Canadian Sport and Leisure: Summer Edition

Image of the Highland Inn (Algonquin Park).
1950s.

With another long weekend fast approaching and the nice weather bringing us outdoors, I thought it would be a perfect time to look back on the ways Canadians in the past had fun in the sun. Each week in August I will highlight an aspect of Canadian summer sports and leisure, presenting brief histories on these Canadian activities. From camping to high luxury cottaging, I hope with this short series I can highlight the history of Play in Canada and some of the great material available on this topic. 

Exploring 'Play in Canada' brings such sub-topics as class, race, gender, memory and environment into the context. Sports and leisure in Canada illustrate a deeper cultural and social history and this is why Play is such a serious topic in the field. 

This week I present an American film on the great outdoors. Though it is not a Canadian source, this short film illustrates how people began to explore their own backyards through this unique tourist experience. 

Glacier Park and the Canadian Rockies

Also it is amazing how many people feed the animals, including Bears! Far different from our experiences today. 

Deep History Movie

Speaking of historical movies, the one to see right now may be Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams, about the paintings of the Chauvet cave in France.  The oldest paintings, beautiful renderings of lions and deer and rhinos and much else, are about 30,000 years old, and I've never seen a film that gave such a deep sense of just how long ago that was.  We are about fifteen hundred generations away from the talented, thoughtful, creative humans who made and saw these paintings.

It is also the first film I have seen in which 3-D seemed like something other than a war toy. In seeking interpretations of the art, Herzog leans more to the new-agey than to the hard-science approach favoured by those mandated to maintain and study the Chauvet cave.  No matter.  It's a brilliant feat of filmmaking about time and change and permanence.

Judith Thurman's New Yorker article that helped inspire the film, is avalable here, and she notes some interesting recent scholarship on the subject of prehistoric art.  IMDB's page on the film, with links to trailers, etc, is here.

It's in fairly limited release so far, though per-screen revenues have been impressive where it isshowing. Check, as they say, your local listings

Best Historical Movies

The blog of the British magazine History Today recently proposed a list of The Ten Best Historical Films to commemorate the birthday of Ingman Bergman.  Cine-philistine that I am, I have only seen one of them, and that was a long time ago.


Personally I liked The Knight's Tale with Heath Ledger.  When the knights come cantering into the lists and the peasants in the bleachers begin to stamp their feet and sing "We will, we will rock you" -- now that's an evocation of class in history like you rarely see.  Paul Bettany exploring a little-known aspect of the career of Geoffrey Chaucer -- that's him there before the singing -- is pretty fine too.

Other nominations, more refined or not, gratefully received, of course.

Dubious History: Saunders on parliamentary democracy

Doug Saunders, the consistently interesting Globe & Mail writer on international politics and much more, explores the implications for government of the Murdoch scandal here.  As he says, "not only is the British crisis rooted in the structure of the country’s government and media, but so is its solution."

The unravelling of this scandal, the explosion of revelations and sackings and confessions, all were produced by powerful critical voices within the very political and media system that was subject to the scandal. This is a country whose public and popular institutions are not a closed loop of self-justifying uniformity.

Britain, in other words, is not Libya.  But then he goes on to say, no, actually Britain's parliamentary system was not able to cope with this challenge, that really it was some American importation that has saved the country.  The fact that parliamentary backbenchers put pressure on Murdoch and his allies on government and in law enforcement and finally created the parliamentary select committee that exposed them last week -- all this, he declares, "was a set of institutions and practices largely imported from the United States."


Frankly, from a smart guy, this is bonkers.  Saunders, for all his experience of the world, continues to express the bone-deep innocence about parliamentary democracy that is endemic among Canadian experts and intellectuals. Canadians rarely grasp even the possibility of parliamentary government as a system in which the elected representatives of the people hold government to account.  If they do see MPs wielding authority, it must be a "coup" or an importation of American values.  Imagine a British Parliament in 1940 dismissing Prime Minister Chamberlain and putting Winston Churchill in power?  Could not happen.  Backbenchers dismissing Margaret Thatcher in 1989?  Only Americans would do that kind of thing.


I find myself going back to Adam Tomkins, the British writer on parliament.  Parliamentarians, Tomkins declares, must not “allow loyalty to party to obscure or even to obstruct loyalty to Parliament’s constitutional function of holding the government to account.” Parliamentary democracy, he argues, depends on the essential dynamic “between Crown and Parliament, between front bench and back, or between minister and parliamentarian.”  Like what happened last week in Britain, that is. (My longer take on Tomkins here.)

