Refractions of Canada in European Literature and Culture 9783110919240, 9783110183429

Table of contents :
Foreword
Contents
Introduction: Canada from European Perspectives
The Archeology of a Novel: An Afterword to The Blue Mountains of China
In Between: Canada in the View of European Pioneers and Emigrants
“A New Athens Rising Near the Pole”?: The Canadian Experience in Frances Brooke’s The History of Emily Montague (1769)
Anna Brownell Jameson’s Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada (1838): A European Woman’s View of the New World
“Capable of Great Improvement”: Catharine Parr Traill’s Images of Canada in The Young Emigrants (1826)
Deserts and Visions of Paradise: The Representation of the Canadian Landscape in Advertisements and Guides for Canadian Immigrants
Destination and Destiny: Contemporary Canadian Plays on Immigrants
News From Abroad: Canada in the View of European Travellers, Traders, and Adventurers
The Representation of Canada in Novels by Frederick Marryat and Robert Michael Ballantyne
Victorians Abroad: Charles Dickens and Anthony Trollope in Canada
“Alle diese Länder sind unbekannt”: Canada in Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth-Century German Travel Literature
“A Canadian Literature?”: Elizabeth Smart and the Failures of Nationalism
In Search of Cathaia – Voyages into the Unexpected
Re-Enacting the Arctic Voyage: The Northwest Passage in British Literature
Reflections at Home: Canada in the View of Recent European Writers
Stuffed Mooseheads: Canada as (Missing) Cliche in European Theatre
Cultural Reductionism and the Reception of Canadian Literature in Germany
Wildlife Abounds? The Photographic Deconstruction of a Canadian Cliche in Robert Gernhardt’s Satire “Blanket Creek oder Verwilderte Wünsche”
“One Sees Only What One Knows”: German Popular Literature and its Images of Canada
Canada as a Role Model? Reflections of a Country in Post-War German Youth Fiction
What makes a Canadian? Strategies of Presenting Canadianness in Teaching Materials
List of Contributors

Citation preview

Refractions of Canada European Literature and Culture

W G DE

Refractions of Canada in European Literature and Culture Edited by Heinz Antor Gordon Bölling Annette Kern-Stähler Klaus Stierstorfer

Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York

© Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Refractions of Canada in European literature and culture / edited by Heinz Antor ... [et al]. p. cm. ISBN 3-11-018342-0 (alk. paper) 1. Canada — In literature. 2. European literature - History and criticism. 3. Canada - Description and travel - History. I. Antor, Heinz, 1 9 5 9 PN56.3.C35R44 2005 809'.933271-dc22 2005024275

ISBN-13: 978-3-11-018342-9 ISBN-10: 3-11-018342-0 Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the Internet at < http://dnb.ddb.de > .

© Copyright 2005 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin. All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. N o part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover design: Christopher Schneider, Berlin. Printed in Germany.

Foreword This volume had its origins in the conference "Refractions of Canada in European Literature and Culture" held at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf (Germany) between 20 and 23 July 2003. This scholarly meeting continued a project which had begun at the Banff Centre, Alberta, in September 2002 with an international gathering of academics discussing the various ways in which Germany is depicted in Canadian literature and culture. The proceedings of the earlier conference were published some time ago as Refractions of Germany in Canadian Literature and Culture (ed. Heinz Antor, Sylvia Brown, John Considine and Klaus Stierstorfer. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2003). The editors are proud to be able now to present the companion volume, which collects not only the papers given and discussed at the Düsseldorf conference, but also a number of essays specially commissioned and written for this volume by experts in their fields who had been unable to attend the conference itself. We would like to thank all those who helped to organize the original meeting as well as the scholars and writers who contributed to the project with their knowledge and their critical contributions. We are grateful to those whose patience and diligence in the editorial process have made this book possible. Our special thanks, however, are due to Jenny Bingold (University of Cologne), without whose unflinching efforts and invaluable support in proofreading and producing a camera-ready manuscript this volume would not have seen the day of light. The editors are of course responsible for any remaining errors.

Cologne, Münster, July 2005

Η. Α., G. B., A. K.-St., K. St.

Contents

Foreword

V

K L A U S STIERSTORFER,

Introduction: Canada from European Perspectives

1

RUDY WIEBE,

The Archeology of a Novel: An Afterword to The Blue Mountains of China In Between: Canada in the View of European Pioneers and Emigrants ....

9 15

G O R D O N BÖLLING,

"A New Athens Rising Near the Pole"?: The Canadian Experience in Frances Brooke's The History of Emily Montague (1769)

17

HEINZ ANTOR,

Anna Brownell Jameson's Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada (1838): A European Woman's View ofthe New World

29

K L A U S STIERSTORFER,

"Capable of Great Improvement": Catherine Parr Traill's Images of Canada in The Young Emigrants (1826)

55

MARKUS WUST,

Deserts and Visions of Paradise: The Representation of the Canadian Landscape in Advertisements and Guides for Canadian Immigrants

67

ALBERT-REINER GLAAP,

Destination and Destiny: Contemporary Canadian Plays on Immigrants..

83

News from Abroad: Canada in the View of European Travellers, Traders, and Adventurers

91

MELANIE JUST

The Representation of Canada in Novels by Frederick Marryat and Robert Michael Ballantyne

93

VIII

Contents

MICHAEL HEINZE

Victorians Abroad: Charles Dickens and Anthony Trollope in Canada....

109

INGMAR P R O B S T

"Alle diese Länder sind unbekannt": Canada in Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth-Century German Travel Literature

119

ROBERT MCGILL,

" A Canadian Literature?": Elizabeth Smart and the Failures o f Nationalism"

143

ELKE NOWAK,

In Search o f Cathaia - Voyages into the Unexpected

155

ANNETTE KERN-STÄHLER,

Re-Enacting the Arctic Voyage: The Northwest Passage in British Literature

173

Reflections at Home: Canada in the View o f Recent European Writers. ..

195

CHRISTOPHER INNES,

Stuffed Mooseheads: Canada as (Missing) Cliche in European Theatre...

197

J A M E S SKIDMORE,

Cultural Reductionism and the Reception o f Canadian Literature in Germany

211

SUSANNE P E T E R S ,

Wildlife Abounds? The Photographic Deconstruction o f a Canadian Cliche in Robert Gernhardt's Satire "Blanket Creek oder Verwilderte Wünsche"

227

LAURENZ VOLKMANN

"One Sees Only What One Knows": German Popular Literature and its Images o f Canada

237

MIRIAM RICHTER,

Canada as a Role Model? Reflections o f a Country in Post-War German Youth Fiction

263

MATTHIAS M E R K L ,

What Makes a Canadian? Strategies o f Presenting Canadianness in Teaching Materials

281

List o f Contributors

297

K L A U S STIERSTORFER

University of Münster

Introduction: Canada from European Perspectives

Ever since the first exploratory expeditions in the early modern period, North America has epitomized a promise to Europeans. It has stood for the hope for the fulfilment of great expectations, be it of more freedom, wider spaces, greater wealth, social liberation, religious tolerance or simply a better life. Travellers crossing the Atlantic - in their minds or in real life - have carried a whole cluster of images of this 'New World', which have in tum been subject to continual change, both as a result of the often breath-taking cultural and political developments in America, but also in response to the varying needs and desires engendered by the changing historical situation in Europe. While numerous features in this dialogic, intercontinental relationship will hold true for North America in its entirety, the vast northern territories which we know as Canada today began to emerge early on as a specific iconic location in European mindmaps, and they definitely acquired a distinctive profile after the formation of the United States of America. As a rich source of cultural exchange, an important partner in political and economic cooperation and, not least, a land of much-advertised tourist attractions, Canada has come to occupy an important position in the cultural discourses of many European nations. The enormous increase in travel speed and the reliability of transport, from the first sailing vessels to steamships and, finally, modern airplanes, dramatically accelerated the 'rates of exchange' between the two Continents: rare, one-off life voyages of migration and adventure were gradually joined by excursions of adventurous travellers in search of picturesque landscapes or sublime vistas, before tourism from Europe to Canada finally turned into a mass industry in the later decades of the twentieth century. At the same time, permanent emigration to Canada has never ceased to be attractive to Europeans in search of more space, jobs and better wages, or simply as employees of the growing number of companies doing business on both sides of the Atlantic and sending their staff wherever they are most in demand. The vertiginous speed and quantities of today's cross-Atlantic communication in information, passengers, goods and services has undoubtedly led to a

2

Klaus Stierstorfer

remarkable increase in the trade of images as well. The exponential rise in people travelling across the Atlantic or having easy access to information about all aspects of Canadian life inescapably has a significant impact on Europe's popular visions of Canada. Whether Europe's images of Canada have become more 'real' and better-informed through these higher frequencies of exchange must, however, remain open to question. In fact, many time-honoured stereotypes and cliches still seem to form the mainstay of today's promotional image of Canada in major branches of modern mass tourism. The ideas of wide open spaces, especially in the far North, of bears fishing for salmon in crystal-clear rivers, of moose, caribou and beaver, of maple leaves and spectacularly colourful forests in Indian Summers, of 'Mounties' in red uniforms and sparsely populated nature untouched by human civilization still seem to be among the most marketable images for tour operators to Canada. This certainly is the experience of many Canadian lodge operators, as reported in an article in the National Post. Here, the German-born owner of Blue Kennels and Dog Sled Trips of Whitehorse, who is also the proprietor of two lodges, gives his experience as follows: We live about 400 metres away from a power line, but we still don't have power. People ask me why we don't, and I say, that's what I'm selling - the northern experience. People don't want to turn on a light switch - they want to sit around an open fire.'

This impression is confirmed by the official tourist website, to which visitors to Canadian embassy websites who want information on travel to Canada are referred. 2 In the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) column the very first question listed is "How do I obtain a hunting license for my hunting trip to Canada?" Out of a total of fourteen further FAQs, which are otherwise concerned with the usual fare of required identification, tax refunds and customs regulations on quantities of alcohol and tobacco, another two questions belong in the same category: "Is it possible to obtain a freshwater fishing license online in Canada?" and "Can I bring my own gun to Canada?" Obviously, such views of Canada are stereotypes which, although nurtured on the Canadian side as well, can give very little information about Canadian society and culture today, with its vibrant mix of many ethnicities and cultures, its traditions and customs, its problems and manifold opportunities. Still, the coarser, stereotypical imaginings of Canada are no less 'real' than the most sophisticated intercultural hermeneutics, and the bluntest of cliches may be no less powerful in its attractiveness and impact than the most carefully researched paper on aspects of Canadian life in the past or present. This is not only true for our own time, when nationalities are used as brand names for mass-mar-

1 2

"Destination: Exotic Canada", National Post September 14, 2002, PT4. Cf. http://www.travelcanada.ca (08.04.2004).

Introduction

3

keting certain products and services. As this volume sets out to investigate, 'Canada' has never been an object of neutral inquiry or unbiased geographic and iconic cartography. European references to the northern territories of the American continent, as geographic location, cultural space or, increasingly, a consolidated Canadian national identity, have always been characterized by telescoping, selection and abstraction, interested points of view and comments of varying obliqueness and widely differing trajectories. It is these qualities in images of Canada and their cultural contexts which the authors in this volume have set out to trace through Canada's history from early colonial times to the present. While, to all appearances, studies of images of (primarily francophone) Canada in the francophone countries in Europe are already well established and have, among other things, produced a substantial bibliography, 3 and while the ethnic identities in America in general and in Canada in particular are widely explored, including the images these immigrant cultures bring to Canada from their homes across the sea, studies in images of Canada itself in Europe other than the francophone countries are generally lacking. This is, of course, a gap whose very existence calls for further investigation, not to speak of the massive effort in research it requires to be filled. This volume does not pretend to satisfy either of these requirements. Its rationale is conceived along the lines of a first field study in images of Canada mainly in the English- and German-speaking countries in Europe, as these represent the ethnicities which, together with the French, have, in the country's earlier history, been most important in the constitution of Canada. Other nationalities occasionally come in, but the "European" in the title is, for all the selectivity of the images presented here, to be understood as the general framework within which this volume is situated, but which it is, its editors are painfully aware, unable to fill or even adequately to represent. The various explorations gathered here are grouped in three subsections according to their subjects' source access on Canada and the kind of attitudes and degree of involvement with Canadian life displayed in the primary texts under discussion. Obviously, such categorization has mainly heuristic functions and serves as a first point of orientation to the reader; no essentialist verdict or prejudice is implied in this selective sorting procedure, and in many instances the very inclusion of an essay in one subsection directly leads to the issues broached in its discussion and could, with equal justification, suggest its listing under one of the other headings. Apart from purposes of orientation, the subdivisions in this volume are thus also intended as openings to the disputes and

3

Tanja Richter (ed.), L'Allemagne vue du Quebec. Le Quebec vu d'Allemagne: Bibliographie de titres parus au Quebec et en Allemagne 1871-2000 (Quebec, Dresden: AIEQ. CIFRAQS, 2002), http://www.aieq.qc.ca/frame_publications.html (08.04.2004).

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Klaus Stierstorfer

arguments in the individual contributions, not as the results of the ready-made, formal answers to such discussions. Before entering into the three main sections of this volume, however, readers are offered a first introduction by way of a broad panorama of the roots and global ramifications of Canada's culture, here in the case of the religious group of the Mennonites, by eminent Canadian novelist Rudy Wiebe. What is described here is a search for a story on many levels. First, it is the rediscovery of the story of the Mennonites, from their early beginnings in Europe to their emigration to various places in North and South America. Second, Wiebe sets out to discover the Mennonite story not only as an uninvolved observer, but as an interested party: This is the tradition in which he himself grew up in Canada. It is within the larger historical framework set up in this way that Wiebe furthermore discovers, on a third level, numerous individual stories which form part of a Mennonite narrative identity and which then are transformed by his novelistic art, on a fourth level, into providing the material for one of his most famous novels, The Blue Mountains of China* Wiebe's stories of pioneering and migration are taken up in the title to the volume's first section where critical discussions focus on texts by writers with a first-hand knowledge of Canada at various historical stages, either because they immigrated to Canada or because they spent a longer period of time there. Thus, Gordon Bölling describes Frances Brooke's views on Canada in what has come to be generally seen as the first Canadian novel in English, The History of Emily Montague (1769). Brooke had left Europe and followed her husband to Quebec. The Brooke family did not remain in Canada, but returned to Europe in 1768, and although Frances Brooke's novel was written during her stay in Quebec, its views of Canada are, as Bölling argues, written from a European mind-set and for a European audience. The better part of a century later, the descriptions in Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada (1838) are based on a similar experience. The book's author, Anna Brownell Jameson, also came to Canada to join her husband, a lawyer and British colonial official, who, after having taken up the post of Attorney General of Upper Canada in 1833, had become Vice-Chancellor, the highest legal position in the province. Again, this is not the view of a permanent immigrant, but, as shown by Heinz Antor in his study of this text, this is a collection of vistas on Canada by a woman writing from within the European tradition and primarily, again, for a European audience. The situation is further complicated in the third case study of early Canadian images in this section. When writing The Young Emigrants (1826), Catherine Parr Traill had not yet set out to Canada at all. She only would undertake

4

Rudy Wiebe, The Blue Mountains of China. New Canadian Library (Toronto: McClealland and Stuart, 1995 [1970]).

Introduction

5

the voyage six years after the publication of this book, but then in order to settle permanently. Traill and her sister Susanna Moodie became two of Canada's outstanding female pioneers, both as settlers in Upper Canada and as literary figures of enormous influence and almost mythopoeic powers. The Young Emigrants, discussed in Klaus Stierstorfer's essay in this volume, was used as a manual and attracted emigrants with all its imaginative strength, as it was in fact also based on reports sent back by members of Catherine Parr Traill's family who had gone to Canada before. Manuals for immigrants as they were available to Germans in the nineteenth century are the object of Markus Wust's study. Wust shows how differently Canada and its landscape was portrayed in these texts conceived to attract emigrants (and cajole them away from the rival USA) when compared to today's portrayals of Canadian landscape geared at drawing tourists' interests and attention to Canada, even if rivalry with the USA may still be palpable in that context, too. Albert-Reiner Glaap, finally, looks at the refracted experiences of Canada as they are presented in three contemporary Canadian plays on European immigrants. Glaap is able to show in his analysis and comparison of the plays how Canada as a place and setting is projected in fundamentally different ways depending on immigrants' European background and culture, as in the juxtaposition of English, Italian and Polish descent in this selection. The authors discussed in section II deal with Canada in the view of European travellers, traders and adventurers. As travellers their stay in Canada is by definition limited, and although they share this trait with writers like Brooke or Jameson treated in section I, their attitude is different. Whereas the authors in section I did not permanently emigrate to Canada, but nevertheless spent significant parts of their lives in Canada and, what is more, took an active part, in one way or another, in the life of the colony or the emerging nation, section II focuses on literary men and women who looked at Canada from a distance. Theirs was the traveller's or tourist's gaze at a foreign land; Canada did not even become a temporary home of sorts for them. Melanie Just provides the linking contribution between the two sections, as the two novelists she discusses, Frederick Marryat and Robert Michael Ballantyne, epitomize this contrast in her perception. Ballantyne came to Canada early in life, endured the hardships of work for the Hudson's Bay Company, knew the work of the fur traders from his own practice and only began his life as a writer after his return to his native Scotland, when he also used the memories of his Canadian experience for his novels. Marryat, by contrast, already was an established writer when he went on his voyage to Canada, toured the eastern regions of the North American continent and used the impressions of his journey as an enriching element in his fiction.

6

Klaus Stierstorfer

Marryat's model also fits the situation of Dickens and Trollope, whose Canadian travel writings are explored by Michael Heinze, and the same holds true for the German travel literature studied in Ingmar Probst's contribution. How the angle of perception and the position of writers on Canada has become volatile and ambiguous in recent years within the constructed domain of a 'Canadian literature' is shown by Robert McGill, who, in his contribution to this volume, focuses on novelist Elizabeth Smart, whose literary career spans both sides of the Atlantic and makes her a particularly striking case in this respect. The two final essays in this section focus on European perceptions of Canada's North. Elke Nowak investigates the specificities of European encounters with the indigenous people of what is today known as Baffin Island and Labrador, while Annette Kern-Stähler's concern is with the fabulous North-West passage and the spell it cast for centuries on Europeans' imagination. Kem-Stähler's assessment, however, already heralds the kind of material studied by contributors brought together in this volume's final section III. The refractions of Canada in Europe presented here are primarily 'literary' in the narrower sense of the word. They are characterized by a more or less striking distance to first-hand knowledge of Canadian life and culture and are therefore to be understood as (inter)textual constructs informed by a variety of secondary motivations. This feature is more fundamentally prominent in the studies of section III, while of course constructivist aspects are - only perhaps less radically so - also an important factor in the constitution of the texts discussed in sections I and II. The third section begins with an assessment of negative results, as Christopher Innes points to the remarkable absence of Canada in European theatre. James Skidmore looks more broadly at the kinds of reception given to Canadian literature in Europe, while Susanne Peters provides a case study of a deconstructed Canadian cliche in a satire by Robert Gernhardt. Laurenz Volkmann covers the important field of the image of Canada in European popular literature, here discussed by means of examples taken from German writers, before Miriam Richter and Matthias Merkl round up the volume with studies on the educational aspects of European images of Canada, in post-World War II German youth fiction in Richter's case, and in German teaching materials dealing with Canada in Merkl's essay. What has already become clear in the earlier companion volume to this collection of critical essays, Refractions of Germany in Canadian Literature and Culture,5 will be confirmed and further illuminated in the articles pre-

5

Heinz Antor, Sylvia Brown, John Considine and Klaus Stierstorfer (eds.), Refractions Germany in Canadian Literature and Culture (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2003).

of

Introduction

7

sented here. T h e cross-Atlantic images explored in the two volumes are the result o f a strong, vibrantly active, dialogic relationship between the various nations, ethnicities and cultures in Canada on the one hand and in Europe on the other. T h e study o f this iconic economy and o f its trade in images can help to highlight the cultural situation and contexts on both sides. T h e editors hope that the following explorations o f images o f the Other, Canadian or European, will prove their value for the improvement o f processes o f intercultural understanding on both sides o f the Atlantic. Those who project images reveal their perceptions o f and knowledge about their imagined object, along with a wide array o f interests and intentions with often only spurious connections to their referents. Conversely, those who are represented in such images can gain valuable insights about their specific appearances in foreign contexts, appearances and images they may then wish to enforce, correct, sometimes even manipulate or tum to their own advantage. In its cross-breeding complexities, the discussion o f this exchange o f images, it is hoped, will provide a valuable platform on which to build in the attempt at achieving a better mutual understanding.

R U D Y WIEBE

University of Alberta

The Archeology of a Novel: An Afterword to The Blue Mountains of China

The Blue Mountains of China could not have been written except for Paraguay, that strange land isolated within the jungles and deserts of South America, an independent nation since 1811 but still one of the least known countries on earth. I went there in 1966 because I wanted to hear more Russian Mennonite stories, the ones I had heard in Canada all my life but also others, told from a different viewpoint; especially that of my mother's cousin and my father's niece. My parents, Abram and Katherina Wiebe, with their five children arrived in Germany as 'stateless' refugees from Russia - "that Land of Terror," as they called it ("das Land des Schreckens") - on Sunday, December 1, 1929. On February 7, 1930 they were given long, yellow identity papers in lieu of passports by the German police at the refugee camp in Prenzlau, and on the same day the Canadian Pacific Railway in Hamburg issued them a Colonization Certificate [No. 19622] to embark for Canada via Liverpool, England, as part of "200 Allot. 1930 Can. Menn. Bd."; they were to be forwarded by CPR ship and railway to the "Can. Menn. Bd." at Winnipeg, Manitoba, "in the capacity of: Family." The specific family that sponsored my parents' immigration was my mother's aunt and her son in Didsbury, Alberta, but only the Canada-wide 'family' of the Canadian Mennonite Board of Colonization made that sponsorship politically and financially possible: a continuous tradition of helping 'brothers and sisters in need' unbroken since the Reformation. The Christian groups now called Mennonites grew out of the Anabaptist movement which began in Switzerland during the Reformation of the 1520s. In Zurich radical young thinkers first separated themselves from both Catholics and Protestants by insisting that to truly be a Christian meant a personal commitment to follow Jesus Christ: in other words, obedience to his teaching and his acts alone, not to the accumulated traditions of the church and the self-serving demands of secular rulers. They rejected, for example, child baptism because only a responsible adult can decide to live a life of faith; they rejected the magical sac-

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Rudy Wiebe

redness of ordinary bread turning into the body of Christ when blessed during the mass; they rejected violence, especially the state-required violence of war, because Jesus taught that his followers act with love and compassion toward both friend and enemy. In January, 1527 Felix Manz was the first Anabaptist (a derisive nickname meaning 're-baptizer') to die for his beliefs: the City Council of Zurich had him publically drowned in the Limmat River flowing below the Grossmünster. In the decades that followed the "heretical" beliefs of the "separated believers" spread across Europe, and thousands of martyrs paid for their faith with their lives. The Bloody Theatre or The Martyrs Mirror of the Defenceless Christians, gathered together in Holland by Thieleman van Braght in 1660, tells the detailed stories of over 4,000 people who were tortured, burned, drowned, beheaded and otherwise violently killed for committing to neither Catholicism nor the new state churches; over 40 percent of the stories are of martyr women. Such persecution, in a society torn by the old dogmatic legalism and the new, often violent church nationalism, scattered the teachings of these .heretics' across Europe. In 1536 a Frisian priest named Menno Simons left the Roman Catholic Church and by his teaching and clear writing became their most widely-known leader; his theology can be summed up in his motto: "For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ." For twenty-five years he escaped his hunters, and when he died near Lübeck in 1561 the 'defenceless Christians' had been nicknamed again, this time 'Mennonites'. They were not necessarily unified in their teachings: their individualistic approach to personal faith resulted in many branches growing from the original concepts. For example, the Hutterites of Moravia (named after Jakob Hutter) separated themselves in the 1530s on the principle that Christians must practise communal ownership of property; the Amish of South Germany (named after Jakob Ammann) separated in the 1690s on questions of 'worldliness' and the shunning of ex-communicated members. Whatever their doctrinal splits, the general religious persecution by church and state meant, for the Mennonites, flight to whatever places and peoples would give them refuge. Beginning about 1540 the Frisian-Flemish Mennonites began sailing east to Danzig and the Vistula-Nogat Delta, where, if they did not proselytize and developed the marshes into productive farmland, the city and the Polish kings promised them safe living and exemption from military service. By 1600 Mennonites had created 31 new farm villages in the delta and been allowed to build their first church; for two centuries they grew and prospered there. In the meantime many Swiss and South German Mennonites, still violently discriminated against, moved down the Rhine to the German Palatinate to re-build a world destroyed by the Thirty Years War (1618-48), but on the invitation of William Penn to help create a 'Christian Commonwealth' in North America, they began crossing the Atlantic to Pennsylvania in the 1670s.

The Archeology of a Novel: The Blue Mountains of China

11

With the growth of Frederick the Great's militarism, circumstances also changed for the Polish-Prussian Mennonites. After 1785 political and land pressure drove 15,000 of them, on the invitation of Czarina Catherine the Great, to trek overland to settle on Russian lands near the Black Sea; at the same time, Mennonites from Pennsylvania were moving north to British Upper Canada (Ontario) because of the American Revolution. In the 1870s, these North American Mennonites helped 13,000 of their co-religionists, though disconnected for several centuries and various theological differences, to leave Russia, travel half-way around the world and settle on the western Manitoba, Canada and Kansas, U.S.A. prairies. The unending violence of the twentieth century in Europe, especially the Russian Communist Revolution and the Second World War, scattered Mennonites to every continent, but particularly North America. Four centuries of history show that they have not tried to 'return to a homeland' but rather, beyond the necessary flight from persecution and war, they have searched for a place anywhere on earth where they could live their faith undisturbed, where they could have enough land to create a community of believers. For the most conservative groups, the more isolation this meant, the better; on the other hand, the less conservative Mennonites have settled into the democratic societies that accepted them and used their religious freedom to foster Christian missions, especially in Asia and Africa. In 2003 African church membership outnumbers that of North America; in total, the Mennonite World Conference estimates adult church membership to be 1.3 million persons in 65 countries. The stories of how, beginning in 1927, Mennonites came from Canada and Russia to Paraguay are sketched in The Blue Mountains of China. In 1966 I lived with them for three months in the Gran Chaco. At the Tropic of Capricorn daylight and darkness are always exactly equal and I was often alone inside my head - an excellent place for a writer - an observer in family groups or crowds, walking sandy village streets, listening to ecstatic frogs celebrate rare rain, watching satellites in the night-blazing sky sail between the immovable stars. The Paraguayan Chaco and the pioneering people who lived there exploded my imagination into a new consciousness of the power of place: a place has the power to make stories. Several years before, I had discovered my second novel, First and Vital Candle, in the scattered Cree/Ojibwa communities of northern Ontario; yet somehow that isolated world of people and wilderness was still too obviously Canada to push me into surprise. But in Paraguay's 'Green Hell', the stories I most anticipated did not happen as I expected. In Canadian Shield country I was an obvious stranger who could not speak a word with the Cree in their personal language; but in distant Paraguay I seemed no stranger at all: when 1 told them my name I was instantly family, and we spoke Russian Mennonite Low German together, a marvelous language for laughter, story, memory, and

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Rudy Wiebe

tracking relatives. Actually, in 1966 what I wanted most was to travel to the Soviet Union. I wanted to pursue the drama of 'The Mennonite Flight Over Moscow' in 1929, of which my parents and five sisters and brothers had been a part. Those escape stories from Communism I had listened to since before 1 could remember, and I wanted to find, to walk through the summer suburbs of Moscow where over 14,000 of our people gathered from all over Russia to pressure Stalin to allow them to leave, to see the small houses where they waited for months, lived in dread of the Black Vultures of the NKVD creeping down their street in the dead of night, the fist that would hammer on their door; I wanted to fly to Zaporozhye to find the mass Mennonite grave at Eichenfeld where one night in October, 1919, the Anarchists under Nestor Makhno raped their way from house to house and massacred three women and every man over fifteen, 82 in all. That's what I really wanted to do, but of course the Soviet Union was impossible in the mid-sixties; the world had barely survived the Cuban Missile Crisis, and after the Kennedy assassination it was sinking inevitably into the super-power morass of the Vietnam War. In the Paraguayan villages I did hear a few horror Makhno stories, but many more about the 'Flight Over Moscow' because all my first cousins and grand-uncle cousins and innumerable second cousins, etc., there had also been in Moscow with my parents. In fact, the entire Fernheim Colony in the Chaco was founded in 1930 by 1,572 persons who had been permitted to leave Moscow because in December 1929, Germany agreed to accept them as refugees, but who were not allowed to come to Canada as, for some reason still inexplicable to any of us, my family and about 1,300 others were. I heard the stories which shape The Blue Mountains of China spoken aloud in Low German, and others in silent texts written in High German. The most detailed Moscow stories came from my mother's cousin's hand-written journal. Johann Loewen was a small, ancient man who had had thirty-five years to ponder how they kept their family alive during the chaos of Russia in the 1920s, to consider those years of flight and ocean and river voyages, the desert heat, the travail and deaths they found labouring to build a home in a strange and dreadful land. Another man, Jakob Martens, talked with me for days while I read the book he had written in 1962: So Wie Es War: Erinnerungen eines Verbannten ['The Way It Was: Memoirs of an Exile']. In 1929 in the Ukraine he was arrested for not delivering an impossible grain quota, but he was released in time to return to his home village in December when his extended family was arrested and shipped back from their flight to Moscow; finally, after years of collectivization, exile, Gulag, war, he reached Paraguay after World War Two. He wrote in his introduction [my translation] : If I, after so many Odyssey mis-wanderings in the high north, punished by hunger and cold, nevertheless to spite all these miseries have returned strong and well

The Archeology of a Novel: The Blue Mountains of China

13

while beside me, right and left, hundreds found their graves, it can only be considered a miracle of God. The China stories gathered suddenly when I met Abram Friesen and Abram Loewen, who together had written a book Die Flucht ueber den Amur ['The Flight Over The Amur']. I bought a copy from Abram Loewen and visited him in the Harbiner Ecke ['Harbin Comer'], the four villages settled by the 370 persons who came there from Harbin, China. Sitting under the immense trees shading his yard, I listened to Abram Friesen; he was eighteen in December, 1930, when an entire Russian Mennonite village fled by night in sixty horse-drawn sleighs onto the frozen Amur River, avoided as by a miracle the Russian borderguards, wound between islands and open running water and finally dragged themselves up the bank into Chinese Manchuria. 217 persons saved. "Excellent talker," I noted in my diary. "Remembers so well. A thoughtful man of fifty-three, very much after my own heart." But the cable that holds the novel together, twisted of faith and steel and gentillesse, is Frieda Friesen. I remember talking with many Mennonite women in the villages, and their quiet surprise when I did so. Whatever home I visited, invariably neighbors and relatives appeared to meet the curiosity I was: a North American man who spoke both Germans and yet had no official purpose for being there, least of all to preach demanding sermons. In the darkness of November 15,1 sat with a minister and his sons in a Menno Colony village, and, as my diary records: [The daughter] living in the next yard has 12 [children], came over in evening, [we] talked of stars. The daughter, 41, had never heard that stars were beyond the moon. Just stared at me when I told her. Slept under the roof - cold night so fine sleeping up there. Awoke at 5, and at 5:30 had breakfast. The aged mother of the daughter who stared made up my cot for the night and breakfast the next morning; she said nothing, but silently nodded and came outside so I could take her picture. Her narrow face is wrapped around in a black crocheted shawl and she looks straight into the camera, worn, serenely herself. Later I found the book Elder Martin Friesen had mentioned, and it was, I think, that mother's silence I heard in Mrs. Heinrich Β. Toews' memoir:

Meine Erinnerungen und Erlebnisse in Kanada und Paraguay ['My Memories and Experiences in Canada and Paraguay']. Extraordinary, dense with vivid detail, an utterly unique book written by a conservative Mennonite woman born Maria Wiebe in Neuanlage, Manitoba in 1889. At the age of 38 she and her husband and ten children travelled from Canada by train, ocean steamer, various Paraguay River boats and, finally, trekked by ox-cart into the Chaco's 'Green Hell': a journey of 17,800 kilometers. She wrote in her memoirs in 1960 [my translation]:

14

Rudy Wiebe [...] because the Lord has gone with me through very deep ways, and I have been asked by many people to write about my experiences with the Lord [...] I have kept no diary of my life, so I have written everything down only by God's grace [...]

The image, the voice of Frieda Friesen. Paraguay, locked in the core of South America. I had seen some of the Creator's wilderness worlds before, but this was wildly different; when I hung in my hammock under the grass roofs at Fortin Martinez the night after we met the Ayoreo Indian man seated between the jeep tracks of the trail we were following, I could not sleep. Deadly stories lurked here among thornbushes; my mind saw the gleam of Osawane's dark, muscular body, his gangrenous foot swollen huge around a hidden thorn, his black fingers pressing out of the cuts he had made in his foot a creamy, almost golden, pus. Vicious sun, sand, savage wind - but it was the power of conviction, the violence of history that had shoved, hurled my people here, and I felt, strangely, at home. At home enough to be surprised, gradually dared into a stranger shape of novel, a form where the basic human mud of the stories I found would remain what it was: unarranged, flung together, sprawling.

In Between: Canada in the View of European Pioneers and Emigrants

GORDON BÖLLING University of Cologne

"A New Athens Rising Near the Pole"?: The Canadian Experience in Frances Brooke's The History of Emily Montague ( 1 7 6 9 )

In a letter written on N e w Year's Day 1767, Arabella Fermor, one of the principal characters in Frances Brooke's (1724-1789) epistolary novel The History of Emily Montague, paints a particularly gloomy picture of the future of Canadian literature. After complaining at length about the severe weather conditions in Silleri on the outskirts of Quebec City, she maintains that the long and harsh winters will effectively prevent the emergence of a highly regarded Canadian literature: I n o l o n g e r w o n d e r t h e e l e g a n t arts are u n k n o w n here; t h e r i g o u r o f t h e c l i m a t e s u s p e n d s t h e v e r y p o w e r s o f t h e u n d e r s t a n d i n g ; w h a t t h e n m u s t b e c o m e o f t h o s e of t h e i m a g i n a t i o n ? T h o s e w h o e x p e c t to see " A n e w A t h e n s r i s i n g n e a r the p o l e , " will f i n d t h e m s e l v e s e x t r e m e l y d i s a p p o i n t e d . G e n i u s will n e v e r m o u n t high, w h e r e t h e f a c u l t i e s of t h e m i n d are b e n u m b e d half t h e year. 1

Fortunately, Arabella Fermor's prediction proved to be false. The success of a greater number of outstanding Canadian novelists, poets, and playwrights shows that the hardships o f a northern climate could not hinder the development of an internationally acclaimed Canadian literature. It is certainly one of the ironies of literary history that the eighteenth-century novel which contains

1

Frances Brooke, The History of Emily Montague, ed. Laura Moss, Canadian Critical Editions 7 (1769; Ottawa: The Tecumseh Press, 2001) 86, letter 49. Henceforth, this edition will be cited as HEM. All page and letter numbers given in parentheses refer to this edition. In her letter, Arabella Fermor adapts a quotation from Alexander Pope's poem "Two Chorus's to the Tragedy of Brutus" (1717). The first chorus, the "Chorus of the Athenians", describes the muses' flight from ancient Greece to Britain. The beginning of the third stanza reads as follows: "When Athens sinks by fates unjust,/When wild Barbarians spurn her dust;/Perhaps ev'n Britain's utmost shore/Shall cease to blush with stranger's gore,/See arts her savage sons controul/And Athens rising near the pole!" (Alexander Pope, "Two Chorus's to the Tragedy of Brutus", 1717, in Alexander Pope, The Poems of Alexander Pope, ed. John Butt (London: Methuen, 1963) 296-297,296, lines 17-22).

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such a bleak outlook on the propects of Canadian letters should retrospectively be classified as "the first Canadian novel, and indeed the first American one." 2 Almost 250 years after its first publication in April 1769, The History of Emily Montague holds a very prominent place in the history of Canadian literature. It has become common practice to begin survey articles on Canadian prose fiction with an analysis of Brooke's novel. 3 Similarly, in anthologies of Canadian literature, longer excerpts from the novel can often be found among the very first selections. 4 Recently, the importance of The History of Emily Montague for the development of Canadian literature was newly acknowledged, when in 2001 the epistolary novel was republished in the prestigious Canadian Critical Editions series. 5 Today, there is a more or less general consensus among literary critics that Brooke's eighteenth-century novel is to be regarded as the first Canadian novel. 6 However, its frequent classification as an early example of Canadian literature at times obscures the fact that The History of Emily Montague provides its readers with a European perspective on Canada.

2

3

4

5

6

Carl F. Klinck, "The History of Emily Montague: An Early Novel", in Frances Brooke. The History of Emily Montague, New Canadian Library 27 (1769; Toronto, Montreal: McClelland and Stewart, 1961) v-xiv, v. Cf. Marta Dvorak, "Fiction", in Eva-Marie Kröller (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature, Cambridge Companions to Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) 155-176, 155-156; Mary Jane Edwards, "Novels in English: Beginnings to 1900", in Eugene Benson and William Toye (eds), The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature, second edition (Toronto, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997) 812815,812. For a recent example cf. Donna Bennett and Russell Brown (eds.), A New Anthology of Canadian Literature in English (Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 2002) 10-27. The selections in this anthology are arranged in chronological order. Excerpts from The History of Emily Montague are preceded only by David Thompson's transcriptions of the oral accounts of the eighteenth-century Peigan chief Saukamapee. By selecting Brooke's novel for inclusion in their Canadian Critical Editions, the series' general editors, John Moss and Gerald Lynch, place The History of Emily Montague alongside such canonical works as John Richardson's historical novel Wacousta: or, The Prophecy: A Tale of the Canadas (1832), Susanna Moodie's Roughing It in the Bush; or, Life in Canada (1852), Sara Jeannette Duncan's The Imperialist (1904), and Stephen Leacock's short story cycle Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912). Cf. Charles S. Blue, "Canada's First Novelist", The Canadian Magazine 58 (Nov. 1921): 312; W. H. New, A History of Canadian Literature, Macmillan History of Literature (London: Macmillan, 1989) 58; Robin Howells, "Dialogism in Canada's First Novel: The History of Emily Montague", Canadian Review of Comparative Literature/Revue Canadienne de Litterature Comparee 20.3-4 (Sept.-Dec. 1993): 437-450. Desmond Pacey, however, strikes a more cautious note: "The right of Frances Brooke's History of Emily Montague to be regarded as the first Canadian novel might be disputed - not, I believe, on the point of its temporal primacy, but of its Canadianism. [...] At any rate, not to quibble further about definitions, we are on safe ground in affirming that this was the first novel in English to be devoted predominantly to the portrayal of Canadian life." (Desmond Pacey, "The First Canadian Novel", The Dalhousie Review 26(1946-1947): 143-150, 143).

The Canadian Experience in Emily Montague

19

First printed in four volumes for J. Dodsley in Pall Mall, London, Frances Brooke's highly successful work of fiction was upon publication directed to a British readership. 7 Its prospective audience links the novel to a greater number of texts commonly associated with the beginnings of Canadian literature. Written specifically for England's literary market, these narratives of distant Canada catered to the expectations of a European public. Exploration narratives such as Samuel Hearne's A Journey from Prince of Wales's Fort in Hudson s Bay, to the Northern Ocean, Undertaken by Order of the Hudson's Bay Company, for the Discovery of Copper Mines, a North West Passage, &c. in the Years 1769, 1770, 1771, & 1772 (1795) and John Franklin's and Dr. John Richardson's Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea in the Years 1819, 20, 21 and 22 (1823) as well as travel writings such as Anna Brownell Jameson's Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada (1838)8 and the pioneer memoirs of Catharine Parr Traill9 and her younger sister, Susanna Moodie, were primarily aimed at a European readership. Although vastly different with regard to form and content, all of these predominantly non-fictional narratives attempt to familiarize their European audiences with the New World. In their literary responses to Canada, writers of fiction pursued a similar aim. The desire to make Canada visible to a British literary public not only informs The History of Emily Montague but also underlies John Richardson's Wacousta; or, The Prophecy: A Tale of the Canadas (1832). 10 In the opening paragraphs of the introductory chapter, the narrator directly addresses the European reader of Richardson's frontier romance: A s w e are about to introduce our readers to s c e n e s with which the European is little familiarised, s o m e f e w cursory remarks, illustrative o f the general features o f the country into w h i c h w e have shifted our labours, may not be d e e m e d misplaced at the o p e n i n g o f this volume. Without entering into minute geographical detail, it may be necessary merely to point out the outline o f such portions o f the vast continent o f A m e r i c a as still ack n o w l e d g e allegiance to the English crown, in order that the reader, understanding

7

For a survey of the reception upon publication of The History of Emily Montague cf. Lorraine McMullen, An Odd Attempt in a Woman: The Literary Life of Frances Brooke (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1983) 112-116. 8 On Jameson's travel narrative, cf. Heinz Antor's article in this volume. 9 On Catharine Parr Traill's writings, cf. Klaus Stierstorfer's essay in this volume. 10 Just like The History of Emily Montague, Wacousta saw its first publication not in Canada but in London. John Richardson has repeatedly been dubbed as Canada's "first native-bom poetnovelist." (Michael Hurtley, '"Border Blur' and 'Break Boundaries': The Shifting Worlds of Wacousta", in John Richardson, Wacousta: or. The Prophecy: A Tale of the Canadas, ed. John Moss, Canadian Critical Editions 4 (1832; Ottawa: The Tecumseh Press, 1998) 542-551, 542).

20

Gordon Bölling the localities, may enter with deeper interest into the incidents of a tale connected with a ground hitherto untouched by the wand of the modern novelist.''

Canada's remoteness from the imperial center and the English reader's unfamilarity with the colony necessitate the inclusion of a brief sketch which outlines some of the details of the Canadian setting of Wacousta. More than half a century before Richardson, Frances Brooke adopted a similar strategy. In their letters home, Brooke's characters delineate their experiences of Canada to those they left behind in England. Describing post-conquest Quebec in detail, Colonel Ed. Rivers, for example, answers his sister's wish for information about the newly acquired British colony: "But to return; you really, Lucy, ask me such a million of questions, 'tis impossible to know which to answer first; the country, the convents, the balls, the ladies, the beaux - 'tis a history, not a letter, you demand, and it will take me a twelve-month to satisfy your curiosity" (HEM 3, letter 2). Similarly, in his letters to the anonymous Earl of , William Fermor responds to the earl's desire to learn more about distant Canada: Your Lordship does me great honor in supposing me capable of giving any satisfactory account of a country in which I have spent only a few months. As a proof, however, of my zeal, and the very strong desire I have to merit the esteem you honor me with, I shall communicate from time to time the little I have observed, and may observe, as well as what I hear from good authority, with that lively pleasure with which I have ever obeyed every command of your Lordship's. (HEM 118, letter 72)

Communicating their experiences of Canada in their letters, Colonel Ed. Rivers, William Fermor, and others actively shape the expectations of their relatives and friends back in England. This form of'writing home', of course, mirrors Frances Brooke's own artistic project. In her imaginative response to what had until very recently been New France, Brooke draws heavily upon her personal experiences in Canada. The History of Emily Montague, which according to her biographer Lorraine McMullen was written in Canada, 12 is Brooke's attempt to introduce an English readership to the new colony of Quebec. Frances Brooke's first-hand experience of Canada results from her fiveyear-long stay in post-conquest Quebec. Accompanied by her only son, John Moore, and her sister Sarah, she followed her husband to the New World in 1763, the year in which the Treaty of Paris formally ceded Canada to Britain. Her husband, the Reverend Dr. John Brooke, had served as garrison chaplain to the British army first at Louisbourg and since 1760 at Quebec. Residing in

11 John Richardson, Wacousta; or, The Prophecy: A Tale of the Canadas, ed. John Moss, Canadian Critical Editions 4 (1832; Ottawa: The Tecumseh Press, 1998) 1. 12 Lorraine McMullen, "Afterword", in Frances Brooke, The History of Emily Montague. New Canadian Library (1769; Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1995) 405-413,406.

The Canadian Experience in Emily

Montague

21

Quebec City and in neighboring Silleri, the Brookes moved among the highranking members of the new British administration. Late in 1768, the family finally returned to England and the following year saw the publication of Brooke's second novel, The History of Emily Montague. By the time she had arrived in Canada, Frances Brooke already was a distinguished woman of letters. In London, she moved in the literary circles of such eminent writers as Dr. Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, and Samuel Richardson. She edited thirty-seven issues of her own weekly periodical, The Old Maid (1755-1756), wrote verse as well as drama, worked as a literary translator, and finally published her first epistolary novel, The History of Lady Julia Mandeville, in 1763. After her return from Canada, Brooke resumed her literary career, writing two more novels, a tragedy, and two comic operas, which were successfully produced at London's Covent Garden. 13 Although labeled as the first Canadian novel, The History of Emily Montague has to be placed within the larger context of eighteenth-century English fiction. Published in the same decade as Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) and Laurence Sterne's A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy (1768), Brooke's second novel is, essentially, a novel of sensibility. Foregrounding the importance of subtle feelings, The History of Emily Montague dramatizes the romantic relationships of three pairs of lovers. At the center of the novel are the changing fortunes of the titular heroine, Emily Montague, and her lover Colonel Ed. Rivers. In 1766, three years after the Treaty of Paris, the latter travels from England to the colony of Quebec. Shortly after his arrival in the New World, Rivers falls in love with Emily Montague, who is about to be married to Sir George Clayton, a young and handsome baronet. Although Emily Montague regards Sir Clayton with affection, she does not truly love him. After a prolonged and difficult courtship in Canada, the young lovers return to their native England where they first overcome financial obstacles and eventually marry. The love story between Emily Montague and Ed. Rivers is intertwined with the more rapidly developing relationships between Captain Fitzgerald and Arabella Fermor and between John Temple and Lucy Rivers, Colonel Rivers' sister. In The History of Emily Montague, the vivid description of the three love plots is supplemented with extensive, and at times very didactic, reflections on the nature of love and friendship. Frances Brooke's European background is also evident in her use of the form of the epistolary novel. Popularized in eighteenth-century England by Samuel Richardson's Pamela; or Virtue Rewarded (1740), the epistolary

13 For more detailed accounts of Frances Brooke's life and her literary career in eighteenthcentury England cf. Lorraine McMullen, Frances Brooke and Her Works (Downsview: ECW Press, 1983); Lorraine McMullen, An Odd Attempt in a Woman: The Literary Life of Frances Brooke', Laura Moss, "A Literary Biography of Frances Brooke", in HEM, 355-364.

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form is adapted by Brooke for her narrative of the New World. The History of Emily Montague comprises a total of 228 letters which allows Brooke to stage a lively dialogue between her principal characters. In her representation of the Canadian landscape, Frances Brooke is also heavily indebted to European aesthetic theories. She frequently employs the concept of the sublime, which Edmund Burke developed in his highly influential A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757), published a mere twelve years before The History of Emily Montague. Brooke's English characters are repeatedly overwhelmed by their experience of the Canadian wilderness. The following passage, in which William Fermor describes the St. Lawrence River to the Earl of , is just one example of their disturbing confrontations with the vastness of the Canadian landscape: W e are returned, my Lord, from having seen an object as beautiful and magnificent in itself, as pleasing from the idea it gives o f renewing once more our intercourse with Europe. Before I saw the breaking up o f the vast body o f ice, which forms what is here called the bridge, from Quebec to Point Levi, I imagined there could be nothing in it worth attention [...]. But I found the great river, as the savages with much propriety call it, maintain its dignity in this instance as in all others, and assert its superiority over those petty streams which w e honor with the names o f rivers in England. Sublimity is the characteristic o f this western world; the loftiness of the mountains, the grandeur o f the lakes and rivers, the majesty o f the rocks shaded with a picturesque variety o f beautiful trees and shrubs, and crowned with the noblest o f the offspring of the forest, which form the banks of the latter, are as much beyond the power o f fancy as that of description: a landscape-painter might here expand his imagination, and find ideas which he will seek in vain in our comparatively little world. The object o f which I am speaking has all the American magnificence. (HSM 201. letter 131)

Transferred to the New World, the aesthetic theory of the sublime gives shape to the encounter with the Canadian wilderness. The cult of the sublime provides Brooke's English characters with a familiar conceptual framework in which to situate their reaction to the Canadian landscape. 14 In its application of contemporary aesthetic concepts as well as in its use of popular literary genres and forms, The History of Emily Montague cant be regarded as a typical example of eighteenth-century English writing. What clearly distinguishes Brooke's second novel from other British novels of the

14 For a survey article on descriptions of Canadian landscapes by eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury English authors, cf. F.K. Stanzel, "Innocent Eyes? Canadian Landscape as Seen by Frances Brooke, Susanna Moodie and Others", International Journal of Canadian Studies/ Revue internationale d etudes canadiennes 4 (Fall/Automne 1991): 97-109.

The Canadian Experience in Emily Montague

23

period is its Canadian setting.15 About three quarters of the epistolary romance are set in post-conquest Quebec which permits Brooke to explore in detail the experience of eighteenth-century colonial Canada. Written in the 1760s and set between April 1766 and November 1767, The History of Emily Montague captures Canada in what turned out to be a brief period of transition. The decisive British victory in the Battle on the Plains of Abraham in 1759 and the fall of New France in the following years still were very recent memories among the inhabitants of Quebec. In 1763, the Treaty of Paris brought to an end not only the Seven Years' War, but it also concluded French imperial power on North America's mainland. However, a new and serious threat to Britain's colonial aspirations was only a few years away. The continually growing unrest in the Thirteen Colonies led to the Boston Massacre in March 1770 and five years later, in April 1775, with the violent conflicts between Americans and British forces at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, the American Revolution began. Frances Brooke's epistolary novel thus portrays Canada at the height of British imperial power in North America. Discussing The History of Emily Montague, one has to bear in mind that the novel's author did not regard herself as a forerunner of Canadian literature. In fact, the novel nowadays so frequently referred to as the first Canadian novel has had very little discernible influence on Canadian writers. Furthermore, Frances Brooke's stay in post-conquest Quebec has never engaged the Canadian literary imagination to a great extent. Examining early European responses to the experience of Canada, contemporary Canadian writers have instead turned to exploration narratives, and, in particular, to the enigmatic figures of Catharine Parr Traill and Susanna Moodie. In its intertextual references to the journals kept by John Franklin and Dr. John Richardson, Rudy Wiebe's historical novel A Discovery of Strangers (1994) about the first Franklin expedition is a recent example of this literary reworking of early Canadian texts. The archetypal figures of the Strickland sisters have reappeared in the prose and poetry of such eminent writers as Margaret Laurence, Carol Shields, and Margaret Atwood. In The Diviners (1974), Laurence's protagonist, Morag Gunn, repeatedly engages in an imaginary conversation with Catharine Parr Traill. In contrast, Shields' debut novel, Small Ceremonies (1976), describes the main character's attempt to write a biography of Susanna

15 Pam Perkins similarly maintains that "the Canadian setting differentiates Brooke's novel from innumerable other stories of deserving young ladies falling demurely and suitably in love and makes it difficult to read the book as a straightforward sentimental tale [...]. It is, in other words, precisely the non-sentimental content which makes Brooke's sentimental novel a success." (Pam Perkins, "Frances Brooke, Emily Montague, and Other Travellers: Representing Eighteenth-Century North America", in HEM, 422-423). Desmond Pacey writes that "[f]rom its portrayal of Canadian life the book derives most of its interest and value." (Desmond Pacey, "The First Canadian Novel", 143).

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Moodie. A fictionalized Moodie is also at the center of Atwood's collection of verse The Journals of Susanna Moodie (1970) and her works are cited several times in Atwood's later novel Alias Grace (1996). 16 Although only of limited direct influence on the development of Canadian literature, Frances Brooke's novel of sensibility nevertheless remains of interest and value for our understanding of Canada's literary history. It is illuminating to observe that The History of Emily Montague anticipates a number of the key issues which since the eighteenth century have become central preoccupations of Canadian literature. However, in its realization of these thematic patterns, Brooke's novel often differs dramatically from more recent treatments.17 The History of Emily Montague is not only directed at a British literary public, but it also adopts a thoroughly English perspective in its portrayal of post-conquest Quebec. In fact, Frances Brooke dedicates her "imperial narrative" 18 to Guy Carleton, who in 1759 had fought in the Battle on the Plains of Abraham and who since 1766 served as acting governor of Quebec. In Colonel Ed. Rivers' first letter from Canada, this dedication is then followed by a tribute to the late General James Wolfe. Recollecting a recent visit to the Plains of Abraham, Ed. Rivers expresses his admiration for the British national hero in words which seem to anticipate Benjamin West's patriotic painting The Death of General Wolfe (1770): W h e r e shall I b e g i n ? c e r t a i n l y w i t h w h a t m u s t first s t r i k e a s o l d i e r : I h a v e seen t h e n t h e s p o t w h e r e t h e a m i a b l e h e r o e x p i r ' d in t h e a r m s o f victory; h a v e t r a c e d h i m s t e p b y s t e p w i t h e q u a l a s t o n i s h m e n t a n d a d m i r a t i o n ; 'tis h e r e a l o n e it is p o s sible t o f o r m an a d e q u a t e i d e a o f an e n t e r p r i z e , t h e d i f f i c u l t i e s o f w h i c h m u s t h a v e d e s t r o y ' d h o p e itself h a d t h e y b e e n f o r e s e e n . (HEM 3, letter 2 )

16 On Canadian literary rereadings of Susanna Moodie and other writers cf. Eva-Marie Kjöller. "Resurrections: Susanna Moodie, Catharine Parr Traill and Emily Carr in Contemporary Canadian Literature", Journal of Popular Culture 15.3 (1981): 39-46; Faye Hammill, "Margaret Atwood, Carol Shields and 'That Moodie Bitch'", The American Review of Canadian Studies 29.1 (Spring 1999): 67-91. 17 In recent years, The History of Emily Montague has not only been read as Canada's first novel, but it has also been interpreted as an example of eighteenth-century feminist literature. Cf. Ann Edwards Boutelle, "Frances Brooke's Emily Montague (1769): Canada and Woman's Rights", Women's Studies 12.1 (1986): 7-16; Lorraine McMullen, "The Divided S e l f ' , Atlantis: A Women 's Studies Journal 5.2 (Spring 1980): 52-67, 53-58; Katharine Μ. Rogers, "Sensibility and Feminism: The Novels of Frances Brooke", Genre 11 (Summer 1978): 159-171. 161-165. 18 Cecily Devereux, "'One Firm Body': 'Britishness and Otherness' in The History of Emily Montague", in HEM, 459-476, 460. Similarly, Heinz Antor classifies The History of Emily Montague as a "colonialist novel." (Heinz Antor, "The International Contexts of Frances Brooke's The History of Emily Montague (1769)", in Heinz Antor and Klaus Stierstorfer (eds.), English Literatures in International Contexts, Anglistische Forschungen 283 (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter, 2000) 245-277,276).

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25

Ed. Rivers' deep mourning over Wolfe's death is expressive of his English point of view. He strongly identifies with Britain's imperial projects in North America and regards the process of colonization as beneficial to both England and Canada, mother country and newly won colony. In a letter written while he is still in Europe, Ed. Rivers outlines the reasons for his departure for the New World to his friend John Temple. Insisting on his love of England, the twentyseven-year-old Rivers goes on to characterize his mission in Canada as a quest for a new Eden: What you call sacrifice, is none at all; I love England, but am not obstinately chain'd down to any spot of earth; nature has charms every where [SJC] for a man willing to be pleased: at my time of life, the very change o f place is amusing; love of variety, and the natural restlessness of man, would give me a relish for this voyage, even if I did not expect, what I really do, to become lord of a principality which will put our large-acred men in England out of countenance. My subjects indeed at present will be only bears and elks, but in time I hope to see the human face divine multiplying around me; and, in thus cultivating what is in the rudest state of nature, I shall taste one of the greatest of all pleasures, that of creation, and see order and beauty gradually rise from chaos. (HEM 1, letter 1)

To those who seize the opportunity for a new beginning Canada holds the promise of economic rewards. In an account of his journey from Montreal to Quebec, Ed. Rivers maintains that this "colony is a rich mine yet unopen'd; I do not mean of gold and silver, but what are of much more real value, corn and cattle. Nothing is wanting but encouragement and cultivation; [...] nature is here a bounteous mother, who pours forth her gifts almost unsolicited [...]. I rejoice to find such admirable capabilities where I propose to fix my dominion" (HEM 20, letter 8). Ed. Rivers defines Canada as a wealthy country yet to be exploited and turned into profit by Europeans. As an ardent colonizer he wants to have his share of Britain's new acquisition. In fact, the main reason for his sojourn in Canada is his difficult financial situation in his native England. Discharged from active service and put on half-pay, he is unable to provide his elderly mother and his sister, Lucy Rivers, with the luxurious life he envisions for them. As he explains to John Temple: "I cannot live in England on my present income, though it enables me to live en prince in Canada" (HEM 71, letter 36). Therefore, in April 1766, he decides to leave for Quebec. Chosen solely for the economic opportunities it offers, Canada remains for Ed. Rivers essentially a place of exile (HEM 14, letter 38). In fact, for the principal characters in Brooke's eighteenth-century novel their stay in Canada is only of a limited duration. They never perceive Canada as their home, and in the end, just like Frances Brooke herself, they all return to England where they establish their permanent residence. 19 In contrast to Brooke, contemporary Canadian

19 Hallvard Dahlie observes critically that the "infusion of the exile theme into the conventional epistolary novel allowed Brooke an opportunity to investigate more thoroughly the conflicts

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Gordon Bölling

writers place the experience of immigration at the core of the Canadian identity. Al Purdy's 1994 poem "Grosse Isle" is just one recent example. In this poem, the speaker urges the stranger he repeatedly addresses to abandon his position as a stranger and to refer to Canada as his new homeland. Ironically enough, the setting of Purdy's poem is Grosse Isle near Quebec City, the main setting of Brooke's novel. The last stanza of "Grosse Isle" reads as follows: Look stranger see your own face reflected in the river stumble up from the stinking hold blinded by sunlight and into the leaky dinghy only half-hearing the sailors taunting you "Shanty Irish! Shanty Irish!" gulp the freshening wind and pinch yourself trying to understand if the world is a real place stumble again and fall when you reach the shore and bless this poisoned earth but stranger no longer for this is home 2 0

Purdy foregrounds feelings of alienation that are invariably associated with the process of migration. Brooke, in contrast, spares her principal characters this disturbing experience. As members of the higher classes of British society they regard their sojourn in post-conquest Quebec as an exciting, albeit only temporary, diversion from their lives in their native England. Brooke's eighteenth-century novel also provides readers with the first literary treatment of Canada's divided condition. The History of Emily Montague examines what Hugh MacLennan in the 1940s defined as Canada's 'two solitudes', the gulf that separates the French and English cultures. The otherness of the French in Canada is already foregrounded by the use of the term 'Canadian', which in The History of Emily Montague refers exclusively to the recently defeated French Canadians. In their letters, the newly arrived English colonizers never perceive themselves as Canadians but rather insist on their British national identity. In their attempts to secure post-conquest Quebec, they construct British and French Canadian identites as opposites. Brooke's epistolary novel is thus informed by a very condescending attitude towards French Canadians and their culture. Writing to Lucy Rivers, Arabella Fermor maintains that Quebec "is like a third of fourth rate country town in England" {HEM 81, letter 45). Her father, William Fermor, goes one step further and

experienced by her characters, but on the whole she failed to exploit this possibility beyond the superficial." (Hallvard Dahlie, Varieties of Exile: The Canadian Experience (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1986) 30). 20 AI Purdy, "Grosse Isle", 1994, in Al Purdy, Beyond Remembering: The Collected Poems of Al Purdy. ed. Al Purdy and Sam Solecki (Madeira Park, BC: Harbour Publishing: 2000) 478480, 479-480.

The Canadian Experience in Emily Montague

27

describes French Canadians in a derogatory manner. In one o f his letters to the unnamed Earl o f , he uses adjectives such as "lazy and inactive" as well as "ignorant and stupid" ( H E M 119, letter 72) to define the French in Canada. According to Fermor, however, the successful colonization of post-conquest Quebec will gradually induce French Canadians to improve. Delineating the disadvantages o f the Roman Catholic faith, he goes on to outline the benfits o f British rule: It is to this circumstance one may in great measure attribute the superior increase of the British American settlements compared to those of France: a religion which encourages idleness, and makes a virtue of celibacy, is particularly unfavorable to colonization. However religious prejudice may have been suffered to counterwork policy under a French government, it is scarce to be doubted that this cause of the poverty of Canada will by degrees be removed; that these people, slaves at present to ignorance and superstition, will in time be enlightened by a more liberal education, and gently led by reason to a religion which is not only preferable, as being that of the country to which they are now annexed, but which is so much more calculated to make them happy and prosperous as a people. (HEM 178, letter 117) Given the backwardness of French Canadian culture and religion, the British colonization o f Quibec, William Fermor suggests, will prove to be a blessing. In its treatment o f Anglo-French relations The History of Emily Montague challenges Canada's double identity and instead speaks out for the Anglicization o f the newly won colony. Brooke further explores North American life in her portrayal o f Aboriginal cultures. In their letters to their English friends and relatives, the various correspondents describe, for example, the language, the marriage customs, the political system, and the religious beliefs of Canada's indigenous peoples. However, in their at times surprisingly detailed reports, they frequently fall back on conventional stereotypes o f Indians. As European colonizers they repeatedly refer to Native Canadians as "savages" {HEM 46, letter 20). At least some o f the principal characters make use o f the Eurocentric concept o f the noble savage to frame their few encounters with Canada's indigenous population. In one o f his first letters, Ed. Rivers outlines his experience with the Hurons as follows: But to my savages: other nations talk of liberty, they possess it; nothing can be more astonishing than to see a little village of about thirty or forty families, the small remians of the Hurons, almost exterminated by long and continual war with the Iroquoise, preserve their independence in the midst of an European colony consisting of seventy thousand inhabitants; yet the fact is true of the savages of Lorette; they assert and they maintain that independence with a spirit truly noble. One of our company having said something which an Indian understood as a supposition that they had been subjects of France, his eyes struck fire, he stop'd him abruptly, contrary to their respectful and sensible custom of never interrupting the person who speaks, "You mistake, brother," said he; "we are subjects to no prince:

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Gordon Bölling a savage is free all over the world." And he spoke only truth; they are not only free as a people, but every individual is perfectly so. Lord of himself, at once subject and master, a savage knows no superior, a circumstance which has a striking effect on his behaviour; unawed by rank or riches, distinctions unknown amongst his own nation, he would enter as unconcerned, would possess all his powers as freely in the palace of an oriental monarch, as in the cottage of the meanest peasant; 'tis the species, 'tis man, 'tis his equal he respects, without regarding the gaudy trappings, the accidental advantages, to which polished nations pay homage. (HEM 2526, letter 11)

In Brooke's imperialist novel, the independence of Native Canadians soon finds its limits where it collides with the vested interests of the recently arrived English colonizers. In fact, the superiority of British culture over Aboriginal as well as French Canadian cultures is never seriously challenged in The History of Emily Montague. Whereas contemporary Canadian novels such as Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion (1987) draw a picture of Canada as a multicultural society, Frances Brooke's eighteenth-century novel espouses the notion of a solidly Anglocentric Canada. Upon publication in the late 1760s, The History of Emily Montague became a literary success not only in England and France; the epistolary novel was also widely read in colonial Canada and even "became required reading for English travellers to Canada." 21 Despite the relative brevity of Frances Brooke's stay in the New World, the novel offers a remarkably detailed portrait of post-conquest Quebec. However, as an English author writing for an English reading public, Brooke presents the experience of eighteenth-century Canada exclusively from an English point of view. She places her imaginative reading of Canada firmly within the larger frameworks of English colonial politics as well as European aesthetic conventions. George Woodcock convincingly argues that "Frances Brooke, in The History of Emily Montague, clearly wrote about Canada but is not of Canada; she is the first of a brilliant series of birds of passage and as such belongs to Canada's literary history rather than to the Canadian literary tradition." 22 Brooke's novel thus not only marks the beginning of Canadian literary history. Rather, The History of Emily Montague is also an important early example of refractions of Canada in European literature.

21 Lorraine McMullen, "Afterword", 412. 22 George Woodcock, "Not the First Canadian Novel", 1983, excerpt rpt. in HEM, 388-389,388.

HEINZ ANTOR

University of Cologne

Anna Brownell Jameson's Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada (1838): A European Woman's View of the New World

1. A European Woman in Upper Canada In December 1836, Anna Brownell Jameson, an Irish-born English writer and art critic, travelled to what was then Upper Canada and joined her husband in Toronto. She was married to Robert Jameson, and although she had been estranged from him and had lived separated from him for some time, 1 he had asked her to join him to further his job prospects. Robert Jameson was a lawyer and a British colonial official, and, after having taken up the post of attorney general of Upper Canada in 1833, he had now become Vice-Chancellor and had thus taken up the highest legal position in the province. It was expected of a man in such a high post that he keep a proper household and live a conventional married life. 2 Thus, his wife, the independent-minded writer who had already published a number of travel books as well as a study of Shakespeare's heroines entitled Characteristics of Women (1837), but was financially dependent on Robert, had little choice but to do as her husband told her and join him in Toronto. This she did without great enthusiasm, but nevertheless, she decided to make the most of her temporary stay in Upper Canada. She was determined to negotiate an advantageous permanent settlement with her husband 3 or a final separation, and she took it into her head to travel as much

1

2 3

Bennett and Brown refer to the couple as "temperamentally unsuited to one another." (Donna Bennett, Russell Brown (eds.), A New Anthology of Canadian Literature in English (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2002), 69). Cf. Clara Thomas, "Heroism, Feminism and Humanism: Anna Jameson to Margaret Laurence", Atlantis: A Women's Studies Journal 4:1 (1978), 19-29, esp. 23-24. Indeed, "[w]hen she sailed for England in 1838, it was with a formal agreement that she live independently and that Robert pay her an allowance of £300 a year." (Adele Μ. Holcomb, "Anna Jameson (1794-1860): Sacred Art and Social Vision", in Claire Richter Sherman and Adele Μ. Holcomb (eds.), Women as Interpreters of the Visual Arts, 1820-1979 (Westpost: Greenwood Press, 1981), 93-121, here 101).

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as possible in the hitherto only partially explored province and turn her experiences into another travel book. This resulted in what Elizabeth Waterson, in The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature, refers to as "deservedly the best-known of all Canadian travel books", 4 Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada, published in London in 1838 by Saunders and Otley, after Anna's return to England. The author never returned to Canada, where she only spent nine months, and thus the text that went down into Canadian literary history as one of its most important early travelogues must also be read as a book written by a European woman and intended for a European audience. This is why the text finds its legitimate place within the wider framework of this conference and within the confines of a project dedicated to "Refractions of Canada in European literatures and cultures". Jameson's text is subdivided into two parts, as its title suggests, and although more than two thirds of her time in Canada were spent in Toronto, her Winter Studies only take up a third of her text, while her trip through Upper Canada from early June to early August 1837 takes up the rest of the book, which is due to her disaffection both with the Canadian winter and with Toronto society, as we shall see. Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada is an interesting text not only because it is full of factual information about contemporary Canada and because it provides us with an insight into an educated woman's inner thoughts and reactions to the strange new world she found herself in. The book also is of interest as a discursive construction of Canada from a European point of view. Jameson's horizon of understanding is one completely dominated by old world concepts and patterns, and her reactions to what she is confronted with provide us with relevant material for a study of the mechanisms of intercultural encounters and of colonial and postcolonial attitudes. In what is to follow, we will first analyze Jameson's general approach to her subject as delineated by herself in her "Preface" and then have a look at her attitude towards the British presence in Canada, her reactions to the Canadian wilderness, her conceptualizations of other nations, i.e. Indians, French, and

4

Elizabeth Waterson, "Travel literature in English", in Eugene Benson, William Toye (eds.). The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature. Second Edition (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1997), 1132-1136, here 1133. Buss states that the book "occupies a marginal but continuing place in Canadian literature" (Helen M. Buss, "Anna Jameson's Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada as Epistolary Dijournal", in Marlene Kadar (ed.), Essays on Life Writing: From Genre to Critical Practice. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), 4260, here 42. Monticelli even refers to Winter Studies and Summer Rambles s "one of the most important nineteenth century travel books" (Rita Monticelli, "The Double and Its Limit: Passages and Translations in the Travel Diary of Anna Jameson in Canada (1838)", in Vita Fortunat!, Rita Monticelli, Maurizio Ascari (eds.), Travel Writing and the Female Imaginary (Bologna: Pätron Editore, 2001), 45-57, here 47).

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Americans, as well as her use of Canada for a discussion of what in her time was generally known as "the woman question".

2. Jameson's Position as Chronicler and Observer Jameson's situation as Chancellor's Lady of Upper Canada - this was her official title as her husband's wife - places her in a delicate position as a writer. On the one hand, she was a woman who was used to having an opinion of her own, having lived an independent life of her own away from her husband ever since the latter had taken up a colonial post in Dominica in 1829. On the other hand, having come to Toronto as the Vice-Chancellor's wife, she had to accept certain rules of decorum in what she could write. As Clara Thomas puts it in her "Afterword" to the New Canadian Library edition of Jameson's book, "She walked a fine line [...] between writing a frank, truthful and saleable account and one which might hurt her husband's reputation - or her own." 5 This makes the motto Jameson chooses for her text a particularly apposite one, as Thomas also points out. Jameson chose a few lines from book three of Sir Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene, which aptly summarize her problem. In one of those lines, we are told, "Be bold, Be bold, and everywhere, Be bold;" but in the last line, we can read "Be not too bold." (14) 6 In her "Preface", Anna Brownell Jameson also performs a tightrope walk between non-interference into public affairs and active criticism of the status quo in colonial Canada. She begins by underplaying the weight of her text by referring to it as "'fragments' of a journal addressed to a friend" (9), thus neither claiming to have come up with anything consistent or comprehensive nor admitting to having any public readership in mind. At the same time, however, she indirectly stresses the relevance and importance of her book through a number of stratagems. She refers to the political turmoil of "this time, when the country [...] is the subject of so much difference of opinion, and of much animosity of feeling" (9) and thus puts her book in the context of the rebellions of 1837 and of William Lyon Mackenzie's attempt at seizing control of the government of Upper Canada. Jameson claims that "[t]hese notes were written in Upper Canada, but [...] they have little reference to the politics or statistics of that unhappy and mismanaged, but most magnificent country" (10), thus contradicting her own statement of political non-interference in the very sen-

5 6

Clara Thomas, "Afterword", in Anna Brownell Jameson, Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada (Toronto: M&S, 1990), 543-549, here 543-544. All quotations from Jameson's text and the relevant page numbers refer to the New Canadian Library edition cited in footnote 5. Johnston also considers the epigraph to be "a challenge" (Judith Johnston, Anna Jameson: Victorian, Feminist, Woman of Letters (Aldershot: Scholar Press, 1997), 113).

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tence in which it is uttered. Furthermore, she refers to Upper Canada as a loyal but dissatisfied colony "suffering from the total absence of all sympathy on the part of the English government with the condition, the wants, the feelings, the capabilities of the people and country" (11). A little later, she writes of "the want of knowledge, the want of judgement, the want of sympathy, on the part of the government" (11) and even expresses the hope that the newly crowned Queen Victoria will be spared the fate of the Empress Maria Theresa, who lost Silesia as part of her Empire. Jameson thus constructs her text as a timely intervention in a period of crisis. This may render her book more attractive to the politically-minded reader, but the criticisms she comes up with in her "Preface" are quite extraordinary in view of the fact that they come from the pen of the province's highest legal official. 7 This may be the reason why Jameson tries to tone down her criticism 8 - quite absurdly, one must say, after all she has written in the previous paragraphs - when she says: "I have abstained generally from politics [...] because such discussions are foreign to my turn of mind and above my capacity. [...] I have only to add, that on no subject do I wish to dictate an opinion, or assume to speak as one having authority; my utmost ambition extends no farther than to suggest matter for inquiry and reflection" (12). Jameson's text quite clearly and in contravention of her opposite claims, 9 is meant to be understood as an active intervention in a highly critical period, and indeed, her husband was not amused at all when he read the book.' 0 Anna Jameson, however, also pursues aims other than political in her "Preface". She is a female writer who is interested in gaining as wide a circulation as possible for her book, and she uses several ploys to achieve this aim. She appeals to all those with a taste for the exotic and for the new by stressing the novelty of her adventurous travels through unknown parts of Canada, "scenes and regions hitherto undescribed by any traveller (for the northern shores of Lake Huron are almost new ground,)" (9) and she prides herself on

7

Cf. Bina Friewald, "'Femininely speaking': Anna Jameson's Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada", in Shirley Neumann, Smaro Kamboreli (eds.), A Mazing Space: Writing Canadian Women Writing (Edmonton: Longspoon, NeWest, 1986), 61-73, esp. 65: "The preface [...] clearly foreshadows much of the revisionary thrust of Winter Studies and Summer Rambles." 8 That this must not be overestimated is stressed by Johnston, who points out that such disclaimers were a common "nineteenth-century practice" (Johnston, Anna Jameson, 105) used by many female writers. 9 Cf. Friewald "Femininely speaking", 69: "While the text [...] clearly bears the traces of a struggle to minimize the voice of transgression - the voice of a self-conscious woman writer speaking in defiance of the hegemonic decree - it soon becomes evident that the subversive sub-text will not be contained." 10 Johnston also surmises that Jameson's book „must have been of considerable embarrassment" to her husband (Anna Jameson, 112).

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her "relations with the Indian tribes, such as few European women of refined and civilised habits have ever risked, and none have ever recorded" (9). In addition to that, she appeals to a female readership by referring to "this little book [the NCL edition comes as a volume of 550 pages, H.A.], [which] is more particularly addressed to my own sex" (10). At the same time, Jameson places her work both within the tradition of documentary writing and within that of sentimentalism. Among the qualities she attributes to her book, we find "its air of reality", "its essential truth" and its "grace of ease and pictorial animation" just as well as its "tone of personal feeling" and a "thread of sentiment" (10). Jameson's strategy seems to have worked, because, apart from a few minor criticisms, Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada, was generally well reviewed and well received by a wide readership, and the book contributed considerably to Jameson's fame as a female writer in early 19 th -century Britain.

3. Winter Studies in Toronto The beginning of Jameson's Winter Studies is not a very auspicious one. What she is confronted with at her arrival in Toronto on December 20, 1836 does not even live up to her very meagre expectations, as she tells us on the very first page: What Toronto may be in summer, I cannot tell; they say it is a pretty place. At present its appearance to me, a stranger, is most strangely mean and melancholy. A little ill-built town on low land, at the bottom of a frozen bay, with one very ugly church, without tower or steeple; some government offices, built of staring red brick, in the most tasteless, vulgar style imaginable; three feet of snow all around; and the grey, sullen, wintry lake, and the dark gloom of the pine forest bounding the prospect; such seems Toronto to me now. I did not expect much; but for this I was not prepared. (15-6)

The newly arrived Englishwoman here casts the capital of Upper Canada in the mould of the negatively other, the aesthetically, atmospherically and climatically displeasing. Neither nature nor culture can win her over during her first few days. Promptly, Anna suffers an immediate bout of homesickness, which gives rise to sentimental lamentations (16-7), and she uses writing down her impressions as an antidote to the deep melancholy she feels preyed upon by. Despite the depression she suffers from in wintry Toronto, though, she never loses sight of her reader, and she stresses the truthfulness of what she will have to say: This is all very dismal, very weak, perhaps; but I know no better way of coming at the truth, than by observing and recording faithfully the impressions made by objects and characters on my own mind - or, rather, the impress they receive from my own mind - until they emerge into light, to be corrected, or at least modified,

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b y o b s e r v a t i o n a n d c o m p a r i s o n . N e i t h e r d o I k n o w a n y better w a y t h a n t h i s o f c o n v e y i n g t o t h e m i n d o f another, t h e truth, and n o t h i n g but t h e truth, i f n o t t h e w h o l e truth. S o I shall w r i t e o n . [ . . . ] W h a t h a v e I d o n e w i t h m y s p e c t a c l e s c o u l e u r de rose? (16)

As readers here, we are supposed to take Jameson's words as accurate and possibly even normative representations of what Upper Canada is really like. Having thus manoeuvered herself into a position of authority," she has prepared the ground for her narrative. Jameson begins with an account of her trip from New York to Toronto, which, although forewarned by her American friends, she undertook in the midst of winter. Accordingly, the difficulties she had to overcome are described as enormous and surpassing anything she was used to from her numerous travels through Europe (18). Anna here as elsewhere in her book casts herself in the role of the romantic heroine who has to prevail against all odds and who has to overcome the most terrible of obstacles imaginable so that at times there is an element of the adventure narrative in her text. Constantly, she makes use of European conceptual frameworks to make sense of and communicate her experiences. For example, her progress through a terrible night of sleet and rain is referred to as one "through what seemed to me 'sloughs of despond,'" (19) with Anna obviously in the role of Bunyan's Christian on his way to the Celestial city - only Toronto will turn out to be anything but celestial upon her arrival. The comparison is also representative of the European moral and theological prism through which many of Anna's experiences will be reported throughout the rest of the book. Jameson's endebtedness to European concepts also determines her perception of Niagara Falls, the sound of which she can hear when crossing the Niagara river: Anna places her narrative here within the discourse of the sublime 12 and connects it once again with a theological reference, which turns her adventures into trials sent by the Lord to the rightful to test her strength and endurance. However, her arrival just before Christmas 1836 in Toronto, "the town mean in appearance, [...] an unknown wilderness" (20), is an anti-climax at the end of her heroic travels up from New York. The descriptions of Toronto that follow are full of complaints about the cold: "[. ..] none of my fur defences prevailed against the frost an the current of icy air" (21), she states, and on New Year's day 1837, she reports that "the

11

12

Cf. Buss, "Epistolary Dijournal", 43: "She [i.e. Jameson, H.A.] acknowledges that new experience is conditioned by predispositions, biases, and cultural assumptions brought to the experience. At the same time, Jameson attempts to establish her 'discursive authority' on autobiographical grounds through the repetition of the phrase 'my own mind.'" York sees this strategy o f Jameson's as one resulting from the "conflict between her Romantic idealism and the recalcitrant landscape" and as an expression o f "Jameson's debt to the picturesque tradition in European art" (Lorraine M. York, "'Sublime Desolation': European Art and Jameson's Perception o f Canada", Mosaic 19:2 (1986), 43-56, here 43-44).

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thermometer stood at eighteen below zero, and Dr. R told me that some chemical compounds in his laboratory had frozen in the night, and burst the phials in which they were contained" (23). Her complaints about the harsh winter conditions culminate in her observation that "the ink freezes while I write" (29), and this leads to a crisis after only three weeks in Toronto: I lose all heart to write home, or to register a reflection or a feeling; - thought stagnates in my head as the ink in my pen - and this will never do! - I must rouse myself to occupation; and if I cannot find it without, I must create it from within. There are yet four months of winter and leisure to be disposed of. How? - I know not; but they must be employed, not wholly lost. (29)

Jameson feels bored and locked up by the Canadian winter, cognitively and sentimentally bogged down, 13 and there is a Puritan utilitarianism in her decision to pull herself together and turn her time in Toronto to good use. She turns to her books, many of which are in German, and in her winter miseries, she produces little vignettes on a variety of mostly German writers and literary texts. This is due to her own previous experiences of Germany, which she had published in 1834 as Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad. She also produces little essays on Shakespeare, Dr. Johnson, Coleridge, Southey, on various European actresses and the value of their art and on other subjects of European cultural life. In March 1837, finally, she turns against what she calls her "desultory reading" (103) and determines to "look round for something to try my strength" (103). This turns out to be a translation into English of Johann Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe,14 and large parts of her remaining Winter Studies are taken up by such translating and by her comments on the Weimar classics. 15 These preoccupations are a symptom of Anna Jameson's Eurocentric retreat from a new and to her strange environment, the natural and colonial alterity of which she finds it difficult to digest. When her reflections on European culture are interrupted by descriptions of Upper Canada, the tenor of these early reports about the country she finds herself in is mostly a negative one. Toronto does not fare much better two months after her arrival than when she first saw it. On February 17, 1837, she notes: "There is no society in Toronto," is what I hear repeated all around me - even by those who compose the only society we have. [ . . . ] I really do not know what I ex-

13 Cf. Friewald, "'Femininely speaking'", 66: "Jameson's first winter entries are records of profound aienation and despair." 14 Jameson was personally acquainted with the Goethe family. While in Canada, "she deeply regretted having left behind the culture and civilization of Europe" (Bennett, Brown, New Anthology, 70). 15 Buss also comments on "a seemingly unrelated discussion of Schiller's Don Carlos" and tries to explain this as "Jameson's habit of reading the changes in herself through the new readings she makes of literature." (Buss, "Epistolary Dijournal", 50).

