Mercy Coles in Montreal

“Saturday morning Oct 29

I feel quite well this morning. I went down to the Ball last night. Such a splendid affair. Mr. Crowther danced with me the first Quadrille. Sir Fenwick Williams was here looking as well as ever. ...”

Sir Fenwick Williams born in 1800 in Nova Scotia, became a military hero because of his defence of Kars, Turkey during the Crimean War. In 1861 he was sent to Canada as commander-in- chief of the British Forces in British North America. Remember, the American Civil war had just started and there were Fenian raids on Canada – all reasons to guard the border. In November 1865 he was sent to be Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia as someone who would be pro Confederation, which Britain wanted by then.

            From the London Times, October 24^th, 1864

“Our colonies are rather too fond of us, and embrace us, if anything, too closely”

Saturday continued:

“ ... Ma and I have just been to the Convent Congregation Notre Dame. Mr. McDonald (stutterer) came and took Mamma and I. I have just come from Notman’s. My photograph was not good I don’t think, so I would not take it however the man said he would send me two dozen to the Island. ...”

Notman’s is William Notman’s studio, one of the most famous photographers of his day. He would colour and tint photographs and was a leader in photography techniques. He created large ‘composite photographs’ with up to 450 people and make each person clear by assembling photographs of each individual into the one scene. Sort of the Busby Berkley of still photography. See the McCord Museum of Canadian History for much more on Notman.

For a novel that explores the beginnings of photography – that history in fiction see Keith Maillard's Light in the Company of Women. It’s brilliant. Also what I found interesting, having just finished a novel that looks at the history of Canada’s confederation was Keith’s comment about writing his novel at a talk at the University of Regina a few years ago. He said an early draft was like a photography manual – and so, yes, that turning of fact into fiction and the challenges in creating fiction using history.

CBC.ca on kid's books

CBC.ca journalist Susan Noakes has posted a terrific roundup of the Governor General's Award candidates in children's literature, with reviews and profiles of all the nominees, including my From Then to Now: A Short History of the World.  She concludes on the strength of these noms, that Canadian children's writers are taking a turn to the global and international that is also evident in Canadian fiction and non-fiction too.

I'd say it is the best coverage, but it's about the only coverage with this much detail. 

Osgoode Society book launch

Down the other night to the always lively annual Toronto book launch of the remarkable legal history society, the Osgoode Society.    The Society's website has details of the books -- thanks to our blogalum Mary Stokes.

Notable, maybe, is John McLaren's Dewigged, Bothered and Bewildered, an exploration of the curiously interesting ways in which colonial judges got fired by their political masters in the nineteenth century.  The theme is the independence (or lack of it) in the judiciary -- and McLaren is relentlessly comparative, exploring how the process worked (often with the same judges) in Australia, Sierra Leone, and the British Caribbean as well as the British North American colonies.  So much so, in fact, that the book is simultaneously being published in Australia by its relatively new Forbes Society for Australian Legal History, itself inspired by the success of the Osgoode Society here.

Saw in the crowd two Ontario appeal court judges who had been predicted for the Supreme Court of Canada vacancies:  Robert Sharpe, who had a (terrific) book being launched, and Andromache Karakatsanis.  Sharpe is not going to Ottawa, Karakatsanis is, and it was hard to tell which one of them looked most pleased with that outcome.

Canada 150

Harry Van Bommel reports the Canada 150 plan to create a collection of Canadian family stories for the 150th anniversary of Confederation in 1917 is rolling ahead.

More info at the Canada 150  website

Mercy Coles and John A. Macdonald ...

The Quebec conference is still on, though almost finished. They will leave for Montreal on Thursday, October 27 at 4:00.

“Wednesday [October 26^th, 1864]

            We went for a drive today. We went through the Lower Town to see where the rock fell and crushed the people to death [on Friday Oct. 14 – see the earlier post]. ...

            I went to dinner in the evening. John A. [Macdonald] sat along side of me. What an old Humbug he is. He brought me my dessert into the Drawing Room. The conundrum.”

Oh the fun of speculation and reading between the lines.

How'd Parler Fort go the other night?

