire Design (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1979). In general, recent immigrants had higher levels of education than longerse led immigrants (and the average Canadian), so these lower levels of participation were not education-related. The proportion of longer-se led immigrants with a university degree was 36 percent while 54 percent of new immigrants had a degree. See, for example, Michael Bliss, “Privatizing the Mind: The Sundering of Canadian History, the Sundering of Canada,” Journal of Canadian Studies 26, no. 4 (Winter 1991–2): 5–17, and J.L. Granatstein, Who Killed Canadian History?, 2nd ed. (1998; Toronto: HarperCollins, 2007). For a rejoinder see A.B. McKillop, “Who Killed Canadian History? A View from the Trenches,” Canadian Historical Review 80, no. 2 (June 1999): 269–99. See also Neil Bissoondath and Naomi Klein, “Are We a Nation of Too Many Identities?” in Great Questions of Canada, ed. Rudyard Griffiths (Toronto: Key Porter Books, 2007), 45–79. The “other” group included thirty-one respondents from the Caribbean, twenty-two of whom identified themselves as black and might have

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Notes to Pages 132–9

moved to Canada from any number of states (including the Caribbean, Africa, and the United States). Of the rest, twenty-one arrived from the Middle East, twenty-one from Africa, and twelve from South America. From this wide range of newcomers, we decided to examine those who fit within the first two broad categories, the more than 300 European-origin immigrants and the 141 Asian-origin immigrants. 13 A small but an equal percentage of both groups, 9 percent, reported playing computer history games. 14 Why recent Asian immigrants accord so much more importance to the past of the province and the nation is an intriguing question that raises the ma er of a “social desirability” or “courtesy” bias, on which there is a body of literature. See note 9 and James A. Harkness, Fons J.R. Van de Vijver, and Peter Ph. Mohler, Cross-cultural Survey Methods (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Son, 2003), 203–4. This said, there is no evidence that Asian immigrants place less value on the past of the province in which they reside or the nation. 8. The Presence of the Past in International Perspective 1 Margaret Conrad, Jocelyn Létourneau, and David Northrup, “Canadians and Their Pasts: An Exploration in Historical Consciousness,” Public Historian 31 (February 2009): 15–34. 2 Magne Angvik and Bodo von Borries, eds., Youth and History: A Comparative European Survey on Historical Consciousness and Political A itudes among Adolescents (Hamburg: Körber-Sti ung, 1997). 3 Joke van der Leeuw-Roord, The State of History Education in Europe: Challenges and Implications of the “Youth and History” Survey (Hamburg: Korber-Sti ung, 1998). 4 Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen, The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998). The study is summarized by Roy Rosenzweig, “How Americans Use and Think about the Past: Implications from a National Survey for the Teaching of History,” in Knowing, Teaching, and Learning History, ed. Peter N. Stearns, Peter Seixas, and Sam Wineburg (New York: New York University Press 2000), 262–83. For a useful commentary on the context in which the American study was conducted, see Gary B. Nash, Charlo e Crabtree, and Ross E. Dunn, History on Trial: Culture Wars and the Teaching of the Past (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998). 5 Rosenzweig and Thelen, Presence of the Past, 2. 6 Rosenzweig and Thelen, 3.

Notes to Pages 139–51

205

7 Roy Rosenzweig, “Everyone a Historian,” and David Thelen, “A Participatory Historical Culture,” in Presence of the Past, 177–89 and 190–207. 8 Paula Hamilton and Paul Ashton, “Australians and the Past,” Australian Cultural History 23 (2003), 5. The Australian context is described in Stuart Macintyre and Anna Clark, The History Wars (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2003). 9 Janelle Warren-Findley, “History in New Worlds: Surveys and Results in the United States and Australia,” Australian Cultural History 23 (2003), 48. 10 Paula Hamilton and Paul Ashton, “At Home with the Past: Initial Findings from the Survey,” and Warren-Findley, “History in New Worlds,” 5–30 and 43–52. 11 The Canadian debate can be sampled by reading Michael Bliss, “Privatizing the Mind: The Sundering of Canadian History, the Sundering of Canada,” Journal of Canadian Studies 26, no. 4 (Winter 1991–2): 5–17; J.L. Granatstein, Who Killed Canadian History?, 2nd ed. (1998; Toronto: HarperCollins, 2007); and A.B. McKillop, “Who Killed Canadian History? A View from the Trenches,” Canadian Historical Review 80, no. 2 (June 1999): 269–99. For the Quebec version of the debate, see Jocelyn Létourneau, “The Current Debate on History Education in Quebec,” in New Possibilities for the Past: Shaping History Education in Canada, ed. Penney Clark (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2011), 81–96. 12 This perspective was expressed by Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney in his opening remarks at the Canada’s History Forum, Reconciling the Past: History and Nationalism, O awa, 18 November 2010. 13 Margaret Conrad, “Public History and Its Discontents, or History in the Age of Wikipedia,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 18, no. 1 (2008): 1–26. 14 Paula Hamilton, e-mail message to author, 24 February 2011. 15 Australian data on education levels were not available for comparisons. 16 Angvik and von Borries, Youth and History, 87. 17 Maria Nugent, “Aboriginal Family History: Some Reflections,” Australian Cultural History 23 (2003), 144. 18 Hamilton and Ashton, “At Home with the Past,” 6. 19 Kadriye Ercikan, “Historical Consciousness of Ethnic Groups in Conflict: Turkish and Greek Cypriot Case” (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA, April 2006).

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Notes to Pages 152–9 Conclusion: Making History

1 For a thoughtful commentary on this issue see Martha Nussbaum, Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010). 2 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (1983; London: Verso, 1991). 3 Journalist Michael Valpy first articulated the new face of Canada as a “warrior nation” in “Canada’s Military: Invisible No More,” Globe and Mail, 20 November 2009, h p://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ canadas-military-invisible-no-more/article1372117/. The argument is further elaborated in Ian McKay and Jamie Swi , Warrior Nation? Rebranding Canada in a Fearful Age (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2012). 4 This conclusion is supported by the historical consciousness of Russians as reported in Zhan T. Toshchenko, “Historical Consciousness and Historical Memory: An Analysis of the Current Situation,” Russian Studies in History 49, no. 1 (Summer 2010): 37–52. We look forward to the results from studies of historical consciousness currently being undertaken in Finland (Pilvi Torsti, University of Helsinki) and in the Netherlands (Maria Grever, Erasmus University, Ro erdam).