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pected, but I will tell y o u what I did not expect. I did not expect to find here in this new capital o f a new country, with the boundless forest within half a mile o f us on almost every side - concentrated as it were the worst evils of our old and most artificial social system at home, with none o f its agremens [51c], and none o f its advantages. Toronto is like a fourth or fifth rate provincial town, with the pretensions of a capital city. ( 6 5 )

The capital of Upper Canada here is viewed as a smaller and inferior version of the old world, and it is chided for not living up in its social organisation to its own youth and novelty. Jameson uses this attitude as a point of departure for some very political criticisms of the colonial administration of the province - despite her pose of political non-commitment in the "Preface". A couple of months only before Mackenzie's rebellion, she complains about "a petty colonial oligarchy, a self-constituted aristocracy, based upon nothing real, nor even upon anything imaginary" (65). These are strong words from the pen of the Chancellor's Lady, and Anna's husband may well have wondered when he read these words why he had ever asked her to join him in Canada. Jameson is not very well disposed even towards friendly gestures made to her by the Torontonians. When she receives a number of new year visits in early January 1837, she can only come up with some rather wry comments, which again show her Eurocentrism and her supercilious attitude towards Upper Canada as an uncouth and lesser version of the old world: They have here at Toronto the custom which prevails in France, Germany, the United States (more or less everywhere, I believe, but in England,) of paying visits of congratulation on the first day o f the year. This custom, which does not apparently harmonise with the manners o f the people, has been borrowed from the French inhabitants o f lower Canada. ( 2 4 )

Interestingly, even the United States and the francophone Lower Canada range with European nations here and seem to be more refined than the province Jameson has to spend her winter in. Upper Canada simply stands no chance in the hypercritical eyes of Anna during the first cold months of her stay. When she comments on a debate in the province's House of Assembly on the subject of the so-called Clergy Reserves, she not only makes fun of the MLAs' spelling (31), but she also states that "the strange, crude, ignorant, vague opinions I heard in conversation, and read in the debates and the provincial papers, excited my astonishment" (32). Commenting on the assembly's deliberations on the subject of education, Anna once again displays her Eurocentrism in her comments: [ . . . ] they all appeared to me astray; nothing that had been promulgated in Europe on this momentous subject had yet reached them; [ . . . ] Truth is sure to prevail at last; but Truth seems to find so much difficulty in crossing the Atlantic, that one would think she was "like the poor cat i' the adage," afraid o f wetting her feet. ( 3 2 )

Europe here is invested with an incontrovertible claim to epistemic authority, and it does not even occur to Anna that truth could originate elsewhere. Her

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European conceptual framework makes her partially unfit for the reality of Canada. This comes out in her first encounter with indigenous Canadians. Having expressed "a wish to see some of the aborigines of the country" (26), she receives a visit one morning from three Indians sent to her by the principal Indian agent. Her expectations of being confronted with specimens of the bon sauvage are not matched by the appearance of the melancholy little group suffering from cold and hunger. Jameson is rather sobered by what she sees, and for the first time she becomes at least partially aware of the inadequacy of her European preconceptions: The sort o f desperate resignation in their swarthy countenances, their squalid, dingy habiliments, and their forlorn story, filled me with pity, and, I may add, disappointment; and all my previous impressions of the independent children of the forest are for the present disturbed. (28)

Two weeks after these remarks, however, in late January 1837, Jameson has relapsed again into her old world views, and her European imagination and its late romantic exaggerations almost spoil her first visit to Niagara Falls, which, as we know from her earlier crossing of the Niagara river, to her signify the apotheosis of the grandiose and the sublime. Her overheated imagination makes her expect a natural spectacle towering over her, but when she arrives at her destination and realizes that her first view of the Falls is from above, that "the two great cataracts [are] merely [...] a feature in the wider landscape" (59), her conceptual framework receives a serious shock, and the whole experience turns into an enormous anti-climax. On January 19, 1837, she writes: Well! I have seen these Cataracts of Niagara, which have thundered in my mind's ear ever since I can remember - which have been my "childhood's thought, my youth's desire," since first my imagination was awakened to wonder and to wish. I have beheld them, and shall I whisper it to you? - but, Ο tell it not among the Philistines! - I wish I had not! I wish they were still a thing unbeheld - a thing to be imagined, hoped, and anticipated - something to live for: - the reality has displaced from my mind an illusion far more magnificent than itself - I have no words for my utter disappointment [ . . . ] I am no longer Anna - I am metamorphosed - I am translated - I am an ass's head, a clod, a wooden spoon, a fat weed growing on Lethe's bank, a stock, a stone, a petrification, - for have I not seen Niagara, the wonder of wonders; and felt - no words can tell what disappointment! (57)

Jameson's saving grace is her ability to step beside herself and to analyze her own reaction. Already in January 1837, she supposes that "it must be my fault" (57), 16 and the months that follow will confirm her in this attitude. She con-

16 Cf. Thomas M.F. Gerry, "Ί am Translated': Anna Jameson's Sketches and Winter Studiesand Summer Rambles in Canada", Revue d etudes canadiennes 25:4 (Winter 1990-91), 34-49, esp. 40: "Jameson's disappointment in the Falls seems to have arisen not so much because of the Falls themselves as from her perspective."

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tinues to use European concepts to describe Canadian phenomena, such as when she cannot help having recourse to the discourse of the beautiful and the sublime again and refers to the Aurora Borealis as "most awfully beautiful" (150). But she also increasingly realizes that her way of looking at her surroundings is not a completely objective one free from the relativity of a particular point of view informed by preconceived ideas, and her conceptual framework no longer seems to her to constitute the basis of the only possible master narrative imaginable. Rather, it seems less secure and reliable than before, just as the ice she can see cracking and finally being rent in the Bay of Toronto. We find Anna's description of this natural event in her entry of April 15, 1837, and it is in the very same entry that we come across the following metareflections concerning her own text: In former times, when people travelled into strange countries, they travelled de bonne foi, really to see and learn what was new to them. Now, when a traveller goes to a foreign country, it is always with a set of preconceived notions concerning it, to which he fits all he sees, and refers all he hears: and this, I suppose, is the reason that the old travellers are still safe guides; while modern travelers may be pleasant reading, but are withal the most unsafe guides one can have. (155-6)

We are of course still far away from postmodern concepts of emplotment and narrativization here, but Anna Jameson nevertheless provides us with a remarkable early example of what later turned into epistemological relativism. 17 Jameson still has a firm belief in the concept of truth, but, she says, "[w]e all look towards it, but each mind beholds it under a different angle of incidence" (156). It is thus fortified for new intercultural encounters that Anna sets out for her adventurous trip through the province in early June 1837.

4. Summer Rambles through Upper Canada Jameson's remarkable trip, within just over nine weeks, took her from Toronto to Niagara and on to London and Detroit and Mackinaw. From there she had to go on by means of a small bateau to the Sault Ste. Marie, Manitoulin Island, back down Lake Huron through Georgian Bay and on by canoe and portage to Lake Simcoe, from where she travelled back to Toronto. Never before had a

17 Friewald also remarks on Jameson's "epistemological concern" ("Femininely speaking", 67). Johnston even goes so far as to discern in Jameson's travelogue an awareness of such theoretical premises as those of Edward Said's discourse analysis in Orientalism (Johnston, Anna Jameson, 100). Vargo more modestly states that "what is so astonishing about her account is her appreciation that culture is to a certain degree a matter of relatives rather than of absolutes." (Lisa Vargo, "An 'Enlargement of Home": Anna Jameson and the Representation of Nationalism", Victorian Review 24:1 (1998), 53-68, here 63).

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woman ventured out into these regions all on her own, 18 and Anna was very proud of it indeed. Her account of these summer rambles, as she coyly and coquettishly referred to them, takes up the greatest part of her book, and in it, we encounter a totally changed Anna Brownell Jameson. Like a summer flower, she opens up with the arrival of the warm season, and so does her mind. Gone are the morose broodings on depressing surroundings one can only find fault with, and instead, we encounter a very interested European woman determined to experience as much as possible of Upper Canada.. She trusts in her "moral strength" (181) and in her status as a woman because, as she quotes in French, "Ce que femme veut, Dieu veut" (181). Immediately before her departure, Anna still finds the time to write a little essay on the subject of "Baron Sternberg's popular and eloquent novels" (18Iff.), but as soon as she has actually embarked on her trip, all her attention is taken up by the magnificent wilderness and by the many encounters she has. Jameson is more than glad to leave Toronto (195). She is advised to spend a fortnight at Niagara for reasons of health, just as Susanna Moodie would be recommended to go there, which, in the latter case, led to the writing of Life in the Clearings versus the Bush (1853). During her first night in Niagara, there is a storm, and Jameson describes and comments on it in the following way: The summer storms of Canada are like those of the tropics: not in Italy, not among the Appennines, where I have in my time heard the "live thunder leaping from crag to crag," did I ever hear such terrific explosives of sound as burst over our heads this night. The silence and the darkness lent an added horror to the elemental tumult - and for the first time in my life I felt sickened and unpleasantly affected in the intervals between the thunder-claps, though I cannot say I felt fear. Meanwhile the rain fell as in a deluge, threatening to wash us into the lake, which reared itself up, and roared - like a monster for its prey. (197)

The language used by Jameson here yet again is reminiscent of that of the discourse of the gothic sublime, and Anna's description of her own reaction to the enormous claps of thunder makes one think of Ann Radcliffe's distinction between terror and horror, with Jameson being closer to the latter than the former, although she denies being in fear. What is important in our context, though, is that despite her insights into the relativity of perception and into the prisms that colour all our accounts of foreign countries, Anna makes use again of just another such European prism to convey what she has experienced. This is also true of her second direct encounter with Niagara Falls, this time in summer. She notes that "[t]he body of water was more full and tremendous than in the winter" (202), and comes to a different conclusion this time when she says: "It was very, very beautiful, and strangely awful too!" (202-3). Once

18 It was indeed "a journey unprecedented for a European woman", as Holcomb points out („Anna Jameson", 101).

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again, romantic notions of the sublime inform her perception, and Jameson's description of the Falls at night is steeped in the discourse of romanticism: After a pleasant dinner and music, I returned to the hotel by the light o f a full m o o n , beneath w h i c h the Falls looked magnificently mysterious, part glancing silver light, and part dark s h a d o w , m i n g l e d with fleecy f o l d s o f spray, over which floated a soft, sleepy gleam; and in the midst o f the tremendous velocity o f motion and eternity o f sound, there w a s deep, deep repose, as in a dream. It impressed m e for the time like s o m e t h i n g supernatural - a vision, not a reality. ( 2 0 3 )

The rapids above the Falls, Jameson says explicitly, "left in my fancy two impressions which seldom meet together - that of the sublime and terrible, and that of the elegant and graceful - like a tiger at play" (204). She even gives a definition of the concepts she uses here by describing her inner feelings in the midst of the wilderness: "[W]hile I was looking on these rapids, beauty and terror, and power and joy, were blended, and so thoroughly, that even when I trembled and admired, I could have burst into a wild laugh, and joined the dancing billows in their glorious, fearful mirth" (205). Jameson's summer visit to Niagara Falls, then, re-enthrones her European conceptual framework. Gone is the disappointment of five months earlier, and the categories she brought from home to classify natural phenomena seem to work again. This is confirmed upon her visit to the American side of the Falls, which she describes as "not altogether to be compared to the Canadian shore for picturesque scenery" (210). Like the characters in The History of Emily Montagu (1769), an epistolary novel by Frances Brooke, another early woman writer from England who wrote about Canada, Jameson expresses in a "European romantic terminology" what she sees in the Canadian wilderness because this "allows for the containment of what might potentially question traditional European horizons." 19 Jameson's profound change of mood is also expressed in her general approach towards to Canada. If, in her Winter Studies, she saw the country as a colonial backwater lagging far behind the mother country, with the Atlantic Ocean looming as a barrier towards enlightenment and progress, now she casts Canada in the role of a land of opportunity and of rapid development, endowed with a bright future, such as when she writes to her female friend back in Europe: Perhaps e v e n for m y sake y o u may n o w and then look upon a map o f Canada, and there, as in the maps o f Russia in Catherine the S e c o n d ' s time, y o u will find not a f e w t o w n s and cities laid d o w n by name w h i c h y o u might in vain look for within the precincts o f the province, s e e i n g that they are non-extant, as y e t at least, though surely to be, s o m e time or other, s o m e w h e r e or other, w h e n this fair country shall have fair play, and its fair quota o f population. ( 2 1 7 )

19 Heinz Antor, "The International Contexts of Frances Brooke's The History of Emily Montague", in Heinz Antor and Klaus Stierstorfer (eds.), English Literatures in International Contexts (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter, 2000), 245-277, esp. 274,275.

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There is also in these remarks an undertone of political criticism, though, because it is the task of the h o m e country and o f the colonial government, of which J a m e s o n ' s husband is an important official, to see to it that C a n a d a does indeed have fair play, something which, as A n n a has already pointed out in her Winter Studies, she obviously thinks is not yet the case. J a m e s o n looks at the process of settling and of cultivating the Canadian wilderness and seemingly takes up what one might refer to as an early f o r m of ecological criticism, only to contain such subversive ideas in a conservative colonialist way: When these forests, with all their solemn depth of shade and multitudinous life, have fallen beneath the axe - when the wolf, and bear, and deer are driven from their native coverts, and all this infinitude of animal and vegetable being has made way for restless, erring, suffering humanity, - will it then be better? Better - I know not; but surely it will be well and right in His eyes who has ordained that thus the course of things shall run. Those who see nothing in civilised life but its complicated cares, mistakes, vanities, and miseries, may doubt this - or despair. For myself and you too, my friend, we are of those who believe and hope; who behold in progressive civilisation progressive happiness, progressive approximation to nature and to nature's God; for are we not in his hand? - and all that he does is good. (268) This is an interesting passage in as far as it reveals J a m e s o n ' s ideology as that o f a representative o f a colonizing nation. W h a t begins as a consideration o f the d a n g e r of the destruction of nature at the end even turns into the prospect o f c o m i n g closer to it. A potentially destructive process is reinterpreted as progress, and finally, this is even sanctioned b y divine will, a classical manoeuvre used b y Western colonizers in m a n y regions o f the earth. T h e appropriation o f North A m e r i c a by white Europeans is thus justified and constructed as a necessity. At the same time, J a m e s o n points out that C a n ada has the potential to b e c o m e a better version of Europe. This c o m e s out quite clearly in her visit to Colonel Talbot, an old man w h o lives in a district of U p p e r C a n a d a over which he holds almost complete sway and which is very well-kept indeed. Talbot rules like a monarch over the little paradise of his district, and while he sees to it that all the amenities of European civilisation are available in his Utopia, he also embodies an alternative to the European w a y of life, as Jameson s h o w s with reference to T a l b o t ' s activities during the N a p o l e o n i c Wars: While Europe was converted into a vast battlefield [...] and his brothers in arms, the young men who had begun the career of life with him, were reaping bloody laurels, to be gazetted in the list of killed and wounded, as heroes - then forgotten; - Colonel Talbot, a true hero after another fashion, was encountering, amid the forest solitude, uncheered by sympathy, unbribed by fame, enemies far more formidable, and earning a far purer as well as a more real and lasting immortality. (278-9)

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Talbot's Canadian life here is constructed as one that is more moral, more peaceful, more heroic and ultimately more valuable. 20 One almost feels reminded of Neil Macrae standing on Halifax's Citadel Hill in Hugh MacLennan's Barometer Rising (1941), looking first East to Europe and then West to the Canadian vastness, favourably comparing Canada's positive role in world politics to the slaughter that goes on in the old world during the First World War. 21 Jameson does not only contrast Canada with Europe, though. The colony's relations with the United States are also a subject of enquiry for her. When she comes to Buffalo and buys some books there, Jameson has the first of many opportunities of reflecting on this issue: I found here several good booksellers' shops, the counters and shelves loaded with cheap American editions of English publications, generally of a trashy kind, but some good ones; and it is not a pleasing fact that our two booksellers at Toronto are principally supplied from this place. (220-1) Jameson here regrets Canada's cultural dependence on the United States, and she also deplores the generally bad quality of what comes to Canada from the States. Anna has a very ambivalent attitude towards the USA. On the one hand, she sees the Southern neighbour as a threat to Canada, but on the other hand she can sometimes also admire American achievements and then criticizes the Canadians for their backwardness. For example, she regrets the bad infrastructure of Upper Canada (229) and points out that as long as there is no railroad to open up the country and make the agricultural markets more accessible, Canada will always only be a through-road both for many immigrants and for English capital on the way to the better developed United States (230). Much of what comes to Canada from the United States is bad and spoils the colony, in Jameson's eyes, whether it be trashy literature or country innkeepers who, she says, are generally "refugee Americans of the lowest class, or [...] Canadians [...] affecting American manners and phraseology [...]" (235). It is interesting in this context that the French, as the erstwhile rivals of the British in the struggle for colonial hegemony in Canada, are referred to by Jameson as "ever active and enterprising, [...] the first who penetrated into this wild region" (448) This is not to be taken as laudatory or in any other way positive. Rather, the French are to be seen as competitors for power and influence on the imperial market so that their activities are always invested with a threatening potential, even after the loss of their Canadian possessions. The

20 Gerry speaks of "the heroism she [i.e. Jameson, H.A.] attributes to Talbot" (Gerry. "Translated", 42). 21 Hugh MacLennan, Barometer Rising. Toronto: M&S, 1991 [11941]: 79-80. Cf. Heinz Antor, "International Involvement and the Growth of Canadian Identity in Hugh MacLennan's Barometer Rising", in Paul Geyer and Monika Schmitz-Emans (eds.), Proteus im Spiegel. Kritische Theorie des Subjekts (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2003), 423-435.

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French are cast in the same mould here as the Americans about whose fishing enterprise at the Sault Ste. Marie Jameson says, in a mixture of admiration and dismay: "These enterprising Yankees have seized upon another profitable speculation here" (451). The non-British white presence in North America, then, is seen quite critically by Jameson, who is very much aware of British colonial interests. Anna Brownell Jameson, however, can also be critical of her own culture. For example, she is sometimes able to adopt an Indian perspective on her mother country and use this as a tool of moral criticism. She mentions Brandt, a Mohawk chief and warrior who fought on the British side during the American War of Independence. Brandt's transformation from a pro-European to a critic of white culture is used by her as a means of ethical criticism of her own culture: Brandt, who had intelligence enough to perceive and acknowledge the superiority of the whites in all the arts of life, was at first anxious for the conversion and civilisation of his nation; but I was told by a gentleman who had known him, that after a visit he paid to England, this wish no longer existed. He returned to his people with no very sublime idea either of our morals or manners, and died in 1807. (233)

The intercultural encounters between North American Indians and white colonizers Jameson sees with a very critical eye. To her, the influence of her own culture on that of the indigenous population is mainly a negative one, the Indians she can observe "having borrowed from the whites only those habits which certainly 'were more honoured in the breach than in the observance."' (234). She is worried about the threat of the complete extinction of Indian culture as a result of "the decrease of the Indian population" (233). Nevertheless, it would be wrong to misinterpret this worry as a clear taking of sides in favour of Canadian Indians and as a criticism of the advance of the British white colonizers. Rather, Jameson tries to have it both ways, i.e. to appear as somebody who cares for the welfare of Indians and who at the same time justifies the colonial project. This is how she comments on the encounter between Indian and white culture: These attempts of a noble and a fated race, to oppose, or even to delay for a time, the rolling westward of the great tide of civilisation, are like efforts to dam up the rapids of Niagara. The moral world has its laws, fixed as those of physical nature. The hunter must make way before the agriculturist, and the Indian must learn to take the bit between his teeth, and set his hand to the ploughshare, or perish. (305)

The advance of white civilisation and with it the colonisation of Canada are here described not only as an inevitable natural law, but they are also invested with the authority of a moral necessity. Jameson thus shamelessly essentialises the Eurocentric point of view of the colonial masters at the expense of an Indian perspective, which is not even granted the status of a different civilisation nor attributed an ethics of its own. The only chance for the Indians here is

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described as that of assimilation to white culture, but the chance of that happening is almost immediately described as minimal by Jameson in another essentialising manoeuvre in which she yet again makes use of sweeping generalisations about the Canadian indigenous population: The benevolent theorists in England should come and see with their own eyes that there is a bar to the civilisation of the Indians, and the increase or even preservation of their numbers, which no power can overleap. Their own principle, that "the Great Spirit did indeed create both the red man and the white man, but created them essentially different in nature and manners," is not perhaps far from the truth. (306) If adaptation to white culture is the Indians' only chance of survival, and if such assimilation is not possible due to a fundamental natural difference between the essences of Indian and white existence, then, of course, Jameson's conclusion is an obvious one, and indeed, she does not surprise her readers when she quotes as an authority a Moravian missionary who sums up the intercultural situation in the following way: " [ . . . ] there seemed no hope for them [i.e. the Indians, H.A.] but in removing them as far as possible from the influence of the whites" (307-8). Jameson, then, displays admiration and respect for the Indians as a noble race and thus appropriates them within the European framework of the discourse of the bon sauvage, but she refuses to compromise when it comes to questions of the legitimacy of white hegemony over Canadian indigenous peoples. She constructs an essentialist difference that cannot be bridged and indirectly recommends the segregation of Indians. In her quoting the Moravian missionary, therefore, she comes up with an early form of the idea of the reservation, and she justifies white colonial expansion in Canada. Her final remark that this line of argument only works "if you consider only the expediency and the benevolence, independent of the justice, of the measure" (308) shows that she is aware of the problematic nature of her and the missionary's position, but as a disclaimer this half-sentence is far too short and far too weak to overthrow her elaborately constructed argument. In a way that is not untypical of her, Jameson tries to have it both ways here, but ultimately cannot manage to convincingly escape her Eurocentric colonialist horizon of understanding. In Jameson's account, Indians are savages mainly when she looks back into the past, such as when she writes about chief Pontiac's 1763 rebellion and the subsequent war, which, interestingly enough, she once again couches in European terms, using a familiar discourse to domesticate the alterity of frightening tales of Indian cruelty: The war, thus savagely declared, was accompanied by all those atrocious barbarities, and turns of fate, and traits of heroism, and hair-breadth escapes, which render these Indian conflicts so exciting, so terrific, so picturesque. (335)

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It is interesting to observe in this context that Jameson is also able to take the side of Pontiac, whom she sees as an "Indian Fabius" (337), thus again trying to assimilate the Canadian into the European. 22 She cannot have been very well-read in Canadian literature, because she regrets that, unlike the Roman Fabius, Pontiac "has had no poet, no historian to immortalize him" (337). Obxsviously, she had not read John Richardson's Wacousta; or, The Prophecy, a historical novel published in London in 1832 by the first important Canadian-born novelist in English, in which Pontiac features prominently. Pontiac's defeat indirectly is explained by Jameson from a Eurocentric point of view as a result of cultural differences between the English and the Indians: "With all his talents, he could not maintain a standing or permanent army, such a thing being contrary to all the Indian usages, and quite incompatible with their mode of life" (339). Sometimes, Jameson performs a tightrope walk between Eurocentric stereotypical categorization and intercultural understanding. In a conversation about the Indian custom of taking their enemies' scalps, she speaks about "this custom [...] which of all their customs, most justified the name of savage" (458). At the same time, the practice is described as "inseparable from their principles of war and their mode of warfare", and it is pointed out that "this truly savage law of honor [...] seems nearer to the natural law" (458), with the Indian coming dangerously close here to being labelled as a primitive. Jameson often tries to take the Indian's side, and today, some of her reactions would definitely have a tinge of political correctness. On the other hand, she is not afraid of coming up with uncomplimentary and stereotypical observations couched in euphemistic terms such as in the following remark about Indians she observed at Mackinaw: "There is, I imagine, a very general and hearty aversion to water." (382) While in Mackinaw, Jameson observes the Indians present there very closely, and when she sees an Ottawa chief who deeply impresses her, she thinks he would be a good model for a sculptor. The reason for this she gives in a telling footnote: "While among the Indians, I often had occasion to observe that what we call the antique and the ideal are merely free, unstudied nature." (387) In other words, the Indian can be represented in a sculpture based on European models of thought and aesthetics. Jameson as a white European woman here cognitively appropriates the Indian by declaring him to be antique and ideal in a classical, i.e. Western European sense.

22 Cf. Leslie Monkman, "Primitivism and a Parasol: Anna Jameson's Indians", Essays on Canadian Writing 29 (1984), 85-95, esp. 89: "Throughout [Jameson's] consideration of Indian heroes, the vocabulary and imagery repeatedly reflect European assumptions [...]."

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Jameson is a universalist and an essentialist with an inkling of cultural relativity, a concept she can glimpse on her cognitive horizon but not fully grasp. For example, when in Detroit, she writes: Nations differ in their idea of good manners, as they do on the subject of beauty - a far less conventional thing. But there exists luckily a standard for each, in reference to which we cannot err, and to which the progress of civilization will, it is to be hoped, bring us all nearer and nearer still. For the type of perfection in physical beauty we g o to Greece, and for that of politeness we go to the gospel. (343)

Similarly, in a rumination on how the Chippewas bury their dead, she remembers the lamentation of Constance over Arthur in King John and notes down: "O nature - Ο Shakspeare [s/c] - everywhere the same- and true to each other!" (423) The naturalization of Shakespeare here by implication in this context assimilates the Canadian Indians and their culture to the conceptual framework inherent in the works of the Western Bard. Jameson takes with her a copy of Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories Between the Years 1760 and 1776, a travel book and by now also a classic of early Canadian travel literature written by Alexander Henry, a fur-trader who published his reminiscences in New York in 1809. She uses the text as a guide book, 23 and once again, she has recourse to a European discourse to cast herself and her adventures in the alien wilderness of Canada in a homely mould, with the universalist epistemic claims of classical antiquity and its myths once more coming to the fore when she writes about Alexander Henry: He is the Ulysses of these parts, and to cruise among the shores, rocks, and islands of Lake Huron without Henry's travels, were like coasting Calabria and Sicily without the Odyssey in your head or your hand, - only here you have the island of Mackinaw instead of the island of Circe; the land of the Ottawas instead of the shores of the Lotophagi; cannibal Chippewas, instead of man-eating Laestrygons; Pontiac figures as Polypheme; and Wa,wa,tam plays the part of good king Alcinous. I can find no type for the women, as Henry does not tell us his adventures among the squaws, but no doubt he might have found both Calypsos and Nausicaas, and even a Penelope among them. (368)

Not only does Jameson establish a European framework of reference here for her trip through Western Upper Canada, but she also others the indigenous population by referring to cannibalism, a notion she seems to take over quite uncritically from Henry. When she visits a cave full of human skulls near Michilimackinac, she has recourse to Henry again and writes: "Henry's opinion is, that the cave was an ancient receptacle for the bones of prisoners, sacrificed and devoured at war-feasts" (393).

23 Monkman finds traces of Henry's "style, structure and persona adopted in her [i.e. Jameson's, H.A.] own narrative." ("Primitivism and a Parasol",87).

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Having firmly placed Canadian Indians within her European pattern o f perception, she nevertheless takes the Indians' side against white traders and governments when it comes to the exploitative way Indians are treated by the colonizers. On the island o f Mackinaw, she makes the following observation: So completely do the white men reckon on having everything their own way with the poor Indians, that a trader had contracted with the government to supply the goods which the Indians had not yet consented to receive, and was actually now on the island, having come with me on the steamer. (431) It is interesting to observe the way in which Jameson connects various issues she is concerned about throughout her travelogue in order to construct her own position, which can be described as a hybrid one, with elements both o f Eurocentrism and o f cultural relativism. After having compared Indian warriors with white European soldiers and having come to the conclusion that both act cruelly and that there is hardly any difference between them in this respect (459-60), she comments in the following way: God forbid that I should think to disparage the blessings of civilisation! I am a woman, and to the progress of civilisation alone can we women look for release from many pains and penalties and liabilities which now lie heavily upon us. Neither am I greatly in love with savage life, with all its picturesque accompaniments and lofty virtues. I see no reason why these virtues should be necessarily connected with dirt, ignorance, and barbarism. I am thankful to live in a land of literature and steam-engines. Chatsworth is better than a wigwam, and a seventy-four is a finer thing than a bark canoe. I do not positively assert that Taglioni dances more gracefully than the Little-Pure tobacco-smoker, nor that soap and water are preferable as cosmetics to tallow and charcoal; for these are matters of taste, and mine may be disputed. But I do say, that if our advantages of intellect and refinement are not to lead on to farther moral superiority, I prefer the Indians on the score of consistency; they are what they profess to be, and we are not what we profess to be. They profess to be warriors and hunters, and are so; we profess to be Christians, and civilised - are we so? (460) Jameson here has it both ways. She criticizes and defends both cultures under review, while at the same time using her arguments with a clear ideological purpose in mind. The apologetic beginning o f this passage may serve as a cautious disclaimer in the face o f possible criticisms by those who may attack Jameson - and we must not forget that it is the Vice-Chancellor's wife who makes these comments - for her comparison between Indian warriors and white colonial soldiers. At the same time, she uses her eulogy on civilisation as a tool for her feminist demands for improvements in the lives o f women. 2 4

24 Jameson was a well-known champion of early emancipation, "an honored adviser of the Langham Place feminists, who [...] campaigned for women's employment, education, and property rights and published their views in The English Woman 's Journal, later The Victoria Magazine." (Kimberly VanEsveld Adams, "Feminine Godhead, Feminist Symbol: The

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Furthermore, she implicitly considers civilisation something to be found in her own culture, but not among the Indians, thus taking up a blatantly Eurocentric position, which she illustrates by giving various examples. This, rather inconsistently, it seems, then turns into an argument in favour of cultural relativism when she declares styles of dance or methods of hygiene to be disputable matters of taste. Having thus given herself an aura of what one would nowadays refer to as political correctness, she reverts to her earlier Eurocentrism by unquestioningly presupposing the "advantages of intellect and refinement" to be found with the European colonizers rather than with the indigenous population. She can then afford again to criticize the British colonial project in Canada for its lack of consistency by claiming that it has to become more Christian and "lead on to farther moral superiority". In what turns out to be quite a devious rhetorical manoeuvre, then, Jameson, by taking the Indians' side with regard to their consistency and by criticizing the colonial practices of her own fellow countrymen, indirectly reaffirms the supposed superiority of white culture over indigenous culture. The Christian colonizers may need to be spurred on by her to live up to their own high moral ideals of civilisation, but the implied superiority of their epistemic system and the colonial power claims derived from it are never questioned. Indeed, they are reinforced in this passage, which, despite elements of a liberal facade, turns out to be ultimately heavily indebted to the ideology of British colonialism. This does not prevent Anna from displaying a yearning of entering Indian culture and, within limits, becoming part of it. She is an early example of the Western tourist trying to bridge the cultural gap and reduce otherness by becoming other herself, going Indian or becoming an honorary Indian. When, as the first white woman ever to do so, she goes down the Falls at Sault Ste. Marie in a small fishing canoe, she is given an Indian name by the local indigenous population. Wah,säh,ge,wah,no,quä, or "the woman of the bright foam" (462), as she is now called, is exceedingly proud both of the feat she has achieved in going down the Falls and of her new status of Indianness she feels she has gained. Immediately, she speaks of "[m]y Indians" (462), the telling use of the possessive pronoun not merely hinting at an act of psychological identification, but also expressing a European act of appropriation. What Anna Brownell Jameson does here has a twofold significance. On the one hand, she places herself into a position of respect within the Indian community from which she can act as the harbinger of white civilisation with its supposed moral superiority. On the other hand, she also constructs herself into the role of an authority on Indian affairs in order to be able more effectively to tell her Euro-

Madonna in George Eliot, Ludwig Feuerbach, Anna Jameson, and Margaret Fuller". Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 12:1 (1996), 41-70, here 48).

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pean readers what is needed in the administration of Upper Canada and its indigenous population. "Now that I have been a Chippewa born," Jameson writes, "I must introduce you to some of my new relations" (462). What follows is an account of the Chippewas from her point of view, and we are clearly confronted here with a white amateur anthropologist's gaze cast at Indian culture. Anna may have been made an honorary Indian, but the way she looks at her new friends is quite obviously one informed by a European horizon of understanding. When she tells of cases of cannibalism among starving Indians, she again conjures up old stereotypes, but at least still tries to relativize this by pointing out that, under extreme circumstances, similar things have happened "nearer home" (465), as she coyly refers to Europe. When she comes to a description of mother-child relationships in Indian culture, however, she does not mince her words any more: The maternal instinct, like all the other natural instincts, is strong in these people to a degree we can no longer conceive than we can their quick senses. A s a cat deprived of its kittens will suckle an animal o f a different species, so an Indian woman who has lost her child must have another. "Bring me my son, or see me die!" Exclaimed a bereaved mother to her husband, and she lay down on her mat, covered her hat with her blanket, and refused to eat. The man went and kidnapped one of the enemy's children, and brought it to her. She laid it in her bosom, and was consoled. Here is the animal woman. (483).

Indians, we are told here, are closer to nature, while white Europeans, being civilised, are further from it, which is why they can "no longer" understand the indigenous people's instinctual behaviour. There is a temporal and processual implication here as well of a progress from nature to culture, from primitive to civilised, and the white European colonizers, supposedly having the edge on the Indians in terms of being farther advanced in this respect, are by implication justified in their colonial mission. Interestingly, Jameson here no longer writes about "her" natives, but about "these people", this othering device being a linguistic reflex of the colonialist ideology of Jameson's account of Indian life. Jameson even quite explicitly declares the substitution of white culture for indigenous culture to be an unavoidable process, such as in the following passage: We have substituted guns for the bows and arrows - but they cannot make guns: for the natural progress o f arts and civilisation springing from within, we have substituted a sort of civilisation from without, foreign to their habits, manners, organisation: we are making paupers of them; and this by a kind of terrible necessity. (518)

Jameson then stresses the irreversibility of the process of colonization by claiming that if the English stopped providing the Indian with the products of white culture, "he must die of hunger [and] perish of cold" (518-9). The con-

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tinuous assimilation of first nations to white culture thus not only remains an inevitability, but it even becomes an ethical imperative for the white colonizers to further the process. Jameson's account of her encounter with Canadian Indians, then, just as her whole travelogue, is imbued with the spirit of European appropriation of the New World. This also comes out when, on her way to the Great Manitoolin Island in Lake Huron, she hears of the death of King William IV and of Victoria's accession to the throne. This gives rise to patriotic thoughts about the new Queen. Anna is worried about the huge task the new monarch will be confronted with in her rule of empire. Here, both the feminist and the colonialist come out again in Jameson. She sees Victoria's salvation in her being a woman and points out that "if a royal education have [j/c] not blunted in her the quick perceptions and pure kind instincts of woman [...] she will do better for us than a whole cabinet full of cut and dried officials" (494). Apparently, while instincts place Canadian Indians within the realm of the primitive in need of being civilised by white colonial missionaries, in white women, instincts are a welcome corrective of male conceptualizations of the world and totally beyond any suspicion of lack of sophistication or the like. Female instincts are associated by Jameson with being "simple-minded, and truehearted", characterized by "fair play" and "distinct notions of right and wrong" as well as a "fine moral sense" (494). The accession of a woman to the imperial throne in London therefore is seen as a great chance for the Empire, and so Jameson's reflections take on a distinctly patriotic, timidly optimistic, and even slightly celebratory imperialist tone mixed with a heavy dose of pathos: And what a fair heritage is this which has fallen to her! A land young like h e r s e l f a land o f hopes - and fair, most fair! D o e s she know - does she care anything about it? - while hearts are beating warm for her, and v o i c e s bless her - and hands are stretched out towards her, even from these wild lake shores! ( 4 9 4 - 5 )

It is interesting to observe the centrism inherent in Jameson's words here, with Queen Victoria enthroned at the imperial center, and the Empire looking towards her from far and wide. The only potentially critical element is Jameson's question as to whether Victoria knows and cares enough about Canada. Not only can this be read as a pointing towards the monarch's imperial "duties", but Jameson's book is also meant both to provide knowledge about the colony and to make the reader care about it. The writing and publication of Jameson's travelogue thus turns into a loyal act supporting the supposedly legitimate imperial British enterprise. In this way, Jameson cleverly tries to market her book in a period of change by attributing to it an important task of ( i n t e r n a tional importance. Significantly, at the end of the passage quoted above, Jameson does not clarify whose hands are stretched out to reach and glorify the new Queen in London. Presumably, it is only the hands of white colonizers, of British settlers

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and colonial officials. Indians are of no account here. In typically colonialist fashion, they are expected to submit to white European control, just like children at the mercy of their parents. The patriarchal quality of British rule in Upper Canada comes out in a speech a British official makes on Manitoolin Island to the Indians gathered there to receive presents for their loyalty to the Crown in the war of 1812-13. The superintendent consistently addresses the Indians with the appellation "Children!"(502-505), and the governor-general he refers to as "Your Great Father" (502), thus expressing the hierarchical relationship between colonizer and colonized as well as constructing the Indians into a position of dependence, with white Europeans being invested with absolute power over them. Having thus more than once clarified the power relationships between the white and the indigenous people of Canada, Jameson can revert to talking about "my Indians" (512), which by now has taken on a tone of condescending appropriation. And appropriate is indeed what Jameson does with Indian culture. This time she uses it in order to push her feminist interests. Discussing the role of women in Indian society, she refers to accounts by earlier travellers who criticized that Indian women are exploited by their men, who make them work very heavily. She then comes up with what at a first glance may seem to be a surprising defense of this situation: [ . . . ] in these Indian tribes, where the men are the noblest and bravest of their kind, the women are held of no account, are despised and oppressed. But it does appear to me that the woman among these Indians holds her true natural position relatively to the state o f the man and the state of society; and this cannot be said of all societies. (513)

In a hunter society such as the Indian, Jameson's argument then runs, the man has to be spared all involvement in domestic labour in order not to be incapacitated by it as a hunter: Hence, however hard the lot of woman, she is in no false position. The two sexes are in their natural and true position relatively to the state of society, and the means o f subsistence. The first step from the hunting to the agricultural state is the first step in the emancipation of the female. (515)

The point Jameson really tries to make here is not one about the position of women in Canadian indigenous society, but about that of women in her own. She makes use of her ability to think in terms of cultural relativism in order to make the position of women in a society an indicator of that society's stage of development. An agricultural society being on a higher cultural level than a hunter society, women are more emancipated in the former than in the latter. The logic behind this is quite clear. The intercultural significance of Jameson's anthropological observation of Indian society gains its relevance for white society through its establishing of female emancipation as the measure of civi-

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lisation. In other words, if white society wants to be as civilised as it likes to think of itself, it will have to grant women a greater degree of emancipation than has hitherto been the case. As Frances Brooke before her, then, Jameson uses the gaze at Indian alterity in order to make a critical comment of the role of women in her own culture. 25 However, while Brooke, in her History of Emily Montagu (1769), uses the "exoticism of matriarchal structures in first nations in Canada [...] as a protective facade behind which [she] has her characters present subversive feminist attitudes" 26 based on the admiration of the strength and independence of first nations women, Jameson here denigrates Indian society as being on a lower cultural level than white society by pointing to the dissatisfactory lives of indigenous women and turning them into a symptom of primitivism. In both cases, first nation women are appropriated as tools in a white debate on the role of women in Europe. Both in Brooke's epistolary novel and in Jameson's travelogue, the aboriginal Canadian context serves as a protective screen behind which the two female writers can air their feminist opinions without coming too directly under attack from conservative men out to preserve patriarchy at home. The subversive quality of Jameson's feminist remarks was well understood by many a reader of her travelogue back home in England. 27 As Jameson wrote to a female friend in a letter about the reception of her book: "The men [...] are much alarmed by certain speculations about women; and [...] well they may be, for when the horse and ass begin to think and argue, adieu to riding and driving." 28

25 Cf. Adele Μ. Ernstrom, "The Afterlife of Mary Wollstonecraft and Anna Jameson's Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada", Women's Writing 4:2 (1997), 277-297, esp. 291: "The feminist argument of Winter Studies was powerfully apposite at just those points where the situation of women was being, or was about to be contested in Britain." 26 Antor, "International Contexts", 271. Buss also speaks of "the subversive indirection of Jameson's text" (Buss, "Epistolary Dijournal", 51). Cf. Holcomb, "Anna Jameson". 102: "she [i.e. Jameson, H.A.] used the situation of Indian women to expose the anomalies she found in civilized life." 27 Jameson's influence can be felt even today. Cf. Alison Booth, "The Lessons of the Medusa: Anna Jameson and Collective Biographies of Women", Victorian Studies 42:2 (Winter 19992000), 257-288, esp. 271-272: "Though Jameson is hardly the predecessor that leaps to mind to feminist critics today, she developed feminist positions that seem very close to home." 28 Thomas (1990), 549. Indeed, although the overall reception of Jameson's book was a very positive one, several reviewers were "[h]ostile to the book's feminist argument" (Emstrom. "Afterlife", 282). As Gerry points out, "regarding Jameson's feminism, dissent arose almost unanimously among the book's reviewers." (Gerry, "Translated", 34). Nevertheless, "[c]ritical acclaim for Winter Studies, in spite of some hostility to its feminist argument, gained its author an expanded readership and enhanced authority." (Holcomb, "Anna Jameson", 102).

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5. Conclusion Anna Brownell Jameson, after a truly remarkable trip through Upper Canada, arrived back in Toronto in August 1837. Shortly afterwards, she went back to England, never to set foot on Canadian soil again. She went on to become one of England's leading art historians in the years that followed, and she published quite a number of books in that field from the 1840s to the 1860s. When Winter Studies and Summer Rambles was published in 1838, though, she did not only produce one of the most important travel books in Canadian history, but she also provided us with an important example of how Canada was refracted in European literature in the early 19th century.

K L A U S STIERSTORFER

University of Münster

"Capable of Great Improvement":1 Catharine Parr Traill's Images of Canada in The Young Emigrants (1826)

The Strickland sisters Catharine Parr Traill (1802-99) and Susanna Moodie (1803-85) have evolved into foundational figures of Canadian literary history. The mythopoeic processes turning them into 'mothers of Anglo-Canadian literature' 2 have not only been advanced by the considerable attention they have received from literary and cultural historians in recent years. Their acknowledgement as quasi-archaic predecessors by modern Canadian authors in search of literary origins or a Canadian tradition must equally be taken into account, notably in their respective re-creations in Margaret Atwood's The Journals of Susanna Moodie (1970)3 and, in Catharine Parr Traill's case, through Margaret Laurence's The Diviners (1974).4 The sisters have therefore taken a prominent place as authors of a Canadian 'imagology'. They produced an influential image of Canada for their British readership and for contemporary emigrants to Canada, many of whom British, who frequently would bring the sisters' books in their luggage as manuals and means of inspiration. But the works by Traill

1 2

3 4

Catharine Parr Traill, The Young Emigrants (London: Harvey and Darton, 1826), 106; cf. also 119. Further references to this edition will be included in the text (abbreviated as ΎΕ'). katherine A. Roberts, "Discours de la f6minit6 dans The Backwoods of Canada de Catharine Parr Traill et Roughing It in the Bush de Susanna Moodie", Tangence 62 (2000), 34-49, 34: Although Roberts writes on both sisters, she reserves the term for Susanna Moodie of "la vöritable mire de la literature canadienne-anglaise." On the myth of the "pioneer woman" cf. Elizabeth Thompson, The Pioneer Woman: A Canadian Character Type (Montreal: McGillQueen's UP, 1991), 3 and passim. Margaret Atwood, The Journals of Susanna Moodie (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1970). Margaret Laurence, The Diviners (Toronto: Bantam, 1974); cf. Eva-Marie Kröller, "Resurrections: Susanna Moodie, Catharine Parr Traill and Emily Carr in Contemporary Canadian Literature", Journal of Popular Culture 15:3 (1981), 39-46, and Ann Edwards Boutelle, "Margaret Atwood, Margaret Laurence, and Their Nineteenth-Century Forerunners" in Alice Kessler-Harris, William McBrien (eds.), Faith of a (Woman) Writer. Contributions in Women's Studies 86 (New York: Greenwood Press: 1988), 41-47.

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and Moodie have been equally important in shaping today's view on perceptions of Canada in the early nineteenth century. The Stricklands' original works and their reception up to our own time thus constitute a formative influence in the evolution of a Canadian literary and cultural identity. Unsurprisingly, the critical output on their lives and work is vast.5 Unsurprisingly, too, the focus of these critical studies is on the Canadian context and the sisters' attempts to adapt to their new environment. While their preconceptions, as constituted by their European heritage which they brought with them to America, have also been the object of numerous studies,6 Traill's and Moodie's representations of Canada have so far received little attention with respect to their setting within a British context. As most of their 'Canadian' books were, however, actually written for British publishers and hence with a British audience in mind, reading them exclusively as reflections on an emerging Canadian identity does not therefore do full justice to their original scope; they must also be understood as messages sent 'home' and as comments on the 'old' world they had left behind. A further investigation of this British context seems particularly pertinent in Catharine's case. Although, as Ann Boutelle puts it, "[a]ll of the [Strickland] children 'scribbled', and seven out of nine became published authors," 7 it is Catharine's early work written while she was still at home in Suffolk that includes a remarkable book on a Canadian subject, entitled The Young Emigrants; or, Pictures of Canada Calculated to Amuse and Instruct the Minds of Youth (1826). None of the Strickland works written in England showed a similar pre-occupation with Canada, even if many of her siblings were similarly productive, even if Catharine herself had some eight or nine further books to her credit before she left England in 1832, and even if her elder sisters' Agnes and Elizabeth's later collaboration, the multi-volume Lives of the Queens of England (1840-48), achieved the siblings' highest public acclaim at the time. As an important illustration of Catharine's image of Canada before her emigration, The Young Emigrants therefore is a particularly interesting and at the same time neglected work in the Strickland canon. Not only can it suggest visions of Canada prevalent in the Strickland home in England; and not only does it lend itself to a comparison with the more famous post-emigration works by Catharine, as well as those by her sister Susanna, adding a further element to the discussion about the sisters' respective negotiations with their new en-

5 6

7

The MLA International Bibliography lists over 100 entries on Moodie and Traill. E.g. Ann Boutelle, "Sisters and Survivors: Catherine [j/c] Parr Traill and Susanna Moodie" in Rhoda Β. Nathan (ed.), Nineteenth-Century Women Writers of the English-Speaking World. Contributions in Women's Studies 6 9 ( N e w York: Greenwood Press, 1986), 13-18. 13. Ann Boutelle, "Sisters and Survivors", 13.

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vironment in America; 8 it also presents an oblique vision, through the prism of an imagined Canada, of Catharine's view on British society, and in particular on such central issues as gender, education, the economy, or religion. While these further concerns of the comparison to Catharine's later works, especially her Backwoods of Canada (1836), will come into this discussion, the following examination will nevertheless focus on the image of Canada underlying The Young Emigrants and its functions within a wider British context. The Young Emigrants is by no means Traill's first attempt at authorship. Her career started in 1818, when the collection of stories she had been writing over the years were submitted without her knowledge to John Harris, the London bookseller and well-known publisher of children's books, who printed it as The Blind Highland Piper, and Other Tales (1818), re-issuing the book later as The Tell Tale: An Original Collection of Moral and Amusing Stories (1823). Most of what Catharine Traill wrote in the following years was in the same mould of didactic juvenile literature with such telling titles as Reformation; or, The Cousins (1819), Little Downy; or, The History of a Field Mouse: A Moral Tale (1822), Prejudice Reproved; or, The History of the Negro Toy-seller (1826) and The Keepsake Guineas; or, The Best Use of Money (1828) spreading her work among several reputable London publishers. This is also the vein in which The Young Emigrants is written. As the subtitle indicates, the "Pictures of Canada" to be presented in the volume are "calculated to amuse and instruct the minds of youth," using the Horatian combination of the useful and the entertaining, which appeared as a commonplace in countless didactic publications at the time. Nor was this untypical for children's or juvenile literature, which only shows evidence of a shift from the fundamentally didactic to the primarily 'recreational' at around 1850;9 a trend also visible in Traill's career, as a look at her more obliquely instructive The Canadian Crusoes of 1852 can show, credited as Canada's first "memorable children's book [...] produced by an author living in Canada." 10 In Traill's earlier books, the moral is, however, as explicit and conspicuous as

8

Susanna's and Catharine's perceptions of Canada are often described as antithetical, as in Boutelle, "Sisters and Survivors"; for a different, complementary approach, see Fiona Sparrow, '"This Place Is Some Kind of a Garden:' Clearings in the Bush in the Works of Susanna Moodie, Catharine Parr Traill, Margaret Atwood and Margaret Laurence", The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 25 (1990), 24-41, 25. 9 Cf. for example Peter Hunt, An Introduction to Children's Literature, Opus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 9. 10 "Catharine Parr Traill", in Humphrey Carpenter, Mari Prichard (eds.), The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1984, 1995), 53940.

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possible, and it is an integral part of the structure of the text. Her earlier Little Downy; or, The History of a Field Mouse of 1822 displays this most vividly. 11 The little book begins with a scene between Mrs Clifford and her son Alfred, which revolves around the fact that a mouse has eaten little Alfred's cake, at which the child has flown into a tantrum and spitefully wishes the mouse to be caught and get killed. Here his mother discovers not only a lack of patience in the face of "trifling disappointments" (LD, 6) in her son, but worse character flaws urgently call her vigilance to attention: Mrs. Clifford was much grieved that her little Alfred shewed so much inclination to be cruel and revengeful, t w o qualities so dangerous in a child, or in any one; and she knew that, unless it was timely checked, it would grow into a habit. Harsh means, she did not like to adopt; and so she at last thought of a method which seemed likely to succeed. (LD, 7)

Mrs Clifford's choice of instruction involves not only confronting her son with the dead mouse, once it has been caught, as the direct consequence of his anger. Here, Alfred already shows first signs of compassion. The real-life or, rather 'real-death', demonstration is followed by a story about the eponymous field mouse Downy, which depicts the mouse family's struggles and tribulations, ending in the death of the mouse child Velvet in what Alfred recognizes as the very trap he set up to catch the thieving mouse in the cupboard. At the news of this death, the story continues, the mother mouse Downy equally expires for grief at the loss of her child, and little Alfred is in tears at having been instrumental in the extermination of the entire Downy mouse family. His watchful mother is happy to confirm her son's cure from cruelty and vengefulness. Arguably, this very pattern from diagnosis of a moral or social evil to its subsequent cure to be effected through a story can also be identified as the broad outline of Traill's Young Emigrants, published four years after Little Downy. At the very least, a quasi-structuralist reading of the later book based on the pattern of the former yields interesting parallels. Similar to the field mouse story, The Young Emigrants starts with an incisive event, here the loss of employment by Mr Clarence, a civil servant. The loss of income throws the family back on its savings and property and terminates their ways and means for an evidently prosperous upper-middle-class life. Roselands, the family estate, is to be sold, an expensive education of their fifteen-year-old son Richard has to be abandoned before it is finished, and the sisters Agnes and Ellen fear for their growing up to a lady-like existence and pursuits. Then the family emigrate to Canada, leaving Ellen behind for reasons of health, but also for the good authorial practicality of a pretext for her brother and sister starting

11 Catharine Parr Traill, Little Downy (London: Dean and Munday, 1822). Further references to this edition will be included in the text (abbreviated as 'LD').

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a correspondence with her, writing home from Canada and describing their voyage, arrival and settlement. If the parallel to Little Downy is upheld, these letters would then correspond to Mrs Clifford's tale of the field mouse which didactically illustrates and unfolds in a narrative the moral value system underlying the first part; it is eventually aimed at its confirmation by characters and readers alike. What, then, are the central issues raised in the first part of The Young Emigrants'? They can, it appears, be grasped on various levels. First of all, there is of course the moral element which is prominent, even if it is the most conventional or perfunctory aspect and may even be perceived as a veneer closing off the more unsettling topics of the story. It can be found summarized in Richard's comfort to Agnes on the insight that Agnes may have to be left behind for the time being. Her considerate brother quotes Pope's phrase "Whatever is, is RIGHT" from the Essay on Man (II.x.294) and is confirmed by the narrator's comment as follows: "Richard was right. It is always wisest and best to submit, without murmuring, to those things which we have not the power to remedy" (YE, 28). Beyond the moralistic didacticism of submission to God's will in the face of misfortune, the set-up of The Young Emigrants is also based on a social problem, centring on the impending loss of social standing following the Clarences' loss of income and the concept of emigration to Canada as a potential remedy against this expected decline. In her study on The Pioneer Woman, Elizabeth Thompson sums up this theme in Traill's Young Emigrants in the question: "Can a woman remain a lady in Canada, living as a Canadian pioneer, and performing what are essentially 'unladylike' tasks?" What in Thompson's view makes The Young Emigrants itself a pioneering text is the fact that this question is emphatically answered in the affirmative in the story: "despite their new working habits, they are ladies".12 Thompson concludes: Traill obviously has by this time developed some quite decided views on pioneers and pioneering, specifically with respect to the role o f women ("ladies") on the frontier. The view that a lady could remain identifiable as a lady no matter where she might be and no matter what she might be doing, and the idea that one must always seek to obey the will o f God willingly and cheerfully were apparently part o f Traill's own efforts to adapt to her new country. 13

In this reading, then, Traill expanded and redefined the social identity of the English lady, and one of the purposes of this redefinition, one could add, is to enable the survival of this convention and the social standing and distinction it entailed in the extenuated circumstances and the very different context of Canada. Thompson's view can also be found confirmed in the letters the Cla-

12 Thompson, The Pioneer Woman, 16-17. 13 Thompson, The Pioneer Woman, 17.

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rence siblings send home to their sister Ellen. Milking cows and looking after the poultry does not denigrate a Canadian lady's social standing. Arguably, this confirmation is produced by reconfirming the coordinates which constitute the quality of an English lady at home in Britain, a quality presented as enacted through relations of superiority, which are combined with an educational and missionary component. The relations of superiority as re-established in the Canadian experience of Traill's story concern servants, the Scottish, the Irish, the 'Indians' and, ultimately, also fate. The Clarence's arrival and settlement in Canada described in the epistolary part of The Young Emigrants can therefore be read as a re-establishment of the family's social status within their new environment. However, servants prove a first and particularly noisome hurdle in this venture. Thus, Richard writes to his sister Ellen in England: Before I proceed to relate my story, I must first tell you that, in this country, the settlers have the greatest difficulty in procuring servants, either to do the work of the house or the labour on the farm, as every servant considers himself on a perfect equality with his master; and if you pay them ever so highly, they will hardly condescend to perform those little offices which a European servant executes for you with cheerfulness and without a murmur. Wages, in consequence are very high, and labour very dear. [ . . . ] You are often subjected to great inconvenience from the spirit of equality and independence which subsists among the lower classes. (YE.

65) Soon, however, the Clarences are able to solve this problem. Richard takes pity on a half-starved pair of children he meets in the streets of Montreal. The Clarences meet their recently widowed father and the destitute family is identified as immigrants from the north of Scotland (YE, 69), fallen on hard times. The Gordons, as they are called, gratefully accept the Clarences' invitation to join them, if not by name, at least by position as servants: they agree to meet again at York, the Clarences taking a comfortable berth on a steamer, while "it was then arranged that Gordon and his family should go in the batteaux [sic] with the baggage" (YE, 81). The views on the Indians the reader is given are at first picturesque when the emigrants pass a camp of Micmacs on the shores of the St. Lawrence (YE, 88) and, although they are also described as useful trading partners for game and medicine (YE, 89), the main impression is that "they are indolent, and lead a desultory, wandering sort of life" (YE, 124). This negative view is particularly prominent when it comes to religious and moral aspects, as described in the family of Iroquois Indians who have pitched their tents near the Clarences' new home: These poor, unenlightened Indians, live in a state of mental blindness and superstition that is most truly lamentable. They are much addicted to intoxication, theft, and many other vices equally abominable. But they are greatly to be pitied; for they have not the knowledge of God set before their eyes, and know not that the

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end o f sin is death; nor that, in keeping the commandments of God, there is a great reward. (YE, 125)

This pity immediately arouses the immigrants' didactic missionary zeal, which is quickly extended to another group of social destitutes, the Irish. Richard writers in his letter: Papa has given us a waste bit o f land, on which w e are to build a school-house, for the benefit o f the children of the Irish labourers w h o inhabit the village, and w h o are almost as little acquainted with the duties o f Christianity as the poor Indians themselves. W e hope to induce the Iroquois to send their children to us, that w e may educate them, and teach them the knowledge o f God; and I hope it will please Him to bless our endeavours with success. (YE, 126)

In short, the colonial structure prevalent in the British Isles is re-established in Canada, easily integrating the Indians into the pattern and thus incidentally solving the problem of the servant-master relations initially questioned by the republican spirit which had annoyed the Clarences on their arrival. They are thus on a good way to build their "transatlantic Roselands" (YE, 61), as it is envisaged at one point, were it not for the wild nature and the primitive settlements which are still found lacking. Although, for example, Canada's wildlife and picturesque landscape are enthusiastically taken in and meticulously described, they still need to be adapted to human needs, as in the case of the grapes, emblem of high culture and civilization: "wild grapes, which are found in vast quantities in the forest. They are crude and small, but may be much improved by proper care and cultivation" (YE, 119). Similarly, when they arrive at their new farmstead, "it was but a desolate-looking place, though most agreeably situated, and capable of great improvement" (YE, 106). It is not merely the traditional social context but, as it were, the natural infrastructure, which still needs to take shape in Canada for such a social context to develop. This reading is confirmed at the end of the book in so far as the new Canadian homeland is by then brought up to such a standard that Ellen, who had been unable to shake off her lady-like trappings and had remained with her aunt in England, can now join them despite all her unchanged female sensitivity and preciosity: It was a cold winter evening [ . . . ] when Ellen Clarence and her father entered upon the frozen road that led towards Roselands; and Mr. Clarence, bidding Ellen (who. quite overcome by the severity o f the cold, had buried her face in the folds of her warm fur-lined cloak) to look up, pointed out to her notice the light o f the blazing fire, that illumined the w i n d o w s o f the cottage [ . . . ] . (YE, 161)

An English idyll of a country home complete with winter setting and cosy fire light has been established; fit surroundings for an English lady. This reading of The Young Emigrants, initiated by Thompson and others, and expanded here, is doubtless valuable and to the point, particularly in so far

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as it highlights the colonial preconceptions projected onto the new land. As noted before, however, The Young Emigrants also reflects back on British society, and it does so not merely by casting into relief the colonial and class structures on which British society was founded in the early nineteenth century. Although it continues to be upheld as an ideal, the genteel culture of the wellto-do gentleman such as Mr Clarence and his family also emerges as the object of an oblique but fundamental criticism. The Young Emigrants starts with Mr Clarence's announcement to his son, who is wondering when the vacation will end and when he will be sent back to school, that he "must consider [his] education as finished" (2). There is not enough capital left to continue his education to enter the medical profession, so Richard asks his father what alternative education he could get "to procure a genteel livelihood", at which his father answers: I should be loath to see you descend into the lower ranks o f society, [ . . . ] it would take a considerable sum o f money to apprentice you to any trade, even to a linendraper or grocer, either of which would be respectable situations, though by no means agreeable to a youth who has made great progress in a classical education. (YE, 4)

With no option left for a "genteel livelihood" in England, the only way left is the emigration to North America, where the "cultivation of the earth" will be Richard's main purpose of life. Richard immediately accepts this as a "manly and independent employment"; his mother joins in that "[a]ll professions which spring from the effects of luxury, are mean, in comparison with the peaceful and useful pursuit of agriculture." This is confirmed by Richard, who adds: "At any rate, it is more consonant to our habits, than engaging in any mercantile pursuits" (YE, 6). The father of the family consents and sums it up: In America, the necessaries of life may be obtained with a little industry and prudence; and there are many comforts which we do not possess in England. But I wish not to deceive you, my dear child. You must not expect to find, in a new settlement, the same luxuries that you enjoy in one of the most luxurious countries in Europe. (YE, 6-7)

Thus, in the few exchanges of the Clarence family council at the beginning of The Young Emigrants a concept of contrasting values is set up, which is mainly based on the opposition of European luxury and mercantilism (bad) versus a prospective Canadian comfort derived from agricultural pursuits, associated with peace, happiness and health (good). Strikingly, this concept is not only characteristic of much of Catharine Parr Traill's further work; it can also be identified as an important element of a growing Canadian identity at the time. It can, for example, be seen in the contemporary creation of Farmer Gosling in Thomas McCulloch's The Mephibosheth Stepsure Letters, first serialized in 1821-23 in the Arcadian Recorder, who decides to sell his farm and go into trade. Giving up his comfortable situation as a well-to-do farmer, Gosling turns

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merchant, goes from bad to worse, and eventually ends up in prison. An agrarian, Protestant society, founded on the values of industry, frugality, usefulness and modesty is contrasted with a mercantile economy based on moneyed interest. In the following decades, this contrast would increasingly serve in the formation of a Canadian identity against the United States. It is obvious that, with their traditional English education, the Clarence children are ill-suited for this kind of (ultimately preferable) life-style: their education is, in a word, not useful, but adapted to prepare them for a life of luxury. This applies to both male and female education alike. Thus, Ellen sadly asks her brother: In America, what will be the use o f those accomplishments, that A g n e s and I have spent s o m u c h time in attaining? Will not our skill in music, French, and drawing, be all thrown away, a m o n g the wild w o o d s o f Canada? ( Y E , 11)

Richard points out that they will in fact show their usefulness, such as her knowledge of French "in conversing with the Canadians" or her skill in music to "cheer our evenings, after the toils of the day," but Richard also emphasizes: Y o u have hitherto made these accomplishments the sole e m p l o y m e n t o f your life; but n o w a higher duty awaits you, and more active pursuits. Your more elegant attainments will still serve as a pleasing relaxation from graver studies, and more t o i l s o m e occupation; but they must no longer form the business o f your life.

(YE, 12) Similarly, Richard's own preoccupations with "a small electrifying machine, an air-pump, a cabinet of fossils, and a superb magic lantern" are to be changed. Richard decides that "it would be much wiser to dispose of them, and apply the proceeds to a more useful purpose" (YE, 14). The impending emigration to Canada thus reflects back on the Clarences' education and life style in several ways, but also offers a number of new opportunities. On the one hand, it exposes their English life-style as one of unnecessary luxury and the education leading to the accomplishments it requires as pointless: The sisters' life-time devotion to learning French, music and drawing are shown as ultimately useless, and even Richard's virtuoso-like tinkering with air pumps, fossils and magic lanterns seems a curiously roundabout way to prepare him for the medical profession. 14 In the British context, this clearly involves a critique of English middle-class society and its educational system emulating the pursuits of an idle aristocracy, which by implication also comes in for its share of oblique criticism. A turn to usefulness, a word reiterated throughout Traill's story, is emphatically advocated. Large parts of British

14 Somewhat unconvincingly, the claim of usefulness for Richard's appliances within the English context is indeed made: "for he was well aware that his future employments would leave him no time for making those experiments, which would have proved very useful in the profession he had been intended for, but of none to the Canadian farmer" (YE, 14).

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society are thus portrayed as disconnected from the actual human wants and needs, both of the individual and of the community at large. What the well-todo classes are training their children for emerges as unnecessary and highly questionable. The image of pioneer life in Canada is also introduced to put Traill's readers, both male and female, in touch again with the basics of human subsistence. The occupations of a straightforward agrarian life are contrasted with the complexities of industrializing Britain. Richard's turn-around is symptomatic: retrieve invested capital in "professions which spring from the effects of luxury," as his mother calls them (YE, 6), and reinvest it in the fundamentals necessary for an agrarian economy. It is not so much this argument, however, which is of interest here, but the way in which it is to be brought home to the reader. Structurally, we are back at the beginning of this investigation with its comparison to the Downy story: here is the problem which is identified in the introductory episode, and the solution is then given, this time not in a story about a field mouse, but in the form of letters from Canada, which are intended to show the validity of the moral issues under consideration. Projecting an image of life in Canada back to Britain thus becomes a means to review middle-class life in England, to question its educational ideals, and to pinpoint its alienation from the basic needs of human life and comfort. Appropriately, The Backwoods of Canada, Traill's next book on Canada, written after her emigration, was first published in Charles Knight's Library of Entertaining Knowledge in 1836. The context of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge which epitomized the educational change is well fitted to Traill's major themes begun in The Young Emigrants. It also opens Traill's writing to the same criticism, however, which was generally levelled at the SDUK. 15 Beyond its undoubted merits in offering less expensive books and in raising the issue of a nation-wide education, its reputation remained ambivalent. Still restricted by revolutionary anxieties fostered by events in France, its instructive and didactic purposes are also associated with exerting control and, in the worst interpretation, propounding ideals of usefulness which, in the end, did not, for various reasons, hold their promise: they never reached the lower classes for which they were originally intended, but became popular reading with the middle classes; the knowledge contained in the books published by the SDUK was not really 'useful' at all, but was, as famously lampooned by Peacock and others, 16 either recondite, over-specialized or simply irrelevant, in

15 Cf. Richard D. Altick, The English Common Reader: A Social History of the Mass Reading Public, 1800-1900, 2nd ed. (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1998), 269-73 and passim, and Thomas Kelly, A History of Adult Education in Great Britain from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1992), 165-68. 16 Cf. Altick, English Common Reader, 272-3.

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addition to being often trite and always heavily didactic and moralizing. In this negative view, reading them would not liberate and educate the lower classes for bettering their situation, but would play up to the very conservative purpose of keeping them under control while involving them in an ultimately useless reading about allegedly useful knowledge. If the test of usefulness is applied to Traill's descriptions of Canada in the epistolary part of The Young Emigrants, it will equally appear that the educational re-orientation propagated in the first part is not consistently followed through, if not contradicted. Readers get very little confirmation that the new kind of education the Clarence children underwent before their emigration is usefully employed in their new surroundings. There is very little description in the way of milking cows, tilling the land and further pioneering work. Instead, the reader is offered a number of picturesque views of the new country, interspersed with criticism of deficiencies in its cultivation and visions of what it will look like when it is properly civilized. The pioneering work in between the two states is remarkably inconspicuous, and the major civilizing project dwelt on towards the end of the book is the institution of a school for the Irish and Indians, while, presumably, the Scottish helpers perform the chores at home. In sum, Catharine Parr Traill's Canada, as depicted in The Young Emigrants, does not really help to teach the virtues highlighted as necessary to cure the deficiencies of English education and social life identified in the first section of the book, even if it opens Canada as an imaginary space, the description of which could be seen as useful for social critique in Britain and in the venture of replacing the values of luxury and mercantilism with those of comfort, industriousness and duty even in the old country. As this contrast would continue to be used in forming a British Canadian identity against the United States, but also against French Canadians, it could, at the time, serve as a reorientation in the process of constructing an English identity markedly different from that of the French revolutionaries. The fact that gaps are perceptible in The Young Emigrants between its moral ideals on the one hand and the description of the Canadian 'reality' on the other is also due to the fact that the book's structure falls apart into an openly didactic first section and the following epistolary part providing an illustration of the first. In her following novelistic attempts, Catherine Parr Traill avoided this problem by producing more integrated models, either by concentrating on the description of Canada with only interspersed didactic elements as in The Backwoods, or by simply telling a story with an integrated, less explicit didacticism, as in The Canadian Crusoes. The Young Emigrants still retains the position of her first attempt at bringing Canadian images into British homes as instructive and stimulating means of improving English society. Her verdict "capable of great improvement" therefore referred to her place of birth as much as to her new home in Canada.

MARKUS WUST University of Alberta

Deserts and Visions of Paradise: The Representation of the Canadian Landscape in Advertisements and Guides for Canadian Immigrants

Watching the emigrants from Germany move through Canada in search of a new home farther West, I was always puzzled as to why these people would not rather stay in Canada, save the money for the rest of the journey, and seek their fortunes. During the nine years o f my stay in Canada as a surveyor for the government I became firmly convinced that a German, who emigrates to America, and especially a farmer, could hardly hope to find a better lot in life in a land other than Canada. During a visit to my relatives in Germany in 1859 I solved the puzzle: it is because 1 met only relatively few people who were better acquainted with Canada and who did not have but the vaguest and most incorrect ideas about it.'

In this quotation from his Canada, ein Land für deutsche Auswanderung (1861), Wilhelm Wagner bemoans the lack of knowledge about Canada in Germany and the detrimental effect this ignorance has on German emigration to Canada. Part of his job as an immigration agent working for the Canadian government was to rectify this situation and to 'inform' the German public about Canada's many advantages, since "all things considered, the moral, political, commercial, all economic conditions that prevail here and there, one definitely has to give preference to Canada." 2 Some of the points he mentions, referring to the Canadian economy and to politics, were typical elements taken from the literature written for immigrants at that time. He leaves out one central aspect, however, which was of primary importance in immigration propaganda and still plays a major part in the German perception of Canada today. The discussion of the Canadian landscape was a fundamental part not only of immigration guides, but also of all literary genres used to write about Canada. Endless forests and prairies as well as the (at least for a German immigrant) seemingly endless winters were discussed, and the individual descriptions of

1 2

Wilhelm Wagner, Canada, ein Land für deutsche Auswanderung (Berlin: R. Kuhn. 1861), 3. All translations from works published in German are mine. Wagner. Canada. 5.

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specific features of the landscape were always dependent upon the authors' agendas and attitudes towards Canada. One of the first of these guides written specifically for a German audience, Heinrich Meidinger's Canadas rasches Aufblühen, besonders als Ackerbau treibender Staat, und seine Wichtigkeit für Auswanderer in bezug auf Arbeit, Landerwerb, gesundes Klima und bürgerliche Freiheit (1858), mentions two features in its title, the suitability of the land for agriculture and the healthy climate, that were to become standard topics of immigration guides. Also, it points towards one group of immigrants - farmers - that the Canadian government and other organizations involved in the recruitment of immigrants were especially interested in during the nineteenth century.3 The focus of this article is the portrayal of the Canadian landscape in immigration guides or propaganda literature similar to the above-quoted work by Wilhelm Wagner, i.e. texts written for German emigrants in the nineteenth century. Although the relevant publications occasionally feature a few negative comments on the Canadian landscape and warnings to inexperienced farmers about premature emigration, the following analysis concentrates on how many authors managed to tame the Canadian landscape by discussing features of importance to settlers and especially farmers, specifically the environmental conditions and the suitability of the land, in a way that deflected attention from potential problems in the settlement process and persuaded them of the feasibility of emigrating to Canada. The second focus of this paper is an investigation into how authors dealt with the challenge posed to them by anti-Canadian propaganda, which was predominantly published by organizations interested in redirecting to the United States German farmers originally heading for Canada. One pro-Canadian author describes the problem as follows: M u c h is said and written about Canada that is not very favorable. T h o s e in the serv i c e o f A m e r i c a n railroad c o m p a n i e s or o f different states o f the American U n i o n that are in need o f immigrants earn their little bit o f bread mainly by writing in newspapers, pamphlets, and personal statements to denigrate the country that w e and, with us, hundreds and thousands o f our f e l l o w country men, h a v e c h o s e n to be our n e w h o m e . A c c o r d i n g to these servants Canada is nothing but a s e c o n d Siberia [ . . . ] . T h e accusations heaped upon Canada to completely spoil it for German immigration are more numerous. H o w e v e r , if y o u take a closer look at them all, if

3

While craftsmen were also courted in emigration guides, there was considerably less interest in some other groups. In Auskunft über die Dominion Canada fiir deutsche Ansiedler (Ottawa, 1882), published by the Canadian Department of Agriculture, the author warns, among others, intellectuals not to come to Canada without a job offer: "Academically educated people and clerks should not even think about going to Canada if they have not already arranged for employment to start right after their arrival there, because there are already enough of these people in Canada" (7).

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you analyze them impartially, you will find that they are grossly exaggerated and simply aimed at fostering a negative prejudice against our country.4 Therefore, Canada not only had to be promoted, but also defended against defamatory statements by American immigration agents and other interest groups. Since much of the defamation was directed towards the Canadian landscape, a discussion of the defense strategies used by pro-Canadian writers is included here. 5 When the first larger group of German settlers arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on September 13, 1750, they were part of an attempt by the British government to consolidate their rule in Acadia, the former French possessions on the Atlantic coast. 6 In Europe, they had been approached by representatives of a merchant from Rotterdam named John Dick, who had been hired by the British government to recruit German-speaking settlers. For this purpose, he provided a one-page pamphlet giving information about the services and goods provided to the immigrant by the British government, a description of the favorable environmental conditions of Nova Scotia, and an account of the successes of settlers already living in the area. 7 Another resource available to the emigrants was the German translation of A Geographical History of Nova Scotia (1749). In addition to the information provided in the English original, it included comments on the recent history of Nova Scotia and erroneous statements about a group of German settlers that had supposedly arrived the previous year. 8 This added information was meant to reduce reservations among Germans about living in an environment dominated by settlers of French and English origin. Besides such uncertainties and a lack of informa-

4 5 6

7 8

Die Dominion Canada: ein Wegweiser für Deutsche Einwanderer nach Canada (Ottawa: n.p.. 1876), 37. Among the other arguments used against Canada were the influence of the British monarchy and the weak condition of the Canadian economy. Thirty-seven years earlier, in the Treaty of Utrecht, Britain had aquired Acadia. The original settlers, the Acadians, who were of French ancestry, were perceived as a danger to British rule, not just because of their ties to France, but also because the Roman-Catholic Acadians were influenced by the anti-British propaganda spread by many of their priests. In order to counterbalance the French influence, Britain tried to attract settlers who were both Protestant and promised loyalty to the British crown. Because of previous positive experiences with German-speaking settlers in the American colonies, it was decided to send agents to different German states. Cf. Gertrud Waseem, "Die Fahrt nach Nova Scotia. Zur Vorgeschichte der Gründung Lunenburgs, Ν. S", German-Canadian Yearbook 3 (1976), 140-159, 141. A reproduction of the pamphlet can be found in Waseem, "Die Fahrt nach Nova Scotia", 142. Historische und Geographische Beschreibung von Neu-Schottland, darinnen von der Lage, Grösse, Beschaffenheit, Fruchtbarkeit und besondern Eigenschaften des Landes, wie auch von den Sitten und Gewohnheiten der Indianer, und von den merckwürdigsten Begebenheiten, so sich zwischen denen Cronen Frankreich und England seit deren Besitznehmung zugetragen, hinlänglich Nachricht erlheilet wird (Frankfurt: Heinrich Ludwig Brönner, 1750). Cf. Gertrud Waseem, "Auswanderungspropaganda für Nova Scotia im 18. Jahrhundert". Canadiana Germanica 49 (March 1986), 1-5.

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tion, agents also had to deal with competition from the American colonies who vied with Canada for new settlers. America already attracted the vast majority of emigrants moving from Europe to North America, and the colonies had a history of German settlement (Germantown, Pennsylvania was founded in 1683). In addition, their agents tried to discourage settlers "by rumours that they were heading for a barren land with nothing but fish, sand, Indians, and wars." 9 Towards the end of the eighteenth century, more material written in German about what was to become Canada became available. Many Hessians the German soldiers who were sold to Britain to fight in the American War of Independence (1776-1783) - wrote about their experiences during the war and also included references to weather and landscape and descriptions of the areas they visited, mostly modern-day Quebec. 10 Other resources were travel reports that, initially written in English and French, began to appear in German translation" and included short chapters on Canada by German authors writing mainly about the United States. 12 In 1858, Heinrich Meidinger's book on Canada was published, which Hermann Boeschenstein identifies as the first such guide written specifically for German-speaking settlers, 13 and two years later, Wilhelm Wagner, the "actual father of the German-language advertising campaign for Canada," began to write both original works and translations of English texts in his role as Canadian immigration agent in Prussia. 14 Another

9

10

11 12

13

14

Gerhard Bassler, "The 'Inundation' of British North America with 'the Refuse of Foreign Pauperism': Assisted Emigration from Southern Germany in the mid-19th Century", GermanCanadian Yearbook 4 (1978), 93-113,93. Probably the best-known work of its kind is Friederike von Riedesel's Die Berufs-Reise nach America: Briefe der Generalin von Riedesel auf dieser Reise und während ihres sechsjährigen Aufenthalts in America zur Zeit des dortigen Krieges in den Jahren 1776 bis 1783 nach Deutschland geschrieben (Berlin: Haude & Spener, 1801), in which she describes how she followed her husband, who was the commander of the auxiliary troops from Brunswick, to Canada and spent six years with him while he was held prisoner of war. More such works are mentioned in Horst Dippel, Germany and the American Revolution 1770-1800, trans. Bernhard A. Uhlendorf (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), 367-424. For an extensive bibliography on travel reports discussing Canada cf. German-Canadian Yearbook 11 (1990), 358-70. One such work was Traugott Bromme's Wegweiser für Einwanderer und Reisende in den Vereinigten Staaten von Nord-Amerika und den Canada's (Bayreuth: Verlag der Buchner'schen Buchhandlung, 1848). While his book provides the emigrant with descriptions of the Canadian landscape, the actual section for emigrants in the eighth edition of the work is only one page long. Hermann Boeschenstein, "Is there a Canadian Image in German Literature?" Seminar 3.1 (1967), 1-20. Gerhard Friesen provides a transcript of another short work that includes letters written by German settlers in Ontario in which they describe the favorable conditions of this area and encourage others to follow them. "A German-Canadian Rarissimum: Briefe von Ansiedlern in Huron Trackt, Canada" German-Canadian Yearbook 10 (1988), 11-31. Karin G. Gürttier, "Persuasive Strategien in der Hinwanderungspublizistik Wilhelm Wagners; oder, Ein treuer Diener seines Heim", German-Canadian Yearbook 14 (1995), 17-33, 19.

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major contributor to the body o f immigration literature was the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), which, in exchange for building the railroad to the Western Provinces, was granted a land subsidy o f twenty-five million acres in 1881. In order to recuperate the costs o f construction and especially to guarantee future customers for its services, 15 the CPR started an advertising campaign to attract farmers from Britain in 1881. These pamphlets were available in a variety o f languages including German. At the same time, Canada had to cope with the loss o f a significant part o f its population to the United States: For more than two decades near the end of the nineteenth century Canada witnessed an unprecedented exodus. Between 1880 and 1891, more than a million Canadians and immigrants, equivalent to one-fifth of the total dominion population, left to seek greater opportunity in the United States. Emigration exceeded immigration by 205,000 in the 1880's; while in the 1890's, as the trend continued, the net loss was 181,000. 16 Shifting control o f the Government's efforts to attract immigrants from the Department o f Agriculture to the Department of the Interior in 1892 did not immediately increase the number o f immigrants and by 1896, immigration had reached its lowest level since 1868. 17 That year, Clifford Sifton became Minister o f the Interior in Wilfried Laurier's Liberal government, and under his lead, the department mounted a massive campaign to attract both American and European settlers to the Canadian West. The following quotation describes some o f the methods used by Sifton's agents: Sifton believed in the hard sell. "In my judgement," he told the House of Commons, "the immigration work has to be carried on in the same manner as the sale of any commodity; just as soon as you stop advertising and missionary work the movement is going to stop." The available media were exploited heavily to extol the virtues of western Canada. From a mere sixty-five thousand pieces of immigration literature produced in 1896, the volume was expanded to over one million in the first six months of 1900 [...]. The object was to flood the rural districts of the United States, Great Britain, and Europe; accordingly the pamphlets were produced in a wide variety of languages. [...]. Indeed the department was entirely prepared to underwrite the production of "editorial articles" for insertion in foreign newspapers, articles - as Sifton put it - "referring to Canada and incidentally giving information about Canada of such a nature as an English paper would be willing to publish and would consider to be interesting to its readers [...]."' s

15 The CPR's focus on populating the land becomes apparent in the words of George Stephen, when he wrote in 1881: "It is settling, not selling that we must aim at [...] if our lands won't sell we will give them away to settlers." John A. Eagle, The Canadian Pacific Railway and the Development of Western Canada, 1896-1914 (Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1989), 174 (emphasis in original). 16 David John Hall, Clifford Sifton, 2 vols (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. 1981), 1, 253. 17 Hall, Clifford Sifton, I, 131. 18 Hall, Clifford Sifton, I, 258 (emphasis added).

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German-language newspapers published in Canada were also used in a variety of ways. Besides its own publications, the government sent copies of these papers to Europe and the United States. While the impact of the newspapers on individual decisions to emigrate to Canada is not clear, the use of these papers by settlers to attract new immigrants to their area does indicate that they had some influence in directing German-speaking immigrants to specific parts of western Canada. In the columns of the papers, settlers reported on their progress and invited other Germans to settle in their area. Also, Germans wishing to emigrate to western Canada at times used German language newspapers to find a settlement where they might locate.19 Besides the above-mentioned reports by settlers in newspapers, such letters were also integrated into immigration guides or were the sole content of some publications. One of the earliest works of this kind written about Canada is Briefe von Ansiedlern in Huron Trackt, which was probably published in the 1840s. 20 Another possible influence were letters that were not originally meant for publication, but instead sent from settlers in Canada to relatives in Europe to persuade them to emigrate. 21 Although Western Canadians who were predominantly of British ancestry resisted the influx of immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe, Sifton "was a highly pragmatic politician determined to populate the West with a productive agrarian population which he would seek wherever he could find it, despite western agitation." 22 The desire of Sifton's ministry to attract farmers also became evident in 1899 in the formation of the North Atlantic Trading Company, a clandestine organization of European shipping agents who agreed to try to divert agricultural settlers to Canada in return for an increased bonus. The Canadian government undertook to pay £500 per annum for promotional literature and to regard persons over twelve,

19 Arthur Grenke, "Settlement Patterns of German-Speaking Immigrants on the Canadian Prairies 1817-1914", German-Canadian Yearbook 14 (1995), 1-16, 8. 20 There is no exact publication information available for this book. Reprinted in Gerhard Friesen, "A German-Canadian Rarissimum." For more information on various types of letters, see Stephan W. Görisch, Information zwischen Werbung und Warnung: Die Rolle der Amerikaliteratur in der Auswanderung des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts (Darmstadt: Selbstverlag der Hessischen Historischen Kommission Darmstadt und der Historischen Kommission für Hessen, 1991). 21 While the impact of these letters cannot be quantified, contemporary observers ascribed to them a strong influence on emigrants (Görisch, Information zwischen Werbung und Warnung, 172). Even "Otto von Bismarck [German chancellor 1871-1890] himself remarked that one of the chief inducements for Germans to leave their country were the persuasive letters that came from other family members contentedly settled overseas." Brenda Lee-Whiting, On Stony Ground (Renfrew: Juniper Books, 1986), 21. 22 Lee-Whiting, On Stony Ground, 263.

