Gough Barry M. Historical Dictionary of Canada

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250 • LITERATURE

in the former Chrétien government, to Michael Ignatieff resulted

from the failed historic agreement among Liberals, NDP, and Bloc

Québecois. These events marked a low point in party fortunes and

foreshadowed a dark future. As regards its policies and its legisla-

tive intentions and agenda, the Liberals, having accomplished the

amazing creation of the welfare state in a turbulent period, were left

casting about for firm policies, and that at a time of free trade and

laissez-faire economics. This was less familiar ground to them than

to the Conservative Party of Canada that took power in 2004. Most

Canadian provinces have Liberal parties, but they are different in

organization and sometimes in policy from their federal counterpart.

LITERATURE. Canadian literature is a body of works produced in

French or English by Canadians. The first literature of Canada in

English was by travelers, mainly British, who journeyed through the

vast, largely unexplored expanses of the country. These travel nar-

ratives, some by explorers such as Samuel Hearne and Alexander

Mackenzie, were eventually supplanted by the writings of native

Canadians, notably those who lived in the maritime provinces.

Thomas McCulloch and Thomas Chandler Haliburton wrote about

the customs and dialect of their fellow Nova Scotians. Pioneer life

was celebrated in poems, song, and story.

English Canadian literature showed promising developments in

the colonial period and played on themes of survival, roughing it

in the bush, and loyalist and imperial sentiment. Important in this

early development in letters was Susanna Moodie and Catherine

Parr Trail. The confederation achievement brought forth the “con-

federation group of poets”—Charles G. D. Roberts, Bliss Carmen,

Archibald Lampman, and Duncan Campbell Scott. They expressed

a new national consciousness, were aware of landscape, and gave

romantic praise to the national achievement. Their work was appreci-

ated well into the 1950s and later.

Lucy Maude Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables (1908), the

first in a series of books, was a classic of the early 20th century.

Humorist and satirist Stephen Leacock wrote Sunshine Sketches of

a Little Town (1912) and many other works. Also of significance

were the 16 internationally popular novels by Mazo de la Roche that

chronicled the lives and loves of the Whiteoaks family, beginning

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LITERATURE • 251

with Jalna (1927). Prominent poets of the time were A.J.M. Smith,

A. M. Klein, and later P. K. Page. Artist Emily Carr produced nu-

merous fine works of memoir and travel. Also in the 20th century

there were new departures. Poet E. J. Pratt wrote lyric works about

Newfoundland and an epic narrative, The Titanic (1935). He was

the central figure of Canadian poetry before World War II. Novels

exhibiting local color began to replace historical romance.

Hugh McLennan’s Two Solitudes (1945) was an icon, portray-

ing the bifurcation of cultures in Montréal. He also wrote, earlier,

an important work about the Halifax explosion, Barometer Rising.

An explosion of creative writing beginning in the 1950s exhibited

growth matched with diversification. Significant in this period was

Margaret Lawrence, skilled novelist and short story writer. Hubert

Evans wrote telling works about life on the British Columbia coast.

Conservationist and fly fisherman Roderick Haig-Brown wrote

charming works about life in the forest and on the coast, playing on

themes of humans and the land as well as discovery and exploration.

Mordecai Richler wrote of Montréal life and Jewish mores. Earle

Birney, satirist and commentator, wrote of British Columbia and

other locales. Poet-songwriter Leonard Cohen and the experimental

poet-playwright Michael Ondaajte achieved prominence and long-

lasting influence. Roy Daniells wrote poetry and encouraged others

to write about Canadian literature, founding the Journal of Canadian

Literature at the University of British Columbia, edited by polymath

George Woodcock. Canadian universities began to have courses in

Canadian literature or otherwise to treat the subject not as some spin-

off from British or American genres. This process was aided by the

evolution of Canadian Studies and the efforts of Thomas Symons and

the Canada Council for the Arts. Also in the modern, nationalist

period beginning in the self-conscious mid-20th century, newspaper

journalist turned academic administrator Robertson Davies wrote

entrancing works of Anglo-Canadian life. Hugely popular Farley

Mowat wrote many charming pieces on travel, history, and war

experience.

