EMILY CARR: “Rebel,” “Outcast,” “Unique.”
(1871-1945)
Reprotext:
Douglas Cole: “The Invented Indian? The Imagined Emily.”
Gerta Moray: “Wilderness, Modernity and Aboriginality in the Paintings of Emily Carr”
Description:
 Eccentric, Unladylike (on horse back straddled), Smoker, Liked to be alone
 Painter (paints abandoned totems) post-colonization
 Didn’t view herself as political
 Unique Canadian
 Functional, Didn’t care what other people thought about her
 Animal lover, on one of her adventures she had a variety of animals all with there
own cages in a tiny trailer in which they all co-inhabited.
 Connection to nature and to what is real and what is simple later works of the
forests.
 She was influenced by the Group of seven and their Canadian landscape
paintings.
 Sexual Ambivalence, father was crude to Emily after her mother died. Suggestion
of sexual misconduct between her and her father but never proven.
Significance:
1. Questions Native people, role of colonization and how it affected the traditional
values of Native people.
2. Shapes Canadian art
3. White perception of the Indian
4. Participated in the Salvage Paradigm, or interest in rescuing authenticity. Emily
Carr’s paintings reflect an interest in rescuing the authenticity of Native culture.
5. Along with Group of Seven’s efforts, brought awareness of the Canadian
landscape to the people of the Nation.
6. She believed that aboriginal people were loosing touch with their traditional
culture.
Important Events:
1. 1890- Attended San Francisco School of Design.
2. 1893- Returned to Victoria, BC where she was born
3. 1902- Studied in London
4. 1904- Returned again
5. 1910- Studied in Paris
6. 1927- National Gallery of CAN & National Museum’s Exhibition, “Canadian
West Coast Art, Native and Modern,” Ottawa, Toronto, and Montreal.
7. 1927- Also met up with Lauren Harris, Group of Seven
8. 1929- Move away from Native subject matter, resolve in her own expression of
her feelings about nature.
9. 1930- Exhibited with the Group of Seven.
10. 1936- Gave up boarding house ( house of all sorts)
11. 1941- Klee Wyck Published
12. 1941-1945- Became well known and recognized for her work (writings and
paintings), Ill health all the while.
DIONNE QUINTUPLETS: “Unique,” “One of a kind.”
(1934)
Reprotext:
Katherine Arnup: “Raising the Dionne Quintuplets: Lessons for modern mothers”
Capitalist system was unreliable during the depression.
Description:
 Born during the most severe economic depression
 Only weighed 1 lb when born, not expected to live
 Used to promote scientific childrearing because the state took custody of and
raised the quintuplets: Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe personal physician to the Dionne
Quints, and celebrity through coincidence. (fraudulent)
 They were on display and used as a tourist attraction.
 Interest of the government lay in the National importance of Canadian health and
population due to loss of life to Spanish influenza and WW1.
 A distraction from reality
 2 months premature
 Ontario government stepped in so that exploitation of the quints
 Premiere at the time Mitch Hepburn
 Raised in an observatory/private hospital: tourist attraction
Significance:
1. Occurred during the time when the country was impoverished
2. An escape from everyday troubles
3. Gave rise to a following of scientific child rearing, led by example
Important Events:
1. October 1929, Black Tuesday: Stock market crash/ Indication of depression
2. Trading reduced during early thirties “protectionism,” Britain, Germany and
France placed tariffs on goods coming into the country which would hike up
prices and cause consumers to buy local, cheaper goods.
3. 1930 election: R.B. Bennett voted into government. Move toward fascism during
this time, (Hitler & Bennett), Bennett lesser form of this but still right wing.
(conservative)
4. Paradigm shift: Loose your job>no other work.
5. People call on government for assistance
6. President at the time William Lion McKenzie King
7. RCWU: Relief Camp workers union formed, government relief 10 cents/ day
8. 1935 election: Liberals voted back in
9. Dominion Day riot, Ottawa trek to Regina where they were cut off by the RCMP,
Bennett clamped down against protesters and many men were hurt from Gunshot.
