INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
OF CANADIAN STUDIES
REVUE INTERNATIONALE
D’ÉTUDES CANADIENNES
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Walter Pache, University of Augsburg, Germany
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Jacques Allard, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada
Paul Blyton, University of Wales, United Kingdom
Cornelius Boekestijn, Free University, The Netherlands
John E. Carroll, University of New Hampshire, USA.
Paul Claval, Université de Paris-Sorbonne IV, France
Ramsay Cook, York University Canada
Lois Foster, La Trobe University, Australia
Karen Gould, Bowling Green State University, U.S.A.
Hans Hauge, Aarhus University, Denmark
Dafna Izraeli, Bar-Ilan University, Israel
Marjory Harper, University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom
Hiroaki Kato, Daito Bunka University, Japan
Gregory Marchildon, The Johns Hopkins University, U.S.A.
Franca Marcato Falzoni, Université de Bologne, Italie
K.R.G. Nair, University of Delhi, India
William H. New, University of British Columbia, Canada
Riana O’Dwyer, University College, Galway, Ireland
Alison Prentice, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Canada
Michèle Therrien, Institut des langues et civilisations orientales, France
James Vance, University of California, U.S.A.
Lothar Wolf, University of Augsburg, Germany
Zhao Deyan, Fuzhou University, China
Fabio Ziccardi, University of Milan, Italy
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International Journal of Canadian Studies
Revue internationale d’études canadiennes
4, Fall/Automne 1991
Table of Contents / Table des matières
William E. Rees
Conserving Natural Capital:
The Key to Sustainable Landscapes
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
William Hamley
Economic Development and Environmental Preservation: The Case
of the James Bay Hydro-Electric Power Projects, Quebec . . . . . . . 29
Daniel Le Couédic
Les ressorts communs des régionalismes architecturaux du Québec
et de la Bretagne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Victor Konrad
The Borderlands of the United States and Canada in the Context of
North American Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Franz K. Stanzel
Innocent Eyes? Canadian Landscape as Seen by Frances Brooke,
Susanna Moodie and Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Jean-François Chassay
Entre la nature et le livre, la ville. Le paysage montréalais,
à la lecture de quelques romans québécois francophones . . . . . . .111
Margaret E. Johnston
The Canadian Wilderness Landscape As Culture and Commodity . .127
Anton Wagner
Herman Voaden and the Group of Seven: Creating a Canadian
Imaginative Background in Theatre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .145
Research Note/Note de recherche
Richard Scott and Mark Seasons
Planning Canada’s Capital: The Roles of Landscape
. . . . . . . . . 167
Review Essays/Essais critiques
Edward J. Miles
Historical Atlas of Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Jean-Pierre Collin
Le paysage urbain au Québec
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Authors/Auteurs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
INTRODUCTION
PRÉSENTATION
Quite often, the world views
Canada through images of its
natural landscape: wild forests, expansive plains and majestic mountains. The aim of the present issue
is to discuss this perception and
how it developed, with special
attention to whether it reflects the
changing realities of a landscape
occupied and transformed by the
people living in Canada. The articles offer a representative samp l i n g o f the
concerns of
researchers.
A n d w h i l e the
landscape may be of primary interest to geographers, it is also a subject of study for economists,
ecologists, architects, urban planners, historians and specialists in
the arts and literature.
L’idée qu’on se fait du Canada ailleurs dans le monde est très souvent
associée à ses paysages naturels :
forêts sauvages, plaines infinies,
montagnes majestueuses. Faire le
point sur cette perception, sur son
évolution, mais aussi et surtout sur
sa correspondance avec la réalité
changeante d’un paysage occupé et
transforme par les habitants du
pays, tel est l’objectif du présent
numéro. L e s a r t i c l e s q u i s ’ y
retrouvent offrent un éventail
représentatif des préoccupations
qui animent les chercheurs. Si le
paysage intéresse au premier chef
les géographes, il est également un
objet d’étude pour les économistes
et les écologistes, les architectes et
les urbanistes, les historiens et les
spécialistes des arts et des lettres.
Images of nature have affected
literary and visual artists in many
ways. From Frances Brooke to the
Group of Seven, people who express themselves in words, form
and colour have found an inexhaustible and diversified source of
inspiration in the landscape. However, what they convey is a manufactured image of reality, which can be
and is marketed. Yet the landscape,
whether natural or transformed by
human action, is itself a form which
unites and divides, as can be seen in
the borderlands.
Over the past few years, researchers have challenged the perception of an idyllic Canadian
landscape. They have shown how,
even in the remotest places, it is
Les images du paysage naturel ont
touché de multiples façons les
écrivains et les artistes. De Frances
Brooke au Groupe des sept, ceux et
celles qui s’expriment par les mots,
les formes et les couleurs y ont
trouvé une source d’inspiration
inépuisable. Ce qu’ils nous transmettent est cependant une image
fabriquée de la réalité qui devient
même un objet de commercialisation. Mais le paysage, qu’il soit
naturel ou transformé par l’action
humaine, est lui-même une forme
qui unit et distingue, comme on
peut le constater dans les zones
frontières.
Ces dernières années, les chercheurs ont remis en question la
International Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue internationale d’études canadiennes
4, Fall/Automne 1991
IJCS/RIÉC
altered by human activity. The
natural landscape has thus been
transformed, a fact which elicits a
degree of fear and reaction.
But the Canadian landscape is not
only natural. It is also includes constructed landscapes, expressed
through architecture, particularly
in urban centres where the majority
of Canadians have long resided.
The perception of architectural and
urban forms, their evolution over
time and their sources of inspiration are important factors that
demand attention.
The articles in this issue examine
this complex question from various
angles, and shed light on the diversity of forms and their interpretations. It is hoped that the
multidisciplinary perspectives offered to readers will prompt further
thought and discussion.
Paul-André Linteau
Editor-in-Chief
version idyllique du paysage
canadien. Ils ont montré comment,
jusque dans les endroits les plus
est
affecté
par
reculés, il
l’intervention humaine. Le paysage
naturel est ainsi devenu un environnement transformé, ce qui ne manque pas de susciter craintes et
réactions.
Mais le paysage canadien n’est pas
que naturel; il est aussi paysage bâti.
Ses formes s’expriment alors dans
l’architecture et surtout dans ses
milieux urbains où résident depuis
des
longtemps la
plupart
Canadiens. La perception des formes architecturales et urbaines,
leur évolution dans le temps et leurs
sources d’inspiration sont des
phénomènes importants qui ne
pouvaient être ignorés.
Les textes de ce numéro permettent
donc d’examiner sous divers angles
cette question complexe et de mettre en lumière la diversité des formes et de leurs interprétations. On
peut espérer que les perspectives
multidisciplinaires qu’ils proposent
au lecteur se révéleront stimulantes
et provoqueront la réflexion et la
discussion.
Paul-André Linteau
Rédacteur en chef
William E. Rees
Conserving Natural Capital:
The Key to Sustainable Landscapes
Abstract
This paper starts from the premise that the cumulative impact of human
activtty on the worid’s landscapes threatens the capacity of the ecosphere to
continue supporting human civilization. Responding to this dilemma, research in the new metadiscipline of ecological economics shows that conservation of adequate stocks of “natural capital” is a necessary condition for
sustainable development.
The author argues that adoption of development policies consistent with the
emerging framework would positively affect the evolution of both wild and
domesticated rural landscapes in Canada and elsewhere. It would also
dramatically alter urban form and the ecological role of cities while enhancing environmental quality, ecosecuriy, social equity, and access to urban
amenities for urban residents.
Résumé
Cet essai se fonde sur la prémisse que les effets cumulatifs de l’activité de
l‘homme sur le paysage naturel sapent la capacité de l‘écosphère de soutenir
le progrès humain. S’attaquant à ce problème, la recherche effectuée par les
économistes spécialisés en écologie - cette nouvelle métadiscipline - tend
à prouver que la préservation d’une partie suffisante du « capital naturel » est
la condition sine qua non d’un développement durable.
L’auteur soutient que l’adoption de politiques de développement conformes
au schéma qui se dessine présentement influerait favorablement sur
l‘évolution des paysages sauvages comme des paysages ruraux au Canada et
ailleurs dans le monde. Cela modifierait de façon radicale l‘aspect des villes
et leur rôle écologique tout en améliorant la qualité de l’environnement, la
sécurité écologique, l‘équité sociale et l’accès des citadins aux charmes de la
vie urbaine.
Introduction
Human beings have become more powerful than any geological force in
changing the face of the earth.1 Indeed, it is a premise of this paper that the
cumulative impact of human activity on the world’s landscapes now
threatens the capacity of the ecosphere to continue supporting civilized
existence. Within this context, my main purpose is to examine some of the
landscape implications of the “constant natural capital” concept which is
International Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue internationale d’études canadiennes
4, Fall/Automne 1991
IJCS / RIÉC
emerging from ecological economics.22 Recognition that actively enhancing
natural capital must be central to any future development policy would
result in the restoration of critical ecosystems and the conservation of the
remaining natural landscapes of Canada and the world.
Human Impacts on the Ecosphere
The five-fold increase in world economic activity since the Second World
War has produced an increasingly integrated world economy whose scale
is rapidly approaching that of the ecosphere itself. The sheer volume of
biologically significant, human-induced energy and material flows through
the global system is now capable of permanently disrupting essential lifesupport functions of the ecosphere. For example, the human enterprise
now consumes or otherwise diverts almost 40 percent of total terrestrial
photosynthesis to its own use.3 If we take this percentage as an index of the
Earth’s capacity to support humans and assume that humankind could
appropriate 80 percent or more of photosynthetic production without
destroying the functional integrity of the ecosphere (an ecologically
dubious assumption at best), the acceleration of geometric growth will take
the world from “half full to totally full in one doubling period [currently
about 35 years]."A4 The significance of this unprecedented convergence of
economic scale with that of the ecosphere is not generally appreciated in
the current debate on future directions for world development. For the first
time, the world economy may be approaching absolute biophysical (thermodynamic) limits to growth. Because the impact of humans on the ecosphere is not uniform, “effective fullness” may actually occur well before
the next doubling of human activity. Indeed, existing data indicate that the
long-term human carrying capacity of the earth may have been reached at
less than the present 40 percent preemption of photosynthesis.’ Certainly
current rates of consumption by the human economy already exceed the
rate of production of critical resources by the ecosphere. Encroaching
deserts (6 million ha/year); deforestation (11 million ha/yr of tropical
forests alone); acid precipitation and forest dieback (31 million ha damaged
in Europe alone); soil oxidation and erosion (26 billion tonnes/yr in excess
of formation); draw-down and pollution of water tables; species extinction
(l000s/yr); fisheries exhaustion; ozone depletion (5 percent loss over North
America [and probably globally] in the decade to 1990); greenhouse gas
buildup (25 percent increase in atmospheric CO 2 alone); potential climatic
change (1.5-4.5Cº mean global warming expected by 2040); rising sea-levels
(1.2-2.2 m by 2100), and like trends are the result of either excess consumption or the dissipation of toxic by-products of economic activity into the
ecosphere.” Significantly in the present context, many of these global trends
are manifested in the destruction of both wild and domestic landscapes in
countries the world over.
8
Conserving Natural Capital
The International Policy Response: Shifting to “Sustainable Development”
Recognition of the implications of such trends for world security led to the
creation of the United Nations World Commission on Environment and
Development (The Brundtland Commission) in 1983. The Commission’s
report succeeded in popularizing the concept of “sustainable developm e n t " 7 and has stimulated global debate on its meaning and implications.
The Brundtland Commission defined sustainable development as
“development that meets the needs of the present without compromising
the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." 8 While communicating a basic idea, this definition was left sufficiently vague that
academe, governments, and non-government organizations have been
striving ever since to flesh it out, each in its own image.9 Analysts who
recognize the radical implications of Our Common Future, suggest that, in
some respects, its authors “have turned out to be their own worst enemies they failed to draw out the implications of their own statements.” Our
Common Future is therefore important “not so much for what it says, but
for the reaction it has generated. It has had a galvanizing effect on international development at a crucial time.”10
The New Ecological Economics: Conserving Natural Capital11
One of the most galvaniziig themes of the post-Brundtland debate suggests
the beginnings of a paradigm shift in economics. A new metadiscipline of
“ecological economics” is emerging in direct response to the challenge
posed to the neoclassical paradigm by the ecological conditions that must
be satisfied for sustainable development.
The Prevailing Paradigm
Economic theory necessarily contains a model of nature. The neoclassical
model assumes a mechanical universe of predictable change, stable equilibria, and reversible relationships. From this perspective, economic
analysis has traditionally considered the economy to be independent of, and
materially indifferent to, the functional state of the ecosphere. The
economy may use “the environment” as a source of resources and sink for
wastes,12 but beyond that it is perceived as a mere static backdrop to human
affairs. In fact, we have even come to believe that resources are more the
product of human ingenuity than they are of nature. According to neoclassical theory, rising prices for scarce materials encourage conservation on
the one hand and stimulate technological substitution on the other. It is part
of the conventional wisdom of mainstream economists that the substitutability of manufactured for natural capital has been more than sufficient to overcome emerging resource scarcities.13
9
IJCS / RIÉC
From this perspective, the point at which the ecological costs of development begin to exceed the economic benefits is strictly a matter of personal
(or social) preference. l4 The concept of ecological limits is not part of the
analysis. Conventional thinking sees the so-called “environmental crisis”
largely in terms of local pollution and the economic problem as one of
finding the most efficient and effective way of cleaning up to some desired
level of environmental quality. With no ecological limits, we are free to
degrade the environment indefinitely without additional penalty if we
choose to do so for material gain. Indeed, if the economy is independent of
nature, it has unlimited potential to expand. Little wonder that macroeconomic theory has nothing to say about the appropriate scale of the
economy.15
Shifting Perspectives
In recent years, accelerating global ecological change has forced some
economists to reconsider this conventional model. The resultant shift in
thinking takes thermodynamics (rather than mechanics) as the starting
point for analysis, recognizes absolute ecological constraints, and assumes
a global context.
Most important, economists have begun to recognize that biological resources must be treated as a unique form of productive capital with properties
that set them apart from manufactured capital These economists acknowledge that persistently negative global ecological trends may indicate that
the world economy has already reached the point at which the marginal
costs of natural capital depletion exceed the marginal benefits of jobs and
commodity production. In these circumstances, further growth of the
material economy is, in fact, “anti-economic growth” that ultimately
“makes us poorer rather than richer."16
The ecological bottom line for sustainable development can thus be stated
as an economic metaphor: humankind must learn to live on the “interest”
generated by remaining stocks of living “natural capital.” Any human
activity dependent on the consumptive use of bioresources cannot be
sustained indefinitely if it not only consumes annual production, but also
cuts into capital stocks. 17
7 Note that this concept shifts the emphasis of
environmental policy from controlling pollution to managing consumption.
In thermodynamic terms, all material economic production is actually
consumption.
Adequate Natural Capital: A Necessary Condition for Sustainable
Development
There can no longer be any doubt that our present reactive responses to
global ecological deterioration compromise our own potential and “[shift]
10
Conserving Natural Capital
the burden of environmental risks to future generations. " 18 Any proactive
prescription for sustainable development must acknowledge the primary
role of bioresources in human survival and the inequity inherent in current
practice. Maintenance of the functional integrity of the ecosphere is a
necessary condition for extending the time horizon for economic policy and
to elevating both intra- and inter-generational equity to a place of
prominence in developmental decision-making. For the first time, “environment” becomes the independent variable and “economy” the dependent one in developmental decision-making.
The implications of what is, in effect, an absolute constraint on economic
growth are currently being explored through various interpretations of a
“constant capital stock” condition for sustainability.19 In essence, adherence to this criterion would require that each generation leave the next
generation an undiminished stock of productive assets. In the present
context, the most relevant interpretation of constant capital stock is as
follows:
Each generation should inherit a stock of natural capital assets no
less than the stock of such assets inherited by the previous generation. 20 This is a version of “strong sustainability” as defined by
Daly.21
This interpretation best reflects known ecological principles. In particular,
by emphasizing natural capital it recognizes the multifunctionality of
biological resources “including their role as life support systems.“22 In this
respect, “strong sustainability” recognizes that manufactured and natural
capital “are really not substitutes but complements in most production
functions.“23
3 Sustainable development is impossible in a thermodynamically far-from-equilibrium world unless the ecosystems upon which humans
depend remain capable of continuous self-organization and production.
The question arises as to what constitutes an adequate level of biophysical
capital.24 In economic terms, the optimal stock would be defmed at the
theoretical point where which the marginal costs of further development
(e.g., losses of ecological services) exceed the marginal economic benefits
(e.g., jobs and income). As Pearce et al. observe, the need to conserve
natural capital may seem particularly relevant to developing countries in
which socioeconomic stability is immediately and directly threatened by
deforestation, desertification, soil erosion, falling water tables, etc. In these
circumstances there can be little doubt that existing stocks of natural capital
are well below bioeconomic optima and must actually be enhanced for
survival let alone sustainability.25
However, there is increasing agreement that further reductions of natural
capital may impose significant risks on society, “even in countries where it
11
IJCS / RIÉC
might appear we can afford to [reduce stocks].” These risks reside in our
imperfect knowledge of ecological functions, the fact that loss of such
functions may be irreversible, and our inability to substitute those functions
once they are lost. In short, because of the unique and essential services
provided by ecological capital, we cannot risk its depletion. “In the face of
uncertainty and irreversibility, conserving what there is could be a sound
risk-averse strategy."26
Landscape Impacts of Global Change 27
General Considerations
Unchecked, global ecological change due to natural capital depletion will
impair or destroy the landscapes to which people and economies on all
continents have historically adapted. For example, expected greenhouse
enhancement by the middle of the next century could move climate belts in
continental mid-latitudes poleward by 500-700 kilometers (equivalent to a
1000 meter upslope shift in mountainous areas). This would dramatically
affect the geographic ranges and available habitat of thousands of plant and
animal species and threaten the present relative stability of world agriculture. The anticipated rate of change may be 10-40 times faster than after
the last ice age and threatens many life-forms with extinction.28
We cannot predict the impacts on people of rapid large-scale shifts in
historic landscapes and ecosystems with precision. Not all effects will be
negative. For example, some studies project that northern agriculture will
benefit from higher mean temperatures and longer growing seasons. 29
However, the larger question remains whether increased productivity in
benefitting regions will compensate for losses expected elsewhere from
more frequent or severe drought. Soil limitations may also be a factor agriculturally suitable soils do not migrate North with the climate that
produced them.
On balance, the likelihood is that atmospheric and climatic change will
reduce the productivity of many important resource systems; impose substantial social and economic costs on adapting populations; and exacerbate
the negative ecological impacts of existing and future development (the
synergism effect). Many countries will be stretched to their economic and
political limits if even the mid-range climatic scenarios come to pass. This
scale of change could result in whole regional populations being displaced
by enhanced desertification, coastal flooding, or other forms of landscape
0 Such considerations have led some analysts to suggest that
degradation.30
“...climatic changes and the first order effects . ..will have significant
downward impacts on world production and gross national products and
on the per capit a disposable income of the world’s residents. ” 3 1 Whatever
12
Conserving Natural Capital
the regional variation, there is clearly a significant geopolitical dimension
to the problem of climatic change. Arguably, “without well-designed and
implemented limitation and adaptation strategies, [climatic change] will
add to the world’s inequalities, instability, and insecurity.”32
An Example: Impacts on Forest Landscapes
While all landscapes and associated ecosystems will be affected by global
change, the effects will be most visible in forests, arguably the most symbolically important landscapes to Canadians. There will likely be a
northward shift of 500 km in the suitable geographic ranges for north
temperate trees within 40-80 years, but most forests can only migrate 20-60
km per century. Thus, great changes in forest distribution, composition, and
quality can be anticipated. “Climate-induced dieback may be severe in the
southern parts of present ranges and trees weakened by climatic stress will
be less resistant to attack by insects, fungal parasites, and other diseases.”
Furthermore, the stress of climate change will be added to the stress already
being imposed on forests by increased ultra-violet radiation from ozone
depletion and by acid precipitation. In the last decade, forest decline has
become endemic in central and eastern Europe, and is now also affecting
the forests of much of eastern North America, particularly Ontario and
Quebec.33 Climate change will act synergistically with existing causes of
forest dieback and thus, accelerate the damage. Such effects may be visible
within 30 years. Given the historical dominance of forests in the Canadian
landscape, we can expect significant impacts on the national psyche. In
economic terms, climate change creates great uncertainty for the forest
sector respecting both security of supply and appropriate silvicultural
strategies (trees planted today may not be able to mature if suitable climate
has migrated north).
Although forest animals are more mobile than plants they too will be forced
to adapt. However, it is not just a simple question of moving. The shift in
climate belts will create new communities of plants and animals that may
or not be suitable for particular species. Changes in climate will affect
established equilibria in the interactions among species such as competitive, parasite-host, and predator-prey relationships. Differential rates of
adaptation may also be problematic. While bacteria and fungi evolve
quickly in response to environmental change, plants and animals do so more
slowly. Consequently serious imbalances will occur initially among key
species groups in our evolving forest landscapes. Significantly, the death
and decomposition of trees, and the loss of forest productivity generally will
add to atmospheric carbon dioxide, exacerbating the spiral of decline.
13
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Toward a Landscape Solution: Conserving Natural Capital
There is little doubt that global ecological change will affect our landscapes;
however, it is generally less appreciated that rehabilitating natural
landscapes can mitigate global change. For example, atmospheric carbon
dioxide is responsible for half the natural greenhouse effect. In the last 100
years, human activity has increased carbon dioxide 25 percent above preindustrial levels making anthropogenic CO 2 the largest contributor to anticipated greenhouse enhancement (global warming). In recent decades,
deforestation and the accelerated oxidation of agricultural soils due to
mechanized cultivation accounted for as much as 50 percent of this carbon
dioxide buildup and may still contribute as much as 20 percent. (The
burning of fossil fuels contributes an increasing proportion.)34 The world’s
remaining vegetation and soils still store three times as much carbon as is
resident in the atmosphere. It follows that large scale reforestation and
modified agricultural practices could significantly slow global climate
change.
Rehabilitating our Forest Landscapes
The growth of forests extracts vast quantities of carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere through the photosynthesis of wood. It has been estimated that
reforesting 130 million hectares of denuded landscape in the tropical Third
World would remove 660 million tons of carbon from the atmosphere
annually (net of fuel wood needs) until maturity, reducing the current
release of carbon from human activities by 8 percent to 11 percent. If
industrial countries planted an additional 40 million hectares (an area the
size of Japan) as a “carbon sink”, it would remove an additional 200 million
tons of carbon, offsetting the carbon released by 211 average-sized coalfired power plants. 35
The direct costs of global reforestation would be considerable. However,
Pearce estimates the value of carbon stored in trees, in the form of damage
avoided from sea level rise alone, at $13 per metric ton ($1300 per hectare
of Amazonian forest) .36 It is therefore conceivable that the combined
ecosystem (life support) values, existence values, and option values (i.e.,
the total non-market value) of standing forests now exceed the market value
of all forest commodities. The non-market value of the world’s forests are
theoretically adequate to preserve remaining stands intact and make global
reforestation a paying proposition in terms of net social benefits.
Canada has a major role to play in such a natural capital rehabilitation
scheme. Canadians are among the top four industrial consumers of fossil
fuels with recent annual atmospheric discharges of carbon dioxide approaching 18.4 tonnes (5 tonnes carbon) per capita, four times the world
average. 37 We have a corresponding obligation to demonstrate leadership
14
Conserving Natural Capital
in mitigating atmospheric change. One way to approach this problem is
through the integration of energy and forest policy in a plan that would
re-establish forest ecosystems and wild landscapes on formerly forested
and marginal agricultural land across the country. Canadians extract approximately 146 million m 3 of wood from our forests annually. At 250 kg
per m 3 , the total carbon harvest from Canadian forests is about 42 million
tons. This is equivalent to one third of our annual atmospheric emissions
of carbon (129 million tonnes carbon or 473 million tonnes CO 2 ). These
crude calculations are enough to suggest that by practicing sustained yield
forestry in Canada (growing as much wood as we extract from the forests
each year) we could absorb a significant proportion of the carbon dioxide
we emit into the atmosphere (provided the wood products remain as wood,
and do not burn or decompose). Growing substantially more wood than we
cut would absorb proportionately more carbon dioxide. Such a scheme
could be funded through an entropy (or carbon) tax on fossil fuels to be
dedicated to rehabilitation forestry, the re-establishment of intact natural
forest ecosystem.38 This approach is both economically sound in that the
tax employs the principle of “user pays” (a conservation incentive), as well
as ecologically sound since the revenues would be used to complete the
carbon cycle and repair the “damage” to the atmosphere.
In addition to restoring our historical wild landscapes, this policy would
help preserve a traditional cultural landscape in much of rural Canada.
Rehabilitation or restoration forestry could become a whole new industry
for forest-based communities compensating for much of the employment
that has been lost through mechanization of the traditional extractionbased forest industry in the past decade. The harvest-based sector would
also be preserved, albeit with an additional purpose, modified practices
(e.g., selection logging), and a much enhanced future. Finally, such an
integrated approach might go a long way toward defusing the current
tensions among conservationists, indigenous people, forest-based communities, loggers, and industry, tensions that are based on dated perceptions of both the economy and the environment. Such intersectoral policy
is a critical dimension of “economy-ecology integration” for sustainable
development that has received very little attention to date.
Agricultural Landscapes
Most Canadians take the quality and security of their food supplies for
granted. Like the people of other developed countries, we have come to
treat food as just another industrial commodity. Indeed, in the era of
agribusiness the generation of wealth from agriculture has shifted from the
field to the “value-added” manufacturing, packaging, and distribution of
food. The traditional family farm and the pastoral landscapes of rural
Canada seem little more than a nostalgic anachronism.
15
Historically, agriculture depended almost entirely on various forms of
“natural capital” contributed free by nature-photosynthesis and cumulated reserves of soil, nutrients, and water. But the spectacular growth of
agricultural productivity in the post World War II period and today’s high
yields are as much the product of technology as they are of natural resources. This trend helps to reinforce the near doctrine that manufactured
capital (e.g., in the form of fertilization and irrigation of inferior lands) is a
near-perfect substitute for depleting natural capital (prime agricultural
land). Remarkably, considering its enormous influence, neoclassical
economics has almost nothing ecogically relevant to say about land and
associated renewable resources.39
The landscape impacts of high-tech agriculture are obvious-large-scale
industrial agriculture dominates the countryside at the expense of rural
community and family farming. Meanwhile cities sprawl carelessly over
some of our most productive lands in the rural-urban fringe. Low returns
from agriculture and high discount rates sustain the belief that the present
value of future agricultural use of these lands is less that its value in urban
uses. (In any case, we seem also to believe that we will always be able to
import our food from “elsewhere.“)
For all its success in the recent past, problems are beginning to erode
confidence in the technology-based “green revolution.” Soil erosion now
undermines the productivity of one-third of the world’s cropland; deforestation has increased run-off and the flooding of croplands in much of the
developing world; elsewhere ground-water tables are falling dramatically;
waterlogging and salinity has reduced production on a quarter of the worlds
irrigated acreage. Even the industrialized countries are not immune -wind
and water erosion typically strips twenty metric tons of topsoil/ha/year from
cultivated lands in North America, ten times the rate of soil regeneration.
(Growing one bushel of corn may entail the loss of five bushels of topsoil.) 40
Under mechanized agriculture, 50 percent of the natural nutrients and
organic matter have already been lost from the best grain-growing soils in
Canada. Modern agriculture has also become a major polluter of air, water,
and land the world over.
According to Washington’s Worldwatch Institute, if such data were aggregated for the world as a whole, they would show that sustainable world
food production falls below present levels of consumption (and this does
not include the unsatisfied latent demand of the poor). To add to present
problems, many scientists think that atmospheric change (partially induced
by mechanized agriculture itself) poses an unprecedented threat to world
food security in the 21st century. A s hard technology begins to lose ground
to population growth and global environmental change, the search for more
sustainable forms of agriculture intensifies. 4 11 This change requires ecological economics characterized by proper valuation of natural capital, long16
Conserving Natural Capital
term planning, and greater emphasis on inter-generational equity. Agriculture in the 21st’ century should use fewer man-made inputs, reverse resource
depletion, and rediscover how to put nature back to work.
First and foremost, sustainable agriculture requires maintenance of the soil.
Today’s production agriculture is characterized by monoculture over vast
areas, heavy machinery, deep tillage, and extensive use of synthetic chemicals (pesticides and fertilizers), all of which contribute to the slow but
certain destruction of the soil ecosystem. By contrast, organic agriculture
involves such things as crop rotation in mixed culture; smaller fields
separated by hedgerows and punctuated by ponds; limited or zero tillage;
and minimal use of chemicals. The basic idea of sustainable agriculture is
to replace technological brute force with ecological intelligence. Mixed
rotation practices involve the return of crop residues and manure to the
soil; hedgerows protect fields from wind and water erosion, contribute to
the accumulation of snow (vital for soil moisture), and provide habitat both
for bees and other native pollinators and for birds which help control insect
pests; ponds help stabilize soil moisture and provide insurance against
drought; minimal tillage reduces exposure and rates of soil erosion and
oxidation. All such nature-based technologies reduce the fossil energy,
machinery, chemical, and other man-made inputs to agriculture.
The implications for the Canadian landscape are self-evident. Society
would reap special dividends with the restoration of ecological diversity
and beauty to the rural landscape, and through reduced air, water, and soil
pollution. As is the case with rehabilitation forestry, sustainable agriculture
might also help restore an historical cultural landscape through salvation
of the family farm and dependent communities. Appropriate valuation,
attention to the ecology of land, and eco-technology implies a return to
smaller farms and more information-intensive practices.
Of course, the move to sustainable agriculture must be international. Until
then, terms of trade would have to be adjusted to protect participating
domestic producers from unfair competition from off-shore producers who
are still willing to write off the environment for short-term gain. In the
long-run, reduced subsidies and realistic market prices for food, combined
with reduced manufactured capital requirements, should help restore
profitability to agriculture.
Cities and the Ecosphere: whither the Urban Landscape?
The world’s great cities are among the finest achievements of human
civilization. In every country, cities are the social, cultural, communication,
economic, and commercial centres of national life. While cities are generally perceived as the engines of economic growth, typical urban development
policies do not reflect the fact that the city’s role in wealth creation depends
I7
IJCS / RIÉC
on adequate levels of ecological production occurring elsewhere. However
brilliant its economic star, every city is an ecological black hole drawing on
the material resources and productivity of a vast and scattered hinterland
many times the size of the city itself. We usually think of “the city” in terms
of a political entity and corresponding administrative boundaries or, more
loosely, as a geographic area dominated by features of the built environment. By contrast, sustainable urban development requires formal recognition of the dependency of cities on distant landscapes (productive natural
capital) and their simultaneous negative impact on the very land that feeds
their inhabitants.
This shifting perspective has important implications for urban form and the
aesthetics of cityscape as well as for the material basis of urban life in the
21 st century. New planning measures must be implemented to emphasize
the efficient use of already urbanized land, the reduced consumption of the
material resources, and the enhancement of remaining natural capital
stocks, while improving the livability of the urban environment. 42
Unfortunately, the process of urbanization is itself a roadblock in the
transition to sustainable development. City life distances people spatially
and psychologically from the ecological basis of existence. Combined with
ready access to imports through trade, this both creates a disincentive to
conserve local ecological resources (e.g., agricultural land goes to its
economically “highest and best use”) and fosters an attendant dependency
on the productivity of natural capital elsewhere.43
Some relevant questions for planners in search of urban sustainability
include:
What are the necessary ecological conditions for urban sustainability? Are these conditions under active management and
control or simply taken for granted (i.e., assumed to be available
in perpetuity)?
Can we reasonably talk about sustainable urban development
without considering the implications of becoming increasingly
reliant on ecological productivity “elsewhere?”
How can urban residents be made more aware of their increasing
dependency on the productivity of extra-urban ecosystems?
Are there advantages to large urban agglomerations in terms of
economies of scale and the conservation of natural capital or
should the megacity phenomenon be discouraged?
Is the traditional local municipality the logical unit for implementing sustainable development policies? Is a more regional scale and
system of governance incorporating a significant proportion of the
required life-supporting landscape (natural capital) more appropriate?
18
Conserving Natural Capital
l
l
Is the concept of regional “carrying capacity” relevant to the
sustainability debate?
Should urban regions develop policies explicitly to support and
sustain local/regional agriculture, forestry, fisheries, etc., in order
to: a) reduce potentially unstable inter-regional dependencies
and; b) create a hedge against global ecological change and declining productivity elsewhere?
Maintaining Natural Capital: Implications for Urban Form
Some Canadian cities have begun seriously to consider their contribution
to global change and their potential role in finding solutions. Toronto has
prepared a “call to action” to reduce that city’s impact on the world’s
atmosphere. 4 4 4 Vancouver has also recently concluded a policy process that
began as a response to local air pollution and global atmospheric change,
but evolved (ecologically) into a comprehensive examination of materials
management, transportation, land use, densification and re-urbanization.45
Some of the questions addressed by the Vancouver Task Force include:
What policies are available to reduce material and energy consumption by municipal governments and their agencies?
How can such standard planning tools as zoning and land use
contracting be employed or redesigned to reduce in-city travel
requirements, land consumption, and demand for extended infrastructure?
How can municipal powers over land use, zoning etc., be used to
enhance equity among urban residents? (e.g., densification
programs may provide larger numbers of affordable, high quality
housing units with ready access to urban transportation, cultural
amenities, etc.)
What are the roles of the public and private sector in promoting
densification and reurbanization while ensuring quality urban
amenities, adequate open space, and improved urban conditions
generally?
What tax and other economic incentives are available to encourage
higher density residential development, including infill development and other approaches that increase the use and efficiency of
existing infrastructure while reduce demand for new (agricultural)
land?
What other policies (land trusts, purchase of development rights,
etc.) are available to “harden” the urban fringe, preserving the
agriculture option and enhancing regional amenity values?
The private automobile may well be the most heavily subsidized,
most polluting, and least efficient form of urban transportation.
How can some of this public subsidy be redirected to provide fast,
comfortable, convenient, clean, and efficient public transit?46
19
IJCS / RIÉC
Table 1
Efficient Use of Urban Space:
Transportation Planning and Traffic Management Initiatives
Initiative
Purpose
Mechanisms
Practiced/
Proposed
Trip Reduction
By-Laws
To reduce peak
hour trips and increase the ratio of
people to vehicles.
Require employers
to implement a program, including appointment of a
transportation coordinator and any
reasonable combination of commute alternatives designed
to achieve the required target.
Vancouver;
Bellevue, WA;
Montgomety County, MD; 37 California cities and
counties
Automobile
Restrictions
To reduce urban air Prohibit automobile FIorence; Budapest;
pollution, traffic con- use one or more day Santiago; Mexico
gestion.
per week; fuel taxes. City
Road Pricing
To reduce car traffic
in urban centres;
also being used to
fund public transit.
Singapore; Hong
All drivers entering
the city centre are re- Kong; Holland;
Stockholm;
quired to display a
valid monthly transit Vancouver
pass or other sticker.
Parking Measures
To favour highoccupancy vehicles
over singleoccupancy vehicles.
Preferential parking, Ottawa; Vancouver;
parking pricing,
Portland, OR; Seattle, WA; Montgomparking offsets.
ery County, MD;
Sacramento, CA
Free or Inexpensive
Transit
To encourage use of
public transit.
Transit is free, at
least within the
downtown core.
Portland, OR
Bicycle
Transportation
To make bicycling a
better transportation alternative.
Car-free bicycle
routes; bicycle parking; shower and locker facilities in all
new developments.
Palo Alto, Davis,
Berkeley, CA; Bordeaux (France);
Groningen (Holland);
Toronto; Vancouver
Street Redesign and
Traffic Calming
To slow traffic speeds, Woonerfen, or “slow
reduce noise and exstreets,” with narrcnv
haust, and make
lanes, curves, speed
streets safer for
humps, shrubbery,
pedestrians, children, slow speed limits, etc.
seniors and bicyclists.
Holland;
Saarbriicken (Germany); Berkeley, CA
Telecommunications To encourage alternatives to commuting.
20
Portland, OR;
Determine tasks/
jobs, provide training Vancouver
and/or equipment.
Conserving Natural Capital
Table 1 (contd)
Efficient Use of Urban Space:
Land Use Planning and Housing Initiatives
Initiative
Purpose
Mechanisms
Practiced/
Proposed
Proximity Planning
To make access by
proximity rather
than access by
transportation a
central focus of City
planning.
Developing policies
and incentives.
Vancouver
Residential
Intensification
To create new
residential units or
accommodation in
existing buildings or
on previously
developed, serviced
land.
Kingston,
Creation of roomSt. Catherines,
ing, boarding and
lodging houses; crea- Metro Toronto
tion of accessory
apartments; conversion of non-residential structures to
residential use; infill; redevelopment.
Cohousing
Participatory, intentional neighbourhood design.
Extensive common
facilities; developments are organized,
planned, and
managed by the residents themselves.
Denmark, Holland,
Sweden, Norway,
France, Germany;
Winslow, WA
Community Land
Trusts
To hold land for the
benefit of a community and of individuals within the
community.
A democratically
structured nonprofit
corporation, with an
open membership
and an elected
board of trustees.
Philadelphia, PA;
Burlington, VT;
Atlanta, GA; New
York City; Greenfield, MA;
Providence, RI;
Franklin, NH;
Norwich, CT
Rural Area
Protection
To compensate for
damage to natural
areas.
Land reconstruction
rules in the
landscape plan.
Enschede (Holland)
Co-management
Agreements
To provide for a
high level of usergroup participation
in resource decision
making.
Detailed provisions
for rights, obligations and rules for
decision makers and
resource users, plus
a structure to coordinate decision
making.
Quebec, Wisconsin,
Washington
21
IJCS / RIÉC
Table 2
Reducing Consumption of Resources:
Energy Conservation and Efficiency Initiatives
Initiative
Purpose
Mechanisms
Practiced/
Proposed
Energy efficiency
targets
To increase energy
efficiency in all sectors of the City by,
for example, 10%.
Municipal policy.
Portland, OR;
Toronto; Vancouver
District heating and
cogeneration
To combine heat
and power production, reducing energy consumption and
fuel emissions.
District-wide system
of underground lowtemperature hot
water pipes supply
space heating and
domestic hot water
to residential, commercial and institutional users.
Helsinki;
Saarbrücken;
Cornwall County
(UK)
Municipal energy
conservation
campaign.
To conserve energy.
Infrared photos of
energy leakage sent
to each home in town
by municipal utility.
Osage, IO
Energy conservation
retrofit ordinances
To conserve energy.
San Francisco
Requires all existing
buildings to be
brought up to an energy conservation standard at the time of sale.
Solar oven cookbook To promote solar
cooking to reduce
air conditioning in
overheated kitchens.
Municipal utility.
Sacramento, CA
Local energy supply
concept
To reduce depcndence on fossil fuels;
encourage renewable resource use.
Promote direct
solar, photovoltaics
and district heating.
Saarbriicken
Energy-efficient
neighbourhoods
To conserve energy
through urban
design, site planning, development
controls, and energyefficient land use
planning.
Solar orientation of
streets, cluster development, neighbourhood-level services
and facilities, increased densities,
natural drainage, narrow roads, energy conservation programs;
“traditional neighbourhood development” ordinances.
Davis, CA; Eugene,
OR; Seaside, FL
22
Conserving Natural Capital
Table 2 (contd)
Reducing Consumption of Resources:
Waste Reduction and Recycling Initiatives
Initiative
Purpose
Mechanisms
Practiced/
Proposed
Waste
reduction
goals.
To recycle, compost,
or avoid production
in 10 years (1998) of
60% of the total
combined residential and commercial
waste which would
otherwise be generated within the City.
Public education, curbside
collection of recyclables
and yard waste, commercial and apartment recycling, mixed waste
processing, and possibly
developing a food waste
composting facility.
Seattle
Packaging
restrictions
To encourage a
recyclable and compostable waste
stream.
Ordinance restricting nondegradable, nonreturnable
and nonrecyclable food
and beverage packaging
(including national brands)
originating at retail food
establishments.
Minneapolis
“Precycling”
campaigns
To educate consumes to consider
waste before they buy.
Media, public events, etc.
Berkeley
Municipal
composting
To reduce yard wastes and to sell dry
sewage sludge as a
soil amendment.
Centralized composting
program for 60,000 tons of
yard waste per year.
San Jose
Polystyrene
plastic foam
bans and
restrictions
To prevent one-time
use of polystyrene
plastic foam by restaurants and retail
food vendors.
Municipal by-law.
Portland, Berkeley
Integrated
reclamation/
recycling
centres
To recover and
reprocess everything
from glass, metals,
paper and waste oil to
cotton, animal bones,
chemical fibres and
human hair.
Shanghai
State complex employing
29,000 full-time and many
more part-time employees
through a network of purchasing stations, integrated
recyling centres, sales
departments and retail shopes
selling reclaimed products.
Constructed
wetlands
Sewage treatment.
Treat sewage effluent through
a series of natural marshes
and restored wetlands.
Arcata, CA
Solar aquatics
waste treatment facility
Septage treatment.
Greenhouse marshes to
purify wastes.
Providence, RI
23
IJCS / RIÉC
Impacts on the Cityscapes
Many of these questions are concerned with land use and urban form.
Indeed, the land- and transportation-related recommendations of the Vancouver Task Force, if fully implemented there and elsewhere, 47 would
dramatically change the character of urban spatial development in the 21st
century. Vancouver’s Clouds of Change Study was adopted almost in its
entirety by Vancouver City Council in October 1990. Tables 1 and 2
illustrate many of the policies considered by Vancouver and the range of
program options currently implemented in cities around the world in
response to the problems of urbanization and global change. Many such
policies contribute to the “greening” of the urban landscape.
Epilogue
The foregoing demonstrates only a few of the integrated policy responses
necessary to reverse negative global environmental trends and head off a
true ecological crisis. Clearly, implementation of such policies would radically alter prevailing directions in landscape evolution in Canada and
around the world. The proposed policy agenda will no doubt appear as an
impossibly radical if not exactly utopian agenda to many readers. In
defense, I can only state that if the basic premises supporting the natural
capital concept are correct, it is defenders of the status quo who are
promoting the more dangerously radical alternative.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
24
Man’s Role in Changing the Face of the Earth was the name of an international
symposium sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research
as early as 1955. The University of Chicago Press published the now classic volume of
proceedings under the same title, edited by Wm L. Thomas.
For key references documenting these developments, see Notes 4, 5, and 19.
P. Vitousek, P. Ehrlich, A. Ehrlich, and P. Matson. 1986. “Human Appropriation of the
Productsof Photosynthesis." Bioscience 36:368-374. Note that in thermodynamic terms,
photosynthesis is the significant productive process on Earth. The material economy is
based largely on the consumption/conversion of the products of photosynthesis. Even
coal, oil and natural gas are fossil solar energy.
H. Daly. 1991. “From Empty World Economics to Full World Economics: Recognizing
an Historic Turning Point in Economic Development,” (p.22). In Environmentally
Sustainable Development: Building on Brundtland, edited by R Goodland, H. Daly, and
S. El Serafy. Washington, DC: The World Bank.
R Goodland. 1991. ‘The Case that the World Has Reached Limits.” In Environmentally
Sustainable Developnent: Building on Brundtland, edited by R Goodland, H. Daly, and
S. El Serafy. Washington, DC: The World Bank; W. Rees. 1990. “Sustainable Development and the Biosphere: Concepts and Principles.” Teilhard Studies 23. American
Teilhard Association; W. Rees. 1990. “Atmospheric Change: Human Ecology in Disequilibrium.” International Journal of Environmental Studies 36:103-124.
Data from: L. Brown, et a l . [Annual] State of the World. Washington: Worldwatch
Institute; L. Brown, and C. Flavin. 1988. ‘The Earth’s Vital Signs.” In State of the World
Conserving Natural Capital
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
1988. L. Brown, et al. Washington: Worldwatch Institute; Canada. 1988. Conference
Statement -The Changing Atmosphere: Implications for Global Security (Toronto, 27-30
June, 1988) Ottawa: Environment Canada; S. Schneider. 1990. “The Science of ClimateModelling and a Perspective on the Global Warming Debate.” In Global Warming The
Greenpeace Report, edited by J. Leggett. (p. 44-67). New York: Oxford University Press;
US Environmental Protection Agency, reported in W. Stevens. 1991. “Ozone Layer
Thinner, But Forces Are in Place For Slow Improvement.” New York Times (9 april,
1991:B2); WCRP. 1990. Global Climate Change. World Climate Research Program
(World Meteorological Organization and International Council of Scientific Unions).
Sustainable development has deep roots in early 20th century theory of renewable
resource management and was later advanced as a more fully integrated approach to
conservation and development in: The World Conservation Strategy. 1980. Gland, Switzerland: International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
WCED. 1987. Our Common Future, (p.42). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Daly and Cobb suggest that the Commission’s reluctance to refine the concept was
intentional and politically astute. It facilitated acceptance of the general concept and
“guaranteed eventual discussion of its radical implications.” H. Daly and J. Cobb. 1989.
For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy Toward Community, the Environment,
and a Sustainable Future (p. 75-76). Boston: Beacon Press.
D. Brooks. 1990. “Beyond Catch Phrases: What does Sustainable Development Really
Mean?” (p.24). IDRC Reports (October 1990).
This section is revised and abstracted from: W. Rees. 1991. “Understanding Sustainable
Development,” a chapter in Planningfor Growth Management and Sustainable Development, edited by Jay M. Stein. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications (forthcoming 1991);
W. Rees. 1990. “The Ecology of Sustainable Development.” The Ecologist 20:1,18-23;
W. Rees. 1990. Note 5.
0. Herfindahl and A. Kneese. 1974. Economic Theory of Natural Resources, Columbus,
Ohio: Charles E. Merill.
P.A. Victor. 1990. Indicators of Sustainable Development: Some Lessons from Capital
Theory, a background paper prepared for a Workshop on Indicators of Sustainable
Development. Ottawa: Canadian Environmental Advisory Council.
See, for example, W. Baumol and W. Oates. 1988. The Theory of Environmental Policy
(second edition). Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
H. Daly. 1989. “Sustainable Development: From Concept and Theory Towards Operational Principles.” Prepared for a Hoover Institution Conference and special issue of
Population and Development Review (forthcoming).
H. Daly. 1990. “Boundless Bull,” Gannett Center Journal, Summer 1990:113-118.
W. Rees. 1990. Note 11.
D. Pearce, A. Markandya, and E. Barbier. 1989. Blueprintfora Green Economy. London:
Earthscan Publications.
R Costanza and H. Daly. 1990. Natural Capital and Sustainable Development. Prepared
for the Workshop on Natural Capital, Vancouver, BC: Ottawa: Canadian Environmental Assessment Research Council (15-16 March ); H. Daly. 1991. Note 4; H. Daly. 1989.
Note 15; H. Daly and J. Cobb. 1989. Note 9; D. Pearce, A. Markandya, and E. Barbier.
1989. Note 18; D. Pearce, E. Barbier, and A. Markandya. 1990. Sustainable Development:
Economics and Environment in the Third World. Hants, England: Edward Elgar Publishing J. Pezzey. 1989. Economic Analysis of Sustainable Growth and Sustainable Development. Environment Department Working Paper No. 15. Washington, DC: The World
Bank.
“Natural assets” encompasses not only material resources (e.g., petroleum, the ozone
layer, forests, soils) but also process resources (e.g., waste assimilation, photosynthesis,
soils formation). It includes renewable as well as exhaustible resources. Our primary
interest is in essential renewable (biological) and replenishable resources. Note that the
depletion of nonrenewables could be compensated through investment in renewable
assets.
H. Daly. 1989. Note 15, p.22. (An alternative interpretation refers to “an aggregate stock
of manmade and natural assets.” Since this reflects the neoclassical premise that
25
IJCS /RIÉC
manufactured capital can substitute for natural capital, Daly refers to this as “weak
sustainability”.)
22. D. Pearce, E. Barbier, and A. Markandya. 1990. Note 19, p.7.
23. H. Daly. 1989. Note 15, p.22; See also: H. Daly. 1991. Note 4.
24. Some economists might interpret “constant capital stock” to mean constant economic
value which would allow for declining physical stocks with rising real prices over time.
Alternately, it might mean constant price over time in situations where intensified
exploration or technological substitution are able to compensate for increasing resource
scarcity. However, the only ecologically meaningful interpretation for renewable resources is in terms of constant physical stock (See D. Pearce, E. Barbier, and A. Markandya.
1990. Note 19, p.10).
25. D. Pearce, E. Barbier, and A. Markandya. 1990. Note 16, p.6-7.
26. D. Pearce, E. Barbier, and A. Markandya. 1990. Note 16, p.7.
27. Revised from W. Rees. 1990. “Atmospheric Change: Human Ecology in Disequilibrium.” International Journal of Environmental Studies 36:103-124.
28. J. Cohn. 1989. “Gauging the biological impacts of the greenhouse effect.” BioScience
39:3, 142-146 ; S. Pain. 1988. “No escape from the global greenhouse.” New Scientist
120:1638,38-43; J. Smith, and D. Tirpak, eds. 1988. The Potential Effects of Global
Climate Change on the United States. Draft Report to Congress (Executive Summary).
United States Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C.
29. J. Smith and D. Tirpak, eds., Note 28; T. Ball. 1990. “Global Warming The Need for
Objectivity” Bio-Joule 5-7.
30. J. Jacobson, 1988 Environmental Refugees: A Yardstick of Habitability. Worldwatch
Paper 86. Worldwatch Institute, Washington.
31. D. Ireland. 1988. “Effects of Climate Change on World Industry, Trade, and Investment:
A Discussion Paper” (p.13). (Prepared for the World Conference on the Changing
Atmosphere. Toronto, Canada, 27-30 June 1988) Institute for Research on Public Policy,
Ottawa.
32. D. Ireland, Note 31, p.25.
33. D. Hinrichsen. 1989. “The Forest Decline Enigma” BioScience 37:8,542-546.
34. B. Bolin. 1986. “How Much Carbon Dioxide Will Remain in the Atmosphere?” In The
Greenhouse Effect, Climatic Change, and Ecosystems (SCOPE 29), edited by B. Bolin,
B. Doos, J. Jaeger, and R Warrick) Chichester: John Wiley.
35. L. Brown et al. 1989. State of the World I989 (p.182). Washington: Worldwatch Institute.
36. Pearce, D. 1991. “Deforesting the Amazon: Toward an Economic Solution.”
Ecodecision 1: 1,40-49.
37. World Resources 1990-91.1990. Washington: World Resources Institute; Ontario. 1989.
Study on the Reduction of Energy-Related Greenhouse Gas Emissions (Executive Summary). Toronto: DPA Group Limited under contract to Ontario Ministry of Energy.
38. Maintaining species diversity is integral to the natural capital concept and has additional
aesthetic (landscape) benefits compared to plantation forestry.
39. There is an enlightening discussion of economists’ treatment of land (and nature
generally) in the early chapters on the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness” in H. Daly
and J. Cobb. 1989. For the Common Good Boston: Beacon Press.
40. D. Pimentel. 1975. “Energy and Land Constraints in Food Protein Production.” Science
190: 754-761; W. Berry. 1981. The Gift of Good Land Further Essays Cultural and
Agricultural (p.42). Berkeley. North Point Press.
41. C. Edwards, R Lal, P. Madden, R Miller, and G. House. 1990. Sustainable Agricultural
Systems. Ankeny, IA: Soil and Water Conservation Society (See review by D. Pimentel,
BioScience 41:1,48-49); US-NRC. 1990. Alternative Agriculture. Washington: National
Research Council (See review by David Hodges, The EcoIogist 20:5,198-199).
st
42. W. Rees and M. Roseland. 1991. “Sustainable Communities: Planning for the 21
Century.” Plan Canada 31:3,15-26.
43. Meanwhile people “elsewhere” may be drawing down their “natural capital” in response
to short-term market demand.
44. The Changing Atmosphere: A Call to Action. 1989. Toronto: City of Toronto.
Conserving Natural Capital
45.
46.
47.
Clouds of Change: Final Report of the City of Vancouver Task Force on Atmospheric
Change (Two volumes). 1990. Vancouver: City of Vancouver.
Public transit can be self-supporting in higher density urban regions particularly if there
are disincentives to automobile use.
Clouds of Change has become a City of Vancouver all time best-selling publication.
27
William Hamley
Economic Development and Environmental
Preservation: The Case of the James Bay HydroElectric Power Projects, Quebec
Abstract
The physical and human environment of much of northern Quebec is in the
process of major transition as the massive hydro-electric power projects in
the James Bay area proceed.Opposition to the scheme is widespread, focussing particularly on the extent to which the environment is being damaged and
on the upheavals brought about within native society. Conversely a case can
be made in favour of the schemes especially in terms of Quebec‘s industrial
and economic development. Both sides of the argument are outlined and
questions raised as to the ways in which events could be more democratically
managed in the future. A halt to developments is suggested whilst a properly
constituted enquiry is set up using current assessment techniques and planning approaches and reflecting the increasing legal and political involvement
with environmental issues.
Résumé
L‘environnement physique et humain d’une large partie du Nord québécois
est en train de subir une transformation considérable alors que se poursuit la
réalisation des projets hydroétectriques dans la région de la baie James.
Largement répandue, l’opposition à ces travaux porte surtout sur
l‘importance des ravages qu'il infligent à l‘environnement et sur les bouleversements qu’ils entraînent au sein de la société autochtone. A la défense de
ces projets, par contre, peut être invoqué leur apport au développement
industriel et économique du Québec. Cet article expose les deux thèses
opposées et soulève diverses questions quant à la façon de gérer plus
démocratiquement cette affaire dans l’avenir. On y recommande de surseoir
à ces déveoppements pendant que l‘on procéderait à une étude en bonne et
due forme qui utiliserait les techniques d’évaluation et de planification
environnementales courantes et qui rendrait en considération les
préoccupations juridiques et politiques de plus en plus vives qui se sont
manifestées en matière d’environnement.