Don't ask me, ask the bloggers.

Litt on Turner on leadership

Paul Litt’s biography of the ‘eighties Liberal leader John Turner (see earlier notice below) was written with the subject’s cooperation, and it is an admiring portrait based on shared values. (“Turner’s glorious opposition to free trade during the 1988 election offered Canadians an alternative to wholesale continental integration.”)  But it remains judicial, appraising, and deeply-researched in the ways academic scholarship should. This is a very substantial biography.

But there is one part of the book where Litt’s language becomes violent, even extreme, in a way that might seem to go beyond the norms of dispassionate scholarship. He uses words like “putsch,” “mutiny,” “rebellion,” and “insurgency” and escalates to “treachery, “stab in the back,” and even “treason.”  He is not talking about the fall of the Weimar republic or how Hafez al-Assad came to power in Syria.  He is talking about how the elected representatives of the Canadian people who formed the parliamentary caucus of the Liberal Party of Canada handled their relations with John Turner during his leadership of the party. In Litt’s analysis of Canadian parliamentary process, disagreement can legitimately be called treason whenever it exists within a party caucus.

In this section, Litt’s prose sounds like the press releases that typically come from the office of an embattled leader shortly before the resignation.  But the violence of his words comes not because Litt has abandoned all critical distance and come out as a reborn Turner flack from 1987. That’s not it at all, I think.

I think that on this matter Litt stands in the centre of the Canadian consensus. Like virtually all our scholars and commentators, he takes it as given that the elected representatives of the Canadian people have no right to hold political opinions other than those pronounced by the leader of their party.  It does not occur to him that this quasi-fascist approach to political party leadership is a subject worth critical analysis, As a result, he has no reason to restrain the most violent and emotional terms in the political vocabulary to describe any MP who has doubts or differences with his or her leader. In Canadian political analysis, such words just do not seem extreme. 

For an MP to disagree with John Turner on the constitutional future of Canada?  Treason.  To have different perspectives on Canadian-American relations?  A stab in the back.  It’s not that these issues were not matters of public debate, or that smart, well-educated Canadians did not have differing views. But John Turner was A LEADER.  In the received standard version of Canadian political analysis, there is no place for MPs to have views, even on the most critical and pressing issues of national political life, when the leader has other views. In a Canadian political caucus, goes the consensus, only the leader has opinions; all else really is… treason.

That Litt, despite the violence of his language, holds conventional views, seemed confirmed this weekend by two leading journalists. Susan Delacourt in The Star, writing about Litt’s book, actually describes Turner as “an impassioned advocate of greater roles for backbench MPs.” She seems to means these words seriously, as if those “treasons” and “mutinies” of the 1980s had never existed. 

In The Globe, meanwhile Gary Mason denounces as “perplexing” and “not what is needed” the current “mini caucus rebellion” of British Columbia Liberal MLAs.  The leadership of the Palinesque Christy Clark may have been recently imposed against their unanimous opposition, but Mason too takes it for granted that the elected representatives can never have opinions as long as the leader does.  I’ll give Paul Litt this: he is right in the mainstream. His language about leadership, for all its violence and lack of reflection, comes straight from the received wisdom.  Indeed, his summation of Turner rests on the argument that “Turner’s leadership style reflected his accommodating personality… It involved consulting, communicating, consensus building, and compromising….” (p. 5) 

Mercy Coles' diary and Balls, Parties, Banquets and Diptheria in Quebec 1864

This is a continuation of Mercy Coles' diary from the Quebec Conference of October 1864. Mercy was 26, unmarried and the daughter of George Coles of PEI, one of the Fathers of Confederation. The unmarried daughters and sisters went along to Quebec as well as the wives of the delegates. Mercy wrote of the parties and balls and of the sights and other 'goings -on'.