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rather than eighteen, as adults for purposes of the higher bonus. However, the government was to pay only for actual agricultural settlers [...]23

With the focus of immigration being on attracting European and American farmers to settle in Canada, authors naturally targeted their descriptions of the Canadian landscape towards the specific requirements and interests of this group. One of the most-debated features of this landscape were the environmental conditions, partly due to the fact that anti-Canadian propaganda had painted a picture of Canada that could serve as a strong deterrent to many emigrants, even those who lived just south of the American-Canadian border. Canadian agents trying to recruit American farmers at the end of the nineteenth century reported some of the comments they received from Americans they contacted: Traveling through his assigned territory an agent in Michigan reported having met "hundreds [of farmers] who had never heard western Canada spoken of except as a region o f perpetual snow." Even the Canadian agent at Syracuse, in the heart of the N e w York State snow belt, complained that except for their visions of unending winter "though close neighbors, the people have known very little about even eastern Canada, and absolutely nothing about our western country. 24

It was therefore a matter of concern for publishers of immigration guides to resolve all doubt among immigrants with regard to the environmental conditions. One argument that can be found repeatedly is the reference to Canada's geographic location in comparison to the readers' countries of origin that are situated at a similar latitude. Using this line of reasoning, authors implied a comparability of climate in order to downplay the severity of environmental conditions in Canada, while at the same time intentionally ignoring the sizeable geographic and therefore climatic differences between Europe and North America. 25 For instance, the author of Auskunft über die Dominion Canada für

23 Lee-Whiting, On Stony Ground, 261 (emphasis added). Before the Company's contract was cancelled in 1906 by Sifton's successor Frank Oliver, it saw a change that reflected the growing Nativism especially in western Canada: "By 1902 France, Belgium, northern Italy, and Roumania had been dropped as sources of agricultural immigrants upon whom a bonus would be paid. Substituted were the Scandinavian countries, Luxembourg, and the term 'Germans from Switzerland.' Holland, Russia, and Austria-Hungary remained. However, a limitation was imposed on certain groups, in response to public opinion: 'It is agreed in respect to settlers from Galicia, Buskowinia [sic], and Poland, excepting Germans, that the bonus allowed under this arrangement be paid on a total number not to exceed a combined number of 5,000 immigrants annually coming from these countries.' Such was the uneasy compromise between Sifton, who wished to encourage what he viewed as desirable 'peasant races' who would make marginal farmland productive, and those who wanted a ban on all immigration from east central Europe." Hall, Clifford Sifton, 2,65. 24 Harold Martin Troper, Only Farmers Need Apply: Official Canadian Government Encouragement of Immigration from the United States, 1896-1911 (Toronto: Griffin House, 1972), 79. 25 Cf. also Karin Gtlrttler's comments on Wilhelm Wagner's use of this argument in his works

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deutsche Ansiedler, a book published by the Ministry o f Agriculture, made the following statement, suggesting similarities in climate between Southern Ontario and Italy: In size [Canada] is almost equal to Europe and larger than the United States of America, if you do not count Alaska. If you were to draw an imaginary line from the southern border of Manitoba and the north-western area of the country straight through the Atlantic Ocean, it would touch Europe just below the latitude at which Paris is situated, while the southern tip of Ontario is as far south as the latitude of Rome. The natural location of Canada is therefore comparable to that of Italy, France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, the British Isles, European Russia, Sweden, and Norway. 26 The same strategy was also used to cast a shadow on the immigrant's perception o f the United States. The following quotation, again taken from Auskunft, equates the location o f parts o f the United States with that o f several countries in the Middle East in an attempt to conjure up images in the readers' minds o f a seemingly infertile and hostile environment. Whereas Canada is often described as a snow desert in anti-Canadian propaganda, it is suggested that parts o f the United States are nothing but sand deserts and therefore unfit for settlement: If an immigrant were to come from Central England, Central Denmark, Northern Prussia, or Southern Sweden to Central Illinois, Missouri, or Indiana, he would experience a climate change equal to that if he were to move 14 degrees of 1000 miles south from his present home to Palestine or Persia. That is: he would be moving from a climate where the summer is rather cool and the atmosphere is humid to an extraordinarily hot and very dry climate. [...] A high temperature and a parching sun are not the only enemies the emigrant has to confront if he moves so far south; the lack of rain in these parts of the United States of America are another and even greater problem. A high temperature in summer with occasional downpours make the climate suitable for growing tropical plants, but a high temperature without any rain is detrimental to the growth of plants, while a high temperature with insufficient rain produces only a meager harvest The geographic location of these above mentioned states of America is very similar to that of Palestine, Arabia, Persia, and Syria, since they are located in those zones where the summer temperature is very high and a sustained drought with frequent dry storms appears and ail humidity evaporates very quickly. 27

(Karin Gilrttler, "Persuasive Strategien", 20). 26 Auskunft über die Dominion Canada für deutsche Ansiedler (Ottawa: Ministry of Agriculture, 1882), 8 (emphasis added). 27 Auskunft über die Dominion Canada, 18-19 (emphasis added). Another publication mentions the fate of settlers in the American West who had to suffer from such an environment and contrasts it to that of farmers in western Canada: "Again and again we receive from settlers in the western United States desperate calls for relief from their destitution, and we are constantly receiving from there new reports of devastating storms and hopelessness. Who has ever heard anything like that about the new settlements in western Canada? We hear only

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In case other publications refrained from mentioning geographic location in order to defend Canada's suitability for settlement and farming, there were various other topics that could be brought up to flatter the environmental conditions. While Manitoba und das Nordwest-Territorium initially refers to the location of Manitoba's southern border - "approximately at the same latitude as Paris and parts of Southern Germany"28 - the climatic differences are explicitly mentioned. However, they are not to Manitoba's disadvantage. On the contrary, the reader is invited to consider the health benefits of settling in the province: As mentioned before, the winters here are colder than in Germany. However, they are not uncomfortable since the air is always dry and clear. Everybody knows that the wet and cold weather, as it is common in Germany and especially in England, is much harder to endure than fresh and clear frosty weather. Manitoba's climate can therefore, without doubt, be described as the healthiest in the world. Lung diseases do not exist there; fevers of any kind are hardly known or not known at all. The climate of the Northwest Territory is similar to that of Manitoba. 2 9

Another publication even granted the Manitoba climate healing powers, while at the same time arguing against the United States: Manitoba's climate is very healthy and is similar to that of Central Europe. Fevers are as unheard of as in Germany. Malaria, or Cold Fever, that so many settlers in Kansas and Texas die of, does not exist in Manitoba. On the contrary, farmers who have to suffer too often from fever in the Southern states very often come to Manitoba to convalesce. 3 0

Ontario is praised in a similar manner when it is claimed that abroad, people have the most bizarre and incorrect ideas regarding Canada's climate. The winter is said to be almost Siberian in its length and cold, and summers are supposedly only known by name. The truth is that, especially in Ontario, people enjoy a climate that could not be more pleasant and healthy [ . . . ] . " "

28

29 30 31

good news from these areas, and pleasant reports of contentment and growing prosperity steadily increase. The year 1889 was undoubtedly a time of disasters of the worst kind; the Canadian Prairies, however, passed the test of those years with flying colors and yielded a crop that, although smaller than usual, could not be considered a crop failure at all." Wo sich der deutsche Ansiedler eine neue Heimat gründen und bald zu Wohlstand kommen kann: Was die Ansiedler selbst darüber sagen (Winnipeg: Canadian Pacific Railway, 1890), 6. Manitoba und das Nordwest-Territorium (Nord-Amerika): ein Bericht über Klima, Boden, Ernteergebnisse und Erwerbsquellen für Capitalisten, Landwirthe, Handwerker, gewöhnliche Arbeiter, Dienstboten, etc. unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Deutschen und deutschsprechenden Ansiedler (Liverpool: Turner & Dunnett, 1886), 3. Manitoba und das Nordist-Territorium, 4. Manitoba und das Nordwest-Territorium, 24. Die Dominion Canada, 26. The comparison between Canada and Siberia was a common argument in anti-Canadian propaganda. The following excerpt was taken from an article in the Proceedings of the 1905 German Colonial Congress, in which the author discusses, among other things, the unsuitability of Canada for farming: "In the United States, it is custom to

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The same argument was used to advertise other parts of the country. In the case of Quebec, the "climate [...] is one of the healthiest under the sun and is one of the most pleasant ones to live in. Fevers, the plague of the southern states of America, are unheard of. There are no diseases that result from the air of the marshes, since every climatic influence is healthy and pure." 3 2 Among the other provinces portrayed in the same publication, Nova Scotia's climate is described as particularly beneficial to settlers: The climate is extremely healthy; there might not be a healthier one in the world. The health reports of the British military stations count this province among the best. Compared to the population of Nova Scotia, there are fewer doctors and their services are less in demand than in any other part of America. The residents reach a ripe old age. Currently, there are many people in this province who are over 100 years old.33 Besides official reports, a high percentage of centenarians within the population is used to substantiate the author's claim. While not explicitly mentioned, it is implied that in a province with a less developed medical infrastructure, this great age is directly related to the environmental conditions. However, it is not just humans who profit from Canada's climate, but also the cattle they raise, since, according to a pamphlet produced by the Canadian Pacific Railway, "[t]he climate and the natural pastures are extremely beneficial to cattle breeding and therefore, no more beautiful or larger cattle are sent across the Atlantic ocean than those raised in the fields of Manitoba and the Northwest Territories." 3 4

refer to the Canadian West as the American Siberia, and this justifiably so. Few countries are so similar in their climate as the Canadian prairie region and Middle Western Siberia [...]. Here and there, the climate has a continental, excessive character: the long, harsh winter is followed by a short warm summer with hardly any soothening transition; the change from the warm to the cold season is a little less abrupt. There are also great differences between dayand night-time temperatures. In an average year, the warmth of the summer is enough to get our usual types of corn to ripen, especially since more than sixty per cent of the precipitation, which on the whole is rather low, falls during the vegetation period (April to August), but often, the corn is damaged by late frosts, that last until June and early frost, which often already appear in August and regularly in the first half of September. [...] The winter, however, cannot be shortened. Although the dry climate makes the cold bearable - every winter, the temperature drops below 40 degree Celsius, the freezing point of mercury - the climate must be considered to be downright hostile, which forces man to suspend work in the field for more than six months and enclose himself in his hut. There is no work in the forest; the destitute man, whose progress depends on the intense utilization of his work force, soon runs into debt and despair." Verhandlungen des Deutschen Kolonialkongresses 1905 (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1906), 853-4. 32 Auskunft über die Dominion Canada, 62. 33 Auskunft über die Dominion Canada, 83. 34 Westliches Canada! Manitoba, Assiniboia, Alberta und Saskatchewan: wie man dahin kommt: wie man Land auswählt: wie man anfängt: wie man Geld verdient (N.p.: n.p., 1892), 3.

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The land at the foot of the Rocky Mountains [Alberta] is a true paradise for cattle. The numerous streams and rivers have clear and excellent water and the prairies there have luscious pastures. The winters are only moderately cold and there is little snow, so the cattle can be kept outside all year long without extensive losses. On the famous Cochrane Ranch the losses during last year's winter were only one percent, on the Walrond Ranch, located forty English miles west of Fort Macleod, even less.35 While a loss of only one percent of the livestock during the winter must have seemed impressive to emigrants, especially compared to the numbers given for the United States, the author either was unaware of the Ranch's previous history or, what seems more likely, chose to exclude it from the report. In 1882, just four years before the publication of the book, Cochrane Ranch, whose headquarters was located approximately 40 kilometers north-west of Calgary, Alberta, lost about 1,000 head of cattle due to environmental conditions, almost 15% of the total number. To make up for the losses, 4,290 head of cattle had to be imported from the United States, 3,000 of which died during the following winter. 36 Later on, the situation improved, and it is this period that is highlighted in the report. Strengthening the argument is a comparison to cattlefarming conditions in two Midwestern states, Montana and Colorado, which are inescapably inferior to those found in Alberta: However, in the cattle farming districts of Montana and Colorado (in the United States) there is usually a loss of six to eight percent during the winter. These greater losses are caused in part by the snow storms (blizzards), which are fiercer and occur more often and in part by the fact that the pastures have been more heavily grazed.37 Health benefits for man and cattle were not the only positive side effects of the Canadian climate. Writers discovered additional ways of putting a positive spin on the otherwise maligned environmental conditions, as in this quotation from H. Beaumont Small, where the winter is described as actually being beneficial to both farmers and other emigrants settling around Ottawa: As far as the winter is concerned, it is more of a pleasure than a burden for the farmer. Land is usually cleared in winter, and threshing and milling are done only

35 Manitoba und das Nordwest-Territorium, 13. 36 "The losses of cattle during the two winters of 1881/1882 and 1882/1883 were significant. The winters were exceptionally cold and the effects of the chinook winds were discovered to be less favorable than anticipated. Only limited amounts of hay had been put up for the winters. In addition, the herd was bunched rather than allowed to wander freely over the range, as fences were few and there was some fear of depredations by Indians and rustlers. As a result of these losses, the company decided to seek new pastures farther south. The Cochrane Ranche Company obtained a new lease on the Belly River [close to the Alberta-Montana border] and relocated the herd there in 1883." Roderick Heitzmann, The Cochrane Ranche Historic Site: Archaeological Excavations, 1977. Archaeological Survey of Alberta Occasional Paper No. 16 (N. p.; Alberta Culture Historical Resources Division, 1980), 5. 37 Manitoba und das Nordwest-Territorium, 13.

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in winter. While the cold and the s n o w clean the atmosphere and enrich the ground, the s n o w fills up holes and cracks in the surface that are impassable in summer and transforms the lakes and rivers into formidable roads on which the farmer can take his products to the mill and the market. [ . . . ] [The frost] makes it unnecessary to feed fatstock and poultry during the winter and therefore saves much time and expense. The fat stock spends the summer outside and then is in peak condition in the autumn. The slaughter takes place with the onset o f the cold weather; the farmer lets the meat freeze, and, stored in a cold place, it will keep well and fresh until spring. Poultry is prepared in the same simple manner, and even milk can be stored if frozen. 3 8

In an inversion of the arguments brought forth in anti-Canadian texts - that the harsh environmental conditions make the country unfit for settlement - the author turns the Canadian winter into the force behind Canada's future growth and prosperity. 39 Immediately following the above-cited passage, Beaumont claims that "were it not for the frost and snow - the climate would not be so healthy, the soil so fertile, the forests so accessible for the extraction of valuable timber and lumber - in a word, Canada would not be what it incontrovertibly is: a prospering, advancing and auspicious country." 40 Though environmental conditions were an important influence on a prospective farmer's decision on where to settle, the previous quotation mentions another major factor. The quality of the soil - in this case in Manitoba - "is counted among the richest in the world, in fact, it is considered to be the richest and is especially well-suited for growing wheat. These facts have been verified through chemical analyses in Scotland and Germany." 41 An argument repeatedly mentioned in this discussion is that for many seasons there would be no need for farmers in various parts of Canada to fertilize their fields because of the natural fertility of the soil. One such claim is made about Manitoba: "The prairie soil is so rich that the addition of fertilizer is unnecessary for many years after it was broken for the first time, and in certain parts where the

38 H. Beaumont Small, Die Hiilfsquellen des Ottawa-Distrikts, Dominion Canada (Hamilton: Gedruckt in der Offizin des "Deutschen in Canada," 1878), 8. 39 It might be interesting to mention that occasionally, authors of Canadian immigration propaganda used the argument against other provinces, as in a pamphlet advertising the province of Ontario: "These are advantages that the settler in Ontario has over those who settle in the prairies of the West. - He is protected from the blazing heat of the summer and the bitterly cold winds of the winter. - The forest protects him from the winds of the summer storms, and the warm house that costs him nothing to heat protects him from the winter cold." Neu Ontario, Canada: mit seinen fruchtbaren Aeckern, seinen Flüssen und Seen, seinen Eisenbahnen und Landwegen, blühenden Städten und Dörfern, bietet dem Einwanderer die beste Gelegenheit auf dem Lande bald zu Wohlstand zu kommen (Kitchener: Rittinger & Motz, 1912), 11. 40 Neu Ontario, Canada, 11. 41 Auskunft über die Dominion Canada, 94. In this case, the author gains credibility not only by mentioning scientific proof, but also by bringing up the fact that part of the analysis has been done in Germany, the home country of the intended target audience.

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black clay reaches very deep, the soil does not show any signs of exhaustion." 42 When Albert Kosmack was sponsored by the Canadian Ministry of Agriculture to travel to western Canada in 1882, he saw wheat that had been grown on heretofore virgin soil "which was in no way inferior to that grown in our area under the same conditions. The extraordinary crop yield of the wellcultivated ground astonished me, especially since I was told by a reliable source that this had been the same every year, and even without the use of fertilizer there had been no crop failures." 43 Another publication, which initially might have been intended to promote Canada among British farmers and was then translated into German, quantifies its claims and therefore helps readers to visualize the superiority of the Canadian soil: If the soil were to be prepared only half as carefully as in Great Britain, the average yield would be 50 Bushels instead of 30. [ . . . ] A farmer in Fitzroy Harbor, who used to live near Belfast, stated that he had managed to get fourteen consecutive harvests of wheat and oats without any fertilizer, and that the last harvest had been the best one." 44

In addition to fertility, the following quotation brings up an additional advantage that might have attracted settlers, in this case to Ontario: "The soil does not compact when it is plowed while still humid, but crumbles easily, is always free and loose, does not require artificial fertilization, and whatever weed there is will be destroyed during plowing in fall." 45 Besides being fertile for many years, soil in Canada, as is often stated, requires less work from the farmer than what he would have to do either in Europe or in the United States. This is not to say that settlers were usually promised a paradise that allowed them to sit back. Indeed, most publications included at least one comment such as the following: Nobody should think that they might rise without diligence and cautious persistence, and, as is the case anywhere else, idyllic dreams are the farmer's ruin. Nevertheless, prosperity and abundance are at home in every Canadian farmer's home and only because of these essential characteristics and through years of hard work and deprivation has he reached a position that, one or even two decades ago, he could not have imagined even in his wildest dreams of happiness and prosperity. The axe and the plough are the weapons that the settler used to secure his future, and civilization follows the blows of these weapons if the battle is successful. Such work should not be underestimated, and certain success is granted to persevering diligence, brave abnegation, and prudent work. 46

42 Auskunft über die Dominion Canada, 94. 43 Albert Kosmack, Beschreibung einer Entdeckungsreise nach dem nordwestlichen Ländergebiete von Canada. Ein Brief (Ottawa: n. p., 1882), 3-4. 44 Small, Die Hülfsquellen des Ottawa-Distrikts, 4. 45 Neu Ontario, Canada, 5. 46 Canada, eine Darstellung der natürlichen, socialen und Verkehrs- Verhältnisse dieses Landes: mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die Ansiedlung (Berlin: Verlag der Nicolaischen Buchhandlung,

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However, admonitions such as this one are rare when compared to positive statements like the following: "The superiority of the wheat and other kinds of corn that are grown on the soil of the Northwest, as well as the - compared to other regions of the continent - higher crop yield per acre is now a well-known fact, and while the yield is higher, cultivation is easier than in any other country because of the favorable condition of the soil." 47 Prospective farmers are advised not to delay further the decision to emigrate to Canada, since "it is no longer necessary to ask whether it is a good idea to move to Northwestern Canada, the only question is: which part of this large country is best suited for founding a new home." 48 Finally, besides providing lists of the large variety of crops farmers could expect to grow once they were settled, authors included success stories of immigrants that had settled in the respective region. Two such examples can be found in Neu-Ontario, Canada: F . D . K e n n e t t , w h o e m i g r a t e d f r o m K e n t u c k y a f e w y e a r s a g o a n d s e t t l e d in t h e R a i n y R i v e r D i s t r i c t , s o w e d s i x b u s h e l s o f s p r i n g w h e a t o n l e s s than f o u r a c r e s a n d h a r v e s t e d 1 9 5 b u s h e l s . [ . . . ] J a m e s B i n g h a m , o f E m o , O n t a r i o , is c u l t i v a t i n g

130

a c r e s , t h e a v e r a g e oat h a r v e s t w a s s i x t y b u s h e l s p e r acre. H e h a s b e e n o n h i s f a r m f o r t e n y e a r s and n e v e r h a d a better h a r v e s t . F o u r t e e n y e a r s a g o h e c a m e h e r e w i t h about 2 5 dollars and today, he has 1 0 - 1 5 , 0 0 0 . 4 9

This quotation allows the author to promote Canada in a number of ways. Besides showing the high crop yield of the land, the first example also serves as anti-American propaganda by stating that the farmer recently emigrated from the United States - other American farmers are implicitly invited to follow him. The second example also fulfills a second function by convincing immigrants that settling in Canada would be possible even with limited financial resources. As has the audience it was intended for, literature promoting Canada has changed since the publication of the immigration guides that have been discussed in this article. While in the nineteenth century the focus was on attracting workers and especially farmers to settle the country, the main sector that is promoted today is tourism, and with this change in focus comes a different portrayal of the Canadian landscape. Media produced in support of Canadian tourism tend to stress the aesthetic and romantic aspects of the landscape in-

1858), 87-8. 47

Westliches Canada!, 3. The CPR, by making the following statement, paints Canada almost as a modern-day Cockaigne: "There, in the Canadian Northwest, millions o f acres are waiting for the newly arrived, w h o does not have anything to do except for putting his plough in the ground and driving his cattle on the feedlot to strike it rich." Wo sich der deutsche Ansiedler eine neue Heimath gründen und bald zu Wohlstand kommen kann, 8.

48

Wo sich der deutsche Ansiedler kann, 8. Neu-Ontario, Canada, 17.

49

eine neue Heimath

gründen

und bald zu Wohlstand

kommen

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stead o f taking a more utilitarian approach, as was usually done in immigration propaganda. Still, some o f the myths o f Canada that were promoted in the nineteenth century live on in the way the German public imagines - or is made to imagine - the country today. Just think o f endless wheat fields on fertile soil and a line o f several combines driving side by side during harvest time which can be considered to be a continuation o f a myth that has been in the making since at least the nineteenth century.

ALBERT-REINER GLAAP

University of Düsseldorf

Destination and Destiny: Contemporary Canadian Plays on Immigrants

This article is not about literature written in Europe, but about plays written by dramatists from three different European countries who emigrated to Canada during the last century and wrote their plays as Canadian authors in the 1980s. Each of these reflects a specific variant of the interplay of the Canadian and the European world represented by the English playwright Margaret Hollingsworth's Ever Loving, The Chain by Vittorio Rossi, who is of Italian descent, and Just α Kommedia by Nika Rylski, who - as a writer of Polish descent - deals with what it means to be Ukrainian in Canada. I must confine myself to these three examples. Needless to say, there are many other plays that should be included in this paper like Betty Wylie's Verandah, Nora Harding's two plays This Year, Next Year and Sometime, Never, or The Twisted Loaf by Aviva Ravel and Anne Chislett's Then and Now. Since Asians have formed the most dominant immigrant group in Canada since 1990, problems of immigrants to Canada are currently being dealt with less in plays by authors of European descent, but by Japanese-Canadian, Chinese-Canadian or Korean-Canadian playwrights. Going into this, however, would be a different topic. Margaret Hollingsworth's play Ever Loving1 is an account of the adjustment of three war brides to post-World War II Canada. The women marry first generation Canadians who have also been shaped by a European consciousness. It was sheer romance that made the European women follow the Canadian men. Essentially, the play is about dreams and about how these are or are not realised. One sees these dreams at different poles from each other in each act. The poles ultimately undergo a reversal: the men come back home; the women, however, are still on an arduous voyage with no final destination in mind. Wars change people fast. The men and women in Hollingsworth's play took chances that they would not have taken in peace time. The play flows

1

Margaret Hollingsworth, Ever Loving (Toronto: Playwrights Canada, 1981).

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along in short, swift scenes and has a split focus. Two of the three war brides meet on the train that is taking them to their husbands in Canada, and the third meets the older two, by chance as well, in a supper club twenty-five years later. Their stories unfold separately. Ever Loving is a play about how immigration shapes the lives of the different characters. The men and their girlfriends did not really know each other before they came to Canada, where the gulfs between them are enormous. The women are from Scotland, England, and Italy and find themselves in Hamilton, Regina or Halifax, respectively, in different alien contexts. Behind their stories loom the culture shock, disillusionment, and even despair, which make them feel that they are out of context. "Feeling out of context, out of place, motivates me and informs my work", says Margaret Hollingsworth, "without it I wouldn't be writing anywhere."2 Her play unfolds the brides' attempts, with different results, to adjust to postWorld War II Canada. The plot covers 35 years in the lives of these couples. Luce (Maria Marini) was very rich when she still lived in Milan. Her destination has always been New York, but now she is married to Chuck and finds herself in Halifax, despised as a fascist by the local Neapolitans. This couple is on the brink of a culture shock. Luce has gone farthest from the European world; she ends up in show business, as an amateur talent. Her relationship with Chuck fails. Ruth comes from a village in Scotland. Her family cannot boast of any wealth, but they are caring people. They live in one room in Hamilton, and she finds out that her husband is a loser. She can only survive through her six children. Diana's immigrant experience is similar and yet different. When she arrives in Regina, she meets a Ukrainian who is a farmer. There is no longer any mention of a promising political career. The two live in a shack with an outhouse. Diana survives, a cool Englishwoman in the plains, married to a husband who is at least down-to-earth. The women in Ever Loving are not driven by unbearable conditions of life, but by their own dreams and aspirations. Canada, their destination, is a place they know about only through their husbands. It is the country of the men they have fallen in love with, in which, they hope, all their dreams will come true. It is not the threat of Europe that makes them go to Canada; rather, it is the promise of Canada that makes them leave Europe. Ever Loving is also a play on Canada as an English playwright's land of residence. Whereas most of the other cultural groups in Canada have their cultural centres and one day in the year on which they celebrate being what they are, English immigrants are not regarded as members of an independent culture in Canada.

2

Robert Wallace, Cynthia Zimmerman, The Work: Conversations wrights (Toronto: Coach House Press, 1982), 93.

with English-Canadian

Play-

Contemporary Canadian Plays on Immigrants

85

The Chain by Montreal playwright Vittorio Rossi was this author's first full-length play. 3 The title is a reference to the famous Italian catenaccio which means 'defence' and which Italian soccer in those days was so famous for. The term is slang for the word catena which is Italian for 'the chain' (C, 54). The implication is that you build a wall, which - according to Enzo, one of the characters in the play - made Italy the champions in the 1982 Soccer World Championship finals: "Our whole game plan was based on defense. Score a goal. Then hold tight" (C, 52). In Rossi's play 'Chain Landscaping Company' is the name for 'Testa Landscaping' named after the Testa family. We meet Tullio Testa (55 years old), his wife and their two sons Guiseppe (aka Joe), who is 29, and Massimo, who is in his early twenties. There is also Anna Scuro, Tullio's sister, her daughter Rina, aged 22 and her 17-year-old son Enzo. The action is steered by Zi (aka. 'Uncle') Ubaldo, who stole his brother Tullio's land and is now expected to come over from Italy for Rina's and Michael's wedding. Enzo's father wants him to wear a brand new pair of pants just to greet his uncle at the airport. "All this trouble," says Joe, "for a man who stole Daddy's land" (C, 33). Ubaldo never appears on stage. He remains an offstage character even after his arrival in Montreal. He writes a letter to his sister Anna in which he tells her that he would be willing to offer all the money he took from his brother so that Tullio could save his company. But Tullio does not want to take it: "I will not be humiliated in this country by my own brother" (C, 90). There is a great deal of sibling rivalry going on between the Tullio sons. Massimo was chosen by his father to take over from him as president of the company, and Joe envies his brother the education he has: Why don't you ever listen to me? You think you can take a few courses in university [...] and you can run a business? Daddy chose you because of a degree which you don't have yet? (C, 75)

Later on, Tullio no longer cares what is right or wrong. He decides to pick up Zi Ubaldo at the airport and wants them all to go to the wedding and be a family. But it is Zi Ubaldo who refrains from going to the wedding because Joe once told him to his face that he was a crook: "He stole the house which I was born in. From that money he stole, I could'a gone to drafting school. Daddy told me once. I was forced to quit" (C, 143). The play's climax, however, is the scene in which Massimo tells his father that he, Massimo, "fucked up" the company and quit school, and he tells him why he talks to him the way he does: Because I hate you! I hate you! You make me hate you! I hate this whole fucking family! [...] Look at you. Your own brother who fucked you over, and now you go

3

Vittorio Rossi, The Chain (Mondial: Nu-Age Editions, 1989). Further references to this edition will be included in the text (abbreviated as 'C').

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Albert-Reiner Glaap begging to him? That's family? There is no such thing anymore. You have your garden. Joe has his work. Ma has her house. But nobody talks! Nobody listens! You do your thing! But not me. You and your talk of family? Are you serious? That is the biggest lie! There is no such thing as family. It's all lies! (C, 156f.)

But finally, Massimo offers a way out of this mess. After all, he was the one who had the company incorporated. And he explains that if they declared themselves bankrupt, they would not be bound to the contract any more. "Testa Landscaping" would no longer exist and could therefore not be sued. The play ends with Tullio saying that he will think about it. The Chain has many things to say about how their chosen destination exerts great pressure on immigrants to succeed in a career. An immigrant parent sees things in very practical terms. He believes that the only chance to be in control of one's destiny is to go to school and learn. And upon graduation you are expected to work. After all, that is the reason why the parents came to the new country, to work. Why should it be different with a son? The whole process is based on a catenaccio. In a letter he sent me, Vittorio Rossi is very explicit about the influence his parents' Italian past has on him: There isn't a day that goes by, where my mother or father won't remind me of what they experienced back in Italy [before they immigrated to Canada in 1956] and at a much younger age. These pressures keep building throughout your teenage years. The pressure can be enormous. 4

Just α Kommedia by Nika Rylski, also written in the 1980s, is another play relevant in our context.5 Its title is a reference to the Ukrainian-Canadian catchall phrase 'chysta Kommedia' which has two meanings: one describes life as 'just a comedy', the other meaning is 'that's life'. The origin of the play goes back to a casual conversation of a group of show-biz people of Ukrainian descent in Toronto in the early 1980s, which gradually developed into a series of skits designed to amuse themselves and their friends. The personal nature of the play created a deep commitment to the vignettes, when Nika Rylski was brought in and turned these into a musical comedy about growing up Ukrainian in an English-speaking society, more precisely: a portrait of the joys and tribulations in the lives of four Ukrainian Canadians from childhood to mature adulthood. Just α Kommedia is a fast-paced variety show within set in a church basement, an ethnic meeting place. The other settings oscillate between a youth camp, the family kitchen and Queen's Park, but always revert to the church basement.

4 5

Vittorio Rossi in a letter to Albert-Reiner Glaap (Typescript), March 24, 1992. Nika Rylski, "Just a Kommedia", in Aviva Ravel (ed.), Canadian Mosaic: 6 Plays (Toronto: Simon & Pierre, 1995), 113-63. Further references to this edition will be included in the text (abbreviated as 'JK').

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The first part of the show is characterised by its vaudevillian light-heartedness, whereas the second delves into the problems of growing up with two cultures. The story progresses through the series of vignettes highlighting the cornerstones of the development, moving from comedy to drama. It follows the characters as they grow up - in Ukrainian summer camps, where they learn precision marching, in folk dance lessons, when swimming or getting an accordion or taking up ethnic causes, from dating to marriage or when trying to win their parents' approval of a girlfriend who is not Ukrainian. The skits mirror the difficulties of retaining ethnic traditions on the one hand and integrating into Canadian society on the other. "The rites of passage into mainstream Canadian society have never been easy for young Ukrainians," writes theatre critic Gregory Hamara in his review of Just α Kommedia, and he continues: "Sunday doubleheaders at mass and youth club meetings; Tuesday afternoon accordion lessons; Thursday evening choir practice; Friday night Ukrainian School. Come Sunday the cycle repeated itself." 6 Why all this? Olech Dutyshyn in Rylski's play has the answer: Last Easter, Anna invited some of our neighbours in to sample her Easter bread. After they'd eaten and enjoyed our bread, one of them came to me and asked: "How long do you think you people will keep your traditions alive?" Inside, I was boiling. But I smiled and said, "As long as in LJkraina, in my homeland, they don't speak my language. As long as in the cities all the signs on all the buildings are in R u s s i a n - " (JK, 143)

Olech Dutyshyn has been in Canada for 35 years and still thinks he is but a visitor. His wife, Anna, is a second-generation Canadian, her grandmother emigrated from Ukraine in 1907. Their son Boris and their daughter Natalka are brought up to be proper Ukrainians. Olech has worked hard so that his children might be better off in their future lives. But they are expected to conform to their father's strategic planning. When Boris tells him that he has won a scholarship for a summer school in Banff - not for lawyers, but for actors and that he is dropping out of law school, he almost drives his father crazy, who not only wants him to be a lawyer, but who also expects him to bring home a nice Ukrainian girl and raise nice Ukrainian children. But Boris leaves despite the fact that his father is appalled by the idea of seeing him on TV ads dressed as a cucumber, as he says. He settles down with an anglophone, Daria Carpiak, who changes her name to Darlene Carp, and later on, much to her mother's chagrin, she wants to name her son "Dylan" (after the singer Bob Dylan), but the child prefers to go by his second name Yaroslav. Natalka, the daughter, marries Kenny Crutchkowski, once a rebellious young man and later on the traditional Ukrainian husband. All seems to go like clockwork until she

6

Gregory Hamara, "Review of Just α Kommedia", Ukrainian Students, May/June 1984.

Canada's

National Newspaper

for

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renames herself 'Natalie Hayes'. After having been interested in boys only, she finally becomes a woman in her own right, a television reporter. Comedy and satire pervade the whole play. "Just α Kommedia is a very funny look at a community that doesn't often [ . . . ] poke fun at itself', The Globe and Mail reviewer wrote, but "the comedy is never forced; the script has a lived-in ease" (Edmonton Journal·). A few examples must suffice here to illustrate this: OLECH What could Boris be thinking of? Bringing a strange girl home from the university. She doesn't look Ukrainian... ANNA AS long as she doesn't eat like a Ukrainian. (JK, 134) BORIS Mineral water! Wendy wants some mineral water OLECH Boris, why couldn't you bring a nice Ukrainian girl? BORIS 'Cause all the nice Ukrainian girls I meet wanna get married. DARIA What's wrong with that? BORIS I don't wanna get married. (JK, 135) In Scene 4 Little Daria recites a poem which beautifully encapsulates the humour that is characteristic o f Rylski's play. Actor playing little schoolgirl enters, starts to recite poem [...]. LITTLE DARIA The name of my poem is "What's in a Name" by William Shakespeare. (little curtsey) Thank you. What's in a name? That which we call a... uh..." MALE TEACHER VOICE A rose! Speak up! Speak up, girl! LITTLE DARIA "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell..." TEACHER What's the matter? Don't you speak English? Speak up, speak up! Or do you think you're a little star? LITTLE DARIA NO sir, Mr. Teacher, sir. I ' m Daria.

TEACHER Diarrhea? Diarrhea? What kind of crazy name is that? LITTLE DARIA It's Daria, sir. Daria Carpiak. TEACHER A n d are you a c a r p a r k ? LITTLE DARIA N O , s i r . I ' m U k r a i n i a n .

TEACHER Well, you're in Canada now. You should have a Canadian name. (JK. 126) After this monologue spoken "in a tiny voice, barely above whisper", Daria is on the phone speaking in a teenage voice to Natalka: Hi, Natalka. Guess what? I have decided to change my name. Are you ready for this? From Daria Carpiak to... Darlene Carp! I know it's a fish - but it's better than being a carpark. (JK, 126) This part o f the play incorporates three generations o f voices - arguing about the sound o f Ukrainian and English names - and reveals Daria as the person in the play w h o grapples most intensely with cultural identification. Many Ukrainians in Canada in the 1980s changed their names at least once. In Hollingsworth's play Ever Loving the three war brides from different European countries marry first-generation Canadians. Essentially this play is

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about the consequences of immigration which shape the lives of the different characters. When they come to Canada, the gulfs between them are enormous, and the brides realise that they are out of context. Behind their stories looms the experience of a culture shock. They become increasingly disillusioned when trying to accept their destinies. Unlike in Ever Loving, where the characters are utterly absorbed in reaching their destination (Canada), leaving their European past behind, the message in Rossi's The Chain is that the most dangerous mistake any society can make is to neglect its roots. The lives of the elder members of the family, Tullio and Filomena Testa, are still tied to Italy, in the person of Uncle Ubaldo, Tullio's brother, who functions as a catalyst determining the action without ever appearing onstage. The second generation, in particular Tullio's sons, Massimo and Joe, however, do not want to be 'chained' any more. They explore barriers of communication between the generation of their parents and themselves. Just α Kommedia by Nika Rylski is about preservation and assimilation, tradition and the new environment; and the relationship between the two poles is expressed by cultural symbols and language. The Maple Leaf and the Ukrainian flag stand side by side. The national anthem of the Ukraine mingles with that of Canada. Items on the menu are Kasha and Big Mac, Borscht and Hot Dog, and in parts of the text Ukrainian expressions intrude on the English dialogue thereby both dividing and transcending the two worlds. The older generation pretend to live in a Ukraine which does not really exist, may never have existed, and the younger generation can neither identify with the imaginary Ukraine of their parents nor with the English-speaking culture that is still too alien an environment. But they try at least to develop a meaningful synthesis of what it is to be both Canadian and Ukrainian. What, then, is Canada's role in the three plays discussed here? In Ever Loving, it is an unfamiliar country which the three women seek as something better. The playwright Margaret Hollingsworth, herself an immigrant from Britain, has experienced a Canada in which English immigrants (in the 1980s) are thought of as Canadians. "There seems to be," she said in an interview, "no place to express one's Englishness. Maybe this is due to the English having dominated Canada too long. Those who feel strong ties with Britain are most easily accepted." 7 Rossi's play reveals another facet of Canada. The Chain is based on what the author experienced in Montröal, where it is rare to find an Italian who will identify himself as a Canadian first. He will never call himself a Quebecois. But an Italian he will always be.

7

Margaret Hollingsworth in an interview with Albert-Reiner Glaap (Typescript), May 28, 1984.

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In Just α Kommedia Daria's recitation of "What's in a Name?" symbolises the "struggle felt by many second-, third- and fourth-generation UkrainianCanadians searching to accommodate their ancestral roots with their economic and social participation in contemporary Canadian society," as theatre critic Gregory Hamara writes. 8 Towards the end of Rylski's play, the Master of Ceremonies turns to address the audience: Melting pot tse ne for me, Tak navchyleh rodychi! Caught between two worlds are we! Life is just a co-me-dy. (JK, 158)

8

See fn. 6.

News From Abroad: Canada in the View of European Travellers, Traders, and Adventurers

MELANIE JUST

University of Münster

The Representation of Canada in Novels by Frederick Marryat and Robert Michael Ballantyne1

Captain Frederick Marryat (1792-1848) and Robert Michael Ballantyne (18251894) both gained first-hand experience of Canada in the middle of the nineteenth century. Their experiences were, however, somewhat different. Marryat travelled through the eastern regions of the United States and Canada when he was already an established popular writer. He went there virtually as a tourist who studied the laws and customs of North America, but did not take an active part in everyday life for any considerable length of time. Ballantyne, on the other hand, left his native Scotland at the age of sixteen to work for several years for the Hudson's Bay Company. He endured the hardships of a fur-trader and experienced Canada in its outstanding beauty and sheer menace as it presented itself to him in the middle of the nineteenth century. It was only after his return to Scotland that he began his career as a writer, mainly of children's adventure stories. Both Marryat and Ballantyne portrayed their impressions of life in Canada in fiction addressed to young people. It is important to note here that Canada in the early to mid-nineteenth century was as yet largely terra incognita for the British public. Such adventure stories as those written by Marryat and Ballantyne influenced people's, especially children's, way of seeing Canada and had an impact on the further expansion of the British Empire into the unexplored regions of North America: Adventures in particular put the Canadian Northwest on the popular mental map. [ . . . ] Northwestern adventures were read avidly, both within the early west and far beyond it. They fuelled the geographical imaginations o f readers in Britain and around the empire, and they portrayed the Northwest not only as a region but also as a general image, o f what is now Canada and what was o n c e British North America. 2

1 2

I would like to express my gratitude to Neil Key for proof-reading this article. R.S. Phillips, "Space for Boyish Men and Manly Boys: The Canadian Northwest in Robert Ballantyne's Adventure Stories", Essays on Canadian Writing 59 (1996), 46-64, 46). The young readers of these stories "were the boys who, in their turn, were to become the soldiers

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As tends to be the case in literature written for young people, especially in the Victorian period, one has to expect a didactic purpose in the ways the authors write about life in Canada. It comes as no surprise that, in view of the differing experiences Marryat and Ballantyne had in Canada, their novels also display considerable differences. Similarities are noticeable in the didactic and moral messages they seek to convey; the differences in this respect lie in the weight and importance the writers attached to them. This article seeks to cast light on these similarities and differences as manifested in the ways Marryat and Ballantyne portrayed Canada in their novels.

Marryat's The Settlers in Canada: A Novel of Settling and Unsettling Captain Frederick Marryat joined the Navy in the year 1806, at the age of fourteen, and left it in 1830 to embark on his career as a writer, using his experience from naval campaigns around the world as material for adventure stories. When, after a tour through continental Europe, he decided in 1837 to visit North America, his reputation as a novelist went before him, and he was warmly welcomed on his arrival in New York. He himself gave the following reason for going to the New World: Do the faults of this people (to wit, the Swiss) arise from the peculiarity of their constitutions, or from the nature of their government? T o ascertain this, one must compare them with those who live under similar institutions. I must go to America - t h a t ' s decided. 3

Biographers, however, have questioned this as Marryat's real motive for going to North America, and have interpreted his political interest in the constitution of the United States as compared to the status of "the loyal subjects of the crown" 4 in Canada as only a token reason. 5

3 4 5

and sailors, the explorers and trail-blazers, the missionaries and bishops, the merchant adventurers, the exploiters, the Word-spreaders, the successes and failures of the great British Empire on which the sun would never set" (Eric Quayle, Ballantyne the Brave: A Victorian Writer and His Family (Chester Springs, PA: Dufour Editions, 1967), 303). Quoted from David Hannay, Life of Frederick Marryat (London, New York, Toronto: W. J. Gage & Co., 1889), 98. Frederick Marryat, A Diary in America With Remarks on Its Institutions, ed. Sydney Jackman (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962), "Introduction", xiv. Hannay thought that Marryat wanted to join a series of writers who had published books about America, most notably Frances Trollope and Harriet Martineau, as these books had proved extremely popular: see Life of Frederick Marryat, 98. Oliver Warner saw Marryat's travels to the New World as an escape from his wife and children (Oliver Warner, Captain Marryat: A Rediscovery (London: Constable, 1953), 113), and, finally, Tom Pocock combined the two

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Marryat spent most of the two years he stayed in North America in the United States. He twice crossed into Canada, and on both occasions he involved himself in actions which led to his being reviled by US citizens. In late 1837 a rebellion broke out in Lower and Upper Canada with its centre in Montreal. It was instigated by French Canadians who, ever since the taking of Quebec by General Wolfe in 1759, had felt they were treated as second-class subjects under British colonial rule. The United States gave the rebels support in the form of a supply vessel, Caroline, which the loyalist forces of British Canada succeeded in 'cutting out' and sending over the Niagara Falls. 6 Marryat, a staunch loyalist, praised the efforts of the loyalist forces, and as a result was subjected to furious attacks by the citizens of the United States. Their anger went as far as setting fire to an effigy of his and burning his novels. 7 The second time Marryat ran into trouble in Canada was in late 1838 when another rebellion by French Canadians broke out. This time he took an active part himself and joined the loyalist forces under Major-General Sir John Colborne. He described his experience in a letter to his mother: I was going South when I heard o f the defeat o f St. Denis, and the dangerous position o f the provinces o f Upper and Lower Canada; and I considered it my duty as an officer to c o m e up and offer my services as a volunteer. I have been with Sir John Colborne, the Commander-in-Chief, ever since, and have just n o w returned from an expedition o f five days against St. Eustache and Grand Brule, which has ended in the total discomfiture o f the rebels, and, I may add, the putting down of the insurrection in both provinces. [ . . . ] It has been a sad scene o f sacrilege, murder, burning, and destroying. All the fights have been in the churches, and they are now burnt to the ground, and strewed with the wasted bodies of the insurgents. War is bad enough, but civil war is dreadful. Thank God, it is all over. 8

The reaction to Marryat's participation on the loyalist side was much the same as a year before, his books and effigy again being burnt. Although he revisited New York, for several reasons 9 he found it injudicious to remain there, and he returned to England in January 1839. Back in England, Marryat resumed his career as a writer, but concentrated on writing novels for young people. In one of these novels, The Settlers in Canada{1844), Marryat made use of his experience in the New World. He had

6 7 8 9

reasons advanced by his predecessors with the speculation that Marryat might have been seeking to escape financial difficulties (Tom Pocock, Captain Marryat: Seaman, Writer and Adventurer (London: Chatham, 2000), 130. For further details see Marryat, A Diary in America, "Introduction", xviii. Cf. Hannay, Life of Frederick Marryat, 107. Quoted from Hannay, Life of Frederick Marryat, 110. At that time rumours were circulating that another war was impending between the United States and Britain.

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acquired his knowledge of British settlers in Canada from his visits to settlers in whose life he took great interest and whom he observed minutely. 10 The Settlers in Canada is the account of the Campbells," an English family consisting of Mr and Mrs Campbell, their sons Henry, Alfred, Percival, and John, and their nieces Mary and Emma, who are compelled, as a result of losing their home in Cumberland, to emigrate as settlers to Canada. Having been accustomed to a life of luxury among their friends they now suffer severely under the harsh conditions in Canada, enduring deprivations of various kinds and having to cope with a natural environment which proves inhospitable to them; indeed, at first they do not even have a roof over their heads to protect them against wind and rain. However, their faith in God and their belief that everything He does is for their good and should be borne without complaint is unshakable, and they thus settle down to a routine which allots to everyone in the family his or her own task. Soon a sizeable, though not exactly luxurious, house and large areas of cultivable land make their life as comfortable as possible at such a distance from 'civilization'. This is to be the nucleus of the 'little England' they are about to set up.12 Their situation is not without serious difficulties, as they have to endure harsh winters and hot summers and attacks by native Indians who even go as far as abducting two members of the family. These problems overcome, they begin to live a life of comparative comfort in what has after several years become a small settlement which now harbours several families recently arrived from England. Nevertheless, the Campbells perceive their happiness there as incomplete, and when a letter arrives from England, telling them that their former home has now been restored to them, they promptly leave the colony to return to their 'civilized' homeland; there is, however, one exception, their son John, who has so much become a 'son of the woods' that he would not be able to adjust to 'civilization' again. He therefore remains in Canada to look after the family's possessions there. The novel is set in 1794, at a time when, Marryat stresses, the situation for settlers was very different from what it had become when he wrote the novel. 13

10 Cf. Marryat, A Diary in America, 167-8. 11 One should note here that although the name Campbell is Scottish, the family as Marryat portrays it is thoroughly English. 12 "Physically separated from England, they never leave it spiritually; and even the physical separation tends to be overcome as the family proceeds to develop an hierarchical landed society in Canada which is a counterpart of the one at home" (Kenneth J. Hughes, "Marryat's Settlers in Canada and the White Commonwealth", Journal of Canadian Fiction, 3.4 (1975), 69-73,71). 13 Hughes ("Marryat's Settlers in Canada", 69) claims that "the particular location is not important. It is only essential that it be one of the white British colonies with undeveloped land". Although it is true that the overall story, that of a family settling in a dominion of the British Empire and feeling themselves bound to fulfil the duty of bearing 'the White Man's

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The hardships settlers had to undergo were many and various: the transport system at the end of the eighteenth century was at best rudimentary, the settlers were constantly surrounded by dangers from Indians and wild animals (both are regarded by Marryat as belonging in the same category), hostilities still existed between the French and the English, and, finally, newly arrived immigrants had to settle in areas remote from any inhabited regions. 14 Before the Campbell family leave for their new home in Canada, they are shown in their everyday life in England. Their unshakable faith in Divine Wisdom and their unquestioning acceptance of any misfortune as God-given and therefore to be borne without complaint indicates a somewhat Calvinistic mentality. In these first chapters, Marryat foreshadows the family's missionary zeal as displayed later in the proposed conversion of native Indians who, in the Campbells' view, are morally corrupted by a regrettable adherence to "a false creed" (SC, 63). It is remarkable that the Campbell family, with one exception, 15 remain English through and through although they spend many years in Canada, and, after a difficult start, they have occasional dealings with French Canadians, Indians, and trappers who have lost all connection to the 'civilized' culture of England. The concept of 'the White Man's Burden', the moral duty to export English culture to overseas regions for the supposed benefit of 'savages', is epitomized in Mr Campbell's reaction to his niece's yearning for the country of her birth: Yes, dear England, my good girl; we are English, and can love our country as much now as we did when we lived in it. W e are still English and in an English colony; it has pleased Heaven to remove us away from our native land, but our hearts and feelings are still the same, and so will all English hearts be found to be in every settlement made by our country all over the wide world. W e all glory in being English, and have reason to be proud of our country. May the feeling never be lost, but have an elevating influence upon our general conduct! (SC, 187)

With generous assistance from their fellow countrymen, especially from the garrison of Fort Frontignac, located only five miles away, the Campbells quickly settle down to perform the many tasks and duties involved in setting

Burden' is stereotypical of the missionary zeal of the time discernible in other parts of the British Empire, the novel contains many details which make it 'Canadian': the historical background, the description of particular customs of native Indians, the conditions in which the settlement was set up, and the Canadian wilderness with its severe winters and hot summers. 14 See Frederick Marryat, The Settlers in Canada (Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz. 1844), 1. Further references to this edition will be included in the text (abbreviated as 'SC'). 15 Their youngest son, John, was ten years of age when the family left England, and is thus not as predisposed as the other members of the family against accepting the Canadian wilderness as his natural home.

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up a farm. Their routine is broken only by occasional bouts of homesickness which their isolation from any form of 'civilization' makes all the more difficult to bear. A reminder of their Christian duty to accept whatever fate is allotted to them enables them to return to their new tasks. The new life is particularly difficult for the women of the family, who, especially in winter, are confined to the house when the men set out on hunting expeditions. However, in a natural environment where every step out into the wilderness is regarded as potentially dangerous, even the women and children have to learn how to use a rifle. Despite initial serious reservations, the women of the Campbell family have to learn that in Canada women cannot act the role of defenceless creatures who are only too willing to leave their protection to the strong arms of men; they have to be able to fend for themselves, and, in an extreme situation, be prepared to kill. 16 Marryat comments that the education the Campbell children 17 have received in England leaves them ill-equipped for the life they have to lead in Canada. The main force of this criticism is directed at the education of their eldest son Henry. What back in England was regarded as the best possible of all forms of education, public school and Oxford, now seems a mere waste of money. 18 The Campbells acknowledge that their new situation asks for a different type of education for their children: We must not here put the value upon a finished education which we used to do. Let us give [John] every advantage which the peculiarity of his position will allow us to do; but we are now in the woods, to a certain degree returned to a state of nature, and the first and most important knowledge, is to learn to gain our livelihoods.

(SC, 95) John is thus 'sent to school' with their trapper neighbour Malachi Bone, with whom the family has developed a close friendship. The Campbells' hardships are greatly alleviated when, after several years of isolation (apart from occasional visits by the officers stationed at the nearby Fort), new emigrants from England arrive. Their little homestead expands into a settlement comprising many houses and families, and, what is especially important for the Campbells, with a proper church where regular services can

16 Emma, the more masculine of the two nieces, has no scruples about using the rifle, and is proud of having shot a wolf (SC, 140-41). 17 With the exception of Alfred, who, like Marryat himself, had been a naval officer before deciding to assist his family in Canada. 18 "[Mr. Campbell's] eldest son, Henry, might obtain a situation, but he was really fit for nothing but the bar or holy orders; and how were they to support him till he could support himself?" (SC, 13). Marryat almost seems to despise this kind of education which he himself never had, and which makes young men unfit for a life in which practical knowledge rather than theory is the prerequisite for survival.

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be held. The Campbells have thus successfully created their 'little England' and imported their value system into the New World: Having reduced Campbell by taking away his Cumberland estate, Marryat somehow has to make his hero succeed in order to demonstrate the mental and moral qualities of the English ruling class that make them peculiarly fitted to control an 19 empire.

The native Indians are described as savages whose souls can be saved only by conversion to Christianity. 20 Their 'savagery' is exemplified in Pontiac, who responds to Major Gladwin's honourable behaviour towards him by attacking his fort and cutting off the head of one of his men. The conclusion drawn from this incident is that honourable behaviour by a British gentleman towards Indian 'savages' is lost on them, as they have no concept of honour (SC, 57-60). However, in the character of Captain Sinclair, Marryat presents an officer from Fort Frontignac with at least some understanding of such behaviour as that displayed by Pontiac. Sinclair even voices implied criticism of the appropriaton of land by the British: That he should have endeavoured to drive us away from those lands of which he considered himself (and very correctly too) as the sovereign, is not to be wondered at, especially as our encroachments daily increased. (SC, 62)

Captain Sinclair is prepared to acknowledge that the Indians are basically virtuous. However, in the end it all comes to the same. If only they were Christians they could prove their nobility of character: But whatever treachery the Indians consider allowable and proper in warfare, it is not a portion of the Indian's character; for, at any other time his hospitality and good faith are not to be doubted, if he pledges himself for your safety. It is a pity that they are not Christians. Surely it would make a great improvement in a character which, even in its unenlightened state, has in it much to be admired. (SC. 62)

The idea of turning the poor inferior, i.e. non-Christian natives into decent, i.e. Christian human beings awakens much missionary zeal in the Campbell family, particularly in Mrs Campbell. The first object of her ministrations is to be Strawberry, Malachi Bone's Indian ward who is about to marry the trapper Martin. 21 Mrs Campbell insists that only in a Christian marriage would they be

19 Hughes, "Marryat's Settlers in Canada", 72. 20 In this respect, the description differs little from accounts of other indigenous peoples in the British Empire at the time. 21 The advantages of having an Indian wife are stressed twice in The Settlers. She is "a compound of simplicity and reserve" (SC, 70) and "works for herself and her husband, so she is of value and is generally bought of the father" (SC, 190). At this stage in the novel, Marryat uses material he had gathered on his travels in North America. In Sault Ste. Marie, on Lake Superior, he had been informed that the inhabitants preferred native wives to white ones: "[Indian wives] labour hard, never complain, and a day of severe toil is amply recompensed by a smile from their lord and master in the evening. They are always faithful and devoted.

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"properly married" (SC, 192). Restricted by the blinkers of the missionary zeal of 19 lh -century colonialism, she can accept only one religion as the proper one, and sees any other form of worship as an aberration from which those who adhere to it need to be rescued. Her view is summarized in the answer she gives to her niece's question as to the nature of the Indians' religion, in which she also gives an account of how she means to bring about Strawberry's conversion: They believe in one God, the fountain of all good; they believe in a future state and in future rewards and punishments. You perceive they have the same foundation as we have, although they know not Christ, and, having very incomplete notions of duty, have a very insufficient sense of their manifold transgressions and offences in God's sight, and consequently have no idea o f the necessity of a mediator. [ . . . ] I consider it absolutely necessary that [Strawberry] should be perfectly aware of what I say, before I try to alter her belief. N o w , the Indian language, although quite sufficient for Indian wants, is poor and has not the same copiousness as ours, because they do not require the words to explain what we term abstract ideas. It is, therefore, impossible to explain the mysteries of our holy religion to one who does not well understand our language. [ . . . ] AU I can do is to exert my best abilities, and then trust to God, who, in his own good time will enlighten her mind to receive his truth. (SC, 217)

Reading this, one has to bear in mind that Marryat was addressing his novel to young people. This section, therefore, to the reader of the twenty-first century, has an unfortunate didactic undertone. The inferiority of the natives on the grounds that they are not Christians, and, consequently, that it is a Christian's duty to convert the poor benighted heathens, are inculcated upon Victorian young people with the aim of filling their hearts with a desire to go out into the world to perform their Christian duty. 22 One set of people presented as being somewhere halfway between the Europeans and the Indians, belong to neither group really, is that of the trappers. Trappers spend several months every year in the wilderness. When they go to the towns to sell the furs they have collected in these months, they immediately spend the money they receive on drink. This account of a trapper's life given to the Campbell family by the Governor (SC, 41) yet again

and very sparing of their talk, all which qualities are considered as recommendations in this part of the world" (Marryat, A Diary in America, 106). 22 It is interesting to notice here that The Settlers was regarded as excellent study material at German schools in 1879. In the tenth annual account of a secondary school in Bernburg near Magdeburg, the novel is recommended for three reasons: its interesting subject matter, the easy, fluent style of the narrative, and the important insights the young readers can gain from reading it. There is only one caveat, namely that The Settlers in places seems too moralistic for a German readership, and in a proper school edition it should therefore be abridged in the relevant passages (Herzogliche Höhere Bürgerschule zu Bernburg, X. Jahresbericht, 1879).

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awakens the family's reforming and missionary zeal, which they then exert on two representatives of this 'species', Martin Super, who is still an active trapper, and Malachi Bone, who has settled down together with his Indian ward, but who has spent such a long time away from 'civilization' that his life has become little different from that of a so-called 'savage'. Both Martin and Malachi see themselves as having a closer affinity with the Indians than with the Europeans, and, as they consider adopting Indian customs the best way to survive in the wilderness, they are themselves regarded as natives by the Indians (SC, 44, 134). In this process, Martin and Malachi have developed their own kind of religion, as Martin tries to explain when faced with the Campbells' troubled questions as to their religion: When I have been away for weeks and sometimes for months, without seeing or speaking to any one, all alone in the woods, I feel more religious than I do when at Quebec on my return, although I do go to church. N o w old Malachi has, 1 think, a solemn reverence for the Divine Being, and strict notions of duty, so far as he understands it, - but as he never goes to any town or mixes with any company, so the rites o f religion, as I may call them, and the observances of the holy feasts, are lost to him, except as a sort of dream of former days, before he took to his hunter's life.

(SC, 149) The Campbells thus regard Martin and Malachi as poor lost souls whom it is their duty to bring back to the right path of true Christianity. And as the zealous missionaries they are, they succeed in winning over Malachi so that he becomes eager to join the family in their religious observances (SC, 156-7), and Martin gratefully agrees to a Christian wedding (SC, 192). The Canadian year is described as comprising only two seasons, an extremely cold winter with heavy snowfalls and a hot summer in which thousands of mosquitoes torment the settlers (SC, 49, 65). Nature in Marryat is seen as dangerous when untouched by humans. Wild animals, such as wolves, bears and panthers, prowl the forests and prairies and render any step outside the house life-threatening, especially for women (SC, 130). The Canadian scene with its breathtaking views of high mountains, foaming rivers, and endless open spaces does not seem to appeal to Marryat's aesthetic sensibility. It is thus hardly surprising that the only time he indulges in what in his case could almost be called a rapturous description of the beauties of nature can be found in the portrayal of a rural idyll which could easily be set in England: The scene was indeed cheerful and lively. [ . . . ] The corn waved its yellow ears between the dark stumps of the trees in the cleared land; and the smoke from the chimney o f the house mounted straight up in a column to the sky; the grunting of the pigs, and the cackling of the fowls, and the occasional bleating of the calves, responded to by the lowing of the cows, gave life and animation to the picture. At a short distance from the shore the punt was floating on the still waters. John and Malachi were very busy fishing [ . . . ] and under the shade of a large tree, at a little

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distance from the house, were Mr. Campbell and Percival, the former reading while the other was conning over his lesson. (SC, 195)

Although this could be England, it is not; it is only a small 'civilized' enclave surrounded by a 'savage' wilderness. The Campbells therefore do not need to deliberate long as to what to do when they are informed that their former home in England has been restored to them, and they make immediate preparations to return to 'civilization'.

Ballantyne's The Young Fur-Traders\ A Semi-Autobiographical Adventure Story When, in 1841, R.M. Ballantyne was sixteen years of age, his father, as he could not afford to send him to university, was concerned about his son's future career and suggested that he might join the Hudson's Bay Company23 and undertake the adventure of a life in Canada.24 Ballantyne, who was enthused by the prospect of a life in the Canadian wilderness, promptly accepted: About the middle of May eighteen hundred and forty-one, I was thrown into a state of ecstatic j o y by the arrival of a letter appointing me to the enviable situation of apprentice clerk in the service o f the Honourable Hudson Bay Company. To describe the immense extent to which I expanded, both mentally and bodily, upon the receipt of this letter, is impossible; it is sufficient to know that from that moment 1 fancied myself a complete man of business, and treated my old companions with the condescending suavity of one who knows that he is talking to his inferiors. 25

Ballantyne was to work for the HBC for six years before returning to his native Scotland. During his stay in Canada he regularly sent letters to his mother keeping her au fait about his life with the Company, letters which his mother carefully preserved, and which Ballantyne was persuaded to revise and subsequently publish in book form. The result of this revision, Hudson Bay, or: Everyday Life in the Wilds of North America, came out in December 1847. The

23 The Hudson's Bay Company had been given its Royal Charter by Charles II in 1670. It was granted "the sole Trade and Commerce of all those Seas Streightes Bayes Rivers Lakes Creekes and Soundes [...] that lye within the entrance of the Streightes commonly called Hudsons Streightes together with all Landes and Territoryes upon the Countryes Coastes and confynes of the Seas Bayes Lakes Rivers Creekes and Soundes aforesaid that are not already actually possessed by or granted to any of our Subjectes or possessed by the Subjectes of any other Christian Prince or State" (quoted from Arthur J. Ray and Donald B. Freeman, Give Us Good Measure': An Economic Analysis of Relations Between the Indians and the Hudson's Bay Company Before 1763 (Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press. 1978). 12.

24 Cf. Quayle, Ballantyne the Brave, 28. 25 Robert Michael Ballantyne, Hudson Bay, or: Everyday Life in the Wilds of North America (London, Edinburgh, New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1902), 1.

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fact that the first edition was a great success was perhaps largely due to its being sold on subscription to friends and relations of the Ballantyne family. The hurriedly prepared second edition of March 1848 was a failure, and unsold copies of it remained in bookshops until 1853. 26 Despite this failure, Ballantyne decided that writing was his vocation. He therefore soon began work on what was to be his semi-autobiographical novel The Young Fur-Traders, or: Snowflakes and Sunbeams from the Far North, first published in 1856. 27 In the Preface, Ballantyne explicitly points out that the novel draws heavily on his own experiences in Canada: In writing this book my desire has been to draw an exact copy of the picture which is indelibly stamped on my own memory. [ . . . ] All the chief, and most of the minor incidents are facts. [ . . . ] I have endeavoured to convey to the reader's mind a truthful impression of the general effect [...] of the life and country of the Fur Trader. 2 8

It is thus only natural that many incidents which are familiar to the reader from Hudson Bay reappear in The Young Fur-Traders. The Young Fur-Traders relates the adventures of Charles Kennedy, son of Frank Kennedy, who left his native Scotland as a boy, and has remained in Canada as an employee of the HBC together with his 'half-breed' wife. 29 When Charles turns fifteen, he is expected to leave school in the Red River Settlement and join the HBC as a clerk. Of an adventurous disposition, Charles does not relish the idea of being confined to a desk, and threatens to run away in order to lead a life in the wilderness. Rather than losing his son to an unknown fate, Frank Kennedy decides to send him away with the voyageurs so that he might learn the craft of the fur-traders. Charles's enthusiasm is boundless; he sees a life of adventure before him. 30 This enthusiasm, however, is soon dampened when he is faced with the hardships the fur-traders have to face: camping in temperatures of minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit or in excessive

26 See Quayle, Ballantyne the Brave, 83-85. 27 See Quayle, Ballantyne the Brave, 103-09. The novel proved to be highly successful and remained so for at least a century: "Between 1856 and 1956, twelve editions were produced" (Phillips, "Space for Boyish Men and Manly Boys", 47). 28 Robert Michael Ballantyne, The Young Fur-Traders, or: Snowflakes and Sunbeams from the Far North (London, Edinburgh, New York: T. Nelson and Sons, 1897), iii. Further references to this edition will be included in the text (abbreviated as 'YF'). 29 In contrast to many of his contemporaries, Ballantyne does not brand mixed marriages with the mark of immorality: "[Ballantyne] attributed particular characteristics to particular peoples [...] and [...] assumed that miscegenation involved mixing these characteristics-though to advantage, for he did not subscribe to the fashionable view of the impoverishment of the species through miscegenation, and frequently gave half-castes heroic roles": Christopher Parker, "Race and Empire in the Stories of R.M. Ballantyne", in Robert Giddings (ed.), Literature and Imperialism (London: Macmillan, 1991), 44-63, 52-3). 30 His excitement is comparable to Ballantyne's own when he was told that he had been appointed clerk to the HBC. But unlike Charles's, Ballantyne's longing for adventure was not fulfilled at first: he had to spend several years in various forts working as a clerk.

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heat and tormented by mosquitoes, dangers from the elements, attacks from wild animals, and hostilities from the native Indians. It comes as a great relief to Charles when finally, after some years at various outposts, he can return to the Red River Settlement, where he will be put in charge of Fort Garry. Right from the beginning the difference in Ballantyne's account of Canada from that of Marryat becomes clear; whereas Marryat presents a close-knit English settlement with virtually no contact with non-English people, Ballantyne, in the Red River Settlement,31 brings together people of a variety of ethnic origins, mainly Scots, French Canadians, and Indians.32 The symbiotic relationship of these people gives the entire novel a different atmosphere. Ballantyne, who had himself lived in the Settlement, seems much more willing to accept the varying views and opinions current among the multifarious groups than Marryat is. The missionary element thus does not predominate in The Young Fur-Traders. One should not, however, overlook the fact that Redfeather, the 'noble savage' of the novel, displays great affinities to Christianity, and, once he is persuaded that this is the only true religion, does his best to spread his new faith among his fellow-Indians (YF, 196). The Red River Settlement, "although far removed from the civilized world, and containing within its precincts much that is savage and very little that is refined, [...] is quite a populous paradise as compared with the desolate, solitary establishments of the Hudson's Bay Fur Company" (YF, 11). Frank Kennedy, Charles's father, spent more than 50 years in these solitary outposts. There he lost his 'civilized' manners; on his retiring from the Company, this made him unfitted for a return to the 'properly civilized' world of Europe; he therefore decided to stay in the 'semi-civilized' world of Red River, where his children Charles and Kate receive their schooling. Although it is only a 'semicivilized' world, the Victorian ideals of the upbringing of children seem to have crept into the Settlement. When Charles turns fifteen and Kate fourteen, their father decides that Charles's somewhat wild temperament needs to be tamed, and Kate's fondness for books, inappropriate for a girl, suppressed. In the accepted manner of the truly obedient Victorian daughter 33 Kate rejoices at

31 Red River was founded in 1811 by Thomas Douglas, fifth Earl of Selkirk, as a permanent trading post of the HBC. For further details cf. Jennifer S. H. Brown, Strangers in Blood: Fur Trade Company Families in Indian Country (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1980), xiv-xv. Red River formed the nucleus of what was later to become the city of Winnipeg. 32 In Hudson Bay, he describes the inhabitants as follows: "Three-fourths of the Company's servants are Scotch Highlanders and Orkneymen. There are very few Irishmen, and still fewer English. A great number, however, are half-breeds and French Canadians, especially among the labourers and voyageurs" (Ballantyne, Hudson Bay, 26-7). 33 Kate's European-ness is stressed through the description of her "blue eyes", despite the fact that her mother is a "half-breed" (YF, 92).

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the thought of remaining at home as a help in her parents' house; Charles, however, stubbornly refuses the desk job offered to him in the HBC. 34 The voyageurs with whom Charles is going to spend the next few years are described as wild and uncouth: Being descended, generally, from French-Canadian sires and Indian mothers, they united some of the good and not a few o f the bad qualities o f both, mentally as well as physically - combining the light, gay-hearted spirit and full muscular frame of the Canadian with the fierce passions and active habits of the Indian. (YF, 70)

Having been born in Canada and thus being accustomed to living in the wilderness, they are well equipped for the hard life of a voyageur who has to face dangers many times every day. The narrator's remark that these "half-breeds [...] cannot lay claim to very gentle or dove-like dispositions" (YF, 78) and that "they fight any way and every way, without reference to rules at all" (YF, 86) reflects the general attitude of Europeans at the time. However, in Ballantyne this does not necessarily signify criticism, or a feeling of superiority towards the natives. Throughout the novel one recognizes an admiration for the hard work of the voyageurs, work which someone of a more delicate constitution, such as a well-bred Englishman for example, could not have performed. Charles and his friend Harry, who has recently arrived from Scotland,35 thus unreservedly accept the company of the 'half-breeds' and the Indians from whom they learn how to survive in the wilderness. Two types of Indians are presented in The Young Fur-Traders: some of them (as personified by Misconna) come very close to the description of Indians in Marryat and are characterized by their hostility towards Europeans, cruelty towards their own wives, and pitiless treatment of animals; the others, and these form the great majority, represent a group of Indians whom Marryat

34 If one bears in mind that this is a novel for young people, the message is clear: good girls should be obedient and fulfil their principal duty, that is, stay in the house to be a comfort for their parents, and later for their husbands. Boys, to prove their manliness, can be allowed to be rebellious. The different ways with which Ballantyne describes men and women in this and his other novels mirror his typically Victorian way of thinking: "[His] keen ability to characterize is at its best when he is portraying men and boys, rather than women and girls. The former are always vigorously created [...] but the latter are mainly lifeless stereotypes of nineteenth-century idealized womanhood" (Joan Selby, "Ballantyne and The Fur Traders", Canadian Literature 18 (1963), 40-46, 44). 35 Harry probably comes closest to Ballantyne himself. He left Scotland at the age of fourteen (somewhat earlier than Ballantyne), "in the hope of gratifying a desire to lead a wild life" (YF, 32), but is greatly disappointed that all he has to do at first is work as a clerk at a desk in Fort Garry. And just as Harry, when he is given the opportunity to travel with the fur-traders, is overjoyed (YF, 104-06), Ballantyne could hardly believe his luck when, after two years working at the desk he was "dispatched to some other part of the Company's wide dominions" (Hudson Bay, 113).

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ignored: 36 they are integrated into the everyday life not only of the voyageurs but also of the settlers at Red River. They work as messengers between the various outposts and forts, as travel guides, and as interpreters (YF, 295). Those Indians who do not live among Europeans have frequent contacts with the HBC; they deliver the fiirs they have collected over a period of usually several months and in exchange receive goods from the Company's storehouse (YF, 75-6). How these exchanges took place is described in Hudson Bay: Trade is carried on with the natives by means of a standard valuation, called in some parts of the country a castor. [ . . . ] Thus, an Indian arrives at a fort with a bundle of furs, with which he proceeds to the Indian trading-room. There the trader separates the furs into different lots, and, valuing each at the standard valuation, adds the amount together, and tells the Indian [...] that he has got fifty or sixty castors; at the same time he hands the Indian fifty or sixty little bits of wood in lieu of cash, so that the latter may know, by returning these in payment of the goods for which he really exchanges his skins, how fast his f u n d s decrease. 3 7

The missionary element, though not as prominent as in Marryat, is nevertheless present in Ballantyne. One should, however, note that none of the major characters in The Young Fur-Traders evinces any missionary zeal. On one of their travels the protagonists come across an Indian village which has been converted into a mission by the Wesleyan minister, Pastor Conway. His approach to the task of bringing Christianity to the Indians is significantly different from that of Mrs Campbell in The Settlers in Canada. As she regarded the Indian languages as inadequate to communicate Christian values, she thought the only way of converting the Indians was through the English language, whereas Pastor Conway, although his ultimate aim is the same, displays greater sensibility towards the culture and customs of the Indians: His chief care was for the instruction of the Indians. [ . . . ] H e invented an alphabet, and taught them to write and read their own language. He commenced the laborious task of translating the Scriptures into the Cree language. [ . . . ] The children were instructed, not only in the Scriptures, and made familiar with the narrative of the humiliation and exaltation of our blessed Saviour, but were also taught the elementary branches of a secular education. (YF, 309-10)

36 Two reasons for his ignoring them might be adduced: either the Indians did not yet play an important part in the settlers' lives in the late eighteenth century, i.e. at the time in which the novel is set, or, in his distinctly imperialistic attitude, Marryat found Indians' participation in European life unacceptable. The first reason seems unlikely. Although there may not have been as much contact between Indians and Europeans as by the mid-nineteenth century when larger settlements, mainly Red River, had been set up, there certainly were frequent contacts between native Indians and Europeans even earlier, the HBC having been given its Royal Charter as early as 1670. 37 Ballantyne, Hudson Bay, 29.

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Here again Ballantyne makes use of his own experience. While he was stationed at Norway House, north-east of Lake Winnipeg, he used to visit the Indian village of Rossville. 38 The description of life in this village is strikingly similar to that of Pastor Conway's village: In due time I arrived at the parsonage, where I spent a pleasant afternoon in sauntering about the village, and in admiring the rapidity and ease with which the Indian children could read and write the Indian language by means of a syllable alphabet invented by their clergyman. The same gentleman afterwards made a set of leaden types with no other instrument than a penknife, and printed a great many hymns in the Indian language. 39

Although Ballantyne seems in general more open to unfamiliar cultures40 than Marryat, in Ballantyne also the typically Victorian attitude to native peoples shines through: the evil, cruel Indians are those who do not want to embrace Christianity as the only true religion, whereas the good, honest Indians are those who willingly accept the teachings of missionaries as leading to salvation.41 The last scene of The Young Fur-Traders, the wedding of Charles's sister Kate and his friend Harry, can be cited as representative of the community described throughout the novel, a community which is heterogeneous in its composition, but homogeneous in the mutual acceptance of its members: There were Red Indians and clergymen. [...] There were the tones of Scotch reels sounding - tones that brought Scotland vividly before the very eyes; and there were Canadian hunters and half-breed voyageurs, whose moccasins were more accustomed to the turf of the woods than the boards of a drawing-room, and whose speech and accents made Scotland vanish away altogether from the memory. There were old people and young folk; there were fat and lean, short and long. There were songs too - ballads of England, pathetic songs of Scotland, alternating with the French ditties of Canada, and the sweet, inexpressibly plaintive canoe-songs of the voyageur. (398-9)

38 Many schools for the children of native Indians were set up in the first half of the nineteenth century, most of them missionary schools which combined religious with secular teaching. For further details cf. Russell Smandych and Anne McGillivray, "Images of Aboriginal Childhood: Contested Governance in the Canadian West to 1850", in Martin Daunton and Rick Halpern (eds.), Empire and Others: British Encounters with Indigenous Peoples, 16001850 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 238-59. 39 Ballantyne, Hudson Bay, 83. 40 The Young Fur-Traders constitutes an exception in this respect. In his later novels. Ballantyne's attitude is much more imperialistic and he is less willing to accept native customs (cf. Parker, "Race and Empire in the Stories of R.M. Ballantyne", 49-50). 41 Redfeather is the shining example of those Indians who in the eyes of the Europeans have been reformed into honest, moral human beings through their conversion to Christianity. He "was taught to think that pity for an enemy was" not "unworthy of a brave" (YF, 151) and "he had imbibed much of that spirit which prompts 'white men' to treat their females with deference and respect - a feeling which is very foreign to an Indian's bosom" (YF, 153).

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As far as the description of the natural environment of Canada is concerned, there are comparatively few similarities between Marryat and Ballantyne. The main similarity lies in their descriptions of extremely cold winters with temperatures of 60 degrees Fahrenheit below zero, and hot summers with the accompanying plague of mosquitoes. In other respects, whereas for Marryat the only real happiness lies in seeing land under cultivation, Ballantyne offers enthusiastic descriptions of the pristine purity of the Canadian wilderness.42 In fact, Ballantyne sees real beauty mainly in "lands that are yet unowned, unclaimed; that yet lie in the unmutilated beauty with which the beneficent Creator originally clothed them" (YF, 166).

Conclusion Marryat's experience of Canada was only that of a visitor without his taking an active part in the everyday life of the country, whereas Ballantyne actually lived the life of a fur-trader. This has a considerable influence on the respective novels. Marryat describes the life of the Campbell family as if from a distance, with the eyes and attitudes of an Englishman who is concerned to bring English values to the 'uncivilized' regions of Canada, and he can therefore be seen as typifying English imperialistic attitudes. Ballantyne brings to bear on his novel his own six-year experience of life in Canada, a life in which the various groups of people live in a symbiotic relationship. The Young FurTraders thus abounds in detailed descriptions of the life of the fur-traders, the voyageurs, and the native Indians, and includes a comprehensive account of their dress and customs. Marryat moralizes extensively and aims at producing among his young readers 'little imperialists' who will contribute to, and come back from, the colonies they enter. Ballantyne, though he does make references to the duties of a 'civilized' young man towards his 'less civilized' red brothers, portrays Canada as a country of adventures every Victorian boy would dream of experiencing for himself.

42 Of the many descriptions of this kind one example may suffice: "In regard to picturesque beauty, [the lake] was perhaps unsurpassed. [...] Wooded hills, sloping gently down to the water's edge; jutting promontories, some rocky and barren, others more or less covered with trees; deep bays, retreating in some places into the dark recesses of a savage-looking gorge, in others into a distant meadow-like plain, bordered with a stripe of yellow sand; beautiful islands of various sizes, scattered along the shores as if nestling there for security, or standing barren and solitary in the centre of the lake, like bulwarks of the wilderness, some covered with luxuriant vegetation, others bald and grotesque in outline, and covered with gulls and other water-fowl" (YF, 321-22).

M I C H A E L HEINZE

University of Düsseldorf

Victorians Abroad: Charles Dickens and Anthony Trollope in Canada

Anthony Trollope visited Canada some twenty years after Charles Dickens, but it is not only due to this temporal gap that his views are slightly different from Dickens's. Trollope had always been very thoughtful about the role the Empire should play in the world and the function and responsibilities it had in relation to its colonies. A clerk at the Post Office, he spent a lot of time travelling for this institution, mainly to evaluate the quality of postal services in the respective colony or territory and to make suggestions for more efficient routines. (It was him, incidentally, who gave Britain the red pillar box that travellers and British people associate so strongly with England.) Thus, his travelogues are to some extent very technical prose and concerned with matters such as roads, rivers, railway systems and the possibilities of building highways. A striking example of this sort of travelogue is his The West Indies and the Spanish Main, which Trollope published as an official report after having visited that part of the world in 1858. North America, published by Trollope in two volumes in 1862, is different in that it is a more personal account of the travels undertaken with his wife in the United States and Canada the year before. Although this report is more personal, technical aspects are still very much on Trollope's mind as he describes waterways and roads as meticulously as if the journey had been an official inspection. But social matters and historical and political descriptions play a more important role here than in The West Indies. He gives a detailed account of the process that led to Ottawa becoming the capital of Upper and Lower Canada and gives his opinion on the question of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia eventually joining a united Canada. As far as social matters are concerned, his mother's influence can clearly be traced between the lines of his account. Frances Trollope had travelled in North America in 1832 and published her account of her journey to sustain her family after the catastrophic outcome of her husband's financial dealings.

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In contrast to Dickens, who tried to make Canada a smaller version of Britain herself and thus gave a joyous account of what he saw,1 Trollope sees a dependent country, but also a country that has its very own features. Having started with a short description of the Grand Trunk railway (an engineering project which fascinated him) he blandly puts his critique in the following words: I must confess that in going from the States into Canada, an Englishman is struck by the feeling that he is going from a richer country into one that is poorer, and from a greater country into one that is less [ . . . ] I could not enter Canada without seeing, and hearing, and feeling that there was less of enterprise around me there than in the States,—less of general movement, and less o f commercial success. 2

Trollope's view of the Empire and its 'children' comes through as more diversified than Dickens's. Although a statement like "[w]e Britishers have a noble mission"3 might sound like a version of "Rule Britannia", he was indeed able to distinguish between the positive achievements of the Empire and its negative side effects.4 The above-mentioned lack of industry and prosperity, so he says, could be attributable to Canada being a dependent country unable to take its own decisions, be it politically or economically: It may be that a dependent country, let the feeling of dependence be ever so much modified by powers of self-governance, cannot hold its own against countries which are in all respects their own masters. Few, I believe, would now maintain that the Northern States of America would have risen in commerce as they have risen, had they still remained attached to England as colonies. If this be so, that privilege of self-rule which they have acquired, has been the cause of their success.

(NA, 55) Although he adds some doubts as to whether Canada would do as well as its neighbour to the south (naming climate and geographical situation as obstacles), he is convinced that independence is the key to a country's development, a line of thought that would become vital to the British Empire towards the middle of the 20th century. It had already been Trollope's conviction in The West Indies that the main purpose of the Empire was to develop countries and, eventually, dismiss them into independence. In an elaborate sort of 'speech', he makes this clear by likening a colonial power and its colonies to father and son(s). In his simile, he underlines that independence can only come gradually by more and more selfgovernance and then, eventually, complete independence (NA, 98-100):

1 2 3 4

See Goldie Morgentaler, "Dickens in Canada", Dickens Quarterly 13:2 (2002), 151-59. Anthony Trollope, North America, 2 vols. (London: Dawson of Pall Mall, 1968), I, 55. Further references to vol. I of this edition will be included in the text (abbreviated as 'NA'). Anthony Trollope, The West Indies and the Spanish Main (London: Chapman & Hall, 1860), 84. That is, speaking from a nineteenth-century point of view.

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Why should the colonies remain true to us as children are true to their parents, if we grudge them the assistance which is due to a child? They raise their own taxes, it is said, and administer them. True; and it is well that the growing son should do something for himself. While the father does all for him the son's labour belongs to the father. Then comes a middle state in which the son does much for himself, but not all. In that middle state now stand our prosperous colonies. Then comes the time when the son shall stand alone by his own strength; and to that period of manly self-respected strength let us all hope that these colonies are advancing. It is very hard for a mother country to know when such a time has come; and hard also for the child-colony to recognise justly the period of its own maturity. (NA, 100)

That independence should come as an agreement of both parties is devoutly to be wished for, according to Trollope, but, as in the case of the US, this may not always be possible as was demonstrated by the founding fathers of the United States, who wanted a complete breakaway and a new state without a trace of the old monarchical system (NA, 109). That independence may as well come after an embittered fight or even war as in the case of the US is always possible since, Trollope says, the Empire has not yet found a proper way of letting go (NA, 105). Yet: A wish that British North America should ever be severed from England, or that the Australian colonies should ever be so severed, will by many Englishmen be deemed unpatriotic. But I think that such severance is to be wished if it be the case that the colonies standing alone would become more prosperous than they are under British rule. We have before us an example in the United States of the prosperity which has attended such a rupture of old ties. (ΝΑ, 104)

The United States were held up by Trollope as an example of a former colony that is now prospering more than it could have under imperial rule, even though when Trollope wrote the US were not really prospering at all. When the British writer travelled through North America, the Civil War, arguably the most ferocious war the North American continent had ever seen, had just started. In Britain, people were hoping for the Confederacy to win and break free from the Northern States, if only to prove how futile the attempt of the US had been to break free from British rule. The official position to the war was ambiguous, but most British politicians silently (and sometimes even rather wordily) supported the Confederate cause. Trollope, of course, discusses aspects of the Civil War throughout his text, but it is particularly interesting in our context to observe how this turns into a vital means for him of the expression of his attitude towards Canada. He shows that Canadians, while their country is officially neutral, are really in favour of the Confederate cause. When discussing the reason for this allegiance, Trollope turns to the same argument as in his analysis of the question of why Canada has not yet tried to break free from imperial rule: It is not that the Canadians have any special Secession feelings, or that they have entered with peculiar warmth into the question of American politics; but they have

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been vexed and acerbated by the braggadocio of the Northern States. [ . . . ] The starspangled banner is, in fact, a fine flag, and has waved to some purpose; but those who live near it, and not under it, fancy that they hear too much of it. At the present moment the loyalty of both the Canadas to Great Britain is beyond all question. (NA, 70)

Elsewhere he writes: There is certainly no such desire [for independence, M.H.] now, not even a remnant of such a desire; and the truth on this matter is, I think, generally acknowledged. The feeling in Canada is one of strong aversion to the United States Government, and of predilection for self-government under the English Crown. (NA, 95)

A little further on, he becomes even more explicit: And then, in the second place, the feeling o f Canada is not American, but British. (NA, 101)

But is this really true? What may be established as a fact is that anti-American, i.e. anti-US feelings were indeed common in if not constitutive of the selfunderstanding of the British North-American colonies. But to claim that all Canadians were absolutely content with the status they had would amount to an oversimplification of the historical situation. To begin with, the differences between French-Canadians and AngloCanadians have to be taken into account. The plurality of language and cultural backgrounds was and still is one of the main problems in Canadian society. By having two Canadian colonies, Upper and Lower Canada, the British government had acknowledged this problem and tried to solve it by keeping them separate. But now that the federal government was moving from a city of the minority group to a much smaller town of the majority group, tempers were boiling again. Trollope does not acknowledge this problem, although he does refer to differences between the English and the French settlers. Violent outbursts and constant unrest in French-Canada he gives short shrift in the following short paragraph: [TJhere have been such men as Papineau, and although there have been times in which English rule has been unpopular with the French settlers, as far as I could learn there is no such feeling now. These people are quiet, contented; and as regards a sufficiency of the simple staples of living, sufficiently well to do. They are thrifty;—but they do not thrive. They do not advance, and push ahead, and become a bigger people from year to year, as settlers in a new country should do. They do not even hold their own in comparison with those around them. (NA, 60-61)

The somewhat dismissive phrase "[s]uch men as Papineau" certainly does not do justice to the man referred to. Louis-Joseph Papineau (1786-1871), was a member of the House of Assembly for many years as well as the speaker of this chamber. His politics were always determined by anti-British feelings resulting from the uprising of 1837, later referred to as the Revolution of 1837.

