Selling tradition: in Nova Scotia, history has been written for the visitors.

Selling tradition: in Nova Scotia, history has been written for the visitors. In the Province of History: The Making of the Public Past inTwentieth-Century Nova Scotia Ian McKay and Robin Bates McGill-Queen's University Press 472 pages, softcover ISBN 9780773537040 Picture this: a group of federal civil servants who work at CapeBreton Highlands National Park in the early 1950s receive a memo fromtheir minister, acting at the request of the Nova Scotia premier, AngusL. Macdonald. These stolid Canadians are to go out and plant importedScottish heather all over the hills of the park, and they are to do sowearing kilts and blue Highland bonnets. Given typical staffsensitivities to uniform design, one can only imagine how park workersmight react to this edict. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Ian McKay and Robin Bates's In the Province of History: TheMaking of the Public Past in Twentieth-Century Nova Scotia is a bookabout reconstruction. Not just the reconstruction of buildings such asChamplain's Habitation at Port Royal. It is also about thereconstruction of history to transform it into a marketable commodity.The authors have chosen as their field of study Nova Scotia and itsevolution toward the Province of History, as the title cleverly implies.In the book's examination of this decades-long branding exercise,authenticity succumbs to myth making and historical truth succumbs toromanticism. By focusing on what they call "tourism/history,"McKay and Bates raise important questions about the role of history,historians and historical process in the heritage business. The authors argue that the development of tourism/history in NovaScotia has been for economic, political and cultural gain. They takecare to underscore on several occasions that the motivation goes beyondeconomic benefit, although clearly the commercial aspect predominates.In their judgement, tourism/history collapses the boundaries betweenfact and fantasy, creating a safe, remote and romantic past. The bookcalls for greater respect for the rigorous application of historicalevidence and for opening up the bland discourse of tourism/history toencourage real dialogue. It probes beneath the inoffensive surface oftourism/history to reveal it as a form of knowledge antithetical tohistorical processes and contemporary relevance. The authors criticizethe tourism/history approach for its failure to capture the contentiousand complex nature of the past and for its disconnection between pastand present. But they also acknowledge that it can be "beguilingand beckoning." The book is framed by a selection of key players living in the late19th and first half of the 20th century, chosen for their influence onthe creation of a romanticized view of the past. The prologue introducesthe people of "Canada's Ocean Playground" through anelaborate dissection of a composite photograph entitled "NativeTypes" that was published in 1936 by Nova Scotia's Departmentof Highways, then responsible for tourism. Identified as "fivedistinct white races," the so-called native types included English,Scotch, French Acadian, Irish and Hanoverian. McKay and Bates offerseveral possible interpretations of this representation of NovaScotia's past before revealing their identities and reflecting onthe meaning of their position in the cultural hierarchy. They also notethe absence of groups such as the Mi'kmaq, Afro-Nova Scotians andsome European immigrants. This engaging analysis encapsulates the mainideas that are explored and teased out in the rest of the book. McKay and Bates set the stage by presenting a brief synopsis of thecomplicated historical events that occurred in the province from 1604 to1867 as well as an overview of the early historiography that shaped theperception of these events. They examine the influence of authors suchas Thomas Chandler Haliburton and Francis Parkman, as well as the morescholarly works of J.B. Brebner and D.C. Harvey on the construction ofNova Scotia's public history. They then turn to the first important example of tourism/history inNova Scotia, the Evangeline Phenomenon that gathered steam throughLongfellow's famous poem that recast the events of the Acadiandeportation. After settling in the Annapolis Valley for more than acentury, Acadian farmers and their families were deported in 1755 fromGrand-Pre on the order of British military leaders who distrusted theirallegiance during the French-English rivalry for North America. McKayand Bates note that the American author never visited the site and wrotea century after the events in question. They argue that Longfellowdepicted a fictional young girl called Evangeline and evoked anon-existent Golden Age in phantom primeval forests where naive andhonest Acadians lived an idyllic existence until evil Europeans forcedthem to migrate from Nova Scotia. Nonetheless, this poem came to depictreality and truth for generations of readers and visitors. The authorstie the Evangeline Phenomenon to the development of tourism andspecifically to the growth of the Dominion Atlantic Railway. Theirchronicling of the railway's promotion of Evangeline Land is a wryexpose of early branding and marketing of a heritage commodity. Theauthors define commodity as