10. Canadian Government willing to get involved. Government is willing to use
force, against its own citizens.
HISTORIOGRAPHY-Historical writing about other historical writings
METANARRATIVE-Very big story
ALBERT JOHNSON: “Mad Trapper”
1930’s Distraction (Mid January) Romance, Terror of the North.
Note:
*North seen and interpreted politically, maps, economically, and in our imagination, the
romance and the terror.
How has history been affected and how have historians tried to record this?
Does the history reflect this?
How do historians fit the North into history?
Who is defining the North?
Reprotext:
Sheila Grant
-North is not so much a place as it is a direction
-North is in relation to the south.
-North is the other
-North radically different from place to place
-Native communities, dozens and dozens
-Diversity questions lump image we have of the North (for southern Canadians)
Description:
 Suspected of springing and hanging traps (trapping without license)
 Northern Canada, lives in Canada
 -47 degrees without the wind chill
 Cabin built 3’ under the ground lined with logs, frozen ground like concrete.
 Cunning, expert at covering his tracks
 Attention drawn to the north, public read about Johnson as though it was a soapopera, (similar distraction – Quintuplets).
 RCMP just wanted to question Johnson about springing traps and he ends up a
fugitive because he shot and injured officers. (Kane, Ridell,Eames, Miller)
 Transport by dog sled, had to make many trips for supplies
 Called in Wilfred Reid “Wop” may. (More exciting for the public)
Significance: (romanticization=the “imagined North”)
1. Occurred during a time of colonization & mapping the north, defining the North
by Canadians by Imagined knowledge; Media, pictorial representation, TV,
newspaper. Versus, traveling there, how north is north and to whom. What is our
definition of North, individually? For Example, to Torontonians, Halliburton is
north or Algonquin.
2. Brought awareness of climate and conditions in the North.
3. RCMP Stationed in Aklavik
Important events:
1901-North is huge
1905-Alberta & Sask, boundaries are extended
1912-Manitoba, ON, QB, redrawn, out of North into provinces.
-Formal colonization establishing boundaries
-No consideration for race, (first Nations communities), geography.
1949-Labrador
1999-Nunavut> NWT
The “North” shrunk as mapping continued. What we once pictured as north, once a vast
area which we deemed useless and now use as a great resource.
1958-Prime Minister, John Diefenbaker: (conservative), only 2 visions came to pass
-Spoke greatly of the “northern image”
-Campaigns extremely well, people were crazy about him, fires the imagination of
Canadians. (Same as the story of Albert Johnson)
-Oil gas and mineral deposits in the north
-The 2nd frontier
MAURICE DUPLESSIS:
(1936-1939 & 1944-1959 Conservative Premiere of Quebec)
Description: Confrontation between Quebec and Ottawa has become almost the pattern
in Canadian politics.
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Duplessis proves patronage in Liberal party and forces them to resign from govn’t
Duplessis and Mitch Hepburn (premiere of Ontario)> Neither like McKenzie
King
 Problems with alcohol
 If you vote Liberal, assimilation of English, conscription for war
 Introduce generous minimum wage, public works projects. (Ambitious hydro
electric schemes), wanted everyone to have electricity, all rural communities.
Source of his popularity… hydro if you need it!...bridge if you need it!...new road
where you need it.
 Dark side: Asbestos mine strike- Duplessis crushes the stride and sends the
workers back to work.
 Tramples on individual rights - “padlock law”
 Empowered Duplessis to destroy materials and imprison propagandists for up to a
year with no appeal. “Red scare”
Significance:
1. Conservative shift, Nationalist shift>Henri Bourassa & Lionel Adolph Giroux
“Father of French Canadian History,” *shouldn’t sell off resources to foreign
buyers*What’s important to the whole is to return to rural life*What’s important
the whole is to return to rural life
2. Dominant among intellectuals and the clergy
3. Fighting for tradition> “Back to the farm”
4. Position of Quebec is that the rights of frankophone disappear and French
speaking education waddles away*Conscription for Canadian army 1911
highlighted Quebec in Canada.