Until preliminary surveys revealed its hydro-electric power (HEP) potential in the early 1960s, northern Quebec remained a sub-arctic wilderness
area sparsely settled by Cree Indians and Inuit and contributing little to the
provincial economy. Yet within a decade the environment was being transformed, as one of the biggest engineering projects ever undertaken was
started in order to tap the generating potential of the rivers flowing into the
International Journal of Canadian Studies /Revue internationale d’études canadiennes
4, Fall/Automne 1991
eastern shore of James Bay.1 In the process the physical and human
landscapes of an area as large as France were to be altered and the
provincial economy stimulated. Soon a cheap, renewable and clean source
of power would enable Quebec to use its premier indigenous resource as
an engine of change, thrusting it into the High Tech age and revitalising the
French-Canadian economy which was in danger of becoming an industrial
backwater.2
The transformation of a landscape on this scale with the likely social and
economic repercussions was bound to generate controversy and with such
a scheme in such a setting, diametrically opposed opinions were bound to
appear. To many politicians, planners and economic analysts it is the
project of the century. To most conservationists and environmental groups
it is the disaster of the century. About half the proposed capacity has been
constructed, and although controversy still surrounds the schemes already
in place, it is on the remaining proposals that attention needs to be focussed.
In this paper an academic geographer will present, in outline, the cases for
and against the James Bay HEP project as objectively as possible, and in
attempting to assess the consequences to the province’s economy and its
northern environment, will consider whether some sort of compromise is
possible. Here, on a gargantuan scale, the recurring challenge of trying to
reconcile environmental conservation and economic development is
rendered in the starkest of terms.
The Scheme
As a result of the initial surveys, the provincial power utility, HydroQuebec, proposed the development of the Nottaway, Broadback and
Rupert rivers (the NBR complex) in 1965.3 However more extensive surveys resulted in more ambitious projects, culminating in 1971 with the
proposal to harness the complete river network on the eastern shore of
James Bay covering more than a fifth of the area of Canada’s largest
province.4 The installed capacity of the whole scheme would be in the order
of 28,000 megawatts (MW), equivalent to half of all Britain’s capacity.5
There are four main phases in the plan - La Grande I, La Grande II, NBR
and the Great Whale.
Phase 1, based on the La Grande river, covers an area of over 51,000 km 2
which is larger than Denmark. The high kinetic energy potential of the La
Grande was enhanced by diverting into it eighty-seven per cent of the water
in the Eastmain and Opinaca basins and twenty-seven per cent of that in
the Caniapiscau basin.6 The average flow of the La Grande has doubled
and is four times the previous rate in winter. Four suitable sites were
identified for power plants along the La Grande. LG2, the biggest, with an
installed capacity of 5,300 MW was completed in 1979. This was followed
30
The Case of the James Bay HEP Projects
Hydro schemes and proposals in the James Bay Area
by the impounding of the Opinaca and Caniapiscau reservoirs in 1980 and
1981 respectively which, along with the other reservoir lakes in the scheme,
have already inundated an area half as large as Wales. The construction of
LG3 (2,300 MW) and LG4 (2,650 MW) followed but LG1 was not
proceeded with initially. Phase 1 was completed in 1985 after only 12 years,
at a cost of approximately $16 billion.7 LG2A, an additional plant adjacent
to LG2, with an installed capacity of over 1,900 MW will be in production
by the end of 1991 raising Phase l’s capacity to 12,169 MW overall.
LGl is now incorporated in La Grande Phase 2 which will also have five
other powerhouses on rivers diverted in Phase 1. Those at Brisay and
Laforge 1 are being built ahead of schedule to meet projected needs by
1994 8 with Laforge 2 and Eastmain 1 and 2 due to be in operation by 1996.
Phase 2’s installed capacity will be 4,576 MW at a cost of nearly $10 billion.
The NBR scheme would see seven powerhouses on the Broadback river
whose flow would be increased by the diversion of water from the Nottaway
and Rupert rivers with two powerhouses proposed on the latter. Installed
capacity of some 8,700 MW could start providing electricity by 1998 at an
estimated cost of $16 billion.
North of the La Grande is the basin of the Great Whale river or Grande
rivière de la Baleine. This project involves diverting part of the Petite
Baleine into the Grande Baleine, creating an immense reservoir at Lac
Bienville and constructing three powerhouses on the Grande Baleine with
a total capacity of 2,890 MW. This phase would be in operation by the year
2001 at an estimated cost of between $5 and $6 billion.
The twelfth high voltage transmission line will soon be completed carrying
the output to load centres at Montreal and Quebec City where it can be
routed to southern Quebec, eastern Canada and the north eastern United
States. These very high voltage lines have been pioneered by Hydro-Quebec
to minimise energy loss over long distances so that, despite each line
extending for over 1,000 km, only 5 per cent of energy is lost between the
generating stations at the project and the load centres in the south. The
region, formerly accessible only by helicopter and light aircraft, now has
1,500 km of all weather roads and five airports linking the HEP sites with
provincial networks.9
These developments make this the largest HEP project in the world after
the Itaipu scheme in Brazil. It represents a major technological enterprise
employing over 18,000 workers at peak construction. Using locally excavated morainic sands and gravels and broken rock for the most part,
material sufficient to build the Great Pyramid of Cheops eighty times over
has been used in the constructions so far. Dams up to 160 m high have been
built and, to date, over 200 dykes have been constructed to retain the vast
32
The Case of the James Bay HEP Projects
new bodies of water. Placed end-to-end the dykes would form an earthwork
125 km long.10
” Activities on this scale were bound to cause dramatic
changes in both the physical and human environments of the region.
These developments are only part of a wider scheme for the James Bay
area. Fifty-eight smaller dams are proposed for the western shore of the
bay by Ontario Hydra.11
” Eventually every river flowing into James Bay
would be utilized as part of the enormous Grand Canal Project,12 whereby
James Bay itself would be dyked and turned into a freshwater reservoir and
its watershed diverted to the Great Lakes basin. Although this is still
speculation, it is a logical development to the schemes initiated by Quebec
on their side of the bay and represents a concept aimed at making this part
of Canada economically productive by transforming the environment.
The Environment
The physical environment is harsh. Although lying between latitudes 4 9 º
and 5 6 º some 1,400 km from Montreal, the region experiences a sub-arctic
climate with short mild summers and long severe winters. With a July
average temperature of between 1 2 º C and 1 8 º C and a January one of -2lºC
to -23ºC and at least 200 days of snow cover, conditions are rigorous
everywhere particularly away from the sea and northwards. Precipitation
ranges from under 500 mm in the north of the region to over 800 mm in the
south 13 with a summer maximum, so providing it can be stored, the region
has a water supply somewhat more than adequate for hydro schemes.
The catchment area of the rivers in the scheme covers an area three times
the size of the Maritime provinces.14 Despite its extent, the region has a
landscape which is rather uniform, being part of the glaciated PreCambrian Canadian Shield. It can be divided into three broad topographic
zones. The highly identical coastal strip is fringed by a coastal plain some
150 km wide and largely bog covered, giving way to a high plateau area with
innumerable unnamed lakes in a roches moutonées landscape of undulating monotony and covering the bulk of the region. Isostatic uplift is still
proceeding at a rate of 0.5 to 1.5 cm/yr-100.15 Even prior to reservoir
formation, water covered over fifteen per cent of the area. With the
scheme’s completion over a fifth of the region would be covered by water.
Away from the morainic deposits soil cover is thin and over large areas is
virtually non-existent for the Pre-Cambrian metamorphic and igneous
bedrock has a generally thin and scattered overburden. The forest cover
becomes progressively thinner northwards as taiga gives way to tundra.
Except in the more favoured southern areas the main species of black
spruce, jack pine and larch are too sparse or stunted for commercial
exploitation. The monotony of this wilderness area is relieved for a time in
summer, especially in the tundra, when the carpet of lichens, mosses and
33
IJCS / RIÉC
various subarctic plants blossom briefly though even this short respite is
blighted by the ubiquitous mosquito and blackfly.
The coastal area is an important habitat for migrating bird life as well as
for whales and seals. The fast flowing rivers and cold inland lakes are the
habitats of a variety of fish, the main species being pike, whitefish, trout and
salmon. To date, thirty-nine animal species have been reported in the
region16, including moose, caribou, beaver, bear, wolf, fox, rabbit, lynx and
muskrat. Yet, placed in the context of the sheer size of the area, such
resources are meagre in amount and sporadically dispersed, and with
tourism yet to be developed and mineral exploitation barely begun, the
region has little to offer a modern technological society until its vast HEP
potential can be harnessed. But of course most of the resources were a
crucial source of food and income for the indigenous peoples who had
evolved a harmonious relationship with this harsh environment over the
millennium of their possession.
At the signing of the James Bay and Northern Quebec agreement in 1975,
there were 6,650 Cree and 390 Naskapi Indians in the territory covered
mainly by the La Grande and NBR complexes and 4,390 Inuit in northern
Quebec, about half of whom were in the catchment area of the Great Whale
system.17 All these indigenous peoples at this time were following a lifestyle
which was dependent on government payments and support only to a
degree. For much of the time, hunting, trapping, fishing and the associated
activities still remained a majority occupation. As late as 1971, the Cree
were still to be found in eight scattered bands across the vast area under
the loose administration of the Department of Indian Affairs.18 Such a
state of affairs could not continue; major social upheavals, prompted by the
massive alterations to the physical environment, were inevitable with the
intrusion of the extensive HEP projects. Against such a background, rational assessment is difficult although a case can be made for as well as against
the project.
The Case For
In studying the arguments in favour of the project it is perhaps opportune
to quote the moving force behind much of the scheme, Premier Robert
Bourassa, who believes the developments at James Bay to be a form of
Quebec patriotism. In his book on the subject he states “Quebec is a vast
hydro-electric plant in the bud and every day millions of potential kilowatt
hours flow downhill and out to sea. What a waste.”19
Hyperbole aside, Quebec’s major natural resource is, undoubtedly, water.
By harnessing its water power the province has “a renewable oil supply,”20
the overall potential of which is estimated in excess of 40,000 MW21, with
electricity derived from a source which does not pollute the atmosphere.
34
The Case of the James Bay HEP Projects
Since postindustrial society is seen as being electricity-based, Quebec
would seem to have a reservoir of power and energy which represents an
invaluable asset for its economic development. The importance of this
power source to the province is emphasised when it is realised that, apart
from biomass, and other nonconventional power sources, which are of little
significance at present, Quebec has virtually no other indigenous energy
source.
Although Quebec produced nearly fifty six per cent of the energy it consumed in 1987, 22 its current energy balance compares unfavourably with
Canada as a whole because much of its primary energy comes from imported fossil fuels. The province is practically devoid of fossil fuels yet relies
on these and its nuclear power station for some fifty-five per cent of the
energy it consumes. If Quebec’s claims to be an energy rich region are to
have any substance, then it is to its own nonfossil sources that it must refer.
Currently, HEP accounts for thirty-seven per cent of the energy it consumes
and biomass for some eight per cent. 2 3 Obviously if the province is to reduce
its reliance on the heavily polluting fossil fuels, it will have to start realising
some of its vast HEP potential. Of this potential about 10,000 MW could
be generated from small river plants while large river plants (i.e., with
capacities over 100 MW) could be developed to provide the remaining
30,000 MW. Of this latter total some 19,000 MW is still available in the
James Bay region, 15,000 MW of which it is economically viable to develop
at the current time.
However, if the HEP route is to be followed then the environment is going
to be affected, be it on the huge scale of the James Bay project or at a more
localised scale for smaller developments on rivers elsewhere in the
province. When weighed against the atmospheric pollution caused by using
fossil fuels, then on environmental as well as on economic grounds HydroQuebec would seem to have a case for pressing ahead with the remaining
stages of the James Bay scheme. The scheme’s supporters feel their case is
particularly strong when the contribution the additional electricity would
make to the provincial economy is considered. The benefits would be
twofold- more revenue would be brought into the province through increased electricity exports and Quebec’s industrial structure would be
stimulated by the increased availability of a cheap and versatile energy
resource.
The Quebec grid is complementary with neighbouring grids, the present
interconnections having a carrying capacity of upwards of 5,000 MW and
the system is used two ways.24% For apart from importing electricity from
Churchill Falls, Labrador (5,225 MW), Quebec also imports during the
winter peak from its neighbours, in particular New Brunswick. Churchill
Falls apart, these imports are small and occasional and throughout most of
a normal year, Quebec has a considerable export surplus though output
35
IJCS / RIÉC
and export have been subject to some fluctuations recently. Even so,
electricity exports have quadrupled since 1971 bringing in an estimated $5
billion in revenue. New York state is Quebec’s biggest customer with
Ontario second. Recent deals with the New England power pool suggest
that New England could soon become the province’s biggest customer.25
From an environmental point of view exporting HEP must be beneficial in
the long term for much of the power used now in the north-east of the
United States comes from thermal generators. Quebec’s clean power could
help reduce acid rain and the greenhouse effect. The benefits to both
Quebec and its neighbours are a major theme in Bourassa’s book.
Current industrial output in Quebec indicates an economy still strongly
dependent on the more traditional and primary products despite encouraging developments recently in the High Tech and electronics industries.26
The provincial government sees Quebec’s energy riches as the driving force
in a strategy for economic development.27 The leading industries are all
heavy energy consumers; namely, mining, paper products, ore and mineral
processing, and chemical products. Electricity is the main energy source in
the paper and ore processing industries - especially in the iron and steel
and aluminium sectors. Hydro-Quebec, using a variety of inducements, is
encouraging more industries to turn to the cheaper and more versatile
energy from HEP.28
Due largely to its HEP resources Quebec’s electricity charges are amongst
the lowest in North America so that it has a competitive edge in attracting
certain types of industry. Already firms in the cable, turbine and electrical
materials industries, as well as electrical engineering firms have been
attracted into the province by cheap electricity. There are now over 1,200
High Tech firms in Quebec providing some 84,000 jobs, 29 though the large
scale and more basic industries continue to be attracted into the province,
particularly the large plants for aluminium and magnesium production.
These voracious users of electricity have been set up recently in Baie-Comeau, Sept-îles, Bécancour and Laterrière, and Quebec is now one of the
world’s largest producers of aluminium. Other regions are hoping to attract
large-scale electro-metallurgical industries soon. 30 An aluminium plant
due to start production in 1992 is already under construction at Deschambault, while the Montreal region is intent on developing the organic
electrochemical industry. The extension and versatility of the electricity
grid means that heavy industries, not always welcome on environmental
grounds in the more prosperous parts of the province, can be attracted to
those areas, such as the North Shore, where jobs are scarce.
Small scale, high value, modern electronic industries making little if any
environmental impact would be the ideal development. As it is, the
province’s cheap HEP seems to be particularly successful in attracting
industries in the primary and secondary sectors. These large scale opera36
The Case of the James Bay HEP Projects
tions, though undoubtedly desirable on economic grounds to the depressed
and underdeveloped parts of the province, can have adverse effects on local
environments. But nowhere are environmental impacts as widespread nor
on such a scale as in the James Bay region.
Hydro-Quebec, very conscious of mounting criticisms by the environmental
lobby, is devoting considerable efforts to show that, as a utility, it is anxious
to protect and enhance the environment in which it operates. Apart from
calling on outside experts, the utility employed 210 people in its environmental team in 1990.31 It took comfort from the unanimous conclusion of
the World Energy Conference meeting in Montreal in 1989 that
hydroelectrical development was the most ecologically sound means of
generating energy, being by far the least harmful to the environment.32
2 The
utility claims that its draft design studies and impact mitigation programmes
are the most sophisticated in North America. 3 3 PCBs discharged by the
installations will be eliminated by 1995, mercury levels in fish and the effects
on native diets are being constantly monitored and the situation is expected
to revert to normal in another fifteen years.34 Dangers arising from possible
magnetic fields in the vicinity of transmission lines are being researched.
Because of the more immediate threats posed by these problems the utility
has had little choice other than prompt action. Threats to the physical
environment are not always so readily apparent but, argues the utility, are
recognised and are being countered.
To date over $250 M has been spent on landscaping and reforestation
schemes by Hydro-Quebec and its subsidiaries. High methane concentrations and the accumulation of algae is constantly monitored and is expected
to return soon to previous levels. By creating new habitats it is expected that
the relocated wildlife resources will match, if not exceed, previous totals.35
Beaver and caribou populations in particular are flourishing despite the
flooding of a number of their habitats. The utility further claims that
migratory birds remain largely unaffected by the project and that hunting
yields are higher than ever. Naturally there has been some loss of the natural
environment but, it is argued, other ecosystems which are just as dynamic
and productive are being recreated elsewhere in an environment which is
now being better organised and managed. Perhaps the subarctic environment is not so fragile after all, the New Scientist conceding that “it seems
to be coping with ease to human tinkering”.36 Whilst arguing that ongoing
surveys are showing that the impacts of the project have been exaggerated,
Hydro-Québec is rather overstating its case by entitling its publicity
pamphlet “Present yet leaving no trace” 37 and arguing before the National
Energy Board that environmental impacts would be insignificant.38 The
physical environment is being affected but, it can be argued, in the course
of change a new one is being created and a new natural ecosystem is being
established to which flora and fauna will respond after some initial readjustments.
37
Hydro-Quebec is particularly sensitive to the charge that native rights are
being trampled underfoot. A series of agreements starting with the James
Bay and Northern Agreement in 1975 have seen the Indians and the Inuit
receive benefits of more that $500 M. Nearly 14,000 km 2 has been designated Category 1 land in the region and reserved for the exclusive use of
native peoples. A further 157,000 km 2 is Category 2 land where exclusive
hunting, fishing and trapping rights, but not surface rights, belong to the
indigenous peoples. The remainder of the territory, some 830,000 km 2 is
Category 3 land open to native and non-native alike but where the natives
are exempt from most provincial regulations and have harvest rights over
several animal species.39 Under an agreed income-security programme the
province paid out nearly $12 M in guaranteed income, or nearly $10,000
per family in 1988, as part of an on-going financial aid programme.40
Hydro-Quebec claims that all necessary measures are being taken to ensure
that native peoples benefit from direct and indirect economic spinoffs
arising out of the scheme. Some 522 Cree were employed during construction and some are now following a training scheme for permanent employment (150 by 1996). By 1989 Cree businesses had signed contracts with the
utility worth over $30 M. Far from there being racial genocide the Cree
population in the area, for example, grew from 6,650 in 1975 to 10,300 in
1988. The indigenous peoples are benefitting from easier access with the
new transport infrastructure which also helps lower the costs of most goods.
The native population now enjoys national levels of health care and social
provision and no longer suffers food shortages in winter. Better habitation
in new planned communities, nearly all of which are supplied with
electricity, constitutes part of a sudden transition which means, it is claimed,
that the natives are no longer living in the 16th century.41
If a peaceful revolution in the relationship between the “original occupants” and the “founding nations” is to be achieved then HydroQuebec’s activities in the James Bay area is regarded by some as being a
role model. Not only does this publicly-owned corporation have a direct
stake in this radical change in the human environment but it is seen as
playing a key role in the development of native self-government in the
region.42 In the case of the James Bay Crees, a formerly fragmented society
run by non-Cree has developed into a regional society administering local
affairs through a Cree government structure largely staffed by Cree.43 The
James Bay natives, as with indigenous peoples throughout the Canadian
North, are having to adapt to change and in so doing are becoming
politically organised and insistent on their rights. By their reactions to the
James Bay HEP project the indigenous peoples there are giving a lead to
native rights movements elsewhere in Canada.
38
The Case of the James Bay HEP Projects
The Case Against
However well monitored and however much investment is made towards
mitigating change and improving the environment, it is inevitable that the
scale of the James Bay project will lead to widespread alterations to the
physical environment. Obviously changes will be expected at local and
micro levels but large scale consequences were also predicted by some
environmentalists. Amongst fears expressed by the Committee for the
Defence of James Bay, a coalition of most of the province’s environmental
groups, was that the great weight of the newly impounded massive bodies
of water would trigger off local earth movements.44 This could cause dam
breaches leading to catastrophic flooding. Another consequence at the
macro scale could be climatic changes brought about by the sheer size of
the water bodies. Regional climates in the Maritimes and New York State
would become colder and wetter to the detriment of farming in these areas.
In the short term there have been no indications that such ominous predictions are being realised but adverse changes are already occurring at the
local level.
Most of the rivers used in the project so far have had their natural patterns
reversed, with flows now greatest in winter and which are, at times, being
increased or decreased up to twenty times the normal rate. Consequently
much erosion is taking place and large amounts of sediment are being
deposited in the reservoirs and estuaries. Some rivers have been reduced
to creeks so that spawning grounds have been destroyed and large tracts of
sediment exposed to erosion when such river courses are subject to periodic flooding with the intermittent release of water from upstream reservoirs which also serves to destroy any new ecosystems trying to establish
themselves. 45
5 Much damage is concentrated along the edges of the water
bodies which are often the richest habitats for plants and wildlife. Large
stretches of forest are being submerged, the slowly decaying vegetation
creating algae blooms and large emissions of methane. Water temperatures
are being altered as is water salinity, which can wreak havoc on fish and
mammals attuned to the former environment. The coastal marshes and tidal
flats, rich feeding grounds for migratory birds, are being affected,46 as is
the Bay’s aquatic life, for even the Beluga whale is now regarded as being
at risk. The numbers and health of river fish are being
n affected by the
changing chemical and aerobic properties of the water.47
One of the most dramatic and immediate problems to arise has been the
alarming amount of mercury entering the food chain. Alterations to water
levels have caused methyl mercury to be leached from the soil, changing an
inorganic mercury compound into organic mercury which has led to contamination levels in several stretches of water being six or more times above
that considered safe. Much aquatic life is being contaminated and birds and
land mammals are, in turn, becoming affected. A 1984 survey of the Crees
39
living at Chisasibi at the mouth of the La Grande, found that sixty-four
percent of them had unsafe levels of mercury in their bodies. 48 Until
mercury release returns to normal many fish species, central to native diet,
are now proscribed. Apart from its greenhouse effect, the large emission
of methane gas is affecting local air quality though, as with local wind speed
changes and alterations in soil structure and stability, these, and similar
localised disruptions to the environment, have not been properly monitored
and precisely measured as yet.
Very clearly predictable was the fate of the George River caribou herd. A
major release of water from the Caniapiscau reservoir in 1984, in the middle
of the herd’s annual migration, resulted in an estimated 10,000 caribou
being drowned- mainly an act of God according to Hydro-Quebec.
Migratory routes throughout the region are being affected by the new
infrastructure with roads and transmission lines often causing considerable
disruption. Early winter “draw down” each year means that large expanses
of mud around reservoirs are soon hidden by ice, which traps migrating
animals. The extension of surface water could lead to an increase in the
black fly and mosquito populations.
The National Energy Board, when giving its favourable response to HydroQuebec’s 1990 application for electricity export observed that it did not
know whether the environmental consequences of additional constructions
were acceptable or mitigable.49g At worst, disruptions to the physical environment could be so widespread and protracted that an entire ecosystem
would be lost within fifty years.50
In the meantime the indigenous peoples are having to make more immediate adjustments. The large financial payments awarded, mainly in 1975,
have been greatly eroded by inflation and on surrendering their aboriginal
rights to what they regard as their traditional land the native peoples have
obtained legal ownership to only 1.3 per cent of it. Developments since 1975
have caused Cree leaders to regret ever having signed the agreement.51
Long simmering resentments are now coming to the surface as the project
was announced without any prior consultation with the native peoples who,
not surprisingly, are feeling extremely apprehensive and threatened by the
further developments planned in the remaining stages of the project.
Safeguards necessary to ensure the continuance of native lifestyles are
being persistently ignored by provincial agencies it is claimed. For example,
forest management and conservation has been taken from the Cree and
forest concessions given to multinational corporations. The equivalent of
one family territory is being obliterated each year by clear cutting.5 2 Expected benefits are not forthcoming for the natives, there being considerable shortfalls in housing provision, incomplete infrastructures and hardly
any jobs - not even a single native game warden. Further disruptions of the
hunting and trapping economy will be inevitable if the rest of the scheme
The Case of the James Bay HEP Projects
goes ahead and there will be further upheavals of communities as more of
their land becomes inundated.
With over sixty-five per cent of the Cree population under the age of
twenty-five, there is a growing sense of urgency that traditional ways of life
should be preserved and that the cultural limbo into which native society is
now sinking will not come to be regarded as the norm. The number of Cree
living off the traditional pursuits of hunting and trapping has fallen to forty
per cent, whilst half are now unemployed and living off welfare in a society
where alcohol, drug abuse and domestic violence are becoming
widespread. Traditions such as meechum (community food) sharing are
disappearing and the deep significance of, and attachment to, the land,
central to native religion, culture, economy and philosophy, is being eroded
and replaced by more competitive and materialistic attitudes alien to the
historic traditions of communality. Alienation and confusion has led to an
average of three suicide attempts a week being reported amongst the James
Bay Cree. Proportionally this would be equivalent to 3,500 a week in
Montreal.53
3 A similar fate is befalling Inuit society which will suffer further
disruption if the Great Whale stage of the project gets underway. Unfortunately the breakdown of native society is occurring throughout the
Canadian North so that laying the blame at the door of Hydro-Quebec, in
the case of the James Bay peoples, is not entirely fair, though it can be
argued that the situation has been exacerbated by the suddenness and
extent of the changes wrought on the landscape.
The Cree in particular are no longer prepared to see the continuing
destruction of their society and culture. The Grand Council of the Crees of
Quebec is becoming an extremely potent political force. It has filed a suit
in the Federal Court demanding that the federal environment assessment
review process be revoked. The natives have also appealed to the Quebec
Superior Court for a permanent injunction preventing the construction of
the Great Whale project and are now seeking a declaration that the 1975
agreement, which gave the whole system the go-ahead, be declared null and
void. This is the “intifada” in Quebec by the native peoples who are now
retaliating against what they feel is the environmental racism inherent in
the James Bay developments and which is leading to cultural genocide?
To the people so directly involved, these recent developments in their area
are understandably a very emotive issue making for a very impassioned
case. A somewhat more dispassionate, but equally as persuasive a case
against proceeding with further stages of the project, can be made on
economic grounds. Phase 1 of the project was originally estimated to cost
$4 billion, a figure rightly greeted with scepticisrn by many at the time, for
at completion it has cost four times that figure.55 Hydro-Quebec’s debts
have risen from $2.6 billion in 1970 to $23 billion in 1989. Most of the debt
arises from the James Bay constructions, which in some years represented
41
IJCS / RIÉC
up to twenty-five per cent of the total investments made in the province.56
If the remaining stages of the project proceed then the debt could exceed
$60 billion by the year 2000 with annual interest payments alone exceeding
$6 billion. Perhaps undertaking such debts could be justified if further
developments could be assuredly beneficial. However calculations of
supply and demand are extremely imprecise in energy markets. By 1985,
when much of Phase l’s electricity came into the grid, Quebec found itself
with a surplus of over 5,000 MW. Prolonged drought conditions since then
have meant low run-offs and reduced electricity supply, causing HydroQuebec further debt as it led to the purchase of electricity from neighbouring systems and to importing more oil for conventional generators.
Ironically an advertising campaign had to be mounted to encourage consumers to switch back to oil from electricity. Such fluctuations and uncertainties bode ill for any rational planning on the scale necessary at James
Bay.
Construction jobs are only of a temporary nature, the first stage of the
project operating with a permanent manpower after completion of only
1,133 in 1988. It is claimed that the money invested in the developments so
far could have created five to ten times as many jobs in other sectors of the
provincial economy.577 As it is Quebec is being left to export electricity and
primary products requiring massive energy inputs, in particular aluminium,
pulp and paper, and hydrogen, which, in relative terms, create few jobs but
at considerable expense. For example, each job in the aluminium industry
has cost the province an estimated $150,000 in subsidies.58 The province is
seen as a very wasteful consumer of electricity, fuelling demand artificially
through advertising campaigns, price breaks and concessions,59 yet failing
to invest capital in its power infrastructure as evidenced by winter blackouts
becoming commonplace. Hydro-Quebec investments, equivalent to over
$2,300 per head of the province’s population, are profligate and with proper
conservation measures, an uninterrupted supply of cheap electricity, with
enough surplus for export, could be forthcoming.60 As it is the fear arises
that by generating even more power, largely for primary production and
export, manufacturing and High Tech jobs in the more advanced sections
of the economy are being stimulated outside the province at Quebec’s
expense.
Whilst it is probably rather excessive to regard Quebec as becoming a Third
World economy,61 *it can be argued that the James Bay undertakings are a
late 20th century technological variation on an old Canadian theme
whereby the North exploited as a mere resource base for the benefit of
other regions.62 This is achieved at considerable cost to the physical and
human environments involved.
42
The Case of the James Bay HEP Projects
Discussion
The fact that Phase 1 is in place and work is starting on some of the
remaining phases means that, in many respects, the opponents of the
scheme can only hope to mitigate what they see as a disaster in something
which is already a “fait accompli”. The debate must now focus primarily on
the desirability of proceeding with the rest of the project.
No physical landscape nor ecosystem is static. Changes, adjustments, alterations are ongoing occurrences within any environment, in northern
Quebec no less than elsewhere. The hand of man is increasingly fashioning
new environments and it can be argued that what is happening in the James
Bay area is that a new environment is replacing another and that, inevitably,
the ecosystem will adapt. However, even if this premise is accepted it should
be noted that no natural change would have occurred quite so dramatically
and brought about a change so rapid that stages in the natural processes of
evolution are in danger of being omitted in the James Bay area. The
question must be posed. Is it really necessary to disturb the natural order
of things further, why cannot the NBR and Great Whale areas be left as
they are to experience natural and evolutionary change?
The human environment too has irrevocably changed but the question to
be posed here is whether the changes suffered by native societies would
have occurred in any case, for other indigenous peoples throughout Canada
are having to face change also. In the case of the James Bay Cree in
particular however, the changes have been extremely rapid and calamitous
so that we are left with another question: Is further disruption inevitable,
and if so might things not be better managed? It is interesting to speculate
as to what might happen to the 1975 agreement if Quebec achieves some
form of separation: Will the native peoples be entitled to cancel the
agreement?
Then what of the economicviability of completing the scheme? Can Quebec
carry the debt, can a sound economic case be made for producing further
electricity? Yet conservation measures for reducing energy demand can
only go a small way to reducing the province’s reliance on polluting,
imported fossil fuels, so is it not sensible and “patriotic” to expand HEP
production in the James Bay area ? It is, after all, a clean source of power.
As has been indicated, the issues are complex with cases to be made both
for and against the James Bay developments. What is happening at James
Bay is causing grave concern to environmental groups not only in the
province but in the northeast of the United States also. Protest groups in
New England have helped in scuttling proposals for sales to Central Maine
Power whilst the powerful New York-based National Audubon Society is
doing much to publicise what they see as the loss of an entire ecosystem.
43
IJCS / RIÉC
On the other hand the scheme seems to have a fair degree of political and
public support within the province itself. A public opinion poll, for example,
held in Montreal in 1979, at the height of construction, indicated an
overwhelming desire by the public to develop Quebec’s northern resources
but with a certain sense of unease about the way the Indian land claims had
been handled63 and a province-wide poll published in January 199164
showed some 60 per cent of the respondents favouring the HEP constructions in northern Quebec and preferring that energy requirements be met
by this means.
Since majority opinion within the province is currently in favour of the
scheme it would be presumptuous to ignore the workings of democracy.
But public opinion can change especially when subjected to political persuasion and it is interesting to note that the Great Whale project is now
being opposed by the Parti Québécois who nevertheless remain committed
to further HEP developments in more accessible areas such as the Lower
North Shore of the St. Lawrence. While the scheme’s strongest advocate,
Premier Bourassa leads the Liberals, party differences over developments
at James Bay are becoming sufficiently clear-cut for the democratic process
to lead towards some political outcome reflecting the wishes of the majority
of the province’s population.
Unfortunately the native peoples directly affected by the scheme have
relatively little political clout. To gain protection and justice in a democracy,
minorities can usually look to the law. When signing the James Bay Agreement the native peoples were signing a contract with unquestionable legal
status so that, at first sight, there would appear to be no legal grounds for
revoking the agreement as so many of the native leaders now wish. In fact,
while renouncing their Indian title, the native peoples promised to cease
current and all future legal proceedings against James Bay HEP developments in return for a number of rights, benefits and services. Now, however,
it is becoming apparent that the government is failing to meet its obligations
and is being tardy in implementing its side of the bargain, so the whole legal
basis of native acquiescence in the developments is being questioned.65
The extent of aboriginal sovereignty, provincial rights and the authority of
the Canadian constitution remain open to legal dispute so that clear and
unequivocal guidance from the law is slow in coming. Many areas are being
seen as open to a variety of legal interpretations and the native peoples are
turning to the courts with increasing success as they become better advised
and organised. The fact that the Federal Court has recently ruled that the
federal government must carry out an environmental impact study on the
remaining phases at James Bay indicates that the law can be successfully
invoked against the most powerful of interests and a succession of court
decisions recently have emphasised the federal government’s responsibility
for environmental and aboriginal issues throughout Canada.
44
The Case of the James Bay HEP Projects
So it can be argued that the issues raised by the developments at James Bay
should be resolved through the democratic process within a legal
framework and this solution can be advocated provided adequate information is forthcoming which is properly provided by scientific observation
and impartial assessment, preferably incorporated into suitably constituted
advisory bodies and agencies. Environmental Assessment and Review
Process (EARP) panels have already been used by the federal government
to examine the effects on northern environments of economic developments. Oil and Gas drilling at Lancaster Ground and in the Western Arctic
have been reported on by EARP panels indicating federal initiatives toward
more regionally based responses and more holistic policy proposals. Agencies working for Environment Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada and
other federal bodies using “ecosystem approaches” are leading towards
clearer understandings of environmental impacts and the need for scientifically based decision making. Clearly the flawed assumptions and poorly
defmed impacts pertaining during Phase 1 of the James Bay developments
are being superseded by more vigorous studies and better informed planning and policy proposals. By such means can educated and informed
opinion properly consider the issues and articulate possible responses to
the alternatives posed by major northern developments such as those in
northern Quebec.
Currently though, more than advice and proposals, however well informed,
is needed if the problems ensuing from James Bay HEP expansion
proposals are to be resolved. Apart from having to apply for export licences
to the National Energy Board, Hydro-Quebec has not as yet really had to
justify its activities in an open and democratic manner. In May 1990 the
provincial government set up a parliamentary commission to enquire into
future energy supplies in Quebec but its report is still pending. The Bureau
d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement may hold hearings but there is
no law nor consultative mechanism in place as yet to which Hydro-Quebec
and the provincial government are legally bound when matters concerning
the provincial utility arise. The consultations that have taken place have
been mainly by invitation and are seen by the scheme’s more cynical
opponents as being mere publicity stunts which do nothing to further the
democratic decision making processes within such an important debate.
The issues will not go away, though to an academic outsider the stark choice
between further environmental destruction or economic development is
too simplistic, especially since better studies and deeper consideration of
the issues are now forthcoming. Rather than simply recommending that the
remaining phases at James Bay proceed or not, a dispassionate, scientific
appraisal would suggest that development should be halted whilst a
detailed and wide ranging enquiry, along the lines of the Berger Commission, is set up but using current analytical techniques and secured within a
clear legal framework. In this way new federal Green Plan and environmen-
45
tal assessment acts could set clear parameters. Apart from drawing on
expertise such a body ought to encourage comment from an increasingly
knowledgeable public in general That such an enquiry could reinforce the
opposition to further development might well be the outcome though it
would remain necessary in a democratic society to persuade public opinion
of the soundness of the judgement and to influence the provincial government away from its current emphasis on HEP as the basis for its energy
policy. It should also concern itself not just with current problems but
should consider wider issues in a long term context. One such approach
could be to consider an extension of the existing James Bay Provincial Park
into a wilderness area wherein clearly defined land usages might go some
way towards reconciling the various demands on the region. Issues in a
broader context will certainly have to be faced if the Grand Canal Project
ever goes ahead. Whatever the nature and composition of the enquiring
body it should be incumbent on the provincial government to implement its
recommendations as fully as possible.
These issues, relating to a major segment of Quebec’s landscape, epitomise
the challenges facing regions throughout the Canadian North where unique
environments contain immense resources. Rather than being seen as the
setting of a major technological triumph or of a terrible environmental
disaster, the James Bay area can be regarded as a massive outdoor
laboratory from which lessons can be learned, mistakes rectified and
educated opinions formed to help in solving conflicts democratically.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
46
Bourassa, R Power~onr the North. Prentice-Hall, Scarborough 1985, pp. 1-9.
Hamley, W. “Hydrotechnology, wilderness and culture in Quebec” in Cosgrove, D. and
G. Petts (Eds). Water, Engineering and Landscape London 1990, p. 144.
Bolduc, A., C. Hogue, D. Larouche. Québec : un siècle d'électricité Montreal 1984,
Chapter 21.
Gorrie, P. “The James Bay Power Project”. Canadian Geographic, Vol. 110, No. 1.
February/March 1990, p. 23.
Hamley, W. “The James Bay H.E.P. Complex. The Development of a Major Energy
Source”. Energy, Exploration & Exploitation.. Vol. 2, No. 3, 1983, p. 128.
Hamley, W. “Power in the Wilderness”. Geographical Magazine, Analysis No. 16.
February 1989, p. 2.
Unless otherwise stated, all financial totals quoted in this paper are in Canadian dollars.
Hydro-Québec. Annual Report, Montreal 1989, p. 21.
Hamley, W. “Hydroelectrical developments in the James Bay Region, Quebec.
Geographical Review, 71 (l), 1983, p. 110.
Société d’energie de la Baie James. From Death to Reality: the La Grande Complex.
Montreal 1983, p. 35.
Laduke, W. “Green Tide: James Bay”. Z.Magazine, Vol. 3. No. 6, June 1990, p. 12.
Rosenthal, J. and J. Beyea. Long Term Threats to Canada’s James Bay From Human
Development. National Audubon Society Report No. 29, New York 1989, p. 3.
Hare, F.K. and M. Thomas. Climate Canada, Toronto 1974, p. 40.
Hamley, W. “Some aspects and consequences of the development of the James Bay
Hydro-Electric Complex”. British Journal of Canadian Studies 2 (2) 1987, p. 252.
The Case of the James Bay HEP Projects
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21..
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
Roy, D. and D. Messier. “A review of the effects of water transfers in the La Grande
Hydroelectric complex (Québec, Canada)“. Regulated Rivers: Research and Management, 4, 1989, p. 301.
Hydro-Québec. James Bay Taming the La Grande River. Montreal 1985, p. 10.
Crowe, K. “Claims on the Land”. Arctic Circle 1.3. November/December 1990, p. 20.
Salisbury R, A Homeland for the Cree. Kingston 1986, p. 4.
Bourassa, R 1985 op. cit. p. 4.
Gignac, J.P. “L’eau, cette ressource inestimable”. Forces No. 89,1990, p. 71.
Hydro-Québec Proposed Hydro-Québec Development Plan 1990-1992, Horizon 1999.
Montreal 1990, p. 74.
Hamley, W. “Energy and Economic Development in Quebec”. British Journal of
Canadian Studies. Vol. 5, No. 1, 1991 p. 24.
Gouvemement du Québec. Energy in Québec. Quebec City 1989, p. 106.
Carpentier, J.M. “Les exportations d’électricité dans un contexte de complémentaire”‘.
Forces. No. 89, 1990, p. 39.
Ciaccia, J. “L’énergie, force motrice du développement économique”. Forces No. 86,
1989, p. 59.
Hamley, W. 1991 op. cit. p. 25.
Gouvernement du Québec. Energy, Driving Force of Economic Development. Quebec
City 1988, p. 117.
Hamley, W. 1990 op. cit. p. 151.
Guérard, Y. ‘The Quebec Economy Today; A General Overview”. The London Journal
of Canadian Studies, 6.1989, p. 4.
Vézina, R “Québec : vers une maturité énergétique”. Forces. No. 86,1989, p. 52.
Hydro-Québec. Horizon 1999, op. cit. p. 91.
Drouin, R “Des choix bases sur des valeurs durables". Forces. No. 89,1990, p. 14.
Ibid.
Hydro-Québec. Horizon 1999, op. cit. p. 99.
Rivest, S. “Hydro-Québec et les exigences du développement durable”. Forces. No. 89,
1990, p. 53.
McCutcheon, S. “The Flooding of James Bay”. New Scientist, March 1984, p. 41.
Société d’énergie de la Baie James. Present yet leaving no trace. SEBJ and Environmental
Protection. Montreal 1981.
National Energy Board. “Reasons for Decision. Hydro-Québec EH-3-89. August 1990.
Ottawa. p. 36.
Joyal, S. “La révolution autochtone du génie électrique au génie des peuples”. Forces.
No. 89, p. 49
Hydro-Québec Horizon 1999, op. cit. p. 98.
Serge Dubé, adviser to Hydro-Québec, quoted in The Globe and Mail (Toronto),
14.490. p. A3.
Joyal, S. op. cit. p. 48.
Hamley, W. 1990 op. cit. p. 154.
McCutcheon, S. op. cit. p. 35.
Gorrie, P. 1990 op. cit. p. 24.
Rosenthal, J. and J. Beyea 1989 op. cit. p. 12.
Boddly, RA. et al. “Fish and Fisheries of the MacKenzie and Churchill river basins,
Northern Canada” in D.P. Dodge (Ed.) Proceedings of the International Large River
Symposium, Ottawa 1989.
Gorrie, P. 1990 op. cit. p. 27.
National Energy Board 1990 op. cit. p. 37.
Jan Beyea quoted in Z Magazine 1990, op. cit. p_ 12.
Diamond, B. “Villages of the Dammed”. Arctic Circle 1.3. November/December 1990,
p. 24.
Ibid p. 29.
Picard, A. “There’s poison in picture-perfect Chisasibi”. The Globe & Mail (Toronto)
14.490. p. A8
Diamond, B. op. cit. p. 34.
47
IJCS / RIÉC
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
48
Hamley, W. 1990 op. cit. p. 151.
Connor-Lajambe, H. “Societal impacts of utility over-investment. The James Bay
Hydroelectric Project”. Utilities Policy, October 1990, p. 84.
Picard, A. “U.S. customers likely to buy despite environmental worries”. The Globe and
Mail 16.4.90. p. Al.
Bélanger, R and P. Bernard. “Hydro-Québec et les alumineries”. Le Devoir. 20.10.89.
p. 9
Gorrie, P. 1990 op. cit. p. 31.
Connor-Lajambe, H. 1990 op. cit. p. 83.
Picard, A. 1990 op. cit. p. AS.
Hamley, W. 1990 op. cit. p. 156.
Ibid
L'Actualtié. Janvier 1991. p. 20.
Paré, J. and R. Goyette. “Portrait des Québécois”.
Moss, W. “The Implementation of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement”,
in Morse, B.W. (Ed,) Aboriginal Peoples & the Law. Ottawa 1989. pp. 691-2.
Gamble, D. “Gropingaround James Bay" Arctic Circle 1.3. November/December 1990.
p. 11.
Daniel Le Couédic
Les ressorts communs des régionalismes
architecturaux du Québec et de la Bretagne
Résumé
Les orientations économiques et sociales qui dessinaient au début du siècle
firent craindre aux penseurs du nationalisme québécois la disparition des
principales caractéristiques de leur province. Décides à contrecarrer cette
évolution, ils misèrent sur la « refrancisation » et, notamment, sacralisèrent
le patrimoine architectural, enjoignant de s‘en inspirer pour les réalisations
à venir. Les régionalistes bretons, au même moment, firent une semblable
analyse et crurent que figer le domaine bâti ou le reproduire toujours identique
à lut-même permettrait de fixer la société et de maintenir sa particularité
spirituelle.
Ces deux mouvements évoluèrent de faç on très comparable jusqu‘au terme
du second conflit mondial, suscitèrent les mêmes entreprises, connurent les
mêmes succès relatifs et furent en butte aux mêmes ambiguïtés. Après-guerre,
en revanche, leurs destins divergèrent notoirement. Le régionalisme architectural périclita peu à peu au Québec, alors que la vitalité d’autres indicateurs
d’une particularité demeurait. En Bretagne, au contraire, il s’imposa quand
les autres manifestations d’une différence, probablement essentielles,
s‘atténuaient.
Abstract
The economic and social trends that emerged at the beginning of the century
led some Quebec nationalist intellectuals to fear the demise of their
provinces chief characteristics. Determined to counteract this trend, they
turned to “Re-francization” and, in particular, enshrined Quebec’s architectural heritage and demanded that new projects follow its precepts. During the
same period, regionalists in Brittany were reaching similiar conclusions, and
believed that architectural stability, or repeatedly reproducing the same type
of building, would stabilize Breton society and preserve its spiritual uniqueness.
These two movements followed a very similar path until the end of the Second
World War; they generated the same undertakings, met with the same relative
success and resulted in the same ambiguities. During the post-war period,
however, they took radically different directions. In Quebec, architectural
regionalism gradually declined while other displays of uniqueness remained.
In Brittany, however, it gained ascendancy while other probably fundamental
indications of a difference faded.
International Journal of Canadian Studies /Revue internationale d'études
4. Fall/Automne 1991
canadiennes
IJCS / RIÉC
Les orientations économiques et les transformations sociales qui se dessinaient au début du siècle firent craindre aux penseurs du nationalisme
québécois l’estompage des traits distinctifs de leur province. Décidés à
contrecarrer cette évolution, ils optèrent pour la consolidation de ce qu’ils
considéraient la caractéristique essentielle de la société canadiennefrançaise : l’alliance, jusque-là indéfectile, de la religion et des vertus
habitantes. Qu’habitant eût été préféré à paysan dit suffisamment
l’importance prêtée à l’union de la terre et du foyer. La maison, imaginée
comme le pont entre l’homme et son terroir, comme le sanctuaire de la
famille où s’enracinait la tradition, devait donc devenir un enjeu.
Les diverses voies du régionalisme
Dans ce contexte, il peut sembler contradictoire que des Anglo-Canadiens
aient été les plus prompts à se préoccuper, avec sérieux et constance, des
plus anciennes maisons du Québec, témoins obstinés de l’antériorité
française. L’Université McGill fut pourtant, sous l’impulsion d’un professeur d’architecture, Ramsay Traquair (1874-1952), et d’un bibliothécaire,
Gerhard Richard Lomer (n. 1882), le creuset où se cristallisa dans une
longue suite de travaux scientifiques l’intérêt pour ce patrimoine. Les
multiples relevés, descriptions et essais de classification qui furent alors
exécutés démontrent par leur rigueur et le désintéressement qui présida à
leur constitution que l’histoire et l’ethnologie, si souvent mises au service
de causes militantes, peuvent aussi réunir dans une commune objectivité’.
La prédilection d’une école littéraire pour le régionalisme ainsi que
l’engouement de certains peintres pour le sujet canadien accompagnaient
ces entreprises universitaires et constituaient de puissantes sollicitations à
s’intéresser aux vieilles bâtisses menacées par l’âge et l’attrait du nouveau.
C’est même dans ces milieux qu’il faut sans doute chercher les premiers
préconisateurs de leur conservation et, aussi, les premiers à avoir imaginé
qu’on pût leur offrir une postérité. Clarence A. Gagnon (1881-1942) fut
d’ailleurs toujours fidèle à cette idée qu’il pensa même pouvoir
concrétiser : en 1938, associé à P. Roy Wilson (n. 1900) un autre professeur
de McGill, brillant dessinateur et amoureux comme lui d’antiquités rurales
et de scènes paysannes, il conçut un village québécois typique destiné aux
pentes du mont Royal.
Enquêtes à la manière d’Alfred de Foville (1842-1913), fascination pour
l’archaïsme des campagnes, plaisir des reconstitutions villageoises que
l’Exposition universelle de 1900 avait mises en vogue, arrière-fond
nationaliste comme la France en entretenait depuis la perte de ses
provinces de l’Est : le surgissement d’un « problème de la maison » au
Québec pourrait faire songer aux balbutiements du régionalisme architectural français qui, à ses débuts, avait également mêlé des a priori
idéologiques, des préoccupations scientifiques et le souci de préserver un
50
Les ressorts communs des régionalismes architecturaux
charme 2. De toute évidence, il serait aisé de tracer de nombreux parallèles.
Mais on aurait tôt fait, aussi, de constater des divergences. Une autre
comparaison nous a donc paru devoir s’ajouter à celle-là pour revéler, dans
leur complexité, l’aspect partagé et la part spécifique des tentatives
québécoises pour se doter d’une architecture inspirée de ses devancières :
celle qui, en vis-à-vis de la Belle Province, place la Bretagne. Il faut là, bien
entendu, écarter l’idée d’une parfaite coïncidence et ne retenir que trois
éléments de rapprochement : l’omnipotence d’un clergé, « autorité
naturelle » portée à la mythification du passé; un désir farouche de résister
à toute tentative de domination culturelle, notamment linguistique; et dans
le domaine de l’architecture, la volonté de se défaire des tutelles
académiques et de se doter d’une architecture nationale, n’en déplût à
l’École des Beaux-Arts de Paris, laquelle se croyait vocation à régir le
monde.
La comparaison peut surprendre, voire deplaire. Le nationalisme des
Bretons n’eut jamais bonne presse au Canada français et fit même se défier
d’eux au point de vouloir, au prix d’une argumentation douteuse, minimiser
leur part déjà effectivement modeste dans la constitution de la colonie3.
Qu’on s’en fût pris, en Bretagne, à l’image d’une France rayonnante et
généreuse paraissait au Québec de la dernière inconvenance, comme il
semblait déplacé que les Flamands de Belgique contestassent la volonté
d’hégémonie wallonne4. Les militants bretons, au contraire, n’avaient
généralement que sympathie pour la ténacité québécoise. Ainsi, Feiz ha
Breiz, une revue animée par l’opiniâtre recteur d’une paroisse des monts
d’Arrée, Jean-Marie Perrot (1877-1943), relayait les lettres pastorales de
l'Archevêque de Québec, le cardinal Louis-Nazaire Begin (1840-1925),
quand elles évoquaient « les exigences de la race5». Mais le plus constant
à enjoindre, en langue bretonne, de suivre l’exemple des Canadiens français
était Ar C’horn boud, le journal de l’association catholique et nationaliste
Bleun brug, que renseignait le père François Georget, un moine breton
installé au Canada. Mgr Louis-Adolphe Paquet, professeur de théologie à
l’Université Laval, eut à plusieurs reprises les honneurs de cette presse.
« L’église catholique et le problème des langues nationales », une
conférence qu’il avait faite en 1912 au Congrès de la langue française, fut
donnée in extenso et ses propos sur les rapports de l’Église et des « survivances nationales » largement rapportés. Le président Pouliot de la
Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Québec fut également cité. Ar C’hom boud
reproduisit encore le discours prononcé le 22 juin 1924 par l’abbé Lionel
Groulx (1878-1967) à l’occasion du Congrès national canadien-français.
Enfin, il accueillit l’abbé Joseph E. Laberge, un professeur d’université
désireux d’insister sur la relation qu’il fallait, selon lui, préserver entre
« L’église et la langue maternelle6».
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L’enseignement du passé
On le voit, le combat pour la langue, fer de lance de l’action canadiennefrançaise, avait vivement retenu l’attention bretonne. Des autres facteurs
de l’identité, on n’avait rien dit. Sans doute l’information manquait-elle,
mais aussi, ils ne semblaient pas avoir encore suscité le même intérêt qu’en
Bretagne où le costume, les produits de l’artisanat et les arts populaires
avaient de longue date été jugés primordiaux. Certes, la doyenne Académie
celtique, fondée en 1809, s’était surtout préoccupée de la langue bretonne;
mais dès 1843, en s’ouvrant à l’archéologie, l’Association bretonne avait
tracé une voie aux plus larges perspectives, accueillant d’ailleurs plusieurs
architectes. Il avait toutefois fallu attendre 1898 et la création de l’Union
régionaliste bretonne pour franchir véritablement une étape
supplémentaire. Moins élitiste quoique d’essence toujours aristocratique,
ayant donc élargi son champ de recrutement, elle réclamait de façon
insistante une réforme administrative de la France qu’elle appuyait justement sur l’affirmation que la plupart des anciennes caractéristiques
pouvaient être maintenues. Soixante-dix bulletins, journaux et revues
avaient, sur un siècle d’action bretonne, reflété tour à tour les points de vue
de cette mouvance qui allait, dans sa diversité, être nommée Emsav, le
« Mouvement7». Et les arts, puis l’architecture, y avaient pris une place
de plus en plus grande depuis qu’en 1857, la Revue de Bretagne et de Vendée
leur avait la première consacré de nombreux articles.
Une question n’avait jamais cessé de se poser : existait-il un art authentiquement breton ? Il en avait existé un, répondaient la plupart des essayistes,
un art paysan, issu sans doute des grands courants occidentaux, mais
façonné par le pays, les exigences de son climat, les ressources de son sol
et, surtout, dominé par un esprit celtique indicible. Mais voilà, le « stupide
XIXe siècle » avait tout compromis, laissant les valeurs « uniformisatrices »
d’une France décidée à se défaire des particularismes pénétrer à marche
forcée une Bretagne exténuée, qui n’en pouvait mais. Il fallait donc,
proclamait-on, revenir sur ses pas, retrouver l’essentiel breton, renouer le
fil de la tradition. Dans cette entreprise, on pouvait s’appuyer sur les
vestiges qui subsistaient et compter sur le paysan qui, dans sa sagesse et son
innocence présumées, avait su se prémunir des bouleversements qui
avaient affecté la ville. La maison paysanne, souvent misérable, qui avait
laissé consternés nombre de voyageurs du siècle précédent, devint un
exemple : celui de la continuité, de la modestie, de la parfaite intégration à
l’histoire comme au paysage, antithèse de l’arrogance des résidences
balnéaires qui proliféraient. Dans un « Mémoire sur l’art breton », remis
en 1906 à l’Union régionaliste bretonne (U.R.B.), le peintre Pierre Gatier
avait dit combien il était « péniblement impressionné par la vue de villas de
pacotille, ces articles de Paris horribles, qui n’ont aucun rapport avec
l’architecture de pierre et de bois couverte en seigle » qu’on se devait,
assurait-il, de perpétuer8. À ce ressaisissement, il y avait des préalables
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Les ressorts communs des régionalismes architecturaux
qu’Alfred Ely-Monbet (1879-1915), un ébéniste et sculpteur, membre influent de la Section des Beaux-Arts de l’U.R.B., se chargea de préciser. Il
fallait résolument se détourner de la ville et de ses « cabarets soutireurs
d’argent, de moralité et de santé », fuir « l’usine niveleuse des initiatives,
useuse des consciences » pour s’en remettre au travail de la terre et à
l’artisanat, « panacée contre la révolution ». Il fallait revenir « près de la
vieille demeure où s’abrite l’enseignement du passé 9».