The distinctive French literary experience may be said to have

begun with the Jesuit Relations and with the writings of early travel-

ers, including Gabriel Sagard. Many early histories of Canada were

written by priests and religious scholars, notably François-Xavier

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252 • LITERATURE

Garneau’s epic of national survival, Histoire du Canada (1845–48).

The first French Canadian collection of verse was accomplished long

after the imposition of British rule, for the basically conservative

Roman Catholic culture influenced the mores and the styles. In the

1890s came a new departure, the Montréal School (founded 1895),

and published verse reflecting Symbolist and Parnassian poetry of

Europe. The regionalists, who departed from the aesthetes, came

to dominate French literature in Canada for the next 30 years. The

regionalists, however, were producing works with rural and agricul-

tural themes at the same time that Québec was becoming increas-

ingly industrial and urban.

Gabrielle Roy drew wonderful portraits of characters and their

frontier experiences in a number of books. Her book about working-

class Montréal life, Bonheur d’occasion (1945; The Tin Flute),

achieved international acclaim. Roger Lemelin’s Les Plouffe (1948;

The Plouffe Family) was an examination of family life, and subject

of a notable early CBC television series. Poet Hector de Saint-Denys

Garneau crafted introspective, unrhymed verse and influenced a gen-

eration of poets. Many of them published with the important house

L’Hexagone.

The modernization and secularization of Québec witnessed au-

thentic searches for identity in the novel. Notable for the 1970s and

after are Gaston Miron, who wrote L’Homme rapaille (1970; The

Agonized Life), and Jacques Godbout, Hubert Aquin, Marie-Claire

Blais, and Gerard Bessette. Many of them borrowed from the uncon-

ventional structures of the French nouveau roman (the “new novel”)

while dealing with radical themes, social criticism, and the disen-

chantment of youth in a new and frightening nuclear age.

Meanwhile, other giant strides were being made in literature in

English. Central to this self-conscious expansion was the publisher

Jack McClelland and the editor Malcolm Ross. Of all the authors

of that age, novelist and poet Margaret Atwood evinced the great-

est talent, winning numerous prizes and the greatest attention. She

championed Canadian literature (Can Lit) in partnership with her

husband, the novelist Graham Gibson. In the realm of short story,

Alice Munro became world famous, a steady contributor to the New

Yorker and other American periodicals. Edna Cress Staebler wrote

of experiences in Nova Scotia and Ontario. Many Canadian writ-

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LOUISBOURG • 253

ers were aided by Jack McClelland’s inspired hand at McClelland

& Stewart, the Canadian publishing house. One such was Pierre

Berton, a historian who also wrote children’s literature. Al Purdy

became a prominent poet.

Taken altogether, the post-colonial age has had a marked effect on

Canadian literature, for the old themes rooted in Canadian experi-

ence have given way to new horizons in modernity. Post-colonialism

rules. Austin Clarke, Thomas King, Yann Martel, Douglas Cope-

land, Wayson Choy, Elizabeth Hay, Bonnie Burrard, Carol Shields,

Miriam Toews, and Anne Michaels are just a few of the many con-

temporary Canadian writers. Some have acquired global star status,

for instance Martel for Life of Pi and Michaels for Fugitive Pieces.

Various prizes for literature have aided the Canadian literary scene,

notably the Governor General’s Medal for Fiction, the Writers’ Trust

Prize for Fiction, and the Giller Prize. The Banff School of Fine Arts

has been an important academy for developing writing talents, and

courses on Canadian literature have well deserved prominence in

any curriculum of an institution of higher learning. On the regional

scene, the BC Book Prizes have achieved notable success, aided by

a strong publishing industry. There are other regional advances of a

similar nature, notably Goose Lane publishers in New Brunswick

and Anansi Press in Toronto. See also HISTORICAL WRITING.

LOGAN, WILLIAM EDMUND (1798–1865). Geologist William

Logan was born in Montréal and educated in Edinburgh. He studied

Welsh coal beds then joined the new Geological Survey of Canada

as its first director in 1843; he directed its activities until 1869. He

revolutionized the conceptions of Canadian geology and won inter-

national recognition. Logan was knighted in 1858. He died in Wales.