“Monday Afternoon – 17^th

      Home all alone. I have not been able to leave my bedroom since Friday [October 14, 1864]. Just as I was going to get ready for the Ball I went to comb Mamma’s hair and nearly fainted. She made me lie down. I got so nervous and excited that I [unclear] crying. Papa went off for Dr. Tupper, he came up directly. He wrote some prescriptions and sent them off to have some medicine made up for me, he saw I had a very sore throat and was very feverish, of course going to the Ball was out of the question so I very soon undressed and got into bed. ... They [her mother and father] did not start until nearly 11 o’clock and were home by 2. Dr. Tupper came in again when he came home. He saw I was very ill indeed. All day Saturday I never raised my head from the pillow, only to take the medicine or gargle my throat. Yesterday morning it broke, it still remains very sore. The Doctor has just been here and he says I shall be quite well in a few days. I hope so for there are two or three Balls and parties this week, one ‘at Home’ at Government House on Friday night and a party at Mde. Tessiers [Lady of the Speaker of the Legislature] on Wednesday. Papa and Mamma have gone out to make some visits. Mr. Crowthers has just called and left a comic newspaper with his compliments. He, Mr. Drinkwater, and Mr. Bernard call everyday to enquire for me. The Ball [The Governor’s Ball at Government House, also known as Spencer Wood, now Parc du Bois-d-Coulonge] on Friday, October 14] I believe was rather a failure as far as the delegates are concerned. The Quebec People never introduced the ladies nor gentlemen to any partners nor never seen whether they had any supper or not [emphasis mine]. The Col Grays [Col John Hamilton Gray, Premier of PEI, and John Hamilton Gray, a lawyer and former Premier of New Brunswick.] are both rather indignant at the way their daughters were treated. Miss Gray and Miss Tupper came to see me this morning. They came to the conclusion I had not missed much yet. ...”

Edward Whelan says differently though:

HIstory War II at the Royal Ontario Museum

Last winter I was obliged to be kinda critical of the trendiness and superficiality that seemed to dominate the "History Wars" debate series at the Royal Ontario Museum -- and had Bliss & Granatstein come after me hammer and tongs in the letters column of Canada's History for my pains. But even last year I reported History Wars had moments that were "lively," "stimulating," and vigorous."

And this year looks stronger.  It starts on Tuesday, October 25, with Andrew Coyne and Sheila Copps debating whether Canadian prime ministers have too much power.  Again, it's current events that "History" Wars offers us.  But Andrew Coyne is one of the only Canadian political thinkers who understands the wisdom of having the parliamentary caucus hold party leaders accountable and if necessary fire and replace them.  So there could be a teaching moment there.

I have another engagement, or I could not be kept away.  Take a look at this one and the rest of the series.

Imagining Gadhaffi's fate last February

This is how we imagined it back then.

Amazing, still, that he chose to go down fighting. Determination? Or simply that he never got his act together enough to get himself out while he could?

(Image source: Globe & Mail)

Fenians at Fort York

Next Monday night in Toronto, Fort York's imaginative Parler Fort lecture series is doing Fenians.  Peter Vronsky will be discussing his new book on the 1866 battle of Ridgeway and its consequences for Canada.  And David A. Wilson will discuss the newly published second volume of his biography of D'Arcy McGee, assassinated by Fenians in Ottawas in 1868.

Moderating the evening will be:  me.  It's seven pm at Fort York, refreshments from the Fort York kitchens, book table courtesy of Ben McNally's Books.  Come on down.

Paul Litt on John Turner

I've noted once or twice lately that when you run a history blog, American publishers regularly send you offers of review copies, interview opportunities, and such, even for books that have little relation to the subjects you favour, but that Canadian publishers don't.

So: due notice to UBC Press.  Yesterday we received a review copy of  Elusive Destiny: The Political Vocation of John Napier Turner, the big new biography of the former Liberal leader by Carleton University's Paul Litt. Entirely unsolicited, and I don't know whose idea it was, but thanks.

Is it the right time for a Turner bio?  In a time when many people are predicting the death of the Liberal Party, the career of the leader who brought them to their last confrontation with that fate might be of fresh relevance.

I usually say we do notices more than book reviews here, and mostly don't need an actual copy of the book.  But browsing in Litt on Turner, I'm intrigued, and may get back when I've read more .