Important Events:
1. Nationalists say I told you so during the depression
2. Quebec seriously effected by the depression
3. Port shuts down, because trading diminishes(protectionism)
4. Industries decreased domestic consumption
5. Economic disorder rise in socialism, particularly in the west. (not in Québec)
6. Liberal ideology questioned> shift to the right in Quebec.
7. 1960-66 Quiet revolution, society seems to change radically.
Terminology:
1. Little “l” means the people of liberal thinking
2. Big “L” means the liberals in government
3. Shift to the right means shift to conservative thinking
4. Socialism (communism)
WILLIAM LYON MCKENZIE KING: “Weirdo”
1874-1930 & 1935-1948
Description: Significance:
 Well educated, 5 degrees, 2 masters
 Scholar and labor expert
 Proposes ministry of labor, gets voted in to position he creates
 Conscription divided people into English and Frence supporters
 Record on human rights questionable:
-King refused Jewish refugees, as did
America (US). Political price to pay
-Politics ahead of morality
 Legacy, international statesman, isolationist impulse, spiritualist, no grand
vision> the compromiser, divided the people least.
 Bizzare expectations of women
 Relationships with inaccessible women
 Diary-full record of his life, he wanted it destroyed in his will, but it wasn’t.
(double lifestyle)
Important Events:
1. Constitutional crisis ”King bing wing ding”
2. 1917 liberal party splits
3. 1919 introduces Mien Borden leader of the conservative party who is against free
trade and conscription
4. 1921 Prime minister> changes policy to get support (e.g.) progressives
5. 1925 King loses his seat, but decides not to resign. Byng “that goes against fair
play…King thinks that he can keep liberal government in power
6. King is political genius
7. 1926 Byng leaves, King fights against democracy, an issue that rings true for the
Canadian government
8. 1935-slogan for King election king or chaos
9. Mitch Hepburn and King do not get along
10. NRMA-Nation resources mobilization act/volunteers would be token to war, but
no conscription accepted by most
11. Mian- Conservative guy , reappears anticipates leadership
12. King was not public speaker/debater, this was Mian’s strength
13. Hepburn supports Mian
14. 1944- Following the Normandy invasion, appeared that allies were on the run
15. King reluctantly implements conscription in Quebec, the people are bitter
IGORE GUZENKO: “1930’s distraction”
Defection, September 1945
-Government wanted to keep communism from going underground and didn’t impose
banning laws for this reason. Infiltration is easier if communists aren’t hiding
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Seifer clerd for the Soviet embassy, encodes messages.
Seen with bag over head in public
Wants to stay in Canada, so he steals documents, worries about soviet infiltration
Tries to claim asylum but is turned away
William Lyon McKenzie King is suspicious of him wanting asylum. He ends up
putting him in protective custody (camp X) would be in Whitby today.
Guzenko reveals the information that he has learned. There is a “spy ring”, and
he thinks that the Soviet govn’t is preparing for the 3ed world war.
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Important Events:
1. The Berlin wall coming down, 1989. Symbolizes freedom, end of cold war and
end of an era> the end of communism.
2. Germany divided in two, one side British and U.S. inhabitance and the other
communism
3. Atomic bomb, Manhattan project. Canada was partners to the U.S. in producing
the atomic bomb.
4. 1946 February-“Witch hunt”: Leak of US state dept. details become public.
Results in a secret order passed. The Royal commission. Government allows the
commission to operate 11 days before public acknowledgement. Allows them to
seize, incarcerate and detain suspects.
5. Soviets do not deny spying
6. Atomic information should have been accessible to Soviet allies anyway
7. Irony of diplomacy
-The fact is that Canada didn’t have the kinds of secrets that would help soviets
build weapon anyway.
-The royal commission is an example of how tricky the government can be. It is
an example of how the state intervened and demonstrates significant power.
8. Guzenko hides the rest of his life, he is aware of his role in Canadian history.