History in the Making

“NOT INFREQUENTLY HISTORY IS FOUND TO BE CORRUPTED IN ITS VERY SOURCE. IF AN ORIGINAL NARRATIVE IS FALSE, OR EXAGGERATED IT MAY EASILY HAPPEN THAT THE MISTATEMENTS IT CONTAINS WILL BE REPEATED FROM AGE TO AGE BY A SERIES OF UNCRITICAL WRITERS.” DR. WILLIAM DAWSON LESUEUR.

Folks are talking about tax revolt! Canadian style impeachment! Expectations are of big changes coming! It’s the talk of coffee shop bull sessions, and in stalled line-ups at grocery stores; animated talks about citizen-action and about a lack of faith in even this new town council. Should we blame them? We don’t know who to blame if anybody at all. All we know is that stuff is happening, and those who enjoy working on puzzles, are finding this an interesting time to fill in the blanks. I couldn’t, in good conscience, print all the wild stories I’ve heard since last Thursday, when the Star brought allegations to our attention. I’ve felt very strongly about anchoring onto something solid, and letting the wind blow. It’s the finding-something-solid thing that’s posing a wee problem. What you may have thought was solid, isn’t really! Of course our faith is shaken. But nothing, since Thursday, is giving us any confidence in town hall. I can only hope what’s happening there is better than the word on the street!

The speculators are digging for gold, and there is nothing from town hall to allay fears of an impending implosion. They understand what investigation means, just not why there is a gag order, from somewhere or other, stopping up administration of this town, taking responsibility for reaching out to constituents, who feel, rightly so, abandoned and disenfranchised.

FROM ME TO YOU

If, as you might think, I’m full of pomposity and bluster, then I would tell you I live in a bigger house than a subdivision bungalow. If I wanted to present myself as an expert, and not an underling, I would never admit that I still crave learning and new experience. If I was the jack-ass some believe, sooner or later I’d realize how ridiculous it was, to expect my actions would ever be considered worthwhile and constructive. As pompous as I might appear, or unscholarly as you might critique, I must retire myself to this pursuit none-the-less, and believe with my heart and soul, that it is infinitely better to be a seeker-of-truth, than one who has given up in its very existence.

I was confounded this afternoon, about whether to drift away from the turmoil spinning away in Gravenhurst, or get an early start on my next column about Tom Thomson, for a new publication I’ve joined up Almaguin way. Admittedly exasperated, trying to wrestle with latest developments here, it would probably have been time well invested, to put myself in Thomson’s canoe for a paddle through the lakes of Algonquin. I was that close. Reaching for my Thomson notes, I first had to move my dog-eared copy of “A Critical Spirit,” which includes numerous important essays by W.D. LeSueur, a writer/historian, of which I have enormous respect. I tend to get sidetracked easily these days by anything that isn’t political, as such. So I started to read a few passages. LeSueur, in case you’re new to my blogs, and tomes of local history, was the bloke responsible for naming our community in the summer of 1862. He chose the name “Gravenhurst,” based on the title of a book by British poet/philosopher William Henry Smith. LeSueur, when not debunking the work of established historians and philosophers, he didn’t like, was working with the federal postal authority, and assisting fledgling communities name their new community post offices. In essence he was playing the “history maker,” as in numerous cases, he rejected submitted names, granting instead, storied titles that had a wealth of provenance. LeSueur has been described as one of the country’s most accomplished scholars, and a historian with a dogged determination to set the record straight. He got himself into a lot of hot water by challenging historical facts, and re-writing what was long held as milestone heritage.

I started browsing through the text, as I do almost monthly, and I found several passages that do sum-up how I feel about fact and presentation......as an historian....as a Canadian, feeling at this time very conflicted by the actions and reactions of all levels of government. Here is one passage I’ve often used when addressing the importance of accuracy in statements made.

“Not infrequently history is found to be corrupted in its very source. If an original narrative is false or exaggerated it may easily happen that the mistatements it contains will be repeated from age to age by a series of uncritical writers, and thus pass into unquestioned, not to say, unquestionable tradition. Count Frontenac, in a despatch to the French Government, gave a greatly exaggerated official report of the Lachine massacre. Charlevoix took his word for numbers and details, and Charlevoix’s account has become classic. It is in all the popular histories. But how do we know that Frontenac exaggerated? Through the careful researches of the late Hon. Justice Girouard in parish registers. Not half the number reported by Frontenac as killed were missing after the disaster. In this case there were motives for misrepresentation. There was the ever-operative motive of trying to impress the French Government with the dangers to which the colony was exposed, so as to get more liberal supplies in men, money and material; and there was a special motive on the part of Frontenac who had just been sent back to Canada for his second term as Governor, of showing how terrible a calamity had overtaken the colony in his absence. Denonville, the retiring Governor, had just a few weeks before, ordered the abandonment and destruction of Frontenac’s favorite fort of Cataraqui, and this did not help put the two men, who already differed greatly in temperament and principles, on better terms.” The chap who named our community, wrote the authoritarian biography of Frontenac, for The Makers of Canada series.....should you ever want some light reading.

Please read on:

“Every student of Canadian history will remember Father Rochemonteix’s criticism of the Relations des Jesuites, a series of annals which, on the whole, like the rest of the world, he highly esteemed. He said in effect that they consisted of carefully selected incidents of a particular character and significance, and did not, therefore correctly reflect the normal life of the country. What the good fathers had mainly in view was to interest their countrymen in the work of the missions of Canada.” In other words, it is supposed by some, that one should never let fact ruin a perfectly good story.