Dan Francis on Selling Canada

We're faster than the internet today. Yesterday's mail brought me a copy of Selling Canada, Daniel Francis's new book on "Three Propaganda Campaigns that Shaped the Nation."  I'm impressed to see it's not yet up on the handsome webpage of the book's publisher, Stanton Atkins & Dosil of Vancouver, so it feels like we are running at promotional lightspeed here.

Dan Francis (whom, full disclosure, I have known for years) is someone to be proud of.  Among "popular historians" and freelance writers on Canadian history, he's the one who most regularly takes a radical or critical stance. His most recent previous book, Seeing Reds, analyzed the suppression and delegitimization of the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919, and earlier ones like National Dreams and The Imaginary Indian remain influential critiques of national "master narratives."  This new book is a gorgeous book of remarkable images, seemingly designed for browsing and holiday giving, and yet its theme is that we Canadians are hapless dupes whose ideas about the country are mostly the product of a manipulative conspiracy by government, corporations, and public relations consultants.

The ideal version of the country was flattering to Canadians but it was a false basis on which to build a national identity.... By creating a sense of the country that was misleading and exclusive, these advertising efforts saddled Canada with a set of stereotypes that survive to this day.

I'm not entirely bought into Dan's argument.  I probably take a more robust and maybe optimistic view of citizenship.  I'm not convinced that, for instance, Canadians who supported the First World War did so because of the media campaign Dan explores in this book.  But I'm damn glad that even our coffee-table books can challenge us with disquieting invitations to rethink national history, and that we still have public intellectuals and commercial publishers prospering in that good work.

Update, October 23:  Dan Francis checks in to point out, quite rightly, that "hapless dupes" and "manipulative conspiracy" are not his words.

Women's History Month

Merna Foster sends a note:

Hi Christopher,  it’s time to celebrate Women’s History Month in Canada!
 
Did you know that Joan Bamford Fletcher, often called the heroine of Sumatra, led a daring rescue of 2,000 prisoners after the Second World War? She commanded a force of machine-gun toting Japanese soldiers in the jungles of Sumatra.
 -Did you know that two teenage girls helped save Toronto when it was being threatened by armed rebels during the 1837 Rebellion?
 -Did you know that Dr. Leone Farrell developed the innovative laboratory technique that enabled mass production of the polio vaccine – without which there could have been no way to develop enough of the vaccine for testing?
 - Did you know that the woman behind the creation of the Alpine Club of Canada never climbed a mountain?
 -Did you know that the first chief commissioner of the Girl Guides of Canada was Lady Pellatt (of Casa Loma)? She was so dedicated to the movement that she was buried in her Girl Guide uniform.
 -Did you now that Fern Blodgett was the first Canadian woman to become a wireless radio operator, and the first to serve at sea with the merchant marines during the Second World War? Since females were forbidden from serving on Canadian ships, she landed a job on a Norwegian Merchant Navy vessel. It made 98 crossings of the Atlantic during the war, most of them with Fern in charge of radio communications.
 - Did you know that the woman who spearheaded the building of Canada’s first mosque was Hilwie Hamdon? The Al Rashid Mosque opened its doors in Edmonton in 1938.
 
 More in my latest book – 100 More Canadian Heroines: Famous and Forgotten Faces.
 http://www.heroines.ca/about/100morecanadianheroines.html 
 Merna Forster
 http://www.facebook.com/MernaForsterAuthor

Um, I'd have to say no to all seven, Merna.

Mercy Coles' Diary of the Quebec Conference Sat Oct 8, 1864 to Fri Oct 14, 1864

More from Mercy Coles' diary, daughter of PEI delegate George Coles, at the Quebec conference – where the 72 resolutions of the BNA Act were determined.

 “Friday morning  [Friday October 14, 1864]

            Raining again. Will it ever be fine? Sala [George Augusta Sala, British journalist – “His literary style, highly coloured, bombastic, egotistic, and full of turgid periphrases, gradually became associated by the public with their conception of the Daily Telegraph; and though the butt of the more scholarly literary world, his articles were invariably full of interesting matter and helped to make the reputation of the paper.” –  from Wikipedia – but I haven’t found much else on Sala, and this link has his picture] dined with us last night. I was rather disappointed in the man, a rough new faced Englishman. Black eyes and hair and such a red nose and face. Mr. Brown sat alongside of him and introduced him to me. I had a sore throat this morning. Col Gray has given me some Homeopathic medicine. ... The Governor’s Ball is to come off tonight. They say it’s going to be such a crush. Mother and I went for a walk on Durham Terrace. While there a large piece of rock fell. When the men came in they said a baby was killed.”