En fait, les arts et l’architecture du Canada selon le Régime français, leur
originalité et leur intérêt avaient également fait l’objet de réflexions et de
dissertations, mais plus tardivement et de façon plus sommaire. L’idée
prévalait que l’art de vivre français en terre américaine, traduit par la
maison et les meubles, avait connu un développement particulier, fidèle
pour le meilleur, mais qui avait atteint une personnalisation indéniable. Et
comme en Bretagne, sa célébration et le souhait qu’il fût continué avaient
pris le plus souvent la tournure d’une virulente condamnation des récentes
évolutions de la société.
En 1941, amer et désabusé, Gérard Morisset (1898-1970), qui depuis 1937
était officiellement charge de l’Inventaire des richesses artistiques du
Québec, dénonçait toujours les effets du « flot montant d’une modernité
en délire » et rappelait, en contrepartie, les mérites quelque peu mythifiés
de l’ancienne société canadienne. « Nos ancêtres étaient des hommes
simples, réfléchis, prévoyants. Ce sont les qualités inséparables d’une
éducation familiale un peu rude peut-être, mais fortement pensée;
inséparables encore de la discipline paysanne (...), inséparables d’un ordre
social sainement équilibre, où toutes les classes tirent à la roue, où le
bourgeois dépend de l’expérience de l’artisan, où l’artisan même
n’entrevoit de réussite que s’il s’appuie sur des corps de métier solidement
éduques », écrivait-il avant de conclure : « Aussi longtemps que nos pères
s’en sont tenus à un tel ordre, ils ont conservé leurs caractères ethniques,
une grande intensité de vie intérieure, le sens de l’économie ».10 De part et
d’autre de l’Atlantique, dans chacune des provinces océanes qui retiennent notre
attention, I’intérêt pour le patrimoine et l’amorce d’une réflexion architecturale
fondée sur le désir de sa prolongation étaient rarement indépendants de la
volonté de soutenir un ordre social ou de cultiver sa nostalgie.
Un style d’habitation canadien
Connaître, recenser, préserver quand il en était encore temps : la chose
pouvait aisément s’entendre. Mais se tourner vers l’habitat paysan pour
concevoir les demeures du XXe siècle naissant, n’entraînait-il pas le renoncement à l’architecture véritable ou la reprise penaude des principes du
pittoresque et de sa ferme ornée qui avaient conduit généralement à de pâles
démarques de l’Angleterre, leur pays d’origine. Arthur Laurendeau, dans
l’Action française canadienne, se chargea d’expliquer qu’il n’en était rien
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et qu’en recourant au paysan et à sa terre comme source d’inspiration, on
faisait œuvre nécessaire sans s’éloigner des plus hautes considérations
artistiques :
Si l’on analyse l’espèce authentique du génie de la beauté, on
découvre qu’il est une typification extrême, résidu de traits locaux
accumulés, paysages, moeurs, habitudes professionnelles en
réaction avec le climat spirituel d’une race, et qui suppose la
continuité dans l’habitat, dans le métier, dans les moeurs ; en sorte
que plus un peuple absorbe le suc d’un sol, plus il s’enracine dans
la terre qui le porte; et plus il en sent le sens profond, plus il répète
le geste des ancêtres : plus il est mêlé aux effluves moraux et
physiques de sa petite patrie, plus il acquiert la typification artistique 11.
Quelques mois plus tard, traitant dans La Bretagne touristique « du style
régional dans l’architecture », Magda Tarquis livra un semblable sentiment,
usant d’un étonnant lyrisme pour aller plus loin encore dans l’assimilation
de la race à la terre, de la tere au paysan et du paysan à sa maison :
L’originaire d’un pays, l’indigène, est un jaillissement partiel de
limon, limon relevant du sol immédiat qu’il foulera, et ce jet vivant
de terre ancestrale va être façonné par les âges jusqu’à sa forme
parfaite de statue pensante. Cet homme produira des idées et des
gestes, sa bouche versera un accent; or, cet accent, ces gestes, ces
idées porteront l’empreinte native, et ce limon qui marche, cet
homme, enfin, s’est animé de ce qu’en lui s’est blotti un cœur
portant en soi l’harmonie secrète de la race qu’il glorifiera (...).
Alors, sa maison, pourquoi ne serait-elle pas, sinon du même limon
que son maître, du moins de ces pierres qui sont comme les os de
la terre locale et de ces bois montés de ses profondeurs ? Oui,
pourquoi cette maison ne serait-elle pas l’habitat exact de cet
homme? 12
Au Canada français, cette façon d’envisager l’architecture domestique se
heurtait cependant au dédain des professionnels les mieux nantis qui
entendaient se rattacher aux courants majeurs de l’art et, aussi, marquer la
distance qui les séparait des idées bonhommes de ceux, fussent-ils leurs
confrères, qu’ils jugeaient peu ou mal avertis. Qu’ils en tinssent pour la
grande composition classique qu’on enseignait à l’École des Beaux-Arts de
Paris ou que la modernité naissante les eût séduit, ils n’entendaient guère
soutenir ce qu’ils considéraient une naïveté. Jean Chauvin, dans une
compilation d’entretiens que lui avaient accordés vingt-deux artistes, offrit
un saisissant raccourci de cet antagonisme. D’abord reçu par un Ernest
Cormier (1885-1980) auréole de son titre d’« Architecte diplômé par le
Gouvernement français » et de son succès au Grand prix du Royal Institute
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Les ressorts communs des régionalismes architecturaux
of British Architects qui l’avait fait pensionnaire de la British School de
Rome, c’était à grand-peine qu’il avait pu timidement demander s’il ne
fallait par « tendre vers une architecture régionale ». Cormier, qui venait
de livrer de savantes considérations théoriques, avait écarté en quelques
mots cette hypothèse :
Les architectures régionales disparaissent de plus en plus. Les
différences s’atténuent entre les pays grâce à la rapidité des
échanges et de nos moyens de locomotion actuels. Tout tend, au
contraire, à s’uniformiser. Peut-être pourrait-on prétexter encore
le climat, la mentalité, les origines ? Notre climat ressemble à celui
de contrées très différentes de la nôtre. Notre mentalité est bien
américaine. Laissons plutôt faire. Une architecture est suscitée
par la force même des choses. Pourquoi le chercher ce style
régional? 13
Cormier travaillait alors à cc qui devint son œuvre majeure et demeura sa
plus imposante entreprise : l’Université de Montréal. Tout régionalisme,
bien sûr, était exclu. Mais quelques années plus tard, il confirma son avis
péremptoire en dessinant sa propre maison dans un élégant et apatride Art
déco, tranchant singulièrement sur l’historicisme européen des demeures
qui l’entouraient et, tout autant, sur le Revival en vogue dans les chantiers
de Westmount alors en plein développement14.
Quittant Cormier, Jean Chauvin, désireux sans doute d’équilibrer les
opinions professées dans son ouvrage, et peut-être aussi guidé par le secret
désir de montrer que le régionalisme - qui manifestement avait sa
préférence - s’immiscait là où l’on ne l’attendait guère, s’en était allé
rencontrer Willford A. Gagnon (n. -1878). Ce frère du célèbre peintre avait
fréquenté l’atelier de Joseph Duquesne, mais revenu de Paris sans parchemin, il n’avait pu qu’entrer au service de Cormier dont il demeurait le
collaborateur. Il n’avait toutefois pas renonce à un exercice personnel pour
des projets de moindre importance et là, au contraire de son prestigieux
confrère, il préconisait la continuation du style canadien : « Ce style que
nos ancêtres ont apporté de la Bretagne et de la Normandie se rencontre
dans toutes les bâtisses en pierre construites aux premiers temps de la
colonie. Il s’adapte parfaitement à notre climat et satisfait à toutes nos
exigences », assurait-il15. Avec regret, Chauvin notait que son interlocuteur
était un des rares architectes à se préoccuper de ce « style d’habitation
canadien ».
Le régionalisme en quête de respectabilité
En fait, cet antagonisme n’avait rien de surprenant car en architecture, les
querelles sur la commande et les moyens de l’obtenir empruntent
généralement l’apparence d’un débat sur le style. Le XIXe siècle, en
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France, avait abusé de cet artifice. Les architectes de province, qu’il était
de bon ton à Paris de regarder avec condescendance, avaient d’ailleurs su
en tirer habilement parti pour se singulariser sur des valeurs plutôt que par
leur implantation. Dans l’affrontement entre formalistes vitruviens et
rationalistes néogothiques, pressentant que les mieux assis de la profession,
Parisiens bien sûr et fréquemment anciens de l’École des Beaux-Arts, en
tiendraient durablement pour l’antique, ils avaient fait du néo-médiévisme
le drapeau de leur fronde. De là, ils avaient eu tôt fait de recourir aux
ressources du provincialisme et d’établir un Historicisme que les caciques
de la profession réfutaient ou toléraient seulement pour l’exercice subalterne.
L’enseignement, le style, l’organisation de la profession s’étaient ainsi
trouvés étroitement mêlés. Julien Guadet (1834-1908), Grand prix de
Rome, professeur et chef d’atelier à l’École du Quai Malaquais, avait su
trouver l’arrangement qui maintint malgré tout l’illusion d’une profession
cohérente et unie. Il avait entériné la fin du dogme antique et conclu à la
vanité de le remplacer, donnant ainsi à 1’Éclectisme ses lettres de noblesse
et instaurant la composition comme objet de la théorie. Enfin, il avait fait
admettre qu’un enseignement de l’architecture fût dispensé en province16.
Mais, résolu en apparence, le problème ne l’avait guère été au fond.
D’abord, parce que les nouvelles écoles dépendaient encore structurellement de celle de Paris dont elles n’étaient que des antennes. Ensuite, parce
que l’Éclectisme, sous couvert d’oecuménisme, installait une subtile
hiérarchie. Le genre, en principe, permettait d’opter pour n’importe quelle
écriture architecturale et même d’en combiner plusieurs. Mais
l’enseignement délivré dans les ateliers parisiens et les résultats des
concours montrèrent bien vite que la distinction passait par l’adoption d’un
classicisme renouvelé, magnifiant la symétrie 17. L’Historicisme
qu’affectionnait toujours les architectes de province demeurait un genre
mineur qui situait son homme ou un amusement occasionnel pour les plus
en vue.
Plusieurs faits, cependant, vinrent brouiller ce clair paysage. Le premier fut
une conséquence du marasme dans la construction. De nombreux jeunes
architectes, après de brillantes études, durent se résoudre à quitter Paris
pour rechercher le revenu d’une charge municipale ou départementale.
Ces transfuges, tout diplômés qu’ils étaient, se firent souvent les prosélytes
de la région, « source d’inspiration spéciale » comme l’avait affirmé
Georges-Robert Lefort (1875-1954) en 1907 sitôt installé à Guingamp. Le
clivage entre capitale et province s’en trouva quelque peu compliqué. Vint
ensuite, fruit du chemin de fer et de l’automobile, le tourisme et
l’engouement pour les paysages « authentiques » où villages et maisons
tenaient une place essentielle. L’Éclectisme, qui ravissait dans les prestigieuses banlieues résidentielles et amusait dans quelques stations
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Les ressorts communs des régionalismes architecturaux
balnéaires excentriques, choquait dans les campagnes ou sur le littoral
préserve. La revue mensuelle du Touring club de France, en accueillant
notamment Jean Charles-Brun (1870-1946), le délégué général de la
Fédération régionaliste française, joua à cet égard un rôle décisif en
réclamant que l’architecture nouvelle respecte l’ancienne et reprenne les
caractéristiques locales afin que le plaisir de la découverte demeure18.
Et puis, il y eut le patriotisme français : c’est lui qui installa véritablement
le régionalisme architectural en le dégageant de la futilité pittoresque dans
lequel on le cantonnait souvent. L'événement, l’avènement pourrait-on
dire, se produisit en pleine Première Guerre mondiale à l’occasion d’un
concours destiné à rasséréner les populations en montrant ce que serait
l’esprit des reconstructions à venir. Des 1500 architectes qui avaient
répondu à l’appel du sous-secrétariat aux Beaux-Arts, 120 ont vu leurs
propositions primées. Tous les projets avaient eu en commun de reprendre
les éléments les plus typés des bâtisses vernaculaires des contrées ravagées,
voulant ainsi signifier que la fureur dévastatrice de l’ennemi était vaine,
puisqu’on renaîtrait identique à ce qu’on avait été. Il est vrai que chaque
concurrent avait pu savoir à l’avance ce que seraient les préférences du
jury : une grande exposition avait, en préambule, montré toute
l’importance que les organisateurs accordaient à la référerrce aux architectures rurales traditionnelles.
Déjà réhabilité par le tourisme, le régionalisme architectural venait
d’acquérir ses lettres de noblesse en s’élevant au rang du devoir patriotique.
Et, chaque fois, les architectes s’étaient trouvés en situation de traduire des
idées produites hors de leur discipline. Désormais, on exacerbait les particularismes régionaux pour mieux affirmer l’unité de la nation. L’harmonie
de ces différences juxtaposées fut d’ailleurs chantée plus tard sous
l’expression de « bouquet de France » par le commissaire des différentes
manifestations qui ponctuèrent l’entreprise : Léandre Vaillat (1876-1952).
Dès 1913, ce chroniqueur et romancier avait fait de la Bretagne une terre
d’élection pour les principes architectoniques qu’il défendait. Dans une
livraison de L’art et les artistes, il avait exposé sa façon de voir :
S’il n’est pas néccssaire, quand on construit une maison en
Bretagne, d’imiter jusqu’aux moindres errements, d’étaler du
fumier devant sa porte, de coucher dans la même pièce, de vivre
sur le sol battu, de ne pas se servir de fourchettes, de manger
uniquement de la bouillie, de laisser envahir la cuisine par les
poules, d’avoir des lits superposés, il est possible de s’inspirer des
anciennes maisons rurales qui, d’instinct, se soumettaient à des
nécessités physiques qui n’ont pas changé depuis l’époque de
Gwenc’hlan et de Saint-Yves19.
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Trahi par ces quelques lignes, le régionalisme français montrait son vrai
visage : la différence ne pouvait qu’incomber au sol changeant d’une patrie,
elle, une et indivisible. La caractéristique ethnique n’avait pas sa place ici
quand elle paraissait, c’était dans un archaïsme néfaste. Ils furent pourtant
nombreux dans l’Emsav à tomber dans ce piège que le régionalisme
français tendait au breton : « Le style, c’est moins l’homme que
l’emplacement », répétait Francis Gourvil (1889-1984) dans le programme
qu’il rédigeait en 1919 pour Mouez ar vro20. Réflexion faite, Maurice
Marchal (1900-1963), un jeune architecte déjà au premier rang du mouvement nationaliste de Bretagne, préféra prendre ses distances et dénoncer
le « bloc de l’imbécile et du francophile »21.
Le poids du système Beaux-Arts
Dans le Québec de la première moitié de ce siècle, l’organisation des
études, ses effets sur la structure professionnelle et les options stylistiques,
apparaissent, à bien des égards, comme un portrait chargé de la situation
française.
À Montréal, l’architecture s’enseignait initialement à l’Université McGill
et à l’École polytechnique, liée à 1’Université de Montréal après 1919.
Qu’on eût le choix entre un établissement anglophone et une école
d’ingénieurs ne satisfaisait guère les esprits, si bien que les mieux doués,
boursiers et recommandés, s’essayaient fréquemment au concours
d’admission de l’École nationale et spéciale des Beaux-Arts (E.N.S.B.A.)
de Paris, d’où les professeurs du Montréal francophone étaient d’ailleurs
souvent issus. Ainsi, Orner Marchand (1872-1936), qui avait été, en 1902,
le premier Canadien français diplômé de l’E.N.S.B.A., enseignait-il à
l’École polytechnique où Cormier devait le rejoindre. L’École des BeauxArts de Québec, quant à elle, fonctionnait alors comme une école régionale
française, formant des artisans d’art, des ouvriers qualifies et des collaborateurs d’architectes, initiant aussi les meilleurs aux disciplines qu’ils
iraient étudier subtilement ailleurs. Un architecte français, également
diplômé de l’E.N.S.B.A., y enseignait : Achille Panichelli (n. 1878).
Pour pallier l’absence d’une école spécialisée fut donc ouverte à Montréal,
en novembre 1923, une école des Beaux-Arts qu’on organisa, à grands
traits, selon le modèle de Paris, pourtant désuet dans ses lambeaux
académiques. Comme là-bas, le nouvel établissement réunit sous une même
tutelle les arts plastiques et l’architecture. Pour engager l’affaire, on avait
fait appel au peintre rennais Emmanuel Fougerat (1869-1958). De
préférence à un artiste de grand renom ou à un théoricien novateur, c’était
à un organisateur ayant fait ses preuves qu’on avait choisi de s’en remettre.
En effet, en 1903, bien qu’il n’eût pour viatique qu’un diplôme de professeur
de dessin des lycées et collèges et d’avoir été remarqué au Salon des artistes
français, Fougerat avait été désigné comme directeur-fondateur de l’École
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Les ressorts communs des régionalismes architecturaux
régionale des Beaux-Arts de Nantes. Il s’était convenablement acquitté de
cette tâche, installant notamment un enseignement de l’architecture à deux
niveaux : l’un, consacré à la maison, était destiné aux futurs commis
d’architectes, l’autre préparait au concours d’admission à l’E.N.S.B.A.22
Mais Nantes, qui n’était pas ville universitaire, n’avait pas été dotée d’une
école régionale d’architecture; Fougerat n’avait donc pas eu à organiser
chacune des deux classes qui amenaient au diplôme. Faute d’expérience, il
lui fallut confier à un ancien élève de Victor Laloux (1850-1937), le Bordelais Jules Poivert (1867-1955) diplômé en 1905, la responsabilité de la
Section architecture de l’école montréalaise et la charge de monter ses
enseignements. Cet architecte féru de mathématiques enseignait déjà la
composition à l’École polytechnique où, en 1909, il avait pris la succession
du Parisien Maxime Doumic (1863-1917). Il avait jadis suivi le cours de
théorie professé par Guadet au Quai Malaquais : l’ouvrage en quatre
volumes qui en redonnait l’essentiel devint donc le livre de référence de la
nouvelle école23. L’arrivée à ses côtés, en 1934, de son ancien élève de
l’École polytechnique, Emile Venne (1896), qui avait parfait sa formation
à l’E.N.S.B.A. où il avait obtenu un second diplôme en 1931, ne devait
qu’accuser la tendance à se référer aux principes et méthodes de Paris qui
là-bas, justement, commençaient d’être bousculés. Et ce n’était certes pas
le très conservateur Charles Maillard, un ancien élève de l’École des arts
décoratifs d’Alger, successeur de Fougerat dès 1925, qui devait s’opposer
à ce qu’on prît cette attitude.
En 1934, sitôt nommé professeur, dans un article plein de suffisance où
Poivert était fréquemment cité pour qu’on fût bien persuadé qu’il avait
donné son aval, Venne prit d’ailleurs prétexte d’un débat sur l’avenir de
l’architecture religieuse pour livrer la doctrine de l’établissement. Une
affirmation dominait : pour espérer une architecture spéciale, il eût fallu
posséder une civilisation particulière, or, le Canada en général et le Canada
français en particulier n’en avaient pas. Et, bien sûr, c’était Guadet qu’il
citait à son appui : « En architecture, il n’y a pas de génération spontanée.
Un art ne s’improvise pas, il tient toujours à un passé par des racines
profondes et multiples ». Pour qui aurait alors songé à évoquer l’œuvre des
anciens Canadiens, il livrait de façon préventive ses considérations très peu
amènes sur la démarche de Traquair, le renvoyant à l’occasion dans le
« camp anglais », dont il suggérait qu’il n’aurait pas dû s’éloigner :
Lorsqu’un Traquair, avec la conscience et la patience que seules
savent avoir les races germanique, allemande et anglo-saxonne
dans la recherche et la compilation; lorsqu’un Traquair, donc,
s’attache à remettre en valeur ce qui a tenu lieu d’une tradition
chez nous, on peut s’illusionner au point de voir en lui Le Sauveur,
celui qui indiquera la route à suivre, Le Messager qui crie :
« Regardez derrière vous, c’est là que le soleil se couche ! ». Et
parce qu’il s’exprime en anglais, on a pu imaginer qu’il disait, en
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parlant de ce beau crépuscule : « Regardez, voici le soleil qui se
lève, suivez-le dans sa course ! »
Le modernisme « superficiel et formaliste » ne trouvait pas davantage grâce
à ses yeux. En contrepartie, il n’indiquait pas clairement de voie à suivre.
Toutefois, dans l’attente de cette civilisation canadienne qui donnerait
évidemment une architecture, mais dans longtemps encore, avec
précaution et circonvolutions, il livrait sa préférence, déjà affichée en 1921
dans l’Almanach de la langue française, pour la « source vive », celle du
« siècle du Louis XIV, ou des autres Louis les XV et XVI » 24.
Sans doute se méprenait-il sur l’influence de Traquair, qui commençait
seulement de convaincre dans sa propre université, où la production des
étudiants ressortissait toujours à l’Edwardian Style, cette version britannique de l’éclectisme le plus effréné. En fait, dans la province de Québec
comme en France, les architectes les plus titrés, les mieux pourvus par la
commande, et bien entendu leurs étudiants, continuaient à parler
d’architecture dans la manière de l’ancienne Académie et à ne voir,
derrière le mot, que bâtiments importants et prestigieux. L’évolution de
leur profession, l’installation du logement et particulièrement de la maison
ordinaire comme ressort principal de leur activité leur semblaient un
mauvais rêve qu’ils préféraient éluder. Le régionalisme, lui, se savait
indésirable dans les édifices urbains et monumentaux, mais avait compris,
en revanche, sa puissance de séduction quand il s’agissait, hors la ville, de
compléter le paysage familier que nul ne souhaitait voir transformé.
Tradition et modernité
Ses zélateurs, qui avaient fait leur deuil de tout appui de la part des
architectes tenant le haut de la profession, choisirent habilement de
contourner l’obstacle. Comme de nombreux intellectuels et artistes
bretons, ils portèrent leurs efforts sur un domaine moins polémique où, de
surcroît, le passage de l’ethnographie à la création était plus commode :
celui des arts appliqués. Les objets, pensait-on, pouvaient aisément
franchir les portes de la ville et même permettre d’y maintenir une activité
artisanale qui serait garante des valeurs canadiennes-françaises et servirait
de rempart contre l’industrie et le mercantilisme, sources d’uniformité.
Marius Barbeau (1883-1969), un éminent folkloriste devenu conservateur
du Musée national à Ottawa, rediait avec dépit, en 1941, combien il eût été
bénéfique d’en avoir été davantage et plus tôt convaincu : « Si tous nos arts
et métiers domestiques avaient ansi survécu aux assauts du commerce, il
n’y aurait pas mainteant lieu, dans Québec, de crier au loup !, de prêcher
le retour à la terre et de s’inquiéter de la survivance de la tradition française
au Canada25. »
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Les ressorts communs des régionalismes architecturaux
L’idée d’en revenir à l’architecture n’avait toutefois jamais quitté ceux qui,
obligés, avaient emprunté ce chemin détourné. L’économiste Édouard
Montpetit (1881-1954) l’avait laissé entendre dès 1926 en livrant de façon
piquante, dans un artile consacré au moderne urbanisme, le procédé pour
faire revivre « ce passé disparu » :
Répandre dans l’âme de l’enfant le goût du beau, la tradition de
nos élégances séculaires, plus lointaines que notre histoire et
rattachées au génie latin, les disciplines qui forment nos véritables
qualités de race. Des mots ? Non, certes, s’ils sont la condition de
la verité, de la fidélité totale à nos origines. Ils nous conduiront
vers des difficultés. Il n’importe : commençons. Nous avons en
nous-mêmes tout ce qu’il faut pour réussir, le talent, l’habileté,
l’inclination. Commençons. Par l’art décoratif si l’on veut, source
certaine d’industrie, et par l’architecture, la grande révélatrice.26
Débutée en 1923, l’action du groupe d’artistes et d’artisans bretons Ar Seiz
breur conduisit, en 1929, à la publication du manifeste de Kornog qui avait
des accents comparables à l’exhortation du professeur de l’Université de
Montréal ; on y lisait :
Que veut Kornog ? Recréer en Bretagne un foyer artistique aussi
puissant, aussi vivant, aussi « lui-même » que celui qui contribua
à élever les chefs-d’oeuvre qui parsèment son territoire : églises,
hôtels, calvaires, chapelles de ses villes et de ses campagnes.
Kornog veut redonner à la Bretagne la phalange de peintres, de
sculpteurs, de décorateurs, d’architectes, de tailleurs d’images, de
musiciens, d’artisans qui lui manquent depuis bientôt 200 ans, et
qui jadis firent sa grandeur27.
Après avoir encore suggéré de se ressourcer au vieil art celtique d’Irlande,
Kornog appelait à une attitude « furieusement moderne ». Il y avait, en effet,
en Bretagne et au Québec, des créateurs pour penser qu’en utilisant la
leçon de l’artisanat populaire, il était possible de jeter les fondements d’une
modernité nationale. La tradition devenait une source de jouvence où
puiser pour apparaître infiniment plus neuf que cette bourgeoisie
prématurément vieillie dans son décor médiocrement et trop tardivement
déduit de celui des grands siècles de la culture française. Née dans des
sphères conservatrices, l’idée d’en revenir à l’héritage paysan pouvait
conduire à des attitudes progressistes. Montpetit, d’ailleurs, citait John
Ruskin dont on sait l’importance de la pensée dans le renouvellement des
arts et le délaissement du poncif bourgeois. Le régionalisme architectural
français avait également revendiqué des vertus libératrices, insistant sur
l’aspect ingrat des plans symétriques et redondants pour mieux vanter les
mérites de la demeure paysanne, adaptation simple et directe aux besoins,
honnêtement soumise aux contraintes, sans a priori stylistique.
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Les Seiz breur, et particulièrement René-Yves Creston (1898-1964), leur
instigateur, ne se firent jamais la moindre illusion sur une hypothétique
évolution des écoles officielles; en revanche, ils espérèrent, longtemps,
pouvoir créer un nouvel établissement, selon leurs principes. Leur attente
fut déçue. Au Canada français, l’insistance à évoquer comme modèle
jamais égalé, l’École des arts et métiers que MgrLaval avait fondé à
Saint-Joachim, et dont il avait établi une section au Petit séminaire de
Québec, laisse supposer que la tentation de s’essayer à un type de formation
différent des formules montréalaises exista bel et bien. Qu’on eût fait
référence avec insistance à cette ancienne maison lors de l’inauguration de
l’École des Beaux-Arts de la capitale provinciale révèle, de surcroît, que
les divergences de vue portant sur « grand art » et « art canadien » pouvaient
également épouser les contours de la rivalité entre Québec et Montréal28.
Pourtant, ce fut à Montréal que se rencontrèrent, d’abord alliés de circonstance puis adversaires, le désir d’une expression nationale puisant à la
tradition et l’aspiration à la modernité. L’histoire mouvementée de l’École
du meuble ne peut évidemment être réduite à cette seule considération,
qu’il faut cependant tenir pour primordiale.
L’École du meuble, un havre provisoire
Jean-Marie Gauvreau (n. 1903) s’était alors fait connaître par un livre qui
était une véritable apologie de l’École Boulle qu’il fréquentait à Paris et de
Léon Bouchet, son professeur. Il y défendait une modernité pleine de
mesure, sagement Art déco, qui lui paraissait l’image même d’un bon goût
typiquement français, aisément adaptable au Canada. La Revue
trimestrielle canadienne avait donné, en bonnes feuilles, un chapitre de cet
ouvrage où se glissait in extremis un appel à rechercher une voie
particulière :
Adaptons à notre vie un mobilier qui réponde vraiment à nos
besoins quotidiens, et dont la tenue puisse symboliser notre
caractère national. Sachons faire appel, chaque fois que ce sera
nécessaire, à ceux qui savent maintenir avec tant de distinction le
souvenir d’un passé glorieux. Cette tradition est celle qui s’adapte
davantage à notre état d’esprit29.
L’ouvrage était préface par l’abbé Olivier Maurault (1886-1968) qui, cette
année-là, faisait paraître le premier volume de ses Marges d’histoire,
consacré à « l’art au Canada ». Il s’y montrait approbateur pour l’entreprise
patrimoniale de Traquair, défenseur à son tour de « la maison
canadienne » dont il proposai& de « réhabiliter le type ». Enfin, dans un
chapitre virulent intitulé « les maladies des maisons », il dénonçait avec
hargne la complication et l’exotisme facile qui régnaient en maîtres dans
les maisons de ville30. Lui, qui en 1918 avait dit ne pas imaginer qu’on pût
62
Les ressorts communs des régionalismes architecturaux
parvenir à une architecture nationale semblait avoir beaucoup évolué31. Et
puis, par une méfiance des systèmes trop généraux, il était parvenu à
dissocier clairement pratique monumentale et conception domestique,
pouvant ainsi soutenir un Cormier tout en rêvant du renouveau des manoirs
« au charme sérieux et discret ». Il ne fait guère de doute qu’il encouragea
Gauvreau à poursuivre sa réflexion et qu’il favorisa son accession à la
direction de l’École du meuble, bien qu’elle relevât du Secrétariat de la
province.
Les positions que Gauvreau défendait, conjuguées à l’inimitié tenace qu’il
vouait à Maillard, le firent organiser cet établissement, normalement
destinée à la formation d’artisans, en véritable école d’art, defendant de
surcroît des points de vue peu conventionnels. En 1937, alors que l’École
des Beaux-Arts venait de refuser les services d’Alfred Pellan (n. 1906), lui,
n’hésita pas à instiller la nouveauté par le choix de ses nouveaux collaborateurs : il recruta Maurice Gagnon (n. 1904) comme professeur
d’histoire de l’art puis, profitant du départ de Jean-Paul Lemieux, engagea
Paul-Émile Borduas (1905-1960) pour l’enseignement du dessin et de la
peinture. Avec Marcel Parizeau, en charge de la théorie depuis 1936, cela
faisait un groupe ouvert au monde, conquis par la modernité, encore
soucieux de faire œuvre canadienne. Mais dès lors, cette école concentrait
aussi bien des contradictions qui, en se manifestant, révélèrent les fissures
qui parcouraient le monde des artistes, véritable avant-garde de la société
québécoise. L’évolution politique de la province en favorisa la
démonstration. En 1936, Maurice Duplessis (1890-1959), à la tête de
l’Union nationale, avait obtenu un succès éclatant aux élections en utilisant
au mieux les effets désastreux et durables de la crise. Soutenu par l’Église,
dont il adoptait la doctrine sociale, flattant les nationalistes, sachant jouer
à merveille de l’étrange carte électorale du Québec, qui donnait toujours
la prépondérance à l’électorat des campagnes, il annonçait l’instauration
d’un ordre moral.
La terre et la maison retrouvèrent une actualité soudaine tandis que la ville
devenait l’image même du chômage et de la misère. Dès 1935, la colonisation avait été relancée par l’entremise d’un plan provincial et de plusieurs
lois; le gouvernement Duplessis accéléra le processus. « Solutions pour le
moins anachroniques dont l’élite et le clergé se font les promoteurs », écrit
Claude Dubé, ajoutant : « Les idéologies véhiculées au siècle précédent
servent de référence : la colonisation, en effet, correspond à un projet social
auquel le messianisme et l’agriculturisme tiennent lieu de rempart. Le
discours est donc sensiblement le même, mais les flèches sont maintenant
dirigées contre la ville, « effroyable mangeuse d’hommes », selon
l’expression de Groulx. De plus, le clergé appuie la conception du système
rural à l’encontre du système industriel considéré comme antithétique aux
idéaux de la nation »32..
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Bien sur, en 1939, Duplessis dut laisser la place aux libéraux d’Adélard
Godbout (1892-1956), mais son influence demeura vive et nombre de ses
principes furent portés par d’autres dans l’attente de son retour aux affaires, en 1944. L’École du meuble connut toutes les façons de répondre à
ces sollicitations.
Audace et hésitations
Gauvreau, soucieux de conserver les bonnes grâces de ses soutiens, mais
aussi de maintenir la fragile cohésion de son école et la position avantageuse
qu’elle avait face à celle des Beaux-Arts, s’employa à conjuguer les
contraires, chantant la tradition et vantant les transformations, appelant à
redécouvrir les valeurs canadiennes-françaises, mais se félicitant des
expériences modernistes qu’abritait son établissement. Venait-il de louer
les meubles des anciens canadiens, « bons et fidèles serviteurs de la
tradition dont nous devrions être les héritiers », qu’aussitôt il pécisait :
« Quand je parle de tradition, ma pensée ne se porte pas à la reproduction
intégrale, mais plutôt vers une évolution préoccupée des mêmes principes
de composition et de technique qui ont fait le charme des styles du passé ».
« Nous ne retournerons jamais assez souvent vers le passé pour y puiser les
fécondes leçons qui s’en dégagent », assurait-il encore, avant de « dire un
mot de l’œuvre personnelle de (son) collaborateur et ami Marcel
Parizeau » qui était on ne peut plus éloigné de cette façon de faire, et
d’affirmer, très justement, que « ses meubles (méritaient) de prendre place
parmi ceux des meilleurs décorateurs français contemporains33. »
Marcel Parizeau (1898-1945), après avoir étudié l’architecture cinq années
à l’École polytechnique de Montréal, était entré à l’E.N.S.B.A., qu’il devait
fréquenter huit ans sans en obtenir le diplôme. L’enseignement du Quai
Malaquais lui avait, en effet, paru singulièrement sclérosé et il avait préféré
découvrir, analyser et comprendre les œuvres de Tony Garnier (18691948), Auguste Perret (18741954) et Le Corbusier qui, à eux trois,
révélaient les diverses sensibilités de la modernité architecturale française.
Revenu à Montréal en 1933, au plus noir de la crise, il s’était associé à son
compatriote Antoine Monette (n. 1899) qui, lui, avait reçu son diplôme
français en 1929. Leur collaboration fut peu productive, ajoutant à la
désillusion de Parizeau face à la médiocrité des réalisations récentes qu’il
découvrait. Il se réfugia alors dans la réflexion théorique et, si l’on en croit
les discussions que rapporta Marie-Alain Couturier (1897-1954), tenta
d’approcher un nouveau classicisme capable de traduire toutes les aspirations modernes. Désireux d’apaiser et de montrer que malgré les apparences, le travail de son ami était d’esprit canadien-français, le moine
dominicain osait un audacieux raccourci : sa quête aurait été celle de
« l’extrême élégance » et « dans ce sens là, il (fallait) dire que les belles
maisons paysannes du « régime français » (procédaient) du même esprit
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Les ressorts communs des régionalismes architecturaux
que les constructions de Le Corbusier : elles (étaient) au Canada les
derniers et très précieux témoins d’une architecture vivante34. »
Le Corbusier, à coup sûr, aurait contesté la concordance des temps et aurait
dit « d’une architecture qui avait vécu ». En 1926, dans Almanach de
l’architecture moderne, il avait écrit toute son admiration pour la maison
pasanne bretonne, « exacte comme la marée qui monte est exacte », mais
aussitôt, il avait précise qu’elle appartenait à des temps révolus à tout
jamais. Le titre du chapitre était d’ailleurs sans appel : « Un standard meurt,
un standard naît »35.
Quant à Borduas, déjà aux confins de la rupture tant avec les institutions,
fût-ce l’École du meuble, qu’avec les idées qu’elles entretenaient et, notamment, la permanente référence au passé, il n’en marqua pas moins son
intérêt pour le patrimoine enfin convenablement et méthodiquement pris
en considération par une politique raisonnée d’inventaire, à partir de 1937.
En 1939, profitant du départ d’Antoine Gordon Neilson, il rejoignit son
collègue Maurice Gagnon dans l’équipe d’enquêteurs de Gérard Morisset.
En 1943, rappelant le fait, l’historien Jean Bruchési, qui avait favorisé
l’entrée de Borduas à l’École du meuble, ne manquait pas de préciser :
S’il est maintenant raisonnable d’espérer que les traditions perdues renaîtront en s’adaptant aux circonstances et aux besoins de
notre époque, nous le devrons surtout à l’Inventaire. Ceux qui en
ont eu l’idée, ceux qui l’ont rendu possible, ceux qui l’ont entrepris
et dont la tâche n’est pas achevée, loin de là, comme ceux qui ont
ouvert la voie depuis un demi-siècle, ne demandent pas autre
chose 36.
Cet attrait de la modernité, le désir d’échapper à tout déterminisme et, chez
les mêmes, cet impossible renoncement au passé pur et idéalisé d’avant
l’« embourgeoisement » avaient eu aussi leur expression en Bretagne.
James Bouille (1894-1945), un architecte militant très actif de I’Emsav,
devait mieux que tous illustrer tour à tour cette audace et ces hésitations.
Avec des accents qu’aurait Borduas vingt ans plus tard, en 1920, il
enjoignait déjà ses compatriotes de s’émanciper : « Ayons une vue largement ouverte, non seulemnt sur les productions modernes d’inspiration
celtique, mais aussi sur le mouvement d’art moderne des grands centres
intellectuels : Paris, New-York, Vienne ». En 1927, publiant un album infolio réunissant des photographies de maisons anciennes et de quelques
réalisations récentes, il se félicitait, comme l’aurait fait Gauvreau, que
« reprenant la tradition au point où elle avait été abandonnée », quelques
architectes « l’(adaptassent) aux programmes actuels et (créassent) une
architecture bretonne moderne ». Enfin, en 1941, à la façon de Parizeau,
il affirmait que « la géométrie (était) en effet un terme vers lequel (tendait)
toutes les opérations de notre intelligence et où elles (trouvaient) comme
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leur parfait achèvement ». « L’architecture s’épure, se géométrise dans les
37
nations parvenues à leur maturité », concluait-i1 . En Bretagne, comme au
Québec, alternaient la peur de perdre son identité, qui rendait frileux, et
la crainte d’un enfermement, d’un culte morbide du passé, qui poussait à
rejoindre les mouvements les plus novateurs. Et, ici comme là, tandis que
certains avaient à cœur d’élever le débat, d’autres, en référant au bon sens
et à l’évidence présumés, occupaient le devant de la scène et misaient
davantage sur le volontarisme politique.
Le prétexte du tourisme
Le plus habile dans cette voie, celui qui d’ailleurs arriva le mieux à ses fins,
fut Maurice Hébert (1888-1960). Élève au Séminaire de Québec, il avait
été remarqué par MgrRoy, son professeur de rhétorique. Cette protection
lui avait valu, en 1925, d’assurer la critique littéraire dans le Canada
fiançais, la revue de l’Université Laval. En 1929, il avait publié un premier
recueil de ses chroniques où, déjà, fleurait la nostalgie et le désir de résister
au changement.
Y aura-t-il toujours trop d’abusés qui ne voudront point apercevoir au Canada ce que la France vénérée, sous la face changeante des vieilles choses et des vieilles gens que nous aimons, nous
a laissé du parfum de son âme éternelle ?
Le progrès moderne peut détruire nos pittoresques métiers de
j a d i s ; l a r a c e , e l l e s’efforce d’empêcher l’altération de son
caractère ethnique38.
Récidivant en 1932, Hébert s’était dans ses « Nouveaux essais de critique
littéraire canadienne » longuement arrête sur Ateliers, l’ouvrage de Jean
Chauvin. Il avait relaté le différend entre Cormier et Willford Gagnon et,
donnant sa préférence au tenant du « style des premiers temps de la
colonie », il avait appelé à la rescousse l’inattendu Maillard. Le directeur
de l’École des Beaux-Arts, conteste dans son établissement comme audehors, louvoyait et adoptait tantôt les opinions de ses professeurs principaux, tantôt le sentiment qu’il pressentait chez son interlocuteur. A
Chauvin, il avait livré ce qui aurait été son credo : « Retrouver l’inspiration
qui animait les primitifs artisans afin de susciter un art local qui (répondît)
à l’âme du pays en (reflétât) la physionomie et (mît) en valeur nos propres
conceptions 39 . »
Hébert avait maintenu son activité de critique littéraire et, personnage en
vue, s’était sans cesse davantage intéressé à la chose publique. Adaptant un
argumentaire constitué par Montpetit en 1926, il avait entrepris de plaider
pour une politique du tourisme fondée sur la préservation de l’originalité
« française » de la campagne québécoise, laquelle pouvait attirer et retenir
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Les ressorts communs des régionalimes architecturaux
nombre d’étrangers comme Charlevoix le faisait depuis longtemps. Mais
La Malbaie était devenue par bien des aspects un morceau de NouvelleAngleterre au Canada français : l'ancienne architecture canadienne n’y
avait pas fait école, à l’exception de la villa Les cerceaux que Jean-Charles
Warren (1868-1929) avait édifiée en 191740. Il fallait au contraire, affirmait
Hébert, veiller à ce que l’ambiance demeurât inchangée, car elle seule
garantissait le succès durable du tourisme. Albert Tessier (1895-1976), le
préfet des études du Séminaire de Trois-Rivières, s’était également fait le
champion de cette façon d’envisager un secteur économique qui, en ces
temps de marasme, avait à ses yeux l’avantage de reposer sur des
caractéristiques nationales dont il se faisait le garant, de se dérouler hors
de la ville et de conforter les entreprises de retour à la terre en promettant
des ressources complémentaires à ceux qui s’y livraient. En 1939, il rédigea
donc un Rapport sur le tourisme. L’abbé Paul-Émile Gosselin (n. 1909),
l’influent secrétaire général du Comité permanent de la survivance
française en Amérique, tint à apporter son soutien à « ce bel acte de
patriotisme constructif et pratique ». Il loua les cinquante-huit pages de
Tessier, où abondaient « les suggestions fécondes sur le tourisme comme
moyen de refrancisation », qu’il résumait ainsi : « Il faut faire français,
continuer notre province dans la ligne où elle a été commencée. Orientation
de notre architecture vers des formules originales, développement de la
petite industrie et de l’artisanat, création de musique et de chants bien à
nous 41. »
En 1943, une livraison de Pour survivre fit connaître avec davantage de
précisions les perspectives de Tessier qui tenaient en dix points, le septième
étant consacré aux arts et à l’architecture. « Nos artistes de toutes les
catégories doivent se sentir investis d’une mission grave », avait écrit l’Abbé,
« tant pour assurer une vie nationale puissamment alimentée aux sources,
que pour affirmer aux yeux des autres peuples les dominantes de notre
tempérament et de notre civilisation42 . »
Refranciser
Si nombre des recommandations de Tessier étaient demeurées lettres
mortes, ce qui expliquait son impatience, deux au moins avaient été
retenues et mises en œuvre. « Si on veut prendre et garder un rang de choix,
il faut que le Bureau du tourisme devienne plus qu’un organisme de
publicité et de renseignements; il importe qu’il prenne des initiatives, qu’il
pose des actes et assume la direction du mouvement intérieur de rénovation
d’où sortira le salut de notre industrie touristique », avait-il conseillé. Il
avait été entendu : en 1941, l’Office du tourisme était passé sous la tutelle
du Conseil exécutif et Maurice Hébert avait été nommé à sa tête. Aussitôt,
le nouveau directeur avait porté son attention sur une autre suggestion de
Tessier : qu’en matière d’art et d’architecture, le gouvernement intervînt
pour stimuler la ligne nationale. Il se rapprocha donc du Ministère de la
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colonisation pour organiser conjointement un concours d’architecture
destiné à révéler la nouvelle architecture canadienne-française, issue de la
tradition, qu’on entendait promouvoir. Ce « concours d’architecture pour
la petite habitation paysanne dans la province de Québec » comprenait
quatre catégories. On pouvait, au choix, s’intéresser à la « maison d’un
cultivateur à l’aise ayant une famille nombreuse », à celle « d’un fils de
cultivateur s’établissant, laquelle pourrait plus tard s’agrandir », ou bien à
la « maison de ville ou de village pour une famille moyenne » et, encore, à
la « maison régionale de colonisation à un étage et demi ».
La présentation des projets primés fut faite le 21 janvier 1943, au Musée,
en présence des membres de l’Association des architectes de la Province
de Québec, réunis dans la Vieille capitale pour leur 52econgrès annuel.
Avant l’inauguration de l’exposition, Maurice Hébert les avait entretenus
du « Réveil du sentiment des choses de chez nous »43. Par leur
prédominance montréalaise, les Anglo-Canadiens étaient largement
majoritaires au sein de l’Association des architectes : sans doute se
réjouirent-ils en apprenant que trois des quatre lauréats étaient issus de
leurs rangs. Chroniqueur depuis deux années au Journal of Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, Marcel Parizeau annonça la publication des
projets primés qui, disait-il, « mettait en lumière l’enseignement du professeur Traquair ». Effectivement, le pionnier des études consacrées à
l’ancienne architecture paysanne canadienne avait eu gain de cause et ses
idées dominaient enfin à l’École d’architecture de l’Université McGill qu’il
dirigeait maintenant. P. Roy Wilson, un de ses collaborateurs, figurait
parmi les gagnants aux côtes de H. Ross Wiggs (1895-1986) - un architecte
diplômé à Londres, qui remportait deux mentions - et de A.-Henri
Tremblay, seul Canadien français à avoir tiré son épingle du jeu 44.
Que les plus efficaces serviteurs de la « refrancisation » par l’architecture
fussent de culture anglaise pouvait prêter à diverses interprétations. Il était
possible, bien sur, de se féliciter d’une alliance paisible autour d’une
commune reconnaissance du primat des valeurs françaises traduites par la
maison. Olivier Maurault, qui quelques mois auparavant avait signé un
article avec Ramsay Traquair, était sans aucun doute de ceux-là; il
perpétuait ainsi la vision apaisée des rapports entre les communautés
francophone et anglophone, qu’entretenait une part du clergé intellectuel 45. D’autres, plus radicaux, en furent certainement troublés.
Une semblable procédure, un débat identique agitaient la Bretagne au
même moment. Se souvenant du succès d’estime qu’avait remporté le
concours de 1917 et de son importance dans l’evolution des pratiques
architecturales, le Commissariat général à la reconstruction qu’il avait fallu
reconstituer puisque la guerre était revenue, avait décidé d’organiser
plusieurs « concours d’études provinciales » pour définir l’esprit des futurs
chantiers. Et, bien sûr, une consultation particulière à la Bretagne avait été
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Les ressorts communs des régionalismes architecturaux
organisée en juin 1942, mais les architectes de toute la France avaient pu
concourir. Les projets primés, réunis dans une exposition intitulée « La
Bretagne inspiratrice », furent présentés au Musée de Rennes et,
immédiatement, provoquèrent une violente polémique : nombre des
lauréats, en effet, n’étaient pas bretons. L’Heure bretonne, un journal
inféodé au Parti national breton, enragea, lui qui ne reculait ni devant la
xénophobie ni devant l’antisémitisme lorsque l’occasion s’en présentait 46 .
En fait, la doctrine qui avait présidé au concours était typiquement vichyssoise : provincialiste, elle entendait mettre de nouveau en exergue cet
« esprit de la France » imaginé naguère par Paul Vidal de la Blache
(1843-1918), miraculeusement né, telle une mosaïque, du rapprocheent de
différences riches seulement dans leur juxtaposition47. Loin d’être particulariste, l'entreprise se voulait associationniste.
Il n’est pas exclu qu’une telle vision ait animé les architectes AngloCanadiens engagés dans le renouveau de l’architecture vernaculaire : en
Ontario et au Québec, au moins, la Confédération aurait, sur le terrain de
l’architecture, montré s capacité à faire partager une histoire complexe et
autrefois conflictuelle, désormais patrimoine de tous.
Conformément aux desseins de Dieu
Au-delà de cette querelle, qui avait pris une tournure détestable, une
interrogation de portée plus générale s’était introduite : en ce milieu de
XXe siècle, l’architecture avait-elle encore quelque capacité à traduire une
appartenance ethnique ou culturelle. Depuis longtemps déjà, certains,
même parmi les plus intransigeants défenseurs d’une Bretagne autonome,
avaient dit leur doute. Maurice Marchal et Olivier Mordrelle (1901-1985),
deux architectes fondateurs, en 1919, de I’Unvaniez yaouankk Vrez, le
mouvement nationaliste qui éveilla une génération à l’action bretonne,
n’avaient eu de cesse qu’ils réclamassent une adhésion aux formes les plus
novatrices. Pour eux, le mouvement moderne en architecture n’était pas un
aboutissement, mais un ébranlement qui remettait chacun en position de
départ dans un monde nouveau. L’originalité nationale, si elle existait
encore, reviendrait à son heure teinter subtilement et de façon absolument
imprévisible ce qui se ferait sur la tabula rasa48.
Parizeau partageait ce sentiment. Commentant le concours dont il venait
de découvrir les résultats, il s’interrogeait et aussitôt, avec prudence
toutefois, avançait une suggestion :
Au point de vue des résultats de cette généreuse initiative, on peut
se demander s’il ne s’est pas glissé au point de départ une erreur
d’interprétation. Notre architecture approximativement normande ou bretonne est abandonnée déjà depuis longtemps par les
paysans. Il faut la regretter, puisque rien n’est venu la remplacer
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avec avantage. Toutefois est-il réalisable, utile et indispensable de
retourner à ces formes ? (...) Sans abandonner la maison dans le
goût ancien, je crois qu’il faudrait compléter par une étude
exempte de toute préoccupation de style, parfaitement libre de
tout a priori et qui se préoccuperait uniquement de dresser des
plans commodes, souples, faciles d’exécution et économiques. Les
silhouettes et les formes qui en sortiront seront forcément simples;
l’aspect général en sera élégant, garanti à l’avance par les qualités
techniques de ceux qui les étudieront. On ne voit pas en quoi
l’aspect de nos campagnes souffrira de ce rajeunissement, en quoi
l’esprit de nos pères sera étouffé par notre souhait de créer comme
ils l’ont fait nos propres formes d’abri, conformément à nos besoins d’hommes vivant au vingtième siècle 49 .
Quelques mois plus tard, Duplessis retrouvait le poste de premier ministre
abandonné cinq ans plus tôt. Reprenant dans une tonalité populiste un
programme confus où se mêlait la célébration des valeurs traditionnelles
du monde rural et l’ouverture libérale de la province aux intérêts industriels
étrangers; flattant cauteleusement les uns, réprimant durement les autres,
il engageait le Québec dans la « Grande noirceur ». C’en était bien
évidemment fini des espoirs de Parizeau, qui devait disparaître en 1945 à
47 ans. Et ce fut suffisant pour accélérer, chez un Borduas plus écorché que
jamais, le processus de rupture qu’il avait engagé de longue date. Le Refus
global en fut l’aboutissement : sa signature au bas de ce manifeste, dont il
était le principal inspirateur, lui valut d’être suspendu de son emploi à
l’École du meuble le 7 septembre 1948. Le 25 octobre, il en démissionnait
sans attendre sa probable radiation.
Maurice Hébert, au contraire, sut se faire à l’air du temps. Dès 1944, dans
un long article, il relia enfin explicitement, sans l’alibi du tourisme, la quête
d’un style québécois et la nécessité de maintenir l’ordre dans une société
qu’il voyait menacée par l’expansion industrielle et l’extension urbaine.
Retrouvant les accents de l’abbé Jules Lemire (1853-1928), créant en
France, en 1896, la Ligue du coin de terre et du foyer, il prêchait ce que
lui-même nommait « l’Évangile de la maison ». Non seulement, en conformité avec les exigences de l’encyclique Rerum novarum, il enjoignait
d’oeuvrer pour que chacun fût correctement abrité, mais il adjurait d’éviter
l’appartement et de favoriser une politique du logement fondée sur la
maison individuelle : l’assimilation de collectif à collectiviste était, au
passage, sous-entendue. De surcroît, il prescrivait que « fils et filles de
cultivateurs (...) devenus prolétaires » fussent propriétaires, Dieu et la
Nation l’exigeaient : « La famille canadienne-française eût-eue joué le
même rôle historique, conformément aux desseins de Dieu; eût-elle été la
formatrice et la consolidatrice de la nation si elle n’avait eu un sens très
ferme et très sûr de la propriété, au service de la famille, de la race, de la
nation ? ». Cette maison « d’un goût charmant, exposée au soleil des quatre
70
Les ressorts communs des régionalismes architecturaux
côtés (sic), là où les enfants auront des pelouses sur lesquelles prendre leurs
ébats et les parents un lopin de terre, quelques plates-bandes où l’on
sèmera des légumes et des fleurs et où des érables offriront l’abri de leur
frais ombrage », cette maison se devait d’arborer les caractéristiques du
style d’autrefois, car « la maison qui convient le mieux à des Canadiens
français est celle qui exprime leur milieu et en est comme le commentaire
spontané ». Même en banlieue montréalaise, il était aisé, affirmait-il, de
construire « suivant les modèles que le grand artiste et grand patriote
Clarence Gagnon avait préparés pour les Fêtes du Troisième centenaire
de Ville-Marie et qui sont de petites merveilles »50. Hébert n’oubliait bien
sûr pas de rappeler les initiatives de son bureau devenu, en 1943, l’Office
du tourisme et de la publicité, ni d’annoncer leur prolongement par de
nouvelles enquêtes confiées à l’architecte Sylvio Brassard (1898-1975) qui,
dès 1932, profitant d’une commande pour le Jardin zoologique de Charlesbourg, S’était résolument engagé dans la voie régionaliste. Il se permettait,
enfin, de juger sévèrement l’École des Beaux-Arts, où les jours de Charles
Maillard éaient désormais comptés, et, au contraire, de vanter l’action de
l’École du meuble. Jean-Marie Gauvreau, il est vrai, était maintenant
sensiblement sur la même ligne que lui; en 1945, il allait présider un Office
provincial de l’artisanat et de la petite industrie qui, fondé en Bretagne en
1910, aurait ravi le très conservateur François Vallée (1860-1949), héraut
des « petites industries rurales et locales »51.