I know. As a practical matter, this never does happen in the Canadian parliamentary context.  But it is sad to see smart, savvy Canadians like Doug Saunders conclude that it cannot happen in a parliamentary system -- even when they see it happening in front of their eyes.

Don't know nothing about the ... 19th century

Andrew Smith draw our attention to his review of two Canadian histories in Reviews in History, a British online reviewing site that, as he says, doesn't much cover Canadian history. T'aint all positive.

Canada has a large and well-funded historical profession and there are many scholars who work on the Canadian past, particularly periods after 1914 and, especially, 1945. The gender, aboriginal, military, and environmental histories of 20th-century Canada are the subject of intensive research. Very few historians of Canada, however, now work on 19th-century topics or in political history. There are approximately ten specialists in 19th-century Canadian history and only one or two of them can really be described as political historians. Even allowing for Canada’s smallish population, which is now half that of the United Kingdom and a tenth that of the United States, the volume of current research on 19th-century Canada is shockingly low. 

Norwich Archives #3: The Diaries of Miss Stella Mott

This post will take up way too much space on this blog, and as to not crush everyone else's posts out of sight, I've linked to my latest here...

Active History:"Looking Back on Pride"

Fitting with the ongoing LGBT history theme, here's another great article from Activehistory.ca by Mathieu Brûlé, a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at York University.

Just for fun here's a CBC clip from the 1985 Pride parade in Toronto (honestly, what WOULD I do without CBC Archives clips?)

I attended the Pride parade this year in Toronto and in the light of the controversy over Mayor Rob Ford was surprised to see former mayors of Toronto marching. I only recognized David Miller but read later that there were 3 former mayors in the parade. I found it interesting, though perhaps it means little.

Our boy in the big leagues

I didn't quite dare to predict it the other day, but Ryder Hesjedal had his big day yesterday.  Led a breakaway, led the whole tour over the mountain, led a group of just three into the finish line five minutes ahead of everyone else.  He got tons of TV attention and the commentators went on about what a skilled rider Ryder is.  (They also said he's from Vancouver, which will cause some teeth to knash in Victoria.)

The other two in his group of three were two of the best sprint-finishers in the world, so Hesjedal was pretty much certain to get pipped at the finish line.  So he worked in perfect harmony with his teammate Thor Hushovd (centre in the picture) and insured that he, not Edvald Boassen Hagen (left) of the rival Sky team, got the stage win, while Hesjedal came in cheering.  

Thanks to my blog partners for actually covering historical subjects on the blog while I'm amusing myself!  Photo credit: Toronto Star, who also provide cyclist Michael Barry's insider perspective on the day.  And The Walrus has a profile of Hesjedal by Richard Poplak.

They paved Parliament and put up a ...

They paved Canada’s First Parliament and put up a parking lot  ...  shoo bop bop bop bop ...

The first permanent parliament of the United Province of Canada was in Montreal – though it’s not quite clear where it was located and not many people even know it was there. Now archaeologists have begun digging up a parking lot in Old Montreal to find it.  Kingston was the original home of the Parliament and it was moved to Montreal on Nov. 28, 1844 and held in St Anne’s Market (the current Place D’Youville if you’re exploring old Montreal. They’re excavating till October).

The building was burned to the ground on April 25, 1849 when a mob took over the building – upset by the Rebellion Losses Bill – (not that I want to incite the burning down of buildings but surely there have been some newer issues equally worthy of the equivalent of ‘burning down’ of parliament) and lit a fire inside.

Of note in that parliament in Montreal – the establishment of responsible government in 1848. Also John A, the John A, challenged a rival to a duel over the above same Rebellion Losses Bill.

See all the info at http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1026137--canada-s-ex-parliament-to-be-excavated-from-under-montreal-parking-lot

Active History - "Renaming Schools: What Does Sanitizing History Teach Students?"

Another great article from activehistory.ca by Paul W. Bennett. If you haven't started following the sites blog, I strongly suggest you do so. It's, well, active and engaging. Chris Moore has previously linked and referred to it.

Below is a quotation I liked from an article on renaming public schools to rid them of names of historical figures with, questional, ethics and actions (my guess is this would lead to all schools eventually being called "blank district school".) Don't make me invoke the slippery slope argument people!