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Canadians and Their Pasts. h p://www.canadiansandtheirpasts.ca/goals .html. Computer Games and Canada’s Digital Economy: The Role of Universities in Promoting Innovation. Report to the Social Science Humanities Research Council Knowledge Synthesis Grants on Canada’s Digital Economy, 1 December 2010. h p://circa.ualberta.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/ ComputerGamesAndCanadasDigitalEconomy.pdf. Institute for Social Research. www.isr.yorku.ca/projects/pasts/index.html. Navigating Historical Controversies with Integrity. h p://www.chashca commi ees-comitesa.ca/public_history/papers.html. Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, McKenna-McBride Royal Commission: Minutes of Decision, 1913–1916. h p://www.ubcic.bc.ca/Resources/final_ report.htm. Unpublished Sources Lambert, Carolyn. “The Emergence of Nationalism in Newfoundland and Labrador.” Unpublished manuscript, last modified 2010. Moller, Sabine. “The GDR in Family Memory.” Paper presented in a panel on “The German ‘Aufarbeitung’: Accounting for the GDR Past a er 1989.” GSA, Washington, DC, October 2009. Preston, Colin. “Convergent Worlds: Contention and Faith in Labrador.” Unpublished manuscript, last modified 2010. Schoen, Rob, W.F. Garre -Pe s, David MacLennan, Donald Lawrence, and Emily Hope. “Visible Listening: Observing, Documenting, and Reflecting on Children’s Historical Inquiry.” Presentation at the International Institute for Qualitative Methodology’s 2009 Advances in Qualitative Methods Conference. Vancouver, BC, 8–10 October 2009. Seixas, Peter, Kadriye Ercikan, and David Northrup. “History and the Past: Towards a Measure of Everyman’s Epistemology.” Paper presented to the American Educational Research Association, New York City, 27 March 2008. St-Laurent, Jasmine. “Investigating the Ministry of Love: Public Memory, History Instruction, Culture Wars and the Media in the United States and Quebec (1990–2006).” Master’s thesis, Concordia University, 2007. Wheeler, Winona. Presentation at the Canadians and Their Pasts Annual Meeting, Toronto, 6–8 December 2007.

Contributors: Canadians and Their Pasts

Margaret Conrad has wri en extensively in the fields of Atlantic Canada history and women’s studies. Currently professor emerita in history at the University of New Brunswick, she is the author of A Concise History of Canada (Cambridge University Press, 2012) and co-author with Alvin Finkel and Donald Fyson of Canada: A History (Pearson, 2012) and with James K. Hiller of Atlantic Canada: A History (Oxford University Press, 2010). Kadriye Ercikan is a professor of measurement and research methods in the Faculty of Education, at the University of British Columbia. She has published widely on educational assessments and research design and methodology. Her publications include Generalizing from Educational Research: Beyond Qualitative and Quantitative Polarization (Routledge, 2009), coedited with Wolff-Michael Roth, and Improving Large-scale Assessment in Education: Theory, Issues, and Practice (Routledge, 2013), coedited with Marielle Simon and Michel Rousseau. Gerald Friesen, emeritus professor at the University of Manitoba, writes on Prairie and Canadian history. Author of several books, including The Canadian Prairies: A History (University of Toronto Press, 1984) and Citizens and Nation: An Essay on History, Communication, and Canada (University of Toronto Press, 2000), he is also co-author with Royden Loewen of Immigrants in Prairie Cities: Ethnic Diversity in Twentieth-century Canada (University of Toronto Press, 2009). Jocelyn Létourneau is a Canada Research Chair in the history of contemporary Quebec at Laval University. A prolific author on issues relating to history, memory, and identity, he has published several books,

220

Contributors

including Le Québec entre son passé et ses passages (Fides, 2010); Que veulent vraiment les Québécois? Regard sur l’intention nationale au Québec (français) d’hier à aujourd’hui (Boréal, 2006); A History for the Future: Rewriting Memory and Identity in Quebec Today (McGill McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004); Le Québec, les Québécois: Un parcours historique (Fides, 2004); and forthcoming is Je me souviens? Le passé du Québec dans la conscience de sa jeunesse (Fides, 2014). Delphin Muise is a distinguished research professor emeritus at Carleton University. A er a decade working in the National Museum of Man in O awa, he taught for more than three decades in the history department at Carleton University, where he specialized in the field of Atlantic Canada history and initiated the Master of Arts program in public history. Widely published in both fields, he is best known for Atlantic Canada in Confederation (University of Toronto and Acadiensis Press, 1994), coedited with Ernest Forbes. David Northrup is the Director, Survey Research, Institute for Social Research, York University, where he is responsible for the design and implementation of major surveys. He has more than twenty-five years of experience in questionnaire design, data collection, and analysis. His research interests include the use and misuse of quantitative data in the development of public policy and survey methodology. Recent collaborative presentations of research findings have been published in the Canadian Journal of Social Research (2011), Canadian Historical Review (2011), Canadian Journal of Public Health (2010), Child Indicators Research (2010), Journal of the Canadian Historical Association (2009), Public Historian (2009), Vaccine (2009), and BMC Medical Ethics (2008). Peter Seixas is a professor and Canada Research Chair in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy at the University of British Columbia. A director of both the Centre for the Study of Historical Consciousness and the Historical Thinking Project, he is co-author of The Big Six Historical Thinking Concepts (Nelson, 2012), editor of Theorizing Historical Consciousness (University of Toronto Press, 2004), and coeditor with Peter Stearns and Sam Wineburg of Knowing, Teaching and Learning History: National and International Perspectives (NYU Press, 2000).

Index

Aboriginal: ancestry, 75; children, 88; group/respondent/sample, 9, 31, 73, 75, 77, 79, 80, 81, 85–9, 90, 91, 102, 104, 129, 136, 140, 141, 145, 149, 150, 155, 159, 168, 178, 193n1, 194n6, 194n9, 195n10, 203n7; heritage, 90; historical perspective, 103; history/past, 27, 80, 86, 88, 148, 149; land rights, 10, 25, 66; leaders, 195n11; people/population, 7, 15, 37, 45, 70, 85, 89, 90, 91, 103, 141, 150, 156, 158, 159, 194n2; preoccupation with past, 68, 80, 88, 89, 91; research assistants, 193n2; scholars, 85; spirituality, 88; study/ survey, 84–91, 102, 145, 175–8; treaties, 4; veterans, 89 academic/professional historians, 5, 17, 26, 48, 49, 60, 69, 86, 131, 139, 141, 160, 190n14 academic history, 139, 153, 154 Acadian: Congresses, 94; deportation/ expulsion, 19, 80, 84 96, 104; group/respondent/sample, 9, 42, 73, 77, 80, 92, 93, 94, 95–6, 98, 196n18, 197n20, 198n28, 198n30; heritage, 76, 92, 93, 94, 95, 97,