-- And picking up from where we left off last Fri Oct 7, 2011 --

“Saturday Afternoon  Quebec  [October 8, 1864, written on the Sunday it would appear]

 ... How can I describe my first impression of Quebec. It was pouring rain when we landed. We were shut up in a little cab, Ma, Miss Fisher and myself. I was in dread the whole time the horse would fall down. ... [Now Sunday] We have been for a drive around Spencer Wood. It is a very pretty road. You see the valley below with the River St. Charles winding along. We saw Wolfe’s Monument on the Plains of Abraham and a monument to the brave who fell at the taking of Quebec, we did not go into the Cemetery as they do not admit carriages on Sunday and the snow was on the trees so thick it would not have been pleasant. ... The steamer [the Queen Victoria that the Canadians sent for the Maritime delegates] has not yet arrived with the rest of the party but they expect them today. Major Bernard tells me we are to have good times. There is to be a reception on Tuesday and a Public Ball on Friday. The first word almost he said was,

A short history of rep by pop

Fears of a Quebec backlash have delayed the Harper government’s plan to give the growing parts of Canada a larger share of seats in the House of Commons.

As a result, the changes the Tories promised in the spring campaign may not be in place in time for the 2015 election, leaving millions of voters once againunderrepresented in Parliament.

(-- from the Globe & Mail today)
Meanwhile (same source):

A report from the Mowat Centre, an Ontario-issues think tank, is proposing that legislation should guarantee that Quebec’s representation in the House of Commons never falls below what its population warrants [... in order to ] reflect “Quebec’s unique place in the federation”.

 And meanwhile, from the constitution:

The basis of representation in the House of Commons shall be population, as determined by the official census every ten years.

It was established in 1864 that Quebec's representation in the House had nothing to do with its" unique place in the federation."  Quebec got the same representation as every other part of the country: what its population warrants.
And the constitutional obligation of the government is to allocate seats in the House according to what the census shows, not to gerrymander representation according to its calculations of political advantage.
It's worth repeating:  what protects Quebec's unique situation is federalism.  The vital determinates of Quebec's distinctiveness are matters of provincial responsibility, not dependent on what the House of Commons decides.  The province of Quebec runs its own hospitals, schools, cultural institutions, judicial institutions because of federalism, not because of the number of MPs it has in the House of Commons.
Quebec was already hugely outnumbered in the House of Commons in 1867.  If its survival had depended on representation, it could never have assented to confederation in the first place.
It's no different now.

Ottawa Archives Presents: Jack Ray's Midway Marvels! With the Help of the North American Carnival Museum and Archives!

The carnival is in town! A special exhibition on Jack Ray at the City of Ottawa Archives presented by the North American Carnival Museum and Archive (NACMA) opened earlier this week, highlighting Jack Ray's art deco designs and midway plans from the 1930s. Jack Ray, a British-born Canadian became famous for his grand stage sets and unique amusement park designs. The exhibit will be open from October 11th until November 19th. A virtual exhibit is also available online called Jack Ray: Selling Glamour and Illusion. 


The North American Carnival Museum and Archive, located in Stittsville, Ontario, is a self described 'diamond in the rough'. Last summer before the Ottawa Ex was closed I was fortunate enough to see one of the beautiful and rich carnival exhibits put on by NACMA. They are truly a beautiful diamond here in Canada preserving a history of the weird, wacky and exciting world of the midway culture and you can find out more about the museum and their work at NACMA.org.

The Literary Review of Canada needs you

The Literary Review of Canada goes from strength to strength -- see some samples here.