LONGBOAT, THOMAS CHARLES (1887–1949). An Ontario-born

Onondaga, Tom Longboat was a legendary long-distance runner and

record breaker. He won the Boston Marathon of 1907. In subsequent

years, he was disqualified because he was classified as a professional.

The Tom Longboat Award is named for him.

LOUISBOURG. A maritime base and fortress of France on Île Royale,

Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Louisbourg was constructed after

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254 • LOWER CANADA

1719 and was intended to dominate the Gulf of St. Lawrence, both

to guard the French possessions and to provide a base from which to

raid sea lanes between New England and Britain. The fortress was

called “the Dunkirk of North America” after the fortified seaport on

the French channel coast and because it was a preferred haunt of pri-

vateers who preyed on British shipping. And, as a gigantic fortress,

it was also called “the Gibraltar of Canada.”

Despite its massive walls, the fortress was exposed to long-range

artillery fire across the harbor and from the low hills to the fortress’s

west side. In 1745, it was attacked by a force of New England militia

under Gen. William Pepperell from Boston and Royal Navy vessels

under Adm. Peter Warren and was forced to surrender 17 June after

six weeks. The fortress was returned to France by treaty in 1748. In

1758, at the outbreak of the Seven Years War, it was captured again

by the British. It remained under the control of Britain after 1758.

In 1759, Gen. James Wolfe’s force destined for Québec assembled

here. In 1760, British Army engineers demolished its defenses. By

terms of the peace in 1763, Britain retained Louisbourg. It is a promi-

nent historical site of Parks Canada.

LOWER CANADA. Québec became Lower Canada by the Constitu-

tional (or Canada) Act of 1791. Included within its borders were all

lands held under the seigneurial system. Strife between English and

French continued intermittently for a number of reasons, political,

social, and economic. In 1837, rebellion broke out but was crushed.

With the Act of Union, Lower Canada became Canada East in 1841.

In 1867, Canada East became the Province of Québec. See also RE-

BELLIONS OF 1837.

LOYALISTS. American Tories who chose to leave the United States

after the American Revolution ended in 1783, or who were other-

wise evicted or deported, were known as Loyalists. Many Loyalists

went to Nova Scotia and Québec. In 1784, New Brunswick was

established as a new colony, for here the Loyalists had settled in

number and constituted the resident European population. In 1791,

Upper Canada was created from the old Québec, for somewhat

similar reasons. “Late Loyalists” refers to Americans who came to

British North America after the first wave. United Empire Loyalists

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MACDONALD, JOHN ALEXANDER • 255

is a latter-day appellation, dating to the late 19th century, and is also

an organization dedicated to maintaining the identity and memory of

Loyalist forebears.

– M –

MACDONALD, JOHN ALEXANDER (1815–1891). Lawyer and

businessman Sir John Alexander Macdonald owed nothing to birth or

fortune yet rose to become Canada’s first prime minister. Macdonald

was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and moved to Kingston, Ontario,

with his parents in 1820. His father operated a series of businesses in

Upper Canada, merchant shops in Kingston and in Adolphustown

Township, and for 10 years the large stone mills at Glenora in Prince

Edward County.

In 1830, Macdonald left school and began training for the legal

profession in the office of Kingston lawyer George Mackenzie. By

1835, he opened his own law firm in Kingston and soon attracted

attention by taking a number of difficult and sensational cases. He

secured many criminal convictions. Though he lost as many as he

won, he acquired a reputation for ingenuity and quick-wittedness as

a defense attorney.

Largely self-taught and widely so, he was naturally the most re-

served of men, conservative in temperament, though a drinker. Mac-

donald was also active in business, primarily land development and

speculation. Throughout the 1840s–1860s, he bought and developed

urban property, first in Kingston and subsequently in Guelph and

Toronto. He also acted as an agent for British investors in Canadian

real estate. He acquired directorships in at least 10 Canadian com-

panies, in addition to the Commercial Bank and the Trust and Loan

Company, and he sat on two British boards.

From an early age, Macdonald showed a keen interest in public

affairs. In March 1843, he was elected to Kingston Town Council

as an alderman. The following year, he was elected to the provin-

cial legislature. He ran in Kingston as a Conservative, stressing his

belief in the British connection, his commitment to the development

of Canadian resources, and his devotion to the interests of Kingston.