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Papineau had had to leave the country at the time and had lived in exile in the US and in France before eventually returning to Canada. His article "Histoire de I'insurrection du Canada" was published in a French magazine first and then used as a pamphlet in the ongoing conflicts with the British motherland. Papineau's main point of objection was a possible union of Upper and Lower Canada. 5 French-Canadian nationalists were of the opinion that this would mean the death of the French language, culture and political tradition in Canada. These major differences are still with us today so that Trollope's belittling of French-Canadian efforts with hindsight appears to be highly problematic. Later on in his text, Trollope describes the Mackenzie-Papineau rebellion in more detail and comments that the government was absolutely right in indemnifying the French-Canadians for their losses during the rebellion, although they might have played an active part in it (NA, 61). Trollope makes a point of drawing as negative a picture as possible of the French-Canadians. He states with some satisfaction that Montreal and Quebec are becoming less and less French, but that regrettably the villages in Quebec are still very much under the sway of French tradition. However, he comments on this in the following way: "Surely one may declare as a fact that a Roman Catholic population can never hold its ground against one that is Protestant" (NA, 61). Although religion does not usually play a role in Trollope's texts, he uses it as an instrument here to underline the supposed inferiority of the French population of Canada. Parallels to the situation of Ireland may or may not have been intentional. The main reason for this stipulated inferiority to Trollope presents itself in the lethargy of the French-Canadians. In his eyes, they always seem to be content with what they have, which makes them unwilling to change (NA, 61), and this lethargy, he claims, is based in the Roman Catholic faith. His final remarks on Roman Catholicism are highly ambiguous and almost sound as if they had come straight from the pen of Oscar Wilde: And yet I love their religion. There is something beautiful and almost divine in the faith and obedience o f a true son o f the Holy Mother. I sometimes fancy that I w o u l d fain be a Roman Catholic,—if I could; as also I would often wish to be still a child, if that were possible. ( N A , 6 1 )

Comparing the Roman Catholic faith to childhood belittles it to such a degree that the initial wish to live as a member of this church is turned against the French-Canadians once again. It gives Catholic readers the impression that their faith is just another symptom of their immaturity. With regard to contemporary immigration into Canada from the US, Trollope points out the potential advantages this might have for Canada, mainly because now "a better class of people than the French hold possession

5

For a brief but informative article on L.-J. Papineau see Norah Story (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature (Toronto, London, New York: OUP, 1967), 623-24.

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of the larger farms, and are doing well" (NA, 66). Remarks such as this one are certainly reminiscent of Trollope's earlier statement about the "noble mission" of Britishers quoted above. Consequently, Trollope revels in the diffusion of English culture at the expense of that of French-Canadians: "I do not know that the English have become in any way Gallicised, but the French have been very materially Anglicised" (NA, 75). Charles Dickens, in his judgment on French-Canadians, is less harsh. The paragraph in which he speaks about the French-Canadian landscape sounds rather idyllic in tone and is devoid of any signs of dissatifaction. 6 This description certainly does not aim at a complete rejection of French culture: At eight we landed again, and travelled by a stage-coach for four hours through a pleasant and well-cultivated country, perfectly French in every respect - in the appearance of the cottages; the air, language, and dress of the peasantry; the signboards on the shops and taverns; and the Virgin's shrines, and crosses, by the wayside. [ . . . ] There were Catholic priests and Sisters of Charity in the village streets; and images of the Saviour at the corners of cross-roads, and in other public places. (AN, 315-16)

Montreal seems to have particularly fascinated Dickens. Once again, his description is rather uncritical and almost sounds like an excerpt from a tourist guide book: Montreal is pleasantly situated on the margin of the St. Lawrence, and is backed by some bold heights, about which there are charming rides and drives. The streets are generally narrow and irregular, as in most French towns o f any age; but in the more modern parts o f the city, they are wide and airy. They display a great variety of very good shops; and both in the town and suburbs there are many excellent private dwellings. The granite quays are remarkable for their beauty, solidity, and extent. (AN, 316)

As has been shown above, independence from the mother country was definitely something Trollope was willing to support. It is thus only natural that he described in detail the concepts for a future Canadian state that were being discussed at the time of his visit (N A, 101 -03, 108f.). He showed himself well-informed with regard to the internal structure of Canada in his analyses of possible difficulties created by the incorporation of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland into a future state. These potential problems he attributed to the fact that the separate colonies had up to then shown no interest in belonging to a united Canada. In a way, Trollope's analysis has proved to be true: Newfoundland only joined Canada as a prov-

6

Charles Dickens, American Notes (London, Glasgow: Collins Clear-Type Press, n.d ), 315-16. Further references to this edition will be included in the text (abbreviated as 'AN').

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ince in 1949 and, as recent events in New Brunswick have shown, the questioning of the union is no taboo in political debates. 7 Whatever the future of Canada may be, to Trollope it is obvious that it will always be a monarchical one: That it should be a kingdom, - that the political arrangement should be one of which a crowned hereditary king should form a part, nineteen out o f every twenty Englishmen would desire; and, as I fancy, so would also nineteen out of every twenty Canadians. A king for the United States when they first established themselves was impossible. A total rupture from the Old World and all its habits was necessary for them. (NA, 109)

The developemnt Canada eventually underwent, i.e. the slow withdrawal from the Empire and the independence it gained from the mother country step by step, would probably not have surprised Trollope. Such a gradual gain of independence ensured that a total break as in the case of the US was unnecessary. Trollope's political realism in writing about US independence once again shows that thinking about the Empire - about what it was and what was to become of it - was not new to him, nor was it unwelcome. Trollope's description of the major Canadian towns and cities he saw on his travels is full of complaints and dissatisfaction. He constantly seems to be objecting to the poor quality of pavements and streets and to the scarcity of architecturally interesting buildings. About street planks he complains: The streets in Toronto are paved with wood, or rather planked, as are those of Montreal and Quebec; but they are kept in better order. I should say that the planks are first used at [J/'C] Toronto, then sent down by the lake to Montreal, and when all but rotted out there, are again floated off by the St. Lawrence to be used in the thorough-fares of the old French capital. (NA, 92)

The chessboard-like grid of the larger cities irritates him. He sees much more charm in the smaller and wider streets that make London what it is. Charles Dickens, in contrast, shows himself rather impressed with Toronto and expresses utter delight in his description of this city (AN, 310-11). Either the state of the streets had deteriorated quite a lot by the time of Trollope's visit some twenty years later, or Dickens's impressions were rooted in an altogether more positive view of Canada when he wrote: The town [Toronto, M.H.] is well adapted for wholesome exercise at all seasons; for the footways in the thoroughfares which lie beyond the principal street, are planked like floors, and kept in very good and clean repair. (AN, 311)

7

For a comment on the cod quota discussions of May 2003 and possible renegotiations of the 1949 Newfoundland Act as an example of the fact that the union itself is not unquestioned even today see Steven Chase, "Newfoundland bids to renegotiate union", The Globe and Mail (9 May 2003).

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It would certainly be interesting to find out whether Trollope knew Dickens's travelogue, because the following passage might have enraged him: [T]he shops [are] excellent. Many of them have a display of goods in their windows, such as may be seen in thriving county towns in England; and there are some which would do no discredit to the metropolis itself. (AN, 310-11) As we have seen, Trollope looked upon Canada as a poor country, and a comparison of any Canadian town or city with "the metropolis itself' would certainly have been out of the question for him. Although Trollope shows himself to be rather impressed by the wellplanned buildings in Ottawa, he still prefers Montreal as the capital of Canada and points out that it is already the economic centre of the country. Despite the many political remarks in Trollope's text, it is also a charming travel account. His wife and he himself seem to have enjoyed the natural beauties of their journey very much. Although he admits that he is not particularly fond of describing waterfalls and similar such things (NA, 62), he dedicates a whole chapter to Niagara Falls. One of the best features of Trollope's account is his humorous and sometimes very personal approach. Speaking of a tour to the top of O w l ' s Head, he relates that the guide who was to accompany them advised Mrs Trollope not to come along as the trip was a rather exhausting one: I asked if ladies did not sometimes go up. "Yes; young women do, at times," he said. After that my wife resolved that she would see the top of the Owl's Head, or die in the attempt, and so we started. (NA, 68) Although they encountered very bad weather on their walk, they still admired the beauty of the surroundings, something Dickens probably could not have done, since as he often attributed bad weather to ill feelings towards himself on the part of the country. Nevertheless Dickens's esteem for Canada could not have been greater: [...] Canada has held, and always will retain, a foremost place in my remembrance. Few Englishmen are prepared to find it what it is. Advancing quietly; old differences settling down, and being fast forgotten; public feeling and private enterprise alike in a sound and wholesome state; nothing of flush or fever in its system, but health and vigour throbbing in its steady pulse: it is full of hope and promise. (AN, 321) He goes on to talk about the conveniences available for travellers in Canada, merely criticising that the inns are not in as good a state as in the US. Dickens's description of Canadian trade and business was often totally opposed to what Anthony Trollope was to write some twenty years later. Judging from a 21 s t -century point of view, but possibly even to some of his contemporaries, Dickens' judgment of the situation Canada found itself in may have been somewhat too positive. The political and social problems of 19 th -century Canada do not really figure in his account.

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In contrast to Dickens, Trollope's account of his travels in Canada is a lot more political and focuses on some of the internal problems of Canada at the time. Charles Dickens wanted to see a part of Britain, England en miniature, or rather in extenso. He was thus willing to make his account as positive as possible. But although he summed up his stay by affirming his admiration (AN, 321-22), Canada never played any role in his fiction. Trollope's account of Canada was more multi-faceted. He described both the positive and the negative aspects of what he saw and was interested in improving the situation rather than in merely idealizing what he came across in British North America. Many of the problems he observed are still around in the Canada of today. 8

8

For further reference see the following articles not quoted in text: Stephen Leacock, "Charles Dickens and Canada", Queen's Quarterly (1939), 28-37; Goldie Morgentaler, "Dickens in Canada", Dickens Quarterly 19:3 (2002), 151-59; Frank Yeigh, "Scott, Carlyle, Dickens and Canada", Queen 's Quarterly (1930), 335-47.

INGMAR PROBST University of Paderborn

"Alle diese Länder sind unbekannt": Canada in Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth-Century German Travel Literature

Introduction The eighteenth century in Europe is marked by two developments in written communication: On the one hand, the foundation and expansion of an international book market established a new form of exchange of knowledge and ideas, and on the other hand, regular press media came into existence and achieved international standing. Both phenomena cannot be looked at as isolated cases, they rather have to be understood as one event triggering the other. While the book market satisfied a rapidly growing public interest in the information and distribution of knowledge, the press gained more and more importance as a helpful means of bibliographic orientation and (as time progressed) also as a medium of literary, scientific and social discussion and critique. The press became, according to Habermas, "the critical organ of a politically reasoning public." 1 Both books and press media were essential for the distribution of the thoughts and ideas which defined the Enlightenment. The majority of the educated people of the Enlightenment period exhibited a great interest in travel literature. This had several reasons, such as the search for adventure, the pursuit of the improvement of one's education and knowledge, or the interest in expanding one's intellectual scope. Through travel or the reading of travel literature, an individual was enabled to compare his or her own society with other societies, a skill which quite often resulted in the subsequent expression of social critique. Travelogues served as the basis for some

1

Jürgen Habermas, Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit, 2nd ed. (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1991), 126. At least for the German-speaking countries, the literary public sphere has been sufficiently analysed. Cf. Jürgen Wilke, Literarische Zeitschriften des 18. Jahrhunderts (1688-1789), Part 1: Grundlegung (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1978), 65-72 and Ute Daniel, "How Bourgeois Was the Public Sphere of the Eighteenth Century? Or: Why Is it Important to Historicize Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit, Das achtzehnte Jahrhundert 26 (2002), 9-17.

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of the philosophical work of scholars like Herder and Rousseau who at the time were attempting to define the state and the development of human nature. In this context, they dealt with various conceptualizations of human existence, including that of 'the noble savage', which became a hotly debated topic in Enlightenment scholarly circles.2 Besides the continuous growth of the book market, which resulted in an ever increasing number of publishing houses, the market for translation expanded rapidly as well. Within one or two years, translated editions of many travelogues first published in Great Britain and France could be purchased in Germany. In addition to this, the first multi-volume encyclopedic compendia of travel literature were published. In the year 1747, the first volume of the Allgemeine Historie der Reisen (AHR) was printed in Leipzig.3 During the following 27 years, this work reached a total of 21 volumes, claiming to describe all travel ever undertaken on the planet and documented in all languages of the world. In Volume 14 of 1756, a map can be found which shows the North American continent. Strikingly, large parts of modern Canada4 are covered by sentences like "All these territories are unknown" or "It is unknown whether in this country there is land or sea."5 Considering the fact that Natives had inhabited these regions for several millennia, and considering also that (literate) Europeans had travelled there for many decades, this demonstration of a complete lack of knowledge is rather surprising. It is, however, characteristic not only of Germany, but of Western Europe as a whole, because the AHR was not a national project, but an international undertaking simultaneously worked on by German, French, British and Dutch scholars who regularly corresponded with each other.6 This raises the question of which Canadiana were actually available in Western Europe in the second half of the eighteenth century. Taking the AHR as a starting point, this study will focus on the German market. It will end with Eberhard August Wilhelm Zimmermann's

2

3 4

5 6

Cf. Peter J. Brenner, "Der Mythos des Reisens" in Michael Maurer (ed.), Neue Impulse der Reiseforschung (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1999), 13-61, esp. 50-61 and Urs Bitterli, Die "Wilden" und die "Zivilisierten". Grundzüge einer Geistes- und Kulturgeschichte der europäisch-überseeischen Begegnung (München: Beck, 1992), esp. 325-425. Johann Joachim Schwabe et al., Allgemeine Historie der Reisen (= AHR), 21 vols. (Leipzig: Arkstee und Merckus, 1747-74). During the 18th century itself, the name Canada was applied only to the regions of presentday southeastern Ontario and Qu6bec. In this paper, it is synonymous with all 18th-century territory which today is also referred to by that name, i.e. it includes eighteenth-century New France to the north of the Great Lakes, Rupert's Land, Acadia, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland. AHR, vol. 17(1759), no. 4. The work was initiated by French author Antoine Francois Pr6vost d'Exiles (1697-1763), better known as Abbi Prevost, who published the 15 volumes of his Histoire generale des voyages in Paris between 1746 and 1759. Cf. Jean Sgard (ed.), CEuvres de Prevost, 8 vols. (Grenoble: Presses universitaires, 1985).

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Taschenbuch der Reisen oder unterhaltende Darstellung der Entdeckungen des 18. Jahrhunderts in Rücksicht der Länder-, Menschen- und ProduktenKunde, a work of twelve volumes which were published between 1802 and 1813,7 had the same intentions as the AHR, and served as an important work of reference on European knowledge about the areas that are discussed. First, this essay will deal with the state of knowledge about Canada in mid-eighteenth-century Germany, and with its expansion up until the nineteenth century based on an analysis of monographs and press texts dealing with North America.8 The following questions will be discussed: What information about Canada could an interested German reader obtain in the late eighteenth century? Which travelogues about Canada were available on the German book market? What was published when, by whom and why (or why not)? This section will for the most part be descriptive and empirical, it will, however, serve as the basis for the subsequent discussion of further questions. Second, the editing and reviewing of the travelogues will be analysed: What can be said about the editorial processes, the translating and the reviewing? Accordingly, what image of Canada do eighteenth-century German scholars and publishers construct for their readers? Throughout this essay, the phrase 'German travel literature' refers to all texts about Canada that were available in German, not only to those written by German authors. Besides monographs and the comments about these monographs which were published in review articles, reports that were published in historical and political journals will be taken into account in a third section. The aim of this essay is to analyse the dissemination and selection of knowledge with reference to Canadiana available on the late eighteenth-century German book market. This selection worked on three levels: first, the level of the author himself, who decided what was written down in a travel journal; second, the level of his social standing, which could be decisive for the chance of getting a journal published;9 and third, the level of the editors, 7

8

9

Volume 3 deals with Canada. Cf. Eberhard A. W. Zimmermann, Taschenbuch der Reisen oder unterhaltende Darstellung der Entdeckungen des 18. Jahrhunderts in Rücksicht der Länder-, Menschen- und Produkten-Kunde, vol. 3 (Leipzig: Fleischer, 1804). Further references to this edition will be included in the text (abbreviated as 'TR'). Research for the establishment of which and how many travelogues about Canada were published in Germany between 1750 and 1805 was undertaken in the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen and the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel. These libraries hold the largest collections of eighteenth-century literature in Germany. In addition to this, the Karlsruher Virtueller Katalog was consulted, an internet-based catalogue which lists the holdings of all German and the major international university libraries. While the list of books discussed in this study cannot be called complete, it is certainly representative of Canadiana on the German book market of the period. Cf. Ingmar Probst, "Weit offenes Land oder Verbotene Zone? Der kanadische Westen und europäische Reiseberichte um die Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts", Zeitschrift für Kanada-Studien 41, 1-2 (2002), 151-168.

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c o m m e n t a t o r s and translators w h o prepared the t e x t s f o r p u b l i c a t i o n . 1 0 T h i s third l e v e l o f s e l e c t i o n and its application in G e r m a n s c h o l a r l y c i r c l e s is the m a i n f o c u s o f this study.

Canadiana on the German Book Market A first w a v e o f p u b l i c a t i o n s d e a l i n g w i t h C a n a d a started in the 1 7 5 0 s ( f i g 1). In 1 7 5 0 , a "Historical and G e o g r a p h i c a l D e s c r i p t i o n o f N o v a S c o t i a " w a s p u b l i s h e d in Frankfurt" and the t r a v e l o g u e o f H e n r y E l l i s about H u d s o n B a y c a m e out in G ö t t i n g e n . 1 2 In the f o l l o w i n g years, the s a m e p u b l i s h i n g h o u s e ( V a n d e n h o e c k ) a l s o p u b l i s h e d the w r i t i n g s o f a F r e n c h m a n c a l l e d D i e r e v i l l e o n A c a d i a , and the j o u r n a l s f r o m Q u ö b e c b y the S w e d i s h natural scientist Peter K a l m . 1 3 In b e t w e e n , w e find t w o e d i t i o n s o f the t r a v e l o g u e o f C l a u d e L e B e a u , 1 4 a m a n c o n v i c t e d o f several c r i m e s in both France and N e w France w h o

10 Cf. Horst Walter Blanke, "Reisen ins Ungewisse", Zeitschrift für Kanada-Studien 38.2 (2000), 87-111, esp. 103-105. 11 Anonymous, Historische und Geographische Beschreibung von Neu-Schottland: darinnen von der Lage, Grösse, Beschaffenheit, Fruchtbarkeit und besondern Eigenschaften des Landes, wie auch von den Sitten und Gewohnheiten der Indianer, und von den merkwürdigsten Begebenheiten, so sich zwischen denen Cronen Franckreich und England seit deren Besitznehmung zugetragen, hinlängliche Nachricht ertheilet wird; Auf Befehl Seiner Großbrittannischen Majestät Georg II. und des Parlements in Englischer Sprache verfasset, Nunmehro aber ins teutsche übersetzet (Frankfurt/Main: Brönner, 1750) [London: Etienne de Lafargue, 1749]. 12 Henry Ellis, Reise nach Hudsons Meerbusen: welche von zweyen englischen Schiffen, der Dobbs-Galley und California, in den Jahren 1746 und 1747 wegen Entdeckung einer nordwestlichen Durchfahrt in die Sued-See verrichtet worden; nebst einer richtigen Abzeichnung der Küste, und einer kurzen Naturgeschichte des Landes, Beschreibung der Einwohner, auch einer wahren Vorstellung der Umstände und Gründe, welche die künftige Erfindung einer solchen Durchfahrt wahrscheinlich machen; Mit Kupfertafeln und zwoen neuen Karten von Hudsons Meerbusen und den angraenzenden Laendern / beschrieben von Heinrich Ellis, aus dem Engl, uebers. und mit Anm. aus anderen hieher gehoerigen Schriftstellern versehen, with an introduction by Albrecht von Haller (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1750) [London: H. Whitridge, 1748], 13 Nicholas Sieur de Diireville, Des Herrn Diereville Reise nach Portroyal in Acadien oder Neu-Frankreich: worin die verschiedenen Bewegungen der See in einer langen Schiffahrt beschrieben, und von dem Lande, der Beschaefftigung der dort wohnenden Franzosen, den Sitten der wilden Voelker, ihrem Aberglauben und ihren Jagden hinlaengliche Nachrichten, unter welchen sich auch eine richtige Abhandlung von dem Biber befindet, gegeben werden (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1751) [Amsterdam: Humbert, 1710] and Peter Kalm, Des Herren Peter Kalms Beschreibung der Reise, die er nach dem noerdlichen Amerika unternommen hat: eine Uebersetzung, 3 vols. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1754-64) [Stockholm: Salvii, 1753-56], 14 Claude LeBeau, Geschichte des Herrn C. Le Beav, Advocat im Parlament. Oder Merckwürdige und neue Reise zu denen Wilden des Nordlichen Theils von America: Worinnen man eine Beschreibung von Canada, Nebst einem gantz besondern Bericht von denen alten Gebräuchen, Sitten und Lebens-Arten dererjenigen Wilden, die darinnen wohnen, antrifft, und

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apparently had e s c a p e d to the N e t h e r l a n d s , and the first G e r m a n e d i t i o n o f J o s e p h F r a n c i s L a f i t a u ' s w o r k o n the p e o p l e o f N o r t h A m e r i c a . 1 5 Finally, the S e v e n Y e a r s ' War w h i c h i n v o l v e d both E u r o p e and E u r o p e a n c o l o n i e s o v e r s e a s , 1 6 raised e n o r m o u s interest from 1 7 5 6 o n w a r d s , and m o t i v a t e d the editors o f the A H R to d e v o t e t h e m s e l v e s to C a n a d a in three different v o l u m e s o f their s e r i e s . 1 7 G e n e r a l l y , war and politics led G e r m a n publishers to deal w i t h N o r t h A m e r i c a n i s s u e s , as Johann J o a c h i m S c h w a b e o f the A H R pointed out h i m s e l f in o n e o f h i s introductions. 1 8 T h e i n f o r m a t i o n about C a n a d a p r o v i d e d b y the A H R is l a r g e l y b a s e d o n t w o sources: the Histoire

de la Nouvelle

France,

written b y F r e n c h Jesuit m i s s i o n a r y Pierre C h a r l e v o i x 1 9 (in fact, v o l u m e 14 is a s l i g h t l y a b r i d g e d translation o f this w o r k ) , and the Journal o f H e n r y Ellis. In addition to this, S c h w a b e and his c o l l e a g u e s w e r e a w a r e o f earlier w o r k s b y authors like Lafitau, Lahontan, C h a m p l a i n , L ' E s c a r b o t , La Poth^rie, Jeremie and D r a g e , 2 0 s o m e o f w h i c h h a v e n e v e r b e e n translated into G e r m a n .

15

16

17 18 19

20

The

wie sie sich zu unsern Zeilen aufführen: Mit Kupffern / Aus dem Frantzösischen übersetzt, ed. W.E.B. Roslem (Erfurt: Johann David Jungnicol, 1752) and Claude LeBeau, Geschichte des Herrn C. Le Beav, [...], ed. J.B. Nack (Frankfurt/Leipzig: Gebr. van Düren, 1752) [Amsterdam: Herman Uytwerf, 1738]. Joseph Francois Lafitau, Allgemeine Geschichte der Länder und Völker von America, nebst einer Vorrede Siegmund Jacob Baumgartens, 2 vols. (Halle: Gebauer. 1752-53) [Paris: Saugrain, 1724], Hostiiities in North America had started in 1754 already. The conflict, which modern historians refer to as the "French and Indian War" lasted until 1760. The official declaration and the official end of war, however, took place in an entirely European context, namely in 1756 and 1763 respectively. See William J. Eccles, The French in North America 1500-1783 (East Lansing: Fitzhenry&Whiteside, 1998), esp. chapters 7 and 8. These are vols. 14 (1756), 16 (1758) and 17 (1759). Cf. Schwabe, "Nachricht an den Leser" in AHR, vol. 14 (1756), X2-X4. Pierre F.-X. Charlevoix, Histoire & Description generale de la Nouvelle France, avec le journal historique dun Voyage fait par ordre du Roi dans I'Amerique Septentrionale, 3 vols. (Paris: Rollin Fils, 1744). These authors are either mentioned specifically in the text of the AHR or acknowledged in the footnotes. The following German editions were published: Lafitau, cf. above, n. 15; LouisArmand Lom d'Arce Baron de Lahontan, Neueste Reisen nach Nord-Indien oder dem mitternächtlichen America [...], transl. from the French Μ. Fischer (Hamburg/Leipzig: Reumann, 1709) [La Haye: L'Honori, 1703]. Never published in German were Samuel de Champlain, Les Voyages du Sieur de Champlain divisez en 2 Livres; ou Journal des Observations Faites es decouvertures de la Nouvelle France [...] (Paris: n.n., 1613); Marc L'Escarbot, Histoire de la Nouvelle France: contenant les navigations, decouvertes et habitations faites par les frangois aux Indes occidentales et nouvelle France (Paris: Perier. 1618); Nicholas Jörimie, Relation du Detroit et de la Baie d'Hudson (Amsterdam: Jean Frederic Bernard, 1720); Claude Charles Le Roy de Bacqueville de la Pothirie, Histoire de I'Amerique Septentrionalle (Paris: Nion & Didot, 1722); and Theodorus Swaine Drage (published anonymously), An Account of a Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West 's Passage by Hudson's Streights to the Western and Southern Ocean of America, Performed in the Years 1746 and 1747, in the Ship California, Capt. Francis Smith Commander, by the Clerk of the California, 2 vols. (London: Joliffe, 1748-49).

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publication of Canadiana in Germany came to a standstill in 1764 with the 3rd volume of Peter Kalm's journals. It took 23 years until a book dealing specifically with Canadian territory was put on the market again. Interestingly, the second wave of publications started - like the first one - with an anonymous work on the "Present State of Nova Scotia." 21 In the following fifteen years, almost twenty works about Canada were made available to German readers. It is striking that both the publishing house of Voß in Berlin and Matthias Christian Sprengel and Georg Forster as editors and translators regularly appear on this list. For the first time, the same travelogue appears in different editions: Both Long and Weld appear three times (the editions of Weld were all published in 1800 and all in Berlin, but with different publishers), Mackenzie, Hearne, and Umfreville appear twice. 22 Many publishers of the time specialized in serving the ever-increasing demand for travelogues in Enlightenment society. Among them, we find Voß in Berlin, Hoffmann in Hamburg, Weygand in Leipzig and the Industrie-Comptoir in Weimar, all of whom provided their readers with series of travel literature with an average of two publications per annum. 23 Translators and editors were specialists as well: Georg Forster had accompanied James Cook on his travels around the globe, and Matthias Christian Sprengel was one of the most productive compilators of writings on North America in all of Germany. 24 This second wave of publications was apparently mainly concerned with the question of whether a Northwest Passage from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean could be found. There are notable exceptions, however, such as Isaac Weld who wrote a tourist guide, and the French exile Rochefoucauld Liancourt, whose observations centered on Canadian society. 25

21 Samuel Hollingsworth (published anonymously in German), Gegenwärtiger Zustand von NeuSchottland, ed. Matthias Christian Sprengel (Leipzig: Weygand, 1787) [Edinburgh: William Creech. 1786],

22 Cf. fig. 1. 23 Weygand's Beiträge zur Völker- und Länderkunde reached a total of 14 volumes between 1781 and 1790, and a follow-up series of Neue Beiträge comprised 13 volumes between 1790 and 1793. From 1789 to 1808, Hoffmann in Hamburg published 19 volumes of his Neuere Geschichte der See- und Landreisen. The series of Voß in Berlin was called Magazin von merkwürdigen neuen Reisebeschreibungen and comprised 24 volumes, which were published between 1790 and 1801. The Industrie-Comptoir in Weimar was the most productive publisher, producing 50 volumes of their Bibliothek der neuesten und wichtigsten Reisebeschreibungen zur Erweiterung der Erdkunde within 14 years (1800-1814). 24 For Sprengel, cf. Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (= ADB), 2nd ed., vol. 35 (1970), 299-300. 25 See Isaac Weld, Isaac Welds des Juengeren Reisen durch die Staaten von Nordamerika und die Provinzen Ober- und Nieder-Canada, waehrend den Jahren 1795, 1796 und 179 7: Aus dem Englischen uebersetzt (Berlin: Voß, 1800); Isaac Weld, Reise durch die nordamerikanischen Freistaaten und durch Ober- und Unter-Canada in den Jahren 1795, 1796 und 1797: aus dem Englischen frei übersetzt (Berlin! Η au de und Spener, 1800); Isaac

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Looking at all Canadiana that appeared on the German book market in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, one can state that most of them were first published in Great Britain before being translated into German. There were some exceptions, namely works by Diereville, LeBeau, Kalm, and Rochefoucauld, all of which, however, were first published outside Germany as well. 26 This factor explains the gap of 23 years in the 1770s and 1780s. During this time, no travelogues dealing with Canada appeared on the English (or other European) book market(s) because both the aftermath of the French and Indian War and the subsequent developments leading to the American War of Independence made travelling in North America rather difficult. The book market, therefore, was very much a reflection of the political and economic situation of the time. The information that was available in Great Britain and France usually reached Germany rather quickly, as fig. 1 shows. Most works were translated, those that were not, like Drage or Jeremie, were discussed in detail in larger works on travel like the AHR. What can be said about the content of all these works? In terms of territory, all of modern Canada from Nova Scotia and Acadia via Upper and Lower Canada to Hudson Bay and beyond to the Pacific Ocean is covered in the travelogues. There are different types of text ranging from diaries to tourist guides such as Weld's journal to philosophical treatises such as Liancourt's work. The flora and fauna of the east are described in great detail by Kalm, flora and fauna of the west are covered by Ellis and Hearne. 27 All travelogues covering Eastern Canada discuss the harsh climate with mild summers and cold winters, topographical peculiarities, the friendliness of the European settlers, the cities, buildings, agriculture, and trade. Liancourt provides additional details about the political climate, social life and cultural events especially in Upper Canada. Natives are discussed in great detail by Charlevoix, who lived among them as a missionary, and by LeBeau, who claims to have done so

Weld, Reisen durch die vereinigten Staaten von Nord-Amerika und durch die Provinzen Oberund Unter-Kanada: in den Jahren 1795, 1796 und 1797; nach der zweiten Ausgabe aus dem Englischen übersetzt, mit Anmerkungen / von Isaac Weld (Berlin: Oehmigke, 1800) [London: Stockdale, 1799] and Francois A.F. de la Rochefoucauld Liancourt, De la Rochefoucauld Liancourts Reisen in den Jahren 1795, 1796 und 1797 durch alle an der See belegenen Staaten der Nordamerikanischen Republik; imgleichen durch Ober-Canada und das Land der Irokesen: Nebst zuverlaeßigen Nachrichten von Unter-Canada, Aus der franzoesischen Handschrift (Hamburg: Hoffmann, 1799) [Paris: DuPont, 1799], 26 Diereville's and LeBeau's work was first published in Amsterdam, Kalm's book in Stockholm, Liancourt's in Paris. Cf. n. 13, 14 and 25. 27 Cf. Ellis, Voyage, 41-43, 168-170 and Samuel Hearne, Reise vom Fort Prinz Wallis in der Hudsonsbay nach dem nördlichen Weltmeer, ed. by Matthias Christian Sprengel (Halle: Renger, 1797), 358-458. Kalm's main motivation for travelling to Canada was his aim to find plants hitherto unknown in Sweden which could be useful for agricultural and horticultural purposes. Cf. Kalm, Des Herren Peter Kalms Beschreibung der Reise, 3.

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while he was fleeing the authorities of Qudbec. 28 All travelogues covering Western Canada discuss an even harsher climate with even colder winters, geography and topography, life in trading posts, and also the Natives, who are extremely important to the functioning of the fur trade. 29 The portrayal of the Natives in both east and west covers the entire range familiar to all students of travel literature dealing with contact between European and non-European cultures. 30 At times the Natives are described as vicious, treacherous, promiscuous liars who are constantly engaged in war, but then again they are portrayed as noble, simple, caring, very sociable people who fortunately have not yet been spoiled by civilization. Native problems associated with the consumption of alcohol are very prominent in all travelogues. 31 Therefore, a German reader in the eighteenth century could get all kinds of information about Canada. All travelogues available in German are similar in portraying Canada as a multi-faceted country where nature is largely untouched and at least the European settlers are simple and friendly people. Still, the North American possessions of the British Empire which did not enter the American War of Independence remained largely unknown to German readers. While the authors of travelogues often provided very detailed descriptions of specific localities, the great majority did not look beyond their personal observations. A single travelogue provided the public with a particular image of a limited region and contemporary encyclopaedic compendia focused on a selection of authors. The Germans who were involved in the publication processes greatly influenced the distribution of information about North America, because they did not only translate original English, French, Dutch or Swedish editions, but they also regarded themselves as informed enough to omit passages which they considered useless for their German editions.

28 LeBeau, Geschichte, 5; AHR, Vol. 14 (1756), 88-92, 125, 162,208 et al.; Liancourt. Reisen. 29 Ellis, Voyage, 131-138 and 231-235; Hearne, Reise vom Fort, 304-357; Alexander Mackenzie, Alexander Mackenzie's, Esq. Reisen von Montreal durch Nordwestamerika nach dem Eismeer und der Sued-See in den Jahren 1789 und 1793: Nebst einer Geschichte des Pelzhandels in Canada, ed. E.B. (Hamburg: Hoffmann, 1802), 184-189, 539-546. 30 Cf. Bitterl i. Die Wilden, and Karl-Heinz Kohl, Entzauberter Blick. Das Bild vom Guten Wilden (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1986). 31 Cf. e.g. Mackenzie, Reisen von Montreal, 25-29, 104-107, 238-240, 267-271 with John Long, Long's [...] See- und Land-Reisen: enthaltend: eine Beschreibung der Sitten und Gewohnheiten der Nordamerikanischen Wilden; der Englischen Forts oder Schanzen laengs dem St. Lorenz-Flusse, dem See Ontario u.s.w.; ferner ein umstaendliches Woerterbuch der Chippewaeischen und anderer Nordamerikanischer Sprachen', Aus dem Englischen / Herausgegeben und mit einer kurzen Einleitung ueber Kanada und einer erbesserten Karte versehen von E. A. W. Zimmermann (Hamburg: Hoffmann, 1791), 63-71, 90-93 and Hearne. Reise vom Fort, 304-357.

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Commentaries and Compilations of German Scholars That manuscripts of travel journals were rearranged, rewritten, shortened or lengthened during the publication process, and that many travel writers hired assistants in order to reach specific literary standards, is common knowledge among students of travel literature. 32 In many cases, however, the motivations and intentions of translators and editors of foreign-language editions of travel journals have yet to be analysed. The following analysis of German editions of Canadiana will show that German editors and translators intended to convey a specific image of themselves to their readers, which largely influenced the translation and editing of the respective journals originally published in Great Britain or elsewhere. In his introduction to the German edition of Henry Ellis's work in 1750, Albrecht von Haller describes his intentions in establishing a series of travelogues with Vandenhoeck in Göttingen. Readers, he cliams, will get to know the world, they will be able to compensate for a lack of personal travel and experience; prejudice about foreigners might be reduced, and the reader, by comparison with an 'other', will understand his own 'self more easily. 33 Most of the German editors and translators, however, appear to have followed a specific strategy of criticism: they projected their 'self upon the 'other' original authors of the texts which they prepared for a German readership. Many editors and translators pointed out in introductions to the German editions that changes had been made. Three issues that motivated changes dominated: style, repetitiveness, and 'unnecessary' passages. 1) Style. Many translators affirmed that they had fulfilled their task rather freely, because quite often the original British or French text was - according to their interpretation - hard to understand, or simply not suitable for the standards of educated readers. Diereville was criticized for placing humorous anecdotes in a serious text (all of which are omitted in the German edition); Georg Forster said about Samuel Heame that he certainly knew a lot about how to trade whereas he knew nothing about how to write; Sprengel called Mackenzie's text tiring, and Ε. B. from Hamburg, who also translated Mackenzie, said that the author obviously had no training in writing. 34

32 The most prominent case in the context of Canadian travel literature is Alexander Mackenzie, whose writings were prepared by William Combe, an established author in London around 1800. Cf. Franz Montgomery, "Alexander Mackenzie's Literary Assistant". Canadian Historical Review 18 (1937), 3 0 M . 33 Haller in Ellis, Reise, Vorrede, a3-a6. 34 The identity of Ε. B. is unknown. Cf. Diereville, Des Herrn Diereville Reise, 3; Heame, Reise vom Fort, VIII (Forster); Alexander Mackenzie, Alexander Mackenzie's Reise nach dem nördlichen Eismeere vom 3. Jun. bis 12. September 1798[sic!J / aus d. Engl, übers, u. mit

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2) Repetitiveness. None of the three editions of Weld's journal published in Berlin provided the full number of illustrations and maps of the English edition. The translators referred to them as "not showing anything new or of value." Therefore, only the "most interesting" illustrations were inserted. 35 Hearne was severely criticised for saying the same things over and over again. 36 3) Unnecessary Passages. Georg Forster omitted the 10th chapter of the English edition of Hearne's journal, which dealt with natural history. According to Forster, Hearne showed that he lacked both the training and the knowledge of a naturalist. Therefore, the entire chapter was of little use. The little valuable information that could be taken from it was left to future editors who would have the time to collect it.37 Sprengel paraphrased Mackenzie's text because he considered it to be far too detailed. He shortened it to what he called "das Wesentliche" ('the most important/relevant/essential information'). Mackenzie's other German translator, however, opposed this view and referred to the attention to detail as the most valuable quality of the entire journal. 38 Finally, Mr. Herbst, in his edition, deleted all nautical data George Vancouver had collected on the Pacific Coast, although their collection was the main purpose of the entire voyage. Herbst called them tiring for the reader. 39 Other comments included Sprengel's critique of Hollingsworth, the author of the 1787 book about Nova Scotia, who could have provided a little more detail in the description of the countryside, 40 and criticism of Drage, who discussed the possibility that the North American Natives are descendants of a people who lived in Europe at the time of Ancient Greece (an idea which had first been proposed by Lafitau). According to the editor, Drage should not have come up with such a hypothesis as he was not qualified to do so. 41 In general, Drage's text, which covers the same journey as Ellis's, was taken less seriously. In the German edition of Ellis's travelogue, it served as additional information which was usually placed in footnotes. It did not get published on its

35 36

37 38 39

40 41

Anm. vers., ed. M. C. Sprengel (Weimar: Verlag des Industrie-Comptoirs, 1802), 8; and Mackenzie, Reisen von Montreal, IV (Hoffmann). Weld, Isaac Welds des Jüngeren Reisen, Einleitung. Forster in Samuel Hearne, Samuel Hearne's Reise von dem Prinz von Wallis-Fori an der Hudsons-Bay bis zu dem Eismeere, in den Jahren 1769 bis 1772: aus dem Englischen uebersetzt / Mit Anmerkungen von Johann Reinhold Forster (Berlin: Voß, 1797), VII-VIII. Forster in Hearne, Samuel Hearne 's Reise, VIII. Cf. Sprengel in Mackenzie, Alexander Mackenzie's Reise, 8 and Ε. B. in Mackenzie, Reisen von Montreal, IV-V. Herbst in George Vancouver, Georg Vancouvers Reisen nach dem nördlichen Theile der Südsee während der Jahre 1790 bis 1795 / Aus dem Engl, übers, und mit Anm. begleitet von Joh. Friedr. Wilh. Herbst (Berlin: Voß, 1799-1800) Sprengel in Hollingsworth, Gegenwärtiger Zustand, III-IV. Vorrede des Übersetzers in Ellis, Reise, a7-b2.

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own. Ellis's text was referred to as being superior because of its clarity, order, judgement, and evidence of the author's scientific training. In contrast, Drage's text was felt to be inferior because Drage did not agree with Ellis's portrayal of events, and Drage seemed to be more of a storyteller than an accurate observer.42 While commenting on Hearne's text, Sprengel compared the Canadian Natives with the people of Asia and described their way of living as "the childhood of humanity." Clearly, he considered himself qualified for such statements.43 The Hamburg edition of John Long's journals provided a short description of the geography, fauna and trade in Upper and Lower Canada, written by editor and translator Eberhard Zimmermann, although Long's text covered exactly that, and more, in detail.44 Interestingly, only the texts of the wellknown natural scientist Peter Kalm and the French aristocrat Rochefoucauld Liancourt were published without any comments. Both had received a scientific education in Europe as young men before they left for North America, and that is why they were acceptable to German editorial and translators' circles. Authors who had received little or in some cases no formal schooling might have aspired to but could never reach these standards. When Eberhard August Wilhelm Zimmermann published his Taschenbuch der Reisen oder unterhaltende Darstellung der Entdeckungen des 18. Jahrhunderts in Rücksicht der Länder-, Menschen- und Produkten-Kunde,45 he advertised it as a compilation of all travel literature available on the German book market. Therefore, the third volume, which dealt with North America, could theoretically serve as a valuable summary of German knowledge about Canada at the time. In this respect, however, Zimmermann's publication was rather disappointing. The description of the entire Western part was no more than a sketch based on the writings of Ellis, Umfreville, Hearne and Mackenzie. Drage and Long as well as the very recent voyages of Dixon, Meares, and Portlock were ignored. A reason for this might lie in the fact that a few years earlier, Georg Förster had published his Geschichte der Reisen, die seit Cook an der Nordwest- und Nordost-Küste von Amerika [...] unternommen worden sind, a book which included detailed information about many of these men's voyages. Forster's work stood out among other German editions

42 43 44 45

Vorrede des Übersetzers in Ellis, Reise, a7-b2. Sprengel in Hearne, Reise vom Fort. Zimmermann in Long, See- und Land-Reisen, IX-XVHI. The image of Canada in this particular work has been dealt with by Karin Gürttier. "Das Kanadabild in der deutschen Reiseliteratur des 18. Jahrhunderts", in Karin Gürttier, Friedhelm Lach (eds.), Annalen des ersten Montrealer Symposiums Deutschkanadische Studien (Montreal: Etudes Allemandes: Döpartement d'Etudes Anciennes et Modernes, 1976), 31-47. Despite the article's title, however, analysis of the travelogues' content does not go beyond Zimmermann.

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and translations dealing with Canadiana, because he integrated the travelogues he had prepared for the German market into a description of North American trade, topography, climate, flora, fauna, and demographics. 46 Zimmermann, however, appeared relieved when he redirected his attention from the West to Upper and Lower Canada: "Nicht ungern verlassen wir nun jene ungeheuren, größten Theils nutzlosen Flächen. Nur allein von einzelnen Horden Wilder durchwandert, tragen sie das traurige Gepräge der Unfruchtbarkeit an sich, eine nothwendige Folge des mangels der Cultur ihrer Bewohner" (TR, 147). The description of Upper and Lower Canada followed Liancourt and Weld, but important locations such as Montreal and Quebec were mentioned only briefly and rather superficially described. References to such significant aspects as craftsmanship and trade, architecture, shipping, administration, educational and judicial systems, however, were omitted by Zimmermann, and the Atlantic regions were not dealt with at all. In contrast to these superficial passages, which cover approximately twenty pages of the entire book, there is a description of 160 pages of different Native tribes and groups. Here, we find what Zimmermann was actually interested in. His comments start with the following revealing sentence: "Es ist der Mühe werth, näher mit der Lage und dem Local dieser dürftigen Menschen bekannt zu werden; denn es biethet einen trefflichen Beweis gegen den Werth des rohen, freyen Naturzustandes dar, dem Rousseau und ähnliche Philosophen so laut das Wort reden" (TR, 92). The purpose of the description of Natives becomes evident in this passage: Zimmermann wrote - mainly on the basis of Hearne's travelogue - against Rousseau and intended to prove the superiority and perfection of civilized man over the primitive human who clings to nature. A detailed analysis of this discussion which occupied most Enlightenment philosophers is beyond the scope of this essay. The focus here shall remain on Zimmermann, who never tired of criticizing the state of the savages. They are described as being constantly on the move, exposed to harsh weather and the danger of starvation, and driven by animal needs. According to Zimmermann, their struggle for freedom and absolute independence, their "unersättliche Blutgier gegen den Feind, und die beynahe übermenschliche Grausamkeit gegen die Gefangenen" (TR, 253) was based on the lack of culture of these hunting people. The only solution, therefore, was the introduction of agriculture and domestic animals: "Die Cultur ebnet die Wege fur die Humanität, und vielleicht während eines Jahrhunderts blühen da Städte und reiche Anlagen, wo jetzt [...] das Tomahawk vom Blute des sorglosen Nachbarn dampft" (TR, 356).

46 Georg Forster, Geschichte der Reisen, die seit Cook an der Nordwest- und Nordost-Küste von Amerika und in dem nördlichsten Amerika selbst von Meares, Dixon, Portlock, Coxe, Long u.a.m. unternommen worden sind (Berlin: Voß, 1791).

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Like many of his contemporaries, Zimmermann used the descriptions he found in the travelogues in order to popularize his ideas in scholarly discussions of the Enlightenment period. Canada seems to be of secondary interest at best and is definitely less important than the question of the state of human nature. Zimmermann merely follows the example of many of his editorial predecessors. As a general tendency, the use of descriptions of foreign regions can be detected among editors and translators of travelogues as a means of bringing across their personal scholarly viewpoints.

Book Reviews Canadiana were usually reviewed in the Göttinger Gelehrte Anzeigen (GGA), from which the following information has been taken. Only in a few cases did the Anzeigen deal with the German editions.47 Mostly, however, they commented on the original editions of the respective travelogues, which were sent to the librarian of the University of Göttingen in the course of a regular distribution and exchange of books among scholars and academic institutions of Europe. Again, commentators criticized authors for not dealing with specific texts, thereby omitting or ignoring information which could have been helpful in producing a better work. This is the case with Charlevoix to whom, according to the anonymous reviewer, English texts are unknown.48 Today it is almost impossible to tell which texts the commentator could have been referring to as Charlevoix travelled across La Nouvelle France, a French colony where Englishmen were not very welcome after decades of power struggles between Great Britain and France. This exact type of criticism was repeated when, more than a decade later, Johann Joachim Schwabe published Volume 14 of the AHR, a translation of the work of Charlevoix. The French priest was lauded, however, for his maps and extensive description of both country and people. When discussing Charlevoix, the Anzeigen come up with a 'national' argument as well: Charlevoix is said to provide "typically French criticism of the English and those who are not members of the Jesuit order."49 This, however, remains an isolated episode, because the Anzeigen mostly refrain from evaluation and interpretation of texts, focusing instead on summaries of con-

47 For example, the 1750 edition of Henry Ellis's travelogue is lauded for its inclusion of Charles S. Drage's journal in the footnotes. 48 Göttinger Gelehrte Anzeigen (= GGA) 8 (1746), 732-34. 49 GGA 18 (1756), 1 183.

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tent (Ellis 1748, Drage 1749, Weld 1800) and suggestions for additional reading. 50 When Schwabe published Volume 16 of the AHR, which discusses the Canadian West, the reviewer from Göttingen criticized him for the rather dated source material used for the completion of the book. The inclusion of Ellis's travelogue without any mention of Drage's text is especially commented upon, 51 and understandably so, as the only German edition of Ellis was published in Göttingen and contained extensive parts of analysis of Drage in the footnotes. Clearly, Schwabe did not use this work in the preparation of his book. In 1753, the Anzeigen reviewed the report of James Robson, a former employee of the Hudson Bay Company (HBC) who was fired and, in his book, now tried to justify himself and accused his late employers. The commentator from Göttingen pointed out that on the one hand Robson's descriptions contradicted earlier works as he spoke of possibilities of using HBC lands for agricultural settlements, and that on the other hand he did not have to say anything previously unknown about the Native population. 52 This criticism might well be the reason why Robson's observations became the only text published in the 1750s which was never translated by any German scholar. Nevertheless, criticism of the HBC seemed acceptable to a contributor to the Anzeigen almost four decades later (in 1792 to be exact). A work very similar in design and content to Robson's, the report of Edward Umfreville, whose employment history with the HBC was similar to Robson's, was described by the reviewer as "apparently correctly observing the conditions in Hudson Bay": the climate there seemed to be milder and the soil more fertile than it was previously known. 53 The work of John Long was reviewed in the same year. Long's descriptions were criticized for not providing any new information for anthropological studies other than a remark that Natives run faster than Europeans. The author himself was criticized for having fraternized with Natives and for attempting to portray the HBC in more favorable terms than necessary. 54 It is significant in this context that, at the beginning of the 1790s, the commentators of the Anzeigen had joined a large group of scholars, tradesmen, and politicians who were critical of the information policy of fur-trading companies. 55

50 51 52 53 54 55

GGA 10 (1748), 1018-1019; GGA 11 (1749), 482-85; GGA 62 (1800), 217-28. GGA 21 (1759), 221-23. GGA 15 (1753), 21 If. GGA 54 (1792), 283-85. GGA 54 (1792), 393-96. Cf. Glyndwr Williams, "The Hudson's Bay Company and its Critics in the Eighteenth Century", Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th Series, 20 (1970), 158-63.

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In 1796, Samuel Heame's publication, which was the first travelogue officially sanctioned by the HBC (on twelve pages of the Anzeigen), was discussed more extensively than any other Canadiana before. While describing most of the book's content in great detail, the reviewer - just like the German translators and editors of the text - deemed Hearne's observations on Natural History unnecessary and flawed because Heame had not received specific training as a naturalist.56 Once again, the German scholars underline their disapproval of travellers' attempts to engage in contemporary scholarly discussions. Although knowledge about northern North America was rather limited in Germany throughout the entire eighteenth century, book reviewers - like editors and translators - felt competent enough to decide for their readers what was interesting about a travelogue and what was not. They also had the selfconfidence to evaluate the expansion of knowledge a journal might or might not provide. Because of the little information that had been available in previous decades, any work of travel literature had to be considered valuable. Most German scholars, however, appear to have been more concerned with a traveller's education and social standing before his departure from Europe than with a detailed evaluation of a journal's content.

Historical and Political Periodicals In addition to the many travelogues and travel monographs about Canada translated from English and French into German, contributions to historical and political journals edited by local scholars were made available to German readers. In the following, some of these journals will be analysed. They became increasingly important in the course of the eighteenth century and provided many people with regular reports from foreign countries, including the overseas colonies. Distributed within the circles of an ever growing number of Lesegesellschaften ('reading societies'),57 these periodicals could fulfill the popular demand for contemporary news and information. Here one can find the only eighteenth-century descriptions of Canada written by travellers from Germany.58

56 GGA 58 (1796), 1049-61. 57 Cf. Ulrich Imhof, Das gesellige Jahrhundert. Gesellschaft und Gesellschaften im Zeitalter der Aufklärung (München: Beck, 1982) and Richard van Dülmen, Die Gesellschaft der Aufklärer Zur bürgerlichen Emanzipation und aufklärerischen Kultur in Deutschland (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1986). 58 The following passages are based on Gerhart Teuscher, '"Armut, rohe Kunst, und Mangel der Cultur'? Das deutsche Kanadabild in historisch-politischen Zeitschriften des späten 18. Jahrhunderts", in Karin GUrttler, Herfried Scheer (eds ), Kontakte, Konflikte, Konzepte:

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In order to analyse the image of Canada provided by such journals, a selection of four of the most prominent will be considered: Politisches Journal, edited by Gottlob Benedict von Schirach, Briefwechsel meist statistischen (later historisch und politischen) Inhalts and Staats-Anzeigen, both edited by August Ludwig Schlözer, and Briefe den gegenwärtigen Zustand von Nordamerica betreffend, edited by Matthias Christian Sprengel. The three journals mentioned first were distributed and read in all of Germany and printed for many years. The Briefe by Sprengel circulated on a smaller basis, but because of their specialization in North America they are equally important. Sprengel, who taught Geography and History in Göttingen, 59 started publishing his Briefe there in 1777. News about the thirteen North American colonies striving for independence from the British Empire were prominent in the first issues, which is not surprising, considering the time. Nevertheless, an essay on the fisheries of Newfoundland and a description of Canada were announced already in the very first introduction. To Sprengel, the cession of New France to Great Britain was the major cause for the rebellion because the American settlers did no longer have to worry about attacks from the French and their Native allies.60 He defends the British point of view and informs his readers in great detail about the Quebec Act of 1774. American complaints against it are dismissed as unfounded ("haltlos") and unimportant ("nichtig"). In the course of his argumentation, Sprengel provides a detailed description of the political and religious situation of Quebec, including the seigneurial system and the education of clerics. According to him, the French Canadians were exposed to an unknown and completely foreign system of justice after the Treaty of Paris (1763), which put them at a great disadvantage and caused their growing despair. Especially the laws applying to personal debts are criticized here. The British government had eventually understood the cause of many problems and subsequently, with the American Congress trying to polemicize, passed the Quebec Act. The French Canadians are described as hard-working people who are equally skilled in using weapon, fishing net and plow, who are loyal to their European homeland and to their Catholic religion. In a footnote to his report, Sprengel describes the extensive borders of Canada of which no map exists as yet. One can read about forts at the frontier, waterways, and fishing on the East Coast where the Canadians have always hunted otter, walrus and whale. In general, the image evoked is that of a vast country inhabited by hard-working Frenchmen, who are now recognized by the British government as having their own culture. Because of this recognition, the few British

Annalen des dritten Montrealer Symposiums Deutschkanadische Studien (Montreal: Etudes Allemandes, Departement d'Etudes Anciennes et Modernes, 1980), 76-91. 59 Cf.n.24. 60 The following information has been taken from the third letter: 3. Brief, 91-118.

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settlers seem to be rather dissatisfied, according to the official British sources available to Sprengel. The readers of Politisches Journal received detailed information about events in Canada as well. Its editor, Gottlob von Schirach, was a Professor at the University of Helmstedt. 61 News from Canada were already published in the first year of the journal's existence. In September 1781, the Politisches Journal provided detailed data about the exports of North American products from Canada to Florida ("Generalrechnung der Exportation der Nord-Amerikanischen Produkte; von Kanada bis Florida"), compiled by the Westphalian tradesman Peter Hasenclever. 62 Hasenclever described the cultivation of flax and the export of fur within the Canadian territory. In January 1783, another contribution from Hasenclever was published. This time, he dealt with geography, trade with the Natives and the modes of travelling on rivers and at sea. Hasenclever's detailed reports were supplemented by the writings of German military officers, who were engaged in the American war of Independence, and of colonists. In November 1782, an officer wrote from Quebec and described Canada as a very healthy and fertile place where grain is abundant and cattle breeding is successful. 63 A report from October 1783, also written by a German officer, provided more detailed descriptions. 64 Like his predecessors, he praised the climate and the extremely fertile soil of Canada. The inhabitants, however, were described rather critically. They seemed to be docile and not as loyal to the English crown as one might have expected. The author cited fear as the main reason why the Quebecois had not joined the American colonies in their struggle. A difference had to be observed between the rich and the poor. According to the unnamed officer, the rich did not want to lose their riches and the poor were used to being suppressed anyway and unwilling to change their situation. People pursuing change, however, were numerous in the American colonies, and they had started the revolution. Because Canadians were slowly approaching this stage, which the author refers to as that of a middle class ("Mittelstand"), one could expect Canada to rise against the British Empire in the future. The officer clearly expressed his concern: "Das Ministerium zu London hat Ursache, auf seiner Hut zu seyn." The Canadians' level of cultural achievement is described as rather low. Their French, both vocabulary and pronunciation, is a spoiled dialect which has to be studied before it can be understood. With pride the officer describes how German soldiers explained to the settlers how to get butter from cream.

61 For Schirach, cf. ADB, vol. 31, 307-8. 62 Politisches Journal 1781,222-32. 63 Cf. Teutscher, Armut, 79. 64 For all of the following cf. Politisches Journal

1781, 948-52.

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He summarizes as follows: "Überhaupt haben die bisherigen Zeitläufe erst Canada zu einer Art von anfangender Bildung gebracht." Finally, a report from Nova Scotia has to be mentioned. 65 Also written by an officer, it focuses the overwhelming numbers of Loyalist refugees who flock into the ports of the region. Fishing, agriculture and lumbering are also described. The author mentions the city of Shelburne, founded only shortly before and settled by 9,000 emigrants plus 1,200 free negroes ("freye Neger") who fought on the Loyalist side. Mass emigration from the American colonies dominates the entire report. This led editor von Schirach to the comment that the migration still continued because many inhabitants of the former colonies were unhappy with the new constitution and looked elsewhere for a place to live. The most extensive reports from Canada could be found in the journals edited by August Ludwig Schlözer, 66 a professor from Göttingen and one of the leading scholars of the German Enlightenment: the Briefwechsel and the Staats-Anzeigen. Like von Schirach, Schlözer received correspondence from officers of the British forces, who mostly came from the Kingdom of Hanover and had studied in Göttingen before going to North America. Their observations provided the image of Canada for Schlözer's readers. The first report was sent in 1777 by a Captain Hinrichs, who travelled from Halifax to New York. Hinrichs regrets the demise of the former New France, of which only St. Pierre and Miquelon are left, two islands that are hardly able to support 200 people each ("zwo Inseln, deren jede keine 200 Menschen ernären kan") Halifax is also described as being extremely poor, a city where gravel roads and shacks have to function as streets and houses. Hinrichs expresses the hope that the recently arrived refugees from New England will improve the situation. His impression of Canada is summarized in the following passage: "Armut, rohe Kunst, und Mangel der Cultur, blicken allenthalben heraus." 67 The next report, also published in 1777 and also written by an officer, was more positive and more detailed. The author, who remained anonymous this time, described life in the city as well as in the countryside. Agriculture, cattle breeding, architecture and the cultivation of fruits and vegetables are dealt with in great detail, just like the everyday life of the habitants. This author constructs the image of people who are content, hospitable, hard-working, pious, honest and clean. The superficiality and happiness of their French ancestors has disappeared and, through a hard life, been replaced by seriousness. Schooling and education in general are less promising. The fine arts ("feine Wissenschaften") are entirely unknown to Canadians, very few can write and

65 Cf. Teutscher, Armut, 80-81. 66 For Schlözer, cf. ADB, vol. 31, 567-600. 67 Briefwechsel, 1777, VIII. Heft, no. 20, 99-108.

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those who can have little knowledge of the rules of orthography. According to the author, the most sophisticated Canadians write like the least educated Germans. A lack of culture is as prominent as honesty and the willingness to work hard. This description leads Schlözer to a revealing comment: "Wie noch jetzo Canada wird, so ward damals Germanien. Dort Seigneurs, Habitants, Habitations, Paroisses [...]; hier Bischöfe und Aebte, bekerte Deutsche, [...] Comites, [...] decimae etc. Wir Deutsche mit unsrer ganzen Cultur sind also nur um 1000 Jahre älter, wie die Canadier." 68 Therefore, to Schlözer, the Canadians resembled the Germans of the time of Charlemagne, i.e. a people whose level of civilization was significantly less developed than the level of eighteenth-century Europe. Readers who wanted more information about Canada were not disappointed. In the following months, "Vertrauliche Briefe aus Kanada" and a "Vollständiges Tagebuch über den Marsch der Braunschweiger Truppen im Jahre 1776" were published. 69 Both written by an officer from Brunswick, the texts provided a vivid image of winter festivities, hunting, and ice fishing on the St. Lawrence. According to the author, the thorough education of the priests is emphasized by the lack of culture of the other inhabitants of the region. The author whiled away his time with scientific observations, but remarks that he was completely left to himself because the Canadians knew nothing about their own country and libraries did not exist. The Natives remain a mystery to the Brunswick officer. On the one hand, he describes them as belonging to 'the class of animals', on the other hand he places them into 'the class of the noblest humans'. The nobility of their souls is enviable, yet in their dances they behave like devils. The author complains about the long winter, extreme cold and mountains of snow. Canada is described as being dependent on the weather, because in wintertime no news from Europe reaches the shores and no news about the war either. Both the letters and the diary are a combination of naive interest and critical observation, aristocratic arrogance of an educated soldier and honest interest in the inhabitants of Canada. Schlözer, like Sprengel, announced the publication of an article about the topography of Canada, because "gute richtige und vollständige Landkarten von Kanada, bis etzo, [gehören] noch unter die frommen Wünsche." 70 The readers of historical and political journals in eighteenth-century Germany, then, were regularly informed about events and developments in North America. Most reports focused on the colonies which became the United States, but Canada was dealt with as well. The majority of observations was made in Qu6bec by leading members of the military contingent sent overseas

68 Briefwechsel, 69 Briefwechsel,

1777, XVIII. Heft, no. 42,320-340. 1777, XXIII. Heft, no. 49,288-323.

70 Briefwechsel 1777, XXIII, 323.

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by the Kingdom of Hanover and the Duchy of Brunswick. 71 Favorite topics included the life of the European inhabitants, the fertility of the country which was still largely untouched by western civilization, and the harsh climate with hot summers and cold winters. The settlers were lauded for their adaptation to the new environment, and criticized for their lack of culture. Especially when discussing the latter, most authors felt superior to the Canadians. When politics were discussed, the officers - not surprisingly - supported the British point of view, commenting in great detail on the efforts to preserve French Canadian culture. Natives were only rarely a point of interest. In case an author dealt with them, he described them as savage, and they were alternately shown either as noble men or as wild devils.

Conclusion Interest in the northern regions of North America which are known today as Canada was widespread in eighteenth-century Germany., This interest was triggered by very specific conditions. Information about Canada usually reached Great Britain before it reached central Europe. Therefore, German scholars depended to a great extent on what their English-speaking colleagues published. Most of the British publications were immediately edited and translated, but no German books appeared without a foreign predecessor. German travellers published in historical and political journals, which promised greater topicality and greater distribution throughout the German-speaking countries. At the same time, this contributed to the production of very short and concise descriptions of Canada due to the restrictions of space in press publications. German editors, translators and reviewers exhibited great confidence in their ability to decide what might or might not be useful knowledge for their readers. They omitted maps, entire passages of descriptions and generally everything they considered repetitive, unnecessary or stylistically flawed. The question of style in particular points to the fact that German scholars had specific expectations which a travel writer had to meet before being published on the German market. A general tendency to only accept the writings of European-educated travellers without commentary or change could clearly be detected. Therefore, the publications provide much information about Northern North America, and, at the same time, reveal a lot about their editors and translators.

71

For details on the War of American Independence cf. Stephen Conway, The War of Independence (London: Arnold, 1995).

American

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Although knowledge of the Canadian West, for example, was very limited because the distribution of knowledge was restricted to a small circle of traders, European scholars of the late eighteenth century attempted to maintain the illusion that what was important could all be found in the texts. Nevertheless, Germans always remained dependent on foreign publications as German travellers did not venture beyond the confines of Qudbec during the American War of Independence. During the years in which the distribution of knowledge between Great Britain and North America was impaired by political events, information did not reach central Europe either. The Canadiana available to German readers during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century discussed a broad range of topics, among which could be found all aspects of life in North America, the flora and fauna as well as the climate and topography. Considering the conditions of travel and of the distribution of knowledge available at the time, a fairly detailed image of Canada could be provided. Unless one consulted a number of travelogues in order to obtain information about North America, however, the territories of modern Canada remained largely unknown because single works were usually concerned with either a very limited region or specific topics only. Among these, the discussion of the origin and state of human nature dominated, especially among educatd Europeans working for the journals from overseas. This is why the editions of Canadiana discussed here also provide valuable insights into scholarly activities during the Enlightenment period. It was not until the second half of the nineteenth century, however, when Canada came into existence as an independent political entity, that the German book market provided German readers with a regular number of publications that specifically dealt with Canada. In a sense, this confirms the statement Johann Joachim Schwabe made a century earlier when he said that it was mostly war and politics that led German scholars to deal with North American issues.

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Short Title Year of Publication Nova Scotia 1750 (Anonymous)

Publisher

Editor/Compilator

Frankfurt/Main: Brönner

?

Original edition London 1749

1750

Ellis

Göttingen: Vandenhoeck

A. von Hall er (?)

London 1748

1751

Diereville

Göttingen: Vandenhoeck

?

Amsterdam 1710

1752

LeBeau I

Erfurt: Johann David Jungnicol

W.E.B. Roslern

Amsterdam 1738

1752

LeBeau II

Frankfurt/Leipzig: J.B. Nack Gebr. van Düren

1754-64

Kalm

Göttingen: Vandenhoeck

?

1756-59

AHR

Leipzig: Arkstee & Merckus

J.J. Schwabe et al.

1787

Hollingsworth

M.C. Sprengel

1790

Dixon I

1790

Dixon II

Leipzig: Weygand Leipzig: Weygand Berlin: Voß

1791

Umfreville I

1791

Umfreville II

1791

Long I

1792

Long II

1796

Amsterdam 1738 Stockholm 1753

M.C. Sprengel

Edinburgh 1786 London 1789

J.R. Forster

London 1789

Leipzig: Weygand

M.C. Sprengel/ G. Forster

London 1790

Helmstedt: Weygand Hamburg: Hoffmann Berlin: Voß

E.A.W. Zimmermann E.A.W. Zimmermann G. Forster

London 1790

Portlock (inkl. Long II)

Berlin: Voß

G. Forster

London 1789 (Portlock) / 1791(Long)

1796

Meares

Berlin: Voß

G. Forster

London 1790

1797

Hearne I

Berlin: Voß

J.R. Forster

London 1795

1797

Hearne II

Halle: Renger

M.C. Sprengel

London 1795

1799-1800

Vancouver

Berlin: Voß

J.F.W. Herbst

London 1798

1799

Rochefoucauld Hamburg: Hoffmann Weld I Berlin: Voß

9

Paris 1799

?

London 1799

1800

London 1791 London 1791

Canada in Late 18th and Early 19th-Century German Travel Literature

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1800

Weld II

Berlin: Haude und ? Spener

London 1799

1800

Weld III

Berlin: Oehmigke

?

London 1799

1802

Mackenzie I

E.B. (= ?)

London 1801

1802

Mackenzie II

Hamburg: Hoffmann Weimar: Verlag des IndustrieComptoirs

M.C. Sprengel

London 1801

Fig. 1: Canadiana on the German Book market in the late 18,h and early 19lh century [Dixon: Geo. Goulding 1789; Umfreville: Charles Stalker 1790; Long: Robson 1791; Portlock: Stockdale 1789; Meares: Logographic Press J. Walker 1790; Vancouver: G.G. and J. Robinson 1798].

ROBERT M C G I L L

University of Toronto

"A Canadian Literature?": Elizabeth Smart and the Failures of Nationalism

By now it is a critical commonplace that Canadian literature cannot be reduced to writing by or about those living within the nation's borders. At the very least, the entrance into the Canadian literary canon of foreign-born authors such as Michael Ondaatje and Rohinton Mistry suggests an acceptance that birth certificates need not constrain conceptions of who and what is 'Canadian'. Moreover, as Ondaatje's and Mistry's success makes clear, neither do writers need to set their stories in Canada or meditate upon certain 'national' themes in order to be interpellated as Canadian. However, by no means does this broadening of national literary membership imply a retreat from nationalism itself. In fact, one might argue that literary nationalism in Canada is stronger than ever, and that there is an increasing desire on the part of many Canadianists to identify authors as Canadian if there is any plausible connection with the country whatsoever. Given the nationalist paradigm within which many literary awards and grants also operate, it should not be surprising if authors feel an unprecedented impetus to stand up and be counted as Canadian. However, even as this impetus brings certain writers into the national fold, others continue to fall into the cracks between borders. Such is strikingly the case with respect to Elizabeth Smart, an author whose many crossings of the Atlantic make her an awkward fit with regard to both Canadian and English literary communities. However, I do not adduce Smart in order to attempt a recovery of her into an ever more capacious Canadian canon, nor do I strictly want to place her work reductively within a European tradition. Rather, a consideration of Smart's literary career demonstrates that with regard to many authors, a nationalist critical framework is inadequate to the task of identifying and analyzing the complex and intercontinental matrix of literary culture. Born in 1913 to a wealthy and influential Ottawa family, Elizabeth Smart became a seasoned traveller early in life, crossing between Canada and England many times as a young woman and also undertaking a world tour. It was in California that she met the English poet George Barker, with whom she began a notorious, decades-long affair by which she would bear four children. In

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1943 she followed Barker to England, where she would spend most of her adult life, and in 1945 she published By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept} This was her first novel and the text on which her literary reputation continues to stand. Short, poetic, and with little emphasis on plot, By Grand Central Station focuses on the agonized emotional state of its unnamed female narrator as she pursues a love affair with a married man that begins in Monterey, California and ends with her apparent abandonment by her lover at New York's Grand Central Station, with stops along the way at the Arizona-California Border, Ottawa, and the Pacific Northwest. The protagonist's most powerful articulations of place appear at the start of the novel as she describes the landscape using a sensuous language that reflects her own desire - "When the sea otters leave their playing under the cliff, the kelp in amorous coils appear to pin down the Pacific" (GC, 19) - but for the most part, attention to place is subordinate to the articulation of emotion, and although the narrator's 'home' is explicitly Ottawa, she has little attachment to or interest in a particular topography. What matters is where she is in relation to her lover, not in relation to a map: "He is not here. He is all gone. There is only the bloated globe." (GC, 93). One location follows another in a geographic kaleidoscope, as shifts between settings are announced through casual toponymical references, and there is little attempt to give a sense of the journeys connecting various locales. One effect of this technique is further to deterritorialize and denationalize existentially a protagonist who is already literally quite peripatetic. She appears as both a transcontinental and an intercontinental subject, the former identity evident from the variety of places in North America she inhabits in the course of the novel, the latter clear from her frequent references to England and Europe, whether she is comparing her lover's wife to "the pools in Epping Forest" or imagining "those 5,000,000 who never stop dragging their feet and bundles and babies with bloated bellies across Europe" during the Second World War (GC, 18, 43). Her self-identification throughout the novel with such suffering women as Dido, Penelope, and Catherine of Wuthering Heights suggests that she should be considered a figure operating at the level of myth as much as in everyday geopolitical reality, but at the same time, her references to such immediate events as the war are reminders that geopolitics constrain her in certain fundamental and inexorable ways. Their ability to affect her profoundly is most evident during the ordeal she and her lover undergo at the California-Arizona border as they attempt to drive east across the United States, a scene that strongly parallels an incident from Smart's own life in

1

Elizabeth Smart, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept (Toronto: Flamingo, 1992). Further references to this edition will be included in the text (abbreviated as 'GC').

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which she and Barker were stopped at the same border in 1940. FBI officers, suspicious of a Canadian and an Englishman travelling together in wartime, arrested them under the auspices of the Mann Act, which made it illegal for unmarried couples to cross state borders for the purposes of 'fornication', and Smart spent three days in prison before papers arrived to facilitate her release. Her protagonist is similarly apprehended, interrogated and held captive temporarily, belligerently but futilely refusing to answer questions from officers whose narrow-minded, passionless interest in prosecuting local law bemuses her. This confrontation between a cosmopolitan poetic sensibility and an uncomprehending regional force might be seen as prophetically symbolic of the initial reception that greeted By Grand Central Station, when it became clear that such a nomadic author and text would not be immediately celebrated by a territorialized audience, in Europe or elsewhere. First issued on cheap wartime paper in a run of 2,000 copies by Editions Poetry London and not widely publicized, By Grand Central Station disappeared quickly from the English public eye, although not before receiving a positive review in the Times as well as negative ones in the Spectator and TLS. The only words of praise destined to be repeated in later years were those of Cyril Connolly, whose review in Horizon observes "a genuine gift of poetic imagination, a fine sincerity and a deep candour in suffering which does not degenerate into self-pity."2 Notably, none of the reviewers identifies Smart as Canadian, nor does any discuss the nationality of the book's narrator. Meanwhile, in Canada the author's identity was rather more central to the book's reception: Smart's mother, Louie, was so upset by the portrait of the narrator's parents in the novel that not only did she burn the six copies of By Grand Central Station she found in an Ottawa dry goods store, but she also used her political influence to have the book's importation into Canada banned. Just as borders had proved a barier to Smart and her narrator, so now they blocked the dissemination of her book, and it would be almost forty years before By Grand Central Station was published in Canada. In the interim, Smart resorted to mailing individual copies to friends and acquaintances; the poet F.R. Scott received one and wrote in 1950 to tell Smart that he considered the novel to be one of the best works of Canadian fiction in recent memory.3 For the next two decades Smart had very little interaction with the literary world, as she raised her children in England, became a sub-editor with House and Garden, wrote for Vogue and eventually became literary editor of Queen.

2

3

Cyril Connolly, "Review of By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept", Horizon 12.68 (1945), National Library of Canada (NLC): Alice Van Wart Collection of Elizabeth Smart. Box 4, Folder 1. F.R. Scott, Letter to Elizabeth Smart, NLC: The Elizabeth Smart Fonds, Box 36.

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It was not until 1966 that Panther published a paperback edition of By Grand Central Station and the novel had its first renaissance. In this year the book reached a larger audience than in 1945, and for the first time Smart's nationality was noticed by an English critic; as the title of Malcolm Bradbury's Sunday Times article "Words and Music - Canadians Reviewed" suggests, Bradbury discusses Smart explicitly as a Canadian. Remarkably, he does so while reviewing By Grand Central Station alongside the work of such luminaries as singer Paul Anka, pianist Glenn Gould, popular poet Robert Service, singer and activist Buffy Sainte-Marie, jazz pianist Oscar Peterson, and writer Mordecai Richler. On the one hand, it might seem insufferably condescending of Bradbury to assume that Canadian culture could be reviewed in a single sweeping survey of certain putatively representative texts. On the other hand, it may bespeak a new English cognizance of Canadian culture in the 1960s that Bradbury is compelled to survey these artists together as Canadian at all. But lest it be assumed that Bradbury identifies a national theme or consciousness binding together these artists, it should be noted that he expresses a prescient sense of the difficulty in containing texts by Canadians within the rubric of a national literature. This anxiety comes notably after Bradbury has chosen to juxtapose Smart's book specifically with Malcolm Lowry's 1947 Under the Volcano, another novel composed on the British Columbian coast by and about a bird of passage. Without mentioning either Lowry or Smart's own multinational affiliations, Bradbury says of By Grand Central Station: "[T]his an utterly literary book, forged, like Lowry's novels, out of the possibilities provided by the universal past of writing, which has no national boundaries. Writing in Canada, or by Canadians, there is - of high quality. But a Canadian literature?" 4 Whether or not one accepts Bradbury's notion of a 'universal' literary past, his reticence to see a conjunction between Canadian artists and a coherent national literary identity is striking, especially in contrast with the impulse of critics within Canada to claim Smart for the country when they finally came upon her work in the 1970s. But in 1966 By Grand Central Station had little more impact in Canada than it had in 1945. One of the few signs of a Canadian awareness of Smart comes in an October 1966 letter from another expatriate living in England, Norman Levine, who invites Smart to submit material for his forthcoming anthology Canadian Winter's Tales. At the same time, Smart's liminal position in relation to Canadian literature is underscored when Levine asks her in the letter whether or not she is indeed Canadian. 5

4 5

Malcolm Bradbury, "Words and Music - Canadians Reviewed," Sunday Times (20 November 1966), NLC: Van Wart Collection, Box 4, Folder 1. Original emphasis. Norman Levine, Letter to Elizabeth Smart (12 October 1966), NLC: Smart Fonds, Box 35.

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It was not until 1975 that By Grand Central Station and Smart finally came to the attention of a reviewer in Canada, and this 'discovery' was itself another intercontinental, multinational event, since it was English-born George Woodcock who introduced the novel to Canadian readers after stumbling upon that year's American Popular Library edition. In a Toronto Globe & Mail article Woodcock notes that Smart "to my knowledge appears in no history or handbook of Canadian Writing", and he cries shame on the Canadian literary community for having ignored what he calls "a small masterpiece," one that is advertised on its own front cover as "a major novel by a great Canadian writer!"6 Other Canadian critics shortly followed suit in using reviews of Smart's book as platforms for condemning the state of Canadian letters. In an April 1976 Canadian Forum article Adele Freedman writes, "Why Grand Central Station took 30 years in reaching our shores is not only a mystery, it is an embarrassment,"7 while in a Queen's Quarterly article of the same year Gery Werden asks: "Where but in Canada could literati 'discover' a nativeborn writer's excellent thirty year old novel, originally published in England, republished and reprinted there, and finally brought home via an American publisher?"8 In later decades a critic might ask such a rhetorical question in a more celebratory manner, but here Werden intends most certainly to excoriate a putatively parochial domestic audience, in contrast with an imagined European readership that recognized Smart's talents from the beginning. Similarly, when Canadian critics eventually learned that Louie Smart had burned copies of her daughter's novel in Ottawa upon its initial publication, interpretations of the event were nationalistic: for some the act was a tragedy that prevented Elizabeth Smart from receiving the critical accolades she deserved in her native land, but for others the ban demonstrated a Canadian smallmindedness that would have - they claimed - guaranteed By Grand Central Station poor reviews even if it had been distributed in the country. Meanwhile, English audiences were no less concerned with details of Smart's life, but in Britain a penchant for nationalist self-flagellation was replaced by an obsession over Smart's relationship with George Barker. When Smart published a collection of poems, A Bonus, in 1977 and then a second novel, The Assumption of the Rogues & Rascals the following year, these texts were often taken by critics as a pretext to rehearse the story of By Grand Central Station, another edition of which was published by Polytantric. Given that this edition's cover features a photograph of Smart and Barker, it is perhaps

6 7 8

George Woodock, "We were not wrong in '45...", Toronto Globe ά Mail (Autumn 1975). NLC: Van Wart Collection, Box 4, Folder 1. Adele Freedman, "Vibrant Sleeper", Canadian Forum (April 1976), NLC: Van Wart Collection, Box 4, Folder 1. Gery Werden, "Review of By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept". Queen 's Quarterly (Spring 1976), NLC: Van Wart Collection, Box 4, Folder 1.

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not suφrising that reviews of Smart's work also began to feature the first explicit discussions in print of the autobiographical aspects of By Grand Central Station. Smart encouraged such a focus not only by occasionally conflating her and George Barker's affair with the plot of the novel, but by participating in joint readings with Barker, including a highly publicized Edinburgh Festival appearance together at which Smart read from By Grand Central Station and Barker from his own autobiographical novel The Dead Seagull. Clearly, for English audiences, Smart's celebrity was inextricably bound up with that of Barker. It comes as no surprise, then, that some reviewers should treat By Grand Central Station as unmitigated autobiography: in Hibernia, for instance, Leland Bardwell describes the book as describing a love affair between a woman and a poet before noting that Smart has since been "rearing the poet's children." 9 Similarly, reviewers of The Assumption of the Rogues & Rascals who struggled with its poetic diction and 'plotless' content often chose to find a foothold in autobiographical readings: not a difficult task, since Rogues & Rascals presents an older woman burdened by motherhood, clinging to survival in England, and addressed by the name Elizabeth Smart. In this way, Rogues & Rascals provided another opportunity to extend and consolidate the myth of the Smart-Barker relationship, and in British interviews with Smart this relationship was commonly the main topic of conversation, with few questions about her years in Canada or about life as an expatriate. Instead, By Grand Central Station had come to identify Smart publicly with one important timeline: that of the events paralleled by the narrative of the novel itself. These same events also eventually defined Smart in Canada. Eleanor Wachtel's October 1978 Books in Canada article, "Stations of the Womb", was not unusual in combining a review of the new novel with a profile of Smart herself that focused on her relationship with Barker. 10 For a Canadian audience, Barker might not have been as familiar a figure as he was in England, but there was still some intrigue in the idea of a young Canadian abroad finding love - and, eventually, celebrity - in the arms of a married English poet, and journalists were happy to play up any hints of scandal. An article on Smart in the Vancouver Sun reads: "Almost four decades ago, Elizabeth Smart shook society with the publication of By Grand Central Station I Saw Down and Wept."u By all standards the statement is false, given the book's initial reception, but it is notable insofar as it demonstrates that a putative European perspective of the book has been digested and is being regurgitated for a Canadian readership as an index of the novel's importance. There is a clear value

9 Leland Bardwell, "The Language of Love", Hibernia (22 July 1977), 20. 10 Eleanor Wachtel, "Stations of the Womb", Books in Canada (October 1978), 8-9. 11 Leslie Peterson, "Poetic Memories of a Passion that Shook Society", Vancouver Sun (14 December 1982), NLC: Van Wart Collection, Box 4, Folder 5.

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being placed on a so-called 'Canadian' text being seen and valued by a European audience, and indeed, efforts on the part of critics in Canada to repatriate Smart and ensconce her within a national tradition were in part exercises in researching and adopting - if not exaggerating or outright fabricating - English views of the text. In order to assert Smart's importance as a writer, for instance, Canadian reviewers frequently quote from the English novelist Brigid Brophy's foreword to the 1966 edition, in which Brophy claims: "I doubt if there are more than half a dozen [such] masterpieces of poetic prose in the world." 12 This commendation is often cited in lieu of evaluation as critics put aside the task of adjudicating the book themselves and focus instead on providing contextual supplements to install Smart in the Canadian public consciousness. Thanks to the American edition of By Grand Central Station, the publication of Rogues & Rascals in Canada, and the journalistic efforts of Woodcock, Wachtel and others, Smart was indeed a figure on the Canadian literary scene before she returned to the country in 1982, and once she finally arrived to become writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, her tenure in Canada was marked by a burst of national media exposure that provides a fascinating account not only of her career's renaissance but of the state of Canadian letters. While in England the reception history of By Grand Central Station was marked by a slow but increasing public awareness of the novel's autobiographical content, the Canadian public had been introduced to the novel, to the story of Smart and Barker, and indeed to the figure of Smart herself within the same newspaper articles. As a result, not only By Grand Central Station but Smart herself were treated as historical monuments retrieved from the past in order to be memorialized. Ken Adachi's 1982 article in the Toronto Star, "'Conformist' Was Years Ahead of Her Time", has the tone and title of an obituary, and Adachi remarks that Smart's face carries a reminder of its "youthful beauty." 13 For a Canadian audience, it seems, the senior citizen Smart and her book taken together constituted a story of vanished youth, made even more tragic by the belated Canadian discovery of the book. The presentday Smart was regarded palimpsestically as a symbol of what Canada had lost: a prepossessing young writer who had fled the country and whose work had been unjustly disregarded. After a year in Edmonton and a time spent living in Toronto, Smart returned to England at the age of seventy. Since her death there in 1986, literary production related to her and her work has been predominantly an endeavour situated in Canada, at least in the case of posthumous publication. Alice Van

12 Brigid Brophy, "Foreword" in GC, 7. 13 Ken Adachi, "'Conformist' Was Years Ahead of Her Time", Toronto Star (4 December 1982), NLC: Van Wart Collection, Box 4, Folder 5.