Les mots pour le dire
Frilosité et repli sur soi avaient également dominé en France durant la
seconde période du régime installé par le Maréchal Pétain. Le monde
paysan, la société rurale avaient été portés aux nues, et la seule mesure du
Front populaire qui avait trouvé grâce devant la Révolution nationale avait
été la tâche entreprise en faveur des arts et traditions populaires. Ainsi, ce
fut pendant la guerre qu’on lança, à l’initiative de Georges-Henri Rivière
(1897-1985), le premier grand chantier national de recensement et de
relevé d’architecture paysanne. La Bretagne, plus divisée que jamais à
propos des différents projets de « souveraineté-association » qu’on lui
proposait, n’avait pas échappé à cette ambiance délétère. Afficher ouvertement des options modernistes n’était plus de mise et parce que, la
tentation est toujours grande en France de s’en remettre à la
réglementation, ce fut à un régionalisme architectural obligatoire qu’on
songeât. Acquis au principe, l’écrivain breton Jean Merrien (1905-1972),
s’essaya le premier à la rédaction d’un projet de loi sur l’esthétique des
constructions projetées. Il imagina un système de liberté surveillée,
proposant une alternative dont les termes correspondaient au degré
d’initiative du pétitionnaire. « Sauf opposition concernant le terrain, tout
logis d’habitation pourra être construit sans aucune autorisation préalable,
à condition de reproduire fidèlement l’un des modèles figurant dans
l’album régional, établi et renouvelé périodiquement, sur concours entre
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architectes, par les Beaux-Arts du département » : le maître d’ouvrage
docile qui eût opté pour cette formule aurait évité toute tracasserie. En
revanche, s’aventurer à « ne pas choisir un de ces modèles » l’aurait conduit
à « demander une autorisation particulière instruite avec multiples
avis52 ».
D’album régional, une formule qui l’eût mis à l’unisson de Maurice Hébert,
il n’y eut point; mais la seconde partie de la proposition du romancier était
promise à un bel avenir. Le centralisme français, averti par les déboires des
précédents principes uniformisateurs, avait mesuré l’inconvénient qu’il y
avait de s’avancer visage decouvert. Il avait enfin compris que pour pousser
son avantage, il lui suffisait d’installer ces hypnotiques que sont les fauxsemblants, en lieu et place des différences essentielles qu’il mettait à mal,
La loi sur le permis de construire, promulguée le 19 juin 1943 et ratifiée à
la Libération par l'ordonnance du 27 octobre 1945, joua ce rôle. Grâce à
ses articles 98 et 99, qui donnaient un pouvoir discrétionnaire à
l’Administration en matière d’aspect des constructions, elle servit à
promouvoir ces styles néo-régionaux qui devinrent quasi universels dans la
France des années. La Bretagne, qui sans doute souffrait le plus de
l’étiolement de ses principaux facteurs d’identité et du délaissement de sa
langue, fut la plus disciplinée à cet égard, tombant à nouveau dans le piège
dénoncé par Marchal en 1925. Faisant l’exégèse de la formule, le juriste
Roger Saint-Alary a pu conclure que « le permis de construire (était)
devenu par excellence l’instrument d’une police administrative de la
construction et de l’urbanisme53. » À n’en pas douter, il est venu s’ajouter
à ces « règles impersonnelles » qui, selon le sociologue Michel Crozier,
« en éliminant arbitrairement les difficultés (...) constituent autant de
moyens d’éviter des adaptations et des changements qui, autrement,
paraîtraient inévitables54. »
En matière d’architecture, le Québec a également connu sa « Révolution
tranquille ». Le patrimoine y a garde tout son attrait, beaucoup s’y
consacrent avec intelligence et il est plus que jamais l’objet d’une légitime
fierté, mais peu à peu, il s’est dépouillé de ses attributs exagérément
moralisateurs. Le régionalisme, lui-même, est entré dans l’histoire et s’ils
sont nombreux à vitupérer les douteuses prestations architecturales qui ont
affecté la Belle Province ces dernières décennies, leur regret, tout autant
qu’à la maison paysanne, va aujourd’hui à ces maisons à « tumeurs » et
escaliers extérieurs qui irritaient tant Olivier Maurault. Bien sûr, P. Roy
Wilson, en 1975, pouvait encore remporter un joli succès de librairie avec
l’édition de ses dessins de « belles vieilles maisons du Québec », dont il
avouait ingénument qu’il les avait enjolivées55 . Certes, il n’est qu’à feuilleter
les revues de la maison et les catalogues de constructeurs pour découvrir,
toujours présentes, les démarques de ces modèles « bretons » et « normands », que Traquair puis Morisset avaient cru déceler56. Mais aucune
idéologie ne semble plus désormais se dissimuler derrière ces entreprises
72
Les ressorts communs des régionalismes architecturaux
seulement portées par une inapaisable nostalgie. Si, toutefois, il demeure
quelques irrédentistes pour penser que la maison recelait une part essentielle de la personnalité québécoise, au moins peuvent-ils exprimer leur
regret de l’échec régionaliste dans la langue des anciens Canadiens, tandis
qu’ils sont sans cesse plus rares, en Bretagne, ceux qui peuvent encore, en
breton, dire leur amertume devant leur victoire à la Pyrrhus, remportée sur
le terrain de l’architecture, qui n’était pas le bon.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
Le premier article de Ramsay Traquair sur la question, parut en juillet 1919 (in H OU se
and Garden), suivi, à un an d’intervalle, par « Interesting Old Stone Houses in Québec»
de Gehrard Richard Lomer (in The House Beautiful, novembre 1920).
Vigato, Jean-Claude, Le régionalisme dans le débat architectural en France, de 1900 à
1945, thèse de doctorat, Brest, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, 1990, inédit.
Il fut longtemps commun de lire dans les revues canadiennes-françaises que la Bretagne
du XVII siècle était dépourvue d’agriculture et, qu’en conséquence, les Bretons étaient
incapables de faire de bons colons.
L’Action française canadienne publia plusieurs articles très critiques sur les mouvements autonomistes en France et en Belgique. Quant à la Revue trimestrielle canadienne,
elle fit écho à la campagne qui, en France, tendait à Faire accroire un financement
allemand des partis alsacien et breton. Metzger, Ulrich, « Le malaise alsacien - Y a-t-il
un malaise alsacien ? » in Revue trimestrielle canadienne, juin 1929, pp. 178-186.
u La vocation de la race » in Feiz ha Breiz, no 4, avril 1924, p. 159.
« L’église catholique et le problème des langues nationales” in Ar c’horn boud,
no 4, avril 1924, pp. 5764. Une apostille en breton enjoignait de s’inspirer de l’exemple
québécois. « L’église et les survivances nationales » in Ar c’horn boud no 8, août 1924,
pp. 113-125. « Nos devoirs envers notre race » in Ar c’horn boud no 9, 1924, pp. 130-138.
Laberge, Joseph E., « L’église et la langue maternelle » in Ar C’horn boud no 5, mai
1924, pp. 69-80.
Raoul, Lucien, Un siècle de journalime breton, Le Guilvinec, Le Signor, 1981.
Gatier, Pierre, « Mémoire sur l’art breton » in Bulletin de l’Union régionaliste bretonne,
Redon, 1907, p. 181.
Ely-Monbey, Alfred, « L’avenir de l’industrie bretonne » in Bulletin de l’Union
régionaliste bretonne, Redon, 1911, pp. 94-111.
Morisset, Gérard, Coup d’œil sur les arts en Nouvelle-France, Québec, chez l’auteur,
1941, p. x.
Laurendeau Arthur, « Méditation d’un artiste sur la patrie » in L’Action française, no 2
(7e année), février 1923, p. 107.
Tarquis, Magda, « Du style régional dans l’architecture » in La Bretagne touristique,
no 21 (2e année), 19 décembre 123, p, 290.
Chauvin, Jean, Ateliers, Montréal et New-York, Editions du Mercure, 1928, p. 34
Rémillard, François et Brian Merrett, Demeures bourgeoises de Montréal - Le mille
carré doré 1850-l 930, Montréal, Méridien, 1986, pp. 228-233.
Chauvin, Jean, Ateliers, Montréal et New-York, Editions du Mercure, 1928, p. 219.
Épron, Jean-Pierre, Éclectisme et profession - La création des écoles régionales, 18891903, Nancy, Ecole d’architecture de Nancy, 1987.
Vigato, Jean-Claude, « Prix de Rome modernes » in Monuments historiques, no 123,
octobre-novembre 1982, pp. 77-86.
Charles-Brun, Jean, « Tourisme et régionalisme » in Touring club de France, septembre
1910, pp. 386-388.
Vaillat, Léandre, « La maison en Bretagne » in L’art et les artistes, tome XVI, octobre
1912, mars 1913, pp. 281-284.
73
IJCS / RIÉC
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
74
« Notre programme - Arts breton et celtique » in Mouez ar vro, n o9,8 décembre 1919,
p. 1.
Marcha, Maurice, « La Bretagne au biniou » in Breiz atao no1(73), janvier 1925, p. 516.
Bienvenu, Gilles et Jacqueline Robin-Auffret, Architectes et urbanistes à Nantes, 18921947, Nantes, C.E.RM.A., 1985, inédit, p. 30.
Maurault, Olivier, « L’École polytechnique de Montréal » in Revue trimesbielle
canadienne, Vol. IX, no4, décembre 1923, pp. 341-372. Gauthier, Raymonde, « MarieAlain Couturier, O.P., et le milieu de l’architecture à Montréal, 1939-1946 » in «
Architectures : la culture dans l’espace », Questions de culture, no4, 1983, pp. 103-123.
Venne, Émile, « L’avenir de l’architecture religieuse canadienne » in Revue trimestrielle
canadienne, Vol. XX, no 2, juin 1934, pp. 169-185.
Barbeau, Marius, « Arts et métiers »in Revue trimestrielle canadienne, no 108, décembre
1941, pp. 385-381.
Montpetit, Édouard, « À propos d’urbanisme » in Revue trimestrielle canadienne, no 47,
septembre 1926, p. 359.
e
« Manifeste de Kornog » in Foi et Bretagne, no l (5 année), janvier 1928, pp. 228-229.
L’évocation de l’École des arts et métiers lors de l’inauguration avait Cte le fait d’Omer
Marchand qui avait plaint les traditions « malheureusement disparues ». En assignant
à l’École de Québec la tâche de les relever, il en faisait, à la manière des écoles régionales
françaises, et selon ses valeurs, une école subalterne par rapport à celle de Montréal
vouée au grand art.
Gauvreau, Jean-Marie, Nos intérieurs de demain, Montréal, Librairie d’action
canadienne-française, 1929, p. 33. Id. « Décorateurs d’hier et d’aujourd’hui » in Revue
trimestrielle canadienne, no 59, septembre 1929, p. 311.
Maurault, Olivier, Marges d’histoire - 1. L’art au Canada, Montréal, Librairie d’action
canadienne-française, 1929, pp. 75, 77 et 79-83.
Id. « Tendances de l’art canadien » in L’Action française, no 8 (2e année), août 1918,
p. 371. Maurault, toutefois, reproduisait encore cet ancien article en entrée de ces
Marges d’histoires.
Dubé, Claude, La maison & colonisation, éléments d’architecture populaire québécoise,
Québec, Université Laval - Centre de recherches en aménagement et développement,
1987, p. 14.
Gauvreau, Jean-Marie, « Évolution et tradition des meubles canadiens » in Mémoires
de la Société royale du Canada, tome XXXVIII, section 1, mai 1944, pp. 121-127.
Couturier, Marie-Alain, Marcel Parizeau, Montréal, L’arbre, 1945, pp. 29 et 30.
Le Corbusier, « Un standard meurt, un standard naît » in Almanach de l’architecture
moderne, Paris, Crès, 1926, pp. 83-90.
Bruchési, Jean, « A la recherche de nos œuvres d’art » in Mémoires de la Société royale
du Canada, tome XXXVII, section 1, mai 1943, p. 27. Borduas, lui-même, a insiste sur
le rôle de Bruchési dans son intégration à l’École du meuble. Borduas, Paul-Émile,
« Projections libérantes » in Refus global et autres écrits, Montréal, L’hexagone, 1990,
p. 92.
Bouille, James, « Les meubles bretons » in Mouez ar vro, no 34, samedi ler mai 1920,
p. 2. Id. L’habitation bretonne, Paris, Massin, 1927, n. p. Id. « Pour l’équipement de la
Bretagne » in La Bretagne, 18 avril 1941, p. 6.
Hébert, Maurice, De livres en livres, Montréal et New-York, Les Éditions du Mercure,
1929, p. 170.
Maillard, Charles entretien avec Jean Chauvin, cité par Maurice Hébert, Et d’un livre à
l’autre, Montréal, Albert Lévesque, 1932, pp. 22 et 23.
Dubé, Philippe, Deux cents ans de villégiature dans Charkvoix, Québec, Les Presses de
l’Université Laval, 1986, p. 210.
Gosselin, Paul-Émile, « La survivance française » Pour survivre, Vol. IV, no 1, 1942, p. 8.
Tessier, Albert, « Les valeurs nationales et économiques du tourisme » Pour survivre,
Vol. V, novembre 1943, p. 42.
Lawson, Harold, « Québec » in Journal of Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, série
no 210, Vol. 20, no 2, février 1943, p. 27.
Doc. Archives nationales du Québec, Cartes et plans, P-225, H 184-1 ,3, 5, 7.
Les ressorts communs des régionalismes architecturaux
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
Traquair, Ramsay, Olivier Maurault et Antoine Gordon Neilson, « La conservation des
monuments historiques de la province de Québec » in Revue trimestrielle canadienne,
no 105, mars 1941, pp. l-2-3.
Le Scouarn, Alain, « La reconstruction des villes de Bretagne par les architectes
français » in L’Heure bretonne, no 109, 15 août 1942, p. 4.
Vidal de la Blache, Paul, La France, tableau géogaphique, Paris, Hachette, 1908, p. 5.
Marchal, Maurice, « La Bretagne et le monde moderne » in Breiz atao, no 3 (87) mars
1926, pp. 652-653.
Parizeau, Marcel, « Québec » in Journal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada,
série no 210, Vol. 20, no 2, février 1943, pp. 26-27.
Hébert, Maurice, « L’habitation canadienne-française : une véritable expression de
civilisation distincte et personnelle » in Mémoires de la Société royale du Canada, tome
XXXVIII, section 1, mai 1944, pp. 129-141.
Vallée, François, Les petites industries rurales et locales, Lorient, Pays breton, 1910.
Mer-rien, Jean (pseudonyme de Ronan La Poix de Fréminville), « Pour le visage de la
Bretagne, un projet de loi » in La Bretagne, 11 juillet 1941, p. 6.
Saint-Alary, Robert, Droit de la construction, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France,
1977, p. 24.
Crozier, Michel, Le phénomène bureaucratique, Paris, Seuil, 1963.
Wilson, P. Roy, The Beautiful Houses of Québec, Toronto, University of Toronto Press,
1975. Une édition française a immédiatement suivi.
Morisset, Gérard, L’architecture en Nouvelle-France, Québec, Collection Champlain,
1949, pp. 32-38. « Maison de style normand - Modèle M-2216 » in Section Design, Vol.
1, no 1, printemps-été 1988, p. 42.
75
Victor Konrad
The Borderlands of the United States and Canada
in the Context of North American Development
Abstract
The borderlands of the United States and Canada extend beyond a politicalrelational concept to display cultural, temporal and social shading in regions
and landscapes found as much in the mind as on the land. These borderlands
are examined among other formulations of North American development where
continental reference and comparison serve to both enlarge and refine our
understanding of the United States-Canada border regions which, Janus-like,
of shared natural diversity, and
at once differentiate a landscape
ameliorate human dichotomy into affinity. With examples drawn from the
length of the border, this substance on the line is examined within regions,
communities and landscapes in an effort to gauge the depth and meaning of
the borderlands shared by Canada and the United States.
Résumé
Les zones frontières entre le Canada et les États-Unis ont une signification
qui déborde les réalités politico-relationnelles. Elles ont des connotations
culturelles, temporelles et sociales autant spirituelles que physiques. On en
traite ici en tant qu’expression, parmi d’autres, du développement de
l'Amérique du Nord où les références et les comparaisons continentales
aident à enrichir et à affiner notre compréhension de ces zones qui, comme
Janus, divisent un paysage naturel par ailleurs commun et transforment les
dispatités humaines en similitudes. A l‘aide d’exemples empruntés à divers
lieux tout au long de cette frontière, cette « substance » est analysée en
fonction de régions, de collectivités et de paysages dans le but de sonder la
profondeur et la signification des régions frontalières que se partagent le
Canada et les Etats- Unis.
In the introduction to the Geography of Borderlandscapes Dennis Rumley
and Julian Minghi began
We share a compelling interest in borders and borderlands that is,
in one way, the reverse of the regional model. We focus on edges,
not the cores of regions.1
They went on to explain
...the boundary creates its own distinctive region, making an element of division also the vehicle for regional definition. This
International Journal of Canadian Studies /Revue internationale d’études canadiennes
4, Fall/Automne 1991
paradox is at the core of the borderland concept. Boundary dwelling characteristics, unique to either side of the line become
dominant moulders of the cultural landscape within the shadow
thrown by the boundary, and yet these characteristics disappear
as one moves away from the borderland in either direction into the
territorial domain of the states divided.2
Essentially, the authors concluded that borderlands are distinctive regions
of mitigating landscapes gradually fading with distance from the common
edge of differentiation - the border. Implicit in the concept as well, and
generally assumed by political geographers, is a sense of balance, duality
amid integration or equitable division. A growing body of literature,
originating in many disciplines, suggests that borderlands contain more
than is conveyed in a political-relational concept.3 Borderlands display
cultural, temporal and social shading in regions and landscapes found as
much in the mind as on the land.4 They are effective regions of exchange
where differentiation and mediation in communities occur simultaneously
in a pervasive but subtle and benign way.
In this essay, we explore the expanded concept and characterization of
borderlands with reference to the United States and Canada boundary, and
with reference to the other borderlands in North America.5 The concept
and its application to Canada and the United States are introduced and
popularized elsewhere.6 Our primary aim is to expand understanding and
knowledge of the United States-Canada borderlands by placing them into
context. The concept of borderlands, until recently only occasionally applied to the two countries, is re-evaluated and restated. Then, it is examined
among other formulations of North American development where continental reference and comparison serve to both enlarge and refine our
understanding of the United States-Canada borderlands. In addition, we
seek to describe and confirm a unique region with communities set on a
line, Janus-like, at once to differentiate a landscape of shared natural
diversity, and to ameliorate human dichotomy into affinity.
Common Edges, Uncommon Areas: Restating the Borderlands Concept
and Approach
The study of boundary areas is traditional in geography,7 yet methodological rigour and theoretical analyses have been slow to emerge. J.W. House
attributed these shortcomings “to the somewhat exceptionalist position to
which the subject has become increasingly relegated."8 Highly visible border zones, boundaries and frontiers are assessed with regard to specific
issues and problems often intertwined in ideology, emotions and opinions.
Consequently, deductive reasoning to establish methodological directions
and theoretical advances has been slower to proceed than empirically based
78
The Borderlands of the United States and Canada
studies building toward the establishment of theory and principle in this
field.
The results on both fronts have been modest until the last decade, when
scholars came together to work across their own disciplinary and subdisciplinary boundaries to compare approaches as well as findings. Among
the first efforts to integrate research, the international symposium on
“Boundaries and the Cultural Landscape”9 and the international conference on “Problem Solving Along Borders: Comparative Perspectives,”10
led to co-ordinated work on selected problems, theoretical considerations
and designated border areas. Usually, the work focused on contested
border zones and problem areas. (In North America, this naturally steered
interest to the already well-defined Mexican border with the United
States). As international, national and subnational boundaries were altered
with increasing, and sometimes alarming frequency, and as border areas
became more dynamic in their function if not better defined in this regard,
specialists in the field of border studies have called for more detailed
research.
There is an urgent need both for empirical and comparative
studies of a dynamic nature for frontier situations, whether these
involve confrontational or co-operative relationships, and for a
more coherent set of theoretical frames within which to study such
situations.ll
The response has been substantial. In his review of the field, published five
years after the call for more research, J.R.V. Prescott documented an
impressive roster of comparative studies treating border areas worldwide,
as well as progress in the definition and evaluation of frontiers and borderlands. 12
During the 1980s the idea of borderlands re-emerged as a broader concept
to define border areas in cultural, social and economic, as well as political
terms. Also, it became identified with a cross-disciplinary approach to
border area research13, and, in so doing, the idea of borderlands grew to
embody more than the two-dimensional structural and spatial components
routinely advocated by political geographers in studies of frontier transactional flows. 14
4 This model, like others based on political and spatial co-ordinates, ascribes frontier zones along boundaries first, before factoring in
the content of landscape, perceptions, settlements, population, values and
other components. The structural dimension is keyed to political variables,
whereas in reality borderlands are more complex areas where human
traditions and beliefs are combined with other aspects - cultural, social and
economic - all set into a transect arbitrarily combining varied physiography
along a political boundary.
79
Borderlands are more than spatially proximate territories astride political
demarcation lines. They have many dimensions of content, some of which
may be measured and characterized. For example, if the strength of
nationalist feeling is measured along a transect from Washington, D.C., to
Ottawa, the sentiment level would dip beyond the national capital of the
United States and then rise again before reaching the border with
Canada.15 In Canada, the level of sentiment would be almost consistent
from the Ontario border with the United States north to Ottawa, with
perhaps a slight rise in nationalist feeling near the capital.16 The borderlands would become apparent in the U.S. where the level of nationalist
sentiment begins to rise appreciably, and the region would continue to the
border, cross it, and then extend to Ottawa. In Canada, the borderlands
contain the most populated area of the country, which is adjacent to the
United States boundary and extends at least 150 kilometres beyond it. 17
Evaluated another way, by the degree or intensity of recognition, the
borderlands prevail throughout most of well-populated Canada and extend
across the boundary to include a more limited area along the border in the
United States. 18
8 In Canada recognition is stronger and more pervasive.
Asymmetries of this nature, rather than the binational balance inherent in
the political model, are characteristic of borderlands.
The characteristic asymmetry of borderlands has masked the regional
context of these geographical areas, and it has eluded researchers assuming
and assigning greater degrees of “complementarity” or juxtaposition across
the border. The common edge is usually the magnate for attention. A
distinct form of region emerges as the essence of the borderlands concept.
This region is defined as much in the symbolic differentiation of its opposing
nationalistic features in the landscape as it is by the affinities of kinship
across the border. Whereas borderlands group consciousness may prevail
across the border, certain attitudes and values may be divided at this edge.
Facets of culture, perhaps food-ways, may be found throughout a borderlands region but other attributes, farmstead arrangements for example, may
be sharply differentiated. Gradients, binary oppositions, even distinctions,
coexist with consistent features to distinguish the borderlands region as an
uncommon area.
Whereas the context of region may serve to delineate and contain the
borderlands, it is the context of landscape within this region that conveys
the nature of the integrative elements. This landscape joins opposing and
variable components of human occupance with the constant features of the
land to display a middle ground. Finally, it is in the communities of the
borderlands where differentiation and accommodation are focused. The
communities are the crossing points, whether they are located on the
borderline or not, and it is in these places that the nature of the borderlands
is best defined and most clearly displayed. Restating the borderlands
concept involves moving the emphasis from the border itself to acknow80
The Borderlands of the United States and Canada
ledge the dimensions of region, landscape and community. These dimensions, to a greater degree than the borderline, make the borderlands
function and prevail.
Borderlands of Canada and the United States in a North American
Context
The premise of the borderlands concept as applied to Canada and the
United States is that the continent is oriented north and south as well as
east and west, and that commonalities tend to blur distinctions between
regional neighbours. Neighbours across the border may have more in
common than citizens across the country, as studies of the U.S.-Mexico
borderlands have shown.19
g This relationship does not align Mexicans and
Americans nor does it diminish the allegiance of Americans and Canadians
to their respective sovereign authorities in Washington, D.C., and Ottawa
or reduce their tendency to identify and express nationalist sentiments.20
Virtually all Canadians live in the borderlands shared with the United
States, they are acutely aware of the borderlands relationship, and they
delineate the border with precision. Most Americans live beyond the
borderlands. The U.S. residents who live close to Canada do less than their
neighbours across the border to acknowledge the borderlands, and these
Americans see a lighter border shadow that extends only a short distance
into the United States. In contrast to Canadians who visualize a darker
presence extending across the boundary, Americans are generally less
concerned about cross-border influences from the immediate north. Their
attention is captured by the borderlands shared with Mexico. This benign
neglect irritates Canadians who do not wish to be overlooked but do insist
on being specially treated. Americans on the other hand need to be jolted
into seeing the elusive borderlands between Canada and the United States.
The jolt has come in the imperative to seek a formula for more effective
North American economic integration. In this move toward a new realization of North American relationships, the borderlands assume added
significance as the joints of continental articulation. North America is being
reconceptualized as a unique continental amalgam where culture remains
decidedly plural, political lines are sustained yet social forces move people
across boundaries within a vast and relatively underpopulated land mass.
This concept of North America defines a continent that is more complex
and vigorous, and consequently more effectively interlaced than the image
that is portrayed in the simple layering of Canada beyond the United States
and Mexico below it. Key elements of integration and differentiation were
set in place as the three countries, and particularly Canada and the United
States, emerged as independent yet interdependent states. These include
border towns and cities, cross-boundary corridors, co-operative arrangements, cultural transfers and resource sharing. Because the countries have
shown distinct national developments, the integrative elements are often
81
IJCS / RIÉC
veiled by border distinctions embellished to sustain a borderline stance at
this frontier. The border is at once a transition and an abrupt frontier edge.
Part of the problem in seeing and understanding the United States-Canada
borderlands in North America results from the limited consideration given
to the relationship between the borderlands concept and formulations of
North American development, namely the frontier thesis in the United
States, and Laurentian, metropolitan and archipelagian theses in Canada.21
It is not so surprising that the borderlands concept has seen limited
application to the Canada-U.S. boundary for it is apparent that formulations of Canadian development need to distance the not too distinct
Canadian experience from that of the Americans. What is surprising,
however, is the lack of connection between the frontier thesis and the
borderlands concept. Historian David J. Weber concluded that Turner’s
frontier thesis, although readily applicable to the southwestern borderlands, was not applied by Bolton and his disciples of the Borderlands school
because they were “far more interested in the impact of Spaniards on the
frontier than the influence of the frontier on Spaniards.”22 Furthermore,
the Boltonians rejected the idea that the frontier democratized Hispanic
institutions. From this initial differentiation the two schools of thought
moved apart, and so did the concept of the frontier in Mexico and the
United States. In the U.S., the frontier came to embody democratization,
consolidation, individualization and nationalization. It imparted a character of practicality, inquisitiveness, restlessness, optimism and inventiveness
to those who confronted it. In essence, the frontier assumed mythic proportions in the United States, whereas in Mexico the frontier never developed
mythic importance in letters and popular culture. 23 In Canada, the idea of
the frontier was applied by A.R.M. Lower and Harold Innis, their contemporaries and followers in their works; but again, as in Mexico, the frontier
thesis did not gain mythic importance. 24 Canadians became preoccupied
with ideas of mystic north over those of west.25
A balanced application of Turner’s frontier thesis, throughout North
America, and with specific reference to borderlands regions, could have
provided valuable comparisons of North American development. Instead,
the idea of an American frontier has been ratcheted between parallel
borders from east to west, not to define the place of the United States in
North America but to promote democracy and to differentiate American
and European experiences. In the long run the frontier thesis has defmed
the place of the United States in North America, and it has more than
adequately differentiated the United States from Canada and from
Mexico.26 Furthermore, this differentiation has delineated the borderlines
and has overlooked the borderlands.
The unfortunate result of all of this is that today, in a time when borderlines
are less important, whereas borderlands are attracting more attention,
82
The Borderlands of the United States and Canada
North America continues to embrace formal borders and border formalities. 27 A broader perspective on borderlands looking beyond the continent confirms this.
In an era of international peace and cooperation, the issues of
significance in a borderland are no longer drawn on national lines,
but more on local and regional interests across the boundary.28
In North America, where boundary confrontations are limited, and immense cross-border flows are an everyday occurrence,29 acknowledgement
of this “crucial reorientation of issues”30 is slow, likely in part because
North Americans have not been obliged to adjust their separate national
outlooks to a new vision of North America as a workable continent.31
Despite a proliferation of subnational linkages and a growing number of
cross-border arrangements in the borderlands, strong and often contradictory national outlooks prevail. Without a new way of looking at the articulation of the continent, residents of North America tend to overlook the
borderlands landscapes of accommodation and visualize instead the most
evident components and symbols of national landscapes emphasized by
statist alignment.
It is evident that the United States intervenes between Canada and Mexico,
and that it concedes mainly bilateral relationships. Supranational ties
within the continent remain largely unfulfilled, whereas increasingly subnational linkages articulate America’s relations with its neighbours.32
North America is a continent that appears, on the surface, simply layered,
yet the cross-wise layering of political lines, cultural areas and social
movements over a strongly grained geographical template has resulted in
a uniquely integrated structure, with a highly efficient infrastructure. North
America may well be emerging as an integrated and workable association
on a continental scale. If so, this integration is occurring in advance of
Canadian, Mexican and even American visions of North America and their
respective places in it.33
Our visions of North America may be clouded by nationalist sentiment, but
they are underdeveloped due to the limited multilateral relationships that
we maintain and perhaps, more important, that we acknowledge within the
continent. Even if we travel extensively throughout North America, as many
do, we tend not to associate the parts of the whole but rather to differentiate
them, drawing attention to oppositions. We make considerable efforts to
distinguish east from west, north from south, cold from warm, rich from
poor and so on. 344 Given these constraints and tendencies our personal and
collective visions of North America are characteristically incomplete and
often inaccurate.
83
As North America moves toward greater economic integration, a need will
develop for residents to recognize the social, political and cultural implications of this direction.355 Well-established guideposts point to these implications; many of North America’s social, political and cultural phenomena
have been continental in scope and continent-wide in impact throughout
this century and the previous one. Migration, for example, extends beyond
the latitudinal borders to encompass the entire continent as its field.
Borderlands landscapes record and display the impacts of this migration
as Randy Widdis has shown in his work on the migration of Canadians to
36 North American economic integration will, in all
the United States.%
likelihood, extend social, political and cultural patterns already established.
The question of greatest concern to Americans, Canadians and Mexicans
alike is in whose favour will these extensions emerge? Other questions, of
greater interest to scholars and policy makers, seek answers to how these
extensions may emerge. It is the premise of borderlands research in North
America that these answers may be found in the borderlands as well as in
the national capitals and major centres.
To appreciate the borderlands approach, and to understand more
thoroughly how borderlands operate in North America, it is necessary to
place binational border considerations into a continental framework. In this
framework, all borderlands in North America are considered as components of the continental structure in addition to their relational function
between countries and parts of countries. Internal borderlands nest within
national contexts, whereas binational borderlands are contained within the
spatial system of the continent. In studying borderlands in a North
American spatial system moving toward greater integration, it is advisable
to evaluate borderlands phenomena and processes in comparative and
particularistic analysis. Increasingly, the properties of one borderlands
relationship may hold insights into workings of others. If North America
continues to move toward an apparent continent-wide rationalization of
east-west dimensions with north-south alignments, the value of comparative borderlands analysis may become more evident. For example, the
consistent patterns of agricultural differentiation in the Canada-U.S. borderlands, recorded in a series of detailed studies by Reitsma, now call for
comparative analyses and substantiation within the North American
agricultural system.37 Such an approach to borderlands analysis may be
even more urgent and warranted in considerations of environmental policy
and human migration. For many of us, living throughout North America is
an accepted pattern of modem life. Seasonal occupations and homes, and
a new post-industrial transhumance draws us to all quarters of North
America and homing instincts take us back to ideals and permanent
connections. We find ourselves increasingly perusing the entire continent
from several vantage points but not knowing it well at all, as we draw
distinctions rather than synthesize observations and information; consequently, notions like borderlands elude us.
84
The Borderlands of the United States and Canada
There exists a paradox in this situation. All of this exchange and mobility
and rapid adjustment are possible in part today because subnational
linkages were extended through the borderlands in the past, and because
these ties have been maintained throughout the twentieth century. Lauren
McKinsey and I have shown elsewhere how
Subnational cultures spread across the border through a vernacular expression rather than a more literate one and, consequently, did not herald the advance of either an American or
Canadian (British) national culture. In this way, nineteenth-century migrations created an interlocking of culture that is a unique
38
North American heritage for people on both sides of the border.
Today, these latent cultural bonds underlie new dimensions of interaction
in the borderlands.
Quebec’s initiatives to revive France-American ties with New
England are designed not only to extend “la francophonie” but
also to enhance trade. The potential for multibillion-dollar
electricity sales is an understandable incentive for activating a
cultural link that had become largely passive in recent decades.39
The work on subnational cultural linkages suggests one form of integration
for this region. More examples are evident in the borderlands that knit
together Canada and the United States. Among these are extensions of
transportation routes, consistent land-use patterns, linked energy grids and
co-ordinated resource management. Selected considerations, discussed in
the remainder of this paper, are offered as examples of borderlands regions,
communities and landscapes, at once specific to Canada and the United
States yet representative of North American counterparts.
The Canada-United States Borderlands: Substance on a Line
The following illustrations are not meant to define the Canada-United
States borderlands comprehensively, but they are offered as examples of
conclusive research to identify common features and theoretical consistencies. Together, they serve to expand our knowledge of the borderlands with
the selected insights of current research, but, more important, they provide
the substance to advance our understanding of the borderlands concept
and its application to the United States and Canada in the context of North
American development.
85
IJCS / RIÉC
Regions
The borderlands of the southwest are almost exclusively arid and generally
consistent in physiography. Consequently, the borderlands region between
Mexico and the United States is readily discerned and the region may be
defined with relative ease. In contrast, the Canada-U.S. borderlands
embrace components of every major physiographic region as they extend
across the continent. These borderlands are a geographical amalgam and
greater scrutiny and vision are required to discern regional consistencies.
Among the common features of this borderlands region is a temperate
forest cover and a woods tradition.
Lumbering the temperate forests of North America engaged woods
workers, farmers, river drivers, teamsters, bosses and bankers, from
Canada and the United States, in one of the most extensive resource
extractions of the nineteenth-century. Whereas the regional operations are
well documented and an extensive literature is generally available for
lumbering in each forest domain, few studies have acknowledged the
continent-wide scope and progression of this grand undertaking.40 During
the nineteenth-century and into the twentieth-century, the temperate
forests of North America, from New England and the Maritimes in the east
to British Columbia, Washington and Oregon in the west, and even north
to Alaska and the Yukon, provided what was to become the clearest
delineation of the borderlands across the continent. David C. Smith linked
the components of this extensive borderlands zone in “The Logging Frontier,“41 in which he traces the westward movement of loggers, techniques,
machines, capital and traditions. Other scholars, among them Richard
Judd, Edward Ives and W.E. Greening, traced the cross-border weave that
would define the temperate woods tradition.42
The woods industries have contributed, and continue to feed Canada-U.S.
economic ties and tensions, to lead to political problems and solutions and
to extend a shared cultural history resulting from the migration of workers
back and forth across the border as the timber frontier advanced from east
to west. Recent contributions to the literature show that the U.S.-Canada
borderlands derived in part from an interregional and transnational
temperate woods tradition originated in the international region of the
Northeast.43
3 This notion has simmered for a long time. Historian A.R.M.
Lower, writing in 1938 offered this assessment:
No doubt it would be possible to find men lumbering in California
or British Columbia today whose ancestors had lumbered all the
way across the continent from Maine or New Brunswick westward
and on either side of the line indifferently.44
86
The Borderlands of the United States and Canada
Today, the temperate woods tradition, and to some extent the region it
delineated, remains as a legacy recorded but muted in the landscape of the
borderlands. Extensive woods operations, spreading across hundreds of
miles, including virtually all of the forested lands from the Gulf of Maine
to Puget Sound, and then north to the time-line on the Alaska-Yukon
boundary, are visions of the past recorded in stories, documents and
photographs. The forests have grown back to shade most of the legacy on
the land but the geographer will find the evidence under the canopy.
Overgrown woods roads, sluice dams on streams, ubiquitous stumps and
even entire trains rusting in the woods are found throughout the temperate
forests. Still used today are the expertly crafted wooden houses built in the
towns associated with the lumberwoods. New England adaptations of
classical revival and Victorian styles are evident in Michigan, Ontario,
Montana, British Columbia and Washington, among other border territories. Tracts of stumps amid an interlacing of curvilinear woods roads
created a landscape of arboreal devastation and resource extraction that
also obliterated evidence of the international boundary. Lumbermen with
interests in both Canada and the United States cleared their tracts in the
same way with the same men, animals and machines. In the upper Saint
John valley, Robert Connors lumbered on both sides of the river boundary
with operations at Seven Islands in Maine and in the Madawaska District
of New Brunswick.45 The boundary was of little consequence to Connors
and his contemporaries and successors who carried the temperate woods
tradition to other forested regions west and north. Between the midnineteenth century and the World War I, the lumbermen defined a borderlands interaction and fashioned a borderlands landscape to mediate the
distinction between Canada and the United States. Many of the
predominant features of this region have receded into the regrown forests
of the twentieth century or they have been removed by agricultural expansion and settlement growth. Consistent with the often subtle and elusive
nature of the borderlands, the region evolved by the temperate woods
tradition holds its rewards for the trained eye of the geographer and for the
observer of history on the land.
Communities
Another vivid expression of the borderlands may be found in the continuities and contrasts between communities paired across the boundary
between Canada and the United States. As in the case of the southern
borderlands, some of the most fascinating insights about cross-border
relations in general may be found in the settlements that face each other
across the border. In these places one can find the values and institutions
that pull the countries together and those that push the countries apart.46
In his comprehensive unlayering of the nineteenth century societies of
Portland, Maine, and Saint John, New Brunswick, historian Robert
87
Babcock showed how competition and development are co-ordinated in
the borderland.
The new steam and railway technology of the mid-19th century
rapidly diffused throughout the region, forging alliances among
New England and Maritimes entrepreneurs whose ancestors had
been fighting each other only a few decades earlier.47
Other studies, of co-ordinated development between Windsor and
Detroit,488and of symbiotic relations between the two Saults,49 supported
the finding that relationships between communities changed, often rapidly
and drastically. Yet, in these studies and others of cross-border settlement,
there is always reaffirmation that even in their differences borderlands
communities shared a common purpose in prevailing and, in most instances
co-operating, at the common edge of Canada and the United States.
Borderlands settlements often have originated and sustained common
institutions and features to display a shared sense of community. Not only
are they spatially proximate, economically integrated and socially related,
but also as border communities they are “shaped in some direct and
immediate way by that border."50 In the St. John valley of Maine and New
Brunswick, the river served as the “main street” to link settlements on both
sides. St. Leonard, New Brunswick, and Van Buren, Maine, may be two
towns but they are essentially one community.
A family’s land did not stop at the river. It continued over, so a
father would have land on one side and when that was too crowded,
the river would just be an extension of his land and the kids would
go on the other side. François Violette is considered to be the
founder of Van Buren, and some people would like to keep him
all neatly American and on that side. But the truth is that two of
his sons were on the other side. And for Pierre-Hi&on Cyr, who
everyone wanted to keep Canadian and on the St. Leonard side,
it’s the reverse. His sons crossed over and lived in Van Buren,
which was quite normal. Because the bonds of family and church
crossed the river, it united people and did not divide them.51
In the St. John valley, the agricultural landscape, and the settlements on
one side of the river reflected the features on the other side of the river.
The river joined “long lots” extending into the forested upland from the
alluvial plain. It mirrored sinewy French Canadian street villages with
prominent churches, similar houses and barns, and identical crops. 52
An aura of cross-border community prevails in the St. John valley but the
border imposed along the river now serves to divide the culture area as well
as to unite it. Inhabitants of Van Buren and St. Leonard, for example, retain
88
The Borderlands of the United States and Canada
the evidence of family connections and cultural continuity inside their
houses. In contrast, the exterior of the homes and the outward appearance
of properties often signal the inhabitants’ allegiance, either to American or
Canadian material culture. 53
A sense of symbolic differentiation, often keyed by the prominent display
of national icons, is accomplished in the same communities united by the
interlocking of culture, faith and family. In the east, where cultural enclaves
were divided by subsequent boundaries, the juxtaposition of community
across the border with statist allegiance designated by the boundary
produced complex borderlands of interwoven continuity and differentiation. In the west, where the boundary was determined before settlement,
the differences often were clear from the outset. Roger Gibbins described
the differential impact of the international border on Osoyoos, British
Columbia, and Oroville, Washington. Both communities had populations
of approximately 4,000 in 1972, shared the same climate and agricultural
foundations, but did not share the same advantages nor display the same
landscape features.
To take but one example, Osoyoos enjoyed a thriving tourist
industry and had twenty-five motels, while Oroville had but two.
Although, to some degree, this difference reflected the more
advantageous physical situation of Osoyoos, it sprang in a more
fundamental way from asymmetrical border effects. Because
Osoyoos lay on the southern edge of Canada and enjoyed a climate
seldom equalled in other parts of the country- just to the east of
Osoyoos signs directed visitors to “Canada’s only desert,” a barren
patch of rattlesnake-infested land set aside as an Indian reserve it had considerable luck in attracting tourists. However, Oroville’s
location on the northern edge of the United States was a marked
liability. North-central Washington held no great appeal for
vacationing Americans; not only was better weather to be found
further south but, if vacationers went as far north as Oroville, they
almost invariably continued into Canada. Yet, for Canadians
deciding to travel to the United States, there was little incentive to
stop just south of the border in Oroville. Therefore, in most
respects, Oroville languished as a tourist draw while only six miles
to the north tourism was booming. Oroville could capture little
more than some spinoff from the Canadian tourist trade; although
tourists lodged north of the border, evenings would fmd many of
them in the bars and movie theaters of the American town. Thus,
Osoyoos provided the accommodation and Oroville the nightlife,
an arrangement facilitated by the ease withwhich the border could
be crossed. 54
89
Dual or twin communities may be actually quite different from each other
because they serve as the physical crossing points between the two societies.
Like border places of unequal size, twin cities mediate cultural
differences where cross-border flows are concentrated in narrow
exchange corridors. Here boundaries appear stronger and cultural
ties are less apparent. Where cross-border flows are selective or
subdued, cultural ties appear stronger and boundary lines are less
apparent. Lying astride the boundary, then, twin cities may be
isolated from the rest of their region in either country, or they may
be the link points in well-established corridors. The Sault Ste.
Maries and the Niagaras, for example, are sites of cultural conversion. Here the parallax is most extreme. Patric
k McGreevy has
designated Niagara Falls as the “end of America and the beginning
of Canada,” a frontier where Americans still deny the finality of
the border and a place where Canadians celebrate its firm establishment.55
McGreevy’s designation has generated responses from Canadian geographers who question the symbolic power that he attributed to this “border
place,56
6 and from American geographers who supportt the long-standing
myth that the border is not a meaningful boundary.57 Rather than reducing
the validity and power of McGreevy’s assertion, these distinct objections
clearly underscore the differential development and functions of border
places. These places are at once the link points and the break points in the
borderlands. Together with the other communities in the region of the
border, they constitute a specialized settlement system. Without them the
borderlands landscapes would be more difficult to discern.
Landscapes
Between Canada and the United States, as between the United States and
Mexico, much of borderlines and borderlands is in the eye of the beholder.
Those trained to read the landscape may discover a strong, differentiating
line in place, but in all likelihood they will discover a richly layered transition
between two countries. The overlays may be viewed in many different ways.
One vivid perspective came from the accomplished novelist and short story
writer Clark Blaise.
Anything to do with “borders” speaks to me personally. I am
animated by the very thought of border; crossing the border is like
ripping the continent, tearing its invisible casing. I look upon
borders as zones of grace, fifty miles wide on either side, where
dualities of spirit are commonplace. 58
The Borderlands of the United States and Canada
This kind of response may go well beyond the emotions felt by most of us
as we go about our daily business of crossing between Canada and the
United States. But are our sentiments really that different? For Americans
living near the border, for all Canadians and particularly for Canadians like
Clark Blaise, who have lived on both sides of the border, the border is a
personal experience and the borderlands are recognized landscapes where
the experiences accumulate. We recognize in these landscapes not only our
border experiences but also those of others who live in the borderlands.
This is middle ground where experiences are shared and borrowed, where
a sign means one thing on one side of the line and something else on the
other. Borderlands landscapes are versatile.
The literary critic Russell Brown split and spliced border concepts in an
effort to determine the origin of the elusive Canada-U.S. borderlands.
We have so far found two quite different ideas of border. The first
defines Canada in terms of difference, in terms of what lies on its
other side or of what it does not or will not admit: it expresses as
both the dividing line and the sanctuary line. The second is the
border that draws all things into it, the place identified with the
middle-ground, with the union of opposites, and with mediation.
The first of these is the borderline; the second the borderland. 59
Viewing the borderlands as middle-ground allows the observer or the
analyst to imbue a linear concept with spatial dimension - to recognize the
substance of place and the configuration of landscape on and beyond a line.
Here, differentiation, as in the case of McGreevy’s Niagara Falls or
Gibbins’ Osoyoos and Oroville, both occurs and is mediated.
Frances Kaye, devoted to the interpretation of western literary landscapes,
conveyed a decidedly regional interpretation.
The very idea of Borderlands, particularly in the Prairie/Plains
where the border is most abstractly a geometrical concept, implies
a distinction between the two sides of the border, in this case,
Canada and the United States. Further, it may imply both a region
of blending and a region where contrasts are most precise simply
because two cultures, two nations, meet face to face on territory
differentiated only by that political abstraction, the border.60
Whereas a borderlands region of blending and precise contrasts may be
most evident in the prairies and plains of the western interior of North
America, regional characterizations of the borderlands are recognizable in
each section along the continental boundary. The underlying physical
geography of the cross-border region defines a unique template for borderlands interaction and landscape evolution in each case.
91
IJCS / RlÉC
Conclusions
North American societies, after almost 500 years of cumulative immigration, population mixing and differential growth, remain decidedly plural,
yet their peoples roam a vast continent that they can all legitimately lay
claim to. Together, these societies are shaping a post-modern map of North
America, a map comprising region and locale. More apparent once again
is the understanding, if not the outright acknowledgement among North
Americans, that they share a continent. These sentiments have prevailed
before as the continent was discovered, settled and shaped. Today, they
fmd expression in free trade and clean air agreements, in seasonal accommodations and in strong relationships across boundaries. The landscapes
of North America reflect the history of differential growth and development
among the neighbour countries but also they sustain a geography of continuity across borders.
Sherrill Grace suggested that we look beyond the map, at the multiple
contexts for borderlands.
Although borderlands can be approached as discrete, physical
regions which can be charted, classified and bounded, the word
and, thus, the concept is primarily relational: borderlands are both
metonymies in history and linear space and metaphors; they are
topoi, linguistic constructs that evoke and inscribe multiple contexts. Indeed, “borderlands” can only be thought, said, experienced within larger, shifting contexts because, as I hope to
demonstrate, the narratives of borderlands can only signify within
the meta-narratives which they mirror, celebrate, fragment and
resist. The very word “borderlands” implies a meta-narrative of
nation which operates, for the United States, along an east-west
axis to inscribe the idea of West and, for Canada, along a northsouth axis to inscribe the idea of North.61
For both Canada and the United States borderlands stand as frontiers of
national orientation. They appear juxtaposed and, as we have learned in
the discussions of landscapes and of national frontiers presented in this
essay, the axes of Canadian and American geographical orientation are at
odds with each other. It is precisely this juxtaposition that contributes depth
and meaning to the borderlands shared by the two countries.
Notes
1.
2.
92
Dennis Rumley and Julian Minghi, Geography of Borderlandscapes (New York: Routledge, 1991), ms. 2.
Ibid, 2-3.
The Borderlands of the United States and Canada
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
A selection is forthcoming in Rober Lecker
t
et al, eds., The Borderlands Anthology
(Toronto: ECW Press, 1991). For selections in French see essays by L. McKinsey, V.
Konrad, R. Gibbins, SM .Lipse t, C. Blaise, R Brown, P. McGreevy and C. Merrett in
Une frontière dans la tête. Culture, institutions et imaginaire canadien (Montreal: Liber,
1991).
John R Stilgoe ,Borderland Origins of the American Suburb, 1820-1939 (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1988).
For an early recognition of these borderlands see S.B. Jones, “The Cordilleran Section
of the Canadian-United States Borderlands ” Geographical
,
Journal 89 (Ma y 1937)
439450. For a current wide-ranging treatment see Glen Allen, “Vanishing Frontiers,
Barriers come down in th Borderlands,“
e
Macleans 103,26 (June 25,1990), 4649.
Lauren McKinsey and Victor Konrad, Borderlands Reflections. The United States and
Canada Borderlands Monograph Series 1. (Orono: University of Maine Press, 1989)
iii. See also Pritt J. Vesilind and Sarah Leen, “Common Ground, Different Dreams,”
National Geographic 117,2 (February 1990) 94-127, particularly map pp. 106-107.
See for example: J.V . Minghi , “Boundary Studies in Political Geography: A Review
Article, ” Annals, Association of American Geographers 53, 3 (1963), 407-428; J.W.
House, ‘The France-Italian boundary in the Alps-Maritimes,” Transactions, Institute of
British Geographers 26 (1959), 107-131; L.A.D. Kristoff, ‘The Nature of Frontiers and
Boundaries, ”Annals, Association of American Geographers 49 (1959), 269-2.82; A.-L.
Saguin , Géographie politique: Bibliographie intemationale (Montreal: Presses de
1’Université de Quebec, 1976).
J.W. House, “Frontier Studies: An Applied Approach,” in Alan D. Bumet and Peter J.
Taylor, eds ,. Political Studies fiom Spatial Perspectives (New York: Wiley, 1981) 291.
“Intemationales Symposium-Grenze und Kulturlandschaft, Regio
” Basiliensis, Basler
Zeitschrift für Géographie/Revue de Géographie de Bâle.22 (1981): 2,3.
Oscar J. Martinez, ed. Across
,
Boundaries, Transborder Interaction in Comparative
Perspective (El Paso : Texas Western Press, 1986).
J.W. House, Frontier on the Rio Gramie: A Political Geography of Development and
Social Deprivation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982) 264.
J.R.V. Prescott, Political Frontiers and Boundaries (London: Allen and Unwin, 1987).
Such efforts have been organized for both the Mexico-U.S. borderlands and the
Canada-U.S. borderlands. References to publications are found elsewhere in these
notes.
House, “Frontier Studies,” 298-305, and Frontier on the Rio Grana’e.
Wilbur Zelinsky, “The Changing Face of Nationalism in the American Landscape,” The
Canadian Geographer 30,2 (1986): 171-175. See also Zelinsky, “0 Say Can You See?”
Wmterthur Portfolio 19 (1985): 277-286.
This observation is based on several factors. This transect cuts across a relatively
homogeneous part of Ontario between Kingston and Ottawa. Also, this is a short
distance and a relatively thin portion of the borderlands.
Manygeographers have commented on the nature and significance of Canada’s population being concentrated along the U.S. border. One of the most eloquent characterizations is found in R Cole Harris, “Regionalism and the Canadian Archipelago,” in
L.D. McCann, ed., Heartland and Hinterland A Geography of Canada, 2nd ed. (Scarborough: Prentice-Hall Canada, 1987) 533-559.
McKinsey and Konrad (Borderlands Reflections) evaluate this generally acknowledged
observation. See alro S. Straight, “The American frontier did not stop at the Canadian
border,” Bulletin of the Illinois Geographic Society 20 (1978): 47-53.
E.R Stoddard et a l eds., Borderland Sourcebook (Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press, 1983).
Victor Konrad, Deryck Holdsworth and Wilbur Zelinsky, “Focus: Nationalism in the
Landscape of Canada and the United States,” The Canadian Geographer 30,2 (1986):
167-180.
Harris, “Regionalism and the Canadian Archipelago.”
David J. Weber, “Turner, the Boltonians, and the Borderlands,” American Historical
Review 91,l (February 1986): 68.
93
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
94
FJ. Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” in G.R Taylor,
ed., The Turner Thesis Concerning the Role of the Frontier in American History, 3rd ed.
(Lexington, Mass., 1972) 3; Weber, “Turner, the Boltonians and the Borderlands,” 78.
A.RM. Lower and Harold A. Innis, Settlement and the Forest and Mining Frontiers
(Toronto: Macmillan, 1936).
See for example, Roald Nasgaard, The Mystic North: Symbolist Landscape Painting in
Northern Europe and North America, 1890- I940 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
1984).
John A. Price, “Mexican and Canadian Border Comparisons,” in E.R Stoddard et at!,
eds., Borderlands Sourcebook, 20-23.
See for example the proceedings of the international symposium on “Boundaries and
the cultural landscape,” Regio Basiliensiss 22(1981): 2,3.
Rumley and Minghi, Geography of Borderlandscapes, 16.
The National Geographic features a colourful article and a superb map to convey the
magnitude of the cross-border flows. See volume 177, no. 2 (February 1990): 94-127;
map pp. 106-107.
Rumley and Minghi, Geography of Borderlandscapes, 16.
Jonathan P. Doh and Peter J. Stephens, “The New York/Quebec Partnership: A Case
Study in Accelerating Linkages.” Manuscript submitted to the Borderlands Project,
April 1990.
See for example Peter Haynes Meserve, “Boundary Water Issues along the Forty-Ninth
parallel: The role of Subnational Legislatures,” in Robert Lecker et al, eds., The
Borderlands Anthology.
For a perspective on this issue, the reader is directed to the following essay: John Gray,
“Where is North America?” in Keith Banting et a l eds., Policy Choices: Political
Agendas in Canada and the United States (Kingston: School of Policy Studies, Queen’s
University, 1991): 145-152.
For example, this tendency is demonstrated in the definition of Vernacular regions in
North America. Wilbur Zelinsky, “North America’s Vernacular Regions,” Annals,
Association of American Geographers 70,l (1980): 1-16.
Pierre-Paul Proulx “Trade Liberalization and Regional Development in North
America: A Canadian’s Perspective,” Départment de science économique, Université de
Montréal, Cahier 8814,1990. See also the essays contained in Glen E. Lich and Joseph
A. McKinney, eds., Region North America Canada, United States, Mexico, (Waco, Texas:
Baylor University Press, 1990).
Randy W. Widdis, “Scale and Context: Approaches to the Study of Canadian Migration
Patterns in the Nineteenth Century,” Social Science History 12,3 (Fall 1988): 269-303.