170, 198n34; history, 18, 91, 92, 93, 103; identity, 95; national holiday, 94; people/population, 21, 71, 80, 92, 94, 95–6, 110; students, 19; study/survey, 77, 80, 92–3, 102, 170, 175, 178, 196n16, 196n17, 204n18 “Acadie”/Acadia, 80, 91, 93, 94, 97, 108, 109 Afghanistan, 66, 122 Africa, 78, 156, 203–4n12 African: Americans, 66, 141; group/ respondent/sample, 45 age, 8, 12, 14, 18, 20, 38, 43–4, 52, 53, 54, 59, 74, 78, 99, 100, 101, 114, 116, 117, 121, 122, 136, 145, 146, 148, 154, 172, 173, 175, 187n15, 187n16, 188–9n8, 189n9, 190n17, 190n18 age/era, 21, 24, 49, 102, 114, 155, 165 Ahenakew, Edward, 195n11 Ahtahkakoop (Star Blanket), Chief, 89 Alberta, 106, 107, 114, 119, 120; group/respondent/sample, 17, 21, 27, 73, 78, 112–13, 114, 115, 117 Almighty Voice, Chief, 89 amateur historians, 26

222

Index

American: culture, 12; group/ respondent/sample, 140, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 160, 193n1; historians, 139; historical perspective, 6, 8, 139; study/ survey, 6, 8, 24, 71, 139–43, 145, 147, 148–50 American Revolutionary War, 96, 129, 139 ancestors, 14, 19, 76, 84, 104, 129 Ancestry.ca, 29, 32 Anderson, Benedict: Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 153 anglophone group/respondent/ sample, 95, 96, 97, 189n9, 196n18 Angvik, Magne, 138, 143 apartheid, 58 Arabic language, 198n35 Arab Oil Embargo, 114 archaeological sites, 89, 166 archives, 8, 11, 14, 16, 19, 23, 25, 30, 38, 39, 41, 42, 49, 57, 64, 65, 71, 73, 111, 118, 123, 155, 157, 167, 190n15, 190n22, 190n23 artefacts, 16, 31, 51, 55, 57, 65, 66, 94, 157 art galleries, 183n14 Art Gallery of Regina, 156 Ashton, Paul, xii, 6, 42, 140, 150, 177 Asia/Asian, 135; group/respondent/ sample, 121, 129, 132–6, 203–4n12, 204n14 Association for Canadian Studies, xii Association of Heritage Industries, Newfoundland & Labrador, xii, 181n19 Athabaska University, xii Atkinson, Alan, 79

Atlantic Canada/Atlantic provinces, 7, 80, 106, 108–15, 119, 175, 201n14. See also New Brunswick; Newfoundland and Labrador; Nova Scotia; Prince Edward Island Auschwitz, 75 Australia, xii, 4, 5, 9, 42, 140, 144, 149, 150, 159 Australian: group/respondent/ sample, 140, 141, 143–6, 148, 150, 160; historical perspective, 6; study/survey, 4–5, 7, 9, 24, 42, 79, 80, 138, 140, 141–6, 148, 149–50, 159, 177, 205n15 Australian Cultural History, 140, 177 authority, 26, 55–7, 59, 65, 109, 150, 189n12, 190n13 autobiography, 156 Aztecs, 17 baby boom generation, 100, 182n5 Bas-Saint-Laurent, Quebec, 108 Basque, Maurice, xii Batoche, Saskatchewan (Batoche National Historic Site), 6, 17, 89, 90, 195n12 Ba le of Vimy Ridge, 13, 70 Beah, Ishmael: A Long Way Gone, 156 The Beaver, 15 Becker, Carl, 179n4 Bergen College of Higher Education, 138 Berton, Pierre, 13, 17 Bible, 17, 20, 68, 73 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec, 14 Big Bear, 195n11 bilingualism, 92

Index birth place, 7, 36, 37, 46, 115, 116, 120, 121, 122, 123, 125, 126, 127–8, 129, 132, 135, 136, 137, 147, 158, 159, 172, 186n6, 201n13 birth rate, 100 Bishop-Stirling, Terry, xii books, 11, 13, 14, 17, 21, 22, 25, 27, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 38, 39, 41, 48, 49, 50, 51, 53, 54, 56, 57, 58, 63, 64, 65, 76, 77, 90, 111, 123, 129, 133, 139, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 156, 165, 168, 171, 190n15, 190n22, 194n9, 195n10 Bosnia, 159 Bouctouche, New Brunswick, 17 Bourdieu, Pierre, 186n10 Bradley, David, xii Brampton, Ontario, 19, 121, 183n16 Braveheart, 20 British Columbia, 7, 10, 73, 106, 107, 114, 175; group/respondent/ sample, 11, 19, 20, 21, 27, 51, 52, 72–3, 76, 78, 82, 106, 107, 108, 112–13, 115, 117, 119, 120, 175; legislature, 60 Bronfman family, 15 Buchenwald, 75 business, 152, 193–4n2 Bussidor, Ila, 195n11 Caledon, Ontario, 121 Calgary, Alberta, 7, 72, 106, 120, 121, 175, 181n19 Canada: A People’s History/Le Canada: Une histoire populaire (CBC/ Radio-Canada), 4, 14 Canada Council, 13 Canada West Foundation, xii, 181n19

223

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)/Radio-Canada, 4, 14, 16 Canadian constitution, 101, 199n43 Canadian Heritage, department of, 13 Canadian historians, 17, 29 Canadian history: curricula/teaching, 15, 22, 27, 158; importance of, 13, 14, 15, 141; interest in, 7, 19, 34, 36, 37, 39, 125, 129, 134, 187n12 Canadian Museum of Civilization, 17 Canadian Museum of Human Rights, 12 Canadian Museum of Immigration (Pier 21), 6, 17 Canadian Museums Association, xii, 18, 181n19, 183n16 Canadian Pacific Railway, 13 Canadian War Museum, 12, 17, 60 Canadianization, 13 Canadians and Their Pasts collective/ project, xi, 6, 183n16, 200–1n8 Canadians and Their Pasts study/ survey, 138, 160; Aboriginal sample, 31, 136, 148, 149, 168, 178; Acadian sample, 42, 80, 92, 93, 96, 178, 196n17, 197n20; active investigation of sources, 55, 57–60, 61, 63–5, 190n23, 190n24; codes, 58, 103, 189n10, 189n11, 189n12, 190n13, 190n15, 190n16, 190n21, 190n22, 190n23; cold calls, xi; Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI), 177, 178; data collection, 141, 154, 177–8, 185n33, 190n22; dead ends/ dismissals, 61–3, 64, 156, 190n21, 190–1n24; demographic information, see specific category; engaging