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Wart, who met Smart while a Ph.D. student at the University of Alberta, has edited two volumes of Smart's journals, her Juvenilia, and a collection of her horticultural columns from Harper's Bazaar. All of these texts were released by Canadian publishers, as was Autobiographies, a collection of miscellaneous writings edited by Christina Burridge, while the establishment of an Elizabeth Smart collection at the National Library of Canada in 1983 further consolidated Smart as a national figure. Only By Heart, the 1991 biography of Smart by Canadian critic Rosemary Sullivan, has had an intercontinental audience. In contrast, recent academic studies of Smart's work tend to be by internationally-minded feminist scholars who have little interest in Smart's relationship to national identity; Elizabeth Podnieks's 2000 monograph Daily Modernism, for example, examines Smart alongside Virginia Woolf, Antonia White and Anai's Nin in considering their use of the diary form. Accordingly, it would appear that a full critical recuperation of Smart into the Canadian literary canon has yet to be successfully effected. Given that she did not write 'about' Canada, did not live in the country for most of her adult life, and had few evident connections with Canadian literary culture, it may not be a surprise that her work is seldom taught in Canadian literature courses or that she is still mentioned infrequently in literary histories. Nevertheless, one might expect Smart's life and work to be of interest to Canadianists on several grounds. In the first place, By Grand Central Station presents a strand of modernism that stands separate from that traditionally identified with Canada: namely, the one shaped by A.J.M. Smith and the Montreal group of poets that included F.R. Scott. Like Smith, Smart was influenced by the modernism of T.S. Eliot, but for Smart the line of influence in this regard also passed through George Barker, himself a Faber poet and Eliot protege. Secondly, the poetic diction of By Grand Central Station arguably anticipates the style of writers such as Anne Michaels and Michael Ondaatje, the latter of whom befriended Smart while she was in Toronto and who, along with Alice Munro, recommended her for a Canada Council grant. Thirdly, and not least, Smart is a forbear not only to other Canadian writers like Mordecai Richler and Margaret Laurence who would find their literary voices outside Canada, but also to those like Mavis Gallant and Norman Levine who chose to remain expatriates and whose literary reputations abroad may still continue to exceed their celebrity in their native country. Levine, in particular, has extraordinary affinities with Smart: a writer of autobiographical fiction, he was born in Ottawa ten years after Smart, settled in England only a few years after her and also returned to Canada around the same time that she did, moving back in 1980, just a year after his autobiographical Canada Made Me - first published in England and America in 1958 - was finally released in the country where he'd been born.

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Elizabeth Podnieks argues that Smart is among a certain group of women who "lived their lives in perpetual and multiple states of exile," 14 and Smart's own emphasis on exile is evident in the very title of By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, which parodies Psalm 137's complaint of the Hebrews in Babylon. But at the same time, from the beginning of her adult life Smart embraced a nomadic, cosmopolitan lifestyle which demonstrated that Canada need not be considered either in practice or in ethos her 'home'. The period during which Smart composed By Grand Central Station alone involved residence in places as diverse as Mexico, California, New York, British Columbia, Ottawa, Washington and England. The novel's protagonist, too, expresses an ability to command space; at the height of her erotic infatuation she declares: "I can compress the whole Mojave Desert into one word of inspiration, or call all America to obey my whim." However, soon afterwards she realizes that she is as much subject to geography as it is to her: "[A]t the Arizona border they stopped us and said Turn Back" (GC, 43, 47). And indeed, current nationalist predispositions among literary critics have resulted in Elizabeth Smart as a literary figure sharing the fate of the narrator in By Grand Central Station: abandoned and stranded at an interstice, caught between borders. But Smart's case does not merely suggest the necessity of expanding the Canadian canon once more. Rather, it underscores a need for scholars to read across national borders and develop a hermeneutics that is adequate to the intercontinental trajectories of many authors' lives and publication records, while resisting an impulse reductively to fix and compartmentalize texts as well as writers. The failure of literary nationalism is not in its inability to find a place for Smart within the Canadian canon. Rather, its failure has occurred at the very level of nationalist definition, since in a meaningful way, Smart is not a 'Canadian' writer and should not be regarded strictly as such. Indeed, to be identified with one particular nation is not always a privilege to bestow on authors; it does some a disservice, and to provide a better account of writers such as Smart, current criticism must examine more closely the particular disservice that literary nationalism has done Smart by marginalizing By Grand Central Station. Critics must endeavour to tell geopolitically-focused stories in which texts such as Smart's do not continue to fall by the wayside. Because the nation continues to be so crucial to literary cultures, it can hardly be ignored, and no doubt in the future it will prove to remain a significant taxonomical category, but at the same time, there will always be writers such as Smart, Levine and Gallant who are not situated easily within one category or another. Critics can decide to ignore them accordingly, or they can choose to investigate through them alternative modes of viewing literary communities, modes that

14 Elizabeth Podnieks, Daily Modernism: The Literary Diaries of Virginia Woolf, Antonia While, Elizabeth Smart, and Anais Nin (Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 2000), 68.

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do not perpetuate a national garrison mentality in which as many authors as possible are brought within the walled borders of Canadian literature. This project itself requires an intercontinental hermeneutics, one that can recognize and analyze reception histories and patterns of influence as they cross the Atlantic - or fail to cross it. Gery Werden's question of 197615 quoted above now echoes as a genuine question for scholars rather than as an insult to the nation: That Canada can admit such a text as Smart's into its literary canon, however marginally, suggests that the permeability of its borders requires further study. Such research will require critics to be as mobile as the texts they study, moving between countries - figuratively, if not literally - in order to track such trajectories. This project does not require a critical transcendence of space and nation but rather a straddling of borders. As Andrew Gurr has suggested, there is the need for a scholarly 'New Geographism' in which critics act as translators and mediators between literary cultures. 16 Elsewhere 1 have contested Gurr's implicit characterization of a world in which authors and their texts are local and situated in cultures while nomadic critics move freely between them 17 - the reception history of By Grand Central Station should make it abundantly clear that this is not always the case - but his call for greater critical sensitivity to trans-national literary matrices is certainly sound. Writers such as Smart have long been doing the kind of intercultural and international work to which many scholars aspire, and these authors' twenty-first century counterparts will be no less nomadic and deterritorialized. If scholarly approaches to their work hope to be descriptively adequate, they must be at the vanguard of a multinational and meta-national, if not a post-national, paradigm. Rather than abandoning nationalist discourse altogether or, conversely, allowing it to circumscribe their work, critics need to make such discourse an object of study and critique. They must stand beside authors in elucidating and interrogating the complex relationship between nation and identity as it continues to evolve. One implication of this need, of course, is that Canada itself becomes destabilized as the centre of Canadianist critical production; so-called 'Canadian' texts can be viewed just as productively from Europe as from North America. Indeed, they may be viewed more productively from outside the country, since as Smart's case makes plain, Canadian criticism has itself often been a rumi-

15 "Where but in Canada could literati 'discover' a native-born writer's excellent thirty year old novel, originally published in England, republished and reprinted there, and finally brought home via an American publisher?" Cf. fn 8. 16 Andrew Gurr, "Wordmaps for Chaos: A New Geographism", in Tim J. Cribb (ed.). Imagined Commonwealths: Cambridge Essays on Commonwealth and International Literature (London: Macmillan, 1999), 311-13. 17 Robert McGill, "Somewhere I've Been Meaning to Tell You: Alice Munro's Fiction of Distance", The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 37.1 (2002), 9-29.

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native reconstruction of European perspectives. Accordingly, Canadianist criticism in all countries must break down the barriers erected to distinguish 'Canadian' from 'European' texts - a barrier that has ill-served novels such as By Grand Central Station - and continue to evolve as a conversation between scholars of many nations. Until such a time as this criticism develops, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept is bound to remain, as Lorna Sage identified it in a 1977 review, "a displaced book." 18

18 Lorna Sage, "In A State of Migration", Times Literary Supplement (12 August 1977), 977.

ELKE N O W A K

Technische Universität Berlin

In Search of Cathaia - Voyages into the Unexpected

This essay is concerned with the people of Meta Incognita and Estotiland, better known today as Baffin Island and Labrador. How they were met and perceived by Europeans: seafarers, entrepreneurs, representatives of the Crown, missionaries, scholars, and the common public. It talks about their language, what they had to say and how they were understood. It relates their journeys to the courts of Europe and to European North America, and how they were infected by the marvels of this world. How they fared in later times. If it was related in the language spoken in Meta Incognita and Estotiland, as it should be, it would have to begin with the word taimaguuq.

1. About the People of Meta Incognita and Estotiland: How they were Met by Europeans On their trip from Heliuland, the land of flat stones, to Vinland, the Norse encounter people sleeping on the beach under their skin boats. They kill all but one who escapes. The following day, the Norse are forced to leave when an armada of skin boats comes after them.1 They have met such people before, in Greenland, where they come from. They call them skraelingi, those who wear dried skins for clothing. The skraelingi borrow the word into their language, adjust it to their tongue and call themselves kalaallit} Their language becomes kalaallisut, and today Greenland's name is Kalaallit Nunaat. The Europeans, however, keep using the word too - with its meaning changed into 'miserable wretch'. 3

1 2

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Felix Niedner (ed.), "Die Erzählung von den Grönländern" in Thüle. Altnordische Dichtung und Prosa. Grönländer und Färinger Geschichten 13 (Jena: Eugen Diederichs, 1912), 40. This derivation goes back to Samuel Kleinschmidt, Den grenlandske Ordbog ( Kobenhavn: Klein, 1871). Cf. also Michael Fortescue, Steven Jacobson, Lawrence Kaplan, Comparative Eskimo Dictionary (Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center, 1994), 153. Cf. contemporary Danish skrtelling, 'weakling'.

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In the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, regular navigation from Europe to Greenland stopped. One of the last pieces of reliable information from the Norse settlements dates back to 1414.4 The Sagas' accounts of the life in Greenland, and the voyages to Helluland and Vinland became known in Europe only in the second half of the nineteenth century. A woodcut produced in Nuremberg in 1567 shows a woman and her daughter, kidnapped and brought to Europe "im Jar 66. im Augusto/20Jar alt/daß Kindt 7 Jar". 5 It is the earliest known portrait of Inuit and printed on a handbill, advertising the exhibition of the two, from Nova Terra, and informing the reader that the husband had been finally killed after a fierce fight. [...] u n d als sie d i e F r a w u b e r k o m m e n / stellt sie sich als o b sie g a r r a s e n d e / u n d u n s i n n i g w e r e g e w e s t / u m b ir K i n d t / d a ß sie v e r l a s s e n solt/ d i e w e i l sie d i e S c h i f f k n e c h t zu S c h i f f w o l t e n f u h r e n u m b sie h i n w e g zu f u h r e n / d a n n sie d a s K i n d t so lieb hat/ d a s sie lieber ir L e b e n w o l t v e r l i e r e n / d a n n d a s K i n d t v e r l a s s e n / A l s sie sich n u n s o u n s i n n i g stellet/ Hessen sie ir ein w e n i g n a c h / d a g i e n g sie zu d e m O r t / d a sie ihr K i n d v e r s t e c k t hat/ u n d d a w a r sie b e s s e r zu f r i e d e n d a n n v o r h i n / d a n a m e n sie d i e Frau m i t irem K i n d t u n d f u r e t e n sie h i n w e g [,..] 6

Until well into the eighteenth century, the understanding of the geography of the septentrionalia was more than vague, but generally it was assumed that there was a large continent to the North, pigmei hinc habitant? The fact that the climate turned increasingly cold was not understood, and so expeditions were driven by the hope that a profitable trade might be set up. Most prominent was the desire to open a route to the fabled land of the east, Cathaia, a route which was not under the control of the Spanish or Portuguese. Economic interests met with political ones. In the years 1576 to 1578, Martin Frobisher undertook three voyages in search of a passage to Cathaia and India. Frobisher tried to push north, but had to navigate through ice. He reaches the place the Norse had called Helluland, the land of flat stones. Frobisher names the land Meta Incognita and observes:

4 5 6

7

Cf. David Damas (ed.), Handbook of North American Indians 5. The Arctic. (Washington: The Smithsonian Institution, 1984), 551. 'in the year 66.in august/20years old/the child7 years' [translation E.N.]. Damas (ed.), Handbook, 510. ,[...] as they seized the woman she took her stand as if she were completely raving and mad because of her child whom she would have to leave behind [. ..] as though she would rather loose her life than leave her child [...] Because she was so mad. they let her alone a bit; she went to the spot where she had concealed her child, then she was calmer than before, then they took the woman and her child and brought them away [...]' Translation given in Kevin Major, As Near to Heaven by Sea: A History of Newfoundland and Labrador (Toronto: Penguin/Viking, 2001), 58. The handbill also describes the clothing and the tattoos of the woman and refers to her people as cannibals. This Arctic continent can still be found on John Senex' World Map of 1725. Cf. also Richard Ruggles, "Beyond the 'Furious Over Fall': Map Images of Rupert's Land and the Northwest" in Richard Davis (ed.), Rupert's Land: A Cultural Tapestry (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1988), 13-50.

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"the country is habitable, for there are men, women and children, and saundrie kinds of beastes in great plenty [...]".* Subsequently, after "sundry conference", five of his sailors disappear. In return, an Inuk is taken captive and brought to England where he dies of a cold. Frobisher returns the following year: "we espied certaine of the country people [...] making great noise, with cries like the mowing of bulls, seeming greatly desirous of conference with us". 9 Again, Inuit are taken captive. 10 When Frobisher returns in 1578, the Inuit avoid the English. Between 1585 and 1588, John Davis makes three trips to Greenland, "Frobisher Bay", and, turning south, to Estotiland, called by others Terra Laurador, Terra Laboratoris.n Davis describes the people he meets in 1585 as "very tractable people, voyde of craft or double dealing." 12 In the journal of the second voyage Davis describes the language of the people, and puts down a little word list taken from them. The Inuit approach the sailors again and again, holding up their hands or striking their breasts and crying "Ylyaoute!" 13 As was the custom of his time, Davis took similarity of sound as evidence for similarity of meaning and jumped to the conclusion that the Inuit were referring to ///as, the sun. He judges them to be idolators. Davis kidnaps an Inuk. On September 6th, 1586, in Labrador, the British are attacked: "these wicked miscreants never offered parly or speech, but presently executed theyr cursed fury." 14 At the times of Frobisher's and Davis' travels, in the second half of the sixteenth century, those Inuit living farthest south visited the coast of the St. Lawrence and sometimes crossed over to the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland. In the

8

9 10

11

12

13 14

Martin Frobisher, The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher in search of a passage to Cathaia and India by the North-West. A.D. 1576-78. Reprinted from the first Edition of Hakluyt's Voyages, with sections from Manuscript Documents in the British Museum and State Paper Office. By Rear-Admiral Richard Collinson, C.B. (London: printed for the Hakluyt Society. 1867), 69. Frobisher, Voyages, 129. As a general practice, those of the captives who survived the trip to Europe were portrayed in their original clothing, and thus 'collected'. The 1577 party brought to England, a family of three, died soon after they arrived. We know of them from a watercolor painting by John White, which is kept in the British Museum. Cf. also Damas (ed.), Handbook, 466-7. In 1499, King Manuel I of Portugal had granted the right of exploration in Portugal's 'sphere of influence' to Joäo Fernandes, a 'lavrador' (landowner). According to the papal bull of 1493, this 'sphere' was defined by a longitudinal line of demarcation in the Atlantic, and cutting through South America, with Portugal given rights to the east of it. So Fernandes turned northwest from the Azores and reached Terra Lavrador, as it is marked on sixteenth-century maps. Cf. Major, Heaven, 45. John Davis, The Voyages and Works of John Davis The Navigator, ed. with an introduction and notes by Albert Hastings Markham, Captain R.N., F.R.G.S. (London: printed for the Hakluyt Society, 1880), 8. The spelling is not consistent, sometimes it is Yliaoute, II y a oute or, in Atlas Danicus, eliout. Davis, Voyages, 30.

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course of time, they acquired a lot of experience in dealing with Europeans most of it not very pleasant. Cod fishing and, a little later, whaling by Basque fishermen and other Europeans had been going on for some time along the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador. Basque whaling ended in the early seventeenth century, after the end of the Spanish Armada, but was taken over by others, especially the English. The French in Quebec upheld friendly relations with the Montagnais (Innu), but not with the Inuit who were looked upon as "savage animals" by French and Montagnais alike. From 1661 on, land concessions were issued along the coast of Labrador, but after 1763, no French dealings were allowed in Labrador any more. The Inuit ferociously resisted permanent settlement on the Labrador coast and raided the fishing post in winter. After the tragic fate of Henry Hudson in 1610, and after the west coast of Hudson Bay had been surveyed in the years to 1630, interest in a route to Cathaia through Hudson Bay waned. But the perpetual wars with Spain, France, and Portugal guaranteed that the Northwest Passage was not altogether forgotten. Exploring expeditions were financed by companies, such as the Hudson's Bay Company and by individual sponsors. Both the political and the economic motivations are nicely combined in Arthur Dobbs' "Memorial on the Northwest Passage". In an effort to equip another expedition, which subsequently took place in 1741 -42, he writes in 1731: How great would be the benefit to send Ships an Easy & short way to Japan & even to China & to be able to send a Squadron of Ships, Even to force Japan into a Beneficial Treaty of Commerce with Britain. How great would be the Advantage of opening a New Trade for our Woollen Manufactures in the Temperate & Cold Regions [...].15

2. Their Language and their Journeys to the Courts of Europe: Travelogues, Wordlists, and the Pleasures of Speculation Though political and economic interests were most prominent and made exploring expeditions possible, there was more to these voyages. They were supported by an intense public interest - an interest voiced by philosophers and the scholarly world, and by the more or less educated common public. Both fuelled the political and economic moves. In the scholarly world inquiries into the origin of human kind and the origin of language were of great interest from the early Enlightenment well into the nineteenth century. The sixteenth-century quest for the oldest language, the language closest to the tongue spoken before

15 Arthur Dobbs, "Memorial on the Northwest Passage", in William Barr, Glyndwr Williams (eds), Voyages in Search of a Northwest Passage 1 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1994). 34-5.

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Babel, was later on substituted by the dispute about the origin of language and of languages.16 Leibniz, for example, repeatedly expressed the opinion that the knowledge and comparison of many languages would further insight into the origin of nations.17 For Lord Monboddo,18 who was interested in the 'missing link' between ape and human, the discovery of primitive men, possibly with tails and fur, would have been as valuable as an intermediate language, a language like animal sound, a language which cannot be understood, a language without rules, an imperfect language, or a language in the making. A related question concerned the relationship between languages, and, of course, the peoples who spoke them. As early as the sixteenth century compilations of languages were assembled. A famous example is that of Catharine the Great of Russia and the collection by Peter Pallas, carried out under her patronage.19 From a scholarly perspective, next to physical appearance, languages were the aspect of humanity immediately accessible to investigation, i.e. to collection and description. The name-giving words, nomina, were believed to be the primary elements of language, and the elementary utterances of emerging speech. Fortunately, nomina were easy to collect by pointing at an object and asking its name, and they were easy to compare as to their being similar or alien. Etymology was a highly appreciated intellectual sport, practised by the learned of the time and all those who felt fit to join in. The already mentioned similarity between the word Ylyaoute repeated by the Inuit and the Greek 'sun' was remarked on not only by Davis. Olearius20 mentions it, too, but is more cautious about conclusions, as is Resen, in his Atlas Danicus, when it comes to de Barbaro Gronlandice Populo et ejus Lingua sive sermone.21 Both compiled their word lists in Europe, using kidnapped Greenlanders as informants, asking them names for things. Resen's word list gives wonderful evidence of this procedure and equally reveals its shortcomings. We find, e.g., uvanga nulia as

16 Cf. Umberto Eco, Die Suche nach der vollkommenen Sprache (München: Beck, 1994). 17 Cf. Elke Nowak, "From the Unity of Grammar to the Diversity of Languages: Language Typology around 1800", Beiträge zur Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft 4.1 (1994), 1-18. 18 James Burnett, Lord Monboddo, Of the Origin and Progress of Language, 6 vols (1773-92. rpt. Menston: Scolar Press, 1967). 19 The oldest compilation is Theodor Bibliander, De ratione communi omnium tinguarum et literarum commentarius. Tiguri apud Christoph Frosch (Zürich, 1548). Peter Pallas' compilation Linguarum totius orbis vocabularia comparativa appeared 1787-89. The last compilation was put together by Johann Christoph Adelung and, after his death, completed by Johann Severin Vater, Mithridates oder allgemeine Sprachkunde (1806-1816, rpt. Hildesheim: Olms, 1970). Vater clearly realized the methodological problems that rendered such enterprises useless. Cf. also Nowak, "Unity of Grammar". 20 Adam Olearius, Vermehrte Newe Beschreibung der Muscowitischen und Persischen Reyse. Schleswig: Gedruckt in der Fürstlichen Druckerey durch Johan Holwein, 1656, rpt. ed. Dieter Lohmeier (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1971). 21 Peder Hansen Resen, Atlas Danicus. Tomus VII. Continens Descriptionem Gothlandiae, Islandiae & Granlandiae, 1677 (Copenhagen: Royal Library), 402ff.

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gloss for 'woman', a completely ungrammatical string of utterance, which does not even contain the word for 'woman'. How it came about is easy to reconstruct. Pointing at the woman, and being asked for the word, the man must have tried to simplify his speech to the bare minimum. But at the same time he tried to make clear the relationship he himself and the woman were in: uvanga, me, and then: nulia, wife: 'she is my wife!' 22 Even more dramatic is the misunderstanding in the short list collected by Davis, where we find Aoh as the word for 'iron', something the Inuit did not possess, but greatly appreciated at first sight.23 To return to Ylyaoute once again, the 'name' of the sun is siqiniq in Inuktitut, and the Inuit did not worship it. What they tried so hard to communicate to Davis and all the other Europeans was most likely iliurput, 'you are like us!' - such an idea , of course, would never have crossed the mind even of the most enlightened scholar of the time. In Europe, all information was welcome and, consequently, travelogues and the journals of the seafarers, the accounts of missionaries, and the words picked from the mouths of the miserable wretches brought to Europe, proved to be extremely influential for intellectual discourse in Europe. They helped shape the explanations called for by the Enlightenment, and contributed to the new, alternative interpretation of the world. The borderlines between fiction and truthful accounts were not easy to detect and it seems that such a difference was of little importance. Curiosity, suspense, the pleasure of blood-curdling stories made travelogues also very successful with the common public. News about savage peoples, unheard-of marvels and riches were eagerly received in Europe. Quite a few of these accounts became bestsellers and it is no surprise that exhibitions of savages were extremely popular. Today we know that some of the most popular accounts were written by people who had never left home.24 But the quality of other, more prestigious accounts such as Lahontan's or Sagard Theodat's, 25 both credited with high respectability, are of no better quality. Sagard characterizes Huron, a now extinct Iroquoian language, as being so confused and imperfect that it cannot be described - a comment eagerly picked up by European scholars to the effect that "[i]t seems that the Hurons became the most popular savages and their language the most popular

22 'Woman', 'female' is arnaq. The correct Inuktitut for 'my wife' is nuliaga. 23 Davis, Voyages, 21. 24 Annerose Menninger "Unter 'Menschenfressern'?", in Thomas Beck, Annerose Menningen Thomas Schleich (eds.), Kolumbus' Erben: Europäische Expansion und überseeische Elhnien im ersten Kolonialzeitalter, 1415-1815 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. 1992), 63-98. 25 Lahontan, Memoires de l'Amerique Septentrionale (1703); Sagard, Le grand voyage du pays des Hurons (1636).

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savage language of the Enlightenment."26 To the aforementioned Arthur Dobbs we owe An Account of the Countries adjoining Hudson's Bay, in the Northwest Part of America: Containing a description of their lakes and Rivers, the nature of the soil and climates and their methods of commerce &c. Shewing the benefit to be made by settling colonies, and opening a trade in these parts; whereby the French will be deprived in a great measure of their traffic in furs, and the communication between Canada and Mississippi be cut o f f } 1 Dobbs draws on information by Joseph la France, "a French Canadese Indian," who also reports about the peoples living there: "it is to be remarked that these (the Nation of the great Water Nelson River) are as humane and affable, as the Eskimaux are fierce and barbarous, as are also all the other Nations along Hudson's Bay".28 But he concedes that little is known about them, and continues: "here the Norway or Eskimaux Indians live who are in a manner hunted and destroyed by the more Southerly Indians, being perpetually at war with each other. They seem not to be Natives of America, but rather European from Greenland. The French imagine they are descendend from Biscayners, they have beards up to their eyes, which Americans have not."29 In 1783, we find Ivar Abel's attempt at tracing back the American languages to classical origins.30 Lord Monboddo, again, writes to Grim Thorkelin, a learned Icelander, to get to know more about these Greenlanders. Thorkelin answers in a long letter dating July 7th, 1789 "[...] I agree perfectly with your Lordship, that the safest way of tracing the origin of Nations, is by comparing their languages & in particular words [...]".31 Based on such evidence, he continues to argue against the idea that North America may have been populated by the old Norse, pointing at the differences between the American languages and Icelandic. The interest in such genealogies does not abide. A hundred years later, in 1871, Julius Platzmann tries to establish relations between American languages and all other languages of the world by contrasting homophonous forms (or what appears to him as being homophonous),32 and in 1940 Reider Sherwin pub26 Rüdiger Schreyer, "Take your pen and write", in Even Hovdhaugen (ed.), ...and the Word Was God. Missionary Linguistics and Missionary Grammar (Münster: Nodus, 1996), 77121, 111. Cf. also Rüdiger Schreyer, "Gabriel Sagard's Dictionary of the Huron Tongue (1632)", in Elke Nowak (ed.), Languages Different in All Their Sounds: Descriptive Approaches to Indigenous Languages of the Americas 1500 to 1850 (Münster: Nodus, 1999). 101-115. 27 (London: J. Robinson, 1744). 28 Dobbs, Countries, 20. 29 Dobbs, Countries, 49-50. 30 Ivar Abel, Schediasma Hocce. Etymologico-Philologicum Prodomum Americano Grönlandicum (Havniae:Typis Halageri, 1783). 31 Grim Thorkelin, Letter to Lord Monboddo, dated London July 7th 1789; John Carter Brown Library, Brown University, Providence. Ms 24504# 19-24. 32 Julius Platzmann, Amerikanisch-Asiatische Etymologien via Bering-Strasse (Leipzig: Teubner, 1871).

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lishes The Viking and the Red Man: The Old Norse Origin of the Algonquin LanguageFor hundreds of years, randomly collected information about people and especially their languages inspired European scholars to speculate on the origin and relationship of peoples. In the case of North Americans, the speculations are especially unfavorable, which tunes in nicely with the overall political development.

3. Clearing a Moral Wilderness It was roughly 70 years before Thorkelin wrote his letter to Lord Monboddo that Hans Egede, a Norwegian adventurer and pastor, had persuaded the Danish king to support a voyage to Greenland - in the hope of re-establishing contact with the never forgotten Norse colony there. The opening of a trading post and a permanent mission station should come along with it.34 When Egede arrived in 1721, Greenland had been visited frequently by whalers, mostly Dutch, who only touched upon coastal posts and never stayed over the winter. Forty years later, the same was still true of Labrador, where Inuit had been ferociously fighting the migratory fishermen, and the French settlements, and, after 1763, the English. They had had to withdraw north, but still the coast of Labrador was an unsafe place in the late eighteenth century. So the Governor of Newfoundland seized the opportunity to stake a claim when Moravian Missionaries approached him with the request to establish a mission station. In 1769, a grant of land, 100,000 acres in Esquimeaux Bay, was given to the Unitas Fratrum and its Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel, to open a permanent mission station on the coast of Labrador. The permit to open the mission was granted in the hope of pacifying the Inuit, to prevent them from raiding the fishing posts and to open up the Labrador coast for commercial fishing. In the same year, 1769, Mikak, a Labrador woman, had been brought to London. Hugh Palliser, the Governor of Newfoundland, wanted her to experience the "power, splendour and generosity of the English Nation."35 Mikak had been taken prisoner the year before, when, in a revenge attack, the English killed a party of twenty men, among them her husband, and took the women and children prisoner in Chateau Bay. Mikak was so lucky as to return safely from Europe and she played the part she was expected to fill. She was to inform her people not only of the magnificent things she had seen in London

33 Reider Sherwin, The Viking and the Red Man: The Old Norse Origin of the Algonquin Language. (New York, London: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1940) 34 The trading post subsequently grew into Del Kongelige Octroyerede Almindelige HandelsCompagnie (KGH'), the Royal Greenland Trade, which held a monopoly over Greenland until the end of 1984. 35 Major, Heaven, 137.

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and impress them thoroughly, but she also was to inform them of the arrival of the missionaries. Hopefully, she might influence their "murderous disposition." 36 Jens Haven, the head of the Moravian group, could speak Greenlandic, kalaallisut, which was recognized by the Inuit as being similar to their own language. This and Mikak's influence helped to overcome the longstanding mistrust. To secure a sustainable economic base, the missionaries had negotiated far-reaching sovereignty over the area: the right to set up industries and control of trade. In the course of time, the brethren established a prosperous cod fishing industry, and they successfully monopolized the trade in their sphere of influence. Subsequently, the Labrador mission even made a profit and was able to transfer money to London, to support missions elsewhere. For the Inuit, the consequences of being urged to stay in a permanent settlement, the mission, were severe. They were thus cut off from patterns of survival they had followed since times immemorial. The brethren frequently petitioned the Government of Newfoundland to "discourage the migrations of the Eskimos to the South and their being furnished with Fire Arms [...]." 37 Settlers like George Cartwright 38 were unwelcome competitors, even more so because the conditions of trade set up by the Moravians were not exactly liberal. In 1802 an extraordinary board meeting was held because many Inuit had become so heavily indebted that they did not stand a chance of ever getting rid of their debts. Due to the difficult living conditions, misfortune in the hunt or accidents quickly lead up to crisis, and starving families frequently turned to the mission for support. The brethren, on the other hand, abhorred the traditional Inuit custom of sharing and would have no part in it. Moreover, they were firm in the belief that the Inuit should not be drawn "to earthly goods," amongst which they considered not only fire arms or rum, but also flour, tea, sugar and hunting equipment such as larger boats and nets. When the Moravians chose Labrador as the location of their mission station, they were aware of the fact that the people there resembled those in Greenland, where they had established a mission as early as 1733. Even more important, the Labrador language was similar to the one spoken in Greenland. For the Moravians the translation of the Bible was a prerequisite for any

36 A first party of missionaries, John Christian Ehrhardt and six others, had been murdered in 1764. 37 11/5/1784. Minutes of the Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel, 1768 - 1830. (London: School of African and Oriental Studies). 38 Shortly after Mikak's trip, in 1772, George Cartwright, an independent entrepreneur settling in southern Labrador, went to London with a party of four Inuit. The trip was an enormous success and helped Cartwright gain rights to his colony. On the way back, all of the Inuit contracted smallpox and all but the woman Caubvik died. On her return, she brought the disease back home to her people and thus extinguished the whole group. Cf. Major, Heaven. 140).

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conversion to Christianity. Only a person who could read and understand the word of God could become a Christian. In Greenland, they had experienced horrible difficulties - one of which had been the strange language. So the prospect of being able to use their already existing translations must have been extremely tempting and preparations were made. The missionaries for the Labrador venture were selected from those who had already lived in Greenland or had even been born there. They were equipped with their Greenlandic achievements: a dictionary of Greenlandic compiled over forty years, the grammar by Johann Beck (1755) and, later, Christof Michael Königseer's grammar of 1777. A handwritten copy of his work definitely made its way to Labrador; it is now kept in the Archives of the Center for Newfoundland Studies in St. John's. 39 As for the first 'Eskimo Grammars', 40 both dating from roughly 1800, they are more or less identical and very clearly a 'translation', i.e. a mildly adapted version of Königseer's grammar. Two aspects are noteworthy here. The grammars and the dictionary the missionaries drew upon were highly deficient - even with respect to Greenlandic. They had been compiled by people hardly able to read and write, with no more understanding of what a grammar is than any other carpenter or farm worker would have then 41

- or now. Secondly, Greenlandic and Labrador Inuttut are by no means identical. Today they differ considerably and most likely they did when the Moravians arrived. In case they did not differ so much in the eighteenth century, one may speculate about the extent to which the influence of the Moravians stimulated such a diversification. 42 The grammars were for the use of incoming missionaries. But the translations pieced together by the missionaries, translations of portions of the Bible, hymns and so on, were meant for the Inuit. And they taught them how to read and write - in a totally inadequate orthography, invented by ignorant men as best they could. In the course of time, the generations of missionaries who were confronted with the materials on the language

39 None of these grammars was published, but they circulated as manuscripts. For a detailed account of the history of grammar writing in Labrador cf. Elke Nowak, "The 'Eskimo language' of Labrador: Moravian missionaries and the description of Labrador Inuttut 17331891", Etudes/lnuit/Sludies 23.1-2 (1999), 173-97. 40 41

In contrast to Greenlandic, Labrador Inuttut is always referred to as 'the Eskimo language'. For the beginning of Moravian grammar writing in Greenland cf. Elke Nowak, "Christian David. Mit Exkurs: Die Hermhuter Brüdergemeine", in Herbert Brekle, Edeltraud DobnigJtllch, Hans-Jürgen Höller, Helmut Weiß (eds.), Bio-Bibliographisches Handbuch zur Sprachwissenschaft des 18. Jahrhunderts 2 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1993), 206-10; Elke Nowak, "Johann Beck", in Bio-Bibliographisches Handbuch 1 (Tübingen: Niemeyer. 1992), 195-99. 42 For such possible influences and other issues touched upon here cf. Elke Nowak, "Eskimo language", in Erik Holtved (ed.), Kleinschmidts Briefe an Theodor Bourquin. Meddelelser om Grönland. (Kebenhavn: Reitzel, 1964).

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simply added to it. The reluctance to revise existing material and the comparatively little attention paid to language issues at all, seem to substantiate the suspicion that the brethren never felt the need or obligation for improvements. They were convinced to have mastered the language and they even prided themselves on knowing it better than the natives did. 43 Such a need for improvement finally became obvious, when in the mid-nineteenth century Samuel Kleinschmidt wrote his grammar and established a new, appropriate writing standard for Greenlandic. He did so against the expressed will of the Moravian Society. Kleinschmidt left the Moravian church, but he took the only printing press of Greenland with him and so set the standards. 44 Kleinschmidt could not convince Theodor Bourquin, the author of the 1891 Labrador grammar, 45 to do away with the inadequate old ways, the "rudera aus der Zopfzeit." 46 A much improved manuscript grammar by Brother Freitag (1846) 47 was never put to use. From a present-day perspective, another argument brought forward in favor of staying with the old ways seems to be rather cynical and not fit for such good Christians: they did not want to waste a freshly printed stock of Bbles - especially in the face of the expected extinction of the people.

4. Hagenbeck, Virchow, Boas and the Government of Canada In the nineteenth century, interest in exotic peoples is unbroken in Europe and in the city centers of North America, as is documented in the holdings of libraries and museums. In the Württembergische Landesbibliothek in Stuttgart a drawing by the Inuk Niakungitok is preserved, showing typical arctic scenes, a man in a kayak, a woman with a child in her amauti, sled dogs and a polar bear. 48 As we learn from a catalogue printed in Sheffield, Niakungitok and his wife Coonahnik (Coonunmak, in Stuttgart) "were brought from Baffin's Bay [...] by Captain Hadlock, who exhibited them in America for some time." 49 As

43 Kleinschmidt in his letter to Theodor Bourquin, August 8, 1865, in Holtved, Briefe. 28. 44 Kleinschmidt's orthography was modernized in 1972. For a detailed discussion of Kleinschmidt and his work cf. Elke Nowak, Samuel Kleinschmidts Grammatik der grönländischen Sprache (Hildesheim: Olms, 1987). 45 Grammatik der Eskimosprache wie sie im Bereich der Missions-niederlassungen der Brüdergemeine an der Labradorküste gesprochen wird, bearbeitet von Thomas Bourquin (London: Moravian Mission Agency, 1891). 46 Kleinschmidt, letter to Bourquin dating September 6, 1880, in Holtved, Briefe, 110. 47 August Freitag, Grammatik oder Hülfsbuch zur Erlernung der Eskimosprache (1839, revised 1846), Ms. 48 "1825: Eigenständige Zeichnung des am ?? Oktober 1825 mit seiner Frau in Stuttgart gewesenen und ?? Straßburg gestorbenen Eskimo Niakungitok. George Niakunitok und Mary Coonunmak", 97021 L. 1505/1 Hof-Bibliothek, now at Linden Museum Stuttgart. 49 An Interesting Account of Those Extraordinary People The Esquimaux Indians, from Baffin s Bay, North Pole, to which is Affixed A Vocabulary of Esquimaux Words. Translated

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we know from a note accompanying the Stuttgart drawing, they were in Stuttgart in 1825 and Niakungitok died in Strassburg shortly after. This, however, did not bring Hadlock's "Esquimaux Show" to an end. The people in Paris "showed vivid interest in the 'Esquimaude vivante' who was on exhibition together with her 'stuffed' husband."50 It must also be mentioned that the woman from Labrador who had joined Hadlock's party in 1820, had died in England in 1822. Her place had been filled by several substitutes.

.. i r t f . ajSxrih; ' j f i t f - ' · · * g 8 > —'

Fig. 1 Portrait of "Esquimaux von der Baffins Bay Mann und Frau, nach Europa gebracht durch Captain Hadlock 1824", Christian von Martens Album 49. Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart. In 1880, a group of baptized Labradorians from Hebron, a northern Labrador Moravian settlement, together with a heathen family, travelled to Europe with Hagenbeck's "in consideration of a considerable sum of money" as is reported in the Periodical Accounts. Abraham, the head of the group and a very pious man, spoke of his poverty and the probability of his being enabled

into English by George Niagungitok; And A Catalogue of the Museum of Natural and Artificial Curiosities, which accompany the Exhibition of the Esquimaux Indians (Sheffield. 1822), 3. 50 Sonja Schierie, "Samuel Hadlock, his 'Eskimo Show,' and missing pages". European Review of Native American Studies 17.1 (2003), 29-36, 35.

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to pay his debts and improve his position by earning wages for little work. 51 Abraham and his party suffered the fate so many others had suffered before. After being exhibited by Hagenbeck's together with lions, elephants, eagles, and black heathens from Nubia, and after having performed fake seal hunts in front of an eager audience in Hamburg, Berlin, Prague, Darmstadt and Krefeld, the last of the group, Abraham and his wife Ulricke, died of smallpox in Paris. Of course the missionaries had strongly objected to their trip to Europe, well knowing what was ahead. Now that all wee dead, Brother Eisner, who had himself been to Labrador, wrote a long, educational letter in which he minutely described the miserable living conditions, the desparation and humilation of the Inuit: [...] Alle knieten täglich vor ihrem Heiland nieder und flehten zu ihm um Erbarmen. Gesund werden ließ er sie zwar nicht, nahm sie aber zu sich in sein Reich und erlöste sie von dem zur Schau gestellt werden, was ihnen immer mehr zur Qual wurde [...] Aber ihr seht, dass es Euch heißt in Eurem Lande Eure Seligkeit schaffen mit Furcht und Zittern und in Eurem Berufe treu, fleißig und zufrieden sein und nicht Eure Wege zu gehen, sondern die Wege, die Euch der Herr führt

Eisner concludes his letter by explaining that all the possessions of the party had to be burned. Of the money earned so hard, he lets the relatives in Labrador know, some would possibly be left after the deduction of Abraham's debts. As was a general custom of the time, on the occasion of their visit the Inuit were also subject to scientific investigation. Virchow dealt with them in Berlin in 1880 and referred to five of them as partly educated, to three as not educated at all: "one of these more primitive Eskimo became a prey of hysterical excitement of some violence, under the ordeal of being measured." 53 In 1897, a group of Polar Eskimo was brought to New York by Peary. All of them but a young man and a boy died. While the young man was returned to Northwest Greenland the following year, the boy was kept in New York. Later he discovered his father's skeleton on display at the American Museum of Natural History. His repeated plea to bury the bones was turned down. The skeleton was regarded as property of the museum. It is interesting to note that Franz Boas was involved in the whole affair, his first published treatises on the Eskimos being based on the encounter with the unhappy party brought to New

51 Periodical Accounts relating to the Missions of the Church of the United Brethren, established among the Heathen, vol. 32, no. 333, 96. 52 "All knelt down everyday before the Savior and begged for mercy. He did not restore their health but he took them unto himself and delivered them from the agony of being exhibited. [...] It teaches you, seek bliss in your own country, in fear, steady in your profession, industrious and content. Do not seek your own ways but follow the ways of the lord." Letter written by Brother Eisner, Bremen, May 1881. Copy from the British Museum [translation Ε. N.]. 53 W.L.H. Duckworth, B.P. Pain, "An Account of some Eskimo from Labrador". Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 10 (1900), 286-91.

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York. Boas obviously could see only the scientific advantage of using these unsuspecting people as living specimens. He thought it quite natural that, after their death, their bodies should be examined, preserved and put on display, in the interest of science.54 The utter lack of respect which guided the deeds of the old Norse, the seafarers and entrepreneurs, also determined the bahavior of missionaries and scholars. It guided the actions of the Hudson's Bay Company and decisions of the state, coming to a sad climax with the relocations forced upon many Inuit in the twentieth century. At first, relocations were coordinated with the fur trade still going on in the far North in the thirties and forties of the twentieth century, and fell upon the Hudson's Bay Company. In 1934, the HBC was informed by the Canadian government that if it wished to continue its operation in the North, it must assume responsibility for Native welfare without expense to the department. But considerations guiding the selection of locations did not always match with the conditions needed by the Inuit for survival. In 1934, twenty-two Inuit from Cape Dorset, eighteen from Pond Inlet and twelve from Pangnirtung were transported to Dundas Harbour, a suitable location, with good prospects for fur, abounding in marine life. It turned out, however, that the ice conditions in winter were so severe that they impeded both hunting and dog team travel, both needed to secure survival.55 By 1964, 70% of the Inuit population of the Kivalliq, the lands west of Hudson Bay, had been in sanatoria because of tuberculosis for periods ranging from three months to nine years. Since so many of them were hospitalized down south anyway, for some time plans were made to move all Inuit south, but were subsequently given up in favor of populating the high Arctic. The need to support Canada's claim to sovereignty over the high Arctic had to be backed up by settlements. In 1953 the government began to move Inuit from Inukjuak (Port Harrison) in northern Quebec to Ellesmere Island and Cornwallis Island, 3,200 km to the north. Inuit from Mittimatalik (Pond Inlet), closer to the chosen spots, were also brought in. The people of Grise Fiord, the Ellesmere Island settlement, barely survived the first years. The Inuktitut name of the settlement is ausuittuq - 'it never melts'. The name of Resolute Bay, the settlement on Cornwallis Island is qausuittuq - 'it never gets light'.56 Such shifting of the Inuit population reached its peak in the 1950s and 1960s, but continued to the end of the seventies. In 1990, the Aboriginal Affairs Committee of the House of Commons came out in favour of compensation and the

54

Kenn Harper, Give Me My Father's Body: The Life of Minik, the New York Eskimo (Iqaluit: Blacklead Books, 1986). 55 Olive Dickason, Canada's First Nations. (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1992). 395fT. 56 For further information on the relocations to Grise Fiord and Resolute Bay cf. Damas (ed.). Handbook, 676-82.

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government offered 200,000 $ plus a plaque recognizing the role of the Inuit in establishing Canada's claim to the distant regions. The forced relocation of the people of Hebron in northern Labrador, decided on by the Moravian Church, the local shopkeeper, the nurse and some other authorities, is uncompensated even today. In 1959, the Hebron people were offered the choice to hop on a boat to Nain and southern Labrador settlements or to stay behind without a link to the outer world. 57 In the Inuit world view, disaster was possible anytime but poverty had had no place in the traditional life; from an Inuit point of view, poverty begins "when a person is bewildered and has no way to impose his ways in a completely new environment." 58 Such bewilderment became institutionalized by the introduction of compulsory schooling. By the beginning of the 1950s, almost all Canadian Inuit were literate in their own language - although in different writing systems, according to the spheres of influence of the missionaries. In Labrador, this was the Moravian orthography, based on the old orthography of the eighteenth century. The syllabic writing system had spread through the eastern Arctic from the second half of the nineteenth century, and in the western Arctic, nonstandardized, rather random varieties, using Roman letters, were in use. In the schools, however, there was no teaching in Inuktitut, nor on Inuktitut. Schooling was in English only. This led to a sharp decline in literacy, and an instable bilingualism with those attending school, leaving a whole generation of Inuit disabled in English - and in their own language. In the 1980s, the situation with respect to language loss seemed to be dramatic, a sharp decline in the use of Inuktitut among the teenage group was to be seen. Recent research, however, has shown that the trend is broken, and at the moment Inuktitut does not seem to be an endangered language. 59

5. The Voyage to Nunavut What does it mean to be a handful of people somewhere in Meta Incognita? To be responsible now for the clearing up of the aftermaths of the many voyages

57 See Carol Brice-Bennett, "The Redistribution of the Northern Labrador Inuit Population: A Strategy for Integration and Formula for Conflict", Zeitschrift für Kanada-Studien 26 (1994). 95-106. 58 Abe Okpik, the first Inuk to be appointed to the Northwest Territories Council. In Dickason, History, 398. 59 Louis-Jacques Dorais, Susan Sammons, Language in Nunavut: Discourse and Identity in the Baffin Region (Iqaluit: Nunavut Arctic College, Universit6 Laval, Quibec, 2002); cf. also Naullaq Arnaquq, "Nunavut Self-Government and Education", Zeitschrift für KanadaStudien 26(1994), 107-14.

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into a world that always turned out to be vastly different? After roughly twenty years of negotiation, a land claim was settled in 1990 and voted on in 1992. In 1999, Nunavut, Canada's largest territory, came into being. The pioneer role of Nunavut has been emphasized, the hopes and dreams of many indigenous peoples around the world have been voiced. The facts are: roughly 27,000 inhabitants scattered over 2 million square kilometers. 60 This amounts to a population density of 0.0 per km 2 . The median age of the population is 22 years, roughly 37% of the population is younger than 15 years. Between 1996 and 2001 the population increased by 8%. In 1996, in 37% of the communities the unemployment rate was up to 19%; in 30% of the communities it was up to 39%. In 33,5% of the communities the unemployment rate was really high: up to 47% of the population. The language seems to be secured, young Inuit growing up in Nunavut learn Inuktitut as a first language. Even in Iqaluit, the multicultural capital of Nunavut, it is the language to be heard everywhere, in 2005. A stable diglossia seems to prevail. 61 In school, English is introduced as a second language nowadays. Yet, Inuktitut still is the language of instruction only up to grade four. Despite many efforts, no more could be achieved so far. Too few people are qualified as teachers, there are very few teaching aids for advanced courses, there is still no teaching grammar. All the necessary prerequisites of an effective language program, let alone other fields of instruction, are still missing, in school and in higher education. Nunavut has a very young population which can be seen as a wonderful chance for the future. Nunavut has a tiny population so that human resources for the tasks ahead are extremely limited. Nunavut, despite its vastness, is a niche, a kind of biotope, sheltered and fostered by federal Canada. Why is this so? It can be assumed that intelligent, honest and responsible people have learned from the many voyages into the unexpected that so often led into disaster. Today, Inuit are respected, their voice is finally heard. Yet again, there may be more to it. When in 1984 the Official Languages Act became effective in the then Northwest Territories, it gave six indigenous languages equal status with English and French, namely Slave, Dogrib, Gwich'in, Chipewyan, Cree and Inuktitut. All of these languages except Cree and Inuktitut are severely endangered. In 1993, the Languages Commissioner commented: "The government should be able to communicate with those

60 All figures are taken from Statistics Canada. 61 Elke Nowak, "Inuummata - Diglossia and Language Maintenance in the Canadian Arctic", in Fritz Peter Kirsch, Waldemar Zacharasiewicz (eds.), Möglichkeiten und Grenzen des Multikulturalismus: Der Schutz sprachlich-kultureller Vielfalt in Kanada und Europa (Wien: Kanada-Zentrum der Universität Wien, 2004), 155-165; Louis-Jacques Dorais, "Why do they speak Inuktitut? Discourse Practices in the Capital of Nunavut", Zeitschrift für KanadaStudien 41 (2002), 116-30.

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whom it serves." 62 In the Official Languages Act, the indigenous population of the Northwest Territories, i.e. the majority of the population, was recognized as constituting 'distinct societies' - a highly remarkable declaration in a wider federal perspective. At that time, Inuktitut was the second strongest language in the Northwest Territories, spoken by close to 28% of the population, as compared to French, spoken by 2,5%. Today, in Nunavut, 80% of its population speak Inuktitut. For the first time, an aboriginal language has become the predominant language of a Canadian political constituency. Even if English and French are official languages, too, Inuktitut is considered by the territorial government, as well as by the majority of residents, as bound to attain primacy in terms of language of the workplace and means of public communication. The government of Nunavut has committed itself to making Inuktitut its working language by 2020. Young people have high expectations to get more and better opportunities to learn and enhance their language. So all's well now? Not so long ago, a colleague at Nunavut Arctic College in Iqaluit sent a letter of alarm: the Inuit Studies Program at Arctic College is to be discontinued, because of lack of funding. Neither the Inuit Studies Program nor the Translator/Interpreter Program of Nunavut Arctic College has core funding so far. Existing language programs are threatened, too, others have never been launched. Language was a big issue in the campaigns leading up to Nunavut, a focal point of identification. Yet, over the past ten years and since the creation of Nunavut, no visible progress has been made in securing or even improving Inuktitut education in schools. No steps have been taken so far to make the ambitious vision of Inuktitut as a fully functioning working language become true - "we should be moving a lot faster!" 63 While Inuktitut is an official language under the current Languages Act of Nunavut, it still does not enjoy the same status as English and French. An 'Inuktitut Protection Act' is recommended by the Languages Commissioner, in order to ensure "that Inuktitut speakers are not discriminated against but instead encouraged to use their language." 64 This act is recommended to include the right to work in Inuktitut, education rights in Inuktitut, ongoing training of the employees of the Legislative Assembly and the government, and the establishment of an Inuktitut Committee by a government institution. Its mission shall be the improvement of written and spoken Inuktitut in the workplace, and responsibility for the development of much needed terminologies, such as the ones needed for

62 Betty Hamum, Eight Official Languages: Meeting the Challenge. First Annual report of the Languages Commissioner of the Northwest Territories for the Year 1992-1993 (Yellowknife: Office of the Languages Commissioner, 1993), 136. 63 Eva Aariak, Languages Commissioner of Nunavut, interview October 6, 2003. 64 Office of the Languages Commissioner of Nunavut, Recommendations regarding changes to the Official Languages Act, submitted to the special committee of the Legislative Assembly reviewing the Official Languages Act (Iqaluit, 2002), 10.

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accurate information on pharmacies (Recommendations, 12, 13). There is also an urgent need for the establishment of an Inuktitut Languages Authority "which is to define and conduct policy on linguistic research and terminology related to the Inuktitut language and to support the use of Inuktitut as a language of communication, work, law and commerce" (Recommendations, 16). The future will show whether these recommendations will be adopted by the Legislative Assembly. It will also show how far ambitions can carry when it becomes evident that making a language fit for the standards and demands of the twenty-first century does not come for free. An inuksuk is "a proxy for a human in every sense of the word; it provides comfort to the travel-weary, life-saving advice to the disoriented, a focus of veneration to the spiritual seeker. It is the timeless language of the land for a people who existed on the land. As one Inuit elder told me, 'This attaches me to my ancestors and to this place.'" 65 An acute sense of observation, knowledge and precaution were vital for survival in the landscapes of the old days. Nunavut is today's landscape and an inuksuk is one of its official symbols. Reference points in a network of places, where opportunities for both success and failure are in a delicate balance are as much needed today as they were needed in traditional life. . · 66 taima.

65 Norman Hallendy, Inuksuit: Silent Messengers of the Arctic (Vancouver, Toronto: Douglas & Mclntyre, 2000), 44. 66 Inuktitut for 'Enough; it is over.'

ANNETTE KERN-STÄHLER

University of Münster

Re-Enacting the Arctic Voyage: The Northwest Passage in British Literature

Introduction From Elizabethan days, English explorers set out on the quest to find a passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, a gap in what is now the Canadian Arctic through which to reach China and the East.1 Martin Frobisher, who was the first Englishman to search for such a navigable route that came to be known as the Northwest Passage in three voyages between 1576 and 1578, declared that "it is still the only thing left undone, whereby a notable mind might be made famous and remarkable."2 In the nineteenth century, the British made every effort to ensure that this mind was to be a British one to serve the greater glory of the Empire.3 Indeed, the quest for the Northwest Passage engaged the particular attention of the British Admiralty with a view to defending its status as the world's leading navy and since it appeared that the passage would lie in British-claimed territory (until 1880).4 When John Everett Millais' painting The North-West Passage was shown at the Royal Academy in 1874, it was accompanied by the lines "It might be done, and England should do it," a patriotic message which the Union Jack in

1

2 3 4

Earlier, the Genoese navigator Giovanni Caboto had set off from Bristol in 1497 in the service of Henry VII. Caboto believed to have reached Cathay (China) but had, in fact, made landfall on Newfoundland or Cape Breton Island in the northern part of Nova Scotia. Cf. Pierre Berton, The Arctic Grail: The quest for the North West Passage and the North Pole, 1818-1909 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1988), 17-18. Further early explorers were his son Sebastiano Caboto (1509), Giovanni Verrazano (1523), Estevan Gomez (1525), Jacques Cartier (1534. 1535, 1541) and Sieur de Roberval (1541). Cf. George M. Thomson, The North-West Passage (London: Seeker & Warburg, 1975), 1-16. Berton, The Arctic Grail, 16-17 (quotation 16). For Martin Frobisher's voyages cf. Thomson. The North-West Passage, 21-32, 33-39, 40-46. Berton, The Arctic Grail, 21. James P. Delgado, Across the Top of the World: The Quest for the Northwest Passage (London: British Museum Press, 1999), ix.

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the b a c k g r o u n d o f the p a i n t i n g s e e m e d to underline ( f i g . I). 5 E n g r a v i n g s o f M i l l a i s ' p a i n t i n g w e r e rather popular and Sir G e o r g e N a r e s , w h o w a s then preparing his arctic e x p e d i t i o n ( 1 8 7 5 - 7 6 ) , praised the p a i n t i n g ' s e f f e c t o n the spirit o f the n a t i o n . 6 W h a t had started as a c o m m e r c i a l enterprise, 7 had, b y M i l l a i s ' t i m e , l o n g b e c o m e a l s o a matter o f national h o n o u r and prestige. 8 Y e t , to the c h a g r i n o f the British, w h o had e x p l o r e d and m a p p e d m o r e than 1 , 0 0 0 m i l e s a l o n g the northern c o a s t o f Canada, thus preparing the w a y to s u c c e s s , 9 the N o r w e g i a n s s n a t c h e d the prize ( f r o m the British) w h e n , b e t w e e n 1 9 0 3 and 1 9 0 6 , R o a l d A m u n d s e n f i n a l l y s a i l e d through the N o r t h w e s t P a s s a g e . 1 0 W h i l e s h i p s w e r e still e n d e a v o u r i n g t o find the e l u s i v e p a s s a g e , in the i m a g i n a t i o n it had already b e e n traversed, and the Arctic r e g i o n s , w h i c h w e r e , until the n i n e t e e n t h century, largely a blank s p a c e o n the m a p , " w e r e w e l l

5

At an earlier stage, the painting included two children idly turning a globe. This was decided to disturb the painting's composition, so the Union Jack was painted on instead (Russell Ash. Sir John Everett Millais (London: Pavilion, 1996), text facing plate 32). 6 Nares reached the highest Northern latitude attained by any ship up to that time. In 1878, he published Voyage to the Polar Sea, which contained early photos. Nares' was to be the century's last Royal Navy expedition (Berton, The Arctic Grail, 432). 7 A Northwest Passage would have shortened the voyage to the Orient and its riches by six thousand miles (Thomson, The North-West Passage, 2). 8 Thus, in 1844, John Barrow, Second Secretary to the Admiralty, emphasized in a letter to the first Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Haddington, that Arctic exploration was "well deserving the attention of a power like England." If England failed to pursue a search for the passage, she "would be laughed at by all the world" (quoted in Chauncey C. Loomis, "The Arctic Sublime", in U. C. knoepflmacher and G. B. Tennyson (eds), Nature and the Victorian Imagination (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: U of California P, 1977), 95-112, 96). Cf. further Berton, The Arctic Grail, 19-21. 9 Furthermore, as Beattie and Geiger point out, Franklin's crew had located the Northwest Passage on their death march along Simpson Strait (Owen Beattie, John Geiger, Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition (Vancouver: Greystone Books, 1987), 41. Cf. also Berton, The Arctic Grail, 547). 10 Cf. further Berton, The Arctic Grail, 531 -48; Thomson, The North-West Passage, 252-64. Ken McGoogan calls attention to the "nearly forgotten" John Rae, who had, in 1854. led a sledge expedition and discovered the final link of the passage (Rae Strait): "He could not prove it. having no ship at his command. But he told Leopold McClintock, who relayed the message to Roald Amundsen, who finally did prove it by sailing through it in 1903-06." (Ken McGoogan. Fatal Passage. The Story of John Rae, The Arctic Hero Time Forgot (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2002), 258). In the early 1940s, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police schooner St Roch traversed the passage west to east in 27 months (and, in 1944, east to west), surpassed in 2000 by the swift passage of the St Roch II which encountered only a few icebergs and no pack ice, suggesting "that global warming might have transformed the idea of a navigable Northwest Passage from a chimera into a reality." (Glyn Williams, Voyages of Delusion. The North-west Passage in the Age of Reason (London: Harper Collins, 2002, rpt. 2003), xix). 11 In the Tudor and Stuart periods, explorers reached only as far as the eastern fringes of the Arctic archipelago. The features on the way were named after these explorers (Davis Strait, Baffin Island, Frobisher Bay, Hudson Strait, Hudson Bay, Foxe Basin, James Bay). In Hudson Bay, their voyage west was blocked by icebound shores (Williams, Voyages of Delusion, xvi; Berton, The Arctic Grail, 18).

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furnished in the mind. The imagination was fuelled by the publication of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century reports of navigators who claimed that they had discovered, and sailed through, this opening and promoted the idea of a region "rich of gold, Silver, Pearle, and other things."12 In the nineteenth century, the imagination was kindled by dioramas13 and illustrated accounts of English polar expeditions, popularized versions of which appeared in magazines such as Household Words or Blackwood's Magazine}11 These were devoured by armchair travellers who were invited to follow polar explorers such as Parry, Ross and Franklin to the vast Arctic regions.15 The elusiveness of the passage, which by that time had turned proverbial,16 and the often year-long wait for the explorers' return, reporting yet another failed attempt, only added to the allure of the Arctic.17 Themselves under the spell of Arctic accounts, nineteenth-century writers of fiction also contributed to the formation and perpetuation of mental pictures

12 The quotation is taken from the report of the 1592 voyage of the Greek navigator Apostolos Valerianos, known as Juan de Fuca, which was passed on by the promoter of Frobisher's voyage, Michael Lok, to Samuel Purchas, who printed the account in 1625 as Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas His Pilgrimes, part of which is printed in App. A to Williams. Voyages of Delusion (quotation 415, cf. further 132). The report of another contender for the discovery of the Northwest Passage (1640), the Spanish Admiral Bartholomew de Fonte, was first published in 1708 and thus at a time when imaginary journeys enjoyed great popularity, but was re-discovered in 1744 and published as a proof of existence of the Northwest Passage. Cf. Williams, Voyages of Delusion, 134. For imaginary voyages cf. David Fausett, Writing the New World: Imaginary Voyages and Utopias of the Great Southern Land (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse UP, 1993), 79-97. 13 For example, in the summer of 1852, at the height of the Franklin expedition, an Arctic diorama was installed in Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (Francis Spufford, 1 May Be Some Time (London: Faber and Faber, 1996), 7). 14 Loomis, "The Arctic Sublime", 107. One of the earliest accounts was William Edward Parry's Journal of a Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage (1821), illustrated by engravings and maps, which, according to Chauncey Loomis, "evokes sublimity" (Loomis, "The Arctic Sublime", 102). The National Library of Canada provides an online bibliography of contemporary accounts (and sketches) of voyages in search of the Northwest Passage in the first half of the nineteenth century (www.nlc.bnc.ca/2/21/h21-200-e.html, last visited January 2004). 15 Thus, Henry Morley's "Our Phantom Ship Among the Ice", published in Household Words 3 (1851), 66-72, invites the reader up north, e.g.: "Now we are in Baffin's Bay" (68) and evokes a polar atmosphere, e.g.: "Take heed. There is a nose like thunder, and a mountain snaps in two" (66). 16 In Wilkie Collins' No Name (1863), for instance, the fruitless search for Magdalen Vanstone is, in an anonymous letter to the family lawyer Mr. Pendril, compared to the quest for the Northwest Passage: "This is the ninth of October, and they have not found her yet: they will as soon find the North-West Passage" (Wilkie Collins, No Name, ed. with an intr. and notes by Virginia Blain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998 [1986]), 184). Further references to this edition will be included in the text (abbreviated as 'NN'). 17 Loomis, "The Arctic Sublime", 100.

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of the Arctic in the British imagination. 18 Arguably the single most influential literary text informing British perception of the polar regions and itself possibly influenced by the account of a polar expedition was Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1798). 19 Yet there are other examples. The Brontes, for instance, had pored over accounts of the Arctic in Blackwood's Magazine20

18 Our picture of the Arctic today is certainly still informed to a large extent by narrative constructions. Notably, contemporary Canadian literature asks us to re-evaluate the historical accounts of the Arctic. In what Aron Senkpiel describes as "a radical rethinking, a remapping of sorts, of the literary landscape of the North", contemporary Canadian writers point at the discrepancy between textual renderings of the Arctic and their own firsthand experience. In Rudy Wiebe's Playing Dead, for instance, the historical accounts become "irrelevant" when entering the Arctic landscape (Rudy Wiebe, Playing Dead. A Contemplation Concerning the Arctic (Edmonton: NeWest, 1989), 43). Similarly, John Moss's Enduring Dreams. An Exploration of Arctic Landscape (Concord: Anansi, 1994) calls attention to the "discrepancy between apparently authentic renderings of landscape and the world perceived" (42). Cf. Aron Senkpiel, "Places of Spirit, Spirits of Place: The Northern Contemplations of Rudy Wiebe. Aritha van Herk, and John Moss", in John Moss (ed.), Echoing Silence: Essays on Artie [i/c] Narrative, Reappraisals: Canadian Writers 20 (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1997). 123-36. On Canadian constructions of the Arctic cf. further the other essays in the above volume, and, for Canadian poetry on the Northwest Passage (e.g. by Al Purdy and Gwendolyn MacEwen) MacLaren, "Poetry of the Northwest Passage". 19 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Major Works, ed. with an intr. and notes by H. J. Jackson (Oxford: OUP, 2000 [1985]), 48-68. The poem was, for instance, quoted in newspapers and magazines (Loomis, "The Arctic Sublime", 98) and is cited and referred to in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818), who found her material for the Arctic in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and in a book on Siberia (Spufford, I May Be Some Time, 60). Mary Shelley, Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus, ed. by Μ. K. Joseph (Oxford: OUP, 1980 [1969], subsequently abbreviated 'F'), 21, 59. The references to Coleridge's poem were expanded by Mary Shelley in the revised edition of 1831. In Coleridge's poem, the ship is driven by a storm towards the South Pole: "And now there came both mist and snow, / And it grew wondrous cold: / And ice, mast-high, came floating by, / As green as emerald. / [...] The ice was here, the ice was there, / The ice was all around: It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, / Like noises in the swound." (1.51-54, 59-62). While Coleridge writes about the South Polar regions, his sources were descriptions of the Arctic, and, according to Loomis, "to many of his readers, the distinction was (and is) unimportant" (Loomis, "The Arctic Sublime", 98). Possible sources for "The Ancient Mariner" are Thomas James' Strange and Dangerous Voyage (1633), an early account of an expedition in search of the Northwest Passage (Ivor James, The Source of "The Ancient Mariner" [1890, facs. rpt. n.p. Folcroft, 1969]), Gerrit de Veer's "Northward to the Kingdom of Cathaia and China" (John Livingston Lowes, The Road to Xanadu. A Study in the Ways of Imagination [Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1927], 138), and Samuel Hearne's A Journey to the Northern Ocean. Coleridge met Hearne and possessed his 1796 copy of A Journey to the Northern Ocean at the time he was working on his poem (Ken McGoogan, Ancient Mariner. The amazing adventures of Samuel Hearne, the sailor who walked to the Arctic Ocean (Toronto: HarperFlamingo, 2003); cf. also Nathan Greenfield's review in the Times Literary Supplement (28 November 2003), 31). 20 The November 1820 (vol 8, no. 44) and June 1821 (vol. 9, no. 51) issues, for example, contained accounts of Parry's expeditions (Spufford, I May be Some Time, 107). From 1825, for several years, their father, Patrick Bronte, borrowed Blackwood's Magazine from the local doctor and there is evidence that the family were still reading it in 1841. In form and content,

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and in Thomas Bewick's History of British Birds, and, in child play, accordingly had named their heroes after polar explorers;21 eventually the young Jane Eyre, too, was to read Bewick in her window-seat and to form "an idea of [her] own" of the "death-white regions" described there.22 In fact, Jane's imagination of the Arctic space - forming an idea of her own of, that is controlling, the imagined space as well as the acknowledgement of its death-bringing power hints at two aspects I want to concern myself with in this essay: Focusing on the nineteenth century and thus the peak of the Arctic quest, it is my purpose to analyse the Arctic in British literature as a space controlled by, and, in turn, controlling, the explorers of that space. I will thus use a concept of space put forward by poststructural archaeologists, who consider human agency, and, at the same time, acknowledge that space is active. In the first part of my article, I will discuss the Arctic as a space in the imagination controlled by human agents, which will, in the second part, be juxtaposed with the notion of the Arctic as an active space controlling its explorers. For Jane Eyre, reading in Bewick's British Birds about the "vast sweep of the Arctic Zone, and those forlorn regions of dreary space" (JE, 40) is a means to escape her miserable real life with the Reed family at Gateshead, 23 for "[with] Bewick on my knee, I was then happy: happy at least in my way. I feared nothing but interruption" (JE, 41). In the final part of my essay, I will look at another instance of instrumentalising the imaginary Arctic voyage to facilitate a retreat from real space.

the children's own little magazines were influenced by Blackwood's Magazine (Christine Alexander, The Early Writings of Charlotte Bronte (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983). 20). 21 Anne's hero was Captain Ross and Emily named her wooden soldier Pan-y. The names of Ross and Parry appeared in the children's games: Parry became king of Parrisland and father of Arthur, Marquis of Ardrah, Ross king of Rossesland and father of Edward Tut Ross, Marquis of Harlaw and friend of Arthur, Marquis of Ardrah (Alexander, The Early Writings of Charlotte Bronte, App. A; Winifred Girin, Emily Bronte. A Biography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 12-15). 22 Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre [1847] (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985 [1966]), 40. Further references to this edition will be included in the text (abbreviated as 'JE'). Bewick himself, whose book became a classic (Spufford, I May be Some Time, 9-11), had formed a visual idea of the Arctic from reading Captain Sabine's ornithological appendix ("Memoir on the Birds of Greenland") to Parry's Journal of a Voyage for the Discovery of the North-West Passage, which was published in 1821. According to Francis Spufford, Jane Eyre "does not read the opening pages as Bewick intended: she does not feel the intended awe at the great beneficent design by which the polar ice-cap supplies the world with fish, nor respond with enthusiasm to the suggestion that, in the eyes of God, every clime has a certain genial usefulness, whether we perceive it or not. She scarcely even notices that she is being told about seabirds. Her attention is caught only by the core of Bewick's perception of the Arctic, which feeds a mood he certainly did not anticipate, and his pictures, whose 'gaiety' and 'humour' elude her completely" (Spufford, I May be Some Time, 9-11, quotation 11). 23 Secluded from the family by a door and by a curtain in front of the window-seat, her reading becomes an additional act of seclusion (JE, 39).

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Control of Space To illustrate the quality of the Arctic as an imaginary space and of the Northwest Passage as an imaginary enterprise, another look at Millais painting may be helpful (fig. 1). Surprisingly, the Arctic scenery suggested by its very title (The North-West Passage) is relegated to the cut-off watercolour in the background. Instead, the Arctic is refracted in the domestic setting into which it penetrates in the guise of nautical paraphernalia (an unfolded map, a log-book, a print of a Navy officer from the earlier 1800s, a telescope) and the reading of what we may take to be an account of a polar expedition. Like the listening mariner in the painting, the beholder is asked to fill in the Arctic scene. Yet, in addition we are prompted to supply the Arctic narrative read by the young woman and to project it into the far distance across the calm waters of their native sea framed by the window. 24 Exhibited at a time when the hope of discovering the Northwest Passage was renewed, in Millais' painting the Arctic seems to be perceived as a space to be controlled: as a region to be explored, measured, mapped, claimed and mythologized. Both mapping and narrating are acts of spatial appropriation: land is claimed on paper; cartographic visualization and narrative description re-invent the Arctic as a previously dispossessed, as a discovered, not rediscovered, space. 25 Especially in the field of postcolonial studies, maps have received increasing critical attention as an "invention in the control of space" and, drawing on Foucaults writings on power and knowledge, as a form, or "language", of "power". 26

24 Similarly, in Millais' Boyhood of Raleigh (1870), Raleigh, depicted as a child playing on Plymouth Hoe, is listening to a sailor's adventures. A toy boat in the bottom lefthand corner points to the glory awaiting the child (Ash, Sir John Everett Millais, pi. 27. Cf. Spufford, / May be Some Time, 185-6). 25 Referring to a quote from the explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who in 1947 wrote that "[o]ur very best stories are lucky when they are no worse than second-best," Fergus Fleming noted in a recent review that "with the exception of Antarctica, every land mass had been traversed and settled long before the arrival of men in snowshoes or snake boots. When people said that they were the first to visit a place, what they meant was that they were the first to write about it. Exploration [...] was merely a process of rediscovery." (Fergus Fleming, "To the end of the world", review of Helen Whybrow (ed.), Dead Reckoning. Great adventure writing from the golden age of exploration, 1800-1900 (New York: Norton, 2003) and of Raymond John Howgego, Encyclopedia of Exploration to 1800 (Sydney: Hordern House, 2003), Times Literary' Supplement, 9 May 2003,31. 26 J. B. Hartley, "Maps, knowledge, and power", in Denis Cosgrove, Stephen Daniels (eds.), The Iconography of Landscape: Essays on the Symbolic Representation, Design and Use of Past Environments (Cambridge: CUP, 1989 [19889, 277-312, esp. 277, 280, 301, quotations 280, 301). Hartley emphasizes that "[b]oth in the selectivity of their content and in their signs and styles of representation maps are a way of conceiving, articulating, and structuring the human world which is biased towards, promoted by, and exerts influence upon particular sets of social relations" (Hartley, "Maps, knowledge, and power", 278).

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To add a feature on the map is an instance of assuming control, of making something out of nothing. 27 However, at the same time, it reduces the amount of blank space on the map, which, as an imaginary space to be controlled, was most exciting to children. One of the last blank spaces on the map of the Victorian world was the Arctic archipelago. In Joseph Conrads "Heart of Darkness" (1899), Marlow echoes what numerous British boys in the nineteenth century would have felt: N o w when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. [...] At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth, and when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map [...] I would put my finger on it and say, When I grow up I will go there. The North Pole was one of these places, I remember. 2 8

Yet, once a blank space was "filled [...] with rivers and lakes and names", it "ceased to be a blank space of delightful mystery - a white patch for a boy to dream gloriously over. " (HD, 52). The interest in maps was encouraged by the perusal of the accounts of Arctic exploration mentioned earlier. Conrad remembers that reading Leopold McClintocks "The Voyage of the Fox in the Arctic Seas" as a ten-year-old boy "sent [him] off [...] to the discovery of the taste for poring over land and sea maps." 29 In Victorian history books for children, Martin Frobisher, Franklin and other polar explorers were presented to the young as exemplary heroes of endurance as part of their cultural heritage. 30 Like maps, the narratives of Arctic exploration construct the Arctic as a region to be controlled and conquered. Their chivalric language cast the Arctic voyager as knight-errant on his quest for the Northwest Passage and the Arctic as his playground in which to have heroic adventures which, even if the quest remained unfulfilled, deserved of glory. 31 "Our age is an age of chivalry," the

27 This was put quite succinctly already by John Donne: "On a round ball / A workman that hath copies by, can lay / An Europe, Afrique, and an Asia, / And quickly make that, which was nothing, AH" (John Donne, "A Valediction: Of weeping", 10-13, in C. A. Patrides (ed.), The Complete English Poems of John Donne (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1990 [1985]), 84-85). 28 Joseph Conrad, "Heart of Darkness" [1899], in id., Youth: A Narrative; Heart of Darkness; The End of the Tether, with a prefatory note by the author, intr. by C. B. Cox (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1989 [1974]), 52. Further references to this edition will be included in the text (abbreviated as 'HD'). 29 Joseph Conrad, "Geography and Some Explorers", in id., Last Essays, ed. Richard Curie (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1926), 10-17; first printed in National Geographic (March 1924). 30 Cf. Spufford, I May be Some Time, 184. 31 For what counted was less the final achievement of the goal than the heroic courage of the knight (Berton, The Arctic Grail, 334). In an elegy included in one of the earliest accounts of an exploration in search of the Northwest Passage, Thomas James's Strange and Dangerous Voyage (1633), the author compares those crew members who perished in the course of the voyage to valiant soldiers and emphasises that "their braue ends, / Will euer be an honour to

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Times wrote. Newspapers praised Franklin's expedition and the search that followed as "as noble an epic as that which had immortalized the fall of Troy or the conquest of Jerusalem,"32 and Marlow, in "Heart of Darkness", refers to Franklin as one of "the great knights-errant of the sea," whose glorious past is evoked by the tidal currents of the Thames (HD, 47). A Punch cartoon of the British Navy's last attempt in search of the North Pole (1875-76) plays on the motif of the knightly search when it depicts the 'White Ladye of the Pole' as passively "[w]aiting To Be Won" (fig. 2).33 The motif of the quest is also alluded to by Charles Kingsley in his novel The Water-Babies (1863).34 Before Tom, transformed into a water-baby, is allowed to spend his Sundays with beautiful little Ellie, he is sent on a quest,35 which will first of all take him to "Shiny Wall, and through the white gate that never was opened" to "Peacepool" (WB, 271). In Wilkie Collins's novel No Name (1862), Magdalen's quest, her recovery of the family's fortune, recalls the Arctic quest. To get to the room in which the documents that provide an important clue for her enterprise are hidden, she has to traverse a huge, chilly corridor, which the master of the house, a retired admiral of the Navy, refers to as the "Arctic Passage" (NN, 630). To prove that they had reached the Arctic, explorers brought back samples, which was satirized by Cruikshank in a sketch entitled "Landing the Treasures, or Results of the Polar Expedition!!!" (fig. 3). The caricature shows Sir John Ross and his crew on their return from the century's first expedition in search of the Northwest Passage in 1818.36 The crew, who have lost their noses,37 are carrying, most prominently, Ursa Major in form of a great bear

32 33 34

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36

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their friends" (88); quoted in I. S. MacLaren, "Tracing One Discontinuous Line through the Poetry of the Northwest Passage", Canadian Poetry 39 (1996), 7-48, 13. Quoted in Berton, The Arctic Grail, 334. Punch 5 June 1875,242-3. Charles Kingsley, The Water-Babies. A Fairy Tate for a Land-Baby [1863] (London: Macmillan, 1885). Further references to this edition will be included in the text (abbreviated as 'WB'). Before The Water-Babies was published in book form in 1863, it had been serialized in Macmillan's Magazine (1862-63). Against his inclination, he has to help his former master, the dreaded chimney-sweep Mr. Grimes, to reform. When he wants to know where Ellie goes on Sundays, Mrs Bedonebyasyoudid tells him: "Those who go there must go first where they do not like, and do what they do not like, and help somebody they do not like." (WB, 250). When Tom has successfully returned from his quest, he is allowed to spend Sundays with Ellie: "You may take him home with you on Sundays, Ellie. He has worn his spurs in the great battle, and become fit to go with you and be a man; because he has done the thing he did not like." (WB, 367). Upon his return in November 1818, Ross claimed that to the west of Lancaster Sound his way had been blocked by mountains (Richard J. Cyriax, Sir John Franklin's Last Arctic Expedition (London: Methuen, 1939), 19-20). Spufford writes that the lost noses show the effects of frost bite and argues that the caricature thus point at the costs of the exploration (56). In a review of Spufford's book, Russell A. Potter argues that "in fact the satire was directed at Ross's statements that he reciprocated in the

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with the seven stars of its constellation drawn on its side, and scientific specimens for the British Museum such as Red Snow, 38 molluscs 39 and a bird,40 and "worms found in the intestines of a seal by a volunteer." The Inuit at the rear of the procession (carrying the North Pole) may be an allusion to the Greenland Inuit Ross had encountered, 41 but, seen in conjunction with the specimens brought home, may also refer to the Arctic explorers' practice of taking home Inuit for inspection and exhibition, 42 initiated by the first English explorer in search of the passage, Martin Frobisher, who captured an Inuit and took him home along with other souvenirs of trade and samples picked up on Baffin Island. 43 In the eighteenth century, the Inuit Kallihirua was transplanted to England, there to be educated and to tour the Great Exhibition, where he soon died. 44 This practice, still valid in the nineteenth century, is alluded to in a polar play written and performed during William Edward Parry's first expedition in search of the Northwest Passage in 1819-20. In this play, the Arctic is heroically conquered by the British navigators. As already suggested by its title, "The North West Passage or Voyage Finished", in what is a 'moral booster', the passage is found, and the prize money won. One member of the crew suggests having the "Esquimaux" they encounter "stuffed and put in the British Museum." 45 The collection of samples and especially the enforced displacement of Inuit are further examples of appropriating, and thus controlling, the Arctic space.

38

39 40

41 42 43 44 45

'Esquimaux' practice of nose-pulling or nose-rubbing, which he was the first to report." (Review of I May Be Some Time, www.ric.edu/rpotter/spufTord.html, last accessed January 2004). Parry had, on his expedition, encountered red snow, the colour of which, as Morley writes in his "Our Phantom Ship among the Ice" is "being caused by the abundance of a minute plant, of low development, the last dweller on the borders of the vegetable kingdom" (67). Ross had pioneered the use of a deep-sea clamshell dredge to collect samples (Delgado. Across the Top of the World, 57-8). The accounts of naval expeditions usually included an ornithological appendix. Captain Sabine's "Memoir on the Birds of Greenland", for example, was published as an appendix to Edward Parry's Journal of a Voyage for the Discovery of the North-West Passage [1821] (Spufford, I May Be Some Time, 9). Delgado, Across the Top of the World, 57-8 and fig. 58.; Berton, The Arctic Grail. 15-16. Cf. Spufford, I May Be Some Time, 226. Delgado, Across the Top of the World, 21. Spufford, I May be Some Time, 202. Nineteenth-century examples of the exhibition of Inuit (in Europe and North America) are given in Elke Nowak's article in this volume. Daniel Claustre, "The Northwest Passage or Voyage finished: a polar play and musical entertainment", Polar Record 21 (1981), 95-115, 101-15, cf. esp. 110-12 (quotation 112). This play is the only intact polar play extant. It was performed on board on 23 December 1819 and was seen by Parry as a "piece of propaganda," raising his men's hope for the success of the expedition and as an activity to avoid boredom and idleness (Claustre, "Polar Play", 97-8). Theatrical performances became part of wintering expeditions from then on (Claustre, "Polar Play", 99-100). Similarly, one of the poems published in the final number of the weekly shipboard newspaper The New Georgia Gazette or Winter Chronicle may have served to buoy the spirits of Parry's icebound crew. Cf. MacLaren, "Poetry of the Northwest Passage", 15-16.

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Considering the English obsession with Arctic exploration and the quest for the Northwest Passage, it seems hardly surprising that in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, published in 1818, the year when Britain's search for the passage was resumed, Frankenstein's ambitious creation of a living creature should be framed by this most prominent story of ambition in nineteenth-century England. For Frankenstein, having pursued the monster of his creation to the Arctic, is taken aboard the icebound ship of the British explorer Walton who is in search of the Northwest Passage.46 Though their aims be different, there is a special affinity between Frankenstein and Walton. Both were enticed by "ardent curiosity" (F, 16) and "glory" (F, 17), by "high hopes" and "a lofty ambition" (F, 211). Walton hopes to "tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of man" (F, 16) and thereby to inscribe himself into the list of discoverers he read about "day and night" as a boy in his uncle's library.47 These polar narratives, poetry, most notably Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner", and his belief in the marvellous prompted him to undertake his voyage and merged to form a mental picture of the Arctic, which he conjures up in his letters to his sister before setting out on his voyage and which makes the control of that space seem an easy task: "I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation", he tells her: It ever presents itself to my imagination as a region of beauty and delight. There, Margaret, the sun is for ever visible; its broad disk just skirting the horizon, and diffusing a perpetual splendour. There [...] snow and frost are banished; and, sailing over a calm sea, we may be wafted to a land surpassing in wonders and in beauty every region hitherto discovered on the habitable globe. Its productions and features may be without example, as the phenomena of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly are in those undiscovered solitudes. What may not be expected in a country of eternal light? (F, 15-16) 48

46 Walton does not appear in any pre-KarlofTian (1931) dramatizations of the play (Steven Earl Forry, Hideous Progenies. Dramatizations of Frankenstein from Mary Shelley to the Present (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania Press, 1990), xi). Kenneth Brannagh, in his 1994 production, makes use of the Arctic frame narrative. 47 "You may remember, that a history of all the voyages made for purposes of discovery composed the whole of our good uncle Thomas's library. [..] These volumes were my study day and night" (F, 16). 48 Although Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine in November 1855 called attention to the fact that there were no sunny continents beyond the horizon but fatal icy cliffs (cf. Beattie, Geiger. Frozen in Time, 30), the theory of an ice-free pole was still current in the nineteeth century. Traces of it may be found, for instance, in Charles Kingsley's The Water-Babies (1863), in Jules Verne's Les Aventures du Capitaine Hatteras (1886), and in Percy Bysshe Shelley's Revolt of Islam (\i\i).