See for example, H.A. Reitsma, “Agricultural changes in the American-Canadian
border zone, 1954-1978,” Political Geography Quarterly 7,l (January 1988): 23-28. See
also the author’s earlier studies on this topic: “Crop and Livestock Differences on
Opposite Sides of the United States-Canada Boundary,” Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1%9; “Crop and Livestock
Production in the Vicinity of the United States-Canada Border,” Professional Geographer 23 (1971): 216-223; “Area1 Differentiation along the United States-Canada
Border,” Tijdschrift Voor Economische en Socile Geographie 63(1972): 2-10; "International Boundaries Versus Geographical Regions: The Anglo-American Example,” The
Professional Geographer 25 (May 1973): 172-173; “Agricultural Transboundary Differences in the Okanagan Region,” Journal of Rural Studies 2,1(1986): 53-62.
McKinsey and Konrad, Bordcrlands Reflections, 14.
Ibid.
A.RM. Lower, The North American Assault on the Canadian Forest A History of the
Lumber Trade Between Canada and the United States (Toronto: Ryerson, 1938); David
C. Smith, A History of Lumbering in Maine, 1861-1960 (Orono: University of Maine
Press, 1972); Richard W. Judd, “Timber Down the Saint John: A Study of Maine-New
Brunswick Relations,” Maine Historical Quarterly 24,1 (Summer 1984): 195-218; W.E.
Greening, “The Lumber Industry in the Ottawa Valley and the American Market in the
Nineteenth Century,” Ontario History 62 (1970): 134-136.
The Borderlands of the United States and Canada
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
David C. Smith, “The Logging Frontier,” JournaI of Forest History) 18,4 (October 1974):
96-106.
Judd, “Timber down the Saint John;” Greening, “The Lumber Industry in the Ottawa
Valley;” Edward D. Ives, Larry Gorman: The Man WhoMade the Songs (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1977) and Joe Scott: The Woodsman Songmaker (Chicago:
University of Illinois Press, 1978).
Stephen J. Homsby, Victor A. Konrad and James J. Herlan, eds., The Northeastern
Borderlands. Four Centuries of Interaction (Fredericton, N.B.: Acadiensis Press, 1989).
A.R.M. Lower, The North American Assault on the Canadian Forest.
Kathryn Olmstead, “Palace in the Wilderness,” Echoes 6 (1989): 374%
Seymour Martin Lipset, Continental Divide: The Values and Znstitutions of the United
States and Canada. (Toronto and Washington: Canadian-American Committee, sponsored by the C.D. Howe Institute and the National Planning Association, 1989); (New
York: Routledge, 1990); North American Cultures: Values and Znstitutions in Canada
and the United States Borderlands Monograph Series 3. (Orono: University of Maine
Press, 1990).
Robert H. Babcock, “Capitalist Development in the New England-Atlantic Provinces
Region.” Paper submitted to the Borderlands Project, April 1987,22.
J.F. Barlow, “Windsor, A Suburb or a Satellite of Detroit?” Paper submitted to the
Borderlands Project, 1988.
Graeme S. Mount, “Sault Ste. Marie, A Borderland?” Manuscript submitted to the
Borderlands Project, July 1988.
Roger Gibbins, Canada as a Borderlands Society. Borderlands Monograph Series 2
(Orono: University of Maine Press, 1990), 3.
Jacques LaPointe, “A Bond, not a Boundary,” Echoes 6 (1989): 4547.
Victor Konrad, “Against the Tide: French Canadian Barn Building Traditions in the
St. John Valley of Maine,” The American Review of Canadian Studies 12 (Summer 1982):
22-36.
Victor Konrad and Michael Chaney, “Madawaska Twin Barn,” Journal of Cultural
Geography 3,1 (1982): 64-75.
Gibbins, Canada as a Borderlands Society, 7.
McKinsey and Konrad, Borderlands Reflections, 12; See also Patrick McGreevy, “The
Canaciian Geographer 32,4 (1989):
End of America: The Beginning of Canada,”
307-318.
Ronald Borclessa and James M. Cameron, “The End of America: The Beginning of
Canada – A Commentary,” The Canadian Geographer 34,3 (1990):264-269.
Janet Baglier, “The End of America: The Beginning of Canada–A Response,” The
Canadian Geographer 34,3 (1990): 270-271.
Clark Blaise, The Border as Fiction, Borderlands Monograph Series 4 (Orono: University of Maine Press, 1990), 1.
Russell Brown, Borderlines and Borderlands in English Canada: The Written Line,
Borderlands Monograph Series 4 (Orono: University of Maine Press, 1990) 44.
Frances Kaye, “Borderlands: Canadian-American Prairie-Plains Literature in English,”
in Lecker et al , Borderlands Anthology.
Sherrill Grace, “Comparing Mythologies: Ideas of West and North,” in Lecker et a l ,
Borderlands Anthology.
95
F.K.Stanzel
Innocent Eyes? Canadian Landscape as Seen by
Frances Brooke, Susanna Moodie and Others
Abstract
English authors who travelled to Canada in the eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries took with them the ideas of the sublime and the picturesque, which were the subject of much discussion in Europe at the time.
Besides Frances Brooke, it is above ail Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr
Traill whose descriptions of the Canadian landscape reveal the powerful
influence of these ideas. Mrs. Moodie is particularly attracted to the sublime,
Mrs. Traill to the picturesque. We also find applied to Canada the traditional
notions, derived from the theory of climatic zones, according to which Northerners were credited with qualities of toughness and endurance, less SO with
mental agility. In general, the way in which we perceive a foreign country when
we travel abroad is almost always predetermined by the view of the country
that we take with us. Descriptive literature is a particularly rich source of
material from which we can learn about this phenomenon.
Résumé
Les écrivains anglais qui ont sillonné le Canada au cours des XVIIIe et XIXe
siècles étaientfortement marquéspar les notions du sublime et du pittoresque,
alors très en vogue en Europe. Outre les écrits de Frances Brooke, les
descriptions du paysage canadien de Susanna Moodie et de Catharine Parr
Traill nous permettent tout particulièrement d’observer l’influence
déterminante de ces notions; le sublime fascinant Susanna Moodie et le
pittoresque, MmTraill. On y voit également à l’œuvre les conceptions
traditionnelles issues de la théorie des zones climatiques qui prêtait au gens
du Nord beaucoup de force et de ténacité, mais peu de vivacité d’esprit. Bref;
les perceptions que nous avons des pays étrangers que nous visitons sont, en
règle générale, déterminéespar les idées préconçues que nous nous en faisons.
L‘étude de la littérature descriptive est des plus révélatrices à cet égard
“The innocent eye is a myth”, E.H. Gombrich has taught us in Art and
Illusion. 1 This applies especially to our perceptions of landscape. In
eighteenth-Century England, the debate about what should be considered
as beautiful, sublime or picturesque in nature was conducted with great
fervour by Joseph Addison, Edmund Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, William
Gilpin, Sir Uvedale Price, Richard Payne Knight and many others. The
debate was still reverberating in the literary circles of the early nineteenth
century when, for instance, the Strickland sisters, later known as Susanna
Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill, were growing up in England. It is not
International Journal of Canadian Studies /Revue internationale d'études canadiennes
4, Fall/Automne 1991
IJCS / RIÉC
surprising, therefore, that reflections of these aesthetic theories concerning
landscape can be found in the descriptions of what they saw or believed
they saw in the New World. What Moodie and Traill saw in the Canadian
landscape was, in fact, largely determined by their respective positions
along the line connecting the cult of the sublime with the cult of the
picturesque. Moodie preferred the sublime in nature, while Traill saw
greater beauty in the picturesque. Such choices are, of course, closely linked
to the individual personalities and temperaments of the two as revealed in
their writings - Mrs. Moodie tending toward dramatic and sensational
subjectivism, Mrs. Traill more toward contemplative and detached objectivism.
The sublime and the picturesque, the two poles ordering the aesthetic
reaction to landscape in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, can
also be detected in the works of other Canadian writers of the period, for
instance, in Frances Brooke’s The History of Emily Montague and in Anna
Brownell Jameson’s Winter Studies and Summer Rambles.
The quality of the sublime was attributed to natural objects such as high
mountains, the wide expanse of plains or water, dark clouds and
thunderstorms-phenomena that through their vastness or obscurity fill the
mind with pleasant feelings as well as with awe or even terror. This complex
blend of opposites explains why the characteristic descriptive formula for
the sublime is usually based on an oxymoron like “delightful horror”,
“pleasing astonishment” or “tranquillity tinged with horror”.2
In the course of the eighteenth century, the cult of the sublime undergoes
modifications and develops into the cult of the picturesque, which can be
regarded as a sentimentalized form of the sublime. This property was
attributed to the kind of landscape that appeared to obey the conventions
of landscape composition in painting: harmonious grouping of objects,
variety in the distribution of objects as well as in light and shade, the
depiction in the foreground of rugged or shaggy forms such as those of
gnarled or scathed trees, ruins of castles or Gothic cathedrals, old mills,
shaggy goats, banditti, and so on.
Within these aesthetic theories the seasons of the year were also assigned
particular connotations. Winter was more often associated with the sublime
and spring with the picturesque than the other seasons, as can be seen in
James Thomson’s The Seasons (1730). In addition, winter, because of its
traditional association with the Deluge on the one hand and with the
fascination exerted by the polar regions on the inhabitants of the temperate
zones on the other hand, has always been the most ambivalent of the seasons
in the Western European imagination. Again Thomson is our main witness.
Following the example of Shaftesbury and others, he sets out, in “Winter”,
on an imaginary excursion to the polar regions. Here he finds “icy moun98
Canadian Landscape as Seen by Brooke, Moodie and Others
tains [ . ...] on mountains pil’d[...I as if old chaos was again return’d”; wind,
waves and the frozen sea breaking up produce a frightful noise. At the same
time, an aesthetic fascination seems to emanate from the strange shapes
formed by ice and snow appearing as “crystal pillars”, or a “blue portico”
of a “Gothic dome”,3 etc. The concept of the sublime as well as the
ambivalence of the traditional associations of winter encouraged an indulgence in such contrary emotional reactions to the Arctic winter.
Thomson’s references to the peoples of the North are also characterized
by seemingly contradictory attitudes. In his survey of the northern parts of
Scandinavia, Russia, Siberia and Nova Zembla - Greenland is briefly mentioned, Canada is not - the traditional stereotype of the hordes of hardy
Northern barbarians lacking most of the refmements of civilized men still
predominates. At the same time, he sentimentally idealizes the Laplanders
as a “Thrice happy Race”, secure from the temptations of life in a milder
climate.
Thomson was for the eighteenth century what Turner would become for
the nineteenth century imagination, a mentor of fresh visual perception.
This was already recognized by Samuel Johnson, who wrote in his “Life of
James Thomson”: “ The reader of The Seasons wonders that he never saw
before what Thomson shows him, and that he never yet has felt what
Thomson impresses.”44 The great popularity of Thomson’s The Seasons
throughout the eighteenth and most of the nineteenth centuries is also
attested by the unusually large number of editions (many of them with
illustrations) that were published in this period. Ralph Cohen lists between
three and ten for each year from 1761 to 186O. 5 Most English writers with
an interest in landscape description in the eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries at some time in their literary career came under the spell of James
Thomson. Frances Brooke, Susanna Moodie, Catharine Parr Traill and
Anna Brownell Jameson, the authors whose presentation of Canadian
landscapes will be considered in this article, seem to be no exception.
Let me proceed chronologically and begin with Frances Brooke and her
novel The History of Emily Montague. In this epistolary novel one of the
correspondents, Arabella Fermor, in her first letters from Canada to her
friend in England writes enthusiastically about the “thousand wild graces”
of the St. Lawrence River near Quebec, “which mock the cultivated
beauties of Europe”. Like all early travellers on the St. Lawrence, she is
much impressed by the Chaudiere Rapids and the Montmorenci Falls,
which delight her with all of the three qualities that Joseph Addison had
defined as the main sources of the pleasures of the imagination: the
beautiful, the uncommon and the great, Addison’s term for the sublime:
There are two very noble falls of water near Quebec, la Chaudiere
and Montmorenci; the former is a prodigious sheet of water,
99
rushing over the wildest rocks, and forming a scene grotesque,
irregular, astonishing: the latter, less wild, less irregular, but more
pleasing and more majestic, falls from an immense height, down
the side of a romantic mountain into the river St. Lawrence,
opposite the most smiling part of the island of Orleans, to the
cultivated charms of which it forms the most striking and agreeable
contrast.6
It is not only the somewhat volatile Arabella who is carried away by such a
scene; the much less emotional Colonel Rivers reacts in a similar manner
when from the boat on the St. Lawrence he first sets eyes on a Canadian
landscape. The sight fills him with a sense of almost religious awe. He fmds
“not only the beautiful which it /Canada/ has in common with Europe, but
the great sublime to an amazing degree” and he feels “a kind of religious
veneration, on seeing rocks which almost touch’d the clouds . . . . to which
veneration the solemn silence not a little contributed” (EM, p. 6). Arabella
returns to the Montmorenci Falls in winter. Her reaction to this scenic
phenomenon now becomes dominated by the semi-religious mood characteristic of the followers of the cult of the sublime, and she associates the
grandeur of the natural scene with the greatness of the “Divine Almighty
Architect”:
As you gradually approach the bay, you are struck with an awe,
which increases every moment, as you come nearer, from the
grandeur of a scene, which is one of the noblest works of nature:
the beauty, the proportion, the solemnity, the wild magnificence
of which, surpassing every possible effect of art, impress one
strongly with the idea of its Divine Almighty Architect (EM,
p. 149 f.).
Here the common formula-in strict accordance with contemporary aesthetic theories in England- has already been established: sensational
natural phenomenon plus winter equals sublimity. Take away the sensational feature of the Falls, and the winterscape becomes “one undistinguished
waste of snow” in which, with temperatures falling “beyond all thermometers here, tho’ intended for the climate” (EM, pp. 101, 103), the
faculties of mind and imagination become stupefied:
I no longer wonder the elegant arts are unknown here; the rigour
of the climate suspends the very power of the understanding; what
then must become of those of the imagination? Those who expect
to see
“A new Athens rising near the pole,”
will find themselves extremely disappointed. Genius will never
mount high, where the faculties of the mind are be numbed half the
year.
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Canadian Landscape as Seen by Brooke, Moodie and Others
‘Tis sufficient employment for the most lively spirit here to contrive
how to preserve an existence, of which there are moments that one
is hardly conscious: the cold really sometimes brings on a sort of
stupefaction (EM, p. 103).
Arabella here transfers to Canada another traditional concept, this time
supplied not by aesthetics but by climatology. According to the theory of
the climate zones, Northern peoples were thought to be hardy and virtuous
yet lacking in wit and imagination. In one of his digressions in Tristram
Shandy, Sterne had, a few years before The History of Emily Montague,
already made use of this theory. The following quotation forms part of a
digression on the geographical distribution of the two faculties of the
human mind, wit and judgment:
[...] of these heavenly emanations of wit andjudgment [...] there is
but a certain quantum stored up for us all, for the use and behoof
of the whole race of mankind; and such small modicums of 'em are
only sent forth into this wide world, circulating here and there in
one bye corner or another [...]
Indeed there is one thing to be considered, that in Nova Zembla,
North Lapland, and in all those cold and dreary tracts of the globe,
which lie more directly under he arctick and antarctick circles, where the whole province of a man’s concernments lies for near
nine months together, within the narrow compass of his cave,where the spirits are compressed almost to nothing,-and where
the passions of a man, with every thing which belongs to them, are
as frigid as the zone himself: -there the last quantity of judgment
imaginable does the business, - and of wit, - there is a total and an
absolute saving -forr as not one spark is wanted, - so not one
spark is given.7
If one accepted Tristram Shandy’s view of the Northern countries, there
was, indeed, little prospect that a new Athens would ever rise anywhere in
Canada. But such a melancholy view of the Northern countries does not
keep Arabella in Emily Montague from enjoying the Quebec winter season
as a time of general dissipation and amusement, momentarily forgetting the
gloomier mood expressed only a few pages earlier (Cf. EM, p. 110 f.). Once
again we are confronted with an image of winter that is rather ambivalent.
Moodie and Traill, despite their common upbringing and intellectual
background, arrived in Canada with somewhat different preconceptions
about the aesthetics of landscape. Moodie was infatuated with the cult of
the sublime, as is already apparent in the description of her first glimpse of
a Canadian landscape: the St. Lawrence River valley at Quebec. It contains
most of the standard attributes of a sublime scene:
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IJCS / RIÉC
As the sun rose above the horizon, all these matter-of-fact circumstances were gradually forgotten, and merged in the surpassing grandeur of the scene that rose majestically before me. The
previous day had been dark and stormy; and a heavy fog had
concealed the mountain chain, which forms the stupendous background to this sublime view, entirely from our sight. As the clouds
rolled away from their grey, bald brows, and cast into denser
shadow the vast forest belt that girdled them round, they loomed
out like mighty giants-Titans of the earth, in all their rugged and
awful beauty- a thrill of wonder and delight pervaded my mind.
The spectacle floated on my sight-my eyes were blinded with
tears-blinded with the excess of beauty. I turned to the right and
to the left, I looked up and down the glorious river; never had I
beheld so many striking objects blended into one mighty whole!
Nature had lavished all her noblest features in producing that
enchanting scene.8
Never shall I forget that short voyage from Grosse Isle to Quebec.
I love to recall, after the lapse of so many years, every object that
awoke in my breast emotions of astonishment and delight. What
wonderful combinations of beauty, and grandeur, and power, at
every winding of that noble river! How the mind expands with the
sublimity of the spectacle, and soars upward in gratitude and
adoration to the Author of all being, to thank Him for having made
this lower world so wondrously fair - a living temple, heaven-arched, and capable of receiving the homage of all worshippers.
Every perception of my mind became absorbed into the one sense
of seeing, when, upon rounding Point Levi, we cast anchor before
Quebec. What a scene! -Can the world produce such another
(RB, p. 27 f.)?
This invites comparison with Traill’s first view of almost the same scene.
Having described the impressive location of the town of Quebec, Traill
turns her eyes to the other side of the river:
The opposite heights, being the Point Levi side, are highly picturesque, though less imposing than the rock on which the town
stands. The bank is rocky, precipitous, and clothed with trees that
sweep down to the water’s edge, excepting cottages, gardens, and
hanging orchards. But, in my opinion, much less is done with this
romantic situation than might be effected if good taste were exercised in the buildings, and on the disposal of the ground. How
lovely would such a spot be rendered in England or Scotland!
Nature here has done all, and man but little, excepting sticking up
some wooden cottages, as mean as they are tasteless. It is, however,
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Canadian Landscape as Seen by Brooke, Moodie and Others
very possible there may be pretty villas and houses higher up, that
are concealed from the eye by the intervening groves.9
This is very much in the mood of the picturesque traveller who not only tries
to perceive how the scenery composes itself as a picture but even makes
suggestions as to how it could be “improved”, in the same sense as Switzer,
Kent, Repton and “Capability” Brown had “improved” the landscape of
English estates in the eighteenth century. The comparison also brings out
the fundamental difference in the emotional and psychological make-up of
the two women. Where Traill suggests practical improvements to the scene,
Moodie is overwhelmed by gratitude to the “Divine Originator” of such
perfect scenery. Here we already begin to sense that the romantic idealist
will suffer a greater disenchantment than the more realistic traveller looking for a piece of scenery that would lend itself to painting. Consequently,
the basic pattern unfolding in Roughing It in the Bush is the movement, as
R.D. MacDonald puts it, “from romantic anticipation to disillusionment,
from nature as beautiful and benevolent to nature as a dangerous
taskmaster. The story moves from her /Moodie’s experience of the sublime
to the catalogue of near-disasters.”10 Not so the more analytical Catharine
Parr Trail1 in her Backwoods of Canada. She quickly learns that life in the
backwoods only rarely fulfils the expectations of the picturesque traveller,
and although she occasionally complains about the stumps of trees disfiguring the clearings and fields, on the whole she is prepared to revise her
preconceptions about landscape without much ado. Whether the development of Canadian descriptive literature has profited more from Moodie or
from Trail1 has become the object of a controversy into which I do not wish
to enter here. For a discussion of the relative literary merits of Mrs. Moodie
and Mrs. Traill I can refer you to William D. Gairdner l1 and David Jackel.12
Moodie and Traill’s winter experiences also reflect their basic difference
in mood and temperament as well as their indebtedness to two different
traditional attitudes toward winter. Moodie often inclines toward the more
sensational phenomena of winter like the “furious storms of wind and
snow”. Such an attitude of necessity attracts, one may feel inclined to think,
dramatic incidents such as the burning down of the house at a time of severe
frost. This and similar catastrophes try her powers of endurance to the
utmost. The leitmotif of Traill’s winter experience, in contrast, is introduced
in an almost offhand manner: “What a different winter this has been to what
I had anticipated” (BW, p. 63). And, in March 1834, after her first winter
in Canada, she writes to her mother:
You say you fear the rigours of the Canadian winter will kill me. I
never enjoyed better health, nor felt so good, as since it commenced. There is a degree of spirit and vigour infused into one’s
blood by the purity of the air that is quite exhilarating (BW, p. 72).
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IJCS/RIÉC
This passage is followed by a description of the winter air and of the
difference “between the first snow-falls and those of midwinter” and many
other minute observations. And, in November of the same year, she confesses: “In spite of its length and extreme severity, I do like the Canadian
winter: it is decidedly the healthiest season of the year” (BW, p. 111).
In this connection, an early episode in Roughing It in the Bush deserves a
little more attention than it has so far received. The captain of the brig, nne,
which has brought the Moodies to Canada, must satisfy the port authorities
that he has no cholera-infected passengers on board. When he is required
to take an oath on a Bible and no Bible is at hand, the captain picks up from
the table “a book which I [Mrs. Moodie] had been reading (RB, p. 14). The
book turns out to be not a Bible but Voltaire’s History of Charles XII. From
this book Mrs. Moodie probably learnt about the virtues of Northern
peoples like the Swedes. Voltaire’s History was written not only to praise
Charles XII but also to refute the charge of primitivism that southern
followers of the climatic theory brought against the peoples of the North.
Northernness is presented by Voltaire as a condition that-though it may
stunt the development of a more refined imagination - compensates for this
by producing freedom-loving people of exceptional hardiness and valour.
If Mrs. Moodie did expect to find people revealing such qualities in Canada,
it would go some way toward explaining why she was so disgusted with what
she saw on her first walk ashore: “. ..vicious. uneducated barbarians [...] the
surplus of overpopulous European countries” (RB, p. 20 f.) who would
never become Northerners as Voltaire had described them, however severe
Canadian winters might be.
Mrs. Traill, our picturesque traveller, also had her moments of disillusionment, but they were caused by things that Moodie would probably not have
found worth mentioning. One trivial and yet most revealing feature in this
context is the tree stumps left in the ground by the pioneer settlers to save
time and energy in clearing the wilderness. These offended Mrs. Traill’s
sense of the natural beauty of the land. Again, we can observe how Traill
finally succeeds in adjusting herself to the conditions that she finds in
Canada. In an early chapter of Backwoods, she still complains about
“odious stumps that disfigure the clearing in this part of the country [nea
Peterborough]” (BW, p. 47). Shortly before the end of her tale, she strikes
quite a different note:
My husband is becoming more reconciled to the country, and I
daily feel my attachment to it strengthening. The very stumps that
appeared so odious, through long custom seem to lose some of
their hideousness; the eye becomes familiarized even with objects
the most displeasing till they cease to be observed (BW, p. 115).
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Canadian Landscape as Seen by Brooke, Moodie and Others
Even before familiarity had enabled her to accept the eyesore of “the
odious stumps”, winter temporarily removed them from her sight. Winter,
which had already been welcomed by Mrs. Trail1 because of its physically
invigorating effect, is now seen also as “improving” the landscape, much to
the delight of the picturesque observer. She describes a walk in the woods
after a snowfall:
What has become of the unsightly heaps of brushwood, the débris
of fallen rotting leaves, of stalks of withered flowers and rank
herbage, the blackened stumps, the old prostrate wind-blown
trees? Where are they now? Here is purity without a sign of decay.
All that offended the sight in our forest walks has vanished. A
spotless robe of dazzling whiteness, soft and bright as the swan’s
downy breast, is spread over all that was unsightly.13
In a history of taste concentrating on the changing aesthetics of tree stumps
in a landscape, Mrs. Traill would deserve a chapter or at least a paragraph.
Landscape paintings that were most highly praised for their picturesque
beauty almost always displayed a scathed tree, blasted by storm and lightning or gnarled by age, in the foreground, ascan be seen in paintings by
Salvator Rosa, Peter Paul Rubens, R i c h a r d W i l s o n , T h o m a s
Gainsborough, John Constable and innumerable lesser painters of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. William Gilpin, the high priest of the
cult of the picturesque, praised the “withered top” and “curtailed trunk”
of trees as “splendid remnants of decaying grandeur /that/ speak to the
imagination in a stile of eloquence”.1l44 The quite different eloquence of the
trunks of trees “curtailed” by the axe and saw of the early settler had to wait
until this century to be artistically appreciated. In 1934-35 Emily Carr
painted Stumps and Sky (Art Gallery, Vancouver), in which trees evidently
felled by man decorate the foreground.15
Anna Brownell Jameson came to Canada in 1834 to visit her husband, who
was Attorney General of Upper Canada. It is doubtful whether she would
have stayed, even if her marriage had not broken down beyond repair. From
her Winter Studies and Summer Rambles we get an early tourist’s view of
the country. Compared to Moodie and Traill, she is a “modern”, freely
using the description of landscape to project her moods and emotional
quandaries onto nature. Her mid-winter excursion by sleigh to Niagara
elicits in her associations that show clearly that she had read Thomson’s
winter:
I think that but for this journey I never could have imagined the
sublime desolation of a northern winter, and it has impressed me
strongly. In the first place, the whole atmosphere appeared as if
converted into snow, which fell in thick, tiny, starry flakes, till the
buffalo robes and furs about us appeared like swansdown, and the
105
IJCS /R
RIÉC
I
harness on the horses of the same delicate material The whole
earth was a white waste: the road, on which the sleigh-track was
only just perceptible, ran for miles in a straight line; on each side
rose the dark, melancholy pine-forest, slumbering drearily in the
hazy air. Between us and the edge of the forest were frequent
spaces of cleared or half-cleared land, spotted over with the black
charred stumps and blasted trunks of once magnificent trees
projecting from the snowdrift. These, which are perpetually recurring objects in a Canadian landscape, have a most melancholy
appearance.16
The main object of the trip, the Niagara Falls, was a great disappointment.
Her expectations, based on what she had “heard or read of Niagara”, were
pitched too high. In addition, her personal circumstances reduced her
capacity to be carried away by what was already then considered to be one
of the greatest scenes of the sublime in Canada, as is clear from the
testimony of nobody less than Mrs. Moodie:
Oh, for one hour alone with Nature, and her great masterpiece
Niagara! What solemn converse would the soul hold with its
Creator at such a shrine [...,] the] sublime Fall.17
Now, let us compare this passage with Anna Jameson’s experience at
Niagara:
I have no words for my utter disappointment: yet I have not the
presumption to suppose that all I have heard and read of Niagara
is false or exaggerated- that every expression of astonishment,
enthusiasm, rapture, is affectation or hyperbole. No! it must be my
own fault (WS, p. 42).
This proclamation is a further step in the cultivation of the appropriate
feeling when confronted with sublime or picturesque nature. Emotional
states are not so much projected onto or elicited from nature; rather, the
failure to respond to such natural phenomena in the prescribed way is taken
as an indication of one’s imaginative or emotional paralysis: “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” (WS, p. 42). With these Shakespearean selfdenigrations, Mrs. Jameson in 1838 punished herself for her failure to be a
good Niagara tourist!
It comes as no surprise to find that Frances Brooke, the Strickland sisters
Susanna and Catharine, and Anna Jameson, all brought from their genteel
English background a landscape aesthetics developed and practised in
Britain by Thomson and Wordsworth, Burke and Gilpin and their many
followers. What is surprising, however, is that some of the explorers and
106
Canadian Landscape as Seen by Brooke, Moodie and Others
adventurers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in their
paintings, sketches and reports reveal a similar preference for sublime and
picturesque features of landscape, even when travelling in the Canadian
West and North. The explorer or traveller, as I.S. MacLaren has shown,
carrying in his aesthetic baggage a quest for picturesque beauties, was
bound to
[...] run into trouble at two frontiers [..., the one] in today’s
Canadian provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta,
and the other between the boreal forest and the tundra in the
subarctic- where the characteristiclandscape diversity and
variety upon which the habit of formulating pictures depended
suddenly ended.18
However, realism was never the final test of this kind of landscape aesthetics. The British explorers of the Canadian North, trying to find the
Northwest Passage or survivors of the ill-fated Franklin expedition, were,
as I.S. MacLaren has pointed out, not only charting the Arctic by degrees
of longitude and latitude but also at the same time producing an aesthetic
map of the North by reference to the principles of the sublime and the
picturesque. 19 Neither of these principles could fully meet the imaginative
needs of the Arctic explorers:
The unquestioned belief in a harmony operating between man and
nature promises a certain blindness to the threat posed by an
environment unguided by the beneficent hand of the Deity [...] only
the apocalyptic efforts in the poetry of [...] Byron, Shelley and
Keats display an imaginative scope commensurate with that of
explorers.
To this list of Romantics could be added a Victorian, John Ruskin, who in
his long essay “The Nature of Gothic” supplied a principle complementary
to the sublime and the picturesque: “Gothic”. Ruskin, devising his own
highly idiosyncratic aesthetic map of Europe, extols the North as the home
of “Gothicness”, which to him means a spirit distilled from the severe
climate and the barrenness of the Northern landscape:
[...] and then, farther north still [...] see the earth heaves into mighty
masses of leaden rock and heathy moor, bordering with a broad
waste of gloomy purple that belt of field and wood, and splintering
into irregular and grisly islands amidst the northern seas, beaten
by storm, and chilled by ice-drift, and tormented by furious pulses
of contending tide, until the roots of the last forests fail from among
the hill ravines, and the hunger of the north wind bites their peaks
into barrenness; and, at last, the wall of ice, durable like iron, sets,
deathlike, its white teeth against us out of the polar twilight. 21
107
IJCS / RIÉC
Is it too fanciful to suggest that some of the Laurentian Shield landscapes
painted by the Group of Seven, such as A.Y. Jackson’s Terre sauvage (The
Northland), could have been inspired by this or similar passages from
Ruskin’s “The Nature of Gothic”? In contrast to the humanizing, domesticating effect of the picturesque the outstanding features of Ruskin’s
Gothicness are savageness and rigidity, the corollaries of a severe climate
that stunts the growth of vegetation but also causes a quickening of life that
gives a sharpness to the vital energies of “the tribes of the North”. Contemplating the vegetation that has braved the harshness of the Northern
climate can, according to Ruskin, even give a peculiar pleasure:
[...] we find pleasure in dwelling upon the crabbed, perverse, and
morose animation of plants that have known little kindness from
earth or heaven, but, season after season, have had their best
efforts palsied by frost, their brightest buds buried under snow,
and their goodliest limbs lopped by tempest.22
Was not this a more appropriate model for the aesthetic appreciation of
the subarctic landscape than the picturesque or the sublime? The question
of whether Ruskin’s essay was known to the Group of Seven painters
deserves further investigation. The desolation of the war-torn fields of
Flanders, with left its visible imprint on the imagination of A.Y. Jackson
and F.N. Varley, could have been reinforced by the image of the stormtossed barrenness of Ruskin’s North.
Let me at the end of this paper suggest the following tentative conclusions:
if it is indeed life that imitates art, as Oscar Wilde suggested, then Londoners had seen no fogs before Dickens, and sunset had gone unperceived
before Turner. If Oscar Wilde is right, “we need art so that we can see what
we are seeing”.23 But art that may thus open the eyes of one generation,
giving back to them the innocence of seeing, as it were, may enslave the next
generation by knowledge and tradition. The history of our perception of
the external world is, in fact, as Gombrich has shown,24 the history of an
ongoing process of disentangling what we see from what we know.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
108
See E.H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Presentation
(London: Phaidon Press, 1968), p. 251.
Cf. Walter John Hipple, The Beautiful The Sublime, and the Picturesque in EighteenthCentury British Aesthetic Theory (Carbondale: South Illinois U.P., 1957), p. 88 f.
The Complete Poetical Works of James Thomson, with notes by J. Logie Robertson, ed.
(London: Oxford U.P., 1951) pp. 215 ff.
Lives of the English Poets, vol. II (London: Everyman’s Library, 1964), p. 291.
See The Art of Discrimination (London: Routledge, 1964) Appendix I, pp. 477-501.
Frances Brooke, The History of Emily Montague/I769/(0ttawa: Carleton U.P., 1985),
p. 29 f. All further references to this work (EM) appear in the text.
Canadian Landscape as Seen by Brooke, Moodie and Others
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
109
Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, J.A. Work, ed.,
(New York: The Odyssey Press, 1940), p. 195 f.
Susanna Moodie, Roughing It in the Bush of Life in Canada[1852], Carl Ballstadt, ed.,
(Ottawa: Carleton U.P., 1988) p. 17. All further references to this work (RB) appear in
the text.
Catharine Parr Traill, The Backwoods of Canada/1836/Toronto: McClelland and
Stewart, 1966, New Canadian Library no. 51), p. 21. All further references to this work
(BW) appear in the text.
RD. MacDonald, “Design and Purpose”, Canadian Literature, no. 51 (Winter 1972),
p. 30.
William D. Gairdner, “Trail1 and Moodie: The Two Realities”, Journal of Canadian
Fiction I, 2 (1972), pp. 3542. Reprint II, 3 (1973) pp. 75-81.
David Jackel, “Mrs. Moodie and Mrs. Traill and the Fabrication of Canadian Tradition”, The Compass, no. 6 (Spring 1979), pp. l-22.
Catharine Parr Traill, “In the Canadian Woods”, Pearls and Pebbles (Toronto: William
Briggs, 1894) p. 146.
William Gilpin, Remarks on Forest Scenery and Other Woodland Viewsll791l. Quoted
from Alexander M. Ross, The Imprint of the Picturesque on Nineteenth-Century British
Fiction (Waterloo, Ont.: Laurier U.P., 1986), p. 10.
A photographic reproduction can be found in Maria Tippett, Emily Carr. A Biography
(Markham, Ont: Penguin, 1985), p. 228.
Anna Brownell Jameson, Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada/l838/(Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1965, New Canadian Library no. 46), p. 34 f. All further
references to this work
appear in the text.
Susanna Moodie, Life in the Clearing versus the Bush (Toronto: The New Canadian
Library, 1989), p. 309.
I.S. MacLaren, ‘The Limits of the Picturesque in British North America”, in: Journal
of Garden History, vol. 5 (1985) p. 100. British Columbia and the Rocky Mountains seem
to occupy a special place in the history of aesthetic mapping of Canada. The European
history of making the Alps and their rocky valleys accessible for an aesthetically pleasant
experience, a process extending from the end of the seventeenth to the beginning of the
nineteenth century, was repeated within the span of a couple of decades in British
Columbia and the Rockies. See Maria Tippett and Douglas Cole, From Desolation to
Splendour. Changing Perceptions of the British Columbia Landscape (Toronto/Vancouver: Clarke, Irwin & Co., 1977) pp. 15-46. Cf. also Majorie Hope Nicolson,
Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory (New York: W.W. Norton 1950) and F.K. Stanzel
“Das Bild der Alpen in der englischen Literatur des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts”, in:
Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrfit, vol. XIV, New Series, 1964, 121-138, for a
survey of the development of European attitudes to the Alps, which became seminar
for landscape aesthetics in the Western world.
Cf. I.S. MacLaren, “The Aesthetic Map of the North l845-1859”, in: Arctic. Journal of
the Arctic Institute of North America. vol. 38 (1985) pp. 89-103.
Ibid, p. 101.
The Works of John Ruskin. E.T. Cook and Alexander Wedderbum, eds., vol. X (London:
George Allen, 1904) p. 186 f.
Ibid, p. 241.
Craig Raine, “Soul [sic] Bellow”, London Review of Books, 12 Nov. 1987,3.
See Gombrich, Art and Illusion, ch. II: ‘Truth and Stereotype”, pp. 55-78.
Jean-François Chassay
Entre la nature et le livre, la ville. Le paysage
montréalais, à la lecture de quelques romans
québécois francophones
Résumé
Une étude fouillée du roman montréalais permet de constater que le paysage
urbain est indissociable de sa contrepartie rurale. De plus, l‘existence de
Montréal, comme entité urbaine, dépenddes espaces naturels qui l‘encerclent
et le traversent. Dans un premier temps, l’article rend compte de ces manifestations « contre-nature » qui s’expriment dans le roman et dessinent les
contours du paysage urbain. Dans un deuxième temps, il s’agit d’analyser de
manière plus précise, à partir de quelques titres choisis dans le corpus,
l’importance du livre comme médiateur entre monde urbain et monde rural.
On constate alors que la culture livresque vient dialectiser les deux univers,
provoquant une mise en abyme qui accroît les rapprochements.
Abstract
An exhaustive study of Montreal fiction-writing reveals the inseparable nature of the urban and rural landscapes. As well, as an urban entity, Montreal's
existence hinges on the natural spaces around it and in it. This article fïrst
examines the “anti-nature” sentiment evident in fiction and sketches an
outline of the urban landscape. Secondly, it provides a more specific analysis,
based on selected works of Montreal fiction, of the novel’s importance as a
mediator between the urban and rural worlds. It thus becomes evident that
the book culture creates a dialectic between the urban and rural worlds,
paradoxically heightening their similatities.
Il y avait échange d’esprit et de santé
entre la ville et la campagne. Les
échanges ont cessé. La ville a gardé
son bien, la campagne le sien, avec
le résultat qu‘elles ont tout perdu et
l'esprit et la santé. L'un ne va pas
sans l’autre. Il y a des échanges
nécessaires.
Jacques Ferron1
Bien que par certains côtés Montréal rappelle les grandes villes
américaines, son existence est indissociable des espaces naturels qui
l’encerclent, la grugent, et contre lesquels elle sembe toujours devoir se
défendre. C’est d’ailleurs ce qui rend parfois problématique l’existence
même de la ville dans le roman.
International Journal of Canadian Studies /Revue internationale d’études canadiennes
4, Fall/Automne 1991
IJCS/RIÉC
Cette opposition entre l’espace construit, urbain, et l’environnement
naturel sera brièvement examiné dans cet article à la lumière d’un corpus
constitué de quelques titres, en portant d’abord un regard panoramique
sur l’ensemble de la production romanesque montréalaise2. Cela permettra
de constater que les coupures chronologiques trop nettes et les cloisonnements étanches ne conviennent pas au roman, dont on ne parvient pas
aisément à cerner les contours3.
La parution de Bonheur d‘occasion4 le premier roman de Gabrielle Roy,
au milieu des années quarante, correspond, dans la tradition critique, à
« l’arrivée en ville » du roman québécois. Dans les faits, on constate que
la production des années trente accorde plus d’importance à Montréal que
celle des deux décennies suivantes. La ville mérite même moins d’attention
5
au cours des années soixante-dix . Le premier roman québécois6, publié en
1837, précède de moins de dix ans la parution de terre paternelle7 qui
accorde à Montréal un rôle considérable.
Évidemment, les statistiques ne suffisent pas à tout expliquer et prêtent à
interprétation. La constance de Montréal dans le corpus romanesque,
depuis la naissance de celui-ci, ne dit rien de l’importance réelle de la ville,
laquelle a subi de multiples avatars. En ce sens, on pourrait dire que les
dernières années semblent lui avoir été davantage favorables, puisqu’elle
se voit souvent métamorphosée en véritable personnage, « prolongement »
du protagoniste romanesque, auquel celui-ci parvient à s’identifier plus
commodément. Pourtant, encore aujourd’hui, il n’est pas rare de voir dans
Montréal une présence en creux, espace vide et sans dynamique.
En tout état de cause, la place exacte accordée à Montréal dans le roman
ne peut s’étudier uniquement sur des bases statistiques ou même en
considérant l’espace accru qui serait imparti à la ville au fil des années. Il
faut tâcher d’examiner la fonction du territoire montréalais dans le roman
pour comprendre la portée de son rôle. Ici intervient l’importance d’un
corpus romanesque étranger à la ville, repoussoir qui permet de la mieux
distinguer.
On a longtemps affirmé que le roman québécois avait été jusqu’à une
époque toute récente essentiellement rural. Fortement didactique, il
défendait la colonisation et se tenait loin de la ville, monde du stupre, de la
vie facile et de l’américanisation. En réalité, sans nier son importance, le
roman du terroir ne joue pas le rôle hégémonique qu’on lui accorde
spontanément pour tout le XIXe siècle et les premières décennies du XXe.
Les romans moralistes sont innombrables, mais ne s’accordent pas tous à
la thématique terrienne.
Il serait un peu simpliste de croire qu’à une période rurale aurait tout
naturellement succédé une période urbaine dans laquelle nous serions
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Entre la nature et le livre, la ville
dorénavant plongés. Mais l’ambiguïté créée par la lecture du corpus tient
en premier lieu au statut même de la métropole, dont l’importance symbolique et politique permet, par exemple, à Alain Médam d’écrire que
Montréal est « d’une certaine façon l’envers du Québec : son image
inversée8 ».
Notion abstraite, espace débordant largement ses frontières géographique
et administrative, Montréal devient d’abord le lieu d’une lutte entre des
aires antithétiques. Si l’opposition entre ville et campagne – qui renvoie
souvent dans le roman québécois à l’antinomie entre la culture et la nature
– a toujours été un thème important, on oublie qu’elle prend souvent place
sur l’île de Montréal. C’est justement lorsqu’elle se situe au coeur de
l’espace urbain que l’existence de la ville est problématique dans la narration.
La campagne en ville
Fondateur à plus d’un titre, l’ouvrage de Patrice Lacombe mérite de ce
point de vue une lecture attentive. La terre paternelle, premier roman
montréalais, est également le premier roman de la terre. Toute l’action se
situe sur l’île de Montréal, mais le lecteur traverse des territoires qui
semblent solidement cloisonnés.
La famille Chauvin cultive une terre dans le nord de l’île de Montréal, près
de la rivière des Prairies. Le domaine agricole, situé dans un espace
idyllique, « lieu charmant », est néanmoins enraciné en pleine nature
sauvage près d’un bois et du « bourdonnement sourd et majestueux des
eaux 9». La récurrence du nom de Montréal, à quatre reprises au cours des
deux premières pages, indique bien la proximité de la cité, de ses habitants
et de ses marchés. Malgré le décor champêtre, nous sommes tout près de
la ville.
Déçu par le départ de son fils cadet, Charles, le père décide de s’attacher
l’aîné en lui vendant tous ses biens. En revanche, celui-ci doit payer une
rente à son géniteur. Les affaires, cependant, périclitent pour cause de
mauvaise gestion. Le père, qui a repris les choses en main, décide de louer
sa terre et d’ouvrir un commerce dans « un village assez florissant dans le
nord du district de Montréal10». À la suite d’une faillite, la famille s’exile à
Montréal, plus précisément dans le faubourg Saint-Laurent, où elle sombre
dans la misère. Lacombe inaugure ainsi dans le roman la mode des
déménagements, trait caractéristique de la population montréalaise11.
Morale, cette histoire se termine de manière heureuse : le fils cadet, de
retour après quinze ans, vole au secours de ses parents et de sa soeur et
rachète la terre familiale. Sortant des bois et projetant une image tout à fait
folklorique 12, Charles donne l’impression qu’à travers lui, la tradition
intervient pour sauver la famille des griffes du monde moderne et la
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ramener à ses racines ancestrales (on apprend au début du roman que La
Terre paternelle appartient à la famille Chauvin depuis plusieurs
générations).
Comme cela se produit généralement dans les romans opposant de manière
manichéenne la vie rurale à la vie citadine, l’organisation spatiale suggère
qualités et défauts des différentes zones territoriales. L’espace urbain,
étriqué, étouffe ses habitants. Les cours d’eaux s’adaptent à
l’environnement : près des bois, la rivière des Prairies est belle et majestueuse. Mais au contact de Montréal, le fleuve semble timide, sans vie :
« Après avoir promené pendant plusieurs jours ses eaux sombres et
fumantes, [il] s’était peu à peu ralenti dans son cours, et enfin était devenu
immobile et glacé, présentant une partie de sa surface unie, et l’autre tout
hérissée de glaçons verdâtres 13. » A Montréal, l’ordre est surtout
géométrique et il écrase; à la campagne, il est naturel et purifie (c’est l’ordre
familial, par exemple : il se dérègle lorsque le fils cadet s’engage dans la
compagnie du Nord-Ouest à la suite d’une conversation dans une auberge
de la ville).
La terre paternelle propose trois niveaux de lecture de la métropole - ou
plutôt de ce qu’elle deviendra lorsqu’elle s’étendra sur une bonne partie de
l’île : forte présence, au moins symbolique, de la nature (le roman
commence à la campagne, dans un environnement naturel); importance du
village (c’est devenu un lieu commun de dire qu’une des particularités de
Montréal tient au fait qu’elle se compose d’une agglomération de villages,
de « petites patries » ayant chacune leur personnalite 14); et enfin, centre
urbain considérable.
Ces strates bien dessinées de la topologie urbaine vont être bouleversées
dans les romans qui vont suivre, sans disparaître pour autant. On peut se
demander si la nouvelle de Normand Rousseau intitulée « La ville est une
jungle 15 » n’est pas la caricature du fantasme romanesque montréalais : des
centaines d’arbres poussent de manière tout à fait anarchique dans une ville
où la nature reprend ses droits... Dans une moindre mesure et de façon
moins spectaculaire, c’est aussi le voeu des personnages de M y r i a m
Première, qui voit le jardin comme un espace « qui abolit la ville 16».
Où se trouve donc la frontière entre la cité et ce qui l’entoure ? La question
ne se pose pas uniquement pour le roman publié au XIX e siècle comme La
terre paternelle. Si Montréal se présente pour certains comme une ville de
gratte-ciel, force est de reconnaître que cette « ville américaine » se trouve
souvent en contradiction avec elle-même.
Il va de soi que toute ville se développe et élargit ses frontières en
métamorphosant la campagne environnante, construisant là où auparavant
le travail de la nature semblait suffisant. Cela n’empêche toutefois pas de
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Entre la nature et le livre, la ville
souligner certaines particularités du développement de Montréal qui accentuent les affinités entre territoires urbain et rural. Trois phénomènes
apparaissent en ce sens particulièrement signifiants.
L’expansion de Montréal s’étant produite tardivement, la prégnance de la
« campagne montréalaise » est encore vive à une époque où la croissance
du centre-ville permet pourtant de croire à l’existence d’une agglomération
urbaine importante. La coexistence des deux mondes s’est poursuivie
pendant longtemps comme en témoigne le corpus romanesque. Dans Le
débutant d’Arsène Bessette 17 , publié dès 1914, Montréal apparaît déjà
comme une jungle urbaine. Phénomène similaire dans Le poids du jour de
Ringuet18, roman dans lequel le personnage principal se retrouve à
Montréal au début de la Grande Guerre. Les premières sensations du jeune
Michel Garneau, lors de son arrivée, évoquent des scènes traditionnelles
de la grande ville nord-américaine : « rumeur immense », « gens apparemment tous pressés, tous courants », « tourbillon » dans lequel « [Garneau]
cherchait vainement un visage qui ne lui fût étranger. Il aimait (...) cette
ville énorme qui l’écrasait de sa masse, il s’y perdait19 . » Comparable à celle
de New York, l’image projetée de Montréal est évidemment exagérée, mais
significative de ce qu’on veut montrer de la ville. Parallèlement à cela,
jusqu’au milieu des années soixante, plusieurs romans dorment l’impression
qu’à Montréal subsiste de persistantes traces du village campagnard,
comme cette affirmation du narrateur d’un roman de Jean Forest20tend à
le démontrer : « La délimitation ville-campagne était (...) mouvante à
l’extrême : à Montréal les rues grouillaient de chevaux, leur crottin était
partout... » Schizophrène, la ville se bat contre elle-même, contre ce qui
s’oppose à elle et en même temps la constitue.
La configuration des lieux offre une deuxième particularité. En découpant
la ville en « villages » quasi autonomes, en faisant du quartier le centre parfois exclusif - de la ville, de nombreux romans font disparaître celle-ci.
La « petite patrie », pour reprendre une expression maintenant répandue,
ne devient pas un microcosme de la ville, mais l’une de ses excroissances,
un univers qui se nie comme noyau urbain, puisqu’il n’affiche pas
d’interdépendance avec le(s) centre(s). S’il est possible de voir la ville
comme le lieu de la quantité, où les possibilités de rencontres et d e
rassemblements se multiplient, il faut alors reconnaître que de nombreux
romans montréalais le sont en définitive très peu. Les séjours hors du
quartier se métamorphosent souvent en véritables voyages à l’étranger,
comme si la ville n’appartenait pas aux citadins qui s’y sentent étrangers.
La grosse femme d’à côté est enceinte21 de Michel Tremblay en dorme un
exemple éloquent. Les ménagères du plateau Mont-Royal ne sortent de
leur quartier que le vendredi ou le samedi soir pour se rendre jusque chez
Eaton, symbole même de l’exotisme. Elles croisent là, et nulle part ailleurs,
les femmes de Saint-Henri. Ces deux mondes semblables à bien des points
de vue - deux quartiers ouvriers majoritairement francophones - ne se
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rencontrent, et fugacement, que dans les allées du magasin à rayons
transforme en un no man’s land permettant d’identifier et d’imaginer le
monde extérieur. L’existence de celui-ci reste aléatoire. Ce qui compte
vraiment, c’est la vie du quartier et son environnement immédiat, concret,
tactile même. Cette familiarité isole le quartier de la ville.
Analysant Le matou22, Simon Harel arrive à des conclusions analogues en
utilisant plutôt la figure de l’étranger.
Ce livre que d’aucuns ont perçu comme un « roman urbain » (...)
semble beaucoup plus symptomatique des idéologèmes que l’on
retrouve notamment dans le roman du terroir. C’est le cas du motif
de la filiation, des alliances ethniques (...), qui permettront de
vaincre l’étranger. On ne rencontre plus, comme dans le roman du
terroir, cet idéal d’un territoire à préserver et à transmettre aux
descendants. Cependant, [le restaurant] la Binerie représente ce
désir de conquête économique qui met en scène un espace
contraint, réduit au périmètre familial, de manière à refouler
l’étranger 23.
Bien que situés sur le territoire montréalais, de nombreux romans n’axent
pas leur problématique en fonction de la ville et en ce sens les contours
qu’ils tracent de celle-ci ont une importance relative pour leur propos. Mais
si le cadre de la narration ne joue qu’un rôle superficiel, il demeure
symptomatique de l’image projetée de Montréal.
Enfin, à cause de la situation géographique et de la toponymie de la ville,
la nature y fait sans cesse retour. De manière paradoxale, le lieu le plus
urbain, le plus connoté de Montréal est une montagne. C’est le seul endroit
d’où l’on peut avoir une vue panoramique du territoire montréalais24. C’est
souvent grâce au Mont Royal que Montréal parvient à exister vraiment.
Rien de fortuit dans le fait que Roger Viau ait pu intituler un de ses romans
Au milieu, la montagne 25, car c’est elle qui fonde la ville, en constitue le
centre, le cœur.
Le roman urbain, montréalais, est indissociable de ce qui compose son
exact envers. Roman du terroir et de la ville s’opposent et se complètent
comme un dessin d’Escher. L’un permet de découvrir l’autre, mais lui sert
aussi de masque, image palimpseste qu’il faut déchiffrer pour résoudre les
ambiguïtés. Pour comprendre la culture, telle qu’elle apparaît dans l’espace
montréalais, il faut avoir en tête ce lien très solide qui l’unit à un espace
naturel (ou qui se lit comme tel).
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Entre la nature et le livre, la ville
L’importance du livre
Cette opposition ou cette complémentarité entre les deux univers est
dialectisée culturellement par la présence du livre, lequel permet de penser
différemment le rapport entre mondes urbain et rural.
Revenons encore une fois à La terre paternelle. Tout le développement
diégétique est provoqué par le départ du fils cadet pour les « pays hauts ».
Cette décision repose moins sur une réflexion rationnelle que sur un désir
attisé par des histoires entendues à l’auberge, dont Charles a subi la
fascination. Dans ce roman réaliste, à fonction représentative, la scène de
l’auberge s’énonce comme une brèche dans le réel. Elle entraîne deux effets
textuels nouveaux : d’une part, le décor enfumé, indistinct, est décrit de
manière floue, vaguement onirique, espace où la fiction peut naître; d’autre
part, en se contentant de suggérer ce qui s’y raconte, Lacombe crée des
« blancs » dans le texte qui représentent en fait des stimuli de lecture.
La démarcation est loin d’être nette dans le texte à cause, notamment, du
style prosaïque de Lacombe. Ce qui importe, c’est de constater l’irruption
de la fiction dans La terre paternelle, au sein de ce lieu clos, hors du monde
(lieu de voyage, de passage) qu’est l’auberge. Cette fiction n’est pas
innocente. C’est bien la nature sauvage (ce qui n’est pas modelé, construit)
qui vient embraser l’imagination de Charles. La nature vient faire pour la
première fois une incursion dans le pasage montréalais. Lieu clos, propice
au travail de l’imaginaire, l’auberge peut être lue comme une métaphore
du livre qui viendra souvent rapatrier la nature en ville.
On se rend compte, à la lecture du corpus romanesque, que le livre sert
souvent de médiation entre le monde urbain et le monde rural. La culture
livresque vient dialectiser les deux univers, provoquant une mise en
abyme26 qui accroît les rapprochements. Le lien entre la ville et la campagne ne repose plus alors uniquement sur des données thématiques et
sémiotiques, mais également intertextuelles. Quelques romans publiés au
cours des dernières décennies serviront à la démonstration.
De la nature comme texte
Dans La bagarre 27, Gérard Bessette met en scène un Américain du nom
de Weston qui séjourne à Montréal pour rédiger une thèse de sociologie
sur les Canadiens français. L’action se passe au lendemain de la guerre, un
siècle exactement après la publication de La terre paternelle. Weston
occupe ses loisirs en allant à La Bougrine, un cabaret « qui différait des
autres boîtes montréalaises28 ». Cet établissement joue dans le roman un
rôle identique à celui de l’auberge dans La terre paternelle, reconduisant
dans la ville, encore une fois, l’image d’un Grand Nord sauvage, exotique,
où le réel et la fiction s’entrelacent.