the experience of a generic pastness, ageneralized tender nostalgia. The challenge for the Dominion AtlanticRailway was to meet its customers' expectations for a rusticlandscape inhabited by Acadians and for visible evidence of past eventsat Grand-Pre. In the tourism/history framework, where fact and fantasyintermingle, reconstructions to improve the visitors' experienceare acceptable. Despite their questionable authenticity, the 1920smemorial chapel and the statue of the fictional heroine Evangeline metthe railway's need for a touristic focal point. Full chapters are devoted to what the authors call the"triumvirate" of history trendsetters: Will Bird, ThomasRaddall and Angus L. Macdonald. From the 1930s to the 1950s, these threemen were instrumental in reconstructing Nova Scotia's past. Drawingon a broad array of primary and secondary sources, McKay and Batessketch out in sometimes exhausting detail the manner in which each onecontributed to creating the Province of History. In a chapter appropriately entitled "All the World Was Safeand Happy," the authors describe the writings of Will Bird(1891-1984), a provincial civil servant from 1933 to 1965 who wrote 19books in his spare time. They demonstrate how Bird painted convincingportraits of Nova Scotia's past by erasing the boundary betweenfact and fiction and by interspersing specific historical details intowhat were romantic novels. Bird's best-selling This Is Nova Scotiadescribes a tourist/ narrator's encounters with commemorativeplaques (which Bird as civil servant had written) and an idealized innat Bridgetown complete with engravings of apostles, angels, children andanimals. Bird's simple writing style appealed to a wide audiencewho came to believe that this romanticized past--which the authors call"Birdland"--had really existed in a more innocent time andplace. McKay and Bates are not convinced. They describe Bird as amanipulative "state functionary with an exquisitely sensitivemarketing nose" who had manufactured a picturesque portrait of NovaScotia in order to attract tourism. They particularly decry the impactof Bird's appealing and simplistic historical vignettes becausesuch portraits dissociate the tourist from the contemporary implicationsof the past on issues such as military conflict, revolution or slavery. Thomas Raddall (1903-1994), novelist and historian, was aninfluential cultural figure in Nova Scotia. A prolific writer of 22books on historical themes, again with uncertain boundaries between factand fiction, Raddall also shaped the interpretation of Nova Scotianhistory. He created what the authors comically call"Raddallia," a space of crude determinism where historicalsignificance is reserved for events and places associated with theBritish and Canadian elites in whom social evolution has vested powerand prestige. Rejecting Longfellow's Acadia as "maudlin anduntrue literature," Raddall sided with the British and blamed theAcadians themselves for their deportation. He strongly supportedheritage preservation activities, although he resented thedisproportionate number of tourists going to the Annapolis Valley as aresult of the Evangeline Phenomenon. He worked actively to expandtourism to the South Shore and proposed anotherreconstruction--Liverpool's Fort Morris--as a means of attractingtourists. The third and most powerful person in the triumvirate was an ardentScot, Angus L. Macdonald, who served as premier of Nova Scotia from 1933to 1940, then from 1945 to 1954. While Bird and Raddall set the officialnarrative for Nova Scotia in the early 20th century, it is to Macdonaldwhom we owe the systematic branding of Nova Scotia as a Scottishprovince. The authors contend that before the 1930s the Scottishinfluence was over looked in tourism/history products. They documentMacdonald's role in the state promotion of a "tartanizedquasi-Scottish image." The creation of the Scots myth includedrekindling the story of the arrival of the Scots-bearing ship Hector,stationing a piper in Scottish regalia at the provincial border to greetvisitors in Gaelic with "a hundred thousand welcomes,"renaming the rugged landscape of Cape Breton the Highlands and buildingthe Keltic Lodge complete with golf and Highland cattle. The Scottishmyth persists to this day, described by the authors as a "vapidtartanism driven solely by profit." They contend that it reassertedBritishness in the tourism/history of Nova Scotia and underscored thedominance of the Scots in what they call the general politics ofwhiteness. The triumvirate joined forces through the newly created HistoricSites Advisory Council, most active between 1948 and 1964. Macdonaldestablished it in 1948, appointing Bird as its first chair. The authorsshow Macdonald's direct influence by including a detailed list ofhistorical places that the premier gave to Bird for councilconsideration. Macdonald's list gives priority to stately homes ofimportant people and first occurrences of events. The heritage ofseveral minority groups is ignored. The authors cite two examples ofdubious provenance--a non-authentic Norse runic stone found in Yarmouthand a non-proven landing of Cabot in Cape Breton--as evidence thattourism/history could develop its own truths. The fact that the counciland government endorsed the Cabot landing is used by the authors