224

Index

with the past, 10, 20, 25, 29–32, 33, 70, 93, 123, 143, 159; immigrant sample in Peel region, 7, 31, 120–7, 176; importance of history/past, 40, 44, 87, 96, 99, 110, 125; importance of various pasts, 36–8, 43, 77, 124–8, 135, 173; interest in history/ past, 6, 12, 15, 16, 33–6, 37, 39, 41, 43, 46, 53, 54, 98, 100, 110, 118, 119, 124, 128, 129, 134, 135, 136, 139–40, 154, 159, 162, 189n9, 203n9; interviews, xi, 7, 8, 22, 24, 26, 30, 36, 45, 68, 69, 79, 82, 85, 86, 88, 92, 93, 102, 105–6, 116, 124, 126, 127, 132, 140, 141, 155, 156, 162, 164, 165, 166, 167, 169, 170, 171, 172, 174, 175–8, 185n33, 189n9, 193n1, 193–4n2, 195n12; most important past to know about, 37–8, 67, 77–9, 87, 99, 101, 102, 126, 132, 146–9, 170, 199n44; most trusted/trustworthy sources, 11, 18, 49, 50, 51, 52–4, 55, 56, 62, 64, 77, 86, 89, 143, 144, 145, 157; national sample, 30, 87, 95, 96, 99, 115, 120, 121, 122, 123, 127, 128, 129, 131, 132, 141, 145, 148, 149, 175, 176, 178, 193n30, 198n28, 198n30, 202n3, 203n8; participation in past-related activities, 7, 8, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, 46, 85, 111, 113, 115–16, 118, 123–4, 128, 133, 136, 138, 159, 187n11, 187n16, 203n10; Québécois sample, 9, 70, 73, 75, 77, 81, 82, 93, 97, 98, 99, 101, 102, 107, 109–10, 111, 113, 117, 119, 120, 158, 175; questionnaire, 7, 49, 63, 161–74, 175–8, 186n6; response rates, 141, 178; selection, 147, 168, 175, 194n6;

trust/trustworthiness of sources, 4, 7, 9, 18, 25, 48–66, 77, 82, 86, 88, 89, 138, 143–6, 150, 154, 157, 159, 170–2, 188n6, 188n7, 188n8, 190–1n24, 194n6, 194n9, 195n10; understanding the past, 23, 32–3, 168 Cape Breton, 106, 108 Caraquet, New Brunswick, 92, 93, 94, 196n16, 196n18, 197n24; Château Albert, 93, 197n19 Caribbean people, 45, 203n12 Carleton University, 220 Cartier, Jacques, 100, 102, 199n45 cemeteries, 29, 71, 156, 166 censuses, 68, 92, 97, 120, 121, 153, 156, 198n35, 202n4 Central Canada, 114 Champlain, Samuel de, 199n40 childless/nonparent, 42–3, 82 children/grandchildren, 21–2, 26, 38, 46, 68, 69, 71, 72, 75, 79, 80, 85, 88, 91, 99, 121, 123, 126, 127, 129, 131, 159, 163, 173, 202n3 China/Chinese people, 21, 36, 45, 78, 80, 115, 122, 172, 198n35 Christians, 38, 73, 89 Church of the La er Day Saints, 71 citizenship, 12, 71, 81, 83, 89, 120, 126, 205n12 civil rights movement, 16 Civilization (video game), 24, 165 class, 15, 67, 68, collecting, 7, 16, 31, 70, 167 collective memory/collective remembering, 4, 5, 10, 67, 84, 136, 179n4. See also communities of memory; public memory communities of memory, 12, 84, 102, 119

Index community-based cultural activities, 85, 88, 155, 156, 168 community history, 79. See also local history Community-University Research Alliance (CURA), xi, 7 community of inquiry, 55, 58–60, 190n16, 190–1n24 computer/video history games, 16, 24, 30, 41, 42, 43, 111, 112, 123, 165, 187n16, 204n13 Confederation (of Canada), 13, 98, 100, 109, 111, 113, 114, 156 Conseil des arts du Québec, 13 cookbooks, 29, 72, 159, 167 Cormier, Jeanne-Mance, xii, 18 CRB Foundation, 15, 155 Cree. See Ininew (Cree) First Nation critical history. See academic history Crowfoot, 195n11 cultural group, 9, 36, 40, 44–6, 87, 95, 96, 98, 99, 101, 109, 110, 118, 125, 127, 128, 130, 134, 135, 149, 173–4, 172, 199n45, 202n3 cultural traditions, 3 culture, 5, 12, 13, 14, 19, 26, 42, 48, 80, 84, 95, 96, 97, 99, 100, 102, 140, 149, 156, 159, 167, 193n24, 198n26, 198n27, 199n45, 200n1 curricula. See education; school history/history in school Cuthand Goodwill, Jean, 195n11 Cyprus, 151 Dadson, Ann, xii Daignault, Lucie, xii Dene, 85 Denys, Nicholas, 68 deportation/expulsion. See Acadian

225

Dewar, Kenneth, xii diaries/journals, 29, 41, 68, 69, 72, 73, 86, 93, 129, 159, 163 Dieppe, New Brunswick, 24, 92, 196n16, 196n18 DNA, 3, 72 docudramas, 16 documentaries, 11, 16, 164, 171 Dominion Institute. See HistoricaDominion Institute Dorintosh, Saskatchewan, 79 Dubé, Natalie, xi, 196n16, 196n17 Dubinsky, Lon, xii, 183n16 Duck Lake, Saskatchewan, 70 Duncan, British Columbia, 76 Dunn, Sir James, 13 Duplessis, Maurice, 14 DVDs, 16, 30, 34, 72, 93, 123, 164 East Indian people, 45 Eastern Townships, 106, 108 east-west divide in Canada, 116, 119 earlier-generation Canadians, 129–30 Edinburgh, Scotland, 19, 20 education, 4, 6, 8, 20, 22–3, 25, 38–40, 43, 44, 46, 51, 52–3, 54, 57, 59–60, 64–5, 66, 90, 92, 99, 100, 103, 116–17, 118, 121–2, 126, 132–3, 134, 138, 141, 142–3, 144, 148, 150, 154, 155, 157, 158, 173, 177, 185n33, 186n10, 187n11, 188–9n8, 189n9, 190n13, 190n18, 203n10, 205n15 Egypt, 115, 122, 127 elders, 43, 62, 86, 87, 195n12 electronic media, 4, 48 Empire Earth (video game), 24 encyclopedias, 23, 62 English (language), 14, 48, 93, 97, 141, 150, 177