Last night I went out in the rain to attend the latest of its "Big Ideas" public discussion, this one featuring former clerk of the Privy Council Alex Himelfarb arguing that somebody needs to stand up in defence of taxation, because the crusade for tax-cutting that has dominated the last few decades has brought none of the promised benefits, while increasing inequality, reducing the quality and fairness of public services, and creating unfairness, discontent and disaffection. The text will be in the Globe & Mail this weekend, apparently.   It was an impressive event -- though maybe delivered to an audience that already believed -- and typical of a lot of good things the LRC does.

 In its twentieth year the magazine has become a notable success... except in circulation, apparently.  If you think good magazines are a good thing, don't just browse the website.  Subscribe.

Prize Watch: Cundill Prize (no, I'm not on this list)

The Cundill Prize, the megabucks international history prize administered by McGill University, seems to be finding its feet.  Covering all the histories written in the world (well, in English anyway) must be near-impossible, but this year's look like an impressive list.  This year includes a couple of books of some Canadian interest -- The Civil War of 1812 by Alan Taylor and Liberty's Exiles by Maya Jasanoff -- plus Timothy Snyder's holocaust studies tour de force Bloodlands, and lesser known but still intriguing titles on Italian sainthood, Haitian slavery, and Renaissance identities.  History is a big room.  Full list here.

I actually read last year's Cundill winner, Diamaid MacCulloch's Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, and it was a worthy winner. If you feel the need to engage with a terrific historian really on top of a big subject, you could do worse.

Prize watch: muffins and bagels!

Governor General's Award nominations were announced this morning.  I was about to mention one or two histories in the non-fiction shortlist...

...  until I learned my From Then To Now is shortlisted in the Children's Literature category.


Maybe you recall the scene from West Wing when Josh Lyman, having achieved some minor triumphs, stalks the corridors proclaiming, "Bring us the finest bagels and muffins in the land!"  Yes.

Meanwhile, the non-fiction nominees are:

• Nathan M. Greenfield for The Damned: The Canadians at the Battle of Hong Kong and the POW Experience, 1941-45 
• Richard Gwyn for Nation Maker: Sir John A. Macdonald: His Life, Our Times, Volume Two: 1867-1891, 
• Charles Foran,  Mordecai: The Life & Times, 
• Andrew Nikiforuk, Empire of the Beetle: How Human Folly and a Tiny Bug Are Killing North America’s Great Forests,
•  J.J. Lee, The Measure of a Man: The Story of a Father, a Son, and a Suit

Nikiforuk is a past winner, Foran was nominated in the past, and previous books by Greenfield, a journalist when he's not writing history have been highly praised.  Lee's book is a memoir.


Update, October 12:  In the non-fiction community, the main reaction to this list has been complaint that all five nominated books are written by men, chosen by a jury of two men and a woman.  Not a breath of that in the mainstream media, however.

Refighting 1812

Publicity wizard David McCaughna of WNED in Buffalo has been urging me to remind you of the PBS premiere of "The War of 1812" tonight.  Happy to oblige, Dave.

Meanwhile a little war over the War of 1812 has broken out among the columnists and letter-writers at The Globe & Mail.  Jeffrey Simpson argues the whole war is simply too dumb to be remembered at all, and sees nasty political scheming by the Harperians behind it all.  But Washington correspondent Konrad Yakabuski, without actually mentioning Simpson, bemoans collective amnesia and declares.

the bicentennial of the War of 1812 is an appropriate time to reflect, collectively, proudly, on why our forebears clung to their desire for an independent nation to the north of the United States.

In the letters column, Chris Champion gets a nice shot in, too, asking if dumb wars should be forgotten, why we still have Remembrance Day on November 11.  Update, Oct 13:  Champion's National Post essay on the same theme here.

Happy Thanksgiving.  One day all our wars will be two hundred years in the past.

Diarist Mercy Coles and the Quebec Conference of October 1864

Wednesday, October 5^th, 1864 through to Saturday Oct 8^th, 1864

Mercy Coles was the attractive and smart 26 year old unmarried daughter of George Coles, [Father of Confederation from Prince Edward Island], who kept a diary of the events and her travels to the Quebec conference in October 1864. She is one of the few people that wrote of the events at the time and certainly one of the few women. Her unpublished diary can be found in the National Archives of Canada. At the Quebec conference the delegates created the 72 resolutions that basically make up the BNA Act (British North America Act) that forms our constitution today.