As my bible of history and its critical overview, I am drawn like a moth to a lamp, by LeSueur’s poignant assertion that:

“Criticism should be the voice of impartial and enlightened reason. Too often what passes for criticism is the voice of hireling adulation or hireling enmity. Illustrations of this will occur to everyone, but there is no use in blaming criticism, which, as has been said, is an intellectual necessity of the age. The foregoing remarks have been made in the hope that they may help to clear away some prevalent misconceptions by showing the organic connection, so to speak, that exists between criticism as a function, or as a mode of intellectual activity, and the very simplest intellectual processes. Such a mode of regarding it should do away with the odium that in so many minds attaches to the idea of criticism. Let us all try to be critics according to the measure of our abilities and opportunities. Let us aim at seeing all we can, at gaining as many points of view as possible. Let us compare carefully and judge impartially; and we may depend upon it.... we shall be the better for the very effort.”

Prior to the municipal election, in about September, I offered this statement by LeSueur, in part to explain my own method of dealing with fact, as I am presented, and how I see situations manifesting.......based on what has happened in the past, and what in all likelihood will occur once again. I am a perpetual critic but very much in the spirit of one of Canada’s best known critics. When accepted thought was that Firebrand William Lyon Mackenzie, was the pivotal activist central to the Rebellion of Upper Canada, LeSueur noted instead that Mackenzie, a wee bit of a tool and bungler, wasn’t as much a mover-and-shaker, as had long been held by Canadian historians; and that the rebellion would have occurred even without him. Mackenzie’s kin, Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, was so upset by LeSueur’s debunking, that he was able, with a massive power play, by protracted litigation, to shelve the book for decades. It was eventually published, long after LeSueur’s death, and what it served, was to welcome diverse approaches and criticism of accepted thought. The world didn’t come to an end. Mackenzie is still considered a father of rebellion, and LeSueur finally got his chance to put the Firebrand in a different light. Now it is a sought after reference book for other studies on Mackenzie.

LeSueur reserved particularly harsh criticism for writer’s like Stephen Leacock, who he accused of perpetuating popular history, much of it bordering on fiction...... moreso than his glossy histories being sculpted, as LeSueur believe they should have been, from newly uncovered, uncompromised fact. While it’s accepted that some historians took the short way from here to there, LeSueur was deeply concerned what these liberalities were going to cause students, and researchers, down the road......when they were confronted by deviations and misinformation, all contributing to a general misunderstanding of the history of this country. If anything LeSueur has made me far more self-critical about what I record, what I enter as observation, and a sincere reckoning with how my work, my summaries of situations, will be viewed in the future. The last thing I want, is to be credited for bending truths and purposely misrepresenting issues, and situations I encounter along the way. I loathe to be corrected, so I beat myself up many times, before any blog or editorial print copy, is ready for public consumption. From my own editorial days with Muskoka Publications, I have stayed the course. It’s been a long and wearying learning curve but I never took a short cut.

I am ready to address my readers, as the town should be communicating with their constituents.

I love this town for what it has contributed to my family’s well being. It has been a wonderful place to live, work and raise a family. I have always taken a sincere interest in its history, and unlike some who re-locate here, from other communities, our family learned about Gravenhurst from the work of historians past and present. I find myself, in many situations, these days, feeling as if I must defend the history of this community, as some others have decided to re-write it to suit themselves, their perspectives, and vested interests. I have found my contemporaries rather silent on the issues, as if they’re quite exhausted always having to correct what has been misrepresented or misunderstood. Although I have never been one to shy away from a challenge, or to step up in defense of home and neighborhood, I must admit to being frustrated by the way town hall operates these days, and for the past decade, showing such profound disconnect with the desires of the population......from the sale of Gravenhurst Hydro to moving the town hall. The aura of town hall, especially now that it has moved from the downtown core, seems as distant as Oz some times, and the way it is operated generally, gives one the feeling we’re getting the finger with the welcoming wave.

I have been at odds with town hall for years, and I must consider this before pronouncing that this latest debacle troubles me......considering I’m halfway to “troubled” to begin with, just thinking about tax bills and land grabs. What I want to suggest, via this rambling ode, is that despite the misconception we can be bedazzled by evasive, rounded, sculpted explanations, instead of fact, or its appreciation as being important......, truth is, our citizens are smarter than town hall assumes. I do think, unless they stop treating us as fools, they will experience the wrath of a population, vocally unhappy with its current representation. Admittedly, we should all be patient. We should let the process proceed. We should be open minded and conciliatory, keen but not vigilante-keen. We should all be prepared to consider the facts, and judge fairly the actions of our elected officials, to handle this present conundrum. Still, and no one will take this away from us, we will have occasion to review and assess the governance, we’ve had through this difficult period. So it seems imperative for council to get one thing straight......we’re not going to accept spin or fobbing-off for long, before our determination for change becomes evermore acute. That is fact.

I’m jumping in Tom Thomson’s canoe now. It’s the place, at this moment, I most want to be. Looking at the scenes he witnessed, the feel of water current, waves and wind, in such a magnificent land as this. I’ve got research to do, columns to write, and well, subjects I’d rather pursue, than taking it upon myself, to instruct local council, on how it should treat its citizens. It’s time for others to demand fair play, transparency and effective, responsive officialdom.....so we know where we stand.....if we can afford to stand here for long, and just how much money we’ve got left, if any at all, to traverse into the future.

I’m committed to Gravenhurst. Hopefully we all are!