IJCS/RIÉC
Au lieu d’un décor impersonnel, genre américain, l’intérieur
représentait un camp de bûcherons. Les murs étaient en bois rond.
D’énormes solives rugueuses couraient le long du plafond où se
balançaient quelques fanaux. Tout autour de la salle pendaient des
bottes de trappeurs, des raquettes à neige, des « capots d’étoffe
du pays » et des souliers de boeuf. Les longues tables, en planches
mal rabotées, pouvant recevoir une vingtaine de convives, étaient
flanquées de sièges en forme de tonneaux. Les garçons portaient
tuques à pompons, mocassins et costumes de coureurs de bois 29.
À lire cette description, on imaginerait Charles sortir de La Bougrine, tant
il semble y avoir adéquation entre ce lieu et l’allure du fils Chauvin lorsqu’il
revient du Grand Nord. Les signes renvoient au roman de Lacombe non
pas à cause du rappel folklorique - ils sont nombreux dans le roman
québécois - , mais justement parce qu’ils s’inscrivent en plein cœur de la
ville.
Ce n’est pas pour rien que Sillery, comparse de Weston et Lebœuf, entonne
en ces lieux (et à tue-tête) Un Canadien errant30 (dans une version parodique) : nous ne sommes pas à Montréal, mais dans le lieu de la quête, de
l’errance, qui peut rappeler l’exil, mais surtout la solitude du voyageur à
l’époque où l’exploration du territoire consumait la vie des Européens
nouvellement arrivés. La Bougrine ressemble à un (mauvais) livre, où le
folklorique a pris le pas sur l’historique.
C’est pourtant à ce lieu que s’accroche Weston lorsqu’il se rend compte
que sa thèse piétine. En faisant porter son regard d’étranger sur le paysage
montréalais, Weston voulait découvrir la spécificité culturelle des
Canadiens français. Il verse, au contraire, dans le folklore, recherchant le
pittoresque et tombant dans la caricature. En focalisant peu à peu son
regard sur La Bougrine, il en vient à voir Montréal à travers ce qui est le
plus éloigné du monde urbain, cette reproduction kitsch de la vie dans le
Grand Nord.
Ce détournement de sens va encore plus loin, puisqu’il affiime qu’en
définitive, pour mieux comprendre cette culture étrangère, il aurait dû
quitter Montréal pour « s’enfoncer au plus creux de la campagne
québécoise, chez les habitants, comme Louis Hémon31. » En renvoyant à
l’auteur de Maria Chapdelaine, Weston fait de son livre en devenir, de sa
thèse potentielle, une fiction. Par la médiation de Louis Hémon, ce travail
scientifique se transforme en espérance : celle de pouvoir décrire un jour
un univers idyllique dont la principale qualité serait d’être l’exact envers du
monde urbain américain. Car il ne faut pas se leurrer, c’est bien là le
problème de Weston : Montréal, univers urbanise, ressemble davantage à
Saint-Louis ou à Boston qu’à l’arrière-pays.
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Le réseau des signes dans La bagarre situe avec précision le lecteur dans
un grand centre urbain. Pourtant, à travers La Bougrine, ce mirage, utopie
d’un monde dissous, on voit apparaître en palimpseste un autre univers
romanesque qui conduit de La terre patemetle jusqu’à Maria Chapdelaine.
Weston voudrait bien réécrire à sa façon Maria Chapdelaine. Il arrive
cependant trop tard. Montréal, aussi bien que le Québec dans son entier,
a beaucoup trop changé pour que ce projet de fiction soit viable.
Si l’ombre de Louis Hémon se profile dans La bagarre, ce sont davantage
les contours de l’œuvre de Germaine Guèvremont qui se dessinent dans
Les terres noires, premier roman de Jean-Paul Fugère32. « La ville est
fermée par mille murailles successives et les amants prisonniers ne se
retrouvent que dans la mort33 », écrit Jacques Ferron. Or, dans le roman
de Fugère, les murs sont invisibles, délimitant grossièrement un territoire
dont l’imprécision et le flou imposent une lecture équivoque de Montréal.
« Le tramway Papineau grinçait là-bas et retournait en ville après avoir
versé ses voyageurs dans le champ34. » Ainsi s’ouvre ce roman qui, d’entrée
de jeu, situe le lecteur dans et hors de Montréal. La mention de la rue
Sagard, un peu plus loin à la première page, laisse entendre que le roman
commence dans le quartier Villeray (mais est-ce bien la même rue ?) sans
qu’on sache à quelle époque. Le champ laisse croire qu’il s’agit d’un
faubourg. Les indications toponymiques seront par la suite presque inexistantes.
La force d’evocation du roman, situé dans un contexte d’après-guerre (la
Première ? la Deuxième ?) tient à cette ambiguïté spatio-temporelle
constante et jamais démentie. Le simple nom de « terres noires » paronomase de « terroir » - qui désigne le quartier, suppose un territoire
agricole. L’organisation des lieux et les rituels sociaux confortent le lecteur
dans son impression qu’il s’agit d’une petite paroisse rurale à l’image de
celles du début du siècle. Pourtant, si les terres noires sont constamment
opposées à la ville - l’Étranger y habite, les problèmes y naissent -,
celle-ci impose sa présence de manière réitérée. Les rues Panet et SainteCatherine semblent aux portes du « pays », expression qui revient souvent
pour désigner le quartier. « Aux terres noires, où l’on vivait en marge de la
ville », écrit le narrateur. Pourtant, on a l’impression que la ville est une
vague chimère, un lieu flou auquel le quartier n’est rattaché que par le
tramway Papineau, dont le chauffeur sert de passeur.
C’est dans ce contexte qu’intervient « l’inconnue », fuyant vers les terres
noires, poursuivie par un homme de la ville. Devant la réaction des résidents
du quartier qui la protègent, celui-ci déclare qu’il reviendra. Pendant trois
jours, le quartier sera à l’affût, guettant « l’assaut de la ville ».
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L’inconnue est une « survenant » qui calque les traits du célèbre personnage de Germaine Guèvremont35. Comme ce dernier, elle est le garant de
l’unité de l’action du roman. Cette étrangère dont on ne sait ni le nom ni
les raisons de la fuite fait irruption dans un monde fermé et perturbe, par
sa seule présence, l’univers casanier des terres noires, provoquant batailles,
suspicions, rapprochements ou désunions. En partant, le Survenant laissait
derrière lui deux individus déchirés qu’il avait cependant révélés à euxmême : Angélina et Didace. L’inconnue suscite une semblable réaction
chez Philéas, un adolescent de 19 ans, et chez le vieil Hector Robichaud.
Toutefois, à la différence du personnage éponyme du roman de
Guèvremont qui part sans donner de raison, laissant derrière lui un
souvenir douloureux, l’inconnue du roman de Fugère est chassée des terres
noires parce qu’on la soupçonne d’être danseuse dans un club de la rue
Panet. La nouvelle, jamais confirmée, suffit à dégrader le mythe de la belle
étrangère, personnification d’un rêve que le Survenant, au contraire, n’aura
jamais effacé.
L’inconnue joue un rôle métonymique dans le roman, incarnant la ville
auprès des membres de la communauté - Montréal n’évoque-t-il pas
l’inconnu pour toute une tradition du roman du terroir ? Elle comble le
désir de la ville et devient objet de pulsion chez ceux pour qui la vie,
monotone, ne peut plus être nourrie par les terres noires. Pourtant,
Montréal est toujours en creux, c’est le lieu auquel on refuse toujours en
définitive d’appartenir, préférant de loin dans ce roman le vase clos du
quartier. Tout le monde, dans la paroisse, aurait voulu retenir le Survenant.
À la fin de Les terres noires, rares sont ceux qui refusent de participer à la
cabale contre l’inconnue, parce que la ville est toujours un danger.
Dans L ‘hiver de force36 de Réjean Ducharme, l’importance de Montréal ne
fait pas de doute pour Nicole et André Ferron et n’offre aucun danger. On
y est bel et bien chez soi. La description de la ville n’épargne rien : à côté
d’une mention du Musée d’art contemporain, par exemple, on a droit à des
dizaines de commerces en tous genres, de la bijouterie Gold Star à la
pharmacie Labow, de TV Bargains Illimited au Laval Bar-B-Q. La
présence physique de la ville est essentielle. Le regard en alerte ne propose
jamais la description comme une pause, car l’environnement urbain est un
prolongement du narrateur37 et la marche à travers la ville appelle la
participation : « On marche en corrigeant les fautes des enseignes des deux
palissades de petits commerces qui encaissent la rue Mont-Royal. On
marche en criant comme à l’encan les noms des autos stationnées en files
ininterrompues, comme au flanc d’un canal38. »
On en vient à oublier que près d’un quart du roman se passe à l’extérieur
de la ville, plus précisément à Notre-Dame-du-Bord-du-Lac. L’importance
de cet épisode n’est pourtant pas négligeable. La rupture avec Montréal se
sera faite en douceur grâce à la présence lancinante, à l’époque des
120
Entre la nature et le livre, la ville
flâneries montréalaises, de La flore Zaurentienne du père Marie-Victorin.
L’ouvrage didactique vient aplanir les différences entre le monde urbain et
la nature, abattant les cloisons qui s’imposent spontanément dans l’esprit
entre la ville et la nature.
L ‘hiver de force offre une structure textuelle fragmentée et volontairement
désordonnée, à l’image de la ville, éclatée et en mouvement 39, annihilant
l’utopie d’une stabilité saisissable du monde, ce que paradoxalement la
volonté de description et de représentation du narrateur pourrait laisser
croire possible. La lecture de La flore Zaurentienne, au contraire, se fait de
manière linéaire et selon un ordre qui impose autrement la stabilité. Elle
se poursuit tout au long du roman à intervalles réguliers. Comme d’autres
signes récurrents du texte, l’ouvrage vient cimenter une narration qui relève
d’abord de la fugacité et où la causalité du récit semble sans importance.
Le rôle dévolu à ce livre ne se limite pas à cela cependant. Médiatisée par
celui-ci, la nature étend ses ramifications au cœur de l’univers urbain du
couple Ferron. La flore Zaurentienne encadre le texte ducharmien - offrant
le titre des deux premières parties de L’hiver de force - et sert de mode
d’emploi pour le séjour final à Notre-Dame-du-Bord-du-Lac40. Mais les
Ferron n’ont plus à en mentionner la lecture : le texte et le réel coïncident
dorénavant. Véritables prototypes du citadin, André et Nicole Ferron ne
peuvent pourtant supporter l’artifice et le mensonge de tous ceux qui,
comme eux, se nourrissent de la ville. Plutôt que de les dénoncer - ils
devraient alors se dénoncer eux-mêmes, ce qu’ils font au début du roman
pour ne plus avoir à en parler - ils se réfugient dans un ouvrage qui célèbre
une réalité étrangère à Montréal.
Plus récemment, à la fin des années soixante-dix, Michel Tremblay donnait
avec La grosse femme d’à côté est enceinte, premier volume des « Chroniques du plateau Mont-Royal », un roman dans lequel l’intertexte vient
ébranler le réalisme de surface tout en confrontant univers rural et urbain
au sein même de la ville.
Située sur le plateau Mont-Royal, cette histoire familiale célèbre la vie de
quartier et tient la ville à distance. « La grosse femme » qui donne son titre
au roman, enceinte de sept mois et incapable de quitter sa chambre,
demande à son beau-frère Édouard des nouvelles de Montréal : « Viens
me conter tes nuittes en ville. T’es le seul qui sort, qui voit du monde...41»
Seul à ne pas vivre uniquement pour le quartier - il travaille même pour
le magasin Ogilvy’s, dans l’ouest de la ville - , sa condition d’homosexuel
le marginalise et justifie par la négative sa non-appartenance exclusive au
« clan » du plateau Mont-Royal. Or, Montréal est d’autant plus présent que
tout et tous semblent vouloir le nier.
Nombreux sont les personnages dont le narrateur rappelle les origines
campagnardes. Victoire, la mère d’Edouard, déclare : « Quand j’vois plus
121
IJCS/RIÉC
que dix arbres ensemble, mon cœur explose comme si j’tais pour mourir...
ça fait quarante-cinq ans que chus prisonnière d’la grande ville pis j’me sus
42
jamais habituée ! » Elle ne fait alors qu’affiimer à haute voix ce que la
plupart des autres, arrivés depuis peu à Montréal (quelques années ou une
génération), ressentent au plus profond d’eux-mêmes.
Cette nostalgie du monde rural renvoie à Bonheur d’occasion, dont l’action
se passe à la même époque, et dont La grosse femme... parait être un double
décalé 43. Le couple central, composé de la grosse femme et de Gabriel,
rappelle Rose-Anna et Lazarius dans le roman de Gabrielle Roy. Le mari
est faible, mou, et la femme prend toutes les décisions, corrige les fautes et
les maladresses. Rose-Arma, malgré sa grossesse, pouvait cependant se
déplacer et travailler, ce que ne peut faire la grosse femme.
Cette lecture croisée surgit d’autant plus naturellement que la grosse
femme est elle-même une lectrice vorace qui utilise le livre comme une
ouverture vers l’imaginaire. L’exotisme de Burg-Jagarl, dont la lecture
ponctue ses journées, la fait sortir de la ville. Chaque jour, elle rêve en
soupirant à Acapulco44.
La culture livresque se voit encadrée et dynamisée par des légendes qui
renvoient à la fois à une mythologie québécoise et occidentale. Sur la rue
Fabre, où habitent les familles du roman, résident également une femme et
ses trois filles dont la singularité se découvre rapidement. Invisibles à tous
et à toutes, elles tricotent inlassablement. Une lecture attentive permet de
reconnaître les trois Parques (latines) ou les Moïra (grecques) et leur mère,
la Nuit. Les Parques « sont perçues comme fileuses, tissant la trame de la
vie, réglant sa durée de uis la naissance jusqu’à la mort. L’une file, l’autre
enroule, l’autre coupe45 . »
Les Parques, « habitant elles aussi la campage à l’époque agraire, (...)
avaient déménagé comme leurs voisins en ville46. » C’est ce qui explique la
connivence de la mère avec Josaphat-Violon, frère de Victoire, conteur,
faiseur de légendes et véritable légende vivante. « Violoneux », spécialiste
des « gigues », Josaphat-Violon habite maintenant Montréal mais porte en
lui les idéologèmes du terroir et du folklore. « Réponse locale » aux Parques
demeurant dans la maison en face, il peut se reconnaître en elle. Son
imagination lui permet de voir ce qui est invisibles au yeux des autres.
Lieu centripète, la ville attire : tout s’y concentre et s’y retrouve. En ce sens,
la culture subit dans ce lieu de la communication un télescopage dont La
grosse femme d’à côté est enceinte donne un exemple. Sous le texte réaliste,
un autre texte impose sa présence.
122
Entre la nature et le livre, la ville
Un lieu hybride
La lecture qu’a privilégie cet article à travers l’analyse de certains textes
visait d’abord à démontrer le caractère hybride que prend souvent le
paysage montréalais dans le roman. Tout au long de son histoire, on se rend
compte que l’espace dévolu à la nature n’a jamais cessé d’affirmer
l’importance de celle-ci dans la ville, et que le caractère urbain de Montréal
doit souvent composer avec les traces profondes d’un univers rural. Cette
constante du paysage renvoie à l’histoire du Québec dont la mosaïque
territoriale de la ville rend compte.
Elle permet également d’interroger autrement le concept d’américanité,
récurrent dans le discours critique au cours de la dernière décennie, mais
rarement explicité, sur lequel porte actuellement nos travaux. Dans quelle
mesure l’isotopie de la frontière, omniprésente dans la littérature
américaine, a-t-elle des incidences sur le roman montréalais où elle joue,
dans un autre contexte, un rôle aussi important ? Quelle corrélation y a-t-il
lieu de faire entre l’importance accordée à la nature dans les romans
montréalais (et québécois en général) et américains (de la région de la
Nouvelle-Angleterre par exemple) ? Le paysage américain, tel qu’on le
retrouve dans le roman du XIXe siècle, a-t-il eu une influence dans le roman
francophone québécois ? L’importance du quartier ou du « village » dans
le roman montréalais francophone a sa contrepartie dans le roman urbain
afro-américain 47. P e u t - o n r a p p r o c h e r p o u r a u t a n t l e s a c t a n t s
romanesques ? Ces questions, parmi bien d’autres, ouvrent un champ très
vaste à la recherche.
Par ailleurs, cette hybridation, dont nous avons voulu faire la
démonstration, devient plus signifiante sur le plan littéraire lorsque la
correspondance ville-campagne se double dans certains romans d’une
correspondance entre le réel et la fiction. Ouvrir le territoire montréalais
par le biais du livre permet d’afficher une filiation qui est également
littéraire. À la fonction représentative s’ajoute alors une fonction intertextuelle qui rend compte non plus seulement de l’évolution d’un milieu de
vie, mais aussi de la succession des générations de romanciers et de
l’influence réciproque des sémiotiques urbaine et rurale dans le corpus
littéraire. D’autres romans, notamment parmi ceux publiés au cours de la
dernier-e décennie, pourraient sans doute enrichir cette interprétation48.
Notes
1.
2.
123
Jacques Ferron. Contes. Montréal, HMH, « L’arbre », 1968, p. 127.
Voir notre Bibliographie descriptive du roman montréalais, rédigée avec la collaboration
d’Annick Andrès et de Louise Frappier et publiée au Département d’études françaises
de l’Université de Montréal. On retrouvera dans l’introduction, sous une forme
différente, certaines des hypothèses développées ici.
IJCS/RIÉC
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
124
Le corpus des années quatre-vingts, plus connu, a volontairement été laisse de côté.
Puisqu’il s’agissait de démontrer notamment que le corpus montréalais a toujours été
important, nous avons privilégie, à travers l’analyse de certains textes, une approche
diachronique.
Gabrielle Roy. Bonheur d’occasion. Montréal, Editions Pascal, 1945, 2 volumes, 532 p.
[Montréal, Stanké, 1978, 396 p.]
Sur 106 romans publies au cours des années trente (ceci excluant les romans feuilletons
ou les romans populaires non répertoriés par la Bibliothèque nationale), 28 prennent
place à Montréal, ce qui équivaut en pourcentage à 26 p. 100 du total, contre 19 p. 100
au cours des deux décennies suivantes. Apres une augmentation notable pendant les
années soixante (31 p. 100), ce pourcentage descend à 25 p. 100 dans les années
soixante-dix, puis remonte à 28 p. 100 durant la dernière décennie.
Il s’agit de L‘influce d’un livre de Philippe Aubert de Gaspé fils (réédité chez Opuscule
en 1980).
Patrice Lacombe. La terre paternelle. Montréal, Fides, 1981,105 p. Il s’agit de la dernière
réédition.
Alain Médam. Montréal interdite. Paris, PUF, 1978, p. 12. Cette hypothèse rejoint
indirectement celle énoncée par Jean-Claude Marsan : parlant de New York, il écrit
« qu’on peut demander si elle n’est pas le prototype d’un phénomène Cmergeant, celui
des grandes métropoles dont la vie complexe et autonome la distingue de plus en plus
des Ctats nationaux dont elles font partie. » (Jean-Claude Maman. Montréal. Une
esquisse du futur. Montréal, IQRC, 1983, p. 28-29). Compte tenu de sa situation
particulière dans la société québécoise, Montréal pourrait apparaître comme un
exemple de ce type de ville.
Patrice Lacombe, La terrepatemelle. Op. cit, p. 16.
Patrice Lacombe. Ibid, p. 57.
Voir à ce sujet le chapitre intitulé « Des déménageurs, des locataires » dans JeanFrançois Chassay et Monique LaRue, Promenades 1ittéraires dans Montréal, Montréal,
Québec/Amérique, 1989, p. 199-202.
« Il portait des pantalons de grosse toile du pays, que retenait une large ceinture de laine
diversement coloriée, et dont les franges touffues retombaient sur ses genoux. Ses pieds
étaient chausses de souliers de peau d’élan artistement brodes en poil de porc-épic de
diverses couleurs, et ornés de petits cylindres de métal d’où s’échappaient des touffes
de poils de chevreuil teints en rouge. » (p. 83)
Ibid, p. 61.
On consultera à ce propos le livre de Jean-Claude Marsan intitule Montréal, une esquisse
du futur, Montreal, IQRC, 1983, p. 31-38.
Dans un recueil qui s’intitule Dans la démesure dupossible. Montréal, CLF, 1983, 256 p.
Francine Noël. Myriam Premère. Montréal, VLB, 1987, p. 422.
Arsène Bessette. Le débutant. Montréal, HMH, 1977, 283 p. Ceci constitue la dernière
édition publiée.
Ringuet. Le poids du jour. Montréal, Variétés, 1949,410 p.
Ibid, p. 122-123.
Jean Forest. Le mur de Berlin, P.Q. Montréal, Quinze, 1983, p. 31.
Michel Tremblay. La grosse femme d’à côté est enceinte. Montréal, Leméac, 1978, 329 p.
Yves Beauchemin. Le matou. Montréal, Québec/Amérique, 1981, 583 p.
Simon Harel. Le voleur deparcours. Montréal, Le Préambule, 1989, p. 256.
Le contexte est donc très différent de celui de villes comme Paris, qu’on voit du haut de
la tour Eiffel, ou New York, qui s’impose dans toute sa splendeur du haut de l’Empire
State Building ou du World Trade Center. Dans un cas comme dans l’autre, il s’agit de
postes d’observation construits, symboles du développement urbain. La mise en place
d’un funiculaire dans le mât du Stade olympique offre maintenant une autre perspective
panoramique dont le rô1e, dans la conception que les Montréalais ont de leur ville,
pourrait s’avérr important. Mais la connotation associée au Stade est tellement
négative, à cause du désastre financier qu’il rappelle, qu’on peut douter de voir le Mont
Royal supplante bientôt...
Entre la nature et le livre, la ville
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
125
Roger Viau. Au milieu, la montagne. Montréal, Beauchemin, 1951,329 p. Le livre a été
réédité en 1987 dans la collection de poche « Typo ».
La définition proposée dans ce texte de mise en abyme reprend celle, assez large, de
Lucien Dallenbach : « tout signe ayant pour réferent un aspect pertinent et continu du
récit (fiction, texte ou code narratif, énonciation) qu’il signifie au niveau de la diégèse,
le degré d’analogie entre signe et référent donnant lieu à divers types de réduplication.»
(Lucien Dallenbach, « Réflexivité et lecture », Revue des sciences humaines, 1980, 177,
p. 24.)
Gérard Bessette. La bagarre. Montréal, CLF, 1958,214 p.
Ibid, p. 12.
Ibid
Cette chanson d’exil n’est pas sans évoquer également Charles Chauvin.
Ibid, p. 35.
Jean-Paul Fugère. Les terres noires. Montréal, HMH, « L’arbre », 1965, 198 p.
Jacques Ferron, « Suite à Martine » dans Contes, op. cit., p. 128.
Jean-Paul Fugère. Les terres noires. Op. cit., p. 7.
Le survenant, publié pour la première fois en 1945, a été réédité régulièrement. On en
a fait un des premiers titres de la collection de prestige « Bibliothèque du Nouveau
Monde » (Montréal, PUM, 1989,366 p.)
Réjean Ducharme. L’hiver de force. Paris, Gallimard, 1973, 282 p.
On peut lire les scènes descriptives dans L’hiver de force à la manière de Gérard Genette
lorsqu’il parle de Proust : la « descriptio ne détermine jamais une pause du récit, une
suspension de l’histoire ou, selon le terme traditionnel, de « l’action » : en effet, jamais
le récit proustien ne s’arrête sur un objet ou un spectacle sans que cette station
corresponde à un arrêt contemplatif du héros lui-même (...) et donc jamais le morceau
descriptif ne s’évade de la temporalité de l’histoire. » (Gérard Genette. Figures III Paris,
Seuil, 1972, p, 134.)
Réjean Ducharme. L’hiver de force. Op. cit., p. 20.
Henri Lefebvre notait à ce propos le caractère paradoxal de l’espace urbain : « L’espace
architectural et urbanistique (...) a ce double caractère : desarticulé et même émietté
sous la cohérence fictive du regard, espace de contraintes et de normes dispersées. Il a
ce caractère paradoxal (...): joint et disjoint. C’est de cette manière qu’il est à la fois
dominé (par la technique) et non approprié (par et pour l’usage). » (Henri Lefebvre.
Le droit à la ville. Paris, Anthropos, 1968, p. 179)
Puisqu’on ne peut évidemment imaginer les Ferron là-bas sans La flore laurentienne
sous le bras. Leurs remarques concernant la nature avoisinante sont essentiellement
livresque. André Ferron le signale indirectement en rappelant le souvenir d’un séjour
à Belœil : « On n’errait jamais dans les champs et ne suivait jamais les sentiers de la
montagne sans notre Flore laurentienne » (p. 254). Le monde est un immense poème à
déchiffrer et Marie-Victorin s’est chargé d’indiquer les pistes les plus importantes.
Michel Tremblay. La grosse femme d’à côté est enceinte. Op. cit., p. 51.
Ibid , p. 237-238. Victoire constate aussi, éberluée, que des prêtres se sont faits un jardin
derrière l’église. « Des prêtres qui font pousser du blé d’inde derrière leur église, c’est
pas des prêtres ! Même le cure, chez nous, à’campagne, y faisait pas ça, verrat ! » (p. 222).
Dans un volume subséquent des « Chroniques du plateau Mont-Royal », on appprend
que la grosse femme, lectrice boulimique, recevra en cadeau le roman de Gabrielle Roy
qui la marquera profondement.
Où se retrouvera la duchesse de Langeais, alias Édouard, dans une pièce du cycle
dramatique des Belles-sœurs de Tremblay.
Antoine Sirois, « Délégués du Panthéon au plateau Mont-Royal : sur deux romans de
Michel Tremblay », Voix et images, VII:2, p. 320.
Ibid.
Voir à ce sujet Toni Morrison, « City Limits, Village Values: Concepts of the Neighborhood in Black Fiction », Literature and the Urban Experience, New Jersey, Rutgers
University Press, 1981, p. 31-45.
Cet article a été écrit dans le cadre des recherches du groupe « Montréal imaginaire »
au Département d’études françaises de l’Université de Montréal.
M.E. Johnston
The Canadian Wilderness Landscape As Culture
and Commodity
Abstract
The use of wilderness themes in clothing is a recent development in Canada.
A number of companies are retailing clothing that uses symbols to portray
particular images of the wildemess landscape. This paper explores the symbolic use value of these commodities through the images that constitute that
value. Wildemess as a cultural categoy is examined in the identification of
distinguishing features-symbols and myths-that have nation-wide significance. Symbols are derived from the histoy and geography of Canada
through which the wildemess landscape is seen as northem, and, inparticular,
is represented by the Canadian Shield Icons such as the loon, the beaver and
the canoe are used in linking the clothing to this cultural context. The author
examines the specific use of these symbols as exemplifïed by a range of
companies involved in the “commoditization” of the Canadian wilderness
landscape.
Résumé
C’est récemment que l‘industrie canadienne du vêtement s’est mise à exploiter
des thèmes reliés aux lieux sauvages, et à utiliser des représentations qui
renvoient à des images particulières de cette réalité. Cet essai explore la valeur
symbolique de cettepratique à travers les images qui constituent cette valeur.
L'étude de cette catégorie culturelle qu ‘est la région sauvage est conduite par
l‘identification de traits caractéristiques - symboles et mythes - ayant une
signification nationale. Les symboles sont empruntés à l’histoire et à la
géographie du Canada qui assimilent cespaysages aux régions nordiques et
plus particulièrement au Bouclier canadien. Les symboles utilisés, notamment le huart, le castor et le canot, relient le vêtement à ce contexte culturel.
L’auteure analyse l'utilisation que font de ces symboles un éventail de
compagnies qui s’emploient à « marchandiser » les régions sauvages du
Canada.
The familiar icons of the wilderness landscape represent a signifïcant
element in the Canadian identity. National symbols such as the beaver, the
maple leaf, the loon, the canoe and the rocky shore evoke an enviromnent
with strong links to the history and geography, and therefore to the culture,
of the nation. These wilderness symbols figure prominently in the nation’s
art and literature, and are evident in much of public life, adorning buildings,
monuments, coins, stamps and personalized cheques (Konrad 1986: 176;
Marsh 1982: 2). It should not be surprising, then, to fmd images of the
wilderness landscape used in retail trade; indeed, greeting cards, calendars
International Journal of Canadian Studies /Revue internationale d'études canadiennes
4, Fall/Automne 1991
IJCS / RIÉC
playing cards, liquor and beer labels, and tourist souvenirs long have
portrayed these national icons.
A more recent phenomenon is the advent of retail establishments that are
marketing a new style of casual clothing, primarily sweatshirts and T-shirts,
depicting wilderness themes. The concept is typified by prints, designs and
mottos representing wildlife, outdoor scenes and outdoor activity that
symbolize the heritage and natural features of the Canadian wilderness
landscape. Supporting these product features is a retail setting that enhances the product through store layout, display and promotional material–a
marketing concept centred on the clear development of the cultural context
of the product. The wilderness image is established through reduplication
in which symbols of a particular type are combined to reinforce meaning
(Wall 1982b: 240,252; Appleton 1975: 248-250). Elaborate reduplication
of these landscape icons sets this concept apart from the traditional commercial use of nature scenes on souvenir shirts.
Undoubtedly, the popularity of such clothing among certain groups in
Canada confirms their significance as a marketing phenomenon; however,
the content of the concept also suggests that the popularity is not merely a
consumer fad. Instead, the use of specific and identifiable symbols of the
wilderness landscape links this new segment of the clothing industry to
Canadian culture. The ornate “contextualizing” enhances the depth of the
product by symbolically imbuing it with its own life and history within the
context of Canadian traditions and exeriences. The sophisticated exploitation of landscape images sets in motion a new phase in the “commoditization of wilderness”, an ongoing process in which aspects of the wilderness
landscape are used as products, or are used to sell products. In this paper
I shall explore the nature of wilderness in Canada as culture and as
commodity by focusing on the use of the symbolic richness of this landscape
to sell clothing. To develop an understanding of these connections it is
necessary to examine the features of the cultural theme and the products.
Culture and Commodity
As cultural creations, landscapes are “a pictoral way of representing,
structuring or symbolising surroundings” (Daniels and Cosgrove 1988: 1).
Filtered through a social context of meaning, the physical landscape becomes, in effect, a mindscape Löfgren 1989a: 183), both reflecting culture
and constituting its realization (Rowntree and Conkey 1980: 474). Images
and beliefs about such landscapes might be said to form one of the
“frameworks of implicit meaning” or a “cultural category” (Gullestad 1989:
172) that is held collectively by a people in their national or regional identity.
Extensive and complex meanings conveyed by the symbolic landscape are
encapsulated within a cultural category, linking the landscape to more
general beliefs and values in the social realm.
128
Canadian Wilderness Landscape as Culture and Commodity
Landscapes with particular significance for the collective become part of
national identity during the development of the nation (Löfgren 1989b: 9).
“Every mature nation has its symbolic landscapes. They are part of the
iconography of nationhood, part of the shared set of ideas and memories
and feelings which bind a people together” (Meinig 1979: 164). Symbolic
landscapes might arise from particular buildings or locations linked to
specific events and institutions, or they might arise as the idealized and
generalized versions of particular places that represent significant aspects
of culture, history or hopes for a group of people (Meinig 1979: 165). As
part of the national identity, these landscapes are reflected in the symbolic
capital of the nation -literature, art, architecture and national parks, for
example. The images can be recognized more readily at this level than in
the shared everyday expression of the landscape (Löfgren 1989b: 15);
however, meanings are created and re-created at both levels of culture.
The wilderness landscape, recognized as symbolic of Canadian national
identity, can be seen as both culture and commodity. The use of wilderness
myths and symbols in the clothing industry might constitute the commoditization of this aspect of Canadian culture. Commoditization is the
process by which things or activities become products produced for potential profit and consumed for use value. Commodities are distinguished from
other things by having an exchange value and a use value (Pack 1985: 61).
The use value of a commodity is represented both by functional and
symbolic uses. For many products it is appearance and associations that
direct consumption patterns; the fashion or image, not the functional utility,
is being sold. Essentially, products that are functionally undifferentiated
sell on the basis of symbolic images.
Culture can be commoditized, debate on which has been framed in terms
of the effect of tourism on local culture (Cohen 1988; Greenwood 1989).
This debate continues to emphasize the primacy of exchange in the evaluation of cultural products. However, Cohen demonstrates that it is the actual
cultural meaning that is being bought and sold, and that it is subject to
varying evaluations of cultural authenticity (Cohen 1988: 383). In addition
to the integral cultural features, the product is invested with meaning by the
consumer, who is the ultimate judge of authenticity and value. The consumer is buying particular commoditized aspects of culture.
By looking at the products themselves, it is possible to determine whether
the reproduction of this element of culture is occurring, in part, through its
commodity role in the economic system, and which particular cultural
features are being used. “Even though from a theoretical point of view
human actors encode things with significance, from a methodological point
of view it is the things-in-motion that illuminate their human and social
context” (Appadurai 1986: 5). As a starting point in the analysis, we must
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examine the myths and symbols constituting this landscape that are used to
define wilderness as culture.
Images and Experiences of the Canadian Wilderness Landscape
There are two primary themes framing the images of wilderness in Canada.
One is the importance of northern landscape in the Canadian identity, the
other is the interplay of civilization and wilderness through extractive or
recreational uses. Nelson (1989: 85), for example, states that in Canada the
wilderness “idea never attained anything approaching mythical status as it
did in the United States. It was not an icon for a people and a nation.” The
preservation of wilderness has not been considered as important in Canada,
primarily because of the seeming abundance of wild land (Turner and Rees
1973: 35; Wall 1982c: 428-429). At the turn of the century, Canadians were
embracing a wilderness resource frontier while Americans were witnessing
the disappearance of wilderness (Altmeyer 1976: 27). In the United States,
the wilderness idea quickly became linked with the national park concept
of setting aside untouched land (Nelson 1989: 84). However, in Canada, the
meaning of the wilderness landscape reflects different social, environmental and economic forces that encouraged a romanticized utilitarian, rather
than a strictly preservationist, approach to wild lands (Brown 1968: 94;
Johnston 1985: 6; Nelson 1989: 86-87).
That the romanticized utilitarian interaction of people and environment
represented in the wilderness landscape plays a strong part in Canadian
culture is recognized both in popular writing about the Canadian identity
(e.g., Littlejohn 1989; Newman 1990) and in the academic writings of the
nationalist historians such as W.L. Morton (Harris 1966: 27-28). In The
Canadian Identity, Morton outlines the wilderness as one of the distinctive
components of Canada. In reference to the use of the Shield as a resource
base, he states: “This alternate penetration of the wilderness and return to
civilization is the basic rhythm of Canadian life, and forms the basic
elements of the Canadian character...Even in an industrial and urban
society, the old rhythm continues, for the typical Canadian holiday is a
wilderness holiday, whether among the lakes of the Shield or the peaks of
the Rockies” (Morton 1972: 5). Clearly, the cultural category continues to
have significance despite the overwhelming urban nature of the population
in terms of employment sector and place of residence.
Nordicity is the other primary characteristic of the wilderness landscape
image. Although the North itself is at once acknowledged and largely
ignored by Canadians (Wonders 1971: 1; Hamelin 1978: 8; Coates and
Morrison 1989: l), the image of nordicity has been an important element
in national identity and pride (Harris 1966: 40; Wall 1982c: 423). “Since the
time of Confederation, Canadians have looked upon their north as a
reflection of identity and destiny...various perceptions of the northern
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wilderness have left a lasting imprint on the national psyche...the north has
imparted a unique quality to the character of the Canadian nation” (Grant
1988: 5). Although some aspects of the northern mythology have outlived
their usefulness as an appeal to national unity, “the effort to explain
Canadian uniqueness in terms of the north has not” (Berger 1966: 22-23).
Northern myths that have been used to create the symbolic landscape can
be categorized as “aesthetic and philosophical images, the frontier or
nation-building myths, and ‘the north as homeland”’ (Grant 1988: 8). The
concept of the North in Canada bears some resemblance to ideas about
North elsewhere. For example, the myth of North as the nation’s destiny
and as “the land of the future” has been important in both Sweden and
Canada (Sorlin 1991: 128). Indeed, “the northness, so characteristic of our
two countries’ national mth, is the result of specific geographical and
historical circumstances that are indisputably unique,” and therefore set
apart the northern myths from all other national myths of progress and
conquest (Sorlin 1991: 128-129).
Prominent in the myth of the North in Canada has been the historical and
geographical significance of the Canadian Shield (Morton 1972: 4-5; Harris
1966: 28). The Shield has been crucial in the development of the national
identity and in the production of cultural icons that promote Canada as a
country separate from Britain and the United States. After Confederation,
“the land was called on to establish a separate identity. This was an identity
of northern character and destiny keyed less by active images of ice-bound
barrens than acknowledgement of the extensive pre-Cambrian Shield...The
Shield established a lasting and vivid environmental image for Canadians
in spite of the fact that most Canadians did not live there” (Konrad 1986:
176). This Shield environment, in particular, connotes the geographical and
historical heritage of the northern wilderness landscape.
Over the years, the interplay of ideology and experience, and representation and replication has created a recognizable wilderness landscape
(Grant 1988; Konrad 1986) that has become central part of national identity. Certain influential individuals, particularly artists and writers, have
played a large part in capturing and reproducing landscape meaning
(Konrad 1986: 176; Woodcock 1982). However, the wilderness landscape
was also being reproduced through experiences at the everyday level.
Undoubtedly, personal experience with this environment - most of which
has occurred during recreation or tourism - has had a marked impact on
the willingness of Canadians to embrace this symbolic landscape. The
connections between the wilderness as a cultural category and the experience of wilderness recreation have been explored by various researchers, including Wall ( 1 9 8 2 c ) and Benidickson (1982b), and in several
essays in two collections: Nastawgan: the Canadian north by snowshoe and
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C
canoe, edited by Hodgins and Hobbs (1985), and Canexus: the canoe in
Canadian culture, edited by Raffan and Horwood (1988). “Wilderness
activities such as canoeing and fishing, and to a lesser extent cottaging, are
traditional in that they are activities with a long history, and also in the sense
that they are associated with the Canadian identity and ‘the true north
strong and free”’ (Marsh and Wall 1982: 6).
The northern wilderness became an important recreational environment
for Canadians around the turn of the century as a result of rapid urbanization. “As the Canadian people became increasingly divorced from the
wilderness and the farm as a residential environment, so the wilderness
increased in importance as a national symbol and as a recreational environment” (Marsh and Wall 1982: 2). Canadians participated in a back-to-nature movement fuelled by the wilderness ethic that was sweeping across
North America (Benidickson 1982a: 157; Altmeyer 1976: 22). Cottaging,
canoeing, camping and fishing expanded dramatically from 1890 to the start
of World War I. A wilderness camping vacation was seen as typically
Canadian at the turn of the century (Benidickson 1982a: 158), and “the
ability to paddle a canoe was considered essential to enjoy a northern
experience” (Grant 1988: 19).
Increasing affluence and improvement in transportation enabled large
numbers of people, particularly in Southern Ontario, to enjoy the new
recreational hinterland of the Shield. This intensive use of the wilderness
included the development of resorts in the 1890s to serve the monied class
(Wolfe 1967: 174). Wall (1982d) describes the growing importance of the
Muskoka region for cottaging Toronto residents because of its proximity
and position on the southern margin of the Shield. Farther afield, publicity
and the development of hiking trails encouraged use of the wilderness in
Algonquin Park for self-sufficient canoeists and anglers, although here, too,
resorts were constructed early in the twentieth century for well-heeled
travellers (Johnston 1983: 23). At the same time, American use of the
Canadian wilderness was increasing, as was the influence on Canadians of
American wilderness ideas and behaviour (Grant 1988: 18-19; Johnston
and Churchill forthcoming).
Recreation and national identity were clearly linked through romanticized
traditions of the resource frontier, especially those of the voyageurs in “a
symbolic association with freedom, adventure and the wilderness north”
(Grant 1988: 12). At the turn of the century, “Occasionally writers even
speculated on the cultural significance of the canoeists’ sport...some commentators sensed an historical and spiritual relationship between contemporary canoeists and the traditions of the voyageurs” (Benidickson 1982b:
325). This connection has continued to be important: canoeing the routes
of the voyageurs or following in the footsteps of early explorers has been
part of the meaning attached to wilderness travel over the years, particularly
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in relation to centenaries of achievement by European explorers. As well
as romanticizing the early contact and fur-trading era, the focus on
European activities eclipses the centuries of native habitation. However, in
some instances, native culture was seen to enhance the wilderness experience, and was used to create an aura of authenticity. For example,
certain Ontario youth camps on the Shield sought to establish such a link
through appropriation of various elements of native cultures (Johnston and
Churchill forthcoming).
The growing importance of this recreational environment had an impact
on the eagerness of the public to embrace wilderness symbols. Some
symbols, such as the beaver and the maple leaf, have long been associated
with Canadian nationalism. Konrad (1986: 178) outlines the emblematic
use of particular symbols “that spoke of national undertaking, common
experience, and wide recognition. Once established, symbols were often
replicated from sea to sea, whether warranted or not.” Other icons
developed as representations of this idealized landscape with which increasing numbers of Canadians were beginning to identify. In a detailed
discussion of iconography and nationhood, Osborne states: “It was the
work of Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven which contributed most to
the development of a national identification with a distinctive sense of
place. Indeed, the Group’s avowed mission was the enhancement of
Canadian national identity” (Osborne 1988: 169; see also Cook 1974:
277-279).
These painters were instrumental in depicting elements of the wilderness
that came to typify the wilderness landscape (Wall 1982a: 19). They painted
a variety of landscapes, but the most popular ones were those captured on
trips to the North- Georgian Bay, Algonquin Park, Algoma, the North
Shore-in the 1910s and 1920s (Reid 1973). In seeking wilderness and
distinctive Canadian themes, they were participating in the movement of
urban dwellers to the recreational hinterland. In doing so they represented,
reflected and helped to define the idealized version of this environment,
not the cottage country of the southern Shield, but the more remote,
unpeopled land farther north. Among those who were in a position to
participate, the back-to-nature movement prepared the ground for the
acceptance of this wilderness image; the popular success of Thomson and
the Group of Seven cemented the image more widely.
The success of this group, the “most Canadian of our painters” (Harris
1966: 29), continues today, yet much of the landscape they painted- that
of Shield and Arctic-is inappropriate for representing the country (Osborne 1988: 173). However, the addition of these paintings to the symbolic
capital of the nation ensured some degree of future popularity for this
regional landscape. That this landscape painting tradition is still highly
valued as symbolic capital of the nation is reflected, for example, in its
133
inclusion in school trips for children to the McMichael Gallery at Kleinburg
in southern Ontario. Although, “no one iconography can encompass
Canada’s diversity” (Osborne 1988: 173), the northern wilderness
landscape of the Shield has maintained primacy. Perhaps this primacy
reflects the regional biases of academic historians and geographers, and
certain painters and writers. However, the recreational use of the Shield
continues, and the landscape strikes a responsive chord in many Canadians
(Milne, quoted in Cook 1974: 282).
A complex web of symbols and myths comprises the wilderness landscape
in Canada. At its core is the image of a northern landscape central to
Canadian identity and culture, supported by myths about the nature of the
environment that are linked to historical and geographical features. Symbolization represents the physical and social environment, creating an
image of romance, heritage, natural beauty and destiny. Symbols such as
the loon, beaver, maple leaf, moose, pine tree and canoe evoke this Shield
landscape.
Wilderness Themes in Clothing1
Traditionally, wilderness clothing has been oriented toward utility instead
of fashion; practicality, durability and comfort have been of utmost importance. In this sense, wilderness clothing is like equipment required for safe
and enjoyable experiences in the outdoors. As the wilderness theme evolves
in clothing, the two sides to clothing, fashion and utility, are merging.
Nevertheless distinctions still exist. On the one side we see traditional
wilderness-use clothing becoming more fashion-oriented, that is, designed
with popular colours and styles. On the other side, we see fashion or
non-utility clothing of high quality sporting wilderness themes and images.
As important as the pictoral representations in the creation of the image
are the accompanying words, names and labels that also provide context.
The fashion-oriented clothing is marketed through a comprehensive concept centred around the symbolic wilderness landscape that gives cultural
context to the products. Within the overall concept, products present
images relating to particular strands of the wilderness theme specific
symbols, which can be categorized as nature, recreation activity and equipment.
Companies that focus on natural features of the environment as a specific
wilderness image range in size and approach, including large retailers and
small independent wholesalers. The largest is Northern Reflections, owned
by F.W. Woolworth’s, which first opened in 1987 and now has 125 branches
across the Canada. Its wilderness theme concept is developed through the
clothing itself and the retail setting. Northern Reflections products carry
one of several standard designs depicting a common loon in water with the
company name underneath. Sweatshirts and T-shirts centrally feature this
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Canadian Wilderness Landscape as Culture and Commodity
standard design. Other clothing products, including pants, skirts and dress
shirts also carry it, often on an inside label. In addition, theme designs may
portray a loon scene, or a related symbol, and include a connotative motto
such as “northern summer,” “northern heritage” or “northern pines.”
These special editions also carry, less conspicuously, the Northern Reflections name externally, as well as the standard design on the inside label.
The retail setting of Northern Reflections provides a cottage atmosphere
through the use of picnic tables, wooden chairs, canvas in the fitting rooms,
scenes of pine trees and lakes, and the use of taped music featuring loon
calls and nature sounds. Promotional material includes a card titled “Rules
of the cottage” which provides washing instructions for the garments. The
symbols reinforce each other, constituting reduplication in which the
Northern Reflections concept elaborates the context of the commodity,
clearly linking it to the water-based cottaging tradition in Eastern Canada.
Northern Reflections has capitalized on the loon symbol, one of the main
images associated with the Canadian wilderness, especially recognizable by
Canadians with a cottaging, canoeing or camping background.
The loon symbol is familiar across Canada for two other reasons. It is part
of the indigenous iconography of native Indian culture, significant in its
teachings about family life, partnership and support. Native art, and thus
the loon, has received greater attention from the general public over the
past ten years. In addition, through circumstances fortuitous to Northern
Reflections, the common loon is featured on the Canadian dollar coin, first
issued in July 1987.2 The intended design for the coin was the traditional
voyageur, seen on the non-circulating dollar coin since 1935. However, the
dies for this design were lost in transit by a courier service, an occurrence
that was announced publicly in January 1987. According to the Director of
Communications at the Mint, the loon was then selected because it represented Canadian unity and because it was a symbol with which all Canadians
could identify. The common loon, like the Canada goose, can be found
across the country during breeding season. As a cultural image, the loon
perhaps is more firmly entrenched than ever, and is a motif being used by
numerous organizations, companies and associations to identify their
wilderness connections.
Use of the loon as a symbol is not limited to Canadian companies and
organizations. The common loon is the state bird of Minnesota, and figures
prominently in souvenir shops. However, a significant distinction seems to
appears in its use. The Minnesota products simply portray the loon as a
single symbol. Other than the place name (e.g. Grand Marais, Minnesota),
no reduplication is used to establish a cultural context. As an emblem, the
loon is not used to connote the wilderness image in the concrete and
elaborate fashion of the Northern Reflections concept. Similarly, some
Canadian products are aligned to the wilderness theme through the use of
135
only one symbol that is not reduplicated. For example, two Canadian
department stores, Eaton’s and The Bay carry lines of clothing labelled
“North Country” and “Northern Spirit,” respectively.
The Northern Reflections concept appears to be transferable to the United
States. Between December 1989 and June 1991, Northern Reflections
opened 15 American branches, mainly in Michigan, New York State and
Minnesota, and has arranged for another 15 to open. Products and retail
setting mirror the reduplication of symbols that serve the Canadian stores;
however, several small changes “Americanize” the concept. Some of the
shirts carry, in addition to the standard designs, the words “American
reflections,” “ United States” or “U.S.A.” None of the cottage country
symbols were altered. The only apparent design addition was one shit
featuring only the company name printed in red, white and blue. This raises
the possibility that the contextualization occurring has equal validity in
certain parts of both countries. Alternatively, it might suggest that the minor
adjustments are necessary given different consumer expectations about
cultural commodities, or indeed, about the nature of the cultural category
itself.
A variety of other companies most of whom are wholesalers that supply
many non-proprietor-y retail outlets produce sweatshirts depicting natural
features. Two examples are shirts displaying the words “Canadian Wilderness” and sporting various scenes of wildlife and nature, and shirts with the
words “Canadian Marshlands” or “Marshlands Canada” accompanying
scenes of wetlands (Figure 1 - no. 1). Numerous independent silkscreen
producers create their own nature designs or borrow themes from successful companies. Like the traditional wildlife or nature scenes available in
tourist shops, this use of symbols portrays a passive view of nature rather
than an active involvement. This category of clothing can also be seen as
linked to the increasing use of environmental themes in apparel, such as
“OZONE” and “e for environment,” and the fund-raising/publicity campaign shirts produced by public interest conservation groups (e.g., “Save
South Moresby” and “The Last Wild Stand-Temagami”). Some of the
wilderness theme companies have become involved in these issues. In 1990,
Northern Reflections participated financially in the Canadian Lakes Loon
Survey and awareness campaign in company with government departments
and conservation groups. However, there are distinctions relating to images, commoditization and to authenticity among these tourist, conservation, environment and wilderness theme shirts, given that they are produced
for different reasons and are oriented to particular markets.
Also in the wilderness theme category are products associated with activities in the wilderness, in which designs represent company crests. In
addition to pictoral images, they include connotative mottos that act as the
company names, for example, “The Original Canadian Outfitters,”
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Canadian Wilderness Landscape as Culture and Commodity
Figure 1 No. 1 - Canadian Marshlands sweatshirt; no. 2 - Raglans Canadian Outfitters; no. 3
- The Legend of the Wind River Co.; no. 4 - ma of the Wind River Range; no. 5 - Roots
Canada post card; no. 6 - The Muskoka Fine atercraft and Supply Company.
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IJCS / RIÉC
“Raglans Canadian Outfitters” (Figure 1 - no. 2) and “Wind River Outfitting Company.” Some shirts have images of the Arctic wilderness (e.g.,
“The Northwest Passage Trading Company, est. 1724,” which pictures a
schooner); however, the majority focus on the symbolic Shield wilderness.
One such shirt heralds “The Original Great Canadian Outfitters - the great
Canadian wilderness,” and displays a loon with wings expanded, against a
lake background. Another features a scene of two adult loons with chicks
in the water, and represents the crest for the “Great Canadian Trading
Company” with the caption “experience the wilderness and beyond.”
Such fashion-oriented clothing promotes the heritage tradition of wilderness exploration and constitutes a link with the ongoing tradition of wilderness recreation. Though promoting outdoor recreation, it is certainly not
specialist clothing in the traditional equipment sense. Many examples of
shirts are produced by independent wholesalers, and sell independently of
any developed context. There are two examples of retail chains in which
the image is reinforced through the overall concept and retail setting. The
“Raglans Canadian Outfitters” (since replaced by a concept similar to
Northern Reflections) store layout included trail signs stating, for example,
“5 km to campsite.”
The Wind River Outfitting Company is part of Mark’s Work Wear-house,
a retail outlet that focuses primarily on work clothes, but sells specialty lines
based on a number of themes. Developed in the early 198Os, the concept
was applied originally only for practical outerwear, but has been expanded
to include fashion sweatshirts. According to the national buyer for Wind
River, the word “outfitting” was selected “because of its historical feeling.”
Development of the product context is aided through several mechanisms,
one of which is a tag attached to the clothing telling the story of Wind River
Outfitting (Figure 1 - no. 3). Another is the catalogue that promotes all
Mark’s Work Wearhouse lines. A recent issue contained an illustration
(Figure 1 - no. 4) for a wildlife donation campaign associated with the
Canadian Wildlife Federation, against a background of a map of the Wind
River Range near Salt Lake City, Utah. This reinforces the romantic legend
of the area and the image of the line as being for people who are active in
the outdoors.
The Wind River example is important in two respects. First, the concept
relies primarily on the name itself instead of on an elaborate pictoral design.
Many of the products are signified only by an interior label. The product
concept does not emphasize the reduplication of symbols as part of designs
or logos, which has been otherwise central to the wilderness theme, but is
set mainly through promotional material. Second, this image is one of the
few that does not represent the wilderness landscape of the Shield. The
landscape portrayed on the products is mountainous, not specifically
Canadian, but symbolizing the Rocky Mountain environment generally.
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Canadian Wilderness Landscape as Culture and Commodity
The company’s head office is in Calgary, which explains the focus on the
mountain wilderness; however, no particular reason seems to exist for a
Canadian company to use an American site, particularly given the existence
of many suitable ranges in the local mountains. The lack of a specific
Canadian focus indicates that the Wind River line is an anomaly in the use
of the wilderness landscape. However, another Canadian mountain wilderness theme design indicates the possibility of connections between Shield
and mountain images. This design proclaims Kootenay Country, illustrated
by a scene of mountains, a lake and a solitary canoe. Underneath the scene
is the caption “natural adventure,” linking this environment to wilderness
recreation.
The third category in wilderness theme clothing is oriented toward equipment and functional products for the outdoors. This clothing has the
strongest links with actual wilderness use, as it promotes particular companies with outdoor activity traditions. Instead of being a line of clothes in
a clothing company, shirts in this group advertise the main products. In
addition, this advertizingrole is also performed by the shirts associated with
retail clothing stores (e.g., all Northern Reflections products effectively
advertise the store by carrying the name and the easily recognized identifying loon motif).
This third group includes Roots Canada, which began as a natural footwear
company in 1973, but has branched out to include more fashion-oriented
items, including leather handbags and jackets. The publicity and promotion
manager at Roots believes that this company started the wilderness theme
fad by producing, in 1978, a sweatshirt featuring the beaver logo that is the
company emblem. Shirts always carry the logo, and sometimes carry the
words “Roots Canada” and “Roots, Toronto Canada.” Roots Canada links
itself with the youth camping tradition in Ontario through a promotion
featuring a postcard from “Roots Camp, Canada,” which incorporates
numerous wilderness landscape symbols (Figure 1 - no. 5). The reverse of
the postcard is a checklist of “Roots supplies” - items that can be purchased at the retail store. The two founders of Roots developed the concept
of producing practical quality footwear for the outdoors through their
involvement in camping; however, the focus of the company now encompasses more than the original wilderness landscape orientation.