A small group of Islanders left PEI on October 5^th to go to Quebec. [The majority of Maritimers came by the Canadians steamship the Queen Victoria a week later.] From Mercy Coles’ diary:

Wednesday 5^th October /64

“Left Charlottetown at 3 am. Arrived at Shediac [New Brunswick] at half past [not clear - 12?]. I was very ill it was so rough. Monk came off in a small boat and was taken on board off Summerside. Found a special train waiting for us at Shediac, arrived at St. John at 1/2 past six. Mr. Tilley [Premier of N B, Samuel Leonard Tilley] and Mr. Steeves at the Hotel to receive us ...

[Tilley is the one who made that railway between Shediac and St. John happen – there is way too much on that to put here! Tilley is also the one who suggested the name ‘The Dominion of Canada’, vs. something like ‘Kingdom’.]

]

Thursday – We had a walk before breakfast and came on board New Brunswick. I am going to share a stateroom with Miss Alexander [the sister of Thomas Haviland], arrived at Eastport at 12, went on shore and dined, left at 1 for Portland [Maine].

Friday morning. Portland Public House. We arrived here this morning after being 24 hours on board the New Brunswick. I went to bed at 6 and just got up in time this morning [she doesn’t say why – maybe anticipating or being seasick again?]. We had an awful stormy night. We leave here in the Grand Trunk Railroad at one o’clock ...  [So 24 hrs travelling down the Bay of Fundy from St. John to Portland. So far I can’t find any current info on a ferry or boat trip for that journey – just the 3 hr from St. John across the Bay of Fundy to Digby, Nova Scotia. By land it is 478 km, 5hrs 23 mins driving.]

Saturday, 8^th  We arrived at Island Pond last night at half past 9. We got up this morning at half past 4 .... We passed some beautiful scenery yesterday coming through New Hampshire, it was too dark to see the White Mountains. Mr. Tilley helped me admire it. It is rather a joke, he is the only beau of the party and with 5 single ladies he has something to do to keep them all in good humour. [emphasis mine – the funny thing there is Tilley is a widower of 2 ½ years, 7 children, 5 of them still young and he was 46 yrs old – and known for his good head and grasp of finances, not necessarily his charms – but maybe that is what we don’t know of him and that Mercy’s writing exposes to us?]

For more on Tilley

The Bilson Prize: When does history start?

The Bilson Prize for Historical Fiction for Children, founded and first endowed by the late history professor 9and novelist) Geoffrey Bilson of Saskatchewan, was presented last night at the Children's Book Gala in Toronto.  It's one of my favourite book-gala events, partly because 1) it's at the tres swish Carlu, and 2) everybody goes around saying gleefully, "We're kid's writers. What are we doing at the Carlu?"  Also because they invite me, just because I was a juror a few years ago.

After a chat with some writers about who has the most iniquitous contracting practices, the CBC or Rogers Communications? (Answer: The CBC, because it should be better and still acts that way.), we all joined the presentations.  Valerie Sherrard won the Bilson for The Glory Wind.  Accepting the prize, she said that when they told her about the nomination, she said "Historical novel?  But it's only set about ten years before I was born.... Oh."

Goodreads on the book here.

History of Federalism

The litigation over Insite, the Vancouver safe drug injection site that operated under license from the BC Ministry of Health and that the federal government wished to deny its exemption from criminal prosecution, seemed like an old-fashioned federalism struggle.  Which took precedence, the privincial power over health and hospitals, or the federal power over criminal prosecution?

Wel, the Supreme Court said Insite can stay open despite the feds' urgent desire to shut it down.  That looks like a victory for provincial rights, no?  Paul Wells argues no, no really.  He argues the ruling does allow Insite to survive on the specific facts of its situation, but does not establish a freedom for any province to establish any safe drug injection site whenever it wishes and regardless of federal opposition. And he cannot resist linking to the journalists and commentators he thinks are dead wrong on this point.