226

Index

English people, 16, 44, 93, 101 En montant la rivière (TV programme), 14 Epopée en Amérique (TV programme), 14 ethnicity/ethnic group, 7, 15, 19, 38, 40, 42, 44–5, 67, 77, 79, 95, 96, 98, 102, 112, 125, 127, 128, 130–1, 132–6, 137, 147, 149, 151, 154, 198n35 Europe/European people, 4, 6, 25, 30, 37, 45, 85, 89, 91, 103, 113, 121, 124, 129, 132–6, 138, 143, 148, 203n12 European study/project, 139, 140, 143 European Union, 138 experts/expertise, 8, 18, 51, 55, 56–7, 58, 59, 62, 65, 71, 190n13 exploration/exploring the past, 16, 30, 31, 32, 41, 136, 138, 139, 156, 164 explorers, 18, 22, 32, 37 Expo ’67, 13 eyewitness. See witness Facebook, 24 faith, 48, 55, 56–7, 58–60, , 65, 66, 126, 127, 132, 136, 137, 159, 189n12 family/families, 6, 9, 19, 21, 24, 29, 30, 31, 34, 35, 37, 41, 46, 67, 69, 70, 71, 73, 74, 77, 79, 80, 81, 82, 85, 86, 88, 90–1, 98, 99, 100, 103, 108, 115, 125, 126, 129, 131, 137, 143, 147, 154, 155, 159, 199n44, 202n3 family history/past, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 19, 20, 23, 25, 29, 31–2, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39–40, 41–4, 45, 67–83, 84, 86, 87, 95, 96, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 116, 117, 123, 124–5, 127, 129, 130, 133–5, 136, 144,

145, 146–50, 154, 156, 162, 163–4, 166, 168, 173, 170, 188n8. See also family stories family reunions, 32, 75, 94, 159 family stories, 22, 25, 49, 50, 52–5, 56, 65–6, 71, 77, 79, 82, 86, 108, 131, 144, 145, 150, 154, 155, 156–7, 159, 171, 190n13, 193n30, 194n5, 198n28, 199n44. See also family history/past family tree, 21, 22, 25, 30, 35, 39, 41, 42, 43, 45, 71, 72, 78, 91, 111, 112, 118, 123, 143, 167. See also genealogy Faragher, John Mack, 91 Faulkner, William, 3 federal government (Canada), 12, 13, 92, 109, 153 festivals, 94, 183n14 Filipino people, 36 films. See movies/movie theatres first-generation Canadian, 129, 130 First Nations, 84, 85, 86, 86, 90, 91, 103, 105, 176, 178, 194n2, 195n12. See also Aboriginal First World War/Great War, 21, 89 Fort Qu’Appelle, 76 Fort St John, British Columbia, 72 francophone: group/respondent/ sample, 9, 18, 80, 81, 84, 91–104, 158, 196n18, 198n27 France, 70, 74, 80, 94, 122, 197n23, 199n40, 199n45 Fraser River, 22 French language, xi, 4, 14, 71, 94, 95, 97, 99, 141, 177 funding, 4, 13, 15, 55 Gabriel Dumont Technical College, 89 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 179n4

Index Gander, Newfoundland, 67 Gardiner, James, 16 Garre -Pe s, Will, xii Gaspé/Gaspésie, 80, 106, 115, 193n26 gays and lesbians, 69 gender, 4, 8, 38, 41–2, 46, 67, 75, 99, 117, 118, 121, 123, 132, 133, 148, 154, 161, 185n33, 187n13, 189n9 Gendreau, Andrée, xii genealogical research, 30, 41, 69, 71, 76, 86, 123, 156, 167 genealogy, 7, 24, 30, 68, 70, 72, 73, 75, 78, 80, 94, 154, 197n24; so ware, 68. See also family tree generation(s): next/future, 8, 11, 22, 26, 27, 38, 42, 59, 71, 73, 86, 87, 88, 89, 94, 95, 101, 124, 126, 136, 142, 148, 158, 171, 192n11; past/ previous, 26, 52, 56, 59, 68, 73, 77, 79, 85, 100, 103, 108, 118, 125, 129, 130–1, 140, 148, 155, 156, 177, 182n5 Great Britain, 24, 150 Germany/German people, 3, 17, 44, 75, 79, 179n4 Gibbins, Roger, xii global culture/history/past, 12, 14, 19, 23, 26, 81, 150, 157, 185n33 globalization, 5, 10, 81, 150 golf, 71 Google, 23, 81, 185n3 Granatstein, J.L., 17; Who Killed Canadian History?, 15, 141 grants, 13. See also funding Great Depression, 13 Great War. See First World War Greater Toronto Area, 7, 112, 120, 121. See also Toronto, Ontario Gulf of Georgia Cannery, 17

227

Halbwachs, Maurice, 67, 179n4 Hamilton, Paula, xii, 6, 42, 140, 150, 176 Haskell, Thomas, 59 heirlooms, 29, 30, 31, 35, 39, 41, 42, 43, 45, 46, 73, 95, 111, 118, 123, 129, 133, 136, 142 heritage, 9, 12, 13, 17, 21, 29, 33, 75, 76, 80, 85, 90, 92, 93, 94, 95, 97, 102, 119, 153, 158, 166, 180n6, 198n26, 198n34 heritage fairs, 4, 23 heritage industries, 4 heritage minutes, 15 heritage societies, 16, 31 Hindu people, 128 Hill report (2005), 183n14 Hiller, James, xii Historia, 4 historic/historical sites, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 14, 17–18, 25, 30, 32, 33, 35, 38, 39, 41, 42, 45, 46, 48, 49, 50, 51, 53, 54, 56, 65, 66, 77, 89, 90, 93, 118, 123, 133, 136, 142, 143, 145, 150, 155, 157, 159, 166, 168 Historica, 15, 22 Historica-Dominion Institute, xii, 4, 15, 22, 155, 181n19 historical consciousness, 4, 6, 7, 11, 19, 20, 24, 68, 74, 75, 83, 88, 97, 138, 139, 140, 151, 152, 179n4, 206n4 historical knowledge, 57, 59, 65, 89 historical memory, 46, 95, 120–37 Historical Thinking Project, 22, 23, 220 historical veracity, 48 Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, 13 history, xi, 3–4, 5, 6, 10, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 23, 26, 27, 29, 40, 46–7, 48–9,

228

Index

60, 64, 66, 82, 85, 89, 90, 100, 108, 119, 139–40, 141, 150, 152–6, 160, 179n4, 179–80n5; definition of, 8–9, 48–9, 152–6; importance of, 18, 29, 36–8, 40, 44, 87, 96, 99, 110, 160, 124–8, 193n30; interest in, 7, 15, 33–6, 40, 44, 87, 96, 99, 110, 124–8, 185n33, 187n12. See also past History Channel, 4, 16, 75 history classes/courses, 7, 11, 15, 20, 90 Hobsbawm, Eric, 3 Hodge s, A.B.: Hodge s Report 1968, 13, 20, 158 Hof, Karina, 71 Holland, 155 Holocaust, 27, 66, 75, 80 home movies, 29, 41, 43, 69, 72, 163 Hong Kong, 11, 12 Hudson, Henry, 18 Hudson’s Bay Company, 15, 22 humanities, 152 human rights, 4, 25 Hungary, 72, 122, 131 Husband, Len, xii identity, 5, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 19, 38, 42, 46, 68, 69, 80, 81, 82, 84, 92, 95, 97, 99, 102, 103, 108, 111, 127, 131, 137, 152, 153, 196n18, 201n14 Igartua, José, 81 Îles-de-la-Madeleine, 80, 193n26 immigrants, 7, 11, 12, 19, 36, 37, 45, 70, 72, 78, 91, 96, 102, 105, 112, 114, 115, 118, 119, 120–1, 123, 124–7, 132–3, 135–6, 137, 150, 159, 160, 172, 186n6, 201n13, 202n3, 202n5, 203n9, 203–4n12, 204n14; long-se led, 128–32, 133–5, 137,