The contextualizing of the Canadian products is a distinguishing feature.
This becomes clear by comparing two American companies that bear some
similarities to the third category. The Eddie Bauer emblem states that the
company has been an “outdoor outfitter since 1920.” Pictured on the logo
is a Canada goose in flight, with a background of geese flying in a V.
Although the company sells both fashion and utility items using this logo,
it cannot be considered to fit comfortably within the wilderness theme as it
does not set context in any other way, nor does it display the logo on
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clothing. The wilderness theme is not a central marketing device. Similarly,
the L.L. Bean company of Freeport, Maine, has a strong utility clothing
link, but limits its use of wilderness symbols to individual representations.
The elaborate reduplication of symbols that sets cultural context is
demonstrated in the Canadian products, but is not matched in the
American products.
The distinction is illustrated by another Canadian company in this equipment category. Beaver Canoe was established by an Algonquin Park campowner, who found that to replace his decrepit fleet of cedar-canvas canoes
he had to build them himself. In 1983, the company set up a retail location
in Toronto to “showcase the canoe...and build a product line that complemented the canoes and their quality, durability and beauty.” The Beaver
Canoe design seems to be one that is frequently pirated, and the company
constantly battles to protect its copyright. Like Roots, this company emphasizes its Canadian character. Beaver Canoe’s logo, displayed on all of
its clothing products, uses three prime wilderness and Canadian symbols the beaver, the canoe and the maple leaf. The company name and head
office location also feature, as does the statement that the canoes are “built
by Omer Stringer.” For many years, Omer Stringer has been associated with
canoeing and youth camping in Algonquin Park. This element of tradition
is a strong symbol for this small, family-owned company.
The variety of these companies is exemplified in the The Muskoka Fine
Watercraft and Supply Company, with three retail locations, one of which
is a franchised branch. This “upmarket” company sells outdoor recreation
equipment, specializing in canoes, boats, paddles and oars. It also retails
varnish, books, posters, specialty clothing, shoes and sweatshirts. The shirts
feature the company crest (Figure 1 - no. 6), copyrighted historical canoe
logos or emblems from other company lines. Several of the wilderness
theme companies produce catalogues that not only advertise but also help
to develop the context for the products. The catalogue produced by The
Muskoka Fine Watercraft and Supply Company resembles a coffee table
book, with glossy pages and a hard cover setting the stage for the highquality photographic display of equipment. The photographs elegantly
portray images of the environments appropriate for the use of these
products: southern Shield cottage country for the boats and Toronto
waterside parks for the clothing. The context for the products is established
through description, and a focus on the individuals involved in creating
them. The overriding image is reflected in the introductory statement by
A.J. Casson, one of the Group of Seven, who notes the graphic appeal of
the book. Undoubtedly, this limited edition catalogue represents the most
sophisticated contextualization of the wilderness theme. Perhaps it also
symbolizes the nature of this phenomenon as an urban, southern perspective on a northern wilderness which is seen as a recreational resource that
is part of the Canadian tradition.
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Canadian Wilderness Landscape as Culture and Commodity
The Cultural Landscape as a Product
Wilderness theme clothing is the most recent phase in the commoditization
of the Canadian wilderness landscape. Reduplication of an identifiable set
of symbols is being used to create an image that connotes particular
elements in the landscape. Foremost among these symbols are loons,
beavers, the maple leaf and canoes. Pictoral designs give basis to the image,
but equally important are the words used to frame the pictures. The
company names of retail stores, and the symbolic company names, provide
a sense of history for the product and instantly signify the landscape
connection. This elaborate contextualization creates the illusion that the
product is part of the wilderness landscape. Certainly, for some of these
companies the connection is entirely justified. Although several companies
appear to be pursuing a marketing concept primarily because it is
profitable, others have links with this landscape. It is not possible to see this
strictly as a top-down imposition of products; clearly, personal involvement
with this landscape has effected some of the production. Furthermore,
given that this is a national symbolic landscape, it seems likely that these
companies are following an avenue of the cultural theme (Ley and Oldo
1988: 195).
That this development might be seen as the latest step in the commoditization of culture is linked to the idea, pursued by Appadurai (1986) and
Kopytoff (1986), that “commodities, like persons, have social lives” (Appadurai 1986: 3). These lives can be explored through “a culturally informed
economic biography” (Kopytoff 1986: 68) that outlines the social context
of commoditization. Although an individual type of commodity has a social
life, it would be profitable to consider the biography of wilderness in these
cultural and economic terms. This would lead to exploration of the expressions of commoditization and the circumstances surrounding the selling of
the wilderness landscape.3 What comes to mind immediately is the sale of
wilderness as an experience for adventure tourists; however passive consumption is equally important in this biography. In essence, this paper has
begun the process, but further aspects of the use of wilderness theme in
clothing need elaboration.
One such aspect is the nature of the regional and social component in the
landscape and in the commodity. The image itself reflects the perceptions
and experiences of certain groups of people, perhaps denying, but at least
omitting those of others. Despite almost uniform prevalence of the Shield,
another wilderness landscape was featured. The use of the Rocky Mountain
environment and an American place name in the Wind River concept raises
the importance of exploring American links with retailing, image development, recreation and tourism, and consumption. It would be particularly
interesting to explore the perceptions and experiences of Americans who
purchase Canadian wilderness theme clothing. Attention also must be paid
141
IJCS / RIÉC
to the importance of the border in helping distinguish wilderness
landscapes for Canadians and Americans. Canadian and American links
appear increasingly important with the expansion of Northern Reflections
into the United States market. It is essential to examine similarities and
differences in the consumption of Northern Reflections products as culture
and as commodity in Canada and in the United States.
Finally, commoditization is a cultural process. Some things, like wilderness
landscape painting, are not considered commodities while other things,
using the same symbols, clearly are. Similarly, some uses of the wilderness
landscape might be seen as more appropriate than others. The use of
wilderness symbols in the logos and emblems of recreational clubs, youth
camps and conservation organizations are seen differently than such use by
clothing companies. To approach an understanding of the current state of
wilderness and culture, it is necessary to seek the views of Canadians about
the use of wilderness theme in clothing. If this consumption is part of the
cultural reproduction of the landscape, how does it relate to everyday lives
and identity construction? Do such expressions of commoditization create
and enhance the significance of wilderness connections for Canadians? Or,
conversely, and pessimistically, can we consider the phenomenon to reflect
“a deep-seated metropolitan alienation that treats culture as a bought,
rather than as a lived thing” (Wadland, 1985: 226)?
Acknowledgments
The author gratefully acknowledges the financial support of Trent University and Lakehead University in aid of this project. Sincere appreciation is
extended to the individuals and company representatives who provided
information. The author is indebted to three anonymous referees for
helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
142
The information presented in this section was obtained through examination of clothing
and promotional material, and through interviews and correspondence with company
representatives and individuals involved in creating designs, selling products and other
elements of the wilderness theme.
Although Northern Reflections representatives have provided information, particular
details have been withheld as proprietory. Thus, a clear analysis is not possible of the
relationship between the development of the Northern Reflections loon theme, and the
adoption of the loon coin.
Arguably, the commoditization of the wilderness commences with the establishment of
the Western mountains as a tourist destination. The tourism and extractive uses at Banff
National Park were linked to nationalism and prosperity. In Canada, the mountains
were popularized as a wilderness tourist destination primarily through the efforts of the
Canadian Pacific Railway, aimed particularly at international travellers (Hart 1983). The
Alpine Club of Canada, established in 1906, also sought to gain popularity for the
mountain wilderness among Canadians. Through its early years, the Club linked moun-
Canadian Wilderness Landscape as Culture and Commodity
taineering as a patriotic activity to the experience of a national landscape (LaForce 1978;
Johnston 1991).
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144
Anton Wagner
Herman Voaden and the Group of Seven: Creating
a Canadian Imaginative Background in Theatre
Abstract
In English Canada, the discovery and imaginative recreation in dramatic
form of Canadian nature and its effect upon human character began as
recentty as the 1920s and was strongly influenced by the cultural nationalism
of the Group of Seven painters. This paper traces the influence of Lawren
Harris and other members of the Group of Seven on the Toronto playwright
and director Herman Voaden (1903-1 991). Voaden‘s dramatization of nature and its result on character in realistic, inspirational and idealistic terms
are analysed as well as his attempt to create a Canadian “imaginative
background” through theatre.
Résumé
Au Canada anglais, la découverte et la recréation saisissante de la nature et
de ses effets sur la personnalité des gens n ‘ont été amorcées que dans les
années 1920, surtout sous l‘impulsion du nationalisme culturel des peintres
qui composèrent le Groupe des sept. Cet article traite de l'influence de Lawren
Harris et d’autres membres du Groupe sur le dramaturge et metteur en scène
torontois Herman Voaden (1903-l 991). On y analyse ses dramatisations de
la nature et de son influence sur l’homme - dramatisations tout aussi
réalistes qu’inspirantes et idéalistes - ainsi que son dessein de créer, grâce
au théâtre, un « imaginaire canadien ».
In her essay “Thoughts on National Drama and the Founding of Theatres”,
Ann Saddlemyer suggests that “our drama is not characterized by a garrison
mentality, or its offspring, survival, nor even...by ‘leaving home’ (despite the
number of plays dealing with this subject); but rather by arriving, exploring,
questioning, and, above all, by celebrating the discovery of place”.1
In English Canada, however, the discovery and imaginative recreation in
dramatic terms of Canadian life, nature and its effect upon human character is a relatively recent phenomenon. In the preface to the 1901 edition of
his poetic drama Tecumseh, first published in 1886, Charles Mair asserted
that “our romantic Canadian story is a mine of character and incident for
the poet and novelist, frarned, too, in a matchless environment”.
The Canadian author who seeks inspiration there is helping to
create for a young people that decisive test of its intellectual
faculties, an original and distinctive literature - a literature liberal
International Journal of Canadian Studies /Revue internationale d’études canadiennes
4, Fall/Automne 1991
IJCS /RIÉC
in its range, but, in its highest forms, springing in aa large measure
from the soil, and ‘tasting of the wood'.2
Yet, despite Mair’s belief in the rich imaginative sources for literary
achievements to be found in Canadian nature, such achievements were slow
to emerge in the field of drama. Harcourt Farmer, writing in the Canadian
Bookman as late as 1919, still called for “national interpretation in terms
of individual expression through drama” and asked “Where are the
Canadian playwrights.?" “I mean persons of Canadian descent, or adoption, who have written plays the subject matter of which deals with some
intrinsic part of Canadian life, past or present, and whose plays are directly
artistic representations of Canadian life, or interpretations of Canadian
temperament.”3
The scarcity of English-Canadian playwrights until the 1920s cannot be
explained solely by the absence of professional, or even significant amateur,
theatres producing indigenous dramatic works. Perhaps of even greater
significance was the lack of psychological identification and imaginative
“oneness” between Canadians and their physical environment. Robertson
Davies has commented on our British cultural influences in particular,
noting that “Canada did not cease to be a colony, psychologically, until long
after I was born [i.e. 1913], and in matters relating to the arts its colonialism
was absolute.”
A national culture arises from the depths of a people, and
Canadians knew where those depths were, and certainly it was not
here. There were too many Canadians who were physically loyal
to the new land, but who remained exiles in matters of the spirit.
You might as well have asked for an indigenous form of government, or an indigenous religion, as ask for Canadian art. Theatre,
music, and literature did not originate here. They came from
home, wherever home might be.4
It is precisely this imaginative and spiritual identification with Canadian
nature, expressed in a non-realist representational form, that the Group of
Seven sought to achieve in painting in the 1920s and Herman Voaden
attempted to express in drama in the 1930s.
Voaden’s non-realist, multi-media directing and playwriting style-what he
called “symphonic expressionism” - was a complex synthesis of international and Canadian influences filtered through, and pouring out of,
Voaden’s own highly subjective and mystical artistic sensibility. These
influences, beginning with his initial modern drama studies at Queen’s
University (1920-23) and concluding in 1943 during the altered cultural
climate of the Second World War, shaped both the external form and inner
content of Voaden’s playwriting and production style.
146
Herman Voaden and the Group of Seven
While completing an MA. thesis on Eugene O’Neill at Queen’s in 1926, he
assimilated the vocabulary of the fluid non-realist production style of the
European expressionist and expressionist-influenced theatre and dance,
and their frequent theme of creating a higher social order and human being.
Thomas Wilfred’s demonstration in Toronto of his colour organ, the
“clavilux”, had already suggested to Voaden in 1924 how the combination
of music and coloured lighting could transform the stage into a visual
counterpart of the central character’s emotions.
Voaden was directly influenced by Gordon Craig’s stage designs and
Adolphe Appia’s use of light on plastic surfaces. In 1929, he built a
Craig-inspired permanent unit setting, designed by Lowrie Warrener, consisting of steps, curtains, platforms, pylons and screens, for productions at
the Central High School of Commerce that was used throughout the 1930s.
Richard Wagner’s music dramas, which he saw at Bayreuth in the summer
of 1928, were an inspiration through their synthesis of scene, music, poetry
and a heroic conception of life, as were Max Reinhardt’s productions
through their blending of music, dance, mime, dramatic light and colour.
Influenced by these modern stage techniques, Voaden attempted in his own
non-realist multi-media stage language of the 1930s to substitute the beauty
of lighting, music, dance-movement, sculptural groupings and setting, and
nearly chanted speech for the literary qualities of conventional drama to
achieve, in an abstract symphonic fusion, Walter Pater’s “condition of
music”.
On a formal and thematic level, Voaden’s non-realist stage language
enabled him to reject the “pessimistic coarseness of ‘Naturalism”’ and to
seek instead to duplicate the transcendence of life that he found in the
beauty and spirituality of poetic, romantic and symbolic drama by
playwrights such as Rostand and Shaw. In forming his own mystical beliefs,
he was strongly influenced by the idealistic philosophy of Carlyle and
Shaw’s philosophy of creative evolution, the neo-platonic transcendentalism of the English Romantic poets, Blake’s communion with God
through art and the imagination and Whitman’s example of a new, heroic,
universal self-expression.
Yet, Voaden’s symphonic expressionism was much more than a mere
confluence of European and North American theatrical and literary
models and philosophic thought. His artistic and spiritual search for meaning reflected, and grew out of, the English Canadian cultural nationalism
of the 1920s and 1930s in which artists and intellectuals, several of them
leading theosophists, sought to forge a Canadian national identity based
on, as Mair had suggested, an imaginative identification with the Canadian
landscape.
147
It is doubtful that Voaden would have developed his symphonic expressionist aesthetic without the artistic and philosophic inspiration of the
Group of Seven painters, their artist friends such as Roy Mitchell and
Bertram Brooker, and critical supporters and popularizers such as Augustus Bridle and F.B. Housser. By their non-realistic representation of the
Canadian landscape that they (particularly Lawren Harris) sanctified to
the level of the spiritual, the Group of Seven demonstrated to Voaden how
he could express his own spirituality and cultural nationalism through the
“earth resonances” of his physical environment.
Voaden had met Arthur Lismer in fall 1928 through Lismer’s art education
work at the Ontario College of Art. Through Lismer, he met the other
members of the Group and Fred Housser, whose The Group of Seven: A
Canadian Art Movement (Toronto: Macmillan, 1926) Voaden studied with
great enthusiasm while writing his first northern nature plays in 1929-30.
Lismer was sympathetic to Voaden’s non-realist aesthetic and praised his
innovative directorial work. “This is an experiment that might catch on,”
Lismer noted in 1929 of Voaden’s production style, expressing a modernist
theatre aesthetic similar to Voaden’s own conception of “symphonic
theatre”. “In the theatre all the arts meet...expressive illusion is as much an
aim of the designer as of the producer or the actor. Music and light, speech
and colour, setting and the written word, all are inseparable and co-operative elements in production,” Lismer stated in an article on stage settings
for the Canadian Forum.5
Voaden initiated the purchase of paintings by the Group in his capacity as
Head of the English Department at the Central High School of Commerce
in Toronto from 1928 on. His 1929/30 playwriting competition, for which
J.E.H. MacDonald served as one of the judges, required an exterior setting
for the plays based on a Canadian painting so that the dramas would reflect
“phases of Canadian life in Northern Ontario...in character and atmosphere”.6
Voaden encouraged Lowrie Warrener, a protege of the Group and one of
Canada’s earliest abstraction& painters. In 1930, he and Warrener coauthored the expressionist “painter’s bahet” Symphony: A Drama of Motion and Light For a New Theatre. In July 1931, Voaden painted with Franz
Johnson in Perkinslield, Ontario, in the figurative manner of the Group
and, since Johnson had abandoned its representational style for realistic
painting, debated aesthetic concepts - “realism vs. ‘soul’ and distortion”.7
In his critical writing, Voaden championed the non-realist aesthetic and
cultural nationalism of the Group and urged the Canadian little theatre
movement to follow its example. In a December 1928 Canadian Forum
article analysing the conditions necessary for the creation of a national
148
Herman Voaden and the Group of Seven
culture, he asserted that “the time for colonial dependence and slavish
imitation is gone in art, as in politics”.
Canada has a definite part to play in the world. The artists, notably
the Group of Seven, were among the first to strike out boldly. They
carved new materials out of our landscape and evolved a different
technique to handle them. It is probably true that the painters are
the heralds always of wider and more far-reaching artistic developments. They make us artistically aware of a new scene. This new
scene must produce its effect on character, and both scene and
character are immediately at hand for the novelist, poet, and
dramatist.8
Lawren Harris had discussed the need for original indigenous creation in
drama-and for finding vision, conviction and collective purpose in one’s
own land, - in a 1923 essay entitled “Winning a Canadian Background”. In
this review essay of Merrill Denison's play anthology The Unheroic North,
Harris noted the necessity for authentically depicting the effect of the
natural environment upon human character through artistic self-expression
that would result in the creation of a Canadian imaginative “background”. “We in Canada are only commencing to find ourselves,” Harris
stated.
Dora Smith Conover’s prize-winning Winds of Life, designed by Lowrie Warrener, Central
High School of Commerce, April 9, 1930.
People from other lands come to us already sustained by rich stable
backgrounds, thinking that these can also sustain us. It is not
so. We are about the business of becoming a nation and must
ourselves create our own background. This can only mean a complete exposure of every phase of our existence, the building of a
unique structure utilizmg all our reactions to our environment.9
In a 1925 essay on Canadian art published in the Canadian Theosophist,
Arthur Lismer provided a detailed analysis of the Group of Seven’s belief
in the creative relationship between spirituality, our physical and imaginative background, idealism and non-representational art. “Art is not so
much a form of technique as it is a form of intuition. It is feeling rather than
action. It is a consciousness of harmony in the universe, the perception of
the divine order running through all existence,” Lismer suggested.
The artist sensitive to rhythm, the beat of life, creating in space and
time the image of his reception of this order, projects his vision in
the eternal language of line, tone and colour, and creates not an
imitative outward appearance of the common aspects of life, but
an inner, more noble life than yet we all know. To do this the artist
at some period in the existence of a nation must become conscious
of his background or environment. All great schools of art commence with this desire to project the background-the setting, as
it were, on which a later generation of creative artists wil put into
form and colour the humanity that acts its drama of life.10
Such an intuitive perception of a divine universe, what Richard Maurice
Bucke, Whitman’s Canadian biographer, at the beginning of the century
called “cosmic consciousness”,11 not only stimulated individual artistic
creation but-through the artist -a national artistic and spiritual identity. “A nation’s artists are true nation builders,” Lismer stated in his 1925
essay.
They re-create in terms of line and tone and colour the aspects of
nature, and excite the consciousness of the participator or spectator into kinship and response...This design, or form, of our
country is its character, the elemental nature which we recognize
as one recognizes a familiar loved shape. It partakes of our own
character, its virility and emphatic form is reflected in the appearance, speech, action and thought of our people. It is the
setting for our development, firing the imagination, establishing
our boundaries. It is home land, stirring the soul to aspiration and
creation. The physical universe exists to the artist as to the
religious devotee as a means to ecstasy.12
150
Herman Voaden and the Group of Seven
Herman Voaden incorporated these concepts of the crucial role played by
the Canadian natural environment and its imaginative background in the
creation of a national art and identity into his own aesthetic theories,
playwriting and critical writing. “The true Canadian stands as such in
relation to his environment,” he stated in a planned 1930 article for the
Canadian Forum.
The unifying thing in Canada- in Canadianism - is our background. When our people belong to it-where they accept it and
live from it -where they are content with it and do not yearn for
other lands, be they England, Ireland, Russia- they are our
people. They are Canadians.
And this is the only way in which we will create a national art and
literature of our own. The first step is to become aware of this
background - to interpret its moods – to accept it as a new
thing- self-contained- not to be interpreted in the spirit of
another land or people or art.13
This emphasis on dramatizmg Canadian nature and its psychological and
imaginative effects upon human character led Voaden in 1929 to advocate
the folk play as an initial stylistic choice in the development of a Canadian
national drama. Although imbued with the aesthetic of the non-realist
modern art theatre, he himself wrote four realistic dramas, Northern Storm
in 1929, Northern Song and Western Wolf in 1930 and Wilderness in 1931,
after having written the symbolist The white Kingdom in 1928 and then the
highly expressionist Symphony in 1930. In 1932, he embarked on his decadelong non-realist symphonic expressionist phase with Rocks.
In his 1929 “Plea For a Canadian Folk Drama”, Voaden echoed the Group
of Seven’s concern for developing an “aesthetic awareness” of one’s environment. “The problem of the dramatist as well as the artist is to apprehend the spirit of a certain environment,” he suggested.
The forces of nature and the currents of human life in the north
are, in many cases, lowly and tragic, sombre and immense. Harsh,
bleak, crouching, majestic wind and light-swept. Establish a oneness between character and natural current.
The majesty of mountains, desert vastness of the prairies, clean
harsh ruggedness of northern Ontario and Quebec, bleak and
lonely Labrador coast. In each of these locales a definite impress
upon character. These scenes call for intense imaginative realization. The despair of interminable swamps and dark foreboding
lakes-the moody suicide.14
151
By the end of the 193Os, Gwen Pharis Ringwood had indeed begun to
develop a distinguished body of prairie folk plays celebrating the struggle
of men and women with their natural environment in dramas such as Still
Stands the House and Dark Harvest.15
By the beginning of that decade, however, Voaden was already advocating
a non-realist aesthetic for “the creation of a Canadian ‘Art of the Theatre”‘,
which he himself began to implement with his multi-media symphonic
expressionism two years later. The thrust of his 1930 Introduction to Six
Canadian Plays is the belief that we must perceive the Canadian environment, particularly our northern regions, with new eyes and artistically
interpret that perception in new and original forms of expression.
However, his Introduction emphasizes the necessity for an additional
element besides the call for an original perception and artistic expression
of Canadian nature - an idealism and spirituality not attainable within the
confines of the realistic folk drama genre. “The few volumes of Canadian
plays already published,” Voaden stated in 1930, “are Canadian in the sense
and to the degree that the authors are Canadians and are writing about the
locale in which they have lived. This is not enough. There must be dedication, a faith and idealism to give unity and purpose to creation.16
It was such “dedication and absorption in a soil and people” that Voaden
felt distinguished the Irish Literary Renaissance and its dramatists, Yeats,
Lady Gregory and Synge. They were “inspired by a common vision and an
enthusiasm for a land and people with which they felt a spiritual
‘oneness”17
Citing Lawren Harris’ 1928 essay “Creative Art and Canada”, Voaden
asserted that the birth of a Canadian national theatre and drama could
result, like the Irish Literary Renaissance, from such a “spirit of dedication”
combined with “keen observation, sympathetic study and patient
‘awareness’ of a new environment”. Such creative birth, as Harris had
stated, “needs the stimulus of earth resonance and of a particular place,
people and time to evoke into activity a faculty that is universal and
timeless”.18
For Voaden, as for Lawren Harris and other members of the Group of
Seven, Canadian nature had not only a physical but also a metaphysical and
spiritual dimension that reflected and shaped human character and artistic
expression into a spiritual “oneness”.19 “Many of us are beginning to
experience as [Whitman] did, the spell of the great unclaimed areas of rock
and tree wilderness that border our civilization,” Voaden stated in Six
Canadian Plays.
152
Herman Voaden and the Group of Seven
We are aware of something vast, unsentimental, challenging, and
spiritual in our land. The wilderness is becoming part of us. We
are drawn out to meet it in spirit... We must feel the ‘earth
resonances’ and spiritual emanations of our soil and natural
forms. Our innate ideality should force itself on our art, changing
our expression till it is in line with our fundamental character.20
It is primarily to express this idealistic and spiritual dimension that Voaden
advocated the creation of an original non-realist, multi-media art form
instead of conventional realistic drama or romantic dramatizations of
frontier life. Such a “Canadian ‘Art of the Theatre,“’ Voaden stated, would
constitute “a tradition in the staging of plays that will be an expression of
the atmosphere and character of our land as definite as our native-born
painting and sculpture.”
If the strength and individuality of the work of our painters-their
artistic achievements in form, rhythm, design, and colour, and their
spiritual contributions in austerity, symbolism, and idealism- if
these can be brought into our theatre and developed in conjunction with the creation of a new drama that will call for treatment
in their spirit and manner and be closely allied to them in content
and style, we shall have a new theatre art and drama here that will
be an effective revelation of our own vision and character as a
people.21
Voaden sought to introduce “the atmosphere and character of our land”
in his plays through the use of setting and plot - dramatizing the Muskoka,
Haliburton and northern Algoma and Lake Superior countryside and its
effect upon Canadians-through verbal imagery and thematic development, and sensorially through his multi-media production style. As Sherrill
Grace has noted in “A Northern Modernism, 1920-1932: Canadian Painting
and Literature”, “Voaden’s theatrical dilemma comes down to this: how
does the playwright dramatize the north and its impact upon human
beings?”
Briefly, what he sought was a non-realistic use of light, music,
staging, and dialogue which would enable him to express his vision
of a harsh and violent but transfiguring northern landscape, a
landscapeprofoundly influenced by Lawren Harris and the Group
of Seven.22
Voaden’s early playwriting is strongly marked by Group of Seven influences
even before his multi-media symphonic expressionist playwriting and
production style began to develop in 1932. His 1930 Northern Song features
a stylized set-a Georgian Bay whaleback of rock and serried rock outlines - inspired by Tom Thomson’s The West Wind which Voaden
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reproduced. Later in 1930, he also reproduced Lismer’s September Gale,
Harris’ Above Lake Superior and MacDonald’s Solemn Land in his Six
Canadian Plays anthology.
In the play, the painter Keith a composite of Lowrie Warrener and Lawren
Harris, expresses a philosophic aesthetic of the North reminiscent of
Harris. The pictorial breakthrough he achieves at the conclusion of the play,
“I was on the highest hill I could find. I swept away all the underbrush and
trees in the foreground and summarized the whole thing to leave only this
pyramidal peak in the foreground and these two purple lines of hills in the
distance to suggest the wilderness beyond,” strongly evokes Harris’ Above
Lake Superior.
Voaden’s own enthusiasm and belief in the beauty and inspirational power
of Canadian nature are expressed in Northern Song through the character
Don. As he stands at the edge of the wind-swept rock overlooking Georgian
Bay, Don exclaims:
Here is the mood Canadian...this clear movement of light and
shadow...this rhythm of water and woods and hills in my soul...I
want to travel and get to know all of northern Ontario and
Quebec – and the West–and the Rockies – and both coasts as
well...I want to absorb this Canadian background - to understand
more and more of Canadian life and character – to realize the
totality of things Canadian - and then, perhaps, to express it magnificently...who knows!23
In summer 1930, Voaden and Lowrie Warrener travelled to Port ColdwelI
in Northern Ontario and to Vancouver via the Canadian Pacific Railway
“to absorb this Canadian background” and to draw artistic inspiration from
the Canadian landscape while writing their painter’s ballet Symphony. 24
The five movements of the drama - “A Large Eastern City”, “The Northern
Wilderness”, "Fishing Village on a Northern Lake”, “A Prairie Farm” and
“The Mountains” - reflect their impressions of Canadian nature frequently influenced by the Group of Seven.
At the close of the second movement, for example, the play’s Everyman
figure struggles up a ridge of rocks to survey the scene before him so that
“in its sturdiness his figure resembles one of the dark wind-blown jack pines
that crown the ridge”. The symbolic dance-drama concludes with Man’s
death and mystical transformation in the fifth movement with images of
radiant mountain summits and peaks evoking, like Harris’ abstract mountains, the austerity and beauty of eternal life. “The music is tumultuous and
triumphant. On either side of the great lifting shoulders of the summit can
be seen other peaks in the distance, likewise caught in the matchless
radiance of morn.”25
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Herman Voaden and the Group of Seven
As Sandra Djwa has observed of Harris’ 1930 Mt. Lefroy and the “iceberg”
section of EJ. Pratt’s The Titanic, “the general conception is of a land
26
without man, eternal, mysterious, and complete in itself”. Yet, by suggesting Man’s mystical transformation and oneness with nature and the
universe, Voaden transforms the hostile physical landscape of Symphony
into a metaphysical “country of the soul”. In this and his subsequent
symphonic expressionist dramas, Voaden- as Sandra Djwa stated of
Lawren Harris - "animated the land by investing it with a northern cosmic
consciousness” to create an “imaginative cluster in which the land becomes
the source of artistic inspiration, national identity, cultural past, and the
hope for future development”.27
Outlining his symphonic expressionist aesthetic in the Toronto Globe to
coincide with the premiere of Rocks on April 22, 1932, Voaden revealed
the close relationship between his spiritual beliefs and theatre aesthetic and
their formal expression onstage. As in Six Canadian Plays, his Rocks
manifesto echoes Lawren Harris’ belief in the “spiritual clarity” of the
Canadian North and expresses the theme of many of his plays: “that the
North possesses unique vitality- an elemental strength which uplifts and
sublimates the strong, and those who give themselves to it gladly, while it
warps and beats down the weak and those foreign to its spirit'.28
Although the plot of Rocks - Mary’s progressive realization that her lover
Blake has perished in a blizzard- is tragic, “the girl, in recalling Blake’s
visions, is herself spiritually transformed. The glory of the North transcends
the smaller human figures, infusing them with something of its own majesty. Thus the author has used his characters only as mirrors in which we may
catch reflected the North in action, moulding lives.“29
Mary’s acceptance of both her lover’s death and the beauty and majesty of
the Canadian North (what Voaden in Murder Pattern calls “loneliness and
terror in the midst of magnificence”) – difficult to achieve on a realistic
psychological level - is achieved through the use of a non-realistic setting,
rhythmic speech, ritualistic movement, dance, music and fluctuating
coloured lighting fused into a higher symphonic synthesis. “The North is
viewed as a participant in the action, an unseen actor,” Voaden states in his
Rocks manifesto. “The cyclorama lighting, which is also a constant variant
in both intensity and colour, expresses the North. The whole movement of
the lighting is symphonic. It should be considered as anactor, the personified North.”30
B.K. Sandwell, in his Saturday Night review of Murder Pattern, similarly
noted of the plot of this 1936 Haliburton drama, “Mr. Voaden undoubtedly
intended to depict a struggle, but the second contestant...is not presented
as an individual or group, but rather as the spirit of the country, a combina-
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IJCS / RIÉC
tion of forces arising partly out of the soil and climate and economic
conditions and partly out of the character of the settlers.”31
In her study of the influence of the Group of Seven on the emergence of
modern Canadian poetry in the 192Os, “‘A New Soil and a Sharp Sun’: The
Landscape of a Modern Canadian Poetry”, Sandra Djwa observes that
“artists and poets of the period - quite naturally- turned to the land for
inspiration”.
There was a sense in which they were jointly engaged in an
imaginative exploration of the land, a parallel to the physical
exploration accomplished several centuries earlier, but by
Europeans. This psychic exploration was a part of the process of
making the land our own.32
In many of Voaden’s plays, characters similarly search for and attain
physical, psychological and spiritual “oneness” with their environment. Like her dead lover Blake, Mary in Rocks affirms that “I too shall
hear the wilderness calling, calling my life into a great adventure. It will be
my land. I’ll belong to it. I’ll be part of its winds and woods and rocks - part
of its flashing Northern Lights.” Although Rachel, in the 1934 Hill-Land,
dies after the birth of her and Paul’s child, the choral Commentator assures
him of Rachel’s immortality and oneness in nature:
She shall live again, who loved the beauty of earth. In the clean
heart of the rock-earth she shall live again. She shall be cradled in
the hills, and rocked to sleep in their eternal motion. The winds
sweeping the pine heights will be music, distant and strange in her
ears, and the white birches will sing to her, singing in the sunlight,
all the long years. The turning hills shall bear her ever toward the
sun. Dawn and sunset, springtime, summer, fall and winter, she
shall have rest, in the everlasting hills.33
Reviewing Rocks in the Toronto Star in 1932, Augustus Bridle quoted
Voaden, stating that he “got the idea from studying pictures of the Group
of Seven” and observed that "the set - just a few low bare rocks - looks like
some modern paintings”.34
But Voaden had not looked to the Group of Seven painters for a mere
external imitation of their non-realist style in the formulation of his own
theatre aesthetic. Like many European and North American artists since
the beginning of the century, he sought to achieve in his symphonic expressionist theatre art an evocation of the infinite space and cosmic consciousness of a “fourth dimension”.35
156
Herman Voaden and the Group of Seven
Lawren Harris, in his 1928 “Creative Art and Canada” essay cited by
Voaden in Srj: Canadian Plays, outlined the evolution of his own painting
style and that of other members of the Group from the initial depiction of
“Nature’s outward aspect” toward such a “fourth dimension”.
According to Harris, the painters developed through their northern painting expeditions “a long and growing love and understanding of the North
in an ever clearer experience of oneness with the informing spirit of the
whole land and a strange brooding sense of Mother Nature fostering a new
race and a new age”. They moved from “a period of decorative treatment”
toward a greater “intensification of mood that simplified into deeper
meaning and was more rigorously selective”. “The next step,” Harris
asserted, “was a utilization of elements of the North in depth, in three
dimensions, giving a fuller meaning, a more real sense of the presence of
the informing spirit.” Harris concluded:
Let me here suggest that a work in two dimensions may contain an
intimation of the third dimension and that a work in three dimensions may contain an intimation of the fourth dimension. To-day
the artist moves toward purer creative expression, wherein he
changes the outward aspect of Nature, alters colours, and, by
changing and re-shaping forms, intensifies the austerity and beauty
of formal relationships, and so creates a somewhat new world from
the aspect of the world we commonly see; and thus he comes
appreciably nearer a pure work of art and the expression of new
spiritual values.36
The painter, novelist and playwright Bertram Brooker had already experimented with the creation of a fourth dimension in his dramatic writingwhat he referred to as “psychodrama” -just prior to the First World War37
and, more successfully, in his non-objective paintings beginning in the early
1920s. As Joyce Zemans has noted of Brooker’s abstracts, “the paintings
speak to the cosmic and the primal rather than to Harris’ more easily read
symbolic images derived from nature”.38
Even when Brooker did paint works with more specific landscape
references such as Dawn of Man, Green Movement, and Endless
Dawn and The Way, they addressed his belief in man’s inherent
harmony with nature and his union with the infiite, referring more
directly to cosmic awakening than to the transcendental embodiment of the Canadian spirit in nature.
Although Brooker succeeded in capturing a metaphysical fourth dimension
in his painting, particularly in the stunning Sounds Assembling (1928), he
was never fully able to develop his dramatic ideas because he lacked a
theatre company with which he could experiment. His most successful
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productions, Within: A Drama of Mind in Revolt and The Dragon: A Parable
of Illusion and Disillusion, were staged in 1935 and 1936 by Voaden in his
symphonic expressionist style. Brooker’s initial 1929 notes for The Dragon
refer to his intention for “the whole thing to be written in the Tree of Death
style-broken rh hms -fourth-dimensional feeling - even in the mouths
of the humans” 39
Voaden was greatly stimulated by Brooker’s nationalistic 1929 Yearbook of
the Arts in Canada; however, he was even more directly inspired at the end
of the 1920s by the experimental theatre director and theosophist Roy
Mitchell.40 Mitchell’s expressionist and symbolist productions at the Arts
and Letters Club in Toronto (1911-U) and experimentation with stage
lighting while artistic director of Hart House Theatre (1919-21) frequently
featured the collaboration of Arthur Lismer, Lawren Harris, A.Y. Jackson
and J.E.H. MacDonald as set designers.41
Mitchell, too, strongly believed in the mystical power of the fourth dimension. “I offer the theory of a fourth world, into which the theatre can initiate
its devotees,” Mitchell stated in his 1929 Creative Theatre, pointing to the
paradosis, the miraculous revelation of the ancient mysteries. “It is as if
filling the senses with form and sound, stirring the emotions in sympathy,
and shaping ideas to one intense accord, they made for their witnesses a
causeway into an inner world where they rested in a lightning flash of
communion.42
For Voaden theatre was also “our Gateway to the Divine”, as Mitchell had
stated in his Creative Theatre. And, like Harris, Voaden used three-dimensional elements, particularly simplified symbolic stage settings and actors
in sculpted tableaus illuminated by brilliant white or coloured lighting, to
evoke a fourth dimension- what Voaden referred to as “moments of
intuitive illumination” and “moments in which perfection is glimpsed”.
Symphonic expressionism, with its aim to “open wide the doors of beauty
and imagination” and to provide “lyrical intensity”, “spiritual release”,
“uplifting vision” and “flashing revelation” was, like Mitchell’s paradosis,
itself a fundamentally religious and aesthetic ritual.43 The multi-media
language of Voaden’s symphonic theatre was, like Harris’ use of light in his
symbolic spiritual paintings, a means of attaining the greater metaphysical
reality of the beyond. Reviewing Voaden’s Murder Pattern on CBC radio
in 1981, the actress Barbara Chiicott could still recall more than four
decades later that
I remember being taken as a child to see one of Herman Voaden’s
productions...1 recall only space, light, hangings and draped
figures. I felt I was being drawn into a strange, lonely magical place
and I’ve never forgotten that extraordinary feeling of ‘otherness.'44
158
Herman Voaden and the Group of Seven
Mary’s final moment of illumination in Rocks, Central High School of Commerce, April 22,
1932.
English-Canadian drama, as represented by the works of Merrill Denison
(1893-1975), Gwen Pharis Ringwood (1910-1984) and Herman Voaden
(1903-1991) in the first half of the twentieth century, curiously parallels the
evolution of the Group of Seven’s painting style from outward naturalism
toward greater abstraction, as described by Lawren Harris.
Merrill Denison, in the realistic and satiric dramas of his The Unheroic
North, sought to dispel the false romantic conceptions many Canadians had
accepted about Canadian nature from fiction and American films. In his
most popular drama, Brothers In Arms (1921), set in a hunting camp in the
Ontario backwoods, he satirizes the wife of an army major seeking
“romance in the land of Robert Service and Ralph Connor”. Much of the
comedy of the play derives from the juxtaposition of the ordinary, laconic
and slightly lazy backwoodsmen and Dorothea’s search for “one of those
coureurs-du-bois” like “that big, strong, silent man in the Land of Summer
Snows”).45
Gwen Pharis Ringwood, in her Still Stands the House (1938), Dark Harvest
(written 1939, produced 1945) and The Rainmaker (1945), probed much
deeper than Denison’s surface realism and deromanticizing of the North
to dramatize the struggle of men and women with a raw, primal nature in
an attempt to wrest meaning from existence. 46 As John Flood has suggested
in a comparison of Franklin Carmichael and Herman Voaden,
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“Carmichael’s strength is that he humanizes the wilderness by de-terrorizing it; Voaden’s is that he reproduces the wilderness complete with its
terror, vitality and awe."47
With the drought-stricken Prairies of the 1930s for her imaginative background, Ringwood, too, depicts such a frequently arbitrary, elemental
nature. Yet her works, probably because of her particular natural environment during the Depression, lack the explicit metaphysical dimension of
Voaden’s non-realist nature dramas.
For Voaden, inspired by the nationalism, spirituality and aesthetic of the
Group of Seven, the Canadian landscape remained a symbol of “that mystic
north round which we all revolve”. 48 As Sherrill Grace observed in Regres-
sion and Apocalypse: Studies in North American Literary
Expressionism,
Voaden’s dramas are not “an enactment of conflicts or dynamic process
but the expression of man’s search for a ‘spiritual clarity’ in harmony with
his landscape”.
Voaden’s mythopoeic subject is the timeless, repetitive one of a
hero’s search for enlightenment, and his characters, for the most
part, resemble god-like symbols who move through a northern
landscape that mirrors their souls and controls their destinies.49
Unlike the Group of Seven, Voaden never achieved general critical acceptance for his unconventional non-realist playwriting and production style.
The British adjudicators of the Dominion Drama Festival competitions in
the 1930s criticized his plays for their lack of dramatic action and movement
and for subordinating the actor to Voaden’s multi-media “orchestral” stage
language.
Malcolm Morley, in the 1935 competition, found Hill-Land “a highly static
representation, an elaborated tone poem”. Allan Wade, adjudicating in
1936, thought Murder Pattern “had something of the effect of music on me”
but echoed Malcolm Morley by declaring that the thrust of Voaden’s
symphonic expressionist production style “was away from rather than
towards drama as I believe the Festival conceives it to be”.50
Even after his plays began to be published for the first time in the mid-1970s,
a number of literary critics, unaware of the spiritual thrust of Voaden’s
theatre aesthetic, evaluated his play texts as conventional dramatic literature instead of semiotically as image theatre and judged his work a failure.51
Voaden replied to this recent criticism in 1981 by suggesting that his
multi-media plays could be properly assessed only in performance, that
“the text was no more than half what the audience saw and heard”, and that
his plays could only be understood from within the context and conventions
of his symphonic expressionist aesthetic.52
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Herman Voaden and the Group of Seven
Such an assessment of Voaden’s plays in production began at the end of
the 1980s with Heinar Piller’s dynamic revivaI of Murder Pattern in Toronto
in 1987 and 1990.53 Just before his death on June 27, 1991, Voaden
completed introductions and detailed stage directions for his plays for the
anthology A Vision of Canada: Herman Voaden’s Dramatic Works 19281960 being published by Simon & Pierre in 1992.
A reading of these texts suggests that when he concluded his first major
creative period in 1945, Voaden had largely achieved, in his own characteristic manner, the imaginative challenge he had perceived facing
Canadian dramatists at the beginning of the 1930s.54 As he concluded his
Introduction to Six Canadian Plays:
The challenge to our dramatists is to seek an ever varying expression of our life, in poetry and symbolism as well as prose and
realism; and to join hands with our painters, sculptors, dancers,
and musicians to create new combinations of the arts, lifting them
all to inspired levels of beauty and significance in which they may
be universal, being the reflection of the vision and beauty of a new
people in a new land.55
Notes
1.
Ann Saddlemyer, ‘Thoughts on National Drama and the Founding of Theatres” in
L.W, ConoIly, ed. TheatricaI Touring and Founding in North America, (Westport,
Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1982), p. 193.
Charles Mair, Tecumseh, a Drama (Second Edition) and Canadian Poems (Toron2.
to: William Briggs, 1901), p. 3.
Harcourt Farmer, “Play-Writing in Canada”, Canadian Bookman, Vol. 1 (April 1919),
3.
p. 55.
Robertson Davies, “Mixed Grill: Touring Fare in Canada, 1920-1935” in Theatrical
4.
Touring and Founding in North America, op. cit., p. 41.
5.
Arthur Lismer, “Stage Settings for High Schools”, Canadian Forum, Vol. 9 (May 1929),
p. 293.
The regulations for the competition, whose winning plays were subsequently published
6.
in Six Canadian Plays, can be found in the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation Bulletin, Vol. 10, No. 1 (February 1930), p. 84.
7.
Voaden to Violet Kitpatrick (July 15,1931), p. 11.
Herman Voaden, “A National Drama League”, Canadian Forum, Vol. 9 (December
8.
1928), p. 106.
9.
Lawren Harris, “Winning a Canadian Background”, Canadian Bookman, Vol. 5
(February 1923), p. 37. Reprinted in Anton Wagner, ed. The Developing
Mosaic: English-Canadian Drama to Mid-Centtuy (Toronto: Canadian Theatre Review
Publications, 1980), p. 44.
10. Arthur Lismer, “Canadian Art”, Canadian Theosophist, Vol. 5, No. 12 (February 15,
1925), p. 178.
11. Richard Maurice Bucke, Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human
Mind (Philadelphia: Innes, 1901). For a discussion on Bucke, see Ramsay Cook, The
Regenerators: Social Criticism in Late Victorian English Canada (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1985); Cook’s “‘Nothing Less Than a New Theory of Art and
Religion’: The Birth of a Modernist Culture in Canada”, Provincial Essays, Vol. 7
161
IJCS / RIÉC
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
162
(1989); and in Ann Davis, The Logic of Ecstasy Canadian Mystical Painting 1920-1940
(London, Ontario: London Regional Art and Historical Museums, 1990).
Arthur Lismer, “Canadian Art”, op. cit, pp. 178-179. For an analysis of the transcendental and modernist influences on Lawren Harris, Fred Varley, Emily Carr, Bertram
Brooker and Jock Macdonald, see Ann Davis, The Logic of Ecstacy Canadian Mystical
Painting 1920-l940.
Herman Voaden, “Article for the Forum - Canadianism -Art and Literature”, in large
diary/notebook marked “Cross Canada Summer, 1930”. Voaden’s play scripts, production notes, diaries, correspondence and other archival materials can be found in the
Herman Voaden Papers, York University Archives.
Herman Voaden, “Plea For a Canadian Folk Drama”, 1929 Collegiate Notebook,
Herman Voaden Papers.
See The Collected Plays of Gwen Pharis Ringwood, Enid Delgatty Rutland, ed. (Ottawa:
Borealis Press, 1982); and Geraldine Anthony, Gwen Pharis Ringwood, Twayne World
Authors Series (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1981).
Six Canadian Plays, Herman Voaden, ed. (Toronto: Copp Clark, 1930), p. xv.
Ibid, p. xvi.
Ibid, p. xv. See Lawren Harris, “Creative Art and Canada”, McGill News (December
1928). Reprinted in Yearbook of the Arts in Canada 1928-1929, Bertram Brooker, ed.
(Toronto: Macmillan, 1929). Also, Voaden was significantly influenced by Brooker’s
cultural nationalism as expressed in his introductory essay to the 1928-1929 Yearbook,
“When We Awake!“, which Voaden cited at length in Six Canadian Plays.
For Voaden’s spiritual and philosophic beliefs, see Anton Wagner, “Herman Voaden’s
‘New Religion”‘, Theatre History in Canada, Vol. 6, No. 2 (Fall 1985).
Six Canadian Plays, pp. xvii, xxiii-xxiv.
Ibid, p.
Voaden specifically refers to “the canvases of Lawren Harris and Arthur
Lismer, and the natural sculpture of Elizabeth Wood, [as] indicative of the possible
nature of such a national theatre art”.
Sherrill E. Grace, “A Northern Modernism, 1920-1932: Canadian Painting and Literature”, The Literary Criterion, Vol. 19, No. 34 (1984), pp. 116-117.
Herman Voaden, Northern Song: A Play of the North in Three Scenes, 1930.
For a detailed analysis on the influence of the landscape on Voaden and Warrener, see
Anton Wagner, “‘A Country of the Soul’: Herman Voaden, Lowrie Warrener and the
Writing of Symphony”, Canadian Drama, Vol. 9, No. 2 (1983). On Warrener see John
Flood, Lowrie Warrener”, Northward Journal, No. 25, 1982; and Lisa Daniels. Lowrie
L. Warrener (Samia: Samia Public Library and Art Gallery, 1989).
Herman Voaden and Lowrie Warrener, Symphony: A Drama of Motion and Light For
a New Theatre in Canadian Drama, Vol. 8, No. 1 (1982), p. 83.
Sandra Djwa, “‘A New Soil and a Sharp Sun’: The Landscape of a Modem Canadian
Poetry”, Modernist Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2 (1977), p. 9. Voaden staged Pratt’s The Iron
Door (dramatization by Nathaniel Benson) in 1935 and dramatized his Brebeuf and His
Brethren in 1941.
Ibid, p. 11.
Herman Voaden, “Canadian Plays and Experimental Stagecraft”, Toronto Globe (April
23, 1932), p. 18. For an analysis of the relationship between Harris’ spiritual beliefs and
his northern paintings, see Christopher Jackson, Lawren Harris North ByBWest: The
Arctic and Rocky Mountain Paintings of Lawren Harris 1929-1931 (Calgary: Glenbow
Museum, 1991).
Idem.
Idem.
B.K. Sandwell, “Festival Brings Out Better Canadian Plays”, Saturday Night (April 4,
1936), pp. 13,19. Reprinted in Bertram Brooker, ed. Yearbook of the Arts in Canada
I936 (Toronto: Macmillan, 1936), p. 219.
Sandra Djwa, op. cit, p. 15. For other contemporary dramatic explorations of the
Canadian landscape, see Robert Wallace, “Writing the Land Alive: The Playwrights’
Vision in English Canada” in Anton Wagner, ed. Contemporary Canadian Theatre: New
World Visions (Toronto: Simon & Pierre, 1985).
Herman Voaden and the Group of Seven
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
Herman Voaden, Hill-Land A Play of the Canadian North For a New Theatre in Richard
Perkyns, ed. Major Plays of the Canadian Theatre 1934-1984 (Richmond Hill, Ontario:
Irwin Publishing, 1984). Perkyns compares Hill-Lund with Robertson Davies’ At My
Heart’s Core in “Pioneers: Two Contrasting Dramatic Treatments”, Canadian Drama,
Vol. 10, No. 1 (1984).
Augustus Bridle, “Drama Is Presented in Lights and Colors”, Toronto Star (April 23,
1932).
See Linda Dalrymple Henderson, The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry
in Modern Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983); and Henderson’s essay
“Mysticism, Romanticism, and the Fourth Dimension” in Maurice Tuchman et al.,The
Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890-1985 (New York: Abbeville Press, 1986).
Lawren Harris, “Creative Art and Canada”, op. ck, p. 185.
See Anton Wagner, “‘God Crucified Upside Down’: The Search for Dramatic Form and
Meaning”, in “Bertram Brooker and Emergent Modernism”, Provincial Essays, Vol. 7
(1989).
Joyce Zemans, “First Fruits: The World and Spirit Paintings” in “Bet-tram Brooker and
Emergent Modernism”, op. cit., p. 30.
Sherill E. Grace, “The Living Soul of Man’: Bertram Brooker and Expressionist
Theatre”, Theatre History in Canada, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Spring 1985), pp. 8, 11 fn. 18. The
two plays are published in Canadian Drama, Vol. 11, No. 1 (1985).
For an overview of the influence of theosophy on Canadian culture, see Michele
Lacombe, “Theosophy and the Canadian Idealist Tradition: A Preliminary Exploration”, Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Summer 1982). Lacombe’s otherwise
useful study confuses Herman Voaden’s Play Workshop with theatrical activity at the
Arts and Letters Club (p. 110) and also incorrectly identifies Merrill Denison as a
theosophist.
See Renate Usmiani, “Roy Mitchell: Prophet in Our Past”, Theatre History in Canada,
Vol. 8, No. 2 (Fall 1987).
Roy Mitchell, Creative Theatre (New York: John Day, 1929; facsimile edition,
Westwood, New Jersey: Kindle Press, 1969), pp. 7,6.
See Herman Voaden, “The SymphonicTheatre”. Program note for Hill-Land. The Play
Workshop, Central High School of Commerce, (December 13 and 14, 1934). Reprinted
as “Toward a New Theatre”, Toronto Globe (December 8, 1934), p. 19.
Barbara Chilcott, review of The Developing Mosaic on CBC Radio “Stereo Morning”,
(February 17, 1981).
On Denison, see Dick MacDonald, Mugwump Canadian: The Merrill Denison Story.
(Montreal: Content Publishing, 1973); and Terence W. Goldie, “ANational Drama and
a National Dramatist: The First Attempt”, Canadian Drama, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Spring 1977).
See Judith Hinchcliffe, “Still Stands the House: The Failure of the Pastoral Dream”,
Canadian Drama, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Fall 1977).
John Flood, “Northern Ontario Art: Part 3-Franklin Carmichael and Herman
Voaden”, Boreal, No. 11/12,1978, p. 8.
J.E.H. MacDonald, “Scandinavian Art”. Lecture at the Art Gallery of Toronto (April
17, 1931). Reprinted in Northward Journal, No. 18/19 (1980). p. 18. Cited in Roald
Nasgaard, The Mystic North: Symbolist Landscape Painting in Northern Europe and
North America 18901940 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984). p. 3.
Sherill E. Grace, Regression and Apocalypse: Studies in North American Literary Expressionism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989), p. 137.
Malcolm Morley, “Toronto Festival”, Saturday Night (December 7, 1935); and 1936
Allan Wade adjudication sheet for Murder Pattern in the Herman Voaden Papers, York
University Archives.
See, for example, Alexander Leggatt, “Playwrights in a Landscape: The Changing Image
of Rural Ontario”, Theatre History in Canada, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Fall 1980) pp. 139, 141;
and Terence William Goldie, Canadian Dramatic Literature in English 1919-1939, Diss.,
Queen’s University (1977) pp. 239-240.
Herman Voaden, “Forum”, Theatre History in Canada, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Fall 1981) p. 156.
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53.
54.
55.
164
For a critical assessment of this revival, see Sherrill Grace, “Herman Voaden’s Murder
Pattern: 1936 and 1987”, Canadian Drama, Vol. 13, No. 1 (1987), pp. 117-119. Voaden’s
1932 Rocks was revived by the Graduate Centre for Study of Drama, University of
Toronto, at the Glen Morris Studio Theatre, October 1-6 1991, directed by Pamela
MacKay.
Elements of Voaden’s mysticism and symphonic expressionist aesthetic can still be
found in his 1960 Emily Carr: A Stage Biography With Pictures. See Eva-Marie Kröller,
“Literary Versions of Emily Carr”, Canadian Literature, No. 109 (Summer 1986). For a
detailed examination of Voaden’splaywritingand directing, see Anton Wagner, Herman
Voaden's Symphonic Expressionism, Diss. University of Toronto (1984).