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Control by Space Walton's Arctic experience, however, proves to be very different from his expectations. Instead of the "calm [polar] sea" devoid of "frost and desolation," visualized by Walton before setting out on his voyage (F, 15), he "beheld, stretched out in every direction, vast and irregular plains of ice, which seemed to have no end. Some of my comrades groaned, and my own mind began to grow watchful with anxious thoughts" (F, 24). Later, prevented from any agency, and threatened by the sea which he has no means of controlling, he realizes: "I am surrounded by mountains of ice, which admit of no escape, and threaten every moment to crush my vessel " (F, 212). It turns out that the space Walton had set out to control, is, in fact, in control of him and of his ship.49 Shelley's Frankenstein combines in one novel the concept of space as transformed by human agency and as active and thus illustrates the "dynamic character of space" emphasized by poststructuralist archaeologists. 50 The nineteenth-century explorers' expectation of the Arctic as a space to be controlled and the experience of the Arctic as a controlling space can also be exemplified by juxtaposing two almost contemporaneous paintings (figs. 1, 4). While the text affixed to Millais' The North-West Passage (fig. 1) suggests that the Arctic is a space to be conquered and reveals a sense of optimism, in Sir Edwin Henry Landseer's painting Man Proposes, God Disposes (1864), man does not control space, but is defeated by the forces of nature.51 The Union Jack is lacerated here by a polar bear while another feeds on the bones of an Arctic explorer (fig. 4). Experience had shown that the forces of nature were far more intimidating than expected. The fruitless search for the third Franklin expedition suggested that what had been the nation's greatest effort in search for a Northwest Passage had failed, and that Franklin and his crew of 128 men had been swallowed by the Arctic. 52 Nature had taken its toll, and the price paid for the discovery of a passage turned out to be incredibly high. In Kingsley's The WaterBabies., Tom has to dive under the ice to reach Peacepool, for the gate, just as, at the time of publication, the passage to the Pacific, is closed, and Tom sees

49 Similarly, Frankenstein's pursuit of the monster is often impeded by Arctic ice ("Immense and rugged mountains of ice often barred up my passage"), whereas the monster copes well with the extreme climate (F, 207). 50 Cf. Roberta Gilchrist, "Medieval bodies in the material world: gender, stigma and the body", in Sarah Kay, Miri Rubin (eds.), Framing Medieval Bodies (Manchester: Manchester UP. 1994), 43-59,45. 51 Cf. Loomis, "The Arctic Sublime", 110-111. 52 Loomis, "The Arctic Sublime", 104-7.

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lying among the ice pack the wrecks of many a gallant ship; some with masts and yards all standing, some with the seamen frozen fast on board. Alas, alas, for them! They were all true English hearts; and they came to end like good knights-errant, in searching for the white gate that never was opened yet. (WB, 299)

When Tom is at the foot of Shiny Wall, he asks: "And where is the gate?" The answer is simple if perhaps disappointing with regard to contemporary interest in the Northwest Passage: "There is no gate," said the mollys. "No gate?" cried Tom, aghast. "None; never a crack o f one, and that's the whole of the secret, as better fellows, lad, than you have found to their cost [...]." (WB, 299)

The ice is locked to conceal "peacepool", where the good whales bathe and the "ice-fairies live" (WB, 301). Discovery - control of every last part of the sea is rejected, and resisted by nature. 53 For, as the seabirds tell Tom, if there were a gate, "they'd have killed by now every right whale that swims the sea" (WB, 299). 54 The death-bringing forces of nature in the Arctic, as revealed in the death of Franklin and his crew, is alluded to in Wilkie Collins' No Name. For the analogy between the corridor which lies between Magdalen and the documents she seeks to discover and the Arctic passage is based on the corridor's inhospitable character - its "vast emptiness" and "wilderness", its continuous dampness, and its "floor's mortal cold" (NN, 630). In an apt allusion to the deathbringing cold of the Arctic, a seaman in the house calls the corridor "Freeze your Bones" (NN, 630). More shocking to the nation than the actual discovery of bodies of the Franklin crew by Leopold McClintock in 185855 was the news which had reached England four years earlier. John Rae, who had been charged with one of the three expeditions in search of John Franklin, delivered an account to the Admiralty which, upon its publication in the Times,56 caused considerable controversy. 57 For Rae reports that some of the last survivors of the celebrated

53 Cf. Spufford, I May be Some Time, 165. 54 The seabirds who guide Tom are themselves Greenland whale hunters who were transformed because they were "saucy and greedy" (WB, 298). The "king of all the birds" is Hudson, after whom Hudson Bay is named: "My name is Hendrick Hudson, and a right good skipper was I; and my name will last to the world's end, in spite of all the wrong I did. For 1 discovered Hudson River, and I named Hudson Bay [...]. But I was a hard man in my time, that's truth, and stole the poor Indians off the coast of Maine, and sold them for slaves down in Virginia; and at last I was so cruel to my sailors, here in these very seas, that they set me adrift in an open boat, and I was never heard of more. So now I'm the king of all mollys, till I've worked out my time." (WB, 298). 55 Cf. Beattie, Geiger, Frozen in Time, 33ff. 56 John Rae, "Report to the Secretary of the Admiralty", Times (London), 23 October 1854. 7. The date of his report to the Admiralty is 29 July 1854. 57 Loomis, "The Arctic Sublime", 107.

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Franklin e x p e d i t i o n had resorted to c a n n i b a l i s m : " F r o m the mutilated state o f m a n y o f the b o d i e s and the c o n t e n t s o f the kettles, it is e v i d e n t that our w r e t c h e d C o u n t r y m e n had b e e n driven t o the last dread alternative - c a n n i b a l i s m - as a m e a n s o f p r o l o n g i n g e x i s t e n c e . " 5 8

Reclaiming the Control of Space T h e v e r a c i t y o f the Inuit, w h o had d e s c r i b e d to R a e the e m a c i a t e d b o d i e s another g r o u p o f Inuit had f o u n d a l o n g the s h o r e s o f K i n g W i l l i a m Island, had b e e n d o u b t e d b y m a n y 5 9 - m o s t p r o m i n e n t l y b y C h a r l e s D i c k e n s , w h o , in a s e r i e s o f articles p u b l i s h e d in his w e e k l y m a g a z i n e Household

Words,

at-

t e m p t e d to e x o n e r a t e Franklin and his c r e w o f the c l a i m o f c a n n i b a l i s m . 6 0 H e d e s c r i b e d the s e c o n d - h a n d Inuit report as " v a g u e b a b b l e [and] w i l d tales o f a herd o f s a v a g e s " and cast the E n g l i s h as martyrs "set u p o n and slain b y the E s q u i m a u x " , 6 1 w h o w e r e , from then on, c l a s s e d w i t h all other s a v a g e s in Household

Words.62

R a e ' s report, corroborating the Inuit t e s t i m o n y , blurred

58 Rae, "Report to the Secretary of the Admiralty", 7. 59 Cf. Lillian Nayder, Unequal Partners. Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and Victorian Authorship (Ithaca, London: Cornell UP, 2002), 66. 60 Dickens, who had read Franklin's account of his first expedition, refused to believe that this crew of brave English men could have been broken by the Arctic. Soon after Rae's report was published in the Times, Dickens was invited by Lady Jane Franklin to her home (November 1854). He decided to write "an interesting little paper for next No. on that part of Dr. Rae's report; taking the arguments against its probabilities" (quoted in Nayder, Unequal Partners, 62). Cf. further McGoogan, Fatal Passage, 225. In Household Words, seven articles were published on the matter, among them Charles Dickens, "The Lost Arctic Voyagers", Household Words 10 (2 December 1854), 361-65 and Household Words 10 (9 December 1854). 385-93; Henry Morley, "The Lost English Sailors", Household Words 15 (14 February 1857). 145-47 and "Official Patriotism", Household Words 15 (25 April 1857), 385-90; John Rae. "The Lost Arctic Voyagers" [reply to Dickens' articles], Household Words 10 (23 December 1854), 433-37. Recent studies of the remains of members of the Franklin expedition point out signs of cannibalism and, additionally, lead poisoning (from the lead solder used to seal the tins). For an overview of recent traces of the Franklin expedition cf. Delgado, Across the Top of the World, 165-68, and for Owen Beattie's analysis of the explorers' bones (Beattie, Geiger, Frozen in Time, 58-62). 61 Dickens, "The Lost Arctic voyagers", 362-65. Rae, in his answer to Dickens, refuted the idea of murder by the Esquimaux. He does not believe "that some thirty of forty of the bravest class of one of the bravest nations in the world, even when reduced to the most wretched condition, and having firearms and ammunition in their hands, could be overcome by a party of savages equal in number to themselves." (Rae, "The Lost Arctic Voyagers", 434). 62 Nayder, Unequal Partners, 68. After Rae's report, Dickens, who had ridiculed the idea of the "Noble Savage" before (e.g. "I have not the least belief in the Noble Savage"; savages are "howling, whistling, clucking, stamping, jumping, tearing" ("The Noble Savage", Household Words 11 June 1853) stated that he "believe[d] every savage to be in his heart covetous, treacherous and cruel" (Dickens, "The Lost Arctic Voyagers", 362).

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the b o u n d a r i e s b e t w e e n ' s a v a g e ' and ' c i v i l i z e d ' 6 3 and s u g g e s t e d d e f e a t b y the f o r c e s o f nature, and the failure o f the British t o e n d u r e under stress. D i c k e n s ' r e v i s i o n i s t a c c o u n t r e c o v e r e d the m y t h o f the Arctic e x p l o r a t i o n as s t a i n l e s s . 6 4 It can b e read as r e c l a i m i n g the control o f space: T h e British are not cannibals, t h e y d o not s u c c u m b to nature but control it. T h e v e r y s a m e o b j e c t i v e a l s o i n f o r m s D i c k e n s ' r e v i s i o n s to W i l k i e C o l l i n s ' 1 8 5 6 draft o f The Frozen

Deep

( 1 8 5 6 / 5 7 ) , 6 5 a p l a y w h i c h d r a w s o n a c c o u n t s o f the search for the N o r t h w e s t P a s s a g e . 6 6 In letters h e s u g g e s t e d to C o l l i n s that the e x p l o r e r s ' h e r o i s m s h o u l d b e a c c e n t u a t e d in the p l a y and D i c k e n s h i m s e l f rewrote t h o s e p a s s a g e s acc o r d i n g l y . 6 7 M o s t intriguingly, D i c k e n s a l l u d e d to a little plot, intended as a garden, w i t h s o m e plants still s u r v i v i n g , f o u n d b y a search party o n B e e c h e y Island. T h e pathetic gesture, in e f f e c t n o m o r e than another f a i l e d attempt at c o n t r o l l i n g the s p a c e o f the Arctic, w a s re-interpreted b y D i c k e n s as the triu m p h o f the spirit o v e r matter: " M a k i n g a garden o f the desert w i d e / W h e r e Parry c o n q u e r ' d and Franklin died." 6 8 "[A]fFirm[ing] the faith in the p o w e r o f the British hero to endure", 6 9 the writing, p e r f o r m i n g , and later a l s o the pub-

63 Cf. Nayder, Unequal Partners, 61. 64 At the height of the Franklin search in 1853 Morley writes: "The history of Arctic enterprise is stainless as the Arctic snows, clean to the core as an ice mountain" (Henry Morley, "Unspotted Snow", Household Words 8 (1853), 241-46, 241). In Richard H. Home's "Arctic Heroes: A Fragment of Naval History", published in Household Words 1 (1850), 108-09. two Englishmen facing death in the Arctic show the "[e]fforts, endurance and resolve, which make / The power and glory of us Englishmen" (108). "So future times shall record bear that we, / Imprisoned in these frozen horrors, held / Our sense of duty, both to man and God." (109). Moreover, the blank verse suggests the Englishmen's Arctic exploration to be a 'noble' enterprise. 65 Robert Louis Brannan (ed.), Under the Management of Mr. Charles Dickens. His Production of The Frozen Deep' (Ithaca, New York: Cornell UP, 1966), 95ff. 66 Brannan (ed.), Under the Management of Mr. Charles Dickens, 12. 67 Nayder, Unequal Partners, 69-70. For instance, Dickens changed the parts in the play which refer to the members of Franklin's crew as "mutinous rascalfs]" and to Wardour (one of the members of the crew) as "fiend" and those passages which tell of the class struggle among the crew (Nayder, Unequal Partners, 92, 94). For the genesis of The Frozen Deep cf. Brannan (ed.), Under the Management of Mr. Charles Dickens, 6-49. The play was first staged as an amateur performance at Dickens' Tavistock House in 1857, with paper snow falling in the background of the stage (Spufford, I May be Some Time, 130, 176), and in the same year, and later, it was produced on the public stage (Brannan (ed.), Under the Management of Mr. Charles Dickens, 3; Nayder, Unequal Partners, 63-4, 94). Later, Wilkie Collins rewrote the script into a narrative (The Works of Wilkie Collins, vol. 4 (New York: AMS Press, 1970) [1900], 495-640). For the Dickens-Collins friendship and for an analyis of how the relationship affected their work cf. Sue Lonoff, "Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins", NineteenthCentury Fiction 35 (1980), 150-70; Nayder, Unequal Partners. 68 Prologue to The Frozen Deep, in Brannan (ed.), Under the Management of Mr. Charles Dickens, 97. Francis Spufford comments that "[o]f all the ways of cultivating the Arctic, gardening seemed the gentlest and perhaps the most resonantly English" (Spufford. / May Be Some Time, 176). 69 Brannan (ed.), Under the Management of Mr. Charles Dickens, 86.

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lication of The Frozen Deep was a glorifying reiteration of the assertion that control over space had been reclaimed.

The Imaginary Space of the Arctic as a Retreat from Real Space So far, the Arctic has emerged as a space to be conquered and controlled and, in turn, as a space of natural forces controlling human beings. In the final part of my essay, I will discuss the imaginary space of the Arctic as a retreat from real space. In doing so, I will concentrate on a postmodern novel, in which an imaginary Arctic voyage serves as a means to escape real space. Paul Wilson's Do White Whales Sing at the Edge of the World? (1997) 70 is partly set in an antiquated mental asylum on the Cumberland Fells, which follows the panoptic principle according to which, in Foucault's analysis of Bentham's Panopticon, power is visible and unverifiable to assure its "automatic functioning". 71 The asylum's inmates are constantly surveyed. Clearly visible, the founder of the asylum, Henry Kyle, sits on the raised stage of the hall at mealtimes, "looking down upon us" (WW, 199). His power is also unverifiable, for inmates who have fled from the asylum may, at all times, expect one of Kyle's numerous black Fords to appear at the next street corner (WW, 201), and "[even] after his death, his presence is still said to be with us. It is said that the ghost of Henry Kyle can still be seen some nights stalking the empty, secured building of the colony" (WW, 199). Each incident is recorded, and stored in Kyle's archive: [ . . . ] each act, each incident, was recorded. Henry Kyle kept bathing books, bowel books, menstruation books, punishment books, treatment books. Henry Kyle spent forty years charting the minutiae of the world that was his creation. Residents querying the c o l o n y ' s system, or its purpose, had their behaviour charted and treatment for it recorded. The resistance or aggression of residents w a s recorded. So was passivity, and undue inquisitiveness, and sexual behaviour. ( W W , 173) 7 2

Not only are these records used "to annul all individuality - to ensure control" (WW, 203), but also for scientific analysis, for the mental asylum, like the

70 Paul Wilson, Do White Whales Sing at the Edge of the World? (London: Granta, 1997. rpt. 1998). Further references to this edition will be included in the text (abbreviated as 'WW'). 71 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison [1975], trsl. Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage, 2nd ed. 1995), 195-228 (quotation 201). 72 Kyle "was renowned for missing nothing" (WW, 204) and "recorded everything" (WW, 20). "The legacy of Henry Kyle, after forty-seven years, amounts to one hundred and seventeen crates of information: files, records, diagnoses, measurements [...] and data books and photographs and records of the punishments [...] and work registers and bowel books and menstruation books and bath books and roll calls and sickness records" (WW, 203).

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Panopticon, serves as a laboratory. 73 They are analyzed by Henry Kyle in his search for a "single neurological disorder" as a cause of mental illness (WW, 202), and, when Kyle dies, await to be sold to a University Library in Texas. However, while Foucault's analysis of the Panopticon is useful when looking at the institution's functioning of power, we have to look elsewhere for possible alternative sources of power of the inmates. Although Foucault acknowledges that "there are no relations of power without resistances", 74 his analysis of the mechanisms of power has been criticized for under-emphasizing the role of human agency. 75 Addressing this deficiency, Anthony Giddens, in his 'Theory of Structuration', conceives of human beings not as "docile bodies" 76 but as "knowledgeable agents" 77 who - within the constraints of given circumstances - mobilize resources, bring about change and thus exercise power. 78 Positing this assumption, further aid to an understanding of the official and alternative uses of power in the mental asylum in Wilson's novel may be provided by Michel de Certeau's distinction and use of the terms 'strategy' and 'tactic'. 79 Certeau discriminates between the strategy of the producers, who have access to resources, and the tactic of the consumers, who can manipulate available structures and, by changing their function, use them in other ways than intended: "The place of the tactic belongs to the other. [...] It must constantly manipulate events in order to turn them into 'opportunities'." 80 One of the inmates of Kyle's asylum is Gabriel Emerson. His tactic is the retreat into his imagination and his imaginative use of the asylum grounds. 8 ' He escapes control by what is referred to by the narrator as his "two tricks" 82

73 "But the Panopticon was also a laboratory; it could be used as a machine to carry out experiments, to alter behaviour, to train or correct individuals." Foucault. Discipline and Punish. 203. 74 Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge. Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977, trsl. by Colin Gordon et al, ed. by Colin Gordon (New York: Pantheon, 1980), 142. 75 Cf. Aafke Komter, "Gender, Power and Feminist Theory", in Kathy Davis, Monique Leijenaar, Jantine Oldersmar (eds.), The Gender of Power (London: Sage, 1991), 42-62,47-8. 76 "A body is docile that may be used, subjected, transformed, and improved" (Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 136). 77 Anthony Giddens, Politics, Sociology and Social Theory. Encounters with classical and contemporary social thought (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995). 265. 78 Anthony Giddens, The Constitution of Society. Outline of a Theory of Structuration (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1984), 15-16. 79 Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life [1974], trsl. by Steven Rendall (Berkeley. London: U of California P, 1984, rpt. 1988), xivff., 30, 35-37, 167. 80 De Certeau, Practice of Everyday Life, xix. 81 Gabriel's imagination is already noticed by his mother when he is still unborn (WW, 44). 82 This is also the title of the first chapter of the novel.

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(WW, 3): He can "tune into people's heads" (WW, 3), 83 and he "can dream himself away from here" ( W W , 3). 84 The first chapter shows Gabriel performing his two tricks. He has been placed in the middle of a room, "surrounded by the staff and his fellow residents" (WW, 10), for his offence of masturbating in the bathroom (WW, 2): [...] he folds, slow piece by piece, making himself small, smaller; folds into a foetal cradle, his head buried in his chest and the wrap of limbs, which encloses him in the high room in the madhouse, and in his head, I know, is the sound of the weather and a big sky and a tormenting wind and a man pulling, pulling, through the snow and the ash-coloured sky - a man whose face he can barely discern but whose labours he can feel. [...] Gabriel rocks gently. His eyes are closed. He is sustained by a journey in a singing sea of ice, deep in the undiscovered interior of him which Henry Kyle and the colony never chanced upon. (WW, 10-11) In his imaginary search for the Northwest Passage, Gabriel dreams himself into the Arctic and enters the mind of his (fictional) ancestor and namesake, who set off on his quest for the Northwest Passage in the year 1620 (WW, 62). Like Jane Eyre, Gabriel escapes his real surroundings by a mental journey to the Arctic, a space that is supposedly a power vacuum, where no-one can exercise control over him. The colony, at this point, is awaiting closure, and, instead of returning to the outside world which they have experienced as hostile, 85 Gabriel and three other inmates set out on an imaginary quest for the Northwest Passage. 8 6 For this purpose, they alter the function of the icehouse on the asylum grounds by 'turning it into' the Arctic sea (WW, 68), and they build a ship, using packing boxes and plants for the shape, wires for rigging, and canvas sheets for sails (WW, 123). 87 Finally, they set off to re-enact and, if possible, to complete the voyage of Gabriel's ancestor (WW, 176), whose ship was found icebound in the Arctic by whalers and scientists ( W W , 17). Close to the ship they found "what was left of three men and small items of equipment", most notably

83

84

85 86

87

For example, he echoes the pain of the inmates locked into the sideroom for punishment: "I used to hear Gabriel singing out loud the distress in the head of whichever imprisoned man was in the sideroom for punishment." (WW, 56). Another of the inmates, Ingerman, escapes temporarily from the mental asylum by perusing objects he always carries around with him in a sack, for instance three-dimensional picturecards from cereal-boxes: "He can spend hours, engrossed, looking at them, falling into them, seeing what didn't seem at first to be there" (WW, 8). The narrator reflects: "the only thing that kept men here any longer was a fear of the world beyond the wall that surrounded us" (WW, 100). Before setting out on his quest, Gabriel walks along the wall of the colony, "marking out the edges of the known world" (WW, 49), from which he will later escape in his imaginary journey to the unknown. Due to a difference in temperature between the low and high parts of the builing, "the sails shimmer on their mooring as if the wind were catching them" (WW, 60).

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Emerson's journal, 88 which indicated that he had discovered the Northwest Passage and had died on his way back to his ship (WW, 24). Gabriel aims to conclude his ancestor's voyage, and, together with his crew, he sets off to the 'Arctic' every night: Without leaving Henry Kyle's colony, these men will sail the same journey, sleep below deck, will get back to the dormitory before lights on at six-thirty in the morning. [...] And the year? The year [...] inside the head of Gabriel who would be a sailor, is 1620. (WW, 62)

Gabriel shuts off his real surroundings, even during the day when he is away from the icehouse: "His heart, of course, the beating part of him, is far from here, in a narrow, ice-held strait" (WW, 157) and he and his companions even suffer frostbite (WW, 97). Gabriel does not want to relinquish his 'Arctic', he is "reluctant to be drawn away from the dreams of his northern world of ice and snow" (WW, 107). The nightly voyage is his and his crew's imaginary escape from control. It fills them "with light, with life" (WW, 74). Being controlled in 'real' life, they seek control of the imaginary Arctic space by aiming to conclude Emerson's voyage. However, like in the nineteenth-century texts discussed earlier, the Arctic turns out to control them. Icebound, "they are at the mercy of forces outside their control" (WW, 171), and on their ensuing walk across the ice 89 (a circuit around the icehouse), they die. The dead bodies of Gabriel and his crew are found, clutching each other for warmth (WW, 295296).

Conclusion To conclude, in the nineteenth century, the Arctic was constructed as a space to be controlled and, in turn, as a space controlling its explorers. In Wilson's novel, too, the Arctic is a space people dream about, and hope to explore, but which, in turn, assumes control. Yet beyond that, in his postmodern novel, Wilson constructs the Arctic as a space which captures the imagination and thus becomes an imagined space enabling the control of real space. For, while the 'explorers' fail in their attempt at concluding Emerson's voyage and thus at controlling the arctic space in their imagination, they succeed in controlling the real space of the mental asylum. By dreaming themselves into the Arctic, they

88 The bodies of three men and their equipment is probably an allusion to the three bodies of the Franklin expedition preserved in permafrost and found in 1981 by a group of scientists on Beechey Island. Cf. Beattie, Geiger, Frozen in Time, 3-4. The notebook is reminiscent of the notebook found next to the skeleton of a steward of the Franklin expedition by Leopold McClintock in 1859 (Beattie, Geiger, Frozen in Time, 35). 89 "It's over this that they'll show that it was possible that Emerson could have found his Anian Strait." (WW, 205).

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manage to transcend the oppressive institution, to be beyond reach of the asylum authorities. To such an extent do they retreat into the imaginary space of the Arctic that their bodies are affected by its climate. In the novel, real and imaginary space increasingly merge. References to the Icehouse become fewer, and the journey gains in actuality, affecting the explorers even bodily. Their very death appears to be a victory over the asylum authorities because the cause of their death, and thus their final escape from real space, is not to be found in the real world but in the imaginary world of the Arctic. Rather than dying the much dreaded death in a lonely apartment building after re-socialization, they die a death of their own making.

"It might be done, and England should do it." Fig. 1: John Everett Millais, The North-West Passage © Tate Gallery 2005

(1874).

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Fig.2: White Ladye of the Pole (1875)

Re-Enacting the Arctic Voyage

Fig.3 Landing the Treasures, or Results of the Polar Expedition!!! (1818). In: James Delgado, Across the Top of the World {1999)

Fig.4 Edwin Henry Landseer, Man Proposes, God Disposes (1864). The Royal Holloway Collection, University of London.

Reflections at Home: Canada in the View of Recent European Writers

CHRISTOPHER INNES

York University, Toronto

Stuffed Mooseheads: Canada as (Missing) Cliche in European Theatre

You would think that a country as large and modern as Canada should have a great deal written about it - not only by Canadian authors, who might be said to have a vested interest, but also by outsiders. After all, as a relatively new nation having an extensive history of international involvement, it should certainly hold a significant place in the consciousness of Europe. Significant sacrifices in two World Wars and notable bravery in Korea, to say nothing of its presence across the globe on UN peacekeeping operations from Cyprus to Rwanda have to have lent Canada a little fame. And then, too, it has earned a place in such international bodies as the G7 and the WTO, which has certainly attracted crowds of protesters from around the world to the streets of Vancouver or Quebec City, earning at least some notoriety. In addition, Canada has been one of the major magnets for refugees and immigrants through most of the twentieth Century, so you might indeed be justified in expecting to find considerable literary interest on a family level if no other. In short, any scholar would have little doubt, when undertaking a piece on the image of Canada in European drama, that there would be plenty of theatrical material to discuss. And this critic would be gratified (at least initially) to find even a cursory glance quickly revealing that Somerset Maugham had written a play set in Canada during the first decade of the twentieth century, while a French play from the 1920s, which deals with young men preparing to emigrate to Canada, had recently been produced at the Shaw Festival. Yet further research produces no results - sadly, that was just about it! Neither geographical size nor international presence seems to have brought any more recent attention. And typically, while there is one modern British play that might appear at first glance to be named after part of Canada, Newfound-land by Tom Stoppard, it not only turns out to be only a sub-title - since it is actually no more than a mini-play within the play of Dirty Linen - but instead of referring to Newfoundland (the Canadian province), Stoppard of

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course is echoing John Donne's 1595 pun on his mistress's body as his "newfound-land" (with reference to virgin territory, or rather Virginia);1 and the whole dialogue is a eulogistic travelogue across the cliches of the United States from New York (complete with Statue of Liberty) via New Orleans all the way to California. Not one mention of Canada. Nor even a single character with any Canadian connections. Feverish searches through libraries convinced me that if there were other dramatic texts written by anyone in England, France, or Germany, these had to be so minor, or so unsuccessful that they had utterly vanished from sight. Golders Green (that graveyard of London literary aspirations) or the Zoo area in Berlin may have desk drawers stuffed with dramatic scripts about Canada. But, if so, they are unpublished and have left no trace on the theatrical record. In fact, as the title of Ingmar Probst's article in this collection, dealing with eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century German travel literature, puts it so well: "Alle diese Länder sind unbekannt." And this strikes me as all too appropriate for the European stage as well. When British or German or even Irish playwrights mention the New World, their gaze is always more to the warmer and more populated south - particularly after the American revolution, which made the new and expanding United States a beacon of liberty for authorial eyes. Even Australia garners more attention from European playwrights. In terms of drama, at least, Canada is still an undiscovered landscape, or perhaps more accurately a forgotten country. But in literary research even a negative result can, of course, be interesting. Instead of being able to describe what the picture of Canada is for European dramatists, the question becomes, why is Canada so signally missing from the modern European stage? Of course, one immediate answer might be geographical. Canada had little national identity to mention until the mid-nineteenth century. And although mapmakers had given up writing "Here There Be Monsters" on unknown territories somewhat before Canada was first settled by Europeans - still, up until very late in the process of imperial expansion, even the best maps left the whole of central Canada blank. At a time when Australia was being fairly accurately represented, Canada was still white and formless from the Great Lakes (only barely sketched in) right across to the Vancouver coastline. Indeed the central portion was vaguely and confusingly labelled "Rupert's Land." This meant that - at least from a Eurocentric gaze - it was also a country with relatively little history. So it is not altogether surprising if, up to the early nineteenth century, at least, Canada is absent from the stages of Paris or even London. As unknown wilderness, preferably populated only by colourful but

I

John Donne, "Elegie: Going to Bed", in Helen Gardner (ed.), The Metaphysical mondsworth: Penguin, 1957), 51-2.

Poets (Har-

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widely scattered natives, Canada may be an attractive backdrop for novels of adventure or stories for children, but the traditional theatre builds on audience familiarity. And through the nineteenth century there were more available sources of the exotic in oriental or Central-European locations. As far as London was concerned, all Canada produced were beaver skins for Victorian top hats, and a set of heavily conventional chairs sent from Montreal for the Great Exhibition of 1851, although there were occasional Canadian Indians who made miserable appearances in the fairgrounds and colonial expositions. But geography cannot offer a complete reason for the absence of Canada from the stage, even in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries. At any rate, as soon as there was a real-life tragedy that could be attributed to the Canadian landscape, then indeed Canada became a hot topic for Victorian showmen - all over Europe, and indeed in the United States. This, naturally, was when disaster struck a famous and over-confident imperial explorer, Sir John Franklin, who disappeared (as well as his ship with its heavily symbolic name, HMS Resolute, and all his men) in an icy search for the fabled North-West Passage. Novels and epic or elegiac poems about this sad and mysterious episode abounded, starting with the romantic novelist, R.D. Blackmore of Lorna Doone fame, whose account of The Fate of Franklin appeared in 1860, the same year as Swinburne's poem "On the Death of Sir John Franklin", and was followed by two highly fantasized books from the heated French pen of Jules Verne. And of course the story became equally popular on the stage - though in a highly popularist and completely non-literary form. There are no plays, in fact nothing resembling a dramatic text: and this could be seen as emblematic of the theme itself: a disappearance which has left practically no theatrical traces. There is the occasional poster advertising a "grand illuminated history" of Franklin's fateful voyage (in England) or of the rescue expeditions that set out in search of the vanished Franklin (in America). Usually these were a series of moving panoramas - vast paintings unrolled in an endless strip across a proscenium opening - which have survived only in the form of the printed 'programmes', or 'keys' to the actual paintings. Alternatively they might be dioramas: static three-dimensional models o f ' s c e n e s ' featuring Franklin being faced by gigantic polar bears or the American explorer McClintock discovering the remains of some of Franklin's crew in 1859 - or magic lantern shows of the Resolute in the grip of the ice and the struggle to find land. These became all the rage of popular entertainment, and such technicolour shows filled assembly halls, and fairgrounds, and theatres all across Europe, as well as in America. But, of course, in a sense the focus here wasn't Canada at all. Rather, it is on Arctic exploration - the hubristic struggle of man versus nature in its most elemental form. And for the Victorians the Franklin disaster was a story set at sea, or rather (as in the title of one of Jules Verne's books) on A Field of Ice,

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floating on the ocean, somewhere off the still largely undefined coast of Canada - as indeed is shown by a highly emotive picture of the graves of three of Franklin's crew who died during the first winter of his expedition in 184546 (a painting on which one diorama was based): the only land is an unnamed strip of beach, with nothing to distinguish it except for the gravestones, barely emerging from the cliffs of ice under the faint, cold light of the moon. So, once again, as a country, Canada hardly featured - although more recently this historical tragedy has become a quintessential Canadian literary theme, with Franklin's fate being treated by stalwarts such as Farley Mowatt, Gwendolyn MacEwan, Mordecai Richler, and of course Rudy Wiebe. Right up to the last years of the nineteenth century, those purely visual entertainments were it - as far as appearances of Canada on the stage are concerned. Unfurling panoramas of a jagged white wilderness of icebergs and empty snowfields; dioramas showing ships in the crushing grip of the ice; magic lantern slides of the Great Man in a fur hat, or of the aurora borealis. Even where those staples of nineteenth-century theatre - military melodramas - were concerned, the war of 1812 paled against the horrors and heroism of Lucknow and the Indian Mutiny, while the Metis rebellion was a mere skirmish compared to Custer's Last Stand. And, as far as I have been able to discover, no one even staged the storming of Quebec by General Wolfe despite all the splendid opportunities offered to any barnstorming actor-manger for a pathetic death scene at the moment of victory. Still, at least that missed opportunity was to some extent put right at the very end of the Victorian era by the gala staging of The Seats of the Mighty, which at least closes with "the sound of bag-pipes [...] and British cheering" as Woolf s troops appear in the city.2 It might be objected that that is a work better known as a Canadian national classic and a novel (not a drama at all) - Gilbert Parker's historical romance, which is deeply revered by Canadian critics and educators. But The Seats of the Mighty is also a play, adapted—or perhaps a better word would be 'strip-mined' - from the original novel by Parker himself. And the theatrical script he produced was so far under the influence of the leading British actormanager of the time, Herbert Beerbohm Tree, that it is indistinguishable from any other European melodrama of the period. Chosen by Tree to open his magnificent new London theatre, Her Majesty's, the premiere of The Seats of the Mighty formed a highlight of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebrations. It could be counted as a European play. Set in New France (aka Quebec) on the eve of English conquest, the novel offers a detailed and fairly nuanced picture of social life in the Colony. By

2

Gilbert Parker and Herbert Beerbohm Tree, The Seats of the Mighty, ed. John Ripley (Toronto: Simon and Pierre, 1986), 118.

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contrast, well over one third of the play-version is taken up by a long added Prologue in Versailles, displaying the lavishness of Louis XV architecture, and the exquisite costumes of Madame de Pompadour as blatant spectacle. And when we reach New France, the Governor of the colony, together with all his aides and officers are shown as an extension of this corrupt and exploitative court, whose contempt for the common people (as well as morality or principles of any sort) makes them ripe for the coming Revolution and the guillotine. They have not only come from France (journeying across the Atlantic between Acts I and II) but bring all the hatreds and cruelty of the Ancien Regime to the New World - which justifies the British invasion with which the play ends. There isn't an Indian in sight in the play, while the only ordinary habitants are represented by a simple salt of the earth Sergeant, and a hapless shade of Figaro: a downtrodden barber intent on revenge for the fate of his fiancee, driven mad after being raped by the Governor on her wedding night. At least some sort of historical accuracy seems to have been attempted in the scenery, particularly the setting for Act II showing the houses of Quebec city over the walls of the Governor's palace in winter snow. Similarly the rustic dresses worn by the actresses playing women of New France were promoted as fashions by ladies' journals, just as much as the ball-gowns of the Versailles scene, for example with sketches of both appearing in the April 1897 number of The Lady. One reason I have not simply passed over this melodrama in charitable silence, is that it raises a basic question for this volume: what counts as a European versus a Canadian view of Canada? Gilbert Parker was indeed born in Ontario, but he left for Australia when just 27 years old, and then settled in London, where all his books—two or three indeed set in North America, but written for English readers—were published. Still he is enthusiastically claimed as a Canadian author. Those early years are clearly what count, and indeed as the narrator in a short story by another acclaimed Canadian writer (Brian Moore) remarks, "No other postmark can compete in authority with the place of one's birth."3 Yet Brian Moore, who is equally accepted as being Canadian, was born in Belfast; and it is actually his Irish 'postmark' that is being referred to. In fact Brian Moore only reached Canada at an older age than Gilbert Parker left for Australia. He became a Canadian citizen in 1953, at the age of 32, then lived much of the rest of his life in the US. Like him, a major proportion of the new 'Canadian' writers were born somewhere else, mirroring (of course) the general population. For every Margaret Atwood or Rudy Wiebe there is a Michael Ondaatje, a Rohinton Mistry and a Yann Martel (all names that my Anglo spell-check automatically marks

3

Brian Moore, "Preliminary Pages for a Work of Revenge", Midstream (Winter 1961), 58.

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as wrong). The point I want to make is not so much about the tendentiousness of a unique Canadian voice, in an increasingly multicultural society. It is rather the way so many images of Canada, even those accepted as being by Canadians themselves, have been filtered through a European, or more recently, increasingly an Asian or Indian background. So, when thinking of Brian Moore, does his relatively brief sojourn in Montreal disqualify him as a foreign eye looking on Canada from the outside? Several of his best known novels - such as Judith Hearne (1955) - are set in Ireland, and could be discussed as illustrating a Canadian's vision of Europe. But other books, particularly his book on Canada for the Time-Life Series (1963), which after all formed a quasi-official US image of the country, could be seen as a European's view of Canada, written mainly for people living elsewhere. Then too, his most typical theme has been the immigrant experience. So, in The Luck of Ginger Coffey, Moore projects his own experience in an Ontario construction camp, and then as a proofreader and reporter for the Montreal Gazette. His standard themes - the uncertain immigrant experience, and the dark weight of colonial history - are also the two major elements in the picture of Canada presented by European playwrights to their European audiences. We have already viewed Parker's sword-and-powdered-wig melodrama of Canada's French past - which is also, of course, an immigrant story - or rather (and the difference is of course crucial), an emigrant story, and marked as such by the long first Act set in France. And both of the only other European plays about Canada also start off with a first Act - or in one case the whole play set in Europe and deal with people leaving the 'old' country (whether France or England, precisely mirroring the 'two nations' concept of Canada) to start a new life on the other side of the Atlantic. The first of these - indeed, leaving aside the somewhat dubious example of Gilbert Parker, the one and only non-Canadian play to actually have scenes set in Canada itself - is Land of Promise by Somerset Maugham, performed in 1912. It was written as a result of spending a few weeks on a farm in the midwest during the winter, on his way to the Far East; and when he was asked to write a modern version of The Taming of the Shrew, it struck Maugham as a credible setting. All his other plays are set in England, and when characters arrive from distant parts of the British Empire they are morally upright outsiders. The picture Maugham generally gives in his plays is that 'the colonies' are a testing ground, where young wastrels are turned into blunt and manly specimens (like his 1910 play Smith, in which the hero has spent eight years farming successfully in Africa). On their return to England, they serve as a measure of the decadent society they now reject. However, in the case of Canada, this rosy picture of agricultural imperialism turns out to be considerably bleaker, since

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in this 'land of promise' the climate is shown as appalling and farming as almost impossible—the crops being frosted one year, smashed down by hail storms the next, and even when the corn ripens, it is condemned to be burnt due to 'yellow blight', an infestation of poisonous weeds with pretty mustardcoloured flowers. In such harsh conditions the English farmer-immigrant we meet has been ground down, abandoning any pretensions to culture, while his Canadian-born wife has had her horizons and humanity stunted by her culturally-deprived upbringing. And unlike Maugham's other plays where the colonials return to London, here the play starts in Europe (just like Seats of the Mighty, but in that bastion of middle-class England, Tunbridge Wells) and the characters are driven out, forced to emigrate to Canada. Norah is a lady's companion, well-bred but penniless, who has been shamefully exploited. When her elderly employer dies without leaving the legacy she had promised, Norah has no choice but to seek refuge with her brother, who has taken up farming in Manitoba. She had looked forward to touring Paris and Prague and Rome - the great cultural centres of Europe - instead she has no alternative but travelling to Canada. Along with her goes a young man from the neighbourhood: a car-salesman who has gambled away his family's fortune and been sent into exile by his father. And the "Land of Promise" they reach - a title carefully distinguished from the biblical 'promised land' is brutal indeed. During the short growing season, work in the fields begins at 5 a.m. and ends at sunset, when the characters collapse exhausted. Through the long winter a blizzard can turn a house into a prison for six solid weeks. The only bathroom is the frigid river, over a mile away. Art or any form of culture (as a European would understand it) is not only useless, but morally suspect. As the Hired Man, whom Norah marries just to get away from her brother's resentful wife, pointedly tells her: You thought yourself a darned sight better than me because you could play the piano and speak French. But we ain't got a piano, and there ain't anyone as speaks French nearer than Winnipeg [ . . . ] Parlour tricks ain't much good on the prairie.4

There are none of the 'dances and tennis parties' that Norah had been expecting from her knowledge of upper-class English country life. Books are a rarity and any sort of art a crude copy - as in the Manitoba farmhouse owned by the heroine's brother. Here, as the stage directions carefully specify, on the bare plank walls in cheap gilt frames are coloured supplements from the Christmas numbers of illustrated papers. Over one door is the head of a moose. [ . . . ] The floor is covered with shiny oilcloth. In the window are geraniums growing in maple syrup tins. [...]

4

Land of Promise, in Plays by W. Somerset Maugham (London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1931), II, 276. Further references to this edition will be included in the text (abbreviated as 'LP').

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There is a small bookshelf on which are a few tattered novels and some old magazines. (LP, 238-9) In other words, what Maugham is emphasizing is the absences: no plaster or wallpaper; no real paintings; no carpet; no flower vases even; and only the crumbling remnants of outdated pop literature. Although there is no surviving stage photo that actually shows it, that moosehead of course is the classic Canadian cliche; and those maple syrup cans doubling as flowerpots are instantly recognizable. The scene emphasizes the down-market crudity of the hard and basic existence in Canada - which Maugham's middle-class Edwardian English audience would have unerringly seen, and despised, as the lowest and most plebeian of working-class taste. And all this is presented extremely realistically. Indeed the play is filled with local colour: instead of a 'railway station', where the train stops is more accurately described as a 'depot'; the Hired Man's grimy overalls are held up by "braces [...] that announce they come from Eaton's, Winnipeg" (LP, 240). All the details ring true. The setting may be 1912, but I have been in small Northern Ontario wood frame and tarpaper farmhouses that are still practically identical a whole century later. And the heroine has to suffer even more basic surroundings when she marries the Hired Man in a despairing attempt to escape from her overbearing and uneducated sister-in-law - only to wind up in a oneroom log cabin, which was not intended to have any of the romantic connotations we attribute to contemporary cottages of this sort. It represents the most rudimentary lifestyle possible: not even cutout pages from magazines on the walls and no curtains on the windows - barely enough to provide shelter from the weather. The Land of Promise was highly successful - so much so that it was turned into a film: not once, but twice, not only by the Famous Players Company in 1917 (with Billie Burke as Norah and Frank Taylor as the Hired Man), but also by Paramount - under the title of The Canadian - in 1920. And even in these filmic renditions, where the plains landscape is shown in all its wide grandeur, in the life of the people presented the image of Canada remains deliberately unappealing. Even so, this hard life of arduous physical labour, always at the mercy of the elements, could also be seen as noble simplicity - particularly in comparison to the hypocrisy and genteel greed we have observed in the decorously civilized drawing-rooms of Tunbridge Wells in Act I. So when the opportunity to return to her former life in England is finally offered to her, Norah decides that despite the "dreary and monotonous" nature of her existence, she will stay in Canada after all - because, unlike the deadly superficiality back home, "it's all got a meaning. We, too, have our part in opening up the country. We are its mothers and the future is in us" (LP, 108).

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That, too, is the hope expressed in Charles Vildrac's Steamship Tenacity, produced by Jacques Copeau when he reopened his Paris theatre in 1920. Two young men - Bastien and Segard - demobilized from the French army, have found themselves unable to fit back into the old social structure after serving as ordinary soldiers through the horrors of the First World War. So they decide to "Go and live like free men in the open air! Go and colonize the new world!" 5 However, here that hope is revealed as all too delusory. In fact the pair have signed a ten-year contract to become farmers, with all the profits from their future harvests over the next ten summers going to pay off the costs of their transport from France and agricultural training. And, strikingly, their destination is exactly the same Province as Norah's and her brother's in Maugham's play of eight years before: Manitoba. For them, this is 'the farthest depths of Canada': in fact, completely way beyond the edge of the 'known' world. And their vision of this new land is deeply revealing. They describe it as being large as Europe, including Russia, and in all that space [it] hasn't as many inhabitants as Paris [ . . . ] a country where there's nothing but wheat as far as you can see. Or prairies with herds o f cattle guarded by men like Buffalo Bill. And you see lakes, too, lakes as large as France. (ST, 2 9 3 - 4 )

This image of an almost totally unpeopled wilderness, of spaces so vast as to be ungraspable, where apparent freedom is in fact a form of commercialized servitude, goes a long way to explaining the real paucity of plays about Canada. On the surface, this may sound like the language of travel brochures. But however attractive that might be to tourists, absence is intrinsically and essentially undramatic; and the impression is one of emptiness. A recurrent comment in Land of Promise is, "Women are scarce in Manitoba" (LP, 279 and passim), while here (characteristic of the sophistication of French culture over Maugham's rather more essentialist English association of civilization with sex) it is wine that is "rather a scarce article" (ST, 300) and "bonbons that aren't to be had in Canada" (ST, 299). And indeed, all too typically, Vildrac's play never leaves the dockside of the Normandy port where the steamship SS Tenacity is waiting to carry immigrants (along with a cargo of wire for fencing in the wilderness) across the Atlantic. A battered and rusty tramp steamer, SS Tenacity's boiler has burst; and while their ship is undergoing repairs, the two young men both fall for a barmaid who works in the hotel where they hang out waiting to embark. Bastien, who has been the moving force behind their emigration, seduces the girl, falls in love, and runs out on Segard to stay in France, while his compan-

5

Charles Vildrac, The Steamship Tenacity, trans. John Newberry, in Thomas Dickinson (ed.), Chief Contemporary Dramatists (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1930), 293. Further references to this edition will be included in the text (abbreviated as 'ST').

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ion - betrayed by both friend and girl - is so disillusioned and hurt that he plaintively determines to go anyway, all alone, and even though he hadn't really wanted to leave France at all. So, as the curtain falls he walks - sad and unhappily despondent - out towards the dock. This completely undercuts the hope of the beginning, which is expressed in rhetoric echoing (deliberately, I think) Maugham's empire-building: "Stay here and you'll always get the dirty end of the stick. [...] let's go where they can never lay hands on us again! Go and live like free men in the open air! Go and colonize the new world!" (ST, 293) In short - like Susanna Moodie's Roughing it in the Bush from the previous century - while, particularly in Maugham's case, using colonial life as a prism through which to critique the 'old' society of Europe, both these plays are intended as warnings for potential emigrants against the idealization of the Canadian landscape. And Segard's unwilling and despairing exit is a resounding denial that the colonies of Europe could ever offer a positive alternative to the civilization of Paris, or London, or Brussels. Canada may be a place of refuge - preferable perhaps to the corruption and rigid hierarchies of eighteenth-century Versailles, the hypocrisy and classattitudes of Edwardian Suburbiton, or the slaughter of the First World War trenches in France - , but it turns out to be a refuge of last resort. Even the vision of empire-building seems pallid, lacking any of the exoticism of Asia or the Indian Raj. And as it is a land of forced emigrants, expelled or exiled from the metropolitan centres, there are serious questions to be asked about the quality of the people who choose to make the crossing from Europe. These are not refugees - the huddled masses yearning to live free who flooded to the United States - but in many cases transported convicts, or what used to be called 'remittance men'. In The Seats of the Mighty the governor of New France and his henchmen not only carry across all the hatreds, and snobbery of Louis XV's court. If anything they are even more venal and vicious, being so far from central control. And very similar issues are raised by Maugham. What his Norah has to learn, is to give up her class prejudices; and as The Land of Promise indeed demonstrates in the figure of the young wastrel who accompanies her, Canada has become a "dumping ground for all the idlers, drunkards and scallywags in England" (LP, 244), who got a deserved reputation for being "lazy, worthless, and supercilious" (LP, 253). But the writer who put this anti-colonial, dregsof-empire view most powerfully was a German: the classic adventure-story writer, Karl May. Not indeed a dramatist - still, I'd like to end with him, because he demonstrates so well this aspect of my argument. Now, Karl May never set any of his stories in Canada, and although his touring took him briefly to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, when he and his wife traveled across the United States, that was in 1908 — long after his Indian

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frontier romances were written. Yet one of his earliest stories (even if the geography is supposedly American) focuses on a character named 'Canada Bill'. This is "Three Card Monte", the very first piece of his to appear in Deutscher Hausschatz in 1879, which May then expanded into a novella. Told by a German, an immigrant to the States, who has won the sobriquet of 'the Colorado Man', then (in the final chapter) by one of the former listeners, who is presented as a clone of Karl May himself, complete with cigar, this story presents "Canada Bill" as a representative of his country—one consistently contrasted with the heroized figure of the young Abraham Lincoln (who of course symbolizes the States). The tone may be somewhat tongue-in-cheek, not only in Karl May's insertion of himself into the story as one of its narrator-characters, but also in referring explicitly to its publication in the Deutscher Hausschatz, introducing the title figure like this: I am telling you, there has never been a greater scoundrel in these United States than Canada Bill. [ . . . ] He's so notorious that even in the old country across the ocean [in other words Germany] the newspapers write about him, so I am told. 6

Yet the portrait of the eponymous Canada Bill bears out this hyperbole. It is one of unrelieved and darkest villainy, who turns out to be exactly the sort of arch-criminal featured in the pulp press. This William Jones is a man of so many aliases - "he has had a hundred names and possibly forgotten the original one by now; his most notorious however, is Canada Bill" (CB, 102-103) - that he seems to stand for the whole Canadian population, is a boaster and a liar, a bully and a coward. He starts off life as a horse dealer (the nineteenth-century equivalent of a used-car salesman, and just as much a byword for dishonesty), then turns to gambling. By the time the story opens he has sunk to being a card sharp, who fleeces honest immigrant farmers of the money they have earned by the sweat of their good German brows, and he is repeatedly caught cheating by the Colorado Man. Foiled, Canada Bill takes up with a gang of bushwhackers, stealing all the possessions of the narrator's family and kidnapping the young man's beautiful and innocent fiancee in revenge, then cowardly ambushes his pursuers (who, just to underline the unrighteousness of this Canadian, include Abraham Lincoln), and not only kills the narrator's father but also deliberately shoots his fiancee dead. Not content with that, after making his escape into the wilderness, Canada Bill treacherously tries to betray an American army outpost to marauding Indians. This outrage is again foiled by the narrator and Lincoln, whom we next

6

Karl May, Canada Bill, trans. Fred Gardner (London: Neville Spearman, 1971). 9. Further references to this edition will be included in the text (abbreviated as 'CB').

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meet when, as a lawyer, he is on the trail of a forger and financial con-man. As one might expect, the criminal Lincoln is pursuing proves to be none other than Canada Bill yet again. This time he is caught, but escapes from arrest. In doing so he meanly (and without any sort of reason) sets fire to the barn of the farmer who has given him hospitality, then hooks up with savage Indians to get revenge on the US Army officers who have had him whipped for trying to cheat them too at cards. Finally, and at the height of his villainy, Canada Bill winds up as a fake doctor in the California gold rush. There, as well as trying to seduce an innocent young woman, then to cheat her into marrying him by attempting to murder her German flanc£, he has made a practice of killing off his patients - poisoning the sick miners brought to him for treatment - in order to steal their gold nuggets. This finally brings him to the attention of O l d Firehand', an early version of O l d Shatterhand' (the fictional hero Karl May most closely identified with). When Canada Bill tries to shoot his way out, an uppercut from O l d Firehand's' fist not only knocks him flat, but apparently "concussed his brain so badly that he never regained his senses." And before Canada Bill can be hanged, he dies miserably in the local jail, "writhing and foaming" in a straitjacket (CB, 105). Such a figure is far indeed from the liberal, internationalist, multicultural, consensus-building self-image promoted by contemporary Canadians! Yet Karl May's villain is actually little more than an exaggeration of the point Maugham also makes about exporting wastrels and criminals to Canada. It reflects a very standard view - even if perhaps in somewhat melodramatic terms. Damning indeed! But also in fact something difficult to dramatize successfully. One of the reasons Gilbert Parker's play has only been restaged a single time after its 1897 opening is that the main character is the villain. But while evil may be theatrically interesting, it is also unpleasant. And it is doubtless for just this reason that Karl May discards the villainous Canada Bill for the heroic 'Old Shatterhand' and the 'Noble Savage' Winnetou, both of whom are American and both of whom proved far more popular with his German readers. So with Canada being conceived as empty wilderness, where the most exotic object is a stuffed moose head stuck on the wall, and a population of deeply suspect or plaintive immigrants, perhaps it is hardly surprising after all to find so very few plays that even mention the place. And seen (wrongly of course) as both a geographical and moral void, Canada remains a blank space on the stage map of Europe, as well as generally in European novels. Even Karl May's Canada Bill doesn't operate in Canada. Notably, when the third story in this novella is set in "the high plain which extends from Yankton on the Missouri to the right of the river and then falls steeply down towards the area of the Hudson Bay" - which must actually be part of Canada - this is rep-

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resented as being bang in the middle of the United States. Even so, strikingly it is still characterized in terms typical of the specifically Canadian mythical landscape (even with a Quebecois French designation) as "those dark and steep bluffs and gullies where Indians, bears and lynxes are on their own and where it is impossible to hunt anything except some miserable skunk or a polecat that doesn't bring anything in [...] Up there, on the wild Coteau" (CB, 55-6). Indeed, this picture of a geographical blank remains strikingly consistent, even in the middle of the Second World War where Canadian regiments were distinguishing themselves in the fighting. The filmmaker Gabriel Pascal, who was planning to make a movie of Shaw's comedy, Arms and the Man, suggested translating the action to Canada to help popularize an ally, albeit having to set the play back in the war of 1812 against the Americans to find any equivalent Canadian context. And Shaw's response, in a letter of 1941, indicates a further reason why European dramatists so completely ignored Canada: I find that the suggestion of changing the location of Arms and the Man from Bulgaria to Canada will not bear examination. The British population of Canada is only 5 millions. A population of the British isles plus the U.S.A. is about 200 millions. Not one of those 200 millions think a Canadian soldier in the least interesting. [.].. I cannot think of any change that would not be for the worse. The Canadians must be content with your Donald Duck film, if you find it practicable [,..]7

The fact that there are even fewer inhabitants of Bulgaria, is irrelevant; as a trouble spot, the Balkans have a higher cachet than Canada, and being on the borders of the orient remain more attractive to the dramatic imagination. True, there is the heroic icon of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police: the 'Mountie' with his scarlet coat and boy-scout hat. Yet even this image was never picked up by the theatre. Although founded as a police force for the North West Territories in 1873, it was only during the Klondike gold rush of the late 1890s that the Mounties began to attract an international reputation by which time the age of melodrama on the European stage was almost completely over. Of course, while ignored by literary drama, the Mounties do show up in a string of early Hollywood movies in the 1930s: Steel of the Mounties·, Susannah of the Mounties', Canadian Mounties Vs. Atomic Invaders, and so on. These had standardized plots and scenery: American criminal crosses the border to hide in the wilds of Canada - shots of untamed woods stretching endlessly to the horizon - and is tracked down by the Mountie (who 'always gets his man' and brings the criminal back to face trial in the States) with predictable cliff-hangers where the Mountie is trapped by brush fire while the gangsters escape, or the criminal leads the Mountie into a deadly encounter with Indians, with a mad Frenchman, with a moose, etc. The image of incompe-

7

"22 July 1941". in Bernard Dukore (ed.), Selected Correspondence of Bernard Shaw: Bernard Shaw and Gabriel Pascal (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 130-31.

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tence - which reaches its apogee in the Disney film of Rocky and Bullwinkle with the square jawed Dudley Do-Right, who always somehow manages to get his man through bumbling, and whose only close companion is his horse (named 'Horse') - is of course a thinly disguised attack on imperialism. And this may suggest yet a further reason why so little dramatic attention has been paid to Canada. Founded as a Dominion, it took over a century, and the repatriation of the constitution, to shed its colonial status, in which Canada was perceived as a pale reflection of Britain. However, independence has brought no improvement; indeed since then there has been an even more damaging effect on the Canadian image. With the number of Hollywood movies of all sorts shot in Canada over the last decade to take advantage of cheaper costs, the streets and buildings of Toronto or Vancouver have come to double for New York, or Seattle, or London, with one Rosedale park recurring so frequently as Central Park that there is a fake NYPD car parked almost permanently on the nearby road. As a result, Canada has become cinematically fragmented into a postmodern collage that drains its physical reality of authenticity. And as a symptom of this, the most recent Mountie story - a current TV series titled Due South - is not even set in Canada: it features a Mountie who lives in Chicago. Even national icons have become displaced. Canada has become a splintered refraction of elsewhere. So, in the earlier part of the nineteenth century, the image of Canada for Europeans was probably the bleak Arctic ice of Franklin's disastrous expedition - or, at best, might have been represented by Susanna Moodie's classically Canadian collection of vignettes, Roughing it in the Bush: or, A Life in Canada, which was actually written for a British readership and published in London in 1852. The simple existence she depicted must have seemed an extreme contrast to riches of culture and manufacture displayed in the gigantic Crystal Palace at the Great Exhibition, which had opened just a few months earlier. And this is very much the contrast still being portrayed by Maugham and indeed Vildrac over half a century later. There was just one point at which it seemed Canada might actually make it over the threshold of literature; but at the cost of being presented as exaggerated epitomes of evil, and reduced to melodramatic cliche - both by an author who knew the country well (Gilbert Parker) as well as by one who had no knowledge of the place at all (Karl May). But that sort of moral absolutism went rapidly out of literary fashion, with Seats of the Mighty being practically the last gasp of melodrama on the London stage; and when the image of the red-coated Canadian Mountie appeared it was relegated to the B-Movie cinema. More recent drama would seem to be following Shaw's lead, which has been compounded by the way modern cinema has reduced Canada to a fragmented image of displacement. It is surely a literary fate even worse than being a cliche to become seen as boring, or indeed nonexistent!

JAMES Μ . SKIDMORE

University of Waterloo

Cultural Reductionism and the Reception of Canadian Literature in Germany

National cultures develop, for better but usually for worse, a public image that reduces a complex social grouping to one or two traits. Consider the cover illustration in Die Zeit from 17 July 2003: although meant to be ironic, its depiction of the beret-wearing Frenchman carrying his four baguettes, the bowler-toting Englishman carrying his three umbrellas, the Lederhosen-andsandals-with-socks-clad German carrying his beach towel reinforces the notion that, when discussing something as multifaceted as a national culture, we permit the use of shorthand, which often leads to painful cultural reductionism. The comments of Italian politicians in June and July 2003 reminded us that, for many people, Germans are ultranationalists or, more crudely put, barely reconstructed Nazis. Iconic images of Canada exist in the popular imagination as well, as some of the papers in this volume show, although these tend to have more to do with Canada's geography than its people. One trait that Canadians seem to share, at least in popular mythology, is the excitement at recognizing compatriots and things Canadian while abroad. In September 2001 I attended the Anton Corbijn exhibit at the Munich Stadtmuseum. Corbijn is famous for his photographs of music and film industry celebrities from around the world. After touring the exhibit I stopped to read some of the comments that had been collected in the guest book. One statement stood out. It was written by a couple from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, which is also my hometown; in fact, I noticed their address first, and that made me take special interest in their remarks. They liked the exhibit, which they summed up as follows: "We took great pride in seeing the Canadians." There were not all that many Canadians pictured: Bryan Adams, Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, and Joni Mitchell are the only ones I can recall. But this comment - "[w]e took great pride in seeing the Canadians" - struck me as being an excellent summary of the stereotype of insecure Canadians abroad: thinking their country to be ignored outside its borders, Canadians on foreign trips take pride in any sign or mention of their country, be it the red maple leaf sewn onto

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backpacks or posters announcing the latest slide show about travel in the Canadian wilderness. And so it is with sightings of Canadian literature in a foreign context. It is not so long ago that, when speaking of Canadian literature in Germany, one had to explain that the topic was even worth mentioning, that Canadian literature was in fact present in Germany. This is no longer the case today, and most scholars, writers, publishers, and others interested in Canadian-German cultural relations would agree that the presence of Canadian culture, especially literary culture, has grown in Germany in the final two decades of the last century. In the Canadian media landscape this development has become a source of pride. It is often claimed that contemporary Canadian fiction has found a niche in the German literary scene, and Canadian media outlets such as The Globe and Mail or the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation will devote time and resources to covering this phenomenon. Attempts to account for this increased German interest in Canadian literature often remain within the realm of subjective opinion. Germans have, the argument goes, either recognized the quality of contemporary Canadian fiction, or they have found in it themes that speak to them in new, exciting ways. These explanations are dissatisfying if only because they are so difficult, if not impossible, to prove. Contrary to proverbial opinion one can account for taste, but one cannot prove that taste alone explains the popularity of a cultural product. Or even that that product is popular in the first place. It has become time, therefore, to take stock of the presence and reception of Canadian literature in Germany. This article does so by investigating the following questions: Is Canadian literature truly enjoying increased visibility in Germany? If so, what explains this popularity, this increased commercial reception, at this point in time? Furthermore, how has Canadian literature been received in Germany intellectually (as opposed to commercially)? Is there a history to this reception? And is the current reception of Canadian literature rooted in any intercultural preconceptions? For the purposes of this inquiry, I will be limiting myself mainly to Canadian literature written in English.

The Growth in Canadian Literature in Germany Today: Role of the Market Canadian literature has always been available in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France to a much greater extent than in Germany. The simplest explanation for this are the common languages shared by these countries. In addition, many Canadian publishers have had close links with American and British publishers, either through ownership or licensing agreements, and so it has been easier for Canadian literature to find a place in the programmes of

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some foreign imprints. This does not mean, however, that Canadian literature has enjoyed widespread popularity in English or French-speaking countries; it merely means that the literature was to some extent available for interested readers. In Germany this has not been the case. Even though examples of Canadian literature have always been available on the German market, it has not enjoyed much 'presence' within that market until recently. Astrid Holzamer, cultural attache for literature and music at the Canadian Embassy in Germany, has compiled a list of Canadian titles translated into German. 1 When she began the list in the late 1970s it had about 200 titles, and the website states that over 300 titles have been translated since 1992, although I would estimate that number to be much greater. Holzamer's list is by no means complete, but it verifies that there has been an increase in German translations of Canadian literature. What is remarkable about this development is that the German book market has shrunk marginally during this period. Statistics gathered by the Börsenverein des deutschen Buchhandels indicate that total title production in the category Belletristik for 1990 was 8,946 titles; in 2000 it had decreased to 7,534 titles. During that same period the number of translations from English on the market had decreased from 2,617 to 2,058. 2 There are numerous factors at play here. Changes in ownership of publishers and imprints, in Germany and globally, coupled with transformations in the merchandising end of the industry (especially in North America), have transformed the production and distribution of books. More accurate data that would provide numbers of new Canadian books appearing in German each year is unfortunately not tracked by any institution or sales body, and so to collect such data would require a manual search of the Verzeichnis lieferbarer Bücher every year - a time-consuming task that would still be riddled with errors. Despite the lack of exact data, we can nevertheless surmise that the number of Canadian titles appearing in Germany has risen in the past few years, and that the proportion of Canadian titles is also greater, thanks in part to a general decrease in the production of Belletristik during the same time period. But to what can we attribute this growth of interest in Canadian literature? Four arguments can be advanced: more assertive marketing; more contacts between Germany and Canada; the quality of contemporary Canadian fiction; a shared affinity between Canadian and German literary culture. The first two ideas lie within the realm of literature as a commercial product, and will be

1

2

"Kanadische Autoren in deutscher Übersetzung", Astrid Η. Holzamer (ed.), Berlin: Botschaft von Kanada in Deutschland, 15 July 2003 . Börsenblatt 55 (10 July 2001).

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considered presently; the other two lead into reception aesthetics and will be dealt with in the next sub-section of this essay. First of all, one must recognize the work of some specific people in Germany who have been influential in bringing Canadian literature to the German market. The first person is the aforementioned Astrid Holzamer at the Canadian Embassy in Berlin. A former Feuilleton writer with the Bonner Allgemeiner Anzeiger, Holzamer joined the Canadian Embassy in 1975 and views the introduction of Canadian literature to Germany as one of her top priorities. She regularly attends the Frankfurter Buchmesse, arranges for the Canadian government to finance reading tours by Canadian authors in Germany, and produces publications such as CanadART and Kanadische Verlage und Autoren in Deutschland. Without this assistance, German publishers could not afford to bring Canadian authors to Germany, and the exposure that authors and their work get through these tours would be lost. That assistance, moreover, has grown in recent years: the budget for cultural affairs at the Canadian Embassy, which was $40,000 in 1999, was increased to $175,000 in 20002001.3 This four-fold increase still pales in comparison with France's 2000 budget of DM 12,000,000 for cultural promotion in Germany, but it is a significant change in cultural affairs policy. As Holzamer has made clear in an article on her promotional activities among German publishers, it was her contact with Arnulf Conradi, then of Claasen Verlag and now director of Berlin Verlag, that brought a breakthrough in the late 1970s.4 Conradi had, by chance, read Margaret Atwood's Surfacing, bought the German rights for it, and arranged for Atwood to come to the Frankfurter Buchmesse in 1979 to launch the German edition. Holzamer and the Canadian Embassy assisted Conradi with this endeavour, and this provided a precedent for the willingness of the Canadian government to assist German publishers in bringing Canadian writers to the market (e.g. by arranging the reading tours or financing the translations). Conradi is not the only German publisher to champion Canadian writers in this fashion. According to Albrecht Kloepfer, Michael Klett and his editor Ulrike Killer have been instrumental in Alice Munro's German success; Barbara Gowdy's work has been heavily promoted by her publisher Antje Kunstmann; Michael Ondaatje is a good friend of his publisher, Michael Krüger of Hanser

3 4

Naomi Buck, "Canadian culture gets boost in Berlin", The Globe and Mail (22 March 2000), R5. Astrid Η. Holzamer, "Zur Rezeption kanadischer Literature in Deutschland: Vom garstigen Haarball zum süßen Zimtschäler", in Martin Kuester, Andrea WoofF (eds), Reflections of Canada: The Reception of Canadian Literature in Germany (Marburg: Universitätsbibliothek Marburg, 2000), 10-26.

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Verlag. 5 The involvement of these influential publishers, and their good relations with the Canadian Embassy, seems to have been an element in whatever success these Canadian writers have had in Germany. Other people and events have also played a role in the phenomenon of Canadian literature in Germany. Consider the more aggressive marketing of Canadian authors in recent years. An article in The Globe and Mail from 1999 described the increased activity with which literary agents were going about their business in Canada. 6 It appears that this was caused by the arrival in Toronto of a new literary agent from England, Anne McDermid, who has been very forceful in signing authors to her agency, so much so that other agents feel she has been poaching on their territory. But not only has she been successful in landing authors, she has also, in her mind, been better than other literary agents in getting good deals for her authors. Again, this is an assertion that cannot be substantiated very easily. But it is worth noting that McDermid is known for representing authors who have received lucrative advances, most notably Andrew Pyper, the writer of Lost Girls. The more active marketing of authors is not just a Canadian phenomenon, however. With the globalization of the media industries in the 1990s and the inflation in the royalties paid to high-profile authors, there is general agreement that there are more opportunities for some authors in the marketplace. Stephen Smith, a Canadian freelance writer and author, has noted in the same Globe and Mail article mentioned above that one or two publishers no longer dominate the Canadian fiction market, and that authors have more freedom to shop for deals. This has even extended to the foreign rights market. Canadian literature is not enjoying more exposure in Germany alone, but also in Scandinavia, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, South Korea, and elsewhere. Agents such as McDermid, who have long-standing international connections, are well-placed to take advantage of these developments. There are other possible, and less tangible, reasons for the increased availability in Canadian literature in Germany. Canada has always had strong ties to Germany in the area of immigration. The last major wave was after the Second World War when a number of young Germans emigrated to Canada. More recently, Canada has emerged as a tourist attraction for Germans, and educational contact between the two countries has increased. Conferences such as the twinned 'Refractions' conferences from which this volume of essays has originated testify to increased cultural contacts as do the number of German universities offering Canadian Studies programmes with attendant exchanges,

5

6

Albrecht Kloepfer, "Wenig Wald in Kanada: Kanadische Literatur in Deutschland entspricht nicht den landläufigen Klischees", Deutschland (March-April 2001). Rpt. at . Cecily Ross, "Agent Anne", The Globe and Mail (5 June 1999), Dl.

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conferences, and writers-in-residence. Many Germans also study for a time in Canada. Some Germans, therefore, have first-hand experience of Canada. But this first-hand experience is not limited to Canada alone, as Germans have become visitors to and students of many parts of the world.

The Growth in Canadian Literature in Germany Today: Reception Theories When literary scholars speak of reception, they wade into dangerous and murky waters. It is simply quite difficult to measure the impact of a novel, an author or a (national) literature. Reception discussions are tricky affairs made none the easier since Wolfgang Iser and Hans Robert Jauss of the Constance School of Reception Aesthetics complicated matters with notions of an implied reader. While a focusing on the historically-determined variations of individual readers or readings can yield rich results, other approaches also have merit. In order to understand a literary work's place within a social context, practical matters such as book sales, marketing techniques, translation, and the influence of news media on opinion formation can be especially useful in understanding a work's 'macro'-reception, that is, its place within a larger literary market. Seldom do literary scholars reflect on the publishing and media industries, and yet attaining a full picture of contemporary literature without understanding how publishing has developed as an industry seems unlikely. Such research is fraught with danger: sales do not necessarily mean the novel has been read; media reviews can be faulty; both measures can be open to manipulation by publishing houses; relying on media for information, while sometimes unavoidable, can be problematic, as media outlets and journalists are often pursuing their own agendas. And, on top of all that, one must always be careful about drawing general conclusions from isolated instances. In order to avoid these traps, and to provide a more well-rounded picture of Canadian literature in Germany, it is necessary to advance reception arguments in addition to the market arguments described in the previous section of this essay. One reception explanation used to explain the increased popularity of Canadian literature in Germany is the quality argument, formulated for example by Arnulf Conradi, a major figure in German publishing for the past two decades. In addition to championing Margaret Atwood, Conradi has been the German publisher of other Canadian authors, notably Anne Michaels and Jane Urquhart. Conradi is on record as saying that Canadian literature, especially litera-

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ture written by women, is the best writing available today. 7 One may or may not wish to express scepticism at such a remark, but it does indicate his dedication to his writers. And, as he tells the stories of how he acquired the rights to the books by Atwood, Michaels, and Urquhart, one realizes that he has done so not solely for marketing purposes, but out of a genuine appreciation for their writing, and his conviction that the quality of this writing will be recognized by the German reading public. Another type of reception analysis produces what I call the affinity argument. This explanation tends to be advanced by scholars and cultural commentators who postulate socio-cultural explanations for German interest in Canadian literature. As part of a special programme on Canadian literature, the CBC Radio One news programme The Current introduced a segment entitled "Canadian Literature International" with the following statement: "Apparently our fiction does a brisk business in German book stores, and we wanted to find out why." 8 Martin Kuester of Philipps-Universität Marburg stated on the programme that Germans are fascinated by Canada because it is able to exist next door to the United States yet still maintain a distinct identity. Moreover, Kuester argued that Canada's relative success in incorporating multiculturalism into mainstream society makes Canada an especially useful role model for Germany. Russell Smith, who in 2000 attended twin conferences organized by the Toronto Goethe-Institut and Philipps-Universität Marburg in spring and summer 2000, wrote an article in The Globe and Mail in which he echoed these theories. 9 He referred to Conradi and me, who had both discussed the search for identity as a common element of both literatures. He also cited Barbara Gowdy, who "thought Canada might be an interesting culture to Germans because our mentality is not warlike and threatening, as theirs has so obviously been. [...] Germans don't want to know about proud and strong cultures right now. Perhaps Germans want to be quiet, gentle, tolerant, multicultural and unassuming. Like us."

A Selective History of the Reception of Canadian Literature in Germany The quality and affinity explanations may be much harder to substantiate than the market arguments, but they are useful in filling out the spectrum of pos-

7 8 9

Arnulf Conradi, "Canadian Literature in Germany", in Kuester, Wooff (eds.), Reflections of Canada, 27-35. The Current, CBC Radio One, 4 August 2003. . Russell Smith, "What do the Germans see in our literature? It has nothing to do with the great white north", The Globe and Mail (3 June 2000), R5.

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sible reasons for Canadian literature's resonance in German society. What is most remarkable about the affinity arguments put forward by Smith and Kuester is that they do not resort to clichis about Canadian nature and wilderness (although one could argue that new cliches about Canadian identity are being formed). This is all the more noteworthy when one looks at the history of the reception of Canadian literature in German translation. The fascination with Canada's landscape has been one of the recurring features of the German response to Canadian literature. Canada as land has been present in the German book market since before Canada - or Germany - became nation-states. Canadian-based travel and exploration literature of the 1800s found an eager readership in Germany. A famous example is Sir John Franklin's accounts of his travels in northern Canada in the 1820s, which were translated quickly into German. Although Franklin was an Englishman who spent only a few years in Canada, his life and work have become part of Canadian cultural heritage. His mysterious disappearance during the 1845 voyage to discover the Northwest Passage - Franklin and his 128 crew members were never seen again - quickly became an international media story. Margaret Atwood, in her lectures on the North and its role in Canadian literature that she held at Oxford in the early 1990s, stated that the myth of Franklin "established early that the North was uncanny, awe-inspiring in an almost religious way, hostile to white men, but alluring; that it [the North] would lead you on and lead you in; that it would drive you crazy, and, finally, would claim you for its own."10 Nature does not always win the battle - a number of novels and stories exist that have different outcomes - but there is no doubt that the Canadian environment is associated with danger, mystery, and suspense. Franklin is the most poignant example of this, but others exist as well, for example Catherine Parr Traill's memoir The Backwoods of Canada, which appeared in 1837 in Germany as In den Urwäldern Kanadas. Canadian novels written between Confederation in 1867 and the end of the Second World War rarely made it into German translation. Those that did were about taming the land through settlement and farming - not surprising, as this was a dominant theme of nascent Canadian literature. Consider the publication of Martha Ostenso's 1925 novel Wild Geese with Rikola Verlag, Vienna, in 1926 and shortly thereafter with a Berlin publisher. This is the novel of Caleb Gare, a strong, bitter man whose sovereignty over the land practically enslaves his family. Fate finally intervenes when Gare is killed by a prairie fire that burns up the only thing that gave his life meaning: the crops on his land.

10 Margaret Atwood, Strange Things: The Malevolent North in Canadian Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 19.

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Ostenso's book is of interest because there exists a review of it by Axel Eggebrecht, one of the most prolific reviewers with the influential journal Die literarische Welt. Eggebrecht was quite taken with Ostenso's first novel: "Ich kann den Eindruck dieses Buches nicht mit sachter Rhetorik fesseln und vorfuhren. Ich finde es fast ohne Vergleich, eine der ganz großen, wesentlichen Gestaltungen unserer Zeit." 11 [ Ί cannot express the impression this book has made on me with sober rhetoric. I find it almost without rival, one of the great, important edifices of our time.'] Eggebrecht finds that Ostenso's honesty is what lends her book greatness. This honesty is the desire on Ostenso's part to bring together - with a clash, it must be added - the opposing worlds of the country and the city. Eggebrecht revels in how Ostenso combines American naivete with Norwegian remoteness (he sees her in the tradition of Knut Hamsun). But most of all, Eggebrecht likes Wild Geese because it is a novel of the land; in Berlin, in 1926, too many people have forgotten that, without farming, they would have nothing to eat: "Frage ein Stadtkind [...], was es fur den lebenspendenden Keim, für die Urzelle der großen Zivilisation ringsum hält: Es wird die Maschine, die Elektrizität, das Öl, nie und nimmer aber die Brotfrucht anzugeben wissen." ['Ask a child of the city [...] what he believes to be the lifegiving seed, the initial germ of great civilization, and he will mention machines, electricity, oil, but never, ever the breadfruit.'] Although Eggebrecht's odd analogy of the Asian breadfruit tree seems out of place in a discussion about a novel set in Manitoba, his review argues that the story provided a timely antidote to the modernism that has become inextricably associated with Weimar Germany and the Berlin of the 1920s. Ostenso's novel was not the only Canadian novel of this type to be translated into German at the time. Philippe Panneton's (also known as Ringuet) Trente arpents from 1938 appeared as Dreißig Morgen Land in 1940. It, too, is a story of people who work the land, but from a Quebecois perspective that combines the rigours of farm life with the questions of maintaining a Quebecois identity. After the war other lesser known Canadian writers, such as Allen Roy Evans, saw their novels of farm life appear in Germany, although it took many years for Frederick Philip Grove's western Canadian masterpieces to appear in Germany. The irony here, of course, is that Grove, who had given people to believe that he was an immigrant from Sweden, was actually Felix Paul Greve, a German author and translator who had faked his suicide in 1909 to escape outstanding debts.

11 Axel Eggebrecht, "Martha Ostenso: Der Ruf der Wildgänse", Die literarische Welt (20 August 1926), 5.

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Canadian Literature in Germany: Case Studies of Recent Reception Not every Canadian writer whose work has made it into German translation is identified, or advertised, as a Canadian writer. Margaret Atwood's presence in the German market is a case in point. Atwood has become one of a select group of writers who seem to belong to an international, as opposed to a national, literary market. Her latest novel, Oryx and Crake, was published almost simultaneously in Canada (McClelland and Stewart) and Germany (Berlin Verlag) in 2003. Some of the advertising for the book went to some length to downplay her Canadian identity. For example in BuchSzene, a magazine distributed free of charge at book stores in Germany, an article about Margaret Atwood identified her consistently as North American (as in "North America's moral voice").12 The press reviews of Oryx und Crake also pay little attention to her country of origin. At other times Atwood's Canadian heritage has been prominent in the German reception of her work. With the appearance of The Blind Assassin in 2000 (again with Berlin Verlag with the title Der blinde Mörder), one can detect more interest in the 'Canadian angle'. For example, when the ARD television programme Bücherjournal portrayed the book complete with a dramatized vignette, mention of Atwood as a Canadian writer of international reputation and of the book as a Canadian family chronicle were made, and Atwood herself, in the interview on the programme, discussed the importance of Canadian history in the story.13 But perhaps it is not surprising that this would be so for The Blind Assassin and not Oryx and Crake as the latter is so firmly set in a fantasy world that has little to do with the historical Canada that plays such a prominent role in The Blind Assassin. Two other examples of Canadian literature where Canadianness plays a role in the reception of the German translation appeared in 2001: Alistair MacLeod's No Great Mischief (appearing in S. Fischer Verlag as Land der Bäume, i.e. 'Land of Trees'), a saga about a Scottish immigrant family set in Cape Breton and Ontario, and Rudy Wiebe's A Discovery of Strangers (published by Eichbom Verlag as Land jenseits der Stimmen, i.e. 'Land beyond Voices'), a retelling of the Franklin overland expedition of 1819-1822. The cynics among us might be tempted to say that in the 200 years since the first Canadian travel narratives appeared on the German book market, Germans are

12 Anon.. "Margaret Atwood: ein Portät", BuchSzene 2 (2003), 6-7. The article even states that Atwood won the 2000 Man Booker Prize, the "American literature Oscar." Only citizens of the Commonwealth and the Republic of Ireland are eligible for the Booker. 13 Bücherjournal, ARD, 12 December 2000. My thanks to Gordon Bölling for drawing my attention to this television show and for providing me with a videotape of it.

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still only interested in Canada as a place for exploration and emigration. That is an oversimplification of matters, but the appearance and marketing of these two novels is nevertheless striking. Common wisdom dictates that title and jacket appearance are two of the essential tools for marketing a novel (the others being good word of mouth and good reviews). That these novels both use Land in their titles is worth noting. Certainly it is the case that Wiebe's novel has a great deal to do with the landscape in which it is set. The translator, Joachim Utz, stated at the Rudy Wiebe reading held in September, 2001 at the Canadian Consulate in Munich that they wished to avoid a title that would be too similar to Sten Nadolny's Franklin novel Die Entdeckung der Langsamkeit (' The Discovery of Slowness'). The German title comes from an epilogue in the book, but I was surprised that a title was chosen that is very similar to the MacLeod German translation (which had appeared before the Wiebe translation). Wiebe's treatment of land and landscape is a key element of his novel, however. The first line of Wiebe's book reads: "This land is so long",14 a statement that is jarring in English because land is usually considered 'broad' or 'wide'. But if you read the book you realize that this concept of land as long is related to the concepts of language and perspective employed by the aboriginal peoples.15 The German translation of this sentence - "Dieses Land ist so weit" ['This land is so wide/far'] - doesn't capture this, unfortunately; Dr. Utz told me at the reading in Munich that it would be difficult for a German reading public to make sense of the closer translation "Dieses Land ist so lang." The decision to turn MacLeod's book No Great Mischief into Land der Bäume is harder to understand. Kein großes Unglück could have been used as the title, but the publisher explained to MacLeod that "it was an unwritten rule that negatives never appear in titles."16 Though examples from German literature exist that break this rule (Christa Wolf, Kein Ort. Nirgends; Botho Strauß, Niemand anders-, Rolf Dieter Brinkmann, Keiner weiß mehr), Brian Bethune's comment that the decision to put trees in the title "would reduce a [Canadian] publisher's marketing department to tears"17 is certainly apt. The publisher's fears of negatives notwithstanding, the German title is indicative of an entirely different marketing strategy. To illustrate this point it is useful to compare the book jackets of the Canadian and German editions. On the Canadian jacket cover one reads: "This is a story of families, and of the ties that bind us to them. It is also a story of exile and of the ties that bind us, gen-

14 Rudy Wiebe, A Discovery of Strangers (Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 1994), 1. 15 For more on this see James M. Skidmore, "The Discovery of Franklin: A Comparative Literary Exploration", Ahornblätter 14 (2001), 2943. 16 Brian Bethune, "Voices from far away", Maclean's (16 June 2003), 89. 17 Bethune, "Voices from far away", 89.

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erations later, to the land from which our ancestors came." S. Fischer Verlag describes the novel differently: "Land der Bäume ist der Roman einer Landschaft: des rauen Kap Breton an der kanadischen Atlantikküste. In dieser kargen Wildnis leben Menschen - sie werden Leuchtturmwärter, Minenarbeiter am Rand des Polarkreises oder ziehen mit ein wenig Glück in die Stadt. Doch fiir sie alle bleibt das Kap das wahre Zuhause." ['Land of Trees is about landscape: the rough Cape Breton of Canada's Atlantic coast. This bare wilderness is inhabited by people who become lighthousekeepers, miners in the North, or who try their luck in the city. But for all of them the Cape is their true home.'] Though it may be difficult to imagine how a "karge Wildnis" can also be a Land der Bäume, one notices the emphasis on Canadian land in the S. Fischer version is far stronger than in the original. This is not to say that land and landscape are not aspects of the novel. The cover of the Canadian original provides a photo of the fog-shrouded coast of Scotland - not Canada, it should be noted - that is both forbidding and mysterious. But the Canadian jacket focuses on the narrative; in the German instance, land and not the family saga is the centre of attention. The change in emphasis does the original title a disservice: No Great Mischief refers to a letter by General Wolfe where he states that if Scottish soldiers die it will cause no great mischief, that it will be no great loss. For the MacDonald family this statement takes on existential weight by becoming a commentary on the worth of their own existence. Wiebe's book, it should be pointed out, appeared in Germany due in part to its translator's efforts in securing a German publisher. No Great Mischief came to Germany via a different route, namely as the object of a small bidding war at the 2000 Frankfurter Buchmesse after receiving the prestigious IMP AC prize in 2000. S. Fischer Verlag had thus invested heavily in this book, and the publisher supported its investment with a marketing campaign that secured reviews in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Zeit, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, and the television book show Literarisches Quartett. The print reviews concentrate on narrative. Dorothea Dieckmann, writing in Die Zeit, compares MacLeod's book to Gottfried Keller's Die Leute von Seldwyla, yet defends it against the charge of nostalgic kitsch by praising its tone and its analysis of how family history can inform contemporary identity.18 Kristina Maidt-Zinke, on the other hand, wrote a far less favourable review in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, faulting the book as a collection of anecdotes peopled by one-sided, colourless characters.19 She notes as well the change in title, although without commenting on it. What was unusual about these two reviews, as Dirk Knipphals pointed out in taz, die tageszeitung, was

18 Dorothea Dieckmann, "Wo Hunde noch Autos anbellen", Die Zeit (21 June 2001). 44. 19 Kristina Maidt-Zinke. "Brandy aus der Plastiktasche", Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung June 2001), 42.