"Critics of name changing initiatives are right to raise objections.  History is a “contested terrain” and in removing names we are denying today’s students an opportunity to engage in such discussions. Exposing students to the conflict of ideas and interpretation lies at the very core of civic education."

Halifax Metropolitan Community Church closes

I saw this article in Xtra! and thought I'd pass it on. The Safe Harbour Metropolitan Community Church in Halifax, NS is closing its doors. Metropolitan Community Churches arose at the cusp of the Gay Liberation Movement and were vocal advocates for LGBT rights and the first Church in the United States and Canada to openly welcome LGBT members. As with most aspects of the gay lib movement the Church began in the US and eventually spread to Canada. A branch used to exist in Ottawa and one still does in Toronto. Here's the general MCC website and a list of the churches still active in Canada (sans Halifax of course).

Finding D'Arcy McGee: From Parliament to the Pub

Thomas D'Arcy McGee, an Irish-Canadian politician, journalist and poet is one of the few Canadian politicians ever assassinated for his political beliefs and is remembered throughout the Nation's capital. From monuments to a Prime Pub, D'Arcy McGee remains a public figure within Ottawa.

One of the greatest local adventures I took a couple years ago was my quest to find D'Arcy McGee within the Nation's Capital. My quest took me from Parliament Hill where his monument sits in commemoration to his political ideology to Sparks Street (a short walk from the Hill where McGee was assassinated). My interest in McGee was sparked by a CBC radio program that discussed his assassination and the cultural division it caused within the city.

If you are visiting Ottawa this summer or looking to explore Ottawa in a new way, Finding D'Arcy McGee allows you to experience and learn about the history of the Capital through a new lens. Some of the places I have explored in my tour includes, The Hill, Sparks Street, D'Arcy McGee's Pub, The Ottawa Jail Hostel (where alleged murderer of McGee, Patrick J. Whelan was hanged for his crime) and the Bytowne Museum. Not only will you learn more about McGee and his life in Ottawa but the history and displacement of the working class in this political city.

I have already started a new adventure myself and I am now trying to Find Mackenzie King, planning a trip into Centre Block and out to the Gatineau Hills. Finding the lives and places of a well known individual within your home town may be a new way for you to explore your city.

'Mapping Queer History' feature in NOW Magazine

Similar work has been done for Ottawa's queer spaces....

http://clgaengagement.blogspot.com/2011/07/mapping-queer-history-feature-in-now.html

Scroll down or enlarge the map to check out historic locations. The fact that current and historic locations are published in one article suggests the Toronto LGBT community's historically linear view of queer spatial history.

http://www.nowtoronto.com/guides/pride/2011/story.cfm?content=181569

How's Ryder riding in the Tour? (fanboy alert)

...Pretty well... but not with top ten results like last year.  And he may not go there this year.

Ryder Hesjedal, again the only Canadian in the Tour de France, is part of a very strong team, Garmin-Cervelo.  Last year he was lucky and strong in the opening days, went to the front as teammates crashed out, and soon had the whole team working for him.  And he came through, placed seventh overall.

This year he was less lucky near the start, got caught up in one crash and banged up in another. Meanwhile his team has done tremendously well. Sprinter Tyler Farrar won a stage, and Thor Hushovd wore yellow for nine days. Garmin won the team time trial and was top team for the opening third of the race. Teammates Tom Danielson and Christian Vande Velde are well placed in the standings, David Millar and Hushovd not far behind.

The Tour is a team sport.  When your team mates are stellar and you are only okay, well, you support them.  So in Tuesday's stage, there was Hesjedal way back helping sprinter Farrar get over the hills. Today he was pacesetting at the front to position Farrar for a competitive sprint position.  The result is inescapable: you wear yourself out helping out, and then you drop back. So Hesjedal lost time yesterday, and came in near the back today (though losing no time or standing).  He stands 51st overall, 15 minutes behind the current leader, about 12 minutes behind the major contenders.

Tomorrow the big dogs start to bark. they go up into the Pyrenees, and the time differences between contenders and supporters will start to become huge. Ryder showed last year he could climb with the best of them.   And if he is getting back into form, who knows?  But last year he had the team behind him.  This year he's as likely to be supporting teammates.  Go Ryder anyway.

Fewer drug scandals in the Tour this year, but the crashes!  Ten percent of the competitors are now out of the race, and the list of concussions and broken collarbones, femurs, ribs, and wrists has been truly horrific.  It's a road race, yes, but the organization seems less concerned about injury prevention than it should be.  The Tour is an endurance race, but this year it's too much of a survival lottery.