212n10; recent, 9, 31, 36, 45, 99, 106, 110, 115, 118, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125–6, 127, 128, 130, 131, 132, 133–5, 136, 137, 141, 176, 177, 178, 203n10 immigration, 4, 22, 45, 74, 112, 118, 120–37, 159 income, 4, 38, 40–1, 52–3, 54, 92, 99, 100, 121–2, 154, 159, 173, 187n11, 187n12, 189n9 India, 70, 121, 122 Indian Act, 85 Indian and Métis Friendship Centre, 194n2 Indiana University, xii individualism, 67, 156 Industrial Revolution, 114 Ininew (Cree) First Nation, 85, 91 Inoue, Margaret, xii Institut d’études acadiennes, xii, 19, 181n19, 198n34 Institute for Social Research (ISR), xi, 4, 175 Italy/Italian people, 44, 78, 172, 198n35 international history, 27 Internet, 11, 12, 14, 16, 23–4, 25–6, 28, 30–1, 32, 33, 39, 41, 43, 50, 51, 58, 62, 81, 111, 112, 118, 121, 122, 123, 124, 133, 136, 140, 144, 145, 157, 164–5, 168, 171, 173, 187n16 interprovincial migration, 114, 118 investigation of sources, 55, 57–8, 190n15, 190–1n24 Irish people, 36, 44, 93, 96, 110 Israel, 138 Jackson, Buzzy, 71 James Bay, 18 Japan, 3, 122, 126

Index Jean, Michaëlle (Governor General), 199n40 Jedwab, Jack, xii Jewish people, 37, 45, 72 Johnson, Daniel, 14 Jolicœur & Associés, xi, 175 Kamloops, British Columbia, 23; art gallery, 183n16 Kamloops-Thompson Regional Historica Fair Commi ee, xii, 181n19 Kawartha Lakes region, 108 Killam, Isaac Walton, 13 Kings Landing, New Brunswick, 17 Klondike gold rush, 13 Kodak Brownie camera, 70 Lacoursière, Jacques, 14, 17 land rights. See Aboriginal Landry, Tristan, xii language, 4, 37, 48, 57, 58, 71, 84, 93, 95, 97, 99, 100, 126, 132, 150, 172, 189n9. See also French language La Pays de la Sagouine, 17 Lebanese people, 72 LeBlanc, Daniel/LeBlanc family, 94, 197n22, 197n23 legacy, 11, 19 Lesage, Jean, 13 Lévesque, René, 14, 73, 192n17 license plates, 3, 98 L’immigration percheronne, 74 local history, 16, 31. See also community history Louisbourg (Fortress of, National Historic Site), 17 Louisiana, 80 Lowenthal, David, 29, 180n6 Loyalists. See United Empire Loyalists

229

Macdonald, John A., 19, 22 Machu Picchu, 81 MacLennan, Hugh, 13 MacMillan, Margaret, 17, 29 Maillet, Antonine, 17 Maliseet, 96 Mandel, Eli, 105 Manitoba, 107, 112; group/ respondent/sample, 17, 32, 75, 78, 79, 106, 112, 113, 117, 119 Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature, 183n16 Maritime provinces of Canada/ Maritimes, 17, 68, 91, 92, 108, 109, 115. See also New Brunswick; Nova Scotia; Prince Edward Island Massey, Vincent: Massey Royal Commission Report 1951, 12 Maya people, 17 McKenna-McBride Royal Commission (1913–16), 9, 25 McKillop, Brian, 13 media, 4, 11, 13, 17, 27, 28, 89, 93, 103, 124, 126, 140, 153, 160 medical history, 76 medicine, 152 memory, 4, 5–6, 10, 15, 26, 46, 52, 67–8, 71, 73, 80, 84, 95, 97, 99, 102, 103, 104, 119, 136, 140, 152, 179n4, 179–80n5, 219 memory keepers, 9, 24, 68, 71, 154 men, 22, 24, 30, 38, 41–2, 73, 75, 82, 109, 148, 154, 185n33 Mennonites, 75 Métis heritage/history, 85, 89, 90 Mexican American people, 141 Middle East, 20, 204n12

230

Index

Middle Eastern people, 45 Mi’kmaq, 68 military heritage/history, 16, 17, 42, 73, 153 Ministry of Culture (Quebec), 13 Minneapolis, 17, 193n1 minority, 11, 19, 33, 37, 89, 103, 118, 132 Mirabel, Quebec, 70 Mississauga, Ontario, 78, 121 mobility (“movers”), 5, 114–17, 119, 155, 158, 159 Moncton, New Brunswick, 18, 92, 93 Montgomery, Lucy Maud, 17 Montreal, Quebec, xi, xii, 7, 13, 32, 78, 106, 120, 121, 175, 181n19, 183n16 monuments, 153, 157, 166, 179n4 Morris-Suzuki, Tessa, 70 “movers and stayers,” 114–17, 119, 155, 158 movies/movie theatres, 3, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, 25, 29, 30, 31, 34, 35, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 45, 69, 72, 93, 111, 123, 133, 136, 139, 142, 143, 144, 150, 163, 164 multiculturalism, 112, 137 Musée acadien, xii, 18, 181n19, 198n34 Musée de la civilisation, xii, 14, 181n19 museums, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 14, 16, 17, 18–19, 21, 22, 25, 27, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 38, 39, 40–1, 42, 43, 45, 48, 49, 50–1, 52–3, 54, 55, 57, 58, 60, 61, 62, 63, 65, 66, 74, 76, 77, 89, 103, 111, 123, 127, 129, 133, 136, 139, 140, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 150, 153, 154, 155, 157–8, 159, 165–6, 168, 172, 171, 179n4, 183n16,