todemonstrate how heritage officialdom can anoint winners and rejectlosers in the quest for recognition of historical significance. Theyhammer home the point that layers of historiography affected how thecouncil perceived and valued the events, people and sites of the past. In the Province of History brings into focus issues of fundamentalimportance for heritage professionals. The first relates to the rolethat heritage designation plays in disconnecting the past from thepresent. Heritage designation has often had the unintended consequenceof freezing historic places or events in an historical frame, therebypreventing any legitimate evolution or added layers of value. As theauthors point out, Bird's imagined Nova Scotia is "imperviousto alteration." This same issue has emerged in international work,particularly at UNESCO's World Heritage Committee where discussionabout the appropriateness of new developments in designated WorldHeritage Cities occupies an inordinate amount of the agenda. The book also raises the issue of conscious or unconscious bias inselection criteria that are often used to identify historicsignificance. This phenomenon is not limited to Nova Scotia or toCanada. The weakness of all heritage designation processes lies in thecreation of a hierarchy of values. Dotted throughout the text areexamples of criteria that inevitably influence the determination ofwinners and losers in the heritage game. Macdonald's Historic SitesAdvisory Council favoured the great man syndrome and the"first" syndrome, which gave value to the first example ofanything. It also used criteria that were less about significance andmore about marketability, such as accessibility for tourists, supportfrom local historical societies, uniqueness and attractiveness(properties must not look too old!). In this context, the councilfavoured stately homes and gave historic cemeteries short shrift becausethey could not be turned into profitable attractions. During the periodunder discussion, the authors contend that the politics of commemorationmeant that the losers were persons, places and events associated withaboriginal people, Afro-Canadians, the labour movement and othernon-elites. From the perspective of a heritage professional who workedin the last quarter of the 20th century, In the Province of Historyhelps to explain the inventory of heritage properties and commemorativeplaques that were passed down to government agencies in the 1970s. Given the tantalizing glimpses that this book offers into thepernicious impact of tourism/history on heritage conservation andpresentation, one can only regret that the authors did not explore theseideas further. One can extrapolate that the needs of tourism/history arein part responsible for the flurry of reconstructed historicsites--often military sites--that were built in Canada in the first halfof the 20th century with little regard for authenticity. McKay and Batespoint to one example--Champlain's reconstructed Habitation at PortRoyal--which is neither on its original site nor accurate in itsdetails. With its simplification of events, tourism/history may also beresponsible for a legacy of dull, one-dimensional heritage programmingthat makes it difficult to believe that anything dramatic and relevantever happened here. Does not such a treatment, ponder the authors,resemble inoffensive theme parks a la Disney? To be fair, recentheritage practitioners have identified this weakness and are takingmeasures to present history in all its diversity andcontradiction--within the constraints of professional advice thatidentifies the average level of visitor comprehension at grade eight. Inthis context, it would have been interesting to read the authors'assessment of the current programming at Grand-Pre National HistoricSite, where Parks Canada has attempted to enlarge the historicaldialogue beyond Evangeline Land. McKay and Bates introduce us to an astonishing array of persons,places and events from Nova Scotia's past. Nicely written andcarefully researched, In the Province of History brings to life thedistortions that tourism/history can inflict on our understanding ofhistorical events and sites. It demonstrates how the convergence ofromantic literature, business interests and state intervention cancreate a safely remote and romantic past. The authors make a convincingcase for the influence of Longfellow, Bird, Raddall and Macdonald on theunderstanding and marketing of the past. This is a serious book about the process of history. It advocatesfor solid academic research as an antidote to popular and state-approvedhistory that is market driven and shaped by cultural elites. Its messageextends beyond Nova Scotia to historic sites across Canada and topopular programs such as the CBC's Canada: A People's History.After perusing this book, readers will surely approach such places andprograms with caution as they reflect on the bias and selectivity thatunderpin them. One can only hope that the book stimulates a debate onthe nature of our perception of the past. After reading this book, avisit to Nova Scotia will never be the same. Christina Cameron holds the Canada Research Chair on Built Heritageat the Universite de Montreal. During a 35-year career at Parks Canada,she served as director general of national historic sites.