(21

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that they both appeared on the same day, 21 June 2001. 20 Not uncommon when a book is first launched, but MacLeod's book had been on the market since March. The reason, Knipphals suggested, was that the newspapers did not want their reviews to be overshadowed by the book's appearance in Literarisches Quartett scheduled for the next day, 22 June 2001. 21 S. Fischer Verlag would probably have been happier if the panelists of the programme Literarisches Quartett had read the glowing Klappentext more carefully than the book itself, despite the problematic reference to land. This book show was the German equivalent of the American Oprah's Book Club·, books positively reviewed could expect an increase in sales. The show's host, Marcel Reich-Ranicki, has earned the nickname Literaturpapst for his ex cathedra-Mke judgements about literature in print and on television. No one who saw it can forget the Spiegel magazine cover page from 1995 showing Reich-Ranicki literally ripping in two Günter Grass's latest novel, Ein weites Feld. The discussion in Literarisches Quartett was introduced by that instalment's special guest Michael Krüger, who was favourably impressed by the book, especially its tone. His opinion was, however, not shared by the show's regular panelists, Reich-Ranicki, the author and critic Hellmuth Karasek, and the books editor of Die Zeit, Iris Radisch. Reich-Ranicki stated that he did not regret having chosen the book for the programme, but he also left no doubt that he saw nothing original in the story or the author's narrative technique, a replication of nineteenth-century style. Unusually for this programme, it was not Reich-Ranicki, but the other regular panelists, who really took MacLeod to task. Karusek called MacLeod the "kanadischer Rosegger," a reference to Peter Rosegger (1843-1918), the Austrian writer of Heimatromane that lacked any substantive critical distance. He exclaimed that the characters hold absolutely no interest for him, and dismissed the style as reminiscent of Reader's Digest. The most critical remarks came from Radisch, who was either confused or poorly prepared when she referred to MacLeod as a Franco-Canadian. Her attempts to explain the novel's importance for Canada, and the difficulty in transplanting it to Europe, was no less mystifying. She suggested that the novel was trying to help Canadians get away from the myth of the melting pot, a term usually associated with the United States. But when she stated, "dass es dort endlich auch mal so was wie regionale und nationale Literatur gibt" ['that over there there is finally something like regional or national literature'], she merely betrayed an ignorance about the history of Canadian and American literatures, which she apparently thinks belong together in their own melting

20 Dirk Knipphals, "La littirature, c'est moi!", die lageszeilung 21 Liierarisches Quarteil, ZDF, 22 June 2001.

(22 June 2001), 14.

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pot. Radisch's most serious criticism, however, is that the novel creates national myths without reflecting critically upon them. To bolster this argument she referred to the scene from the novel where the narrator's grandfather relates having an erection when he sets foot on his land. Had the scene taken place in Serbia and not Nova Scotia, Radisch explained, European readers would have reacted with more shock and disgust than the quizzical reaction this Canadian novel elicited from the panel. But the scene about the erection to which Radisch referred is much less positive than she would have us believe. Here is the essential passage: "Grandpa used to say that when he was a young man he would get an erection as soon as his feet hit Cape Breton. [...] We, his middle-aged grandchildren, do not manifest any such signs of hopeful enthusiasm. But we are nonetheless here."22 The narrator distances himself from his grandfather's opinion, or at least the manifestation of it. His presence "here," in Cape Breton, seems more existential than nationalistic. Coming as it does at the end of the novel, this scene is a bittersweet reminder of the pain that has accompanied this family's history in the new world, and so to say this novel celebrates "völlig ungebrochen einen Nationalmythos" ['a national myth without critical reflection'], as Radisch does, seems to reflect a superficial reading of the text, a reading that insists on reading the novel only as regional Heimatliteratur. This is perhaps not surprising, however, as this televised book review relies heavily on cultural cliches. Radisch stated in the segment that she would just love to read Canadian novels about lumberjacks ("ich würde wahnsinnig gerne kanadische Romane lesen, mit Holzfällern"), even though this one left her disappointed. But this stereotyping may simply be the pressure of the medium. The newspaper reviews, as noted above, paid more attention to the story itself; television, to be interesting, must be quick and quick-witted, and the banter of Literarisches Quartett would seem to bear this out.

Conclusion The presence of Canadian literature in Germany has grown in recent years, though it is often still portrayed and perceived in a culturally simplistic and stereotypical fashion. The review of No Great Mischief on Literarisches Quartett shows that the pope of literature is not infallible when it comes to intercultural understanding. The Eurocentric tone of the review betrays an inability or unwillingness to go beyond the European context; as the guest Michael Krüger pointed out, Reich-Ranicki's programme had developed a reputation (a "Mythos" was the word he used) of being unable to look beyond its

22 Alistair MacLeod, No Great Mischief (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1999), 282.

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own cultural hemisphere. This is not to say that we can conclude from this one example that the German reception of Canadian literature is based entirely on pre-conceived notions about what Canada is. But the marketing and media reception of No Great Mischief in Germany demonstrate that cultural reductionism is present, though perhaps to a lesser extent in the print media than in television. It is possible, therefore, to assert that some Canadian novels in German translation have been linked to the popular German conception of Canada's iconic image as land, a place of nature, wide-open spaces, northernness, and rural life. This may be the result of reviewers' biases or the promotional strategies of publishers hoping to sell Canadian literature by appealing to the conceptions of Canada present in the German imagination. Germany is not alone in this, however; the Canadian cultural imaginary's emphasis on geography and land (e.g. the opening line of the national anthem, or the images of the Group of Seven) demonstrates that Canadian public culture takes pride in the country's association with its natural surroundings, and that this has become an almost inescapable aspect of Canadian cultural identity.

SUSANNE PETERS University of Düsseldorf

Wildlife Abounds? The Photographic Deconstruction of a Canadian Cliche in Robert Gernhardt's Satire "Blanket Creek oder Verwilderte Wünsche"

Robert Gernhardt has a rare gift of skilfully combining word and image. According to a remark by a benevolent colleague (Peter Riihmkorf), he is the most successful living poet in Germany, well known for his lyrics, parodies, satires, sketches and cartoons, if not for being a founder member of Germany's only satirical magazine Titanic. If we employ traditional notions of 'high' and 'popular' literature, Gernhardt's extensive and varied work would probably have to be placed between those two.1 However, a more accurate phrase to characterize Gernhardt's texts would be to describe them as transcending these traditional concepts of literature, as stylistic elements and techniques of feuilleton and caricature are mixed in his work with more 'serious' genres and subgenres such as the novel, the sonnet, or the pamphlet. Although the texts often are simply funny, we also find frequently alluded to in his texts timehonoured issues and dichotomies hitherto reserved for 'high' literature, such as the relation between art and life, man and nature, word and image, or time and space. Gernhardt's work features two general characteristics. The first is the use of extant texts, genres, rhymes and rhythms for his own purposes, while the second is a clever invention of subgenres like the literary review written in the form of a poem (Besprechungsgedicht) or the diary poem (Tagebuchgedicht). As an artist, painter and cartoonist he often combines various media and displays an admirable virtuosity in mixing different visual elements that include drawings, photographs, picture poems, or picture riddles. He writes poems that consist of monosyllabic words only and he combines proverbial phrases with nonsensical ones. His experiments with what is usually referred to as form and content occasionally lend themselves to triviality (or even epigonality), but this appears to be mostly calculated.

1

Cf Lutz Hagestedt's pages on www.litfasz.de/gernhardt/2cLexikaReclam.htm.

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Gernhardt often uses tired old forms of expressions, addressing existing national auto- as well as hetero-stereotypes, among which we find his humorous exploitation of one of the most persistent cliches about Canada - its 'beautiful landscape', 'abounding wildlife' and prodigious 'tourist attractions'. In one of his recent stories this is cunningly deconstructed. There is a rather elegant definition of 'cliche' by Anton Zijerveld which fits particular phrases Gernhardt uses in his story. According to Zijderveld, a cliche is a traditional form of human expression in words, emotions, gestures, or acts, which - due to its repetitive use in social life - has lost its original power. Although it fails to contribute meaning to social interactions and communication, it still functions socially because it manages to stimulate behaviour, while avoiding a reflection on meaning at the same time. 2 This definition helps to explain expressions such as 'beautiful landscape', 'abounding wildlife', 'tourist attractions', or 'bear danger', all of which Gernhardt employs in his story. These clichös can be identified as constituent parts of a larger national (hetero-)stereotype of Canada as a collection of images shared by a large group of people - in Gernhardt's story the Germans. 3 According to Lippmann, whose 1922 definition of a stereotype has found its way into contemporary discourses on intercultural communication, 4 the term can be applied to collective ideas based on few and superficial features, and very resistant to changes, yet referring to a variety of themes and issues. 5 Gernhardt's strategy is to link a particular type of photography to these cliches and their corresponding national stereotype of Canada, we might not wish to support yet probably all know. With descriptions of photographs he foregrounds and then destroys such collective ideas of the feasibility of romancing nature we might harbour at the back of our minds. While positioning Robert Gernhardt's work as an example of a concept of literature that extends existing boundaries between high and popular culture and focussing on a media-oriented perspective, I am also concerned with the general epistemic value of fictional photographs in literary texts. The inclusion

2

Anton Zijderveld, "On the Nature and Function of Cliches", in Günther Blaicher (ed.), Erstarrtes Denken: Studien zu Klischee, Stereotyp und Vorurteil in englischsprachiger Literatur (Tübingen: Narr, 1987), 2 6 4 0 .

3

We may also be prepared to accept this as an auto-stereotype referred to by Canadians themselves. Cf the discussion by Heinz Antor, "Die Vermittlung interkultureller Kompetenz an der Universität: Das Beispiel Kanada" in Laurenz Volkmann, Klaus Stierstorfer, Wolfgang Gehring (eds), Interkulturelle Kompetenz (Tübingen: Narr, 2002), 143-63. Cf. the entry on stereotype in Ansgar Nünning (ed.), Metzler Lexikon Literatur- und Kulturtheorie (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2001). Cf. also Ansgar and Vera Nünning (eds ), Konzepte der Kulturwissenschaften (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2003). Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion (1922, rpt. Brunswick: Transaction Publ.. 1998).

4

5

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of descriptions of photographs in literary texts not only adds a strong visual sometimes even iconic - dimension to the text, but it also provides a frame for essential issues of the text that 'features' them. I will conclude with an identification of Gernhardt's satirical aim, which I believe to be a threefold one: a) to expose tourist-as-consumer behaviour in a natural wildlife reserve, b) to deconstruct a national stereotype, and c) to show how, after all, nature justly outwits civilisation in a supposedly natural hierarchy of life forms (Gernhardt's rather characteristic tongue-in-cheek contribution to the conflict between art and nature).

1. Visual Strategies in Gernhardt's Literary Work Gemhardt expresses philosophical themes and religious or minority issues in simple, seemingly artless, yet lyrical language, often combining it with visual imagery. His cartoons are most effectively accompanied by funny, mostly ambiguous explanatory phrases. Another recurrent stylistic feature is his use of Kippfiguren ('picture puzzles'). The term is taken from psychology, where it is used to probe into our perceptory abilities to construct a coherent interpretation of pictures that present two mutually exclusive points of view. If we apply this visual phenomenon to a literary text, it will refer to a set of two different perspectives that complement two different layers of meaning: focussing on one interpretation of the text, a second one underlying the first is not discernible. Only if we look hard enough will we eventually see the second, but then the first will move out of sight. Such stylistic Vexierspiele (i.e. the phenomenon of reversible ambiguous figures) can be identified in many of Gernhardt's texts and cartoons, and I propose to discuss his use of photography in these terms.

2. The Photographic Medium Perhaps the three most famous analytical studies of the cultural impact of photography to date are still Walter Benjamin's classic essay "Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit" ('The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproduction') and Susan Sontag's book On Photography, while Roland Barthes's semiotic theory of photography, published as La Chambre Claire: Notes sur la Photographie deals largely with specific aspects of photography.6

6

Walter Benjamin, Das Kunstwerk im Zeitaller seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit: Drei Studien zur Kunstsoziologie (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1963); Susan Sontag, On Photography

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Generally, photography is regarded to be the most realistic among the mimetic arts - if one concedes that it is an art in the first place. The less artful a photograph is, the more what it depicts is believed to be true. Thus, a photograph has a strong affiliation to evidence, as it presents what it shows as true. It signifies both pseudo-presence and absence at the same time, and it is also connected to the past. In Roland Barthes' theory of photography, a photo does not recall what is past, but rather certifies that what I see in it really did exist at one particular time. As this moment is unnaturally (i.e. technically) arrested, it creates a sensation of astonishment in the viewer referred to, in Barthes' terminology, as etonnement. When we look at portraits of people we have known or places we have visited and may have had some personal connection with, we look at the past and at the real at the very same time. Due to its unnaturalness, this moment closely resembles magic. This magic component of a photograph, particularly of the kind most often found in family albums, consists of a singular reproduction of what it represents, but it also signifies its loss. This is the paradoxical element in photography: what a photograph shows is not there. What is absent, then, is (mostly) desired and can only be regained by looking at its representation. In his recent novel The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999), Salman Rushdie alludes to the mythical Prometheus as he describes photography as the stealing of "permanent vision" 7 : giving permanence to a fleeting moment seems to be a very good caption of what photographs generally do. Walter Benjamin and Susan Sontag in particular believe that our perceptory abilities and general interpretational skills suffer from and are slowly eroded by an overstimulation caused by the abundance of visual imagery in our culture. The more pictures we consume, the less are we able to differentiate between surface and symbol. Benjamin's and Sontag's arguments may be understood as moral warnings against the dangers of our dependence on pictures, film, and all kinds of visual material in general. It is a much disputed fact among cultural critics today that we prefer looking at pictures, watching films, or surfing in the internet to participating in or helping create real public events of any kind alluding to and interpreting our changing conceptions of reality. It is because of this (alleged) consumer attitude that we are being slowly sucked into an elaborate system of substitutions for real experience. Photography seems to aid these developments and can be regarded as contributing to the negative image of the influence of media on our lives. However, when discussed in a value-free context, much can be said in favour

7

(New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1977); Roland Barthes, La Chambre Claire. Note sur la Photographie (Paris: Editions de I' Etoile, Gallimard/Le Seuil, 1980). Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet (London: Cape 1999), 210.

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of it as a medium, and instead of dwelling on the allegedly corrosive impact of visual media on our lives, we ought perhaps to reflect on the changing concepts of 'high culture' and 'high literature' (as opposed to 'popular literature' and 'popular culture') in a larger context, that acknowledges the increasing importance of specifically non-mimetic artefacts in our world. In this context, the prevalence of the literary text as the primary and proper medium to represent action has to be given up in favour of analysing the dynamics with which a literary text becomes part of an interactive system of cultural artefacts. Still, photography can also be used to foreground the dangers of substituting the real thing for a second-rate image. After all, photography has a close affinity to truth - and it is this affinity that is idiosyncratically stressed by Gemhardt. The characteristics of photographs that I singled out - their peculiar references to reality, time, and memory - are also referred to in literary texts, even if we only deal with descriptions of photographs.

3. Fictional Photographs in Literary Texts I will not enquire into the kind of dialogue between word and image that is created by inserting actual photographic images in the literary text. Instead, I will discuss fictional photographs that are found in numerous texts from the beginning of photography to contemporary and postmodern works of fiction. The reader of the description of a photograph becomes the viewer of an imagined picture, and in his mind, vision and interpretation become intertwined to add an iconic dimension to the text. Descriptions of photographs in literary texts function as real photographs sometimes do, in that they are suggestive of the evidence of having been there. They share a few general characteristics with real photographs, particularly of the kind most commonly found in family albums, featuring more or less amateurish portraits, snapshots or holiday pictures - what is generally referred to as everyday photography. Photos of this kind do indeed refer to past times, they freeze fleeting moments, they reflect beliefs, assumptions, and perspectives with which the photographed object is/was viewed. But their aesthetic function in literary texts is not limited to such mimetic references; descriptions of photographs can also form a different relationship with the text that encloses them. This relationship, I suggest, can be read as a kind of mise-en-abi me, though less organized by the idea of a framing structure. As it implies a strong visual or iconic bias, it may even be interpreted as a textual allegory of the fictional artefact they are embedded in. Descriptions of photographs can allegorize the text in the mind of the reader, for example by depicting specific character constellations. Thus they enable the reader to intuitively comprehend portions of the text, for example its

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complicated structural development. A recent novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin (2001), features many such instances of fictional photographs. 8 There is one photograph which is of particular importance and described in two versions, symmetrically placed at the beginning of the novel and at its end, rather neatly introducing the novel and also summing it up. In her text, Atwood fathoms out the aesthetic possibilities of this metaphorical figure (or trope) in that the picture seems to 're-enact' the story told in the book from different angles. The reader finds a kind of model in these descriptions, which helps him structure, comprehend and interpret the kinds of relationships the protagonists develop (and unravel) with each other in the book. Atwood could not very well have inserted a real picture instead of a description of one, because things happen to the photo in the course of events: it is coloured in manually, it is cut, stolen, hidden and stored away for years, so that the story circling around its important material existence tells more than what a picture alone could present. The description then is more than just a reference to action, time, or reality because in the mind of the reader, it iconizes the story that Atwood wrote. This iconographic dimension ,however, is not ekphrastic, because it does not refer to a real photograph, but it exists only in the mind of the reader. 9 Literary language articulates visuality, and the rhetoric of the text is linked with the rhetoric of the photograph: the oscillation between such telling and 'showing' is part of the overall make-up of Atwood's aesthetic design of a text that continuously accentuates its openness to interpretation. Text and image are both indefinite and encapsulate evidence, truth, and a subjective view of things. In the end any photograph, originally meant to give evidence, only reflects what author/photographer, characters and readers wish to see in it.

4. Gernhardt's Satirical Aim in "Blanket Creek oder Verwilderte Wünsche" The peculiar strategies used by Margaret Atwood can also be found in Gernhardt's text "Blanket Creek oder Verwilderte Wünsche" ('Blanket Creek or Wishes Gone Wild'). 10 This text does not include any photographs, either.

8 9

Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin (London: Virago 2001). Cf. the discussions in Mario Klarer, Ekphrasis: Bildbeschreibung als Repräsentationstheorie bei Spenser, Sidney, Lyly und Shakespeare (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2001); Peter Wagner (ed.). Icons - Text- Iconotexts: Essays on Ekphrasis and Intermediality (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1996). 10 Robert Gernhardt, "Blanket Creek oder Verwilderte Wünsche", in Lug und Trug: Drei exemplarische Erzählungen (München: Diana, 2002), 99-150.

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Both in Atwood's novel and in Gernhardt's text we can trace some of the general characteristics I described above. Our exemplary story, published in a collection tellingly entitled Lug und Trug ('Lies and Deception'), relates a German couple's holiday experiences in Canada's Rocky Mountains through descriptions of the photographs they take while travelling. Back home, the pictures are meticulously analyzed (and criticized) by a group of their friends. The initial purpose of the photographs becomes rapidly clear: they are to capture Canada's landscape, nature's 'beauty'. Their general characteristic references to time, reality and memory become accentuated in this text as evidence, document, and proof: the holiday snapshots were meant to give evidence of the presence of the tourists, they were meant to document the abundance of Canadian wildlife, and they were meant to prove that man is able to cope with the rough life in the bush. Ultimately, they were meant to establish a lasting, and a largely possessive though subconscious connection between photographed object and photographer as viewer. However, not one of these pictures can fulfil any of these tasks; banned on photographic paper, nature here becomes meaningless. Photographed animals are hardly discernible in the pictures, and mountains, trees and waterfalls are not merely all interchangeable, but also blurred, hazy, indistinct. Yet, as has been suggested, the photographs are more than a reference to the mediocre abilities of the photographer. The first picture is supposed to be that of a goat. While the photographer defends its presumed high quality, the critical friends are not even able to identify an animal in the picture. A second photograph is that of a mountain, with a coyote crossing a path in the foreground. But instead of the animal, all that is to be seen is a dark, longish spot. A third picture, which the photographer - unintentionally ironic - considers for publication in National Geographic, is supposed to show a moose. But unfortunately, this moose is all too easily mistaken for a donkey: "One struggles", Carla said morosely, "to get up at five in the morning in order to get into the right position just in time before sunrise at Moose Marshes, because the moose, according to our guide book, preferably roams these swamps at day break. One stops the car every five minutes along the highways and gravel paths because there could just happen to be a moose, even during the day. One waits at a car park at Moose Meadows until it's totally dark, because the moose, if you believe the expert, comes out of the woods at dusk." "Am I right in concluding that in spite of all the efforts, one didn't even get to see one moose?" Vera asked. "Oh yes, one did," Carla looked through the pile of photos, "Here! Very sharp! This ought to be in National Geographic!" "Pretty well done," Vera mused, "Such beautiful big trees. One can really imagine the woods. But why does this little donkey here give you such a quizzical look? Is it scared of something?"

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Susanne Peters "But this is the moose," Carla insisted, the first and only moose on their journey. "The picture was taken from down a gravel path, which is probably why he is so small. N o - she." Gerd was so disappointed that their moose wasn't a huge bull with mighty antlers, but only a staggering cow with flies on her bum. "Well, you couldn't see those very well on the photo, but with binoculars you could really observe them close up, those cute little chop-chops." "Perhaps it a was a mini-moose," Vera said, but Carla disagreed: "The moose is the biggest land animal on the northern hemisphere. But even on a photo you could only see that with a good telephoto lens." "And what did Gerd have?" "None."' 1

Other pictures feature empty streets, lonely landscapes, a tourist pretending to lift a canoe, another chopping wood or raising a glass of 'moose beer' (wrongly translated into German as 'Mäusebier' - an almost homonymical false friend). The reversable perceptual illusion that these descriptions of photographs create has to do with the truth of the two moments captured by the photographs: in the imagined photograph, we either see a demonstration of a rather hopeless photographic skill (though this is obviously something the photographer is not aware of himself), or we see a truthful depiction of what nature is really like: the animals don't wait to have their pictures taken, they appear to be largely uncaring for the needs of the tourist. These mutually exclusive perspectives imply two different conceptualizations of the status of nature, either as existing for humans to explore and ban on photographic paper, or as existing simply in its own right, detached from all human concerns. What is foregrounded in the text is the idea that these photographs have a strong reference to our contextual cultural knowledge about tourism and scenic landscape: we all know what these pictures would look like, because they are typical holiday snapshots, and perhaps we have at some time even taken pictures like these ourselves. It is precisely this presumed cultural element that Gernhardt seems to exploit here. Read on another metafictional level, the imagined photographs refer to the stereotype of a photogenic Canada, with a holiday photographer and his equipment (though in this case it is the significant lack of it) added in for good measure. The descriptions of photographs are then used first to expose and then to deconstruct such 'memorabilia', such collective ideas of 'abounding wildlife' as we all sometimes seem to harbour at the back of our minds. The significance of the fictional photographs in the text is not to be seen only on the surface level of what the characters in the story believe these photographs to represent, but also on a metafictional level as a deconstruction of a national stereotype.

11 Gernhardt, "Blanket Creek", 113-14. [translation S. P.].

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The picture puzzle dimension that Gernhardt explores here consists of the specific depiction of nature and of the tourist's need to take such snapshots in order to collect material evidence of its alleged beauty as one layer of significance. This is complemented by a second layer full of irony, unmasking the first. The tourist does indeed collect evidence: but only of his own failure to ban the beauty of the scenic landscape on photographic paper. It is this iconic and ironic - dimension of the descriptions of photographs with which Gernhardt enforces the deconstruction of the clichö. The photographs raise yet another issue equally unknown to the couple in the story who pride themselves in their 'wildlife experience'. They depict man's relationship with nature, characterize it as fractured and dysfunctional. Canadian wildlife is not available for human examination, as the animals seem to have escaped photographic inspection. Instead, they opt out of the whole idea of the nedd for the representation of nature's 'beauty'. Thus, naturally, the animals refuse to play their part in a human set-up of things. In Gemhardt's witty text, the idea of the photogenic availability of Canadian wildlife that forms such a substantial part of the national stereotype is deconstructed by sustaining and insisting upon the separation of man from nature - clearly to the benefit of the latter. Through the descriptions of photographs, Gernhardt emphasises the cultural contexts of a national stereotype. Read in this sense, the fictional photographs in the satire tell us more of 'our' (German?) cultural presuppositions regarding the role of nature than about nature itself. To the tourist these photographs are trophies with which he (well, more often than not it is indeed he though I concede that this is a stereotype) is usually able to demonstrate his supremacy over nature and of course over those who have not been where he went. In Gernhardt's satirical text descriptions of photographs of this kind expose a dysfunctional relationship between man and the animal kingdom. As in other texts of this kind, imagined photographs signify both pseudopresence and absence at the same time. Here, the pseudo-presence is taken literally in two respects: the animals are supposed to be in the pictures - and yet they are not - not because they are detached from their photographic representation in time and in space, but because they were never really to be seen in the first place. Quite deservedly, the shortcomings of the modern tourist are satirized by Gernhardt. Canadian wildlife, on the other hand, remains unattainable, as bears, coyotes, goats, squirrels and last but not least the mighty moose, very obviously outwit the amateurish Germans.

LAURENZ VOLKMANN

University of Jena

"One Sees Only What One Knows": German Popular Literature and its Images of Canada

Introduction: National Stereotypes and Popular Literature This article will focus on six texts belonging to a genre traditionally neglected and even discarded by literary critics - popular literature. Since, to my knowledge, there simply does not exist a recent novel, drama or other text of distinctive literary merit with a focus on Canada, I have turned to texts of 'lower' or less obvious literary qualities which offer a most fruitful field of investigation to the cultural critic. For in their fictional representations these texts tend towards a more or less apparently formulaic, stereotyped or cliched view of reality. In the context of our topic here, this means that recent popular fictions which use Canada as a setting and include Canadians (or don't, for that matter) provide an array of popular images of Canada. As will be demonstrated, the similarities between these images connect these fictions to the point where one could almost speak of a family resemblance. In other words, if my analysis of the texts in question is by any means representative of commonly held preconceptions, the German view of Canada is still shaped by a set of grossly simplified assumptions. Before delineating these assumptions as expressed in individual texts, a few remarks on popular literature and on national stereotypes seem to be necessary here. "One sees only what one knows"1 - this much-quoted dictum by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe could serve as a nut-shell definition of what studies in cross-cultural perception have presented as their results. Such studies of different academic traditions have had varying foci and have gleaned different results in the areas of alterity, othering, post-colonial studies, French imagologie or German Imagologie, or generally in the areas of stereotypes, cliches and prejudices as variants of human preconceptions. It has become evident that

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This quotation is a condensed dictum of a lengthier observation on human (and especially visual) perception. Cf. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Farbenlehre [1810] (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1950-55), 163.

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humans shape their view and knowledge of their surroundings and, more so, their perception of the world by means of preconceived notions. As recent studies based on hermeneutic and psychosocial approaches have shown, this results from the human inability to organise and process large amounts of new information in an adequate manner. To counteract this shortcoming, humans need stereotypes as group- or object-oriented ideas serving as cognitive and emotive patterns which help the individual to structure his or her perceptions. But like myths [...], stereotypes remain remarkably untouched by empirical facts. They are collective and psychologically deeply rooted images of the world, which reduce the complexities of life and bear a mythopoetic quality. [...] [T]hey provide people with security and stability, and above all, with means of orientation. Stereotypes about other nations, for instance, [ . . . ] are a kind of language which enables people to think and speak about their own national identity, by way of detour, so to say. 2

It is specifically the issue of national stereotypes which has been tackled by a number of influential literary and cultural critics. In literary studies, the focus on how another country or region is presented and what stereotypes and cliches of it abound in one's own culture (or vice versa) has usually been applied to distinguished, canonical or semi-canonical literary texts. This has been the practice in literary and cultural studies, as exemplified, for instance, in the ground-breaking studies by Günther Β laicher on the image of Germany in English literature. 3 For Blaicher, as for many in the area of EFL teaching, it is the aim of the study of national stereotypes to hold these stereotypes up to critical scrutiny and to enable students to be less prejudiced or lop-sided in their views of other cultures. 4 More recently, the structuring quality of stereotypes has been acknowledged, their function to "contribute meaning to social interactions and communication," 5 though without jettisoning the idea of questioning and, if necessary, deconstructing national stereotypes. Research in literary and cultural studies departments has also tended to incorporate hitherto neglected 'texts'. These are texts which were once deemed to be of inferior quality: films, videos, cartoons etc. - Zacharasiewicz's study of images of

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Anton C. Zijderveld, "On the Nature and Functions of Cliches", in Günther Blaicher (ed.). Erstarrtes Denken: Studien zu Klischee, Stereotyp und Vorurteil in Englischsprachiger Literatur (Tübingen: Narr, 1987), 26-40,26. Cf. especially Günther Blaicher, Das Deutschlandbild in der englischen Literatur (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1992). Günter Blaicher, "Zur Entstehung und Verbreitung nationaler Stereotype in und über England", Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift 51.1 (1977), 549-574; cf. 574: "Nationale Klischeevorstellungen sind Angebote zur Bequemlichkeit und geistigen Trägheit. Ihnen entgegenzuwirken ist die Aufgabe jeder Nationalphilologie." ['National preconceptions are an open invitation to laziness and mental tardiness. To counteract them is the objective of any national philology.'] Zijderveld , "On the Nature and Functions of Cliches", 28.

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Germany in American culture would be a salient example here. 6 In this, the study of national stereotypes in non-canonical texts and the media in general is indicative of the recent turn from literary studies to cultural studies, "shifting attention from an exclusive focus on the canon of high literary texts to an, in principle, inclusive focus on all cultural texts." 7 Rather than evaluating or even criticising the texts which will be analysed in my article, I would like to share the theoretical framework propounded by both theorists and practitioners of cultural studies while simultaneously avoiding some of the uncritical celebration of mass-popular cultural consumption. I agree with many cultural theorists who claim that popular texts can provide us with insights into commonly shared values and ideas. 8 Indebted to this cultural studies approach, my article will present six narrative texts. My choice is based on extensive internet research, which involved the consultation of several online bookshops and websites on literature on Canada. What my research has also revealed is the relative dearth of fictional descriptions of Canada in German. In this sense, my selection of books may well be representative of the few other recent narrative texts in German dealing with Canada. In any case, they are representative as narrations in so far as they cover the whole generic spectrum: from the written documentary or autobiography to the semi-documentary or pseudo-autobiography to fiction, with the latter ranging from adventure tale elements to urban realism. These narrative modes will be important to my interpretation, which will focus less on the relative literary merits of the books. Instead, the texts will be regarded as firsthand information on how Germans view Canada. To the cultural critic, the narrative and fictional techniques inherent in the textual genres discussed here may certainly be more revealing about German stereotypes of Canada than, say, film documentaries or travelogues. For in these narratives 'reality', by the very nature of the generic conventions and techniques employed, appears as more patterned, shaped or even typified. This is due to the fact that literary genres allow artistic freedom to exaggerate, to give biased accounts and to bend 'reality' according to the author's vision. As all the texts are aimed at a reading market with a view to financial success, it is to be assumed that intentionally or unintentionally the authors cater to the needs, dreams and ideas of

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Waldemar Zacharasiewicz, Das Deutschlandbild in der amerikanischen Literatur (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1998). Andrew Milner, Literature, Culture, and Society (New York: New York University Press, 1996), 16. For a short and succinct introduction to the topic of popular literature and stereotypes cf. the chapter "Kulturelles Gedächtnis und Populärkultur" in Gabriele Linke, Populärkultur als kulturelles Gedächtnis. Eine vergleichende Studie zu zeitgenössischen britischen und amerikanischen popular romances der Verlagsgruppe Harlequin Mills & Boon (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2003), 15-55.

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their prospective readers - in other words, that their texts often aim at reinforcing already existing stereotypes about the Canadian experience. It has been stated that the 'affirmative' nature of popular fiction still allows for alternative readings, as often suggested by those who praise the subversive potentialities of mass-culture. 9 However, to my mind it would take a very intellectual and sceptical reader indeed to detect an undermining of stereotypes in the texts which I will discuss. The overall picture emerging in all six texts is rather that the Other, i.e. Canada, frequently serves as a mere reflection of the self, i.e. the German visitor. In this, all texts reveal more about Germany and the Germans than about Canada and the Canadians. It is quite fitting that all six texts have three aspects in common. These aspects underpin the notion of a 'Canada without the Canadians' as the subtext of the texts analysed. First, all texts present the tourist perspective or the gaze of the immigrant, in one case of a prisoner of war. Second, they are self-reflexively aware of this, some to a greater, some to a lesser degree. In addition, they self-consciously discuss the differences between Germany and Canada, often in terms of the very different experience of nature in the two countries. Third, and in keeping with the outsider's perspective and the self-awareness of the stranger, all six texts entail a circular composition: the protagonist(s) move(s) from Germany (or, in one case, the US) to Canada only to return after a number of weeks or years. None of the protagonists remains in Canada - though all would always come back again, if only for a short visit. All texts shape and transmit the image of 'Canada without the Canadians' as a site for adventures - or at least fun and games - in the wilderness, on the one hand, or as a dangerous place full of international immigrants all too willing to participate in the cut-throat competition of North-American capitalism on the other. These basic structures as well as the intricacies of cross-cultural encounters will be discussed with regard to the following texts: 10 Sissi Flegel, Kanu, Küsse, Kanada (2000), a novel for adolescents; Susanne Müller-Bender, Different Worlds oder Auf die Mischung kommt es an (2002), a popular novel; Wolfgang Bittner, Die Fährte des Grauen Bären (1991, 3rd ed.), again a novel for adolescents rather than adults; Konrad Feustel, Als Kriegsgefangener in Kanada: Autobiographischer Roman (1998), a true-to-life account of a German prisoner of war in the 1940s; Greta Kadereit, Mein Leben in Kanada: Eine deutsche Auswanderin erinnert sich (1996), an autobiography; and Arno

9

For a brief discussion of 'popular' vs. 'high' literature cf. Laurenz Volkmann, "Trivialliteratur", in Ansgar Nünning (ed.), Metzler Lexikon Literatur- und Kulturtheorie, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart, Weimar: Verlag J. B. Metzler, 2001), 644-45. 10 A note on translations: Since this article appears in a volume aimed at an international audience, I have translated all German quotations. Only the titles of the novels in question have been left without translation, though the English translation is given in brackets.

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Surminski, Fremdes Land oder Als die Freiheit noch zu haben war (1999), which could best be characterised as a historical novel set in the mid-1950s.

Sissi Flegel, Kanu, Küsse, Kanada (2000) Enid Blyton with a dose of exotic adventures plus some innocent romantic love-interest - this is how the formula of Sissi Flegel's novels for teenage girls could best be described. Kanu, Küsse, Kanada ('Canoe, Kisses, Canada') narrates one of the travels of Flegel's live wire protagonist and first-person narrator, Mimi, who has just graduated from the German Gymnasium and is rewarded with a three-week adventure holiday in Canada. Apparently, money is no matter for the middle-class children in Sissi Flegel's narratives. Like her author Sissi Flegel (obviously a pen name, literally translated: 'Sissi Lout'), who on the dust jacket proclaims that if she needs a change from writing, she will cast a glance at the world map to decide which of the many countries she is going to visit and 'discover', Mimi is a devout tourist and globetrotter. This is reflected in several other Mimi novels set on foreign shores, as for instance in Liebe, Mails & Jadeperlen ('Love, Mails & Pearls of Jade'). As the alliterative title suggests, the image of Canada projected by the posse of German "young adults", 11 including students and even a teacher, on their trekking and canoeing tour through Western Canada is one of - well, nature, nature, nature. While the first part of the trip consists of a short visit to Calgary, the second part covers a white water canoeing tour from Clearwater Lake to Azure Lake, followed by a trekking tour through the wilderness, during which the tourists stay overnight in log cabins or tents ("[...] suddenly I became aware of the fact that there was only the thin wall of a tent between me and the wilderness out there; how brutally close the wilderness was here - " KK, 22). In many passages the novel is almost didactic in its approach to travelling: it reads like a lesson in geography, painstakingly accurate in its description of the settings and their flora and fauna. A German sense of order and cleanliness pervades the tourists' experience with the wilderness; small wonder then that much emphasis is placed on the fact that even in the middle of nowhere certain things are verboten, such as camp fires which can incur a fine of $500 (KK, 116). It is the function of Brian, the tourist guide, to teach the sometimes naive, sometimes ignorant or even indifferent tourist crowd respect towards the wilderness and enlighten them about both the treasures and the living history of Canada. This can best be illustrated by the following passage: After their

11 Sissi Flegel, Kanu, Küsse, Kanada (Stuttgart: Thienemann, 2000), 6. Further references to this edition will be included in the text (abbreviated as 'KK').

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visit to Banff the group reaches one of the most magnificent sights along the Icefields Parkway, Athabasca Glacier: "This the heart of the Continental Divide", Ines continued full of enthusiasm. "It feeds three glaciers and three rivers, which flow from the Rocky Mountains into three oceans. Frazer River flows into the Pacific at Vancouver, the Athabasca River, named the Mackenzie River further downstream, flows into the Northern Polar Sea, and the North Saskatchewan River flows into Hudson Bay - which once was the famous and notorious waterway of the fur traders." "I need to look at that on a map", Nicke said thoughtfully. I nodded. Mimi, I said to myself, you should always have a map of the region in your pocket. "Could you repeat that," said Keko. "That's just too much information at once for me." "Right, you have the brain of a sparrow," Karl-Lothar observed. "How did you ever make it to university? I'm interested in that as a teacher, you know." "Uhhhh!", Brian sighed. "Stop it. Do you know why the North Saskatchewan River was so famous? The traders shipped the furs they had collected over two or three years up the river. People who were not quite so hard-working were waiting for them there, attacked them and kicked them into the river, in cold blood, grabbed the robbed furs and added them to their luggage to continue their travels ... Sometimes winter arrived early, sometimes heavy torrential rains made the river swell. And then there were of course - " "... the bears. And the wolves. And the coyotes." Karl-Lothar Lachnit nodded wisely. "In this region and in those days I wouldn't have survived for long." (KK, 46-7) In addition to these lectures on Canadian history, a great deal is explained about the miracles and dangers of Canada's wildlife. This is exactly what the group of Germans is after - untamed, unspoiled and primitive nature. Whenever they have to stop at some of the region's over-frequented tourist spots, other tourists and their behaviour are usually eyed with disrespect or at best with amazement: We drove on to Lake Louise. The lake was shimmering in thick colours of turquoise and green, and on its shore a gigantic Hotel was looming. Never before had I seen so many Japanese at once as there - Japan must have been completely deserted then. But what really got me was this guy blowing his alpine horn, wearing leather trousers, a chequered shirt, a Gamsbart on his hat and long socks along with traditional Bavarian shoes! (KK, 24) Circumstantial descriptions and explanations in the style of National Geographic are always interlaced with clear markers of the exotic and foreign nature of the setting. Not only do the protagonists revel in barbecueing under an open sky, roasting huge chunks of steaks. But the Canadian wilderness also seems to be virtually infested with bears, which either pop up or threaten to pop up all of a sudden - frequently serving as a narrative device for creating suspense. Apart from the encounter with wild animals, clear waters and green

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forests, this is clearly a novel without any (even minor) Canadian characters in it. Even the travel guide Brian is "half German, half Canadian", as Mimi describes him, or rather, he was born in Bavaria as the son of a sawmill-owner; yet the travel bug bit him at a rather early age ("Fernweh", KK, 27) and transformed him into a globetrotter, living on odd jobs in the tourist industry. As stated above, the novel as a whole is more interested in creating an exotic atmosphere of unspoilt nature. Passages like the following at Clearwater Lake can be found galore: The lake was there in the sun, idyllic, its water crystal clear, there was not a single ripple in sight anywhere, thick forests surrounding its shores. And when I was taking in all this, I thought: Mimi, that's exactly how you thought Canada would be, so wide, so lonely, so mysterious ... (KK, 56)

The canoeing and trekking trip is embedded in two plots. One revolves around a budding love story between Mimi and Brian the guide, who is almost 30 years old but appears to be chivalric enough to keep the love story all clean and healthy. The second plot involves the black sheep of the group, young Keko, who clandestinely carries a gun (albeit without any dark intentions), breaks a leg and collapses so that he has to be carried back to the outposts of civilisation on a make-shift stretcher - this being the climax of the novel quite near its ending. The concluding tour of Vancouver elicits expressions of joy from the protagonist and wonder at the view of Chinatown- "Chinatown was fantastic, very colourful, very exotic" (KK, 172). Narrated in a colloquial manner and projecting a world seen through the eyes of a teenager, the novel does not foreground any cultural differences. Canadians do not exist as different people; in sum, this is a novel which, in spite of its detailed descriptions of the areas visited, could take place in any other similar part of the world. For the whole world is the protagonist's oyster, and the wilderness becomes her dangerously exciting playground. Written for the market of young adults, the novel offers the chance to indulge in vicarious experiences of the romantic and the exotic while simultaneously providing elemental background knowledge about what the novel's readers most cherish - Canada's wilderness.

Susanne Müller-Bender, Different Worlds oder auf die Mischung kommt es an (2002) While Kanu, Küsse, Kanada appeals to young readers who find in the novel the fantasies of their own lives - romance and adventures in a foreign setting Susanne Müller-Bender's novel aims at a larger audience. It rather reads like a soap-opera in book form. It is an adult, glamourised and sensationalised variation on the encounter with Canada - if it can be called that at all. For what is

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most striking about the novel is its homogenising, levelling-out effect as far as cultural differences are concerned. Contrary to the title's bilingual maxim, this is not a book on cultural oppositions, as one would expect, and how to overcome them by getting the best of both worlds, for instance. To a far greater degree than in Kanu, Küsse, Kanada this novel erases cultural differences; the 'Other' is reduced to a couple of exotic ingredients. In the novel, it is paradoxically most perceptible in nature and best exhibited at tourist fairs or exhibitions of indigenous matters. For most of the story, Different Worlds oder auf die Mischung kommt es an ['Different Worlds or It All Depends on the Right Mixture'] is set in Los Angeles, among the outer-circle movie crowd of Hollywood, with its real or would-be starlets and scriptwriters. Only in two parts does the action move to Canada, where the protagonists spend some time on location and later on holiday. Although the story is completely narrated in German, all the characters in it are US Americans, including the main protagonist Sandra Maclntyre. One would expect a sprinkling of - to the German reader - typical American behaviour, mannerisms, speech patterns or habits. However, both the behaviour and the language of the characters resemble more a standardised or nondescript norm which is certainly not North American. All the idioms are German; there is not even a token attempt at using translated English idioms, sayings or linguistic patterns. Not even the odd English expression is interjected, as in comparable fictions, while colloquialisms are clearly all German. The impression of formulaic narration is further enhanced by the plot in the vein of Jane Austen: As is the case with the female protagonist of Austen's Emma, Sandra has to find out that she is in love with her more adult mentor. Here the role is played by Mark, her landlord and flatmate in Los Angeles, also a 'hunk' and second-rate actor. The plot includes action and thriller elements, with a crazed potential murderer on the set of a film and, in addition, two trips to Canada. There both protagonists, Sandra and Mark, take part in the shooting of a film in the woods near Toronto. Accordingly, the first Canada chapter is entitled "Call of the Wild". 12 In contrast to Kanu, Küsse, Kanada there is no attempt to present any appearance of a well-researched image of Canada or its wilderness. The setting, a lake near Toronto, remains without individual features. The description of the scenery is general, if not vague: "Mark took her hand, pulled her out of the coach and lead her to a small slope down to the lake. The view was simply breath-taking" (DW, 51-2). The rest encompasses the descriptions of views from tourist chalets and comfortable log cabins, with an evening around the camp fire as the climax of the Canadian experience - if

12 Susanne Müller-Bender, Different Worlds oder auf die Mischung kommt es an (Frankfurt/Main: R.G. Fischer, 2002), "Ruf der Wildnis", 49. Further references to this edition will be included in the text (abbreviated as 'DW').

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one excludes the narrative ploy of the stealing of an Indian mask triggering a whodunnit subplot. Of the b o o k ' s 141 pages only one small passage stresses cultural differences, and this is the description of a powwow celebrated to entertain tourists in the Toronto area. About a dozen tribes had come to Wikwemikong to celebrate the Pow Wow together. Sandra, completely fascinated, ambled through this display of North America life, which was strange and partly exuded an aura of mystery. For she could catch a tiny glimpse of how it was before the white man came here. Now she was standing on the dance square and was like mesmerised by the monotonous beat of the drums and the rhythmic thumping of the dancers. Colourful feather garments and clothes blended in with fine dusty fog, which gave the whole thing an unreal appearance. She cut herself away from this and glanced around. She wanted to go to an exhibition on utensils and the history of medicine men in the course of the centuries, which was being shown there. However, when she arrived there, it was closed. (DW, 61) lit must be stated again that this is as far as we get in the encounter with alterity. This simulacrum of cross-cultural experience does not even attempt to reflect on, let alone question the tourist gaze or mentality. Rather, all cultural differences are blurred in this truly globalised world, where culturally particular sights and sounds are presented in spectacles or theme park-like scenarios. Is this McDonaldization of fiction the shape of popular novels to come?

Wolfgang Bittner, Die Fährte des Grauen Bären ( 3 1991) The cover of Wolfgang Bittner's Die Fährte des Grauen Bären ['The Tracks of the Grey Bear'] resembling a naive painting of a trapper and an Indian sitting around a simple camp fire, with a basic tent and a canoe as part of a backdrop which appears to present the Canadian wilderness, and indeed, this book of 219 pages first looks like yet another adventure story in the tradition of Karl May or Jack London. This preconception is further enhanced by two sketchlike maps in the volume depicting the main setting of the plot, a part of the wilderness, with icons indicating a camp, animals, rafts, canoes, water planes, trees etc. Yet, what comes across first as a conventional adventure tale turns out to be a generic variation with interesting new dimensions and unexpected twists. Bittner's story initially attempts to capture his readers' attention by fuelling those fantasies of young readers which find their fictional outlet in adventure stories. For the protagonist of the story is what could be called the successor of the classic adventure-tale hero, a latter-day dropout who shuns civilised society to embrace the values of primitive life in the company of people rejecting an over-commercialised, industrialised society by living in the Canadian woods. This is where the novel's main protagonist, nineteen-year-old Stefan from Germany, tries to find his true self. Far from the madding crowd,

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he intends to immerse himself in the cleansing greenness of Canada's wilderness. This traditional dropout motif not only alludes to narrative models but to also habits not infrequently indulged in among young Germans who enjoy taking a year off between school, military service and university - with the intention of gaining maturity and self-knowledge during their time abroad. This is exactly what Stefan is after - personal growth through exposure to the wilderness. We follow his travels by Greyhound and a 'beaver plane' to reach his destination, a camp in the back of beyond of Canada, north of Edmonton and Dawson Creek. There he meets Berthold, another German exile, who has invited him to join the group of Germans, Americans and Canadians living in the bush to erect an elaborate log cabin. At first, Berthold comes up to Stefan's and the readers' expectations when he is introduced as a picture-book pioneer: "with his long hair and his growth of full beard he looked like one of those pioneers in the novels by James Fenimore Cooper or Friedrich Gerstäcker." 13 As it turns out, though, appearances are very deceptive. This is not the egalitarian commune or Utopian paradise Stefan might have envisioned. Increasingly Berthold's pretentious guise of altruism and anti-materialism is unmasked to expose his true intentions: Using the naivety of other travellers, he exploits their willingness to work for him for a pittance to build a compound which is to be enjoyed by future visitors who will find their way to Canada in the wake of the expanding tourist industry. He sarcastically remarks: "Well, it's fashionable to fly from civilisation these days" (GB, 36). While the atmosphere in the camp, which increasingly turns into a work rather than a holiday camp, deteriorates, the members of the 'commune' discuss various motives for their choice to leave Western civilisation, mainly Europe and specifically Germany. The underlying theme of escape from the "dirty and deceitful society" (GB, 89) is debated time and again by the refugees from the West. Huddling around the campfire and eating a roast duck, one of the companions describes how he was tricked into joining Berthold. Asked why he went into the "bush", he rejoins: "Because I thought that with Berthold and the rest of the group something like an alternative to the over-civilised life out there could be built up. For I have always found the excesses of that sort of life repellent. But I have learned by now that I was wrong. This may also be due to some members of the group, who I cannot relate to, and to Berthold's manner of he exploiting other people. Most of all it is because I cannot do without some advantages and amenities of civilisation - at least in the long run. You know, back home, when I turn a switch, the light comes on. All I need to do is to turn on the heater and it gets warm. When I need food, I go to the shop and buy it. In other words, I've got more time for things that are important to me and which to me are essential for a dignified human life. I can read, I can

13 Wolfgang Bittner, Die Fährte des Grauen Bären (München: Bertelsmann. 1991, 3rd ed.), 15. Further references to this edition will be included in the text (abbreviated as 'GB').

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talk, I can paint a picture, watch a film, write a letter, learn a foreign language and so on. Here I need to chop wood hours on end, fish and hunt before one of my basic needs, namely to eat, is fulfilled. The more I think about it, the more it seems to be a regression back to some primitive age." (GB, 88-9) There is no escape, it seems, from the downside of civilisation. Berthold's crude and greedy attitude is not only a reflection of the world at home, it even seems to be reinforced by exposure to the wilderness. In this, it also reflects what Stephen encounters on his occasional trips back to the outpost of civilisation, the village south of the camp. The first impression of this settlement in the wilderness already is one of avarice, sleaziness and decay. "The place seemed unattractive like most others which they had seen from the coach. In front of a fast-food stall there were a couple of Indians, obviously drunk" (GB, 11). Descriptions of short stays in this settlement show that here, too, a bleak, pessimistic image of human nature prevails. In the tradition of novels by Graham Greene, settings and characters on the edge of civilisation are portrayed as decadent and rotten extensions of western civilisation. Moreover, if Jean-Paul Sartre once wrote about the 'strip-tease' of the west in the tropics, referring to imperialist practices and human-rights abuses, a similar image is evoked in Bittner's novel. With probably less masquerading than in the case of Berthold, the white settlement abounds in seedy or phony-looking restaurants and bars, creating a crude spirit of commercialism and rip-off. Here the white flotsam and jetsam, the riff-raff of Western civilisation is contracted into a motley crowd of modern-day fortune hunters, voyageurs and projectors out for a fast dollar, with the indigenous population pushed into inhumane living conditions which go from bad to worse through alcohol abuse and unemployment. In many descriptions the novel revels in clichöd images of white materialism, in an ideological condemnation of North American superficiality, surrogate culture and consumerism. A didactic streak is certainly detectable in the conversations Stefan has with the only 'good' white character he encounters in the settlement, a Canadian physician. Although these are meant to express a clear condemnation of white behaviour, the passages also reveal, if read against the grain, a stereotypical German bluntness on Stefan's side and a patronising, know-all Teutonic sense of missionary purpose of having to save the world. A typical conversation opener by the Canadian physician thus serves as a clue for Stefan to launch into a tirade about Canadian materialism. One may note how the polite Canadian responds in a rather unimpressed way and even engages in what linguists would call verbal 'back-channelling': "Then you obviously like it here in Canada?" Stefan pondered for a while. "Not really, to be honest. People here are too materialistic, almost everything is just about money. I can't find anything that is related to culture - nothing aesthetic, except in nature. That's why I want to go back to the bush, where I really like it. If it wasn't for the television antennae, cars, bulldozers and plastic cups, this would seem to be like the middle ages."

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The doctor smiled. "You're right, it is a culture of hamburgers and plastic cups. But you ought to consider that the North isn't all of Canada." "I was talking to people in Edmonton and on the trip here, people who didn't know where Nicaragua was or Beirut; they had never heard of the war in Lebanon, about the star wars program [by the then American president Ronald Reagan, L. V. ] or apartheid in South Africa." "What do you expect?" the doctor said laughing. "Such people also exist in Germany." (GB, 112-13) The physician's amiably unfazed response to Stefan's criticism is repeated when they meet again in a bar o f the settlement and have the following conversation: "A tourist trap," the doctor smiled, noticing Stefan's look. "Quite primitive and only out for a fast buck. But they make a lot of money, you can bet on that." "In the hotel it is basically the same, only with a better outfit. Instead of this slushy picture they've got a stuffed grizzly, instead of plastic furniture there are upholstered pieces. That's all a fagade. Behind it there is nothing but the desire to wheedle money from other people as quickly as they can." "I can't see anything unusual about that. That's happening everywhere." Stefan nodded. "But here it is right in your face and completely undisguised. This has nothing to do with civilisation any more." He drank a gulp of beer and added: "And this should be a model for the Indians? What else can they do but get drunk!" "You may be right in a way,, the doctor admitted. "[...] Many [Indians] can neither read nor write, they have no aim in life. They don't even care about their children being able to read and write, they just don't care. We expect them to make our culture theirs, but it is alien to them." "What sort of culture is this?" replied Stefan. "People work, drive cars, watch TV. drink; they eat this hamburger grub, surround themselves with primitive kitsch. They all want to get rich quickly, and for this they work, some of them very hard. But only a few have understood the fact that they will never be rich and that material wealth cannot give real meaning to their lives." (GB, 122-3) It is in such passages about the settlement that the novel's rather biased image o f Canada is revealed most poignantly. Most o f the action takes place in the wilderness, however, and it is there, after a growing period o f estrangement, that Stefan decides to break with Berthold and try it on his own in the woods a daring adventure. The second part o f the narrative begin with lengthy descriptions o f how, like Robinson Crusoe, the protagonist carves out a life on his own far from his former comrades. If the novel in places reads like an adventure story displaying symptoms o f an increasing erosion o f the genre's traditions and almost turning into a manifesto against the white presence in the wilderness o f Canada and into a treatise on the Hobbesian, predatory nature o f man, Stefan's retreat realigns it with nineteenth-century narrative traditions. We are confronted here not only with the traditions o f Karl May and Jack London, but also with the Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer model with the introduction o f a friendly if taciturn Noble Savage in the vein o f Mark Twain. Alone for several weeks, Stefan injures himself while chopping wood with his

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axe. Maimed and in a delirium, he is healed by an enigmatic Indian, the Grey Bear of the novel's title. The adventure tale atmosphere is furthered when Stefan and his kindred spirit chase a bear to discover the corpse of a white adventurer, kill the animal to save their own lives and find a satchel of goldnuggets. In this almost fantastic turn of the narrative the novel comes full circle. Adventure, as it seems, is still possible at the end of the twentieth century. Yet it is an adventure of the 'alternative' and politically correct kind, so to speak. For the gold is used to support the education system and the infrastructure of Grey Bear's village - the indigenous people will be prepared to stem the tide of white expansion, to live "in unison with nature" (GB, 196). Only a small part of the treasure is used to finance Stefan's flight back home to Germany. Thus the novel tries to have it both ways. It is very critical of picture book images of Canada, which for instance are sold by Berthold during his slideshow tours through Germany. However, it simultaneously presents images of solitude in the wilderness, of the pleasures of fishing, hunting and building cabins in the bush. While extremely critical of the white presence in the woods, it projects an image of Indians as either viciously suppressed and/or superbly equipped to meet the philosophical and ethical challenges of the future (due to their anti-materialist attitudes). In this sense, the novel both undercuts and reinforces common images Germans expect to find in texts about the Canadian wilderness.

Konrad Feustel, Als Kriegsgefangener in Kanada: Autobiographischer Roman ( 1 9 9 8 ) The title of Konrad Feustel's slim prose volume Als Kriegsgefangener in Kanada. Autobiographischer Roman ['In Canada as a Prisoner of War: Autobiographical Novel'] is misleading, if not a misnomer in two ways. First, this is by no means an 'autobiographical novel', but rather the autobiography of a man whose life is presented as typical of many lives of Germans who took part in World War Two. In the author's preface he points out that he is a "man of [his] generation". Born in 1918, Konrad Feustel served in the North Africa corps during Rommel's campaign and was taken prisoner in 1942. What followed was an Odyssey from North Africa to South Africa, Cape Town and the USA and on to Canada. There he spent almost five years in several prisonerof-war camps, first at Ozada near Banff and then mainly at Camp 133 near Lethbridge on the Old Man River. These years are presented in detail, with several pictures from the war years and of the camp on the cover and in the appendix of the narrative. They add verisimilitude to a soldier's tale, for this is really anything but a novel, rather a real-life account. Obviously, the term

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'novel' in the subtitle is used for reasons of marketing, to gain a wider appeal by means of a phrase which would seem attractive to the common reader. Moreover, and second, the title is also misleading because actually only thirteen of the 79 pages of this book deal with the narrator's stay in Canadian from 1942 to 1946. It seems quite evident that the catch-phrase 'Canada' is used to attract German readers who would associate with this narrative the images I have outlined so far. What Feustel's book is really about is indeed the life of a German who was born in Franconia, eked out a successful, middle-class, civilservant existence after the war and, after the 'economic miracle' of the 1950s and 1960s, lived in the affluent 'consumer society' of the last decades of the twentieth century and finally wrote down (and published) his life story. This life, which bears all the marks of that of a moderate social climber who leads a self-contented life of quiet happiness in a provincial town, may well be a telling example of what the famous psychiatrists Alexander and Margarete Mitscherlich have called the post-war German 'inability to mourn'. Just like many of his contemporaries who took part in the war, Feustel not only ascertains to have had no idea about Nazi atrocities but also seems to be unmarred by his war and prisoner-of-war experiences. What could have been the focus of his book does not appear to have been a formative experience. As a historical document the passages on Feustel's period in Canada make for informative, but not particularly lively reading. Interested readers may learn, for instance, that more than 6,000 POWs were kept in Camp 133 during the war, most of whom would have been happy to stay in Canada after the war. Before he returns after his "unintentional tour around the world" 14 in 1947, Feustel encounters the hardships of having to live in tents at minus 25 degrees Celsius in the early phase after his arrival at camp Ozada. Having had no contacts with the locals, he can only come up with a few remarks on the Canadian environment. More focused on retaining his honour as a soldier, he revealingly comments on one occasion (November 1942): In the meantime we were provided with jeans clothes. They were blue trousers, which had red general's stripes on both sides. The jackets, also blue, had a big red sun on the back. The fitting caps were of the same colour. Because I didn't like this masquerade, I kept on wearing my German military uniform. [...] Retaining clothes that were fit to be worn by decent human beings helped me a lot not to lose my self-confidence. (AK, 41)

We learn only little about Canada, as becomes clear when the narrator writes about a second stay in the 1980s, i.e. forty years later. As explained on the back cover of the book, he returns to pay a visit to "a former 'comrade in fate'

14 Konrad Feustel, Als Kriegsgefangener in Kanada. Autobiographischer Roman (Berlin: Frieling, 1998), 54. Further references to this edition will be included in the text (abbreviated as ΆΚ').

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in Canada and is deeply impressed by the beautiful country and the heart-felt welcome he was given there"(AK, 70): One day, as I was thinking about the many beautiful holiday tours which we had done in Europe, the wish arose to me to experience Canada again, and, to be precise, to see the place again where 1 had spent four years of my life behind barbed wire. Soon, with the help of the Foreign Office, I had found a former "brother in fate" from Camp 133 Lethbridge/Alberta. He had emigrated there after the war with his wife and daughter. Due to his expert skills as a tailor he managed to open first an alterations tailor's, then a dry-cleaner's and finally an off-the-peg clothes shop. Without much ado he invited us to join him for a four-week holiday, with shared travel expenses however. It was an experience beyond words to return as a free man to this beautiful country after 40 years. We were deeply impressed by the kind hospitality we encountered both among the immigrant Germans and among our former enemies. Of course, we invited our friends over in return. The return visit took place in 1990 on the occasion of our golden wedding anniversary. (AK, 70) It would seem unfair and inappropriate to apply any sort of critical reading to this passage or to the text as a whole - the quotations speak for themselves. Suffice it to say that here, again, we have a narrative which, first, tells us very little about historic or contemporary Canada and, second, uses popular connotations of a 'Canadian adventure' to reach a wider audience. Third, it informs the reader mostly about the 'world view' of many Germans of the author's generation. All in all, the setting is Canadian, but this is a mere coincidence this is a story about Germany, and especially about its post-war mentality.

Greta Kadereit, Mein Leben in Kanada: Eine deutsche Auswanderin erinnert sich (1996) Greta Kadereit, as the note on the book's back cover reveals, was born in 1943 and studied at the College of Education at Heidelberg. Working as a teacher in Biberach a. d. Riß, in 1969 she met the attractive, happy-go-lucky Canadian John. After letters and mutual visits had been exchanged, she decided to move to John's home in Toronto. After some initial hiccups, she delighted in the foreign culture, the unknown habits and casual manners she encountered in Canada. Her private life turned out to be less successful. The loving stranger John metamorphosed in real life into a "cold-blooded, unstable and shiftless man." 1 5 A separation seemed inevitable. After an enjoyable time in Quebec, Greta left Canada to return to Germany, having lived in Canada during most of

15 Greta Kadereit, Mein Leben in Kanada: Eine deutsche Auswanderin erinnert sich (Berlin: Frieling, 1996). Further references to this edition will be included in the text (abbreviated as 'ML').

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the 1970s: "Though deep down she knows that this good-bye won't be forever ,.."16 This plot summary of Mein Leben in Kanada: Eine deutsche Auswanderin erinnert sich ['My Life in Canada: Reminiscences of German Immigrant'] may speak for itself. Obviously, the book as a well-written autobiography may be interpreted in two ways. First, it is the account of a naive German who 'learns the ropes', gains experiences and yet struggles and falls time and again. In its structure it thus resembles the story of initiation - in a clearly gendered variety. For Greta defines her self in terms of her relationship with men, and most of her relationships with Canadian men, not just with John, serve as vehicles for an emancipatory process of gaining self-knowledge and finding out what she really needs herself. This process could provide ample narrative material for gender-oriented readings. However, what is of interest in our context is a second strand of her narrative, though one that is inextricably intertwined with the first: it is her view of Canada and Canadian society. The perspective here is a gendered one, for while the book presents an enormously readable enumeration of cross-cultural experiences and observations, it is simultaneously an account of Greta's inability - or unwillingness, for that matter - to come to terms with what she perceives as an unbearably male-oriented society. Before we come to an analysis of some instances of male discrimination and dominance as experienced by the female protagonist, a sketchy survey will be provided of how the wide field of intercultural experiences is portrayed in the narrative. Basically, Greta encounters Canada in terms of constant comparisons with Germany. Instead of suspending her own cultural expectations, let alone changing or assimilating to Canada, she focuses on the very cultural antithesis she perceives throughout her years in Canada. Hers is not an utterly lop-sided or merely pejorative judgement; rather, it combines several seemingly disparate and conflicting images of Canada to create a very mixed picture, which has all the bearings of a love-hate relationship. In a nutshell, there is, as in most narrative accounts of Canada, a clear distinction between the country's environment or nature on the one hand and the inhabitants on the other. Like many visitors before her, Greta is awed and inspired by the experience of wide open spaces, of unspoilt nature with hardly any human traces. She enjoys her long walks in solitude along the shores of Lake Ontario; throughout the book, passages on Indian summers, blizzards or grim winters serve as a foil to and comment on the events on an interpersonal level. In Greta's case, this sense of overpowering nature is occasionally accompanied by sentiments of being lost and forlorn in the vastness of the uncivilised areas she perceives. While her reactions towards Canadian nature remain emotional, exuding a sentimental mysticism, her attitude towards Canadians is

16 Back cover.

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characterised by mixed emotions. Rejecting the alleged Canadian leaning towards superficiality and uncultured behaviour, she still enjoys a more casual and easy-going lifestyle, which is described in many examples and often juxtaposed to German seriousness and sobriety. This comes out clearly in passages on German exiles and emigres in Toronto: We were hovering in a no-man's-land, free from many obligations and yet deracinated, in search of a new identity. Those women who had come over with a German partner fared best. They provided a mutual substitute for a bit of their home country. Most found the wide space of Canada ambivalent. The feeling of being surrounded by wilderness for hundreds of miles, especially to the North, was redeeming and shocking at the same. No longer to be confined by the narrowness of tiny Germany - with nature mostly infringed upon by civilisation and deprived of any characteristics of its own - that was a relief. But to be nailed down to just one place in this huge country, surrounded by a foreign mentality, isolated from your home country, this put fear into them. (ML, 71)

The recurring spatial dichotomy remains that of Canadian 'freedom' and 'vastness' versus the "narrowness" (ML, 10) of her German, her Suabian home, to be exact. The immensity and unboundedness of nature affects Canadians and shapes their most endearing traits - the "tolerance and magnanimity of the Canadians" (ML, 28). Likewise, from Greta's German point of view, the Canadian bureaucracy, administration and job market appear extremely flexible and open. This also applies to universities, where she takes courses, and to schools, where she unsuccessfully tries to get a position. Appreciative remarks abound, such as in the following comment: I was often thinking about Germany where really in most cases after you got a job qualification, a degree, you stayed in a rut for the rest of your life. (ML, 46)

Less laudatory are Greta's observations on everyday life in Canada. She finds no kind words for cheaply built houses, Canadian cooking skills, the penchant of Canadian women for shopping sprees, of Canadian men for sports and alcohol, the rude manners they exhibit in their behaviour towards their wives etc. the whole gamut of prejudices and cliches is displayed in detailed descriptions and lengthy comments. To single out her main objections towards Canadian mores and manners, it is frequently the stamp of 'puritan' hypocrisy, bigotry and squeamishness which she finds fault with. She objects to Canadian prudery - the 'unnatural' attitude towards nude bathing, and that there is no nudity allowed in the sauna (except in Qu6bec, as we learn). Similarly, Canadian attitudes towards alcohol are called "childish" (ML, 59) - she derides "the veil of the forbidden, which enshrouded the consumption of alcohol" (ML, 59). There are observations on the smoking of hashish at many parties, on the consumption of frozen food and 'TV-dinners', stag parties and even on the offensiveness of plastic Santa Clauses. Similarly, Canada appears as a nation of TV addicts:

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Television - that's something special in Canada. At the beginning I didn't notice what role it played in the lives o f my n e w compatriots. On many channels it went on around the clock day in, day out. If y o u wanted to, you could have breakfast with it, dine with it and g o to bed with it. That was just what many did. John was the worst example o f this sort of behaviour. (ML, 4 9 )

What is more troubling is the alleged Canadian materialism, which finds its extreme expression in a general inclination towards swindling and cheating. All too often a sense of superiority is expressed when German seriousness, coziness, and a sense for lasting things and relationships is pitted against Canadian frivolous, cold and unsteady, even callous behaviour, lack of manners and culture. This is exemplified in a scene which takes place in a restaurant, where Greta and her mother are having a meal: A s s o o n as the waiter noticed that the last bite had gone down my throat he put the bill on the table. " H o w annoying," my mother said. W e do not want to pay yet the night is young, and w e intend to stay. Humbly I ask for a pitcher o f white wine, which the waiter doesn't like at all. Ladies are not allowed to drink so much - at least not in public, this is simply not done. Involuntarily I have to think o f the hip flask filled with b o o z e which circulates under the table, and I think: "You are such hypocrites!" (ML, 192)

In conversation with Canadians she has learned to be less outspoken and direct. One of the things she learns is that in Canada people are less brash and aggressive in discussions than in Germany - a trait she begins to acknowledge as the "soft endurance of Canadians" (ML, 73). At times, she even finds herself defending Canadians against her sister's or mother's prejudices that "all people on the American continent are stupid and primitive" (ML, 83). In sum, Mein Leben in Kanada provides a treasure trove for those interested in cross-cultural patterns of observation and thought - with its description and (albeit biased) analyses of many 'critical incidents' it could well serve as a key text for those interested in gaining intercultural competence with regard to Canada. As described above, Greta Kadereit's observations are wellreflected, but they remain one-sided to a considerable degree. This can for the most part be attributed to the main 'plot' of her story, which is the disastrous failure of her marriage to a Canadian. A lot of the narrative reads like a confidential female testimonial of a partnership gone terribly wrong - John turns out to be an utterly self-centred, egoistic and greedy Canadian male, a veritable "monster in human guise" (ML, 152), who plotted to ensnare Greta, allegedly even conspired to kill her just for financial reasons. In a line with these experiences, Greta's account of Canada is permeated by images of an extremely patriarchal society. This is best illustrated by a passage describing Greta's and her mother's encounters during an extended tour of Canada. In Regina, Sask., the following incident occurs:

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After we have moved into our hotel room, we take a round trip on a bus. Regina can't offer anything worth seeing, either. It is - like all the other places so far - absolutely boring. In the evening we have dinner at our hotel. Looking at the menu, we discover something strange: Ladies: 7 oz filet with potatoes and special sauce $ 9.95. Gentlemen: 9 oz filet, the finest cuts of meat, prepared with the best of perfection, topped with the very finest mushroom-sauce at the same price! We are really amazed: Men get preferential treatment in this restaurant, they are pampered, spoiled and need not even pay more for it. How often had I noticed this difference in my life together with John! Man was allowed to do anything while woman was kept small and standing in his shadow. I had never liked that. Was it typical of Canada? It seemed like that, anyway. "Well, a real country for men, where machos like John can play and have fun", I think, embittered. (ML, 198-9) Given this gendered perspective, Greta Kadereit's tale of a German emigrant in Canada of the 1970s is an emotionally charged account of the experience of exile and immigration. It remains of special importance for those interested in exploring the personal and psychological effects of those movements. 17

Arno Surminski, Fremdes Land oder Als die Freiheit noch zu haben war ( 1 9 9 9 ) From a literary perspective, Arno Surminski's novel is the most noteworthy of the books presented in this article. He may not be in the first league of German writers of fiction, being too entertaining, maybe too sentimental and too straightforward in his narration for the German intelligentsia to really include him in the pantheon of coveted contemporary writers. His 700-page-tome aspires to literary merit, though, and it is a serious historical novel whose style and scope may well be - and has indeed been - compared with the achievement of Siegfried Lenz, a German author with an international reputation. If Lenz's novels have become set texts in German schools, Surminski's Fremdes Land oder Als die Freiheit noch zu haben war ['Strange Country, or When Freedom Was Yours for the Taking']may claim its place in the classroom as well, preferably in the form of important excerpts. The educative (or informa-

17 It may be worth noting that in the meantime Greta Kadereit has published a sequel to her book, Karotten im Eis: Zweites Glück in Kanada ('Carrots in Ice: Lucky This Time in Canada') (Berlin: Frieling, 1998). Again, the story is based on a betrayal - friendly Fred, born in Suabia, promises to be a caring male this time, but turns out to be a scoundrel who is only after her money. The story seems to be more fictitious this time.

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tive) usage of this novel lies, again, less in its descriptions of Canada, but rather in the atmosphere of post-war Germany which the prospective immigrants carry with them to the remotest places in Canada. Again, the story is circular. In September 1955, 21-year-old Herbert Broschat embarks on an immigrant boat from Bremerhaven to Toronto. His wish is to "get out of Germany, this demolished, disrupted, isolated country - and to go to far-away, unspoiled countries in which 'freedom can still be had'". 18 On board the ship he befriends Erich Domski, a lively young man from from Wattenscheid in the Ruhr region. In Canada, both first take on odd jobs, as dishwashers, bar boys, construction workers or farmhands during the sugar beet harvest in the Toronto region. After several months they decide to try their luck on the other side of the continent, in the Vancouver area. Having travelled across Canada by car via Lake Ontario and across the prairies of Manitoba, they finally end up in a woodcutter camp run by the Powell River Company north of Vancouver. After two seasons in the woods, in 1957, while Erich decides to remain in Canada, Herbert returns to his native village in Germany to attend his father's funeral service. He stays in Germany, willing to work for a peaceful reconstruction of his country. Partly autobiographical (Surminski himself worked in Canadian logging camps for two years), the novel displays exceptional qualities. First, the exact, minutely researched and atmospherically convincing depiction of the downand-out existence in post-war Canada impresses the reader. The novel captures the spirit among the newly arrived immigrants and those struggling hard to make ends meet in a country where, indeed, there seems to have been an abundance of manual labour and poorly paid jobs. In this, it ties in with similar industrial fictions in the tradition of George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London or the scandal-provoking piece of investigative journalism Gam unten by the German author Günther Wallraff. Contrary to this tradition though, it celebrates the chances and opportunities of a new start in Canada, is imbued with a can-do mentality and the spirit of honest toiling and great expectations. The second reason for the novel's appeal could be seen as resting in the use of the literary device of an omniscient narrator who is extremely sympathetic toward his characters and treats his protagonist with great benevolence, care and attention. The novel's language faithfully reproduces speech mannerisms and patterns of the 1950s, often in the form of colloquial speech, as the narrator frequently expresses and comments on the point of view of the main protagonist Herbert Broschata, an outsider and intellectual. A great number of

18 Arno Surminski, Fremdes Land oder Als die Freiheit noch zu haben war (Berlin: Ullstein, 1999), promotional text on back cover. Further references to this edition will be included in the text (abbreviated as 'FL').

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topical issues of the 1950s are discussed in the novel. German re-armament and the reinstitution of the military draft for men form the background to Herbert's decision to leave Germany. This is also a flight from responsibility, as it appears, and from the obligation to come to terms with his father's involvement in the war. It is not only the news of the Suez Crisis and the Hungarian Revolt which reverberate in the Canadian wilderness, spread by the occasional late newspaper or radio report which reaches the protagonists. Herbert's constant soul-searching also probes his existence as a German, with the burden of the past on his shoulders weighing heavily even so far away from home. In the final analysis, this is another novel about Vergangenheitsbewältigung, the coming to grips with the German past, and the inescapability of being German. It offers insights into German and Canadian mentalities of the 1950s, reflecting two nations in growth. While Canada is shown in a period of increased immigration and industrial power, Germany's formative years of the new Federal Republic form the background of the novel. Seemingly opposite themes are interconnected - the growing pains during the early years of the Federal Republic and the experiences of would-be emigres and wood cutters in the primeval forest of British Columbia. In addition, the novel reverts to narrative modes of the neo-picaresque and episodic novel, mainly utilising the narrative paradigm of the story of initiation 19 as presented in the classics of German EFL teaching such as The Catcher in the Rye and Lord of the Flies. The overall pattern of the story of initiation and, more specifically, the novel of education or growth (Bildungsroman) is used as a framework here. Gaining self-knowledge appears as a gradual development resulting from the experience of various disappointments, a period of confusion and disorientation, finally resulting in a more mature though disenchanted outlook on life as it really is. As Herbert is twenty-one, this is the story of his growth in maturity, a story about leaving the state of adolescence. Very much like in real personal growth which psychologically equals the shift to a more or less unknown position of a yet to be attained maturity, the novel's spatial move in the direction of Canada and then west is analogous to entering an unknown region, literally coming to a new country. Following established generic formulas, the hero's path towards maturity is accompanied by the experience of friendship - in this novel it is Herbert's closeness to Erich, which is also in the Blutsbrüder or war-comrade tradition of many similar tales of adventure or experience. For the greatest part of the tale, the protagonist is exposed to an alien environment. Here Canada serves as a world where the German moves as a drifter among other drifters - "[i]n this

19 First published in 1971, Peter Freese's Die Initiationsreise: Studien zum jugendlichen Helden im modernen amerikanischen Roman (Tübingen: Stauffenburg, 1998) still is the seminal study on the topic.

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country, where drifting about is a habit, in which a quarter of the inhabitants move their place of residence once a year [...]" (FL, 301). This reaches its culminating phase in the two seasons spent in the logging camp. Again, a narrative component of the story of initiation is included here, i.e. the coming to terms with the isolation from the outside world, the moment where the protagonist is thrown back on himself. The episodes in the camp on Lake Stillwater must be praised for their atmospheric density, mainly revolving around hard toil, the exposure to the forces of nature and instances of male bonding including a fatal accident among the mates. All these struggles and crises in a foreign land are paralleled by the inner growth of the main protagonist. Through conflicts he achieves more inner harmony and becomes a mature personality. Following the pattern of the German Bildungsroman, his return to Germany, his intended wedding to a German girl who has been waiting for him and his willingness to take up responsibility at home mark the achievement of the matured protagonist, who knows his duties within his society. The book's message is encapsulated in the following remarks, apparently a comment by the narrator: Well now, Germany is beautiful, but it is too narrow and too stifling. One should change that. Perhaps one has to stay to change it, to make it wider and more open. If everybody w h o finds it too narrow and stifling emigrates, only the m o l e s remain. (FL, 6 9 3 )

While the novel's ending may be too conventional, sentimental and didactic in its message of civic responsibility, the strength of this text is surely that it is not only about a learning experience on Herbert's side. Rather, any German or non-German reader will profit enormously from this history lesson in the form of fiction, which makes the 1950s come alive. Given the fact that there is no translation of the book available and that 700 pages may seem quite demanding, I should like to quote some relevant passages from the novel to present its major themes in succinct excerpts. Much is explained about the reasons and motivations of post-war Germans to leave their mother country, and why Canada was a favourite place for a new start: In reality Germans were not served in French restaurants, their cars were sprayed with swastikas in the Netherlands, and in Denmark cars with German license plates had their tires ripped. N o , as a German you could not appear anywhere, apart from the Canadian bush or among the kangaroos. (FL, 3 7 )

With young emigrants often deemed to be 'deserters', leaving their bombedout country in a lurch, Herbert sees his journey to Canada mainly as an escape: Refugees, that was the right expression. Refugees in the widest sense. Herbert sought refuge from the German plight, German soldiers, German collective guilt, German angst, (FL, 5 7 )

the tedious village Sandermarsch and his much-too-old parents.

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The lure o f Canada is clearly a materialistic one. It offers more opportunities, more wealth, a life o f affluence in comparison with Germany: For starters, cigarettes were so inexpensive. But not only cigarettes. The whole life in Canada was half as expensive as in Germany. A pound of butter can be bought at thirty-nine cents. Just imagine! If you work hard, you can make twenty dollars a day! Just figure that out, you come up to almost ninety German marks. I was earning that in Pütt in a whole week. Behind the estate in Wattenscheid-Leith, not far from the Ruhr dual carriage way, land for building houses could be bought. That cost five marks per square metre. During three years in Canada you can grab so much money that it is enough for this property and also for the house, if Bruno Jonka and neighbour Gruschkis, who both know about bricklaying and rooftiling, give a helping hand. The yobs on the estate will be dumbfounded when he buys the land and bangs the money right on the table and builds up a house in a style which the whole estate has not seen yet. (FL, 52-3) The prospect o f a life in Canada is always presented in terms o f a comparison; likewise the whole country is seen as complimentary to Europe in general and Germany in particular. Herbert couldn't explain why it had been Canada of all places. However, Canada to him seemed to be the country where freedom was for the taking. There he could go his own way without interference, and he would never see a sign like Full! Closed! There every man owns his own forest and his own lake. Canada is not sold out yet. It is a country without war debris, without lack of accommodation space, without debts and without guilt. (FL, 59) The ways o f fitting into Canadian society vary. Erich, in love with a halfbreed, immerses himself in the low life o f Vancouver's shady neighbourhoods and gives up his dream of returning as a richer man from Canada to impress his former friends. It remains open whether he will end up as the typical woodcutter ("moving back and forth between the bush and the city till the end of his days and leading the typical life o f a Canadian w o o d chopper: drunk in the winter, sobering up in the bush during the summer!", FL, 398). The usual strategy seems to be total assimilation, a tendency to become more Canadian than the Canadians. One o f the most interesting passages o f the novel centres on the archetypal German woodcutter Tom, who avoids speaking German and becomes a Canadian during the course o f the novel. His behaviour o f extreme assimilation is described while at the same time exposed as typical of Germans in general. Here is a scene which describes how Tom first describes his new life to the two fellow-Germans in the camp: After the first glass of gin Tom showed them some photos. His wife, who looked as if she had been imported from Europe. Tom's wife next to a German shepherd, his wife in front of the blue car's hood. Tom's house in North Vancouver without wife, without dog, just house. A flat bungalow in white and red. The way Tom was standing there, the way he was looking at the picture, it could not merely be a place to live in, rather it appeared to be a sort of temple, a place of worship and devotion. This is the swimming pool. Here is the entry to the garage. The roses are small, but

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in a few years they will be the best roses in North Vancouver. Can you see the tiny trees? These are the cedars of District A. For five years Tom had been working for this house. In Germany you need fifty years for a box like that, if they don't confiscate it in the meantime or it is destroyed by bombs. "Actually, my name is Thomas", he said after the third gin and apologised for speaking German now after all. He just wanted to hear how it sounded, whether his German could still be understood at all. Just for the sake of studying this after three glasses of gin. You understand that, don't you? But else - never again German. His kids too, if he should ever have any, would not be allowed to learn a word of German. They should become real Canadians. (FL, 330) Later, the invitation o f Herbert and Erich to his Vancouver home (FL, 4 3 8 - 4 4 ) becomes an episode o f ostentatious display o f newly achieved wealth and status symbols, such as the latest technical gimmick, an electric bread knife. On leaving, Herbert comments: He only feels comfortable when he can display what he has bought, built and earned. You can't change that even with Canadian immigration documents. That's the way Germans are. (FL, 444) The German post-war sense o f guilt and the tendency to avoid being associated with their past in the eyes o f foreigners is related in one passage in which Herbert has to defend himself for being German in the midst o f the Canadian wilderness: Hey, what's the matter with the Germans? All over the world you meet people who are proud of their country and who consider it quite natural for Germans to be proud to be German. They shake their heads in disbelief when they sense how Germans despise themselves. Perhaps it was due to the fact that they had been too proud of their country for those horrible twelve years, Herbert thought. Here comes the gnashing of teeth after the event. Always extreme. One time too proud, then again too shabby. (FL, 496) Surminski's reader also learns about the sheer number o f German immigrants in Canada: more than one million out o f the 15 million Canadians in the 1950s were born in Germany (FL, 67). Interspersed news-clips present statistics, for instance that in 1955 more that 48,000 Germans emigrated overseas, 15,500 of them to Canada, with numbers growing (FL, 319). In spite o f its appeal, Canada is lacking something which can only be described by the German phrase Gemütlichkeit. The bottom line o f the novel's underlying pattern o f comparisons between Canada and Germany is expressed in an almost poetic passage describing Herbert's thoughts in Vancouver, while he is in Mister D o o l e ' s emigrant home: This country is large and impressive, smothering, uplifting, stifling, but not lovely. An incomparable land, full of natural resources, woods, lakes and fish. But this natural abundance is not enough. You feel it, there is something lacking. A smile by Cecily [a Canadian girl he met in Vancouver] perhaps. Warmth which is not from the gas oven. To have a human being whom you can think of, visit, whom

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you may touch. Oh yes, Canada is big and lonely and empty and mute. It is immeasurably vast, you can hardly hear the voices of others. Nature is a strict ruler, she does not accept anything besides her. She spoils her followers with sunsets and mountain ranges, with seas, islands and woods, but she has no soul, this cold queen. (FL, 432-3)

Conclusion "He had wanted to get away from it all, always he had wanted to escape, away from this stifling narrowness" (GB, 180). These paradigmatic lines from Bittner's novel Auf der Fährte des Grauen Bären express the yearning to escape from the stuffy and parochial atmosphere of Germany. These words express the desire to get away from it all - an amorphous, elusive sense of being restricted in the fatherland. Just exactly what it is the protagonists of the tales analysed in my readings escape from remains an open question. Is it an escape from the German past, or rather the burden of history, with Canada providing the opportunity to start with a clean slate? Often the willingness to assimilate completely accompanies the protagonists' endeavours to find a new sense of belonging in a foreign country. In most cases, German 'narrowness' is semantically connected with an overburdening bureaucracy, a sheltered life and a future laid out all too easily by parents or society in general. A sense of adventure, of surprise seems to be lacking back home. The unexpected is to be sought abroad. In this light, it becomes obvious what it is the German protagonists seek in Canada. Beckoned by its time-honoured image of the land of wide open spaces, endless forests and wilderness in abundance where anyone willing to roll up their shirt-sleeves can eke out a living or gain profound experiences, the characters of the tales examined here are after a Canada without the Canadians. And this is exactly what they get. Shunning or discarding 'materialist' and 'shallow' Canadians, they all too often think that their inadequate and very short experience of life in Canada qualifies them to comment authoritatively on, or even explain, the complexities of Canadian society. All in all, though, more emphasis is placed on the encounter with nature. Germans expose themselves to the wide open spaces of Canada as a 'testing ground' for their personal rites of passage. Frequently, as we have seen, this serves as an 'echo chamber', casting back the voices of German history at those who thought that they had left them behind. Against this background, all the stories interpreted here deal explicitly or implicitly with the overarching theme of coming to grips with one's Germanness, which is seen as a more pressing issue than the explorations of cross-cultural encounters. Conversely, it could well be stated that the events and adventures narrated here could take place in any kind of wilderness, not necessarily the specifically Canadian one.