(I sorted out my quarrel with my cable company and have adjusted to TSN.)

Zeitag TO - history image app for iphone!

You'll have to excuse my history geekiness for a moment (come now people, you know you have it too)...THIS IS SO COOL!!!

http://activehistory.ca/2011/07/like-history-theres-an-app-for-that/

http://zeitag.net/ZeitagTO.html

It's an app that allows you to view historic photos of Toronto in your current location on your Iphone. I've seen things like this before, but never specifc to Toronto. Oh how I love the "historical gaze", what I define as the attempt to picture and formulate past actions in a particular historical space. This project and simiar ones being born from the Iphone phenomenon allows the 'historical gaze' to be rooted moreso in reality than ones imagination can do alone.

I especially enjoyed this comment from the above article:

" 'We don’t want the city covered in bronze – there are various platforms to bring information to the public.  This way, you can tell as many stories as you want,' Blakeley recently said.  Physical plaques serve a purpose, especially for those without smartphones.  But apps on iPhones and other devices offer the ability to expand the number of (virtual) plaques, and what a plaque can do."

Also, I've spoken to John Walsh at Carleton University about another exciting project:

" Historical Landscapes of the Chaudiere: Augmented Reality Apps for Environmental Histories, currently in development, will use AR to translate an existing walking tour of Ottawa created by graduate students in the Public History program at Carleton University to one you can do with your smartphone.   The project, funded by the Network in Canadian History & Environment (NiCHE), will 'demonstrate how the very direct relationships between geographical ‘mappings’ of heritage and place-based mobile computing privileges narratives of environmental history and will provide a model for using this technology in other landscapes.'  Exciting stuff."

This reminds me of the Heritage Toronto iTours: http://www.heritagetoronto.org/discover-toronto/itours

In the Journals

The state of book reviewing is not entirely dire, despite what you no longer see in the papers.

The Literary Review of Canada has been keeping on with long-form reviews of scholarship and journalism on public policy, literature and the arts for twenty years now, in print and lately online.  It now has a new imitator or rival, The Dorchester Review that launched in the spring of 2011.  

The DR is named, not for the New Brunswick penitentiary or the Montreal street that now honours René Lévesque, but for the man himself, Thomas Carleton, Lord Dorchester:

In our choice of a moniker and historical patron we take the name of a bewigged British soldier, an astute and unapologetic colonial governor from the pre-democratic era, in order to underline that history consists of more than a parade of secular modern progressives building a distinctively Canadian utopia. 

Just how the DR and the LRC may differ on questions of secular modern progress may be suggested by the way the current issues of each have covered a recent historical work, John Ralston Saul's biography LaFontaine and Baldwin.  The Dorchester Review review is by Chris Champion. The DR is not making it available online, but it was recently summed up in an enthusiastic plug for the magazine entitled "New Journal Sets Canadian History Right," by a former Canadian, the prominent American conservative strategist and blogger David Frum:

One of the most exciting articles in the journal is Chris Champion’s hanging, drawing, and quartering of John Ralston Saul’s book on the attainment of responsible government by the province of Canada in 1848. (Actually, Champion does not stop at the quartering: He incinerates the remains and then stamps on the dust.)

 The Literary Review review of Saul on LaFontaine and Baldwin is by, well, me, Christopher Moore.  It is not included in the online edition of the latest LRC, but it is in the print one, and  it's available online here.

Opportunities to compare and contrast would seem to abound.

Reflecting Both the Past and Present: Enjoying the Human Sciences in your Reading List this Year!

Albert Einstein's Relativity is one of
the many great scientific works on my
Fall Reading list this year. 

This summer I have been enjoying my seasonal reading list, full of classic literature, including works from Jane Austen and Canadian favourite Lucy Maud Montgomery. But looking ahead I have been organizing and picking out books for the fall. Examining some of my choices for the cooler months, I realized I have unconsciously chosen works that represent the philosophy of the human sciences, representing a history that focuses on society as well as the individual. Including works from Newton to Thomas Moore, Machiavelli and Einstein, these works explore society and the universe to great philosophical levels that continue to be relevant today. With so many new and interesting works coming out we often forget about some of the great past texts, which have not only influenced these new works but have influenced our own political and social believes. So if your thinking ahead to your next reading list consider the works by some of the great minds in history, as they along with their works act as a window to our past, present and future.   