In his early years in the Legislative Assembly, Macdonald proved

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256 • MACDONALD, JOHN ALEXANDER

to be a genuine conservative, opposing responsible government

and the secularization of the clergy reserves because such measures

could have weakened the British connection or the authority of the

government. From the beginning, Macdonald’s approach to politics

was essentially pragmatic.

Macdonald was appointed a cabinet member in 1847–48, when he

served for seven months as receiver general and for three as com-

missioner of crown lands. In 1848, he resigned with the government

to make way for the reform administration of Robert Baldwin and

Louis Lafontaine. In 1854, Macdonald became attorney general for

Upper Canada in the newly formed coalition government of Allan

Napier MacNab and Augustin-Norbert Morin. In 1856, Macdonald

became leader of the Upper Canadian section of the government,

replacing MacNab. While in office, Macdonald reformed the gov-

ernment to make it more efficient. The Civil Service Act of 1857

established the rule that each major government agency would have

a permanent, nonpolitical head called a deputy minister. He shared

the direction of the government and his party with a French Canadian

leader, George Etienne Cartier. The Macdonald-Cartier ministry

undertook many legislative initiatives, including the Independence

of Parliament Act (1857) and an act for registration of voters (1858).

In 1862, Macdonald went into opposition when the Militia Bill

was defeated in the assembly. A constitutional committee of the leg-

islature was formed with George Brown as chair. Macdonald was

a part of this committee, which presented a proposal for a federal

system of government for the two sections of Canada or for all of

British North America. Macdonald had always preferred a highly

centralized form of government. In 1864, Macdonald’s Conserva-

tives were joined by Canadian Reformers and Cartier’s Bleus to form

the “Great Coalition” for the purpose of creating a federal union of

British North America.

Macdonald was the dominant figure throughout the events that

led up to confederation in 1867. At the Québec Conference, he was

the principal spokesperson for the Canadian scheme. He chaired

meetings in London in 1866–67 and was active in the creation of the

actual British North America Act (Constitution Act of 1867). Great

Britain recognized Macdonald’s efforts. He was the only colonial

leader to be awarded an honorary degree (from Oxford in 1865). He

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MACDONALD, JOHN SANDFIELD • 257

was given a knighthood (Knight Commander of the Bath, 29 June

1867) and was selected to be the first prime minister of the Dominion

of Canada. The Department of Justice was the portfolio Macdonald

chose in 1867 and the one he retained until 1873. The early session

of the Canadian Parliament showed Macdonald’s centralized views

about the assimilation of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the

Hudson’s Bay Company territory. Indian affairs came under his

purview. He was made an Imperial Privy Councilor in June 1872.

In the Pacific Scandal of 1873, Macdonald’s government was ac-

cused of using money from the Canadian Pacific Railway to finance

the election. The allegations proved true and Macdonald was forced

to resign his government; Alexander Mackenzie and the Liberal

Party formed the new government. In the 1874 election, Macdon-

ald’s Conservatives were badly defeated.

Macdonald and the Conservatives were returned to office in the

1878 election and held the position until 1891. In the new govern-

ment, Macdonald took on the Department of the Interior portfolio.

During this term in office, Macdonald had to confront Louis Riel for

the second time as the Métis of the west confronted the expanding

settlers again. Macdonald quelled the situation with force, and Riel

was captured and hanged. Macdonald also dealt with the Manitoba

school question in 1890. Macdonald decided that the constitutionality

of Manitoba’s abolition of public funding for Catholic schools was

best left to the courts, not the House of Commons. Macdonald’s last

fight was the election of 1891. In this election, he fought the Liberals

over reciprocity with the United States. He led the Conservatives to

another victory, but died shortly after, on 6 June 1891. He was buried

in Kingston.

MACDONALD, JOHN SANDFIELD (1812–1872). A lawyer and

politician born at St. Raphael, Glengarry County, Upper Canada, of

Irish background, Macdonald represented Glengarry and then Corn-

wall for most of his political career. He became solicitor general in

the Baldwin-Lafontaine government of 1849–51 in the Province of

Canada. He was a Roman Catholic and a Reformer. Somewhat erratic

and changeable in policies, he was also an adroit House leader.