Six Canadian Plays. pp. xxiii-xxiv. See also F.B. Housser, “Art National and Universal”,
Canadian Student, Vol. 12, No. 6 (March/April 1930).
Research Note
Note de recherche
Richard Scott and Mark Seasons
Planning Canada’s Capital:
The Roles of Landscape*
Introduction
The National Capital Commission (NCC) is the Canadian federal Crown
corporation responsible for the planning and development of federal lands
in the National Capital Region. For almost a century, the design professionals at the NCC and its predecessors have created a beautiful, symbolic,
and functional capital through innovative urban design; landscape architecture; heritage preservation and conversation; environmental management;
urban and regional planning; and industrial design.
This article explores how the multidimensional role of the Capital’s
landscape is reflected in the type of land use planning, urban design, and
environmental management carried out by the National Capital Commission. The first section reviews the changing perceptions of landscape in the
theories of urban design, planning, and environmental management. The
second discusses the evolution of the physical landscape in the Capital’s
development, and the multiple roles it plays in a capital setting (e.g.,
symbolic, functional, institutional, etc.). The final section reviews how the
National Capital Commission has attempted to represent Canadians’ links
to the physical landscape in the planning, development and management
of an evolving capital.
Changing Perceptions of the Urban Landscape
Our historians do not argue about
the amount, but the kind of
influence geography has had upon
our history...
(Kilbourn, 1973: 226227).
Canada’s physical landscape has played a fundamental role in shaping
Canadians’ view of themselves. It has long been a predominant theme in
Canadian literature (Littlejohn and Pearce, 1973: 215) and has influenced
the collective psyche from earlier concerns with battling the elements for
survival to current preoccupation with the health of the environment.
Canadian’s perception of the physical landscape has changed dramatically
in recent years. By necessity, we have changed our way of perceiving the
landscape, or the environment. The environmental design professionals of
International Journal of Canadian Studies /Revue intemationale d’études canadiennes
4, F a A u t o m n e 1991
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today are particularly aware of their obligation to better understand, and
work with, the larger ecosystems of which we are a part.
Canada’s urban history reflects changes in our perceptions of landscape.
The challenge of carving our towns and cities from wilderness typified the
relationship between early settlers and nature. The latter was to be subdued, and tamed; wilderness a source of raw material. The growth of early
settlement was not rapid, and the hinterlands - in particular the rivers played a prominent and positive role in the nation’s early development.
By the late nineteenth century, the nascent cities in Upper and Lower
Canada began to mature, and European influences were evident in the
development of their civic space. The English Garden movement was
especially prominent, and was manifest in such city parks as Mount Royal
in Montreal, High Park in Toronto, and Stanley Park in Vancouver. Many
civic spaces and parks reflected a “romantic” view of the rural landscape
-the pursuit of harmony between man and nature (Hough, 1991: 85).
These settings were a far cry from the productive agricultural landscapes
of the city’s hinterland, or the raw, uncontrolled landscapes of the wilderness beyond.
In the twentieth century, the ubiquitous, monotonous suburb has
dominated urban form. The result is a homogeneity of city landscapes
across the North America and elsewhere. The suburb, to many observers,
offers none of the benefits of either urban or rural worlds. Parks and open
space are too often regarded as uni-functional places, for leisure and
recreation, rather than oases of nature in the city (Wright, 1984: 8). Considerations of aesthetics suffered from a concern for efficiency and
functionality. This bias has been reflected in much of the planning and
design work of recent decades.
The precepts which guided planning and design in the 1950s and 196Os,
both in terms of built and natural form, have recently come under critical
scrutiny. Current thinking suggests a more organic approach to the planning, design, and management of the city landscape. The “environmental
movement” has forced planners and managers to think more in terms of
natural and social processes at work in the urban landscape, rather than
suppressing these natural forces -working with, instead of against, nature.
The Capital’s Evolving Landscape
The physical form of the Capital reflects past and current perceptions of
the role of landscape as well as evolving philosophies of planning and
design. It has evolved dramatically over the two hundred years of European
settlement, and it is possible to idenify specific eras of development and
trends in planning that have produced today’s Capital.
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Planning Canada’s Capital: The Roles of Landscape
In many ways, the urban capital is the exception to an otherwise green
landscape. The natural landscape has always dominated the capital setting.
A whole complex of ecological systems has influenced and continues to
influence the region’s natural environment (Brunton, 1988: 10-11).
The National Capital Region is located where the Precambrian rock of the
Canadian Shield meets the rich alluvial plain formed eons ago when the
waters of the inland gulf, known as the Champlain Sea, receded (Figure 1).
The topography of the area is typically Canadian in its content: farmland,
rocky hills, forests, inumerable lakes, streams, and major rivers (NCC,
1991: 4). The region is dominated by the sweep of the Ottawa River, whose
average flow is greater than all the rivers of England and Wales combined.
The Ottawa River, in particular, has helped to shape the human history of
the Capital and of the nation, just as it has helped shape the natural history
of the Ottawa Valley. (Woods, 1980: 2)
Figure 1 The National Capital Region Photo, courtesy of the National Capital Commission
169
Other rivers run through the heart of the Capital- the Gatineau, flowing
out of the Precambrian Shield to the north, and the Rideau River, whose
strategic importance to Canada’s security in the nineteenth century led to
the construction of the Rideau Canal between 1826 and 1832. To the north,
a salient of the Shield juts into the Capital in the form of the Gatineau Hills,
a richly forested environment of hills, escarpments, rock outcrops, and bogs
and marshes.
Crude beginnings
In the nineteenth century, the region’s natural features were appreciated
more for the booming forest industry responsible for the early growth of
the community than for their innate beauty. In 1857, Queen Victoria
selected Ottawa as the new capital, citing its natural beauty, security, and
location along the border of the two linguistic and cultural groups of Upper
and Lower Canada (NCC, 1991: 10).
In the period following its selection, Ottawa was still very much a lumber
town, in spite of a growing governmental presence. Its rough character
obscured the picturesque natural setting. This conflict was reflected in Sir
Wilfrid Laurier’s comments in 1884 that
I would not like to say anything disparaging of the capital, but it is
hard to say anything good of it. Ottawa is not a handsome city, and
does not appear to be destined to become one either (NCC,
1991: 12).
The rapids on the Ottawa River and the Gatineau Hills in the distance
reminded Canadians of the huge forces of nature which had to be overcome
in order to settle and develop the nation. Nature was still to be conquered
and subdued, and if nature was to be brought into the Capital, it should be
submissive and pastoral (Figure 2).
The Building of a Capital
Since the end of the last century, the National Capital Commission and its
predecessors, the Ottawa Improvement Commission (1899) and the
Federal District Commission (1927), have been highly influential in the
planning and development of the Capital. Until the 196Os, the NCC was
effectively the only planning authority in the National Capital Region.
Today, however, it works in conjunction with increasingly sophisticated
local and regional governments to plan the region.
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Planning Canada’s Capital: The Roles of Landscape
Figure 2 Log booms on the Ottawa River, near Parliament Hill (late nineteenth century)
Photo, courtesy of the National Capital Commission
The NCC is now directly responsible for the planning and management of
federally-owned lands in the National Capital. These holdings represent
the parkways, river-edges, and office campuses that comprise about thirteen percent or 620 square kilometres of the National Capital Region’s total
area of 4,800 square kilometres.
Much of the physical design and landscape architecture of today’s Capital
reflects the foresight and commitment of the NCC and its forerunner
organizations, as well as the talents of leading Canadian or international
design professionals.
The Todd Plan (1903)
When Laurier became Prime Minister, one of his stated ambitions was to
make the Capital the “Washington of the North” (NCC, 1991: 10).
Beautification was the prime motivation behind the physical improvement
of the Capital. The English Garden movement and the desire for pastoral
landscapes permeated the first of several landmark plans for the Capital the Todd plan of 1903. The Ottawa Improvement Commission (OIC) hired
Frederick G. Todd, a landscape architect from Montreal, to outline a
general scheme for the enhancement of the Capital. This plan was
dominated by a vision of parks and parkways, centered upon the acquisition, development, and maintenance of lands to enhance the Capital’s
aesthetics (Todd, 1903).
171
Todd recognized the potential role of greenspace as a national symbol
the Capital, stating that the
in
Dominion of Canada is famous the world over for the extent and
beauty of her forests, and for this reason it would seem appropriate
that there should be reserved in close proximity to the Capital,
good examples of the forests which once covered a great portion
of the country (Todd, 1903: 23).
The Holt Plan (1915)
In 1913, the federal government established the Federal Plan Commission
chaired by Herbert S. Holt, then President of the Royal Bank, Montreal.
The Holt Plan of 1915 produced the first comprehensive planning statement on the future development of the Capital. This plan was more strategic
than Todd’s effort, and recommended a park and parkway network (including a large “National Park” in the Gatineau) to be integrated with the
Capital’s industrial and transportation development (FDC, 1915). Holt
stressed the aesthetic and recreational benefits of greenspace for residents
of the Capital but, unlike Todd, felt that the natural and human facets of
the city would together enrich its vitality (NCC, 1991: 16).
The Gréber Plan (19.50)
The planning of the future Capital began with renewed vigour following the
Second World War. Jacques Gréber, a renowned French architect, worked
closely with the NCC’s National Capital Planning Committee, and his
Canadian colleagues John M. Kitchen and Édouard Fiset, to produce the
landmark Master Plan for the National Capital Region.
The driving force for Gréber’s work was the vision that Mackenzie Ring,
then Canada’s Prime Minister, held for the Capital. King felt that
with Ottawa’s natural and picturesque setting, given stately
proportions and a little careful planning, we can have the most
beautiful capital in the world. (NCPC, 1948: 1)
Gréber proposed a major expansion of the parks and parkway network, the
protection of river shorelines, greenbelts on both sides of the Ottawa River,
and a major expansion of Gatineau Park. He also proposed major improvements to the built environment, by relocating rail lines and industry away
from the Capital’s core (Figure 3).
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Planning Canada’s Capital: The Roles of Landscape
Figure 3 Capital Planner Jacques Gréber, reviewing the Gréber Plan (1950).
Photo, courtesy of the National CapitaI Commission
The principles underlying Gréber’s plan echoed much of Mackenzie King’s
romantic sentiment for the Capital. Greber not only stressed the “charm,
diversity, and beauty” of its natural setting, but sought to weave rural and
natural values, and “living close to nature”, into the patina of urban life in
the Capital. Through his plan, Greber endeavoured to preserve the integrity
of natural beauty and natural resources such as riverbanks, agricultural
lands, and aquifers, so that adjacent areas would retain a viable natural
resource base. In many ways, Greber could be seen as developing the model
city, a symbol for others in the nation to emulate. Many solutions appear
extravagant in today’s terms, and the implementation of the plan in the
1950s and 1960s by the newly-formed National Capital Commisison (1958)
signalled the end of major greenspace and parkway development in the
Capital. By the 197Os, attention had been refocussed toward the urban core,
and large office developments in Hull, across from Parliament Hill, combined with the construction of the National Gallery, Museum of Civilization, and the development of Confederation Boulevard to link many of
these attractions, characterized the 1980s.
Evolving Landscapes, Evolving Roles: Current NCC Approaches To
Planning With the Landscape
Much of the Greber Plan has been implemented, and the physical development of the Capital is considered complete. The Commission’s mandate,
revised in 1986, now recognizes the physical maturity of the Capital and
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instead stresses the importance of using the Capital to “communicate
Canada to Canadians”, so that it becomes a “meeting place” where
Canadians can learn more about each other and view their natural symbols.
In essence, the new mandate compels the NCC to reflect the values of
Canadians in the planning and design of the Capital. For example,
Canadians want a real say in the democratic process. Accordingly, the NCC
is working with other federal departments to make the Capital more
accessible, and understandable, to Canadians. The NCC acknowledges the
need to plan in a more sustainable manner by adopting environmentallysensitive land management techniques (e.g., minimal use of pesticides;
permitting natural vegetation growth along parkways).
Our perception of the roles of the landscape, and how the physical Capital
could be experienced, is also changing. NCC staff now address issues such
as:
Have early efforts to create an aesthetically pleasing capital based
on traditional conceptins of aesthetics and beauty “smothered” its
natural landscape character?
If we have ignored the natural landscape in these efforts, how do
we, (and should we) “undo” past efforts?
Should we emphasize “experience” of the Capital’s landscape,
rather than focussing solely on its visual attributes? Perception
involves much more than sight; smells, sounds, and physical contact all enhance perceptions of landscape.
In a sense, these are familiar questions. Gréber believed that we cannot
improve on nature. He felt that when we alter the landscape, we should
enhance, and not subsume, the natural and cultural features which give it
character. Tuan (1974) argues that, in North America, we have done just
the opposite. We have imposed an abstract view of beauty which has tended
to smother the regional character of many landscapes. (Howett, 1987: 5).
We can see evidence of this dilemma in the Capital’s parkways. The Ottawa
River Parkway, leading west from the city core, echoes many traditions of
the English Garden landscape, with planted shrubs and trees, flower beds,
and vast expanses of mown turf. Hough (1990: 114) notes that this approach
to the design of the Commission’s parkway corridors has made Ottawa
known as a “city of views but no places”. The sameness of parkway
landscapes produces little visual and ecological variety in the corridor itself.
This is especially tragic, Hough notes, because one of the great experiences
of Ottawa for the visitor is the splendid natural setting that frames its
monuments, public buildings, and drives along the river.
Where the landscape has been left alone, the stratified and exposed limestone rock, the rapids, falls, and fast flow of the river,
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Planning Canada’s Capital: The Roles of Landscape
its marshy edges, and native woodland provide dramatic and
unparalleled views of the city and its skyline as they unfold along
the route. This landscape is what makes the city memorable as a
beautiful place. (Hough, 1991: 110)
The Commission’s Responses
In recent years, conscious thought has been given to the message of the
Capital’s landscapes, influencing its planning, design, and management.
This is particularly apparent in terms of the changing perceptions of the
Ottawa River, and the urban corridors.
Rivers: The role of the Ottawa River in the history of the Capital offers a
good illustration of changing perceptions. Well into the 1940s the river even below Parliament Hill-was often congested with logs destined for
downstream pulp mills. The river was used (and abused), as an industrial
sewer and remains tamed by a hydro-electric dam within sight of Parliament
Hill.
Federal development turned its back on the Ottawa River as a result.
However, with increasing environmental concerns and changes in the
structure of the forest industry, the river is being viewed not as a barrier,
but as a tremendous stage for the Capital’s national institutions. The
importance of this waterway to Canada’a history is being recognized
through efforts to give the River a public face. Confederation Boulevard, a
major visitor and ceremonial route superimposed over existing streets in
the cores of Ottawa and Hull, will link major national institutions such as
Parliament Hill, the Supreme Court, the National Gallery, and the Museum
of Civilisation on both sides of the river. The Ottawa River has now become
a focus, a theme: a unifier between two distinct parts of the Capital and
cultures of Canada. This metaphor of the river as unifier is also reinforced
by its constant motion which symbolizes the continued evolution of the
nation.
Nature in the City: The traditional view that nature must be controlled in
the city is giving way to a new, enlightened aesthetic which goes deeper than
visual perception. Public acceptance, and indeed celebration, of wetlands,
and the “naturalizmg” of formerly urban landscapes in the city is enhanced
with an understanding of ecological function (Fritzell, 1979: 576).
Along portions of the urban parkways, nature has been allowed to reassert
itself. The result has been an influx of native plant communities, increased
visual and ecological diversity, enhanced regional identity, and lower maintenance costs (Hough, 1987: 12). An attempt is underway to reconstruct a
self-maintaining forest. Acceptance of the public has been slow, as it has
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in other efforts to naturalize traditionally-mown landscapes (Sinha et al.,
1984:44).
Representing Canada in the Capital
Clearly, a major role for the Capital is to represent the nation- to allow
Canadians to “see themselves” in the Capital. In the urban Capital, this
experience is provided by the innovative architecture of the national
museums, the symbolic power of Parliament Hill, the manicured parkways,
river-edge parks, and government offices. But it is the natural Capital that
evokes the strongest response.
The physical setting of the Capital is familiar to many Canadian visitors;
there is an affinity for the Capital’s landscape. The geography is typical of
much of Canada- the powerful rivers, the ancient Gatineau Hills, and the
vast forests of Gatineau Park. There is something timeless about this
landscape. The Ottawa River has changed little over the centuries.
Gatineau Park provides many urban Canadians with their first experience
of the ancient hills, rock and lakes of the Canadian Shield. The Greenbelt’s
working farms and managed forests function as living laboratories, reminding Canadians of the importance of natural resources to this country’s
development.
Over the past decades, the Capital’s physical form has been influenced by
evolving philosophies and perceptions of planning and design. This evolution is apparent in the Capital’s parks, parkways, and urban spaces that
reflect the prevailing wisdom of past eras in design. In future, we can expect
continued movement toward an ecologically-based landscape aestheticone characterized by increasing understanding of, and respect for, the
natural environment; selective development in harmony with nature; and
minimal intervention by humans. The challenge for the NCC is to preserve
or restore these natural assets as well as to enrich and educate future
generations of Canadians.
Notes
*
This article represents the personal perspectives of the authors, and
does not necessarily reflect the official policy of the National Capital
Commission
References
Brunton, D. F. 1988. Nature and Natural Areas in Canada’s Capital: An Introductory Guide
for the Ottawa-HullArea. Ottawa: The Ottawa Citizen in cooperation with the Ottawa
Field Naturalists Club.
176
Planning Canada's Capital: The Roles of Landscape
Craik, K. 1972. “Appraising the Objectivity of Landscape Dimensions,” pp. 292-308 in J.
Krutilla, ed., Natural Environments, Johns Hopkins, Baltimore: 352 p.
Egler, F.E. 1975. The Plight of the Right of Way Domain: Victim of Vandalism, Part I, Future
Media Services, Mt. Kisco, New York: 294 pp.
Evemden, N. 1981. “The Ambiguous Landscape,” The Geographical Review 71(2): 147-157.
- - . 1983. “Beauty and Nothingness: Prairie as Failed Resource,” Landscape 27(3): l-8.
Federal District Commission. 1950. Gréber Plan.
Federal Plan Commission. 1915. Report of the Federal Plan Commission on a General Plan
for the Cities of Ottawa and Hull. Sir Herbert S. Holt, Chairman. Ottawa: 159 pp.
Fritzell. P.A. 1979. “American Wetlands as Cultural Symbol: Places of Wetlands in
American Culture,” pp. 568-579 in Wetland Functions and Values: The State of Our
Understanding Proceedin of the National Symposium on Wetlands, American Water
Resources Association: 792 pp.
Hough, M. 1990.
of place : Restoring Identity to the Regional Landscape. Yale University
Press, New Haven and London: 230 pp.
Hough, M. 1991. “Changing Roles of Urban Parks -An Environmental View,” Environments
17(2), Spring 1991: 84-94.
Hough, M., Stansbury and Woodland. 1987. Urban Vegetation Management Study. National
Capital Commission, Ottawa: 73 pp.
Howett, C. 1987. “Systems, Signs, and Sensibilities: Source for a New Landscape Aesthetic,”
Landscape Journal 6(l), Spring 1987: l-12.
Kilboum, W. 1973. “The Quest for the Peaceable Kingdom,” in Littlejohn, B. and J. Pearce
(eds.) Marked by the wild. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart 287 pp.
Littlejohn, B. and J. Pearce. 1973. “A Canada to Call Forth Love: Wilderness as Cultural
Influence”, in Littlejohn, B. and J. Pearce (eds.) Marked by the wild. Toronto: McLelland and Stewart.
Lynch, K.. 1976. Managing the Sense of a Region, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts: 221
PP.
Nash, R 1982. Wilderness and the American Mind, 3rd ed., Yale University Press, New Haven
and London, 425 pp.
National Capital Commission. 1988. A Federal Land Use Plan, Ottawa: 128 pp.
NCC. 1990. The Green Capital: Strategies for the Future. Unpublished document, Ottawa:
33
NCC. 1991. A Capital in the Making. Ottawa: 72 pp.
National Capital Planning Committee. 1948. Planning Canada’s National Capital. Federal
District Commission, Ottawa: 49 pp.
National Capital Planning Service. 1950. Plan for the National Capital-General Report.
National Cap ital Planning Committee, Ottawa: 308 pp.
Scott, R 1987. Ecological and Cultural Process as a Basis for Rural Freeway Right-of Way
Management. Unpublished Masters’ Thesis, York University, Toronto: 250 pp.
Sinha, KC., H. Kang, and J.D.N. Riverson. 1984. “Current Practices of Harvesting Hay on
Highwa Ri hts-of-Way,” Transportation Research Record 969: 40-45.
Todd, F.G. 1903, Preliminay Report to the Ottawa Improvement Commission Ottawa: 46 pp.
Tuan, Y.F. 1974. Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes, and Values.
Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 260 pp.
Tunnard, C. and B. Pushkarev. 1963. Man Made America: Chaos or Control?, Yale University
Press, New Haven and London: 479
Woods, S.E. 1980. Ottawa The Capital of Canada. Toronto: Doubleday.
Wright, J.R 1991. Recreation Trends and the Greenbelt. For the National Capital Commission, Ottawa: 63 p.
Zube, E.H. et al. 1974 , "Environmental Simulation, Landscape Values, and Resources,"
Man-Environment Systems 4: 245-246.
Review Essays
Essais critiques
Edward J. Miles
Historical Atlas of Canada
Donald Kerr and Deryck W. Holdsworth (editors) Historical Atlas of
Canada, Vol. III, Addressing the Twentieth Century 1891-l 961,
(Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1990) 197 pages. *
For a second time the team that produced Volume I of the Historical Atlas
of Canada has come up with a masterpiece. Under the joint editorship of
Kerr and Holdsworth, Volume III, Addressing The Twentieth Century 18911961, will once again elicit the euphoria that attended the publication of
Volume I. This is a magnificent book to look at, to peruse or to study
intensively.
The genre of historical atlases needs some elaboration in order for us to
truly appreciate what magisterial accomplishments this volume and its
companion are. Most historical atlases focus on geopolitical events and
their territorial consequences. Most also deal with population growth and
expansion, while others deal with transportation and other economic
aspects. These atlases also focus heavily on military campaigns. Almost all
of their maps are single variable maps that present few correlations other
than what the reader might perceive.
The best known atlas of this type dealing with Canada is Kerr’s Historical
Atlas of Canada (1961, 1966, 1975). Another example, dealing only with
Quebec, is Letarte’s Atlas d’histoire économique et sociale du Québec
1851-1901(1971). Both works emphasize geographical patterns more than
most historical atlases.
Another type of historical atlas that deserves mention here is the collection
of facsimiles of original maps with added explanatory text. These works are
especially useful in dealing with exploration and early settlements. Two
Canadian examples are Warkentin and Ruggles, editors, Historical Atlas
of Manitoba, A Selection of Facsimile Maps, Plans and Sketches from 1612
to 1969 (1970) and Trudel’s Atlas historique du Canada francais (1961).
There is a long and strong tradition of high quality atlases of Canada and
its provinces. None is primarily historical but all, some more than others,
contain information of value to those interested in geographical patterns
and their development. Chief among these is the National Atlas of Canada
in its five editions (1906,1915,1957,1974,1985). The first four editions were
sizable hardbound volumes, while the fifth edition is being issued as a series
of separate sheets of varying sizes. The first of the many provincial atlases
International Journal of Canadian Studies / Revue internationale d'études canadiennes
4, Fall/Automne 1991
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was the Economic Atlas of British Columbia (J.D. Chapman and D.B.
Turner, eds, 1956), followed by the Economic Atlas of Manitoba (T. Weir,
ed., 1960). In 1969, no less than three provincial atlases appeared: Atlas of
Saskatchewan (J.H. Richards, ed.), Atlas of Alberta and the highly acclaimed Economic Atlas of Ontario (W.G. Dean, ed.) which won, in 1970,
the Leipzig prize as the most beautiful book in the world. Geoffrey J.
Matthews, who is the Cartographer/Designer of the Historical Atlas of
Canada, was the Cartographer for the Ontario atlas and fifteen other
atlases.
The Atlas of British Columbia (A.L. Farley, ed.) appeared in 1979, followed
by the Atlas of Canada (Reader’s Digest Association 1981), the Atlas of
Manitoba (T. Weir, ed. 1983) the Atlas of Alberta (Alberta Report, 1984)
and finally the more modest but still useful atlas of The Maritime Provinces
(R.J. McCalla, 1988). One last type of historical atlas, which has no representative dealing with Canada, combines maps and text with photographs
and art work aimed at a more popular market. Examples of this type are
the National Geographic Society’s Historical Atlas of the United States
(W.E. Garrett, ed., 1988) and the American Heritage Pictorial Atlas of
United States History (H.H. Kagan, ed., 1966).
In 1932, the classic prototype for the true historical geography atlas edited
by C.O. Paullin and J.K. Wright, was published in the United States.
Entitled Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States, it gave a
“graphic concept of how the United States has gradually grown and
changed and became more complex since the time of earliest settlement.“1
Similarly, the Historical Atlas of Canada aims to attain this goal: “it presents
a splendid visual record of the roots of our society and the evolution of the
intensely regional, culturally diverse nation we know today.“2
Perhaps it would have been more correct had the three-volume work been
titled Atlas of the Historical Geography of Canada instead of Historical
Atlas of Canada, given that the term “historical atlas” can encompass so
many different variations within the genre. In fact, the two volumes that
have been published represent the finest quality in the field of historical
geography today. The maps illustrate the traditional political, military and
administrative events but in addition, and more importantly, “depict cartographically Canada’s social, economic and cultural evolution. Through
the mapping of the character and structure of our society, our patterns of
livelihood, our transformation of the landscape, through glimpses into the
lives of ordinary people,...provides clear insights into our past” - thus, the
scope and aim of the project in the words of W.G. Dean, Director of the
Historical Atlas of Canada project.3
The rationale for the period covered by Volume III, aptly entitled Addressing the Twentieth Century and covering the years 1891-1961, is given in the
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Historical Atlas of Canada
Preface. The convenience of beginning and ending with census years is
obvious. Further, the economic lull that ensued after the completion of the
C.P.R. in 1886 is cited as a logical benchmark before entering “Canada’s
century.” More controversial is the ending date. Again the convenience of
a census year is cited. In addition, l96l marks the end of the first round of
post-war economic growth, leaving the second round of reorganization to
future researchers. The volume also omits the resulting major political
changes in 1958, the Centennial and the dramatic shifts in Quebec society
already underway before 196l.
The dominant theme of the volume is economic. Canada is portrayed as
moving from an economy based on agriculture and the extraction and
export of natural resources, and composed of a series of islands of settlements, to an urban industrial societywith a dominant core in central Canada
linked to the outlying regions by rail, road, air, pipeline and telecommunication. During this period of dramatic economic change Canada shifts from
a country still part of the British Empire, and economically oriented to
Great Britian, to a world economic power, a leader of the Third World, yet
increasingly drawn economically and culturally into the U.S. orbit. At the
same time, the enormous societal changes that occured reflected the
massive waves of immigration, the greater mobility between regions and the
emergence of a predominantly urban society “increasingly organized
through structures of institutions in health, welfare, education and
culture.“4
Initially, one can object to the seemingly overwhelming stress on economic
change in this volume. However, on further reflection, this emphasis is
warranted when the history of Canada is taken as a continuum. After all,
the territorial evolution of the country is virtually complete and the political
structure stable for the period. If one accepts the rationality of the theme
of economic dominance, then the breakdown of this volume into its three
parts and constituent plates follows logically. It should come as no surprise
that the plates illustrate the themes which focus on the exploitation and
export of natural resources; the movement of population; urbanization and
industrialization; transportation; and institutions in the areas of health,
welfare, education and society. Even the plate on “Canadians Abroad” (57)
fits in when the rise of Canada as a major economic power is considered.
The sub-themes of societal and economic changes are clearly interwoven.
Some plates combine economic and societal perspectives while others deal
with these sub-themes separately. Essential to the interpretation of the
plates and their constituent maps are the brief text on each plate, and more
importantly, the excellent introductory essays to each part. An especially
fine example is the essay introducing “The Second World War and the
Post-War Period” (pp. 117-121), which makes clear the need, in an historical atlas, for what initially seemed to be rather esoteric topics for plates.
183
IJCS / RIÉC
Volume III contains 66 plates divided into 3 parts, each part introduced
with an appropriate essay. “Canada 1891-1961: An Overview” comprises 4
plates. Part I, “The Great Transformation, 1891-1921,” has 35 plates subdivided into “National Economic Patterns” (6 plates), “Regional Dimensions of the Production Systems” (16 plates), and “Canadian Society during
the Great Transformation 1891-1921” (13 plates). Part II, “Crisis and
Response, 1929-l96l,” has 27 plates divided between “The Great Depression” (7 plates) and the “Second World War and the Post-War Period” (26
plates).
The best way to appreciate the depth and breadth of the atlas is to describe
in detail the contents of five plates, drawn from various regions of the
country, for each of the major subdivisions of the volume. Each plate, a full
double page (53 X 37 cm), is in actuality a series of maps, graphs and
occasionally a sketch. For example, Plate 4, “Population Composition,” has
four maps illustrating ethnic origins 1901,1931,1961, and the Bilingual Belt
1961. With each of the ethnic origins map, there is a population pyramid
and a set of graphs detailing ethnic origin in the major urban centers. On
each map ethnic origin is shown by counties or census districts with a pie
graph for each province or territorial division. In the smaller Bilingual map,
four categories of mother tongue are shown by counties. A representative
block for each province illustrates urban and rural population for 1901,
1931,1961, with three categories: rural, urban and metropolitan. With the
latter category subdivided by major urban centers, a small graph shows
population growth for the country as a whole from 1891 to 1961 by census
periods. Five short explanatory paragraphs complete the plate, which is a
superb whole in itself, easily comprehended, yet providing enough detailed
information for the serious scholar.
Plate 24, “Industrialization and the Maritimes,” contains no less than 12
separate maps, 5 graphs, 4 paragraphs of text and one diagram. The maps
deal with “Nova Scotia Steel and the Structure of Manufacturing, 19101911,” the “New Brunswick Forest Industry” (3 maps); “Metal Manufacturing in Pictou County” in 2 maps (1911-1912 and 1931); and
“Metropolitan Outreach” in 3 maps (1891,191l and 1931). Three graphs
accompany the later set of maps while two accompany the “New Brunswick
Forest Industry” maps. Separate graphs compare the labor force, broken
down into major categories of activity for the three provinces in 1891 and
1929. Finally a diagram explains the major corporate changes in the iron
and steel industry. The “Metropolitan Outreach” maps graphically detail
the rivalry between Montreal and Toronto to dominate economic activity
in the Maritimes.
The “New Brunswick Forest Industry Maps”, as well as the accompanying
diagram of production and employment in the industry demonstrate the
change from lumbering to pulp and paper, and the resultant shift in forest
184
Historical Atlas of Canada
industry locations. The major map of the plate focuses on Nova Scotia Steel
and its dominance in the structure of manufacturing in the Maritimes in
1910-1911. The Nova Scotia steel industry’s dependence on the Newfoundland Wabana iron ore deposits is clearly demonstrated.
Plate 30, “The Social Landscape of Montreal, 1901,” presents 3 maps, 3
graphs, a superb sketch, several diagrams and 4 paragraphs of notes. The
map of “Concentrations of Skilled Workers” details the distribution of no
less than nine different categories of artisans. The profile “Rental and
Occupational Profile Along Mountain Sheet” demonstrates the importance of elevation in the distribution of the workers by rent class. A similar
graph demonstrates the relationship between rent and topography
centered on Saint-Laurent Boulevard. A very large map (almost half the
plate) illustrates “Median Rent by Street” for the entire built-up area of
Montreal. A series of fourteen small graphs demonstrates “Selected Occupations and Rent Classes” with mean annual income and percentages of
occupational groups in each rent class. A small inset map shows linguistic
origins of the population. A well-executed sketch graphically portrays “A
Scale of Living Space: A Topology of New Housing”. Accompanying this
sketch are a series of diagrams showing size of dwelling units and annual
rent for each unit or floor of the unit. In a two-page spread the reader gets
an immediate appreciation of the influence of elevation, language and
occupation on the rapidly industrializing Montreal. Social geographers and
historians could ask for nothing finer than this plate.
Nothing illustrates the sweep of the depression on the Provinces better than
Plate 43, “Drought and Depression on the Prairies.” There are no less than
14 maps, 2 graphs, 2 diagrams and 4 paragraphs of text. Yet, with all this
data the plate is clear and easily read. A map and a bar graph illustrate
“Wheat Returns by Area, 1921-29 and 1930-38.” A series of six maps shows
“Wheat Yields for 1928, 1931, 1933, 1935, 1937 and 1939.” This set of maps
is accompanied by a graph of “Index of Net Farm Income.” A separate map
demonstrates “Migration From the Prairie Provinces, 1931-1941” and is
accompanied by a bar graph of “Inter-Provincial Migration, Canada, 193141.” Two maps explain “The Work of the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation
Administration,” detailing “small water projects constructed by 1938” and
“Large Water Projects and Community Pastures completed by 1940.” A
final series of four maps focuses on Saskatchewan and deals with “Farm
Relief, Saskatchewan, 1929-1938, ” “Government-Assisted Settlers, Saskatchewan, 1930-1938” and “Rural Population Change, Saskatchewan,
1931-41.” A more graphic example of the devastation brought by drought
and depression would be hard to fmd in such a limited space.
The North is not slighted in Volume III, as is clearly evidenced by Plate 58,
“Societies and Economies in the North.” There are 3 sizable maps, 3 graphs
and 4 diagrams. Each of the three maps portrays “Non-Native Institutions”
185
for 1891-1910, 1911-1939 and 1940-1958, with keys detailing existing and
abandoned institutions for groups of years. Two of the maps also illustrate
“Native Land Use 1891-1910 and 1950-1955.” The third map portrays
“Non-Native Activity and Settlement” as well as “Trapping and Hunting.”
Graphs show “The Whale Fishery and the Arctic Fox Trade” and “Value
of Tar and Metallic Mineral Production” for each of the Yukon and
Northwest Territories. Diagrams also show “Population Composition”
broken down into non-native Inuit and Indian, and the “Birth Place of
Immigrants” by provinces in Canada and countries outside of Canada.
There are two each of these diagrams, one for the Yukon and one for the
Northwest Territories. Two succinct pieces of text amplify the data on the
maps and charts. This plate presents data, generally very difficult to find,
in a clear and concise manner.
Each of the plates in the atlas was prepared by a single person or a team of
experts, generally not more than three persons. In the Notes section at the
rear of the Atlas, these experts are identified along with their academic
discipline and affiliation, if any. Bibliographic notes, sometimes quite
extensive, are given for each map, graph and diagram. Frequently, “further
readings” section is included for those wishing to pursue a specific topic.
As welI as professional geographers, the scholars represented comprise
archaeologists, demographers, economists, ethnologists, geologists, historians and sociologists. Certainly a major share of the credit for the beauty
and clarity of presentation must go to Geoffrey Matthews, the Cartographer/Designer.
When one considers that it has been possible to map the “Outpouring of
Missionaries” diagram the “Feminization of Clerical Work, 1891-1961”
map the growth and expansion of Woolworths, as weII as study “Queen’s
University Graduates, 1895-1900” in terms of residence before and after,
and occupation after, one area of omission or slight treatment seems
curious. There is very little on the electoral process in Canada. Two small
maps and two pie charts detail the Newfoundland vote to join Confederation. Three small bar graphs focus on the C.C.F. and other socialist or labor
candidates in federal and provincial elections, and provincial elections by
province. Only part of Plate 46, “New Political Directions” maps elections
and then only the 1935 federal election. The results of that election and the
“Strength of Third-Party Vote” are mapped in detail. Two smaller maps
focus on the rise to power of the Union nationale in Quebec in 1935 and
1936. Three graphs illustrate major parties in federal elections, 1891-1958,
and the federal elections of 1930 and 1935. One looks in vain for maps of
the rise of Social Credit and the C.C.F. parties that grew out of economic
distress in the Prairies. Surely the federal election of 1911 was as critical as
the one of 1935 in terms of Canada’s economic orientation and development. With the current importance of Free Trade with the United States
would it not be useful to portray the patterns of pros and cons on this issue
186
Historical Atlas of Canada
at an earlier time? It seems to this reviewer that a three-volume atlas such
as this one; one that is so comprehensive and thorough in many other areas
has missed a significant topic that easily lends itself to cartographic expression- the electoral geography of Canada. Perhaps Volume II will rectify
this omission for the Confederation period.
When standing back and taking the broad view, no reader can help but be
overwhelmed by the breadth, the depth and the beauty of this monumental
work. All the accolades that were heaped on Volume I are equally applicable to Volume III, which surely demonstrates the validity of the often
quoted observations made by two of Canada’s outstanding Prime Ministers.
This publication amply supports Laurier’s famous remark that the “twentieth century belongs to Canada” and Mackenzie King’s later statement that
“Canada has too much geography.”
Notes
*
e
Also published in French: Atlas Historique du Canada, Vol. III. Jusqu'au quart du XX
si ècle. Montréal Presses de I’Université de Montréal 1990. 199 p.
1..
Wright, John K.,
K, “Sections and National Growth: An Atlas of the Historical Geography
of the United States,” The Geographical Review XXII, 3 (July 1932): 354.
Front flap of dust jacket of Volume I, Historical Atlas of Canada.
Dean, W.M., “Foreword” to Historical Atlas of Canada, Vol. I.
“Canada 1891-1961: An Overview,” Historical Atlas of Canada, Vol. III, p. 1.
2.
3.
4.
Jean-Pierre Collin
Le paysage urbain au Québec
Claude Bergeron, Architectures du XX e siècle au Québec, Montréal, publié
conjointement par les Éditions du Méridien et le Musée de la civilisation, 1989,271 p.
Marc H. Choko, Les grandes places publiques de Montréal, Montréal,
Editions du Méridien, 1990 (nouvelle édition), 215 p.
Jean de Laplante, Les parcs de Montréal: des origines à nos jours, Montréal,
Éditions du Méridien, 1990,255 p.
Jean-Claude Marsan, Sauver Montréal. Chroniques d ‘architecture et
d‘urbanine. Montréal, Boréal, 1990, 406p.
Au cours des dix ou quinze dernières années, divers facteurs ont concouru
à populariser l’histoire de l’aménagement de l’espace urbain et, en corollaire, celle de l’architecture urbaine. Signalons d’abord l’intégration des
économies régionales dans des blocs continentaux qui a avivé le besoin de
se doter de nouveaux symboles locaux et de raffermir l’identité culturelle
nationale. Ensuite, l’investissement des villes centres et des centre-villes
par certaines couches de la classe moyenne et l’adoption par les villes qui
ne pouvaient plus miser sur la croissance de stratégies fiscales axées sur la
revalorisation de l’existant, ont favorise le pragmatisme politique et la
redécouverte des potentialités de la ville traditionnelle. Par ailleurs,
l’engouement pour la protection du patrimoine a provoqué une profonde
remise en question des politiques de rénovation urbaine fondées sur la
démolition-reconstruction qui ont été mises à l’honneur après la Deuxième
Guerre mondiale. Mentionnons enfin que l’intensification de l’action
communautaire dans les vieux quartiers des grandes villes et les
préoccupations environnementales ont contribué à populariser les luttes
pour la protection des milieux physiques.
C’est ainsi que se sont multipliés partout au Canada les colloques et les
expositions sur l’architecture urbaine, les inventaires et les répertoires de
sites à signification patrimoniale et les guides d’excursions où la description
des lieux visités s’accompagne de rappels historiques et d’allusions au
contexte socio-économique. En outre, dans les milieux gouvernementaux
comme chez les universitaires, de nombreux chercheurs du domaine des
sciences de l’aménagement et du cadre bâti, d’une part, et des sciences
sociales et historiques, d’autre part, se sont intéresses au « grain des
paysages urbains » (Marsan, p. 16) comme révélateur des réalités socioéconomiques et des orientations culturelles de ces collectivités.
Cette sphère de recherche a été particulièrement florissante au Québec
cours des années 1980, on y vu paraître un nombre impressionnant
International Journal of Canadian Studios / Revue internationale d’études canadiennes
4, Fall/Automne 1991
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publications consacrées soit au décor et au style architectural d’une ville, à
un type d’immeubles ou à une catégorie d’aménagements urbains; soit aux
professionnels (architectes, urbanistes, paysagistes...) et aux courants de
pensée qui ont façonné le paysage urbain québécois. Sans faire abstraction
des considérations techniques les plus pointues, plusieurs de ces ouvrages
proposent une approche culturelle de l’espace urbain construit qui englobe
l’esthétisme, l’histoire événementielle, l’organisation sociale et économique qui en ont marqué le caractère et parfois même le contexte politique
qui l’a rendu possible. C’est le cas des ouvrages de Bergeron, Choko, De
Laplante et Marsan - les trois premiers s’inscrivant d’ailleurs dans une
collection des Éditions du Méridien ayant pour thème l’architecture,
l’aménagement et la vie urbaine.
La monographie de Claude Bergeron est la plus ambitieuse par l’ampleur
de son objet et la volonté de rendre compte de l’ensemble du Québec
urbain, non seulement de l’agglomération montréalaise. Architectures du
X X e siècle au Québec est un ouvrage de vulgarisation qui indique les
résultats d’une recherche menée sous la direction de l’auteur et qui a donné
lieu sous le même titre, à une exposition au Musée de la civilisation de
Québec. L’auteur y fait un bilan – illustré par des exemples typiques et
atypiques – des grandes tendances de l’architecture résidentielle,
commerciale, industrielle et institutionnelle et traite de l’influence de
l’enseignement offert par les « écoles d’architecture » ainsi que des architectes de renom ou des oeuvres pionnières.
Cette histoire des architectures ne cherche toutefois pas à faire la critique
des styles, des réalisations ou des créateurs. L’exposé est plutôt organisé
autour de l’idée que les remises en question et les changements de direction
dans la pratique architecturale s’inscrivent dans les tendances lourdes de
la société ambiante avant d’être le terreau de modes ou de styles. À l’aide
de concepts généraux tels que celui d’habitat, l’auteur tente de capter
l’influence sur l’architecture urbaine des principaux paramètres de
l’histoire économique et sociale du Québec et du Canada.
Le premier chapitre, consacré à la période 1890-1929, met à profit de
nombreux travaux d’histoire de l’architecture et de géographie urbaine
parus ces dernières années. Comme pour la plupart de ceux-ci, l’expose
tient plus du répertoire que de l’analyse et est largement dominé par
l’expérience montréalaise. Toutefois, dans les chapitres suivants, Claude
Bergeron mène une analyse plus intégrée de l’histoire de l’architecture
urbaine québécoise comme « expression du mode de vie et des
préoccupations de la société, c’est-à-dire ses ambitions, ses désirs et ses
valeurs » (p. 13). Tenant compte des fluctuations de l’activité économique,
surtout dans le secteur de l’industrie de la construction, il distingue trois
grandes périodes : 1929-1945, 1945-1970 et 1970 à nos jours.
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Le paysage urbain au Québec
Cette périodisation lui fournit un cadre utile pour retracer l’histoire de la
trame urbaine québécoise. De fait, Bergeron déborde largement l’histoire
des architectures pour indiquer en quoi chaque construction constitue une
« œuvre d’insertion ». À cc chapitre, il porte une importance particulière
aux notions de tradition et de modernité. Il décrit chaque époque comme
un équilibre temporaire et différent de ces deux grandes tendances.
L’esthétique de la ville industrielle traditionnelle (chap. 1), l’esthétique des
années de crise (chap. 2), l’esthétique de la banlieue (chap. 3) et
l’esthétique contemporaine (chap. 4) sont présentées comme autant de
formes originales de cohabitation du traditionnalisme et du modernisme.
Le livre de Jean De Laplante porte principalement sur l’évolution de la
philosophie administrative qui a présidé à la conception des places
publiques et des « dégagements urbains » dans la ville, depuis les premières
expériences de jardins publics et de squares dans les années 1840 à 1860
(chap. 1 et 2) jusqu’aux chambardements administratifs les plus récents. Si
l’auteur décrit l’organisation physique et les usages des « pièces de verdure
et de gazon découpées, souvent par accident, dans le carrelage des villes »
(p. 13), il met l’accent sur les réalisations et les conceptions des principaux
administrateurs municipaux. Le corps de l’ouvrage (chap. 3 à 10) est donc
organisé en fonction des périodes de l’histoire de la gestion publique des
parcs, équipements récréatifs et autres espaces libres. Il en fait un traitement linéaire qui débouche sur une esquisse de ce que semble nous réserver
l’avenir immédiat (chap. 11).
De Laplante expose principalement en quoi les pratiques administratives
et l’organisation physique des parcs et des espaces libres – l’aménagement
paysager comme les équipements – répondent à une demande. Les unes
et l’autre sont, pour lui, le résultat de l’évolution de l’idée et des pratiques
de loisir dans l’ensemble de la population, chez les usagers aussi bien que
chez les « spécialistes ». Sur un tout autre plan, dans les derniers chapitres
surtout, il fait de la définition du concept de « parc urbain » un des enjeux
généraux de la gestion urbaine à Montréal.
Un autre produit dérivé d’une exposition organisée sur le même thème
l’année précédente, Les grandes places publiques de Montréal se veut une
« histoire contextualisée » de quatre importantes places publiques
représentatives des divers secteurs du cœur de la ville en même temps que
des périodes clés de son développement. Plutôt que de suivre un acteur,
ainsi que le fait De Laplante, ou de faire l’inventaire des réalisations comme
chez Bergeron, Marc H. Choko situe l’action d’une multitude d’intervenants autour de sites particuliers. D’une certaine manière, son ambition
est plus circonscrite que celles de De Laplante, Bergeron et Marsan. Il ne
veut pas faire une revue de toutes les places publiques, mais montrer, à
partir d’un échantillon significatif, l’importance historique de ce type de
compositions spatiales dans le développement d’un centre-ville.
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Dans cet ouvrage, dont le plus gros est essentiellement descriptif, l’auteur
lie l’évolution du cadre bâti qui entoure ces places publiques à celles de
l’architecture, des matériaux, des technologies, des modes ainsi qu’à
l’évolution urbaine, sociale et économique. Il réussit particulièrement à
retracer l’influence décisive exercée partout par les puissances
économiques et idéologiques (les églises notamment) au sein de la société
montréalaise. Qu’elles soient le résultat fortuit de la récupération d’espaces
résiduels restés libres en raison de circonstances exceptionnelles ou
qu’elles soient le fruit d’une initiative planifiée de la part des pouvoirs
publics, l’histoire des cycles de transformation des grandes places apparaît
indissociable de celle des grandes sociétés financières, commerciales et
manufacturières qui, pour la plupart, « ont eu pignon sur place ». L’ouvrage
de Choko se termine par un court chapitre explicatif (ou conclusion) dans
lequel l’auteur propose une mise en perspective des transformations physiques les plus récentes, communes ou particulières à chacune des places,
afin d’en dégager des mesures concrètes d’aménagement.
Dans Sauver Montréal, Jean-Claude Marsan a rassemblé quelques courts
textes d’analyse, mais surtout des articles de journaux parus entre 1982 et
1989, et antérieurement dans certains cas. Rédigés pour la plupart dans le
feu de l’actualité, ces textes ont souvent un ton polémique plus appuyé qui
tient aussi au fait que l’auteur veut défendre une thèse : la ville de Montréal
a en héritage « une esthétique particulière que l’on pourrait qualifier
d’esthétique de la diversité » (p. 29). Ce « compte rendu critique de
l’histoire de l’architecture et de l’urbanisme montréalais » est, parmi les
ouvrages qui font l’objet de cette note, celui qui fait la plus grande place à
la querelle des anciens et des modernes; celui qui hésite le moins à aborder
la réalisation architecturale ou le paysage urbain comme une œuvre d’art.
Comme Choko, il cherche à dégager les enjeux révélés par l’aménagement
de sites particuliers (grand parc urbain, place publique, installations portuaires...). Il s’en distingue toutefois par son souci de mettre en valeur, de
faire découvrir et de défendre l’unicité du cachet architectural et urbanistique de Montréal et de contribuer ainsi à définir ce que devrait être une
meilleure architecture pour cette ville. À l’instar de Bergeron, il insiste sur
le fait que ce cachet urbanistique, reflet du vécu quotidien des Montréalais,
se trouve non pas dans l’architecture monumentale - dont il existe peu
d’exemples à Montréal – , mais dans l’architecture banale.
Au-delà de la variété des objets d’analyse, des méthodes et des approches,
qu’est-ce que les ouvrages de Bergeron, Choko, De Laplante et Marsan ont
en commun ?
Disons d’abord que, chacun à leur manière, ils mettent en lumière ce qui,
dans les formes architecturales et dans l’organisation des espaces construits
ou aménagés, reflète pour chaque période et encore maintenant la
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Le paysage urbain au Québec
ou aménagés, reflète pour chaque période et encore maintenant la
continuité avec le passé en même temps que l’ouverture au changement.
Dans cette approche socio-historique du paysage urbain, l’important est
que l’étude des composantes internes de ses divers éléments constitutifs
s’accompagne d’une analyse de ce que ces composantes nous révèlent de
la société ambiante et du milieu social. C’est pourquoi les parcs, les espaces
de verdure aménagés, les places publiques et les ensembles architecturaux,
planifiés ou non, sont abordés en tant que « lieux privilégiés d’inscription
des traces des événements historiques » (Choko : 21).
Tous les auteurs regroupés ici partagent l’idée que l’analyse du paysage
urbain est indispensable à ceux qui veulent déchiffrer l’action continue de
l’homme sur son milieu, car elle permet de reconnaître les individus et les
entreprises qui ont façonné l’histoire de la ville. De même, l’histoire de la
sociabilité urbaine serait inscrite dans le paysage urbain : du plus petit
espace privé ou public (une résidence, un commerce, un jardin, une église,
un square...) aux réseaux intégrés d’espaces urbains de voisinage, de quartier, de ville ou d’agglomération. Le paysage urbain sert aussi de témoin
des grandes transformations économiques qui ont historiquement marqué
la ville et son cadre bâti. Révélateur des forces sociales en présence
notamment des classes montantes, et son étude, estime-t-on, présente un
intérêt manifeste.
Dans la perspective commune à ces auteurs, le paysage urbain est donc
avant tout le résultat d’un processus sédimentaire. En ce sens, ils nous
mettent en garde contre toute forme de retour nostalgique au passé. Le
plus souvent, constate Marsan, les réalisations les mieux réussies « ont été
générées par une intégration dynamique des héritages du passé aux
potentialités de l’heure » (Marsan : 293).
Ce qui fait du paysage urbain un objet d’analyse sociologique ou historique,
c’est non seulement parce qu’il reflète les aspirations, les valeurs ou les
contradictions d’un milieu de vie à une époque donnée, mais aussi qu’il sert
de terrain d’expérimentation. Le paysage urbain serait une construction
sociale en même temps qu’une construction physique.
Dans cette perspective, l’analyse du paysage urbain devrait être à la fois
statique et diachronique. Partie de notre mémoire collective, il est aussi le
théâtre où se construit (où se déploie) la société moderne avec ses forces
et ses faiblesses. Par exemple, les grandes places publiques ont joué un rôle
crucial dans la structuration des entreprises et des administrations
publiques de la métropole québécoise. Ou encore, produit d’une restructuration de l’économie en général et de l’industrie de la construction en
particulier, l’esthétique de la banlieue de la période 1945-1970 a imposé,
dès les années 1960, « ses solutions propres et son architecture propre, et
a fourni des modèles pour le réaménagement des villes » (Bergeron : 143).
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L’approche culturelle ou socio-historique partagée par ces quatre auteurs
s’inscrit implicitement dans le renouvellement en cours du discours sur la
ville centrale. Par opposition au modèle de la banlieue - avec ses quartiers
dortoirs, ses centres commerciaux et ses parcs industriels, on assiste en
effet, chez les nouvelles classes moyennes, à une valorisation de la
centralité, de la diversification sociale et culturelle et de la convivialité
communautaire.
Cette évolution, particulièrement marquée chez les urbanistes et les
designers urbains, s’inscrit plus largement à l’intérieur d’un projet de
réappropriation physique et symbolique du cœur des grandes
agglomérations urbaines. Chez nos auteurs, cela se perçoit notamment
dans l’unanimité avec laquelle ils font des années 1970 et 1980 une période
dite de transition au cours de laquelle se mettent en place ce qui leur paraît
être les conditions de l’ouverture sociale des espaces urbains privés et
publics. De cette période de transition, suggèrent-ils, devraient germer une
nouvelle urbanité et une revitalisation de l’architecture et de la science de
l’aménagement. L’organisation spatiale de la ville devrait, à terme, en sortir
profondément modifiée.
194
Authors /Auteurs
Jean-François CHASSAY, professeur, Département d’études littéraires,
Université du Québec à Montréal.
Jean-Pierre COLLIN, professeur, INRS - Urbanisation, Montréal.
William HAMLEY, Lecturer in Geography, Loughborough University of
Technology, United Kingdom.
Margaret E. JOHNSTON, Professor, Department of Geography and
Centre for Northern Studies, Lakehead University.
Victor K O N R A D , Director, Foundation for Educational Exchange
between Canada and USA.
Daniel LE COUÉDIC, maître de conférences, Institut de géoarchitecture,
Université de Bretagne Occidentale.
Edward J. MILES, Professor Emeritus of Geography, The University of
Vermont.
William E. REES, Professor, School of Community and Regional Planning,
The University of British Columbia.
Richard SCOTT, Senior Planner, Environment, National Capital
Commission.
Mark SEASONS, Acting Director, Long Range Planning Division,
National Capital Commission.
Franz K. STANZEL, Professor of English, Karl-Franzens-Universität
Graz, Austria.
Anton WAGNER, Director of Research and Managing Editor of the World
Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre, York University.
195

Fiches synthèses - Chantal Charbonneau

Modèle de blason vierge

list of interveners - Sharing Knowledge Foundation

DI Evolution Medaplix Medicalnet Monlogicielmedical.com Weda

Review no. 71

Bi-weekly Press Review 1-15 February 2014

The IPinCH Project - Canadian Archaeological Association