Pit crews in the history department

In a commencement address that has become famous (and not only because that dean at the University of Alberta plagiarized it), the New Yorker  writer Atul Gawande ruminates on how to deliver effective medical care.  Med schools train cowboys, he says -- independent, autonomous, self-sufficient -- when medical care needs pit crews: closely coordinated teams following highly structured procedures to meet shared goals.

The places that get the best results are not the most expensive places. Indeed, many are among the least expensive. This means there is hope—for if the best results required the highest costs, then rationing care would be the only choice. Instead, however, we can look to the top performers—the positive deviants—to understand how to provide what society most needs: better care at lower cost. And the pattern seems to be that the places that function most like a system are most successful. 

By a system I mean that the diverse people actually work together to direct their specialized capabilities toward common goals for patients. They are coordinated by design. They are pit crews.

Does this apply to universities, to history departments, too?  


Universities too have a problem of high costs and disappointing outcomes.  But so far the university response has mostly been to insist improvements will only come from getting more money for the same thing. The only issue universities want to talk about is "underfunding" -- though surely it is obvious that no university will ever get the money it would like to have in order to maintain itself in the conditions in which it would like to be maintained.


Research in the social sciences is still pretty cowboy-like, isn't it?  Scholars pretty much get to study what they choose to study. I have no sense -- looking from the outside -- of history departments that decide, okay, these five fields will be our longterm research and publication priorities, and everyone we hire will pitch in, applying their specialized skills to help our teams pursue these predetermined common goals.


It seems the same in university teaching.  Students, even those that focus on a major, mostly get a smorgasbord of classes to take, with each class largely determined by what the individual professor wants to teach. Students become as cowboy-like as their professors, and often the good ones come away largely self-taught.


Freedom of inquiry is a wonderful thing. Historians in universities are probably no more eager than doctors to lose their heroic self-sufficiency  But individualism has its costs. Are any university thinkers thinking like Atul Gawande -- that there are gains as well as losses to be had from systematization?


I say this as a freelance writer, vividly aware that I have taken my career about as far out on the cowboy end of the spectrum as one can go, and hardly been part of the education system at all.  But maybe Willie Nelson is the philosopher the university system, as well as the health-care system, needs.  Mommas, don't let your sons profs grow up to be cowboys?

What will you teach next September 11?

Tenth anniversaries -- so artificial, so lacking in real meaning.  The event now undeniably disappearing into the past, but hardly yet achieving the remoteness that allows critical dispassion.  Yes, the tenth anniversary of the destruction of the World Trade Centre towers in 2001 is fast approaching.  What will historians do, back in their classrooms a couple of months hence, when it's all in the news again?

The Organization of American Historians takes the question head-on in its Magazine of History with a wide range of historians of contemporary America pondering how and what to teach when you teach 9/11.  The magazine is not open access online, but Mary Dudziak provides an overview and suggests ways in.

A book so interesting

Looking for summer reading by the lake while you think about the Indigenous and HBC Fur Traders sweating as they navigated the back country in their canoes and worked on the maps they made as they went along?

McGill-Queen's Press is currently pushing an award-winning history of HBC map-making by the late Queen's University geographer Richard Ruggles. 

This is what MQUP has to say:

Maps were an essential tool for the Hudson's Bay Company and during the two centuries before Confederation the Company became the main mapping agency in British North America for the immense territory extending from Ungava Bay to the Pacific Ocean.

In A Country So Interesting Richard Ruggles describes and analyses the mapping activities of more than 160 Company servants and surveyors as well as the contributions of more than 50 Indians and Inuit who drew sketches and provided original configurations. Also included are annotated catalogues of all the maps known to have been produced by the Hudson's Bay Company and sixty-six reproductions of the most important maps and sketches.

The Hudson's Bay Company was responsible for the largest collection in North America of manuscript charts and maps related to the fur trade and Ruggles has produced the first and most comprehensive study of this unique and rich body of material.

But before you order it, read and vote for Chris's 1867: How the Fathers Made a Deal. Or vote and read later.

Free the Tour. And support the Wheelmen charity

Canada's Canada Day got hi-jacked by some charming and photogenic foreigners this year (but some of us got to ignore most of it at someone else's place by the lake).