187n10, 188n6, 189n8, 189n12, 194n6, 194n9 Muslims, 127, 128 music, 37, 94, 167 nation/nation-state, 5, 7, 10, 38, 77, 86, 92, 97, 99, 101, 102, 103, 104, 114, 116–17, 126, 130, 139, 141, 153, 199n43, 204n14 national archives (Public Archives of Canada, 1912–87), 14 National Film Board of Canada, 13 National History Society (Canada), 4, 15 national identity, 13, 97, 153 national library, 13 National Museum, 13 National Museums Policy, 13 national unity, 13 Native American people, 141, 145, 148, 149. See also Aboriginal New Brunswick, 17, 24, 92, 98, 102, 103, 106, 116, 117, 158, 201n14; group/respondent/sample 7, 19, 71, 72, 91–7, 107, 109, 110, 117–18, 176, 196n18, 197n20, 198n29 New Brunswick Museum, 183n16 New England, 114 Newfoundland and Labrador, 9, 32, 98, 117, 201n14; group/respondent/ sample, 51, 67, 75, 76, 77, 107, 108, 109, 111, 117, 169 Newfoundland Historical Society, xii, 24, 181n19 New France, 14, 74, 97, 101, 199n43 nonfiction, 144, 145, 146 Nora, Pierre, 5, 49, 68, 179n5 North, the (Canada), 87, 106, 108 North America, 10, 16, 93, 97, 100, 101, 148

Index North Saskatchewan River, 85 Northwest Rebellion/Resistance (1885), 89 nostalgia, 82, 105, 114 Nova Scotia, 117, 201n14; group/ respondent/sample, 21, 76, 98, 109, 117 novels, 17, 20, 165 Nugent, Maria, 80, 145 objectivity, 49 Oglala Sioux, 145, 149, 193n1 Okanagan, British Columbia, 106, 108 One Arrow, Chief, 89, 195n12 Ontario, 7, 19, 106, 107, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 126; group/respondent/ sample, 7, 18, 21, 26, 31, 32, 63, 72, 77, 78, 80, 106, 107–8, 111–12, 113, 117, 119, 120, 122, 126, 131, 155, 175, 203n8 oral history/tradition, 91, 159, 171 Owre, Keith, xi Packham Place, 194n2 Pakistan, 121, 122 Palestine, 122, 138, 159 Papaschase, Chief, 89 Papaway (Lucky Man), Chief, 89 parents, 21, 38, 42–3, 48, 74, 79, 129, 131, 172 Paris, 74 Parks Canada, xii, 7, 175, 181n19 Parti Québécois, 14 Passamaquoddy, 96 past: definition of, 8–9; importance of, 26, 36–8, 40, 43, 44, 77, 101, 113, 116–17, 118, 124–8, 135, 136, 147, 149, 173; interest in, 5, 6, 12, 15, 16, 33–6, 37, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 46, 53,

231

54, 82, 98, 100, 110, 113, 115, 117, 118, 119, 124–8, 129, 131, 134, 135, 136, 140, 154, 158, 159, 160, 162, 189n9, 203n9. See also history Peace River, 106 Peel Heritage Complex, xii, 19, 183n16 Peel Region (GTA): group/respondent/ sample, 7, 31, 120–7, 172, 178 people’s history, 153–4 personal memory, 67 Petit-Rocher, New Brunswick, 71, 92, 94, 196n16, 196n18, 197n21 Phoenicians, 17 photographs, 7, 24, 25, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 38, 39, 41, 42, 62, 68, 70–1, 72, 74, 79, 93, 94, 111, 118, 123, 142, 143, 150, 155, 159, 163, 168, Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, 145, 149, 193n1 pioneers, xii, 19, 67, 79, 166 place, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 17, 18, 21, 23, 29, 30, 37, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 63, 73, 74, 75, 78, 80, 81, 83, 86, 89, 91, 93, 95, 97, 101, 103, 105–19, 120, 123, 124, 125, 132, 133, 137, 153, 158, 159, 160, 163, 164, 166–7, 170, 185n33, 186n6, 204n14 Plains of Abraham, 6, 17, 60, 101 politics, 13, 24, 67, 73, 117 Pollard, John, xi polling data, 4 postmodernism, 48, 49 Poundmaker, 195n11 powwows, 75, 88, 155 Prairie Giant: The Tommy Douglas Story, 16 Prairies, the, 85, 107; group/ respondent/sample, 7, 72, 105, 106, 108, 112, 113, 115, 119, 158, 175

232

Index

Premzell, Josie, xii presence of the past, xi, xii, 3, 28, 107, 138–51, 159–60 The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life, 6, 139, 176 primary sources, 57, 64, 157, 190n15, 190n23 preservation, 16, 31 Prince Edward Island, 17, 117; group/respondent/sample, 22, 57, 70, 72, 76, 81, 98, 109, 117, 201n14 professional historians. See academic/ professional historians Protestants, 46, 128 province, 7, 9, 13, 14, 24, 36, 40, 42, 44, 46, 67, 73, 75, 77, 85, 86, 87, 89, 92, 95, 96, 97, 98–9, 101, 102, 105, 106, 107, 109–17, 119, 121, 122, 125, 126, 130, 135, 136, 147, 149, 158, 161, 169, 172, 196n18, 198n30, 201n13, 203n9, 204n14 public archives. See archives public historians, 6, 27 public history, 4, 9, 11, 12, 15–20, 25, 26, 31, 66, 141, 153, 154, 155, 159 public institutions, 10, 15, 22, 27, 55, 89, 156 public memory, 4, 15. See also collective memory Quebec, 7, 14, 75, 77, 78, 80, 81, 82, 84, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 103, 106, 107, 109, 111, 113, 114, 115, 199n42, 199n45; conquest/conquête of, 100, 103; history, 14, 97, 100, 102, 113, 114, 119, 157; sovereignty, 15, 100 Quebec City, xii, 181n19, 199n40 Québècois/Quebecers, 13, 100, 103, 114, 199n43; group/respondent/

sample, 9, 70, 73, 75, 77, 81, 82, 93, 97, 98, 99, 101, 102, 107, 109–10, 111, 113, 117, 119, 120, 158, 169, 175; identity, 14, 84, 97, 99. See also francophone Quiet Revolution, 13, 114 quilts/quilting, 31, 73, 75, 79, 166, 167 Raddall, Thomas, 13 radio, 14, 32 Radio-Canada. See Canadian Broadcasting Corporation/ Radio-Canada Radio-Québec, 14 Rankin, Ian, 19–20 Red River, Manitoba, 80; resistance/ rebellion (1869–70), 85 referenda, 15, 100, 101, 199n43 region, 4, 7, 9, 19, 31, 37, 75, 80, 84, 85, 91, 93, 94, 105–6, 107–9, 110, 112, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 126, 127, 147, 149, 150, 158, 160, 161, 174, 175–6, 181n19, 186n6, 196n18, 197n23, 197n24, 200n1, 201n14 religion/spiritual tradition, 7, 10, 36, 37, 38, 40, 42–3, 44, 45–7, 67, 87, 88, 95, 96, 98, 99, 100, 101, 109, 110, 112, 118, 125, 127–8, 130, 131, 132, 135, 137, 140, 147, 152, 154, 160, 173, 172, 185n33, 198n29 religious history, 11, 118 Remembrance Day, 29, 75, 89 residence, 101, 105, 106, 118, 119, 130, 158, 185n33. See also place residential schools (Aboriginal), 85, 88, 91, 103 Richibucto, New Brunswick, 24 Rideau Hall, 199n40 Riel, Louis, 76, 85, 89