Macdonald’s political life reflected the turbulence of the consti-

tutional government of that age. He advocated “double majority,”

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258 • MACKENZIE, ALEXANDER

wherein a ministry required the majority of seats from each of Can-

ada East and Canada West. This necessitated both Protestants and

Catholics within the majority party. Macdonald was prime minister

of Canada from 1862 to 1864. He voted for a Separate School bill

against the wishes of his Protestant supporters. His defeat in March

1864, and the failure of the Tache-Macdonald ministry in June of

that year, resulted in the deadlock and the constitutional crisis from

which issued confederation. An anti-confederate, Macdonald became

the first premier of Ontario, 1867–71. He was defeated in the House

by Edward Blake’s Liberals in 1871, and he resigned from office.

MACKENZIE, ALEXANDER (1762–1820). A fur trader and ex-

plorer, Sir Alexander Mackenzie was born near Stornoway, Isle of

Lewis, Scotland. In 1774, he immigrated to New York and then to

Montréal. First a clerk, then a trading partner, he rose to dominance

in the North West Company. In 1789, he made an exploratory expe-

dition from Fort Chipewyan to the mouth of the Mackenzie River via

the Slave River and Great Slave Lake. On 9 May 1793, aided by In-

dians, he began, from Fort Fork, Peace River, his epic overland voy-

age to the Pacific from Lake Athabasca. His route was by the Peace,

Parsnip, Blackwater (now West Road), and Bella Coola rivers. He

reached tidewater at Dean Channel, British Columbia, on 22 July.

His expedition to the Pacific showed the intricacies and difficulties

of travel in that latitude. Mackenzie’s back-breaking transcontinental

journey was the first crossing of North America by a white man north

of Mexico, and it preceded the explorations of Lewis and Clark by

12 years.

In 1799, Mackenzie went to England, where his journals were

edited and published as Voyages from Montréal . . . to the Frozen

and Pacific Oceans (1801). He was knighted and returned to Canada,

where he became involved for a time with the XY Company, rivals of

the North West Company. He lived in Montréal and was a member

of the Lower Canada Assembly in 1804–08. He retired (a wealthy

man) to Scotland and lived at Avoch, Black Isle, Ross-shire.

MACKENZIE, ALEXANDER (1822–1892). The second prime

minister of Canada, Alexander Mackenzie, born in Scotland, was

a Sarnia stonemason and contractor and a Clear Grit. He became

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MACKENZIE, WILLIAM LYON • 259

leader of the Liberals at the time of confederation. When George

Brown quit public life and Oliver Mowat limited his ambitions to

Ontario politics, Mackenzie became the prominent national leader of

the Liberal Party. He became prime minister in 1873 after the Pacific

Scandal forced the resignation of the Conservatives. Mackenzie

won a decisive victory in the 1874 election.

Mackenzie, who refused a knighthood, was generally opposed to

completion of the expensive Canadian Pacific Railway, and his in-

activity resulted in alienation in British Columbia, which by terms

of union was guaranteed a transcontinental railway connection. A

believer in the concept of free trade, he refused to raise tariffs dur-

ing the economic depression of the late 1870s. In the 1878 election,

the Liberals were defeated. In the face of a rebellion within the party

ranks, he resigned in 1880.

MACKENZIE, LEWIS W. (1940– ). A soldier, born in Truro, Nova

Scotia, Mackenzie served for 33 years in the Canadian Army (Land

Command), including nine years in Germany with NATO forces and

nine peacekeeping assignments in six different mission areas. He

was commissioned in the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada in 1960. In

1990, he became only the third Canadian in United Nations (UN)

history to command a UN mission (the Observer Mission in Cen-

tral America). In 1992, Maj. Gen. Mackenzie was appointed chief

of staff of the UN Protection Force in Yugoslavia. He created and

commanded Sector Sarajevo, with a force comprising soldiers from

31 countries, of which the Canadian Battle Group was the largest

component, opening the Sarajevo airport for the delivery of humani-

tarian aid. Mackenzie retired from Canadian Forces in 1993. That

year, his best-selling personal account of his peacekeeping experi-

ences, Peacekeeper: Road to Sarajevo, was published. He has been