Less easy to ignore is TSN's hi-jacking of the year's sports highlight for this blog, the Tour de France.  For years the Tour has been broadcast in Canada by the Outdoor Life Network, a specialty channel but not a pay channel.  But last year's tremendous race by Canadian Ryder Hesjedal caught the attention of TSN's vultures, who bought up the Canadian rights...

... and then consigned Tour coverage to TSN 2, their high-on-the-dial, accessible-only-to-subscribers backup channel.  They have already reneged on their promise to run the Tour's abbreviated daily wrapup program each night on the main, more accessible, TSN 1.  OLN always ran both.  Even on the pay channel, the TSN coverage is larded with ads.

Here's hoping TSN will discover serious Tour fans are not going to be TSN subscribers and let the Tour go public and ad-supported as soon  as possible.  OLN!  OLN ! OLN!

Meanwhile, the best coverage of the race AND Ryder Hesjedal's part in it comes from Cleve Dheensaw of Hesjedal's hometown paper the Victoria Times-Colonist.  Here -- picked up by the Montreal Gazette -- is his latest.  And the Tour's own website has nifty stuff for the televisually starved.  Canadian cyclist Michael Barry, whose Sky team decided just a couple of weeks ago not to include him in its Tour lineup this year, will be covering the Tour for the Toronto Star -- besides competing for Sky elsewhere.

Before last year's Tour, I wrote a piece about Canada's cycling history that Canada's History published under the headline "Wheelmen Ride Bicycles."  After his great success, Hesjedal and his people decided to launch a charitable foundation to assist young and needy cyclists, and they were inspired by my article to call the charity "The Wheelmen."

Check out the Wheelmen (and Wheelwomen) website.  Buy a handsome T-Shirt.  Help a good cause.  And while you are there, you can read the story that found the project a name..

New Contributor: Anne McDonald on Expo 67 and 1867

With this post prairie writer Anne McDonald joins our group of occasional blog contributors.  Anne is a psychologist, sometime comedian, teacher, and historical novelist, now based in Saskatchewan .  More about Anne at her website.


My interest lies in important parties, as in fetes, of Canada’s past. One of the biggest parties Canada ever had, was Expo ’67. I turned seven just before the centennial. Seven is an interesting age – it is when we begin to look at the world outside ourselves and see how we fit. At seven we start the journey to rational adulthood, yet still have the optimism and exuberance of youth – and I think a country turning 100 is the same thing as a person turning seven. And Expo ’67 in Montreal was just that – exuberant and optimistic (of course it was the height of the 60s) and Canada finding her place in the world.

From the Canadian Corporation for the 1967 World Exhibition:

“Canada is a land radiant with promise, bountiful and big ... . (Expo) will be held from April 28 to October 27, 1967 ... and will be the largest international exhibition ever held ... and is the only ‘first category’ world exhibition ever authorized outside of Europe. ...

 ‘Man and His World’ – the theme of the 1967 Universal and International Exhibition – was inspired by the title of Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s book Terre des Hommes, (the title in English is Wind, Sand and Stars).” Thus the theme of Expo was, in Saint-Exupery’s words, “To be a man is to feel that through one’s contribution one helps to build the World”.

    Exuberance and optimism defined.

And what is a party without a cake! My mother snuck through the lines and caught this picture of Canada’s cake on July 1^st, 1967 at Canada Place, Expo. The MP in the middle is Bryce Mackasey, then Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour.

Meanwhile, back at the original Confederation Day on Monday July 1^st, 1867, the Globe came out (which is where this comes from, available online to subscribers at universities and the Toronto Public Library, and this special Confederation Day posting: 

“As the town clock struck midnight, and the Dominion of Canada began its legal existence, the bells of St. James’ Cathedral ... sent forth a merry peal. Bonfires were lighted in various parts of the city (Toronto), small arms went off as rapidly as pop guns ...”

     And from the next column: “Confederation Day in Toronto, The Programme of Rejoicing:  Today, our loyal city will bear her part in celebrating an occasion destined in the future annals of these Provinces to be marked as a red letter day for all time. ... At 6 o’clock a.m. an immense ox [a very fine one it was noted later] will be roasted by Capt. Woodhouse, of the barque Lord Nelson, at the foot of Church street. ...

The Directors of the Horticultural Society have prepared a most attractive evening of entertainment.” The bands of the 17^th and 18^th Hussars were there to draw large crowds and afterwards would ‘supply music for dancing.’

In addition, illuminations and fireworks will be indulged in to a considerable extent.

Should the cake have been in the shape of an ox?