012.Old White Guys from 1891-1895

The great thing about being Governor General is that if you really despise someone you can make sure they never become Prime Minister. This may also be an argument for why we shouldn’t have a Governor General.

I’ve been thinking of retitling this site “Old White Guys from 1850-1917″ because it seems like that’s all I talk about especially Mackenzie Bowell who makes his second (third?) appearance here. But I know you all love Mackenzie Bowell, that lovable yet incompetent PM. In some ways Aberdeen was right because probably the only person who was a worse PM than Bowell was Tupper. So it was a small step up anyway. Thankfully, neither of them spent a long time in office. This was part of the “4 PMs over 4 Years” period of 1891-1895. The only not-incompetent one was Thompson, but he had the unfortunate luck of dieing in office which paved the way for Mackenzie Bowell.

012.I Make Ruffles Look GOOD

Screw you America, we have our own Thanksgiving thanks to Martin Frobisher!

While today Thanksgiving in Canada means having a day off to tolerate your family members, when Frobisher held the first formal “thanksgiving” ceremony in 1578 it was more of a “Thank god we didn’t all die in that quest for the Northwest Passage” ceremony. And I think we should have more like that! We should be happier that we don’t all die of things because often we all do stupid things. Darwin would be doing this all day long if he were alive today maybe.

Of course, Aboriginal groups in Canada were having ceremonies to celebrate the crops long before Frobisher, but in terms of Canadian history we tend to see things start when the white dudes do it first in the country.

According to a Wikipedia article on Frobisher, he was a privateer/pirate. Sweet mama pajama! I don’t know what it means, but I imagine that it made his frilly collar doubly badass! No idea to what extent it is true though.

And yes Martin Frobisher, those pants do make your butt look gigantic.

A Lesson in Historiography

What is historiography, you ask? Well let me tell you! Historiography is the history of history – awesome, right? So this tells us the history of the way a story or event has been told. See above.

Alexander Morris was first painted as a sort of hero – paternalistic, impearialistic (with positive connotations) and helping the poor savage First Nations community. Later, scholars deemed him to be an imperialist (now with negative connotations) who sought to obliterate the First Nations. Later, it was thought that in fact the white negotiators played very little role in how the Treaties played out and that the First Nations understood very clearly the implications of these actions. Now, with the new book by Robert J. Talbot, we have another version, with a sympathetic Morris and a thoughtful, engaged First Nations working together. So whereas he was once the hero, some write him as not quite a hero, but at least a man redeemed.

Which all may or may not be true. The point is that history isn’t always “written by the winners.” That’s a cliche. History is always being written and rewritten. Sometimes we have new ideas or information that sheds light on the past, and sometimes we just want to change the past. History isn’t a thing, a concrete structure. It’s always changing. Which is actually pretty unsettling.