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There is yet another pattern which connects all these six tales about encounters with Canada. From a structuralist point of view, as for example the one applied by the eminent theorist of cross-cultural myths and archetypes Vladimir Propp, 20 the circular composition of the tales resembles that of many German fairy tales. Remember, and this is no flippant remark, traditionally they tell the story of someone who goes into the woods to encounter miraculous or horrific things there, escapes by the skin of his or her teeth, returns home - and lives happily ever after. This, after all, is also the overall pattern of German explorations of Canada.

20 Vladimir Propp, The Morphology of the Folktale (Austin: University of Texas Press. 1968).

MIRIAM RICHTER

University of Düsseldorf

Canada as a Role Model? Reflections of a Country in Post-War German Youth Fiction

Literature for young readers constitutes a very important pedagogic tool in the education of the next generation, which becomes all the more significant in the context of re-education after the Second World War. Thus German youth fiction of the post-war decades provides illuminating insights into the aims of reeducation as well as into the struggle of Germans to come to terms with their past. It is only very rarely, though, that works on the re-education of the German youth take into account literature for adolescents. Although there are many general works on German youth fiction in the 1950s and 1960s, only few foreground the treatment of foreign countries in their analyses. 1 The image of Canada in German novels for young readers has not been examined at all in previous research. 2 In the following the image German authors of youth fiction draw of Canada will be examined with emphasis on its function in the processes of reeducation and national identity formation. The essay will deal exclusively with literature in the three western occupation zones, that is the later Federal Republic of Germany; for the Soviet zone, the later G.D.R., a different situation presents itself—so whenever used in this essay, 'Germany' and 'German literature' respectively will denote the western part of Germany.

1

2

The results of a research project carried out at theUniversity of Leipzig will be published in 2005: Gina Weinkauff, Martina Seifert, Ent-Fernungen: Fremdwahrnehmung und Kulturtransfer in der deutschsprachigen Kinder- und Jugendliteratur seit 1945. A Ph.D. thesis is currently being written about this topic: Martina Seifert, Kanada als Imagotyp in der deutschsprachigen Kinder- und Jugendliteratur des 20. Jahrhunderts (forthcoming).

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The novels analysed here have been chosen from three different decades following the Second World War. Lisa Tetzner's Mirjam in Amerika3 was first published in 1945. It is part of a series of nine volumes entitled Die Kinder aus Nr. 67. Odyssee einer Jugend, which relates the war and post-war experiences of a group of children originally living in a house in Berlin and later scattered across Europe and North America. Mirjam, the protagonist, has vowed to take two-year-old Ruth to her father and travels from New York to Canada and across the whole country to trace him. Gerda Radtke's Kleine Kim aus Kanada* was published in the 1950s. In this book the Canadian girl Kim, who lives in Toronto, goes to Northern Ontario to spend the summer holidays at a cottage with her family and friends. Wir suchen Gold in Kanada5 by KarlHeinz Weise came out in 1969. It is an adventure story about Ted and Douglas, a boy and a man, who try to become rich by looking for gold in Northern Ontario during the summer holidays.

I

The authors of post-war German youth fiction draw a highly comprehensive image of Canada, with descriptions of everyday life, the population, and geography. While some of these aspects are presented in great detail, others are dealt with only briefly. This is due to the attention paid to what children are interested in on the one hand and to what was intended to be conveyed to young readers on the other - i.e. a symptom of the mentality of the time. Here, it is striking that Canadian history is a topic that is hardly paid any attention to in German youth fiction. In Mirjam there is only a very general remark that Canada's Englishness is due to a historical development, namely the exodus of Loyalists from the U.S.A. during the War of Independence (MA, 162), and the only historical event hinted at in Wir suchen Gold in Kanada is the goldrush of 1898 (GK, 53). This lack of historical awareness may be explained by the general attitude that the New World is marked by modernity and progress and cannot look back on a historical tradition like the Old World.

3

Lisa Tetzner, Mirjam in Amerika, vol. 6 of Die Kinder aus Nr. 6: Odyssee einer Jugend (Baden-Baden: Herbert Stuffer Verlag, 1945), Visa No. 3763 Lj de la Direction de l'Education Publique, Autorisation No. 4002 de la Direction de I'lnformation, first published in Switzerland in 1945. Further references to this edition will be included in the text (abbreviated as 'MA').

4

Gerda Radtke, Kleine Kim aus Kanada (München: Franz Schneider Verlag, n.d ). According to the publishing house the novel appeared in the 1950s. Further references to this edition will be included in the text (abbreviated as 'KK'). Karl-Heinz Weise, Wir suchen Gold in Kanada (Göttingen: W. Fischer Verlag, 1969). Further references to this edition will be included in the text (abbreviated as 'GK').

5

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This contrast is implied in a remark in Kim when Pat says: "Our ancestors must have brought this very ancient wash-bowl with them from Europe'" 6 (KK, 33). This is the only allusion to history in Gerda Radtke's novel. Such a lack of historical depth reflects the German attitude towards history in the first decade following the Second World War. The majority of the German population completely repressed their immediate past in order to avoid having to tackle the question of their personal attitude towards the Third Reich and a possible sense of guilt.7 In this situation not only history, but, even more so, "politics was kept at arm's length".8 This applies especially to the young generation that grew up during the Nazi Regime, i.e. the parents of the target group reading in the 1950s. To them, the depoliticization of their past was important for the reconstruction of their life stories.9 Therefore, in the immediate post-war years, German youth fiction was marked by a lack of direct reference to reality,10 which manifests itself in the prevalence of legends and stories set in idyllic nature or in an ideal world. We are here confronted with the literary reflection of the search for an ideal world that has not been destroyed by war." First attempts to make war a topic of youth fiction appear in 1949,12 though they remain very occasional because at the time most adults were not prepared to talk to children and adolescents about the immediate past. 1 ' While Gerda Radtke and Karl-Heinz Weise both clearly follow this avoidance of politics in their novels, Lisa Tetzner's writings constitute an exception. She repeatedly mentions the Second World War in Mirjam, for instance, when she hints at Mirjam's conflict with her former friends in Germany, who have become enemies of Canada and will be fought against by her new North-American friends (MA, 242). However, Tetzner does not content herself with the

6

7

8

9 10

11

12 13

"Die Waschschüssel ist uralt, die haben unsere Vorfahren sicher aus Europa mitgebracht." In this essay, quotations from all three novels in most cases will be given in the English translation (all translations M.R.); the original text will appear in the footnotes. For a detailed treatment of Germans' repression of the Third Reich cf. Alexander and Margarete Mitscherlich, Die Unfähigkeil zu trauer:. Grundlagen kollektiven Verhaltens (1967. München: Piper, 1969). Arthur Hearnden, "Education in the British Zone" in Arthur Hearnden (ed.). The British in Germany: Educational Reconstruction after 1945 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1978). 11-45. 40. Beate Wagner, Jugendliche Lebenswelten nach 1945: Sozialistische Jugendarbeit zwischen Selbstdeutung und Reeducation (Opladen: Leske & Budrich, 1995), 77. Cf. Winfred Kaminski, "Kinder- und Jugendliteratur in der Zeit von 1945 bis 1960" in Klaus Doderer (ed.), Jugendliteratur zwischen Trümmern und Wohlstand 1945-1960 (Weinheim. Basel: Beltz Verlag, 1993), 17-207, 30. Cf. Freya Stephan-Kühn, '"Kinderliteratur zwischen Trümmern und Wohlstand': Neue Materialien für den Geschichtsunterricht?", Geschichte, Politik und ihre Didaktik: Zeitschrift für historisch-politische Bildung 24 (1996), 32-43, 35. Stephan-Kühn, "Kinderliteratur", 41. Monique Mombert, Jeunesse et livre en zone franqaise d'occupation sous le signe de la reeducation 1945-1949 (Strasbourg: Presses universitaires de Strasbourg, 1995), 192.

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mere reference to the war. She goes even one step further and states explicitly that the guilt lies with her former home country: She portrays Germany as the aggressor telling her readers that Germany had already invaded other countries, occupied Poland, Norway, and the Netherlands, and was on the verge of subjugating France (MA, 163f). A little further on, the reader learns that the Germans continued invading other countries and meanwhile had conquered France and Belgium (MA, 235). The author even has Macky say, "I wouldn't put anything past the Germans" 14 (MA, 164). Germany's guilt is frequently referred to in Tetzner's writings. As Monique Mombert puts it: "Ses livres montrent un univers desorganisö par la faute des Allemands, oil ils sont responsables de la souffrance enduröe par les autres peuples". 15 Thus, her novels could serve as an impulse for facing the past, for accepting one's guilt is regarded as a prerequisite for the process of coming to terms with the past, 16 whereas repressing the past hinders it.17 Tetzner's including the Second World War in her work may be explained by her living in exile. She emigrated to Switzerland in 1933 as her novels were banned in National Socialist Germany for their social criticism. 18 She never returned to Germany but became a Swiss citizen and continued living in Switzerland until her death. 19 As an exile she possessed a greater distance and therefore a different perspective, which allowed her to perceive things more critically and enabled her to write in a way significantly different from the literary conventions in her mother country. This is equally evident in works for young readers written by other German authors in exile during the 1930s and early 1940s, as the history, politics, and geography of many different countries, different cultures and their customs constitute an important issue of literature written in exile. 20 Mirjam was written too early, though, to be able to take into consideration Canada's status as a member of the British occupying forces in Germany. However, Tetzner does include the notion of liberation and depicts the Canadian forces as liberators fighting for freedom (MA, 241). She does not portray them as fighting in order to free Germany from the dictator but in order to support England in her decisive fight for the benefit of the whole world (MA, 242). This characterization of Canadians as liberators paves the way for an

14 15 16 17

"Den Deutschen ist alles zuzutrauen." Mombert, Jeunesse et livre, 192. Mitscherlich/Mitscherlich, Unfähigkeil zu trauern, 41. Margarete Mitscherl ich, Erinnerungsarbeit: Zur Psychoanalyse der Unfähigkeit zu trauern (Frankfurt: S.Fischer, 1987), 8. 18 Mombert, Jeunesse et livre, 192. 19 Cf. Zlata Fuss Philips, German Children 's and Youth Literature in Exile 1933-1950: Biographies and Bibliographies (München: Saur, 2001), 212-13. 20 Fuss Philips, Youth Literature in Exile, 11.

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openness towards Canada and towards foreign countries in general. In this respect, Lisa Tetzner again is an exception: Freya Stephan-Kühn does not find the idea of liberation in any other of the analysed novels for adolescents written in the Western occupation zones.21 In contrast to Lisa Tetzner, Gerda Radtke and Karl-Heinz Weise could have referred to Canada's role in the Second World War and during the occupation; its complete omission from the novels may be seen as another proof of the repression of the National Socialist Regime, the Second World War, and its consequences, a repression resulting in the depoliticization of society and literature.

II The choice of Canada as a fictional setting is symptomatic of another important characteristic of post-war society in Germany, and it has to be seen as part of a broader movement in German novels for adolescents. Foreign countries form the central motif in German youth fiction of the 1950s and 1960s, which is often interpreted as a testimony of a new type of encounter with the world.22 During this period, German novels for young readers often had protagonists and settings from all over the world. A considerable number of stories set in North America portray the U.S.A., with Canada gaining increasing importance. This growth of interest in Canada becomes evident as well in the fact that children's books set in Canada and originally published in other countries were translated into German during the 1950s and 1960s. Among them figured EvaLis Wuorio's The Canadian Twins23 and Mary Bosanquet's Canada Ride: Across Canada on Horseback,24 the former written by a Canadian, the latter by a British author of youth fiction. Both had their protagonists travel through Canada and thus provide impressions of different regions of the country. Not only English literature for young readers but also foreign works from various other countries were translated into German in significant numbers during the

21 Stephan-Kühn, "Kinderliteratur", 39. 22 Cf. Margarete Dierks, "Die deutsche Jugendliteratur seit 1945" in Irene Dyhrenfurth, Geschichte des deutschen Jugendbuches (Zürich, Freiburg i.Br.: Atlantis Verlag, 1967), 215264,247. 23 Eva-Lis Wuorio, The Canadian Twins (London: Jonathan Cape, 1956). German translation: Die kanadischen Zwillinge: Eine abenteuerliche Reise durch das große Kanada (München: Franz Schneider Verlag, n.d.). According to the publishing house, the novel appeared during the 1950s. 24 Mary Bosanquet, Canada Ride: Across Canada on Horseback (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1944). German translation: Ein Mädchen reitet durch Kanada (Braunschweig, Berlin, Hamburg: Georg Westermann Verlag, 1950).

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1950s and 1960s, which contributed to the process of Germany's opening up towards other countries. The trend towards international settings in German youth fiction may be interpreted as a counter-movement to the predominance of children's literature set in Germany during the Nazi regime. In the Third Reich, children's books were expected to instil the love of their fatherland into German children and to show them the beauty of the German landscape. Consequently, novels were primarily set in Germany. If stories were set in foreign countries, they mainly focused on the "fate of German ethnic groups living abroad and emphasize[d] [the Germans'] yearning for the Reich". 25

Ill Opening up Germany towards the world is to be regarded as one of the most significant issues of the policy of re-education undertaken by the occupying forces in Germany in order to eliminate Nazi ideology. Although the diverse strategies and emphases of the procedures of re-education were different in the various Western occupation zones, the principal aspects were very similar. Thus, the movement of re-education aimed at the transformation of a whole people in order to preserve mankind from atrocities. 26 This was to happen by means of a process of democratization, the inculcation with classical values, and the teaching of respect towards other nations. In the eyes of the occupying forces, children and adolescents had been most manipulated by Nazi propaganda; this is why they figured as the main target group for the efforts of reeducation. They were expected to build up a democratic Germany. 27 One of the principal media of instruction were books, both in the French and in the British occupation zone: Si la jeunesse allemande devait etre rieduquee, c'etait en particulier par le livre: les occupants fran^ais et leurs partenaires allemands, tous heritiers d'une tradition culturelle reposant sur le livre, en etaient egalement convaincus. 2 8 Books have long played an important part in the life of Germans of all classes. Books have more influence in Germany than in the United States and in Germany they have more influence than newspapers and periodicals upon public opinion. 2 9

25 Christa Kamenetsky, Children's Literature in Hitler's Germany: The Cultural Policy of National Socialism (Athens, Ohio, London: Ohio UP, 1984), 56. 26 Mombert, Jeunesse et livre, 11. 27 Cf. Manfred H. Burschka, Re-education und Jugendöffentlichkeit: Orientierung und Selbstverständnis deutscher Nachkriegsjugend in der Jugendpresse 1945-1948. Ein Beitrag zur politischen Kultur der Nachkriegszeit, Diss. Göttingen, 1987, 17-18. 28 Mombert. Jeunesse et livre, 148.

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In the American occupation zone, books were equally regarded as an appropriate means of education as becomes evident in Jella Lepman's initiative. She started collecting children's books from different foreign countries as early as 1945 and founded the Internationale Jugendbibliothek München in 1949 in order to lay the foundations for a world of justice and peace. 30 As during the period under consideration print media possessed a much greater significance in forming public opinion than they do today, their educational impact on adolescents is to be judged as considerable. 31 In order to be able to make full use of this means of influence, strict censorship was exerted in all occupation zones. Tetzner's Mirjam passing the censorship at this early stage underlines its conformity with the values of re-education. Tetzner's publishing house in Southern Germany is a further piece of evidence for such a connection. Herbert Stuffer Verlag specialized in youth fiction, and from 1945 onwards in books by written German authors in exile.32 Tetzner's dedication of the cycle Die Kinder aus Nr. 67 constitutes the most important marker of her educational purpose: the author said she had written the cycle as a reminder to wartime youth and as a warning to post-war youth.33 After the borders between the different occupation zones had been opened for the free circulation of books in 1948,34 her writings could be used even beyond the French zone as educational works. The efforts of re-education did not end with the foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949; the occupying forces carried on their educational initiatives until the middle of the 1950s,35 now in an advisory position rather than in a controlling one. Therefore, Gerda Radtke's Kim is to be seen in the context of the process of re-education as well, because it was first published in the 1950s and the picture the author draws of Canada corresponds largely to the contents of re-education, as will be shown in the following. Although Karl-Heinz Weise's Wie suchen Gold in Kanada was published as late

29

30

31 32 33 34 35

PRO,WO 219/974, SHAEF: Manual for the Control of German Information Services (n.d). cited in Gabriele Clemens, Britische Kulturpolitik in Deutschland 1945-1949: Literatur, Film. Musik und Theater (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1997), 67. For the British zone cf. Annette Kern-Stähler, Besatzung. Entnazifizierung und Umerziehung: Artikulation und Konstituierung von Geschichtsbewußtsein durch britische Literaten (forthcoming). Cf. Barbara Scharioth. "Vorwort" in Internationale Jugendbibliothek München (ed.). Kinder zwischen den Welten: Interkulturalität in Kinder- und Jugendbüchern (München: n.p.. 2002). 3-4. Stephan-Kühn, "Kinderliteratur", 33. Mombert, Jeunesse et livre, 191. "[D]er Kriegsjugend zum Gedächtnis, der Nachkriegsjugend zur Mahnung": Cited in Dyhrenfurth, Geschichte des deutschen Jugendbuches, 294. Dyhrenfijrth, Geschichte des deutschen Jugendbuches, 200. Karl-Heinz Füssl, Die Umerziehung der Deutschen: Jugend und Schule unter den Siegermächten des Zweiten Weltkriegs 1945-1955 (Paderborn, München, Wien, Zürich: Schöningh. 1994), 174.

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as in 1969, it uses elements such as those used for re-education, and it can therefore be regarded as consolidating them. The broad image of Canada that is given in all three novels provides young readers with a good insight into different areas of Canadian life. This might help reduce prejudices against other cultures and nationalities and teaches respect for other ways of life. A lot of differences between life in Canada and life in Germany are depicted, especially concerning everyday life, a field considered to be within the mental range and interests of children. People go shopping in self-service stores (KK, 28), which at the time were completely unknown in Germany: In brochures distributed among German immigrants to Canada there were still instructions on how to shop in a self-service store at the end of the 1950s.36 The food the protagonists eat differs considerably from German food of the period and was therefore regarded as typically Canadian by German readers: The fictional characters have bacon and eggs, fried sausages and toast (GK, 37); they eat popcorn (KK, 46), lick ice-cream and chew bubble gum (MA, 68), and in the streets there are unknown hot dog stands (GK, 15). Clothes are different, too: The children wear blue jeans and T-shirts (KK, 30), whereas in Germany boys often wore Lederhosen and girls wore skirts in the 1950s. In the books analysed here, school holidays in Canada extend over three months in the summer (GK, 14)—an incredibly long period in German eyes. A huge fairground in Toronto (probably the Exhibition in August) for amusement during the summer is mentioned (MA, 173). For about six weeks of the holidays, people go to their cottages in the Rocky Mountains or in Ontario - their "summer paradise" 37 (KK, 35) - where they enjoy outdoor activities like fishing, swimming, or exploring their environment by boat. In contrast to this, Germans started going on holidays only at the end of the 1950s. Eating outdoors, that is going on picnics (KK, 63), is depicted as a typically Canadian leisure time activity, again something very uncommon in Germany at the time. With people who do not have the possibility of going to a cottage, camping is very popular (MA, 148). Canadians are presented as attached to nature, an aspect that is emphasized by the descriptions of the flora and fauna in Kleine Kim in Kanada and in Wir suchen Gold in Kanada. In these texts, there are animals and plants which are regarded as specifically Canadian, for instance moose, grizzly bears, raccoons (KK, 39f.). A unique sort of wild-growing cherry tomato plant (GK, 112) and the outward appearance as well as the habitat of animals that are unknown in Germany, such as chipmonks (KK, 34), are explained.

36 Cf. Ministerium für Staatsbürgerschaft und Einwanderung, Staatsbürgerschaftsabteilung (ed.). Handbuch für Neuankömmlinge (Ottawa, 1959), 31-35. 37 "Sommerparadies".

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Besides the many differences, there are also parallels between Canada and Germany in all three novels. Thus, in addition to a specifically Canadian flora and fauna, plants and animals are mentioned that exist in both countries, for example fir, pine, and birch trees (KK, 44), wild raspberries, squirrels, and rabbits (GK, 26). Resemblances also appear in the descriptions of people's jobs, which are often common both in Germany and in Canada: for example, there are doctors (MA, 237), headmasters (KK, 10), caretakers (KK, 22), and farmers in the countryside (GK, 22).' In the context of re-education, such similarities between Canada and Germany were to demonstrate to German adolescents that Canada and, by abstraction, different cultures and races did have things in common, a lesson of great importance aimed against the racism that had been rife in Nazi propaganda. Children's literature was used as a means of (re-)education as the information provided about Canada was meant to counteract fear of the unknown and thus could help combat xenophobia and hostility. [Car] des citoyens ne peuvent vivre ensemble, [...] des nations ne peuvent etre voisines que si leur esprit de tolerance est tel qu'ils ne cherchent pas ä s'imposer mutuellement leurs convictions par la force.38 The inclusion of the English language into novels for young readers has to be seen in the same context because knowing a foreign language reduces the reluctance of entering into contact with speakers of this language, that is members of a different country, and arouses thirst for more knowledge about this culture. Children are acquainted with the English language in all three of the books, albeit to varying extent. In the 1940s and 1950s English was hardly taught in German schools, although the necessity of teaching foreign languages had already been stated in a Control Council Directive of 1947: Reference principle No. 6 6. School curricula should aim to promote understanding of and respect for other nations and to this end attention should be given to the study of modern languages without prejudice to any.39 British authorities considered it as "not unlikely that English will prove to be a popular first choice in many areas", 40 but it was not before the Düsseldorfer Abkommen of February 17, 1955 that English was made obligatory for Gymnasien and Realschulen41 and not before the Hamburger Abkommen of Octo-

38 Mombert, Jeunesse et livre, 17. 39 "'Explanatory Memorandum to Control Council Directive No. 54, 28.8.1947, GEI", cited in Günter Pakschies, Umerziehung in der Britischen Zone 1945-1949 (Weinheim, Basel: Beltz. 1979), 382-88,386. 40 "Explanatory Memorandum", cited in Pakschies, Umerziehung in der Britischen Zone, 386. 41 Christoph Führ, Carl-Ludwig Furck, Handbuch der deutschen Bildungsgeschichte, Vol. VI/1: 1945 bis zur Gegenwart, Erster Teilband: Bundesrepublik Deutschland (MUnchen: C H. Beck, 1998), 72,248, 426.

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ber 28, 1964 that English became a subject in Hauptschulen.42 So Mirjam and Kleine Kim in Kanada very often establish the first contact with this foreign language. The fact that Wir suchen Gold in Kanada offers fewer possibilities of acquiring a first knowledge of English seems to indicate that after the establishment of English as a school subject books no longer needed to fulfil this task. Because of the sound-spelling divide in the English language, comments on pronunciation are sometimes given. Mirjam points out that the name 'Niagara' sounds different from its spelling, something rather like "Neiägore" (MA, 176), and the German word Hospital, the reader is told, becomes English if one chews on it long enough and moves it around in one's mouth (MA, 33). 4j The expressions which are taught mainly belong to everyday communication, such as "o.k., yes, well, alright, I am sorry, what is the matter?" (MA, 199), and to everyday life, for example "shopping" and "job" (MA, 35), and therefore are useful to know. Further vocabulary touches the spheres of children's lives, for instance "Daddy" or "pig-tail" (KK, 8) and specifically Canadian phenomena like "chipmonks" or the "CNR" (GK, 26). In the majority of cases either the translation or an explanation in German is given; the meaning of other phrases can be deduced from the context, which makes it possible for the young readers to learn their first English words. Readers receive quite an informative introduction to basic English usage despite some very few minor errors such as the confusion of the usage of "How do you do?" (MA, 76) and "How are you? " and referring to the first meal of the day as "lunch" (MA, 175). At one point, the beauty of the English language is extolled explicitly; after having overcome the initial difficulties of learning a foreign language, Mirjam detects its charms (MA, 246). This experience not only encourages young Germans to learn English—especially because Mirjam's example demonstrates that the effort is worthwhile—but it also counteracts the fear of the unknown by showing that differences can be beautiful and do not necessarily have to be threatening. This is also conveyed by the stress the authors put on the cultural diversity of the Canadian population. Canada as a country of immigrants is a prominent feature in all three novels. As we have already seen, Pat mentions immigrant ancestors. Mirjam, who is an immigrant to Canada herself - she settles in Vancouver at the end of the book (MA, 256) - stays on a farm near Ottawa owned by immigrants from Germany (MA, 21 Iff.) and visits a doctor in Winnipeg who comes from England (MA, 243). She also meets a Canadian-born millionaire (MA, 199ff.), an example of the distinction that is made in the book between immigrants and non-immigrants.

42 Führ, Furck, Handbuch, 72, 250. 43 "[...] wenn man es lange genug im Mund zerkaut und herumwälzt."

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Going beyond the mere mention of newcomers from abroad, the authors emphasize the resulting multiculturalism of Canadian society. "Whites and blacks, yellow and brown people" (KK, 8)44 live together in Toronto according to Gerda Radtke, and in the West Mirjam perceives bearded Hindus, Chinese wearing pig-tails, and Indians aiming at fish with their spears (MA, 251).45 Thus, ethnic diversity is reflected in the description of the Canadian population, a feature common to all three books (GK, 99ff.). The great emphasis put on Canadian multiculturalism indicates its prominent function as a role model. People of diverse ethnic origins live together peacefully, curious about and at the same time respectful of the other's culture. This comes out, for example, in the scene in which Kim and her friends visit an Indian village in the neighbourhood (KK, 35f.). French Canada is also mentioned, which also contributes to the picture of cultural diversity; Mirjam hears people speak French in the province of Quebec and Macky explains to her that this is the part where French immigrants settled (MA, 188). The insistence on the international character of Canadian society proves to the young German reader that such a community lies within reach. Furthermore, this characteristic feature of the image of Canada drawn in Mirjam in Amerika exemplifies that friendly contacts between different peoples sharing one continent or even the whole world are not unattainable. Enabling Germany to become a member of equal status in the international community figured among the principal aims of re-education. 46 Enhancing an interest in foreign cultures and establishing international bonds as a means of ensuring peace was a task that exceeded the sphere of literature and that was to be observed in non-literary activities as well. In the course of re-education, the Fulbright program enabled Germans to travel to America and to profit from the experience of international exchange. 47 In the French zone, cross-border meetings were initiated between German and French adolescents 48 Exchange visits between Germany and the U.K. developed on such a large scale that in 1952 alone there were about 10,000 young participants, 49 and for six weeks in 1951, the three Western forces set up an International Youth Camp together where young people from 14 different nations met.50

44 "Weiße und Schwarze, Gelbe und Braune." 45 "[...] bärtige Hindus, bezopfte Chinesen und mit Speeren nach Fischen zielende Indianer." 46 Cf. Mombert, Jeunesse et livre, 11-12: "L'objectif final est [...] une collaboration pacifique de l'Allemagne ä la politique internationale." 47 Christoph Führ, Deutsches Bildungswesen seit 1945. Grundzüge und Probleme (1996. Neuwied, Berlin: Luchterhand, 1997), 10. 48 Mombert, Jeunesse et livre, 59. 49 Hearnden, The British in Germany, 309. 50 Hearnden, The British in Germany, 308.

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IV The process of the opening up of Germans towards the world was not exclusively due to the efforts of the occupying forces, but it also found fertile ground and a certain motivation within the German population. In the years following the Second World War, the necessity of finding a new identity arose for individual members of society as well as for the country on the whole. Irrespective of their attitude towards the National-Socialist system during the Third Reich people experienced the loss of all factors that had constituted their identity so far, and they were consequently willing to position themselves anew.51 Adolescents aged 12 to 18 were especially affected, as they had been thoroughly integrated into the Nazi value system due to their 'education' in the Hitlerjugend and in Bund Deutscher Mädchen and now were without orientation.52 A set of new values had to be developed, and this could be mamaged through the perception of other societies' ways of life, which the writers of the analyzed novels provide in detail. Defining a new German national identity constituted a task that had to face a central problem. As Theodor Heuß, later President of the Federal Republic of Germany, put it: W e have experienced the breakdown of countless values of civilization and find ourselves facing immensely difficult tasks [...] Will it be possible to achieve what is of utmost importance, to produce the shape and the contents of a German national consciousness that makes us proud and thankful to be German in spite of what we have gone through? 5 3

This process proved to be extremely problematic: [ . . . ] after unleashing two world wars and organizing a programme of mass genocide [...], any German nationalism was clearly utterly unacceptable, totally discredited: Germans, alone among European nations, could not even be 'patriotic' without arousing hackles and fears a m o n g their neighbours. 5 4

Lisa Tetzner clearly sees the necessity of the development of a new national pride and has Mirjam meet a Canadian couple on the train who love their country very much (MA, 245). 55 By giving such an example, the author shows

51 Wagner, Jugendliche Lebenswelten, 79. 52 Mitscherlich, Erinnerungsarbeit, 37. 53 "Wir haben den Zusammenbruch zahlloser zivilisatorischer Werte erlebt und stehen vor ungeheuer schweren Aufgaben [...] Wird das Entscheidende möglich sein, die Formen und den Inhalt eines deutschen Nationalgeftlhls zu schaffen, das uns trotz dem, was wir erlebt haben, stolz sein läflt und dankbar, Deutsche zu sein? " Cited in Führ, Deutsches Bildungswesen. 9. 54 Mary Fulbrook, German National Identity after the Holocaust (1999. Cambridge, Maiden. MA: Polity Press, 2002), 19. 55 "Sie liebten ihr Land so sehr."

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her young readers that there is no harm in taking pride in one's country and that a positive patriotic pride can be part of a nation's identity. Mirjam also contributes to the formation of a national identity in an indirect way, as do the other two novels. The description of foreign countries and the comparative analysis of similarities and differences here serve as appropriate means of distinguishing oneself and as tools for the construction of a national identity. At the same time, this delimitation of self and other contributes to the process of Germany's finding a new position in the international community. In the context of nationalism, the use of cliches is to be regarded not only as reflecting the German image of Canada at the time; but it is also to be seen as part of a process of representing Canadian identity as opposed to a distinctive German identity. The most frequently used cliche here is the vastness of the country, which runs through all three of the books like a leitmotif. According to Mirjam, Canada is 18 times as large as Germany (MA, 163). Furthermore she stresses that it takes five days and nights on the express train to cross the country from Quebec to Vancouver (MA, 233) and two nights and two days alone to get from Winnipeg to Vancouver (MA, 241). Although their host Don Davis drives like the devil (KK, 25), Kim and her family need more than half a day merely to get to the north of the same province (KK, 26ff.). In Germany, they could have crossed the almost whole country in the period of time. In Wir suchen Gold in Kanada, the huge geographical dimensions are underlined by an enormous map (3 by 5 metres) in the Mining Department in Ottawa showing two only provinces (GK, 7). The stereotype of the Canadian wilderness is also emphasized in the texts analysed here. As two of the three books have an Ontario setting and their protagonists do not leave the province, it is this region that a German reader learns most about. Gerda Radtke and Karl-Heinz Weise present northern Ontario as mostly uninhabited: "Not a living soul can be seen. " (KK, 29) 56 We are confronted in these texts with a country of innumerable lakes, rivers, and forests (KK, 18; GK, 30). In order to underline the vast extent of this wilderness, the author of Kim contrasts the northern part of Ontario with civilization, that is with life in the city. In her detailed description of Toronto (KK, 12), she especially stresses its numerous skyscrapers (KK, 7) and its size as "a metropolis" and as "Canada's second largest city" (KK, 7).57 Although Mirjam travels in Ontario as well, Lisa Tetzner places much more emphasis on the wilderness in western Canada. There the train engine has to be equipped with a "cowcatcher" (MA, 233) to clear its way and a metal pipe for spraying weedkiller.

56 "Keine Menschenseele ist zu sehen." 57 "[...] eine Millionen-Großstadt [...], die zweitgrößte Stadt Kanadas."

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It was a weed-killer which sprays the track in front of the engine with a liquid in order to kill the lush weeds proliferating like a jungle here to such an extent that the animals of the forest venture forth in this thicket onto the C.P.R. rails. (MA, 233) 58 The native Indian population is also inseparably connected with Germans' image of Canada. This cliche is cultivated in all three novels. The picturebook Indian with warpaint and spear is described in Wir suchen Gold in Kanada (GK, 99). Kim and her friends play at being Indians, disguised with feathers on their heads and paint in their faces (KK, 34), and, as already mentioned, Mirjam notices Indians from the train. Another stereotype about Canada we come across in the novels discussed here is that of diggers in the gold rush. It is of course central to Wir suchen Gold in Kanada, but it is also dealt with in Mirjam. The authors affirm the existence of diggers in Canada and equally stress their lack of success. Ted and Douglas find hardly any nuggets at all, and the narrator in Mirjam states that the tales of huge finds of gold are legends invented by diggers to keep up hope, while the real gold of Canada is her wheat (MA, 195). The reader gets the impression that a great number of people try to find gold in Canada, which is thereby constructed as a country of adventure. The uniformity of this cliche in the two novels as well as the correspondence of the aforementioned stereotypes in all three novels demonstrate that the German image of Canada has not changed during the two decades that lie between their publication, which may in part be put down to literature itself as the novels do not only reflect existing images but also create and transport them. Like the representation of stereotypical images of Canadian, references to Canadian national symbols in the description of the country's flora and fauna in our three novels has to be seen in the context of early post-war attempts at defining a new German national identity, because the depiction of a Canadian national identity serves as a point of reference in this process. Beavers are mentioned (GK, 120), maple trees grow along the streets (KK, 11), and Douglas and Ted search in vain for a trillium - the symbol of Ontario - , which does not exist in Germany and is therefore described as "a little white flower with three white petals" (GK, 48). 59 In the middle of the twentieth century, Canada, too, was confronted with the need of establishing a national identity. This was due to the attainment of complete independence from the mother country through the Statute of Westminster (1931) and the introduction of Canadian citizenship (1949). The strong

58

"Das war ein Unkrautverbrenner, der den Weg vor der Lokomotive mit einer Flüssigkeit übergießt, um das üppige Unkraut zu vernichten, das hier so urwaldmäßig wuchert, daß sich die Tiere des Waldes in diesem Dickicht bis auf die Schienen des C.P.R. hervorwagen."

59

" [ . . . ] eine kleine weiße Blume mit drei weißen Blütenblättern."

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movement of immigration into Canada during the 1950s and 1960s equally contributed to this need. The fact that the texts analysed here concentrate on Canada rather than the U.S.A. as did most other German children's books at the time set in North America demonstrates that Canada was already clearly perceived as a separate and different country in its own right. Mirjam's constant differentiation between Canada and the U.S.A., which, again, is very unusual for the time, underlines this aspect. One reason for this may be that Canadian soldiers were already perceived in Germany as Canadians rather than as (U.S.-)Americans or as British subjects. Lisa Tetzner writes about Canada's Englishness and attributes it to the influence of loyalist refugees from the U.S.A. during the War of Independence (MA, 162). She emphasizes over and over again the distinction between "English" Canada and the "American" U.S.A. Amerika in the title then here seems to denote the North American continent, because Miriam visits both countries, with the U.S.A. being referred to as "the Union" (MA, 169), while in the 1950s German books bearing Amerika in the title were usually set in the U.S.A.

V In the majority of books for young readers set abroad in the period under review here the action takes place in countries of the western world. This can be seen in the context of the foreign policy pursued by Konrad Adenauer, the first German chancellor after the war. Adenauer's policy was characterized by "relentless anti-Communism and wholehearted commitment to the west". 60 He was convinced that West Germany's future prospects lay exclusively in close association with the Western forces. In this attitude, he was supported by the U.S.A. and Great Britain as well as by France, 61 all of them strongly interested in tying West Germany to the western democracies. As a consequence of Adenauer's policy of Westintegration, West Germany managed to establish herself as one of the important European powers and as such saw a period of tremendous economic growth in the 1950s, the socalled Wirtschaftswunder,62 In the novels discussed here, the reader is confronted with many detailed references to technological progress as characteristic of Canada, which is to be seen in the context of this development. A considerable number of people in the books are described as owning a car whereas

60 William Carr, A History of Germany: 1815-1990, 4th ed. (London, New York, Sydney. Auckland: Arnold, 1991), 376. 61 Cf. Wolfgang Benz (ed.), Deutschland unter alliierter Besatzung 1945-1949/1955 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1999), 46-7. 62 Carr, History of Germany, 383.

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in Germany at that time cars were still owned by only a smaller section of the population. Buses and streetcars are mentioned, and traffic in downtown Toronto is extremely busy, causing a roaring noise (KK, 7), while such a phenomenon as that of a rush hour became known again in Germany only much later. Traffic lights were an exception in Germany, as were electric billboards (GK, 15). Telephones are described as quite common (MA, 239) while they were still something very special in Germany. Canadians' high engineering abilities are testified to by countless skyscrapers and by a narrow steel bridge in the Rocky Mountains referred to as one of the wonders of the world (MA, 249). When Kim spends the summer holidays at a cottage, even this small wooden cabin in the remote wilderness is equipped with a fridge, with running water and an oil-fired central heating (KK, 32). Here again we come across the idea of progress in the New World paired with the concomitant implication of the Old World's comparative backwardness. The Old World was about to catch up, however. Optimism, a prominent characteristic of much post-war youth fiction, 63 was growing in the German population as the economy began to revive and new technological possibilities opened up. The will to reconstruct was fostered in a lot of German books for children and adolescents at the time, 64 and this frequently happened through the decription of other Western democratic countries. According to a public opinion poll, 72% of Germans were convinced that Germany could learn from foreign countries, especially in the industrial sector (68%), but also in other fields. 65

VI The choice of Canada as a setting for German youth fiction in the post-war decades can be seen as part of a general literary movement which is characterized by the turning towards international settings. There were developments in the social and political sphere. The three principal driving forces behind this were the occupying forces, the German population itself, and the German authorities. This tendency towards internationalization can be linked with major German issues in the wake of the Second World War. It has been shown that literature for young readers set in Canada has to be seen in the context of reeducation, of defining a new German national identity and of the elaboration of a new set of values. The image of Canada presented in German youth fiction served as a role model, with special emphasis being placed on Canada's ethni-

63 64 65

Kaminski, "Kinder- und Jugendl iteratur", 31. Kaminski, "Kinder- und Jugendliteratur", 78. Füssl, Umerziehung, 180.

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cally diverse and tolerant population and the technological progress which, due to improved economic circumstances, gradually became attainable again in Germany as well. The three novels describe differences and similarities between the two countries, they present cliches about Canada and introduce their readers to some aspects of the English language. Thus, interest in other countries is aroused and the reader is encouraged to be tolerant and respectful of different cultures. These books also provide the reader with an opportunity of reflecting on how to reconstruct a German national identity vis-ä-vis a positive Canadian other. The omission of history and especially politics from two of the three novels reflects the way in which Germans tried to cope with the past. Tetzner the exile is an exception here because she uses the Second World War as a topic in Mirjam. Apart from this major difference, the three novels are closely related in the general conceptualization of their fictional worlds, and the way in which Canada is presented in them, despite the decades that lie between their dates of publication, is remarkably similar. The image of Canada in all these books is exclusively positive, as may be summed up in a quotation from Mirjam: Y e s , darling, all this is Canada, spelt C-a-n-a-d-a. A n d it is unique in the world, and it is English and the most beautiful part o f America. ( M A , 2 4 7 ) 6 6

66 "Ja, Darling, das alles ist Kanada, buchstabiere K-a-n-a-d-a. Und das gibt's nur einmal in der Welt, und es ist englisch und der schönste Teil Amerikas."

MATTHIAS MERKL

University of Würzburg

What makes a Canadian? Strategies of Presenting Canadianness in Teaching Materials

1. Introduction In the last three decades, there has been a growing need in EFL classrooms for the study of target cultures through the use of linguistic and cultural awareness. If we compare textbooks for the EFL classroom published in the 1960s and 1970s with those of the 1980s and 1990s we notice that language teaching has become more and more embedded in the cultural context of the Englishspeaking societies and their social and ethnic realities. Whereas linguistic issues such as pragmatics - as a result of the communicative turn in the early 1970s - were very influential on how German schoolchildren experienced their English lessons, nowadays information about the target culture is not only used as background information but it is indispensable to reach the curricular goals of intercultural understanding. Not only teachers of English but also authors of teaching materials are expected to devise more appropriate ways of introducing the learner to a foreign culture. Schoolbooks should be representative, objective, authentic, learnerorientated, they should offer possibilities of identification and contribute to the development of cultural awareness. 1 The easiest way of familiarizing the learner with cultural phenomena is to present facts and figures and - as it is done in tourist brochures - to show sights and places of interest. Since this

1

For the qualitative analysis of teaching materials for the EFL classroom cf. Wolfgang Gehring, Schülernahe Lebensbereiche in Englischbüchern für die 7. Jahrgangsstufe: Ein Beitrag zur landeskundlichen Lehrwerkkritik (Frankfurt a.M.: Lang, 1996); Werner Kieweg, "Lernprozessorientierte Kriterien zur Erstellung und Evaluierung von Lehrwerken für das Unterrichtsfach Englisch - dargestellt am Schulerbuch als Leitmedium", in Wolfgang Börner, Klaus Vogel (eds.), Lehrwerke im Fremdsprachenunterricht. Lernbezogene, interkulturelle und mediale Aspekte (Bochum: AKS, 1999), 33-66; Matthias Merkl, Kulturgeographische Inhalte in deutschen Lehrbüchern für den Englischunterricht der 8. Jahrgangsstufe: Ein Beitrag zur landeskundlichen Lehrwerkkritik (Frankfurt a.M.: Lang, 2001).

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accumulation of knowledge is mainly based on cognitive processes, these processes do not really consider the inner perspective of the members of the target culture. What is even more astonishing is the fact that visual media are often used to strengthen the (often stereotypical) image we have of a foreign country - instead of offering well-selected facets of how the 'others' see themselves and experience their surroundings. Reading literature seems to be a possible key to target cultures, since literary texts reflect a broad spectrum of life. In the case of Canada, both textbooks and anthologies try to display distinctive features of Canadian society and its cultural communities to create a more detailed image of the country and its people compared with the stereotype-based ethnocentric image schoolchildren ( and many adults) often have. For this reason, modern cultural studies readers on Canada are very appropriate objects of research because they demonstrate how specific images of a particular country are constructed and how they relate to our preconceived image of it. The analysis of the relationship between reality and the cognitive images in our minds underline the fact that - from an ethnocentric point of view - identities of foreign cultures are mainly based on heterostereotypes and that they are very stable. Authors of teaching materials should therefore take this fact into consideration and try to offer schoolchildren a multi-perspective view of their target culture to develop cultural awareness.

2. What German Students of English Know About Canada The following statistics are an excerpt from a study which was carried out in the summer semester of 2003 at the University of Würzburg, Germany. 120 people (first-year to fourth-year students) were asked about their knowledge of the natural environment of Canada, about its people and culture(s). The questionnaire was divided into three sections: (1) The questions of section 1 referred to the individual background of the students, e.g. to holidays in Canada or lessons on Canada at school. (2) In section 2, the students had to answer questions about geography, national symbols, stereotypes and the image they have of the country. (3) Section 3, in which students were asked to name Canadian writers and name some titles of literary works, was quite difficult for the students because most of them do not have any personal experience of Canadian literature (in contrast to US-American literature). The most significant results are as follows: Most of those asked (97%) have never been to Canada. Only 10% were of the opinion that Canada should be a topic in English lessons at school. More revealing than the individual background are the cognitive images our students have of Canada. Since most of these images are not based on personal experiences, the attitudes and stereo-

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types prove that images of Canada are to a large extent determined by the physical environment of the country. Wild and romantic landscapes inhabited by noble savages, Lumber Jacks and Mounties, log cabins, remote islands, large rivers, lakes and thick forests, mountains, snow, bears, elk and beavers, in many students' minds, are the typical features of the country. This image correlates with Northrop Frye's idea of a 'garrison mentality' and Margaret Atwood's theory of 'survival'. 2 Our clichds also construct the typical Canadian as a backwoodsman because - as we are convinced - he lives close to nature. Among the students' statements about Canada were the following examples: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Americans always make fun of the Canadians. The lonely lumberjacks yearn for wives. Canadian English sounds a little bit strange. All Canadians play ice-hockey. 3 The distinctive features of the Canadian landscape are endless woods, mountains, rivers, and lakes. The wildlife in Canada is represented by the beaver and the elk. Peaceful Indians live in harmony with nature. (The 'noble savage' is still in our minds!)

Nevertheless, the students do know that Canada is a very heterogeneous nation and that the multicultural society of Canada is different from that of the United States. Apart from the two biggest speech communities - the anglophone and francophone Canadians - especially the First Nations, the Asian and the Italian cultural communities were mentioned. Quebec and its French population are one of the main features that distinguish Canadian society from that of its neighbours in the south which can be described either by the obsolete melting-pot concept or by the modern salad-bowl/patchwork-quilt concept. Although the students did have a rudimentary knowledge of the people, many students seemed to be quite confused when they were asked to sketch the Canadian territory and the following spatial elements: the Rocky Mountains, the Great Plains, the Great Lakes, St. Lawrence River, the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean. Nearly all possible ways of combining these six parameters in a simple mental map were presented. Canada's west coast sometimes is the Atlantic coast, sometimes the Pacific coast. The St. Lawrence River flows in either of these oceans in the western part of the country because the Rocky Mountains bar the way of the St. Lawrence River to the east (fig. 1). Even

2

3

Cf. Martin Kuester, "Vom Rising Village zum Global Village: Zur Entwicklung der anglokanadischen Literatur und Literaturkritik", Ahornblätter. Marburger Beiträge zur Kanada-Forschung 13 (2000), 28-47, esp. 32. For ice-hockey as a means of identification see David Whitson, "Hockey and Canadian Identities: From Frozen Rivers to Revenue Streams", in David Taras, Beverly Rasporich (eds ), A Passion for IdentityThe: An Introduction to Canadian Studies. 3rd ed. (Scarborough: ITP, 1997), 297-320.

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more astonishing is the geographical knowledge displayed in fig. 2. The Rocky Mountains stretch from east to west, the Great Plains are to the north of the St. Lawrence River, which flows across the whole country, and the Great Lakes are somewhere in the Arctic north of Canada Oust as it is displayed in flg. 1). This obvious lack of basic geographical knowledge - at least of a considerable number of the persons asked - makes one suspect that the students' image of Canada is mainly determined by simple pictures they may have seen on TV, in magazines or in tourist guides and which produce such stereotypes as those mentioned above. From the psychological point of view it is less difficult to keep a small number of facets of the foreign country in mind than the complex system of geographical, historical, cultural, ethnic or social relationships. Nearly every German learner knows the Statue of Liberty as a national symbol of the United States, but only a comparatively small number of people have the historical and political background knowledge to understand that this monument is more than just the representation of an idea. This issue becomes more obvious when we look at Canada and its national symbols. More than four out of five students were of the opinion that the maple leaf is the national symbol of the country. However, when we talked about the reason why it is so significant for the country hardly anybody knew the answer. This survey has shown that many students' image of Canada is not very differentiated and mainly results from fragmentary knowledge and stereotypes - j u s t as more or less all our images of foreign countries do. According to the didactic principle that education should be based on the previous knowledge of the learners, teaching materials on Canada should therefore take this idea into consideration and start start from the relatively restricted perspective of nonCanadians. The following three-step model of presenting basic information on Canada and its population is a methodological sequence which illustrates the shift from objective description to multiple perspectives - the shift from cultural knowledge to cultural awareness. We can find this scheme as a basic structure in almost all types of textbooks.

3. Introducing Canada to Learners of English

3.1 The Facts and Figures Approach to Canada There is no doubt that presenting facts and figures in teaching materials is the most common and the easiest way of broadening our knowledge of a country. If we look back to the nineteenth and to the first half of the twentieth century in Germany we can see that apart from political, social and economic aspects,

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information about historical facts and geographical conditions played a very important role in textbooks for the EFL classroom. At the time, geographical education at German schools was dominated by the länderkundliche Ansatz, which can be described as follows: From the late 19th century to the 1960s geography lessons at German schools were based on Länderkunde. According to the Länderkunde approach, the learner is to acquire as much knowledge as possible. It shows the distinctive features of spaces, and the same geographical aspects are dealt with time and again. There is no opportunity of transfer. The various features are put together like a mosaic to present a complete image of a country.4 In the EFL classroom learners were offered textual and visual material to enable them to compare the foreign country with their own, e.g. with regard to the landscapes, the climate, the political system, the people and the cultural traditions. At that time it was considered that the 'national characters' of the British and the Americans were very much influenced by their natural environment and the historical development of these two countries. The canon of literary texts offered a great amount of background information which mainly focused on the 'typical' features of English and American culture. Stereotypes such as those of the English gentleman, English imperialism, the noble savage and the American melting-pot determined our image of the target cultures and were used to transmit political ideologies, e.g. in the Third Reich. When comparing foreign cultures with German culture the learner was primarily expected to learn to appreciate his own nation. In modern teaching materials for the EFL classroom, facts and figures are still used to show as many cultural facets as possible and to compare them with our own distinctive features. However these facts should contribute to a more objective, authentic and realistic image of the target culture than they did in earlier decades. In the case of Canada, the presentation of facts and figures is usually the first step to familiarize the learner with Canadian multiculturalism and the phenomenon of the search for identity. The presentation of factual information and the comparison between the target culture and the learner's own culture create an awareness of fundamental differences e.g. in the physical and cultural conditions of Canada and Germany (fig. 3). The main function of this comparative approach - i.e. of komparatistische Landeskunde - is to enlarge the background knowledge of the learner and to select those cultural and environmental specifics which seem to be characteristic of Canada, as the table of contents in Canada A to Ζ shows: "Beavers", "Butter Tarts", "First Nations", "Francophonie", "Hockey", "Multiculturalism", "Niagara Falls", "Northern

4

Merkl, Kulturgeographische Landeskunde, 35 (translation M.M.).

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286

Lights", "Oceans, Rivers and Lakes", "Prairies" etc. 5 At the s a m e time it should b e m a d e clear that there are similar p h e n o m e n a in the learner's o w n culture as it is described in American

and Canadian

Short

Stories:

Unit 5, "Race/Relations", focuses on the problems of polyethnicity, multiculturalism, and racism. They are typical of the United States of America and of Canada because both countries have been and still are destinations for immigrants from all over the world. Furthermore, minorities of the American first nations live there. Representing the great ethnic variety of North America, the texts by Lenore Keeshig-Tobias and Joseph Little are stories from the world of Native Americans. The stories by Alice Walker, Julia Peterkin and Russell Banks concentrate on the situation of Afro-Americans. This is followed by W.S. Merwin's story 'The Dachau Shoe', which shows that racism is not only a distant problem to be found only in societies with a great variety of different ethnic groups. 6 A n o t h e r important aspect o f the facts and figures approach in teaching materials is the presentation o f textual and visual information w h i c h is s o m e t i m e s reminiscent o f what w e find in h o l i d a y brochures: Firstly, introductory texts o f a unit present abstracts o f the history o f the country, o f its g e o g r a p h y , o f its population, o f its e c o n o m y and its political s y s t e m . S e c o n d l y , tourist destinations and p l a c e s o f outstanding beauty are s h o w n , such as national parks and b i g cities. T h i s kind o f information is s u p p o s e d to be representative and to present typical facets o f Canadian regions, cities, e v e r y - d a y life, and o f Canadians' traditions and hobbies. G o o d e x a m p l e s o f this approach can be f o u n d in the reader Canada

A to Ζ:

One of Canada's major attractions is the 'great outdoors'. The largest country in the world (9,970,610 square kilometres), Canada has every type of landscape to explore. It offers wide plains, huge mountains and thick forests, as well as thousands of lakes and rivers. In the Far North, the wilderness becomes Arctic tundra. Each type of terrain offers a different outdoor activity. [...] Survey results published in 1990 showed that over 70 per cent of Canadians take an interest in wildlife, from feeding or photographing animals and birds to simply watching them. In the winter of 1987, over 10,000 Canadians across the country stepped out into the snow to take part in a poll about birds that winter in Canada. Many people who cannot get out to see wildlife support organizations that protect it and buy publications such as the Canadian Geographic, a magazine that has been publishing articles about Canadian wildlife since 1929. A s a considerable part o f the information o n Canada c o m p r i s e s geographical facts, our c o g n i t i v e i m a g e s are s u p p o s e d to b e c o m e m o r e detailed and to en-

5 6

7

Jennifer Rae-Brown, Canada A to Ζ (Berlin: Cornelsen, 1994), 3-4. Reingard M. Nischik und Regina Lehr, American and Canadian Short Stories. Teacher's Book, Interpretations and Supplementary Material (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1996), 18 (translation MM.). Rae-Brown, Canada A-Z, 34-5.

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able us to gain a basic understanding of surroundings we are not familiar with, such as the North: The North Finally, there is the North, the great sweep of territory mainly above the sixtieth parallel, which forms the southern boundary of the Yukon and Northwest Territories, but also, because of the southeasterly pull of the dividing line between tundra and northern forest, embraces the northern parts of Manitoba and Ontario around Hudson Bay, the Ungava peninsula of Quibec, and the north of the Labrador coast which forms part of the province of [Labrador and] Newfoundland.

It is very common for facts to be used in order to provide the reader of literary texts with the necessary knowledge for a better understanding of the plot and to create contexts in which the stories are embedded. Without additional information about the author, the cultural conditions or the historical situation the reader might not be able to fully understand the texts. For example, the introduction to Jack Hodgins' story "By the River" underlines the special relationship between the Canadians and nature: Canada is the second biggest nation in the world. There was a time when many people sought for their future in its vast wilderness of plains, lakes and forests but nowadays people are moving back towards the great cities and the land grows emptier. And yet, as this sad and compassionate tale shows, some individuals clinj> to dreams of love and loyalty of living a simpler life, whatever the reality may be.

Although facts and figures are an appropriate means of presenting social, cultural and environmental facets of a foreign country, they cannot tell us anything about how the people perceive their surroundings, how they define themselves as, say, Canadians and what are the complex processes of identification in a pluri-ethnic society. The stereotype-based approach to a foreign culture (see 3.2) supplements the facts and figures approach with psychological aspects, with attitudes and evaluations. Whereas the facts and figures approach tries to be as objective, detailed and differentiated as possible the stereotypebased approach goes a step further: It combines factual knowledge with an individual's or a group's perception. Admittedly this leads to a rather simplified and subjective image of the target culture. But since the stereotype-based approach is limited to a small number of 'typical' features that characterize a country and its people (at least in the eyes of those who produce teaching materials) it can be easier for the learner than an approach aiming at a comprehensive and objective representation of the target culture. It is always easier to remember simple structures than complex ones.

8 9

Gerhard Düsterhaus, Rolf Franzbecker (eds.), Canada - Regions and Literature, Texts for English and American Studies 20 (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1987), 126. Jim Rice, Mike Hayhoe (eds ), Writing from Canada, Figures in a landscape (Cambridge: CUP, 1994), 17.

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3.2 The Stereotype-Based Approach to Canada A considerable number of the textbooks and readers analysed use stereotypes to describe Canada and the Canadians. The main function of stereotypes is not to fix the image of the country as a whole, but to reduce the great mass of information about the target culture. As an essential part of the intercultural learning process, they make us think about the origins of our hetero-stereotypes of Canadians and about Canadians' auto-stereotypes. It might be true that a less differentiated image of a country is an appropriate means of introducing learners to a foreign culture, of offering them survival knowledge of a culture with which they are not famliar and of making them aware of culture-specific conventions. But in the case of Canada it is questionable whether the stereotype-based approach can do justice to the complexity of such a multicultural and pluri-ethnic society. Especially national stereotypes such as that of the Canadian lumberjack can only refer to a tiny segment of Canadian reality and - referring to the physical environment - they sometimes imply that people's behaviour and attitudes are primarily influenced by their surroundings and only secondarily by their ethnic background. In view of the strong regionalism we find in Canada, the ambition to define Canadianness on the basis of national stereotypes makes no sense. Stereotypes cannot accurately represent all the regional, local, ethnic or cultural identities of Canada, and they can therefore be highly problematic in teaching materials. For German learners whose image of the North American Natives has been mainly influenced by Karl May's works it is of great importance to overcome the romanticized image of the noble savage, which is criticized in Discover ... First Nations Peoples in America. Teacher's Book: William Borden's / Want to be an Indian - the central text of this issue of Discover - is suitable for the EFL classrom for many reasons. It is a short text (16 pages), it is easy to understand and it shows those stereotypes and cliches which still determine to a large extent our images o f Indians. These images have been passed on from generation to generation - considerably influenced by Karl May's novels, in which Winnetou was the paradigm o f 'the Indian'. There still is a tendency to romanticize Indian culture. We can see this, for example, in the Indian Crafts Shops in our cities where Indian insignia and clothes are offered as souvenirs or even as carnival costumes. 1 0

It is quite easy to define the 'typical North-American Indian' as mentioned in this example, but if we try to describe the 'typical Canadian' we will notice a lack of information about Canadian life, traditions and habits. Canadian autostereotypes can offer us limited insights in this respect. Fig. 4 shows how a

10 Albert-Reiner Glaap, Ingrid Hartmann-Scheer, Discover... First Nations Peoples in America. Teacher's Book, Topics for Advanced Learners (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2001), 6 (translation MM).

What Makes a Canadian? Strategies of Presenting Canadianness

289

Canadian describes a typical compatriot from an ironic point of view. The auto-stereotypes we find here lend themselves to a comparison with the learners' image of a Canadian. Admittedly the collection and comparison of hetero- and auto-stereotypes cannot explain social and ethnic conflicts in a multicultural society or provide answers to issues of identity construction in Canadian society. For that reason textbooks have to go more into details. After having introduced the foreign culture by means of facts (objectivity) and images (perception and evaluation), modern teaching materials on Canada make use of yet another approach, which focuses on Canadian identities and caters for the needs of intercultural education (see 3.3).

3.3 The Identity-Based Approach to Canada The knowledge of how identities are constructed and how they function is one of the main keys to the understanding of other cultures. As there is a complex system of ethnic, cultural, social or regional identities in Canada, it seems to be rather difficult to teach the learner of English all these heterogeneous structures. German students of English know the stereotyped and ideological image of the American melting pot, but they have difficulties in describing the situation in Canada in terms of a Canadian identity. According to Kuester and Keller, there are different traditional definitions of national identity in these two countries: Canada has always defined itself as independent and different from the U.S.A., and so it has developed its own concept and policies of multiculturalism, setting it apart from the United States. For a long time, there was a convenient metaphorical distinction that saw the U.S. as a melting pot, in which new immigrants would lose their old identity and gain a new, American one, whereas Canada was interpreted as a mosaic, in which immigrants would be able to retain their old national identities while becoming Canadians." Obviously it would be too difficult to discuss all kinds of belonging and otherness in textbooks. In order to fully understand what identities are, "we need to study psychology, culture, politics, and economics, as well as philosophy and history." 12 In the case of Canada it seems reasonable, then, to give a short survey of regional and ethnic identities because they determine to a consider11 Martin Kuester, Wolfram R. Keller, "Beyond Fleur de Lis and Maple Leaf. Ethnicity in Contemporary Canadian Literature", in Martin Kuester, Wolfram R. Keller (eds), Writing Canadians: The Literary Construction of Ethnic Identities (Marburg: Universität. 2002). 1314. 12 Linda Martin Alcoff, "Introduction - Identities: Modern and Postmodern", in Linda Martin Alcoff und Eduardo Mendieta (eds.), Identities: Race. Class, Gender, and Nationality (Maiden: Blackwell. 2003), 3.

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Matthias Merk!

able extent the national identity of the people. So instead of asking the question "What makes a Canadian?" it would be more precise to ask "What makes a Native Canadian?" or "What makes a Chinese Canadian?" or "What makes a Quebecer?" Fighting xenophobia and racism, regarding things from the other's perspective, promoting tolerance and cultural awareness: All these goals of education are closely connected with identities and identification. Alcoff writes: All students of society and all who want to become effective citizens must become educated about the multiple identities that structure our social worlds in order to be able to understand, evaluate, and, if they choose, meaningfully participate in the struggles against identity-based forms of oppression. 1 3

Many modern teaching materials confront the learner with the search for national symbols and characteristic features which Canadians can identify with (Fig. 5). For example, Canada A to Ζ explains the existence of an English and a French version of the national anthem "O Canada"14 and the anthology Writing from Canada concentrates on the problems of the search for identity in a historical context: This anthology celebrates and explores the particular qualities of the writing of a nation. The stories evoke what is distinctive about Canadians and their relationship to their country; their attitude towards its vastness; their valuing of individuality; historical and current problems of identity; attitudes towards the nation's cultural mix; the c o u n t r y ' s increasing urbanisation; growing interest in w o m e n ' s rights and attitudes towards the country's future. 1 5

The introductory annotations to literary texts usually take up distinctive features of Canada and ideas such as 'wilderness', 'nordicity', 'survival'16 and the

13 Alcoff, "Introduction - Identities", 2. Alcoff continues: "Thus, identities need to be analyzed not only in their cultural location but also in relation to historical epoch. The constellation of practices, beliefs about identity, the lived experiences associated with various identities, and the legal or formal recognitions of identity not only undergo constant change but can produce truly new forms of identity." (3). 14 Cf. Rae-Brown, Canada A-Z, 62. From the didactic point of view Antor remarks: "Die schon am bloßen Text der kanadischen Nationalhymne beobachtete Vielstimmigkeit des Landes wirft die Frage auf, wie sich eine solch heterogene Nation nach außen präsentiert, und welches Selbstverständnis sich dahinter zeigt." Heinz Antor, "Die Vermittlung interkultureller Kompetenz an der Universität: Das Beispiel Kanada", in Laurenz Volkmann, Klaus Stierstorfer. Wolfgang Gehring (eds.), Interkulturelle Kompetenz (Tübingen: Narr, 2002), 143-63, 150. 15 Rice, Hayhoe (eds.), Writingfrom Canada, U4. 16 Margaret Atwood remarks: "The central symbol for Canada - and this is based on numerous instances of its occurrence in both English and French Canadian literature - is undoubtedly Survival, la Survivance. [...] For French Canada after the English took over it became cultural survival, hanging on as a people, retaining a religion and a language under an alien government. And in English Canada now while the Americans are taking over it is acquiring a similar meaning." Margaret Atwood, Survival. A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature (Toronto: Anansi, 1972), 32.

What Makes a Canadian? Strategies of Presenting Canadianness

291

'garrison mentality' and integrate them into a regional or national context, as the following examples show: [Introduction to Sinclair Ross's, "A Field of Wheat"] From the centre of Canada the Great Plains stretch westward to the Rocky Mountains. Once these were the Prairies, the hunting grounds of the First Nations people; now, they are the great wheatlands, tamed by massive ploughs and harvesters. But the weather cannot be tamed, whether it be the incessant scorching winds which brought about the Great Drought of the early 1930s or, as here, a sudden moment of winter violence in the middle of summer. In such a harsh and unpredictable world, survival demands extremes of courage, compassion and endurance. 17 [Introduction to Charlie Patsauq's "The Custom"] Inuit life in the Far North of Canada has undergone many changes but it has always involved a struggle for survival, even with the aids of such modern technology as aeroplanes, motorized sledges and rifles. In this simple and bleak tale, an Inuit high school student writes about life before such Western technology was available and o f the awful, loving price which sometimes had to be paid if the people were to survive. 18

Some teaching materials such as Discover... First Nations Peoples in America focus on the search for identity of ethnic groups and analyse their efforts to define what makes a Canadian. Or to speak with Drew Hayden Taylor: "And if nothing else, perhaps I can, through my work, open a window or two into that community for the rest of the world."19

4. Conclusion The images German students have of Canada show that there is a considerable lack of information about this country. Modern teaching materials on Canada take into consideration the preconceived images of the learners and try to familiarize them with a great number of cultural facets and the manifold perspectives of the ethnic groups living in Canada. The basic structure of these materials can be described as a three-step model. Step 1 is to offer the learners detailed background information on geography, history, the people, the cultures, the political system, etc. (facts and figures approach). Step 2 focuses on auto-stereotypes and on hetero-stereotypes in order to compare our image of Canada with the Canadians' self-image (stereotype-based approach). Step 3 reflects the various kinds of identity (e.g. national, ethnic, regional) which leads to innumerable but authentic answers to the question "What makes a Canadian?"

17 Rice, Hayhoe (eds.), Writing from Canada, 3. 18 Rice, Hayhoe (eds.), Writing from Canada, 13. 19 Drew Hayden Taylor, Toronto at Dreamer's Rock, TAGS. Literarische Texte für den Englischunterricht der Sekundarstufe II, ed. Albert-Reiner Glaap (Berlin: Cornelsen, 1995). 5.

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Matthias Merkl

Fig. 1 Mental map of a German student of English

/HW're

Fig. 2 Mental map of a German student of English

What Makes a Canadian? Strategies o f Presenting Canadianness

293

Some Facts about Canada fe

(.eneral information The second larpsi country in die »oriel after the SwiciUnion Area: ν,ΐ'Λ.Ι|3SI«t(u(irc Uonxires it Κ an independent eountry and a member «I tin· Conim arc m (he south Population

Oik «tout About lull of Ibc population is of Hritish origin. Nearly α third is of French origin, About 1% is ImSan and Eskimo Other gKiu(»; German». Ukrainians. SamtaMam.. Dutch. IVA». Lwqpnge English ami Eretwh. 11>e majonty tf Canadians -.peak English Almut 211% speak French A fat »I people speak both languages landscape Canada has many düterent kinds ol landscape. ΛI« (it the land κ rocky and a Ιοί is in on Arctic dimate. There are very hijih mountains. tap; torests and very Ng lake» andrivers.Almosl ad

Climate

Canada has a variety of dimaio Πκ »inters are onldcr ami the summers hotter than in Europe Lo» date: -63° Centigrade, hidicst temperature: -tf>" Centigrade Animal life

In the Arctic then.' art seals, the polar hear, the Arctic »olfand the »Wiefcs.Further south time are tile mime. (Raw. the Cauada lynx and the Mack bear. Many diUercm species aitods,c.g. the Canada jav, the cardinal, the Baltimore .mile and the catbird.

iliaseJi«! ihr l.iH-ukyjk'di· frttanait*} 'J 4

Fig. 3 Facts about Canada. In: English in Action 4H (Langenscheidt-Longman, 1982), 94.

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Matthias Merkl

4. BEN WICKS: Is There a Typical Canadian? F r o m : Ben Wick's

Canada, T o r o n t o , M c C l e l l a n d and S t e w a r t , 1 9 7 6 . ρ 6 3 .

Is there a typical Canadian? T h e r e is. H e w a t c h e s f r o m 8 t o 2 9 h o u r s of television a w e e k , a n d s p e n d s an average of 7 h o u r s a w e e k listening t o t h e radio. He s h u n s a n active p a r t in s p o r t s a n d d o e s n ' t w o r k o n a r t s and crafts. T h e t y p i c a l C a n a d i a n has a 39.3 h o u r - a - w e e k m a n u f a c t u r i n g j o b a n d is m a r r i e d . He has 1.7 c h i l d r e n ; .7 of w h o m are having their t e e t h straightened. He is an o v e r w e i g h t , unilingual s m o k e r w h o is likely t o die of c i r c u l a t o r y a i l m e n t s a t t h e age of 6 9 years a n d 21 w e e k s .

hit ("-/„ it*)

niWiciyef (Sports ftfclitfn)

Tyf^l CAL CANAPIAN

5 shun (v.): to avoid, ro stay .iw.iy from — 6 arts and crafts. the arts that arc concerned with making objects by hand 10 overweight (adj.): weighing too much — 10 uniliugual (adj.): speaking only one language 11 circulatory ailments /'sakjulaun 'cclments/: illnesses at'fccting the movement of blood round the body fluoridate (v.): to add Fluoride to the water in order to protect the teeth — six pack: six bottles or cans of beer. 16

Fig. 4 A typical Canadian. In: Düsterhaus, Franzbecker (eds.), Canada,

16.

What Makes a Canadian? Strategies of Presenting Canadianness

5

Visual media and the presentation of national symbols

List of Contributors HEINZ ANTOR studied English and French Literatures at the Universities of Oxford (UK) and Erlangen (Germany). He received his PhD and his Dr. habil. from the University of Wilrzburg and was a Visiting Professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. From 1995 to 1999, he was Professor of English Literatures at the University of Düsseldorf and, in 1998-1999, at the University of Bremen. Since 1999, he has held the Chair of English Literatures at the University of Cologne. From 2001 to 2005, Antor was President of the Association for the Study of the New English Literatures (ASNEL). He currently serves on the Editorial Board of Canadian Literature. His publications include The Bloomsbury Group: Its Philosophy, Aesthetics, and Literary Achievement (1986), Die Narrativik der Angry Young Men: Eine Studie zur literaturdidaktischen Bedeutung rezeptionslenkender Gruppenstereotypien (1989), Text - Culture - Reception: Cross-Cultural Aspects of English Studies (with R. Ahrens, 1992), Der englische Universitätsroman: Bildungskonzepte und Erziehungsziele (1996), Shakespeare alternativ. (1997), Intercultural Encounters - Studies in English Literatures, (with K.L. Cope, 1999), English Literatures in International Contexts, (with K. Stierstorfer, 2000), Refractions of Germany in Canadian Literature and Culture (with S. Brown, J. Considine and K. Stierstorfer, 2003), Grundlagen Inter- und Transkultureller Studien (forthcoming 2005), Andere Kulturen verstehen - andere Kulturen lehren: Theorie und Praxis der Vermittlung interkultureller Kompetenz (forthcoming 2005) as well as more than 50 articles on anglophone literatures and cultures. He is series editor of Anglistische Forschungen (with R. Ahrens and K. Stierstorfer) and editor (with R. Ahrens) of Anglistik: Mitteilungen des Deutschen Anglistenverbandes. GORDON BÖLLING is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of Cologne, where he teaches Canadian, American and British literature. He wrote his PhD thesis on contemporary Canadian historical fiction in English. He has published articles and reviews on Michael Ondaatje, Jane Urquhart, Guy Vanderhaeghe, Thomas King, Norman Levine, D.R. MacDonald and others. Gordon Bölling is currently working on his second book, which analyzes conceptions of human rights in literature. Since 2002 he has

298

List of Contributors

been assistant editor of the scholarly journal Anglistik: Deutschen Anglistenverbandes.

Mitteilungen

des

OBE is professor emeritus in the English Department at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. He studied English Language and Literature, Latin and Philosophy at the Universities of Cologne and London (King's College), graduated from Cologne University in 1956, Dr. phil. (Cologne University 1955). He taught at various schools in Germany and the USA from 1958 to 1971, was Director of the Düsseldorf Teacher Training College 1971-1973 and, since 1973, university professor at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. His special fields of research are modern English and Canadian literature, contemporary drama and theatre in England, Canada and New Zealand; the teaching of English literature at secondary school and university level; theory and practice of literary translation. He is the author of books on various subjects. Most recent book publications include Performing National Identities. International Perspectives on Contemporary Canadian Theatre (with Sherrill Grace, 2003), Voices from Canada: Focus on 30 Plays (2003), Keying in to Postcolonial Cultures: Contemporary Stage Plays in English (with Marc Maufort, 2003), A Guided Tour through Ayckbourn Country ( 2 2004), Contemporary Canadian Plays: Overviews and Close Encounters (with Michael Heinze, 2005). He is the author of some 220 articles in different scholarly journals, theatre programmes and reference works. ALBERT-REINER GLAAP,

is research assistant and PhD student at the University of Düsseldorf. He studied English and History and finished his studies in 2003. During his time as a student he worked with Albert-Reiner Glaap OBE, who is now his PhD supervisor, on various projects on Canadian literature and the teaching of English. His current field of research is contemporary Canadian drama. His PhD thesis will anylyze the depiction of gay life and relationships in contemporary plays. He has taught German and English as foreign languages both in adult education and at secondary schools. MICHAEL HEINZE

holds the Canada Research Chair in Performance and Culture at York University, Toronto. He is the author of, among others, Edward Gordon Craig: A Vision of Theatre, Avant Garde Theatre: 1892-1992 and Modern British Drama: the Twentieth Century, as well as Broadway to Main Street: Designing Modern America (coming from Yale in Fall 2005). He is editor of the Cambridge "Directors in Perspective" series, and has been CoEditor of the quarterly journal Modern Drama. His website is www.moderndrama.com. CHRISTOPHER INNES

List of Contributors

299

MELANIE M A R I A JUST received a PhD from Münster University in 2004 for her publication of an annotated critical edition of Jonathan Swift's "On Poetry: A Rapsody". She now teaches colonial and postcolonial literatures at the University of Bonn. Just's research projects include women's colonial fiction, English 18th and ^ - c e n t u r y orientalism, and studies in the New English Literatures, in particular Indian literature in English. With Devindra Kohli she is currently co-editing a volume of critical articles on Anita Desai. A N N E T T E KERN-STÄHLER is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Münster. She studied English, Biology and History of Art at the Universities of Bonn, Oxford and York (UK), where she also received an MA in Medieval Studies. After completing her doctoral thesis on medieval women (published in 2001) she taught Middle English at Bonn University, from where she moved on to the University of Düsseldorf and, in 2005, to Münster. She is currently completing a book on British writers, denazification and re-education. Other fields of interest and publications include the New English literatures, Middle English, Victorian literature and contemporary drama.

teaches linguistics at the Department of English at the University of Würzburg in Germany. His fields of research are foreign language acquisition, postcolonial studies, modern Canadian literature and EFL teaching. He is currently working on a project entitled "Identity and Cultural Diversity in Modern Canadian Literature". MATTHIAS MERKL

is currently at the University of Toronto, where his research focuses on ethical issues relating to autobiographical fiction. He has published articles on writers ranging from Alice Munro and Joseph Conrad to Linton Kwesi Johnson and Douglas Coupland in journals such as Textual Practice, ROBERT M C G I L L

Mosaic, The Journal of Commonwealth Literature and Essays on Canadian Writing. His first novel, The Mysteries, McClelland & Stewart.

is published by Jonathan Cape and

ELKE N O W A K studied in Frankfurt/Main and Tübingen; she received her doctoral degree in linguistics at Tubingen and her Habilitation and venia legendi at Stuttgart University. She taught at the Universities of Stuttgart, Regensburg, Leipzig and Wuppertal and currently teaches General Linguistics at Technische Universität Berlin. She was President of the Association for Canadian Studies in German-speaking Countries (GKS) from 2001 to 2003 and is a member of the Advisory Board of the International Journal of Canadian Studies as well as a member of the Editorial Board of Marburger KanadaStudien/Schriften der Universitätsbibliothek Marburg. Her research interests

300

List of Contributors

are Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit; the history of grammar writing, multilingualism, language maintenance and language policies. S U S A N N E PETERS received her PhD from Giessen University for a study on James Joyce. She worked as Assistant Professor at the University of Düsseldorf, where she completed a major study on written communication in plays {Habilitation). Since then she has taught at the universities of Leipzig and Düsseldorf. Her publications include several co-edited collections of essays and studies on sense perception, Renaissance and 20 Λ -ΰβηΙυΐ7 drama, contemporary British and American fiction, postcolonial narratives and media studies. INGMAR P R O B S T is a PhD student at the University of Paderborn and teaches North American History at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. His research interests include the history of travel, cultural contact and cultural transfer between Europeans and North American Natives, and the history of the fur trade. His latest publication is "Travelling between the Cultures? Questions of Identity in Travelogues of Fur Traders from New England and New York (1760-1815)" (in Hans-Jürgen Grabbe (ed.), Colonial Encounters. Essays in Early American History and Culture, Heidelberg 2003: Winter Verlag. MIRIAM RICHTER is a PhD candidate at Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel (Germany). She is currently engaged in a research project on the impact of children's literature on Canadian national identity formation. She has taught courses on Canadian children's literature at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, and her publications include articles on Canadian children's literature as well as translations of Hong Kong poetry.

M. SKIDMORE, PhD (Princeton), is Associate Professor of German Studies and Associate Chair of Germanic and Slavic Studies at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. His main research interests are German and comparative literature and film, and he has published articles on Ricarda Huch, Sten Nadolny, Rudy Wiebe, Margarethe von Trotta, German film, and Canadian/German comparative literature and literary relations.

JAMES

is Professor of English at the University of Münster, Germany. He studied at the Universities of Regensburg and Oxford, received his D.phil. at the University of Oxford, trained as a secondary school teacher and became associate professor at the University of Würzburg, from where he moved on to take up his professorships at Düsseldorf and, in 2004, at Münster. His publications include John Oxenford (1812-1877) as Farceur and Critic of Comedy (Frankfurt: Lang, 1996); (ed., introd., annot.), London Assurance and K L A U S STIERSTORFER

List o f Contributors

301

Other Victorian Comedies: Oxford World's Classics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); Konstruktion literarischer Vergangenheit (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 2001), and (series editor) Women Writing Home, 6 vols. (London: Pickering and Chatto, forthcoming 2006). LAURENZ VOLKMANN received his PhD from Erlangen University, but also studied at Miami University of Ohio. He went through teacher's training and taught at several schools. He has taught at the Universities of Manchester, Würzburg, Bielefeld and Hanover and is currently Professor of English Literature, Cultural Studies and EFL Teaching at the University of Jena. His most recent publication (Habilitation) is Homo oeconomicus: Studien zur Modellierung eines neuen Menschenbilds in der englischen Literatur vom Mittelalter bis zum 18. Jahrhundert (2003). As co-editor of several publications on literary theory and the teaching of literature he has also published on a wide range of topics, from Shakespeare in the EFL classroom to Madonna as an icon of postmodernism. RUDY WIEBE is one of the best-known contemporary Canadian writers. Born in a small Mennonite community in Saskatchewan, he had Low German as his first language. Wiebe later became a Professor of English at the University of Alberta, and he is now one of Canada's most prominent anglophone novelists. In his books, he writes about intercultural encounters and about the history of Canada and its citizens, especially the Mennonite community and the Native people. His novels, many of which are experimental in form and strictly Christian in spirit, include Peace Shall Destroy Many (1962), First and Vital Candle (1966), The Blue Mountains of China (1970), The Temptations of Big Bear (1973; Governor General's Award), The Scorched-Wood People (1977), The Mad Trapper (1980), My Lovely Enemy (1983), A Discovery of Strangers (1994; Governor General's Award) and Sweeter Than All the World (2001). A short story writer himself (e.g. Where is the Voice Coming From?, 1974, and River of Stone, 1995), Wiebe has edited several anthologies of short stories. He is also a distinguished scholar and critic. MARKUS WUST studied English and History at the Friedrich Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (Germany) and received an M.A. in German literature from the University of Georgia (USA). He then moved on to Edmonton, where he is currently a PhD student in German literature at the University of Alberta. His research interests include German-Canadian and GermanAmerican studies, immigration-related literature, and propaganda in American cartoons and short movies.

Β H U B

• Refractions of Germany in Canadian Literature and Culture Edited by Heinz Antor, Sylvia Brown, John Considine, and Klaus Stierstorfer 2 0 0 3 . viii, 3 7 7 pages. 16 fig. Cloth. ISBN 3 - 1 1 - 0 1 7 6 6 6 - 1

This volume presents a series of in-depth studies of particular authors or specific aspects of Germany in Canadian literature and culture, present and past. Individual investigations resonate with each other, adding up to a larger picture of Canada's views on Germany and things German in all their richness, complexity and historical persistence.

• Textual Responses to German Unification Processing Historical and Social Change in Literature and Film Edited by Carol Anne Costabile-Heming, Rachel J. Halverson, and Kristie A Foell 2 0 0 1 . vi, 2 7 8 pages. Cloth. ISBN 3 - 1 1 - 0 1 7 0 2 2 - 1 This volume in three parts researches how East German and West German authors and directors reacted to the unification of the two German states. The basis of this research are fictional, autobiographical, journalistic, and cinematic texts.

• Berlin - The Symphony Continues

Orchestrating Architectural, Social and Artistic Change in Germany's New Capital Edited by Carol Anne Costabile-Heming, Rachel J. Halverson, and Kristie A Foell 2 0 0 4 . X, 3 2 8 pages. 2 7 fig- Cloth. ISBN 3 - 1 1 - 0 1 7 7 2 3 - 4 This anthology presents a unique glimpse into the various constituencies that make up Berlin and that impact the city's challenges and promises.

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de Gruyter Berlin · New York

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