Who matters? Public history and the invention of the Canadian past

Abstract

THERE IS NO LONGER ANY REAL DISPUTE that the past, as distinct from traditions, is an invention based on a careful selection of apparently empirical evidence. Historians now accept that there is no “ultimate” truth; there are many perspectives or narratives, all valid and all exploring new realities and new truths. The current multi-streamed discourse in history, however, is fraught with impossible challenges for public historians. Some narratives focus on a heritage of achievement and triumph. Others will focus on exploitation and marginalization, which will in turn be denied by the narratives of the exploiters. Not all narratives can be accommodated equally without creating problems of imbalance or a diet of pablum. Such is the conundrum of the Canadian historian who would like to achieve that pleasant Canadian nirvana — consensus. The “invention” of the past has been the explicit subject of a significant body of work in recent years, much of it in the British or American context. The two most frequently cited books have provocative titles: The Invention of Tradition and Mickey Mouse History.1 Until recently, little similar work had been undertaken in the Canadian context, with the exception of excellent reviews of Canadian museums in the Journal of American History and some articles in journals such as Acadiensis.2 Recently several books have paid attention to this topic in a uniquely Canadian way. These include Donald B. Smith, From the Land of Shadows: The Making of Grey Owl (Saskatoon, Western Producer Prairie Books, 1990), Barbara Lawson, Collected Curios: Missionary Tales from the South Seas (Montreal, McGill University Libraries, 1994), Norman Knowles, Inventing the Loyalists: The Ontario Loyalist Tradition and the Creation of Usable Pasts (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1997) and Sarah Carter, Capturing Women: The Manipulation of Cultural Imagery in Canada’s Prairie West (Montreal and Kingston, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1997). There are also two useful collections of essays and statements relevant to the field: Beverly Boutilier and Alison Prentice, eds., Creating Historical Memory: English-Canadian Women and the Work of History (Vancouver, UBC Press, 1997) and Thomas H.B. Symons ed., The Place of History: Commemorating Canada’s: Past Proceedings of the National Symposium held on the Occasion of the 75th Anniversary