[Looking for Old Ontario: Two Centuries of Landscape Change]

Abstract

Looking for Old Ontario: Two Centuries of Landscape Change. Thomas F. McIlwraith. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997.The primary aim of the University of Toronto Press's Ontario Historical Studies Series (1971-1993) was to "describe and analyse the historical development of Ontario as a distinct region within Canada." This was necessary, it was argued, because for many years the main theme in English-Canadian historiography was the emergence of the Canadian nation. Ontario's role in the country's development precluded it from being perceived as a region. Contributor Paul Craven claimed, "Almost unconsciously, historians have equated the role of the province with that of the nation and have often depicted the interests of other regions as obstacles to the unity and welfare of Canada" (vii).The series also hoped to encourage historians not directly involved in the project to turn their attention to the province. Judging by the books reviewed here, its directors succeeded as writers continue to be interested in Ontario's past. While several aspects of the province are studied, however, in the works reviewed the extent to which the authors convey a sense of a distinct province varies from book to book.In Looking for Old Ontario: Two Centuries of Landscape Change, geograpner Thomas McIlwraith examines vernacular features of southern Ontario's built environment and the social meanings they convey. The result is a highly readable and well-illustrated book with chapters on surveying building materials, houses, barns, fences, grave markers and many other seemingly mundane topics. As McIlwraith points out, it is regrettable that the ordinary is often taken for granted because routine features of the human environment provide insights into the way in which people interacted with their environment. It will be difficult for anyone who reads this book to look at roads, mills, houses, etc., without trying to determine when they were constructed, by whom and for what purposes.Choosing sections of McIlwraith's book to highlight in a review is not easy, because most of them are worth mentioning. One chapter, for example, provides a good account of surveying techniques and the problems associated with the profession in the province's early years.(f.1) McIlwraith adds a human dimension by observing that place names reflect "what successive administrators deemed to be meaningful in their lives" (65). There is a useful map and a table tracing the types of place names these officials used. In his chapter on building materials, McIlwraith points out some of Ontario's particularities. In 1931, for example, 27 per cent of the buildings in the province were made of brick, compared with six per cent for Quebec and between one and two per cent for the rest of Canada.(f.2)McIlwraith's ideological position is not explicit but it is clear that his sympathies are with those whose lives and accomplishments usually go unmentioned. In his discussion of grave markers, for example, McIlwraith notes that extant markers "identify a biased sample of Ontarians" (230) because paupers and those less well-off (half the population, he estimates) could not afford stone monuments. He sheds new light on well-known aspects of the province's past, such as the obsession with property; on some nineteenth-century grave markers, the deceased are identified not only by name but also by the lot and concession number of their holdings.One criticism of Looking for Old Ontario is that McIlwraith attempts to do too much in a single volume. There is no doubt that McIlwraith is enthusiastic about his subject but his descriptions are too brief at times. His chapter on transportation, for example, is not as strong as it should be, largely because of lack of detail about railways, canals, ports, lighthouses and so on.In his conclusion, McIlwraith hopes that readers "have been visualizing their own examples" of what he described and in this he succeeds. …