Index Robichaud, Marc, xii Roman Catholic Church/Roman Catholics, 46, 92, 96, 100, 110, 128 Romans, 17 Rosenstone, Robert A., 16 Rosenzweig, Roy, 6, 8, 82, 139, 176 Royal Commission on Indian Affairs. See McKenna-McBride Royal Commission Rudin, Ronald, 95 rural, 9, 24, 44, 79, 105, 108, 117–18, 140, 141, 161 rural-urban divide, 106, 117–18, 119, 158 Russia, 3, 20, 66, 122, 132, 159 Saguenay, the, 108 St Catharines, Ontario, 77 Saint-Eustache, Quebec, 73 Saint-Gervais, Quebec, 77 St John’s, Newfoundland, 32, 181n19 same-sex relationships, 69 Saskatchewan, 16, 85, 87, 117, 119; group/respondent/sample, 7, 16, 31, 52, 70, 72, 79, 80, 84, 85–6, 87, 88–9, 91, 102, 103, 104, 107, 112–13, 116, 117, 155, 156–7, 158, 193n1, 194n2, 194n6, 194n9, 195n10, 195n11, 203n7 Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, 7, 84, 89, 176, 194n2, 195n12 Saul, John Ralston, 186n8 Saulteaux, 85 Savoie, Donald, 97 Savoie, Hélène, xii, 18 Scarborough, Ontario, 78 scrapbooks/scrapbooking, 29, 41, 42, 43, 46, 68, 71, 112, 129 Schoen, Rob, xii

233

school history/history in school, 7, 20–1, 22, 27, 89, 131, 158, 171; schools, 3, 4, 9, 20, 21, 22, 22, 59, 66, 79, 89, 100, 140, 166; school curricula, 13, 14, 15, 21, 102, 158 science, 12, 152 Sco ish people, 19, 20, 44, 93, 108 Second World War, 12, 13, 16, 60, 70, 81, 100, 155 Seven Years’ War (1756–63), 92, 97 sexuality, 67 Shirley, Anne, 17 single-parent, 69 Smith, Laurajane, 33 social history, 15, 158 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), xi, 7 societies: history/preservation/ heritage, 16, 31, 71; human, 5, 113, 150, 153, 154, 159, 179n5 Somalia, 159 songs, 94, 96 South Africa, 3, 58, 159 South America, 204n12 South Dakota, 145, 149, 193n1 Soviet Union, 138 Spence, Ahab, 195n11 spiritual tradition. See religion/ spiritual tradition Sri Lanka, 122, 132 Status Indians, 85 “stayers and movers,” 114–17, 119, 155, 158. See also mobility students, 4, 6, 15, 18–19, 20–3, 25, 51, 57, 59, 60, 90, 100, 138, 141, 198n34 subjectivity, 49 surveys, xii, 5, 9, 138–42, 178, 220; academic, xi; American, 9, 138, 139, 145, 147, 148, 149; Australian,

234

Index

24, 80, 142, 143, 145; telephone, xi, 140, 141, 175, 177, 178, 189n9, 194n2. See also Canadians and Their Pasts survey/study sweat lodges, 88 Sydney, Australia, xii Symons report (1975), 13 teachers, 18, 20, 21, 60, 67, 77, 158, 170, 171, 189n12. See also school history/history in school technology, 124, 152, 155 telephone survey. See surveys Télé-Québec, 14 television, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 27, 93, 136, 142, 150, 155 Tessman, Barbara, xii textbooks, 3, 13, 89, 157, 159, 179n4. See also books Theborthe, André, 96, 198n32 Thelen, David, xii, 6, 8, 139, 176 Thibodeau, Pierre, xii Thompson Rivers University: Centre for the Study of Multiple Literacies, xii, 181n19 Titanic, 16 Toronto, Ontario, 4, 7, 121, 175, 181n19; group/respondent/sample, 70, 72, 73, 74, 106, 121, 176. See also Greater Toronto Area Torsti, Pilvi, xii tourist sector, 4 Tourouvre, France, 74 tradition, 6, 36, 107, 119 traditional knowledge/teaching, 88 treaties, 4, 85, 88, 89, 91 treaty days, 88 trust/trustworthiness, 4, 7, 9, 11, 18, 25, 48–66, 77, 82, 86, 88–9, 138, 143–6, 150, 154, 157, 159,

170–2, 177–8, 188n6, 188n7, 188n8, 190–1n24, 194n6, 194n9, 195n10 Ukrainian people, 32, 44, 74, 122 Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC), xii, 10, 181n19 United Empire Loyalist Association, 115 United Empire Loyalists, 96, 115, 129 United States, 4, 5, 8, 9, 16, 71, 82, 96, 138, 139, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 150, 159, 204n12 Université Laval, xi, xii, 219 Université de Moncton, xii, 19, 181n19 universities, xi, 11, 13, 15, 64, 152 University of British Columbia, 22, 219, 220 University of Hamburg, 138 University of Manitoba, 219 University of New Brunswick, xi, 196n16, 196n17, 219 University of Saskatchewan, xii, 194n2 University of Sherbrooke, xii University of Technology (Sydney, Australia), xii University of Toronto Press, xii University of Waterloo, 193n1 University of Winnipeg, 195n11 urban, 7, 9, 44, 79, 107, 117–18, 120, 178 urban-rural divide. See rural-urban divide Vancouver, British Columbia, xii, 181n19; group/respondent/ sample, 7, 106, 120, 121, 175 video, 30, 34 video games. See computer/video history games

Index Vimy. See Ba le of Vimy Ridge von Borries, Bodo, 138 vote, 5, 85 The Walrus, 24 Wanuskewin Heritage Park. 17, 89 war, 4, 21, 69, 88, 90. See also specific wars War of 1812, 13 Web sites, 9, 25, 53, 167, 171, 176, 188n6 Webb, Jeff, xii West, the/Western Canada, 108, 113, 115, 116, 119. See also Alberta; Manitoba; Prairies; Saskatchewan Wheeler, Winona, xii, 195n11 White Buffalo Youth Lodge, 194n2

Wiebe, Jeremy, xi, 193n1 Wikipedia, 23 Williams, Raymond, 182n3 Winnipeg, Manitoba, 15, 183n16; group/respondent/sample, 18, 70, 77, 78, 195n12 witness, 55, 56–7, 58, 62, 77, 102, 146, 190n13, 190n21 women, 5, 15, 38, 41–2, 73, 75, 79, 109, 148, 150, 154, 185n33 working class, 15 World Wide Web, 24, 30, 155 Yiddish language, 74 York University, xi, 4, 183, 175, 220 youth, 143 Youth and History, 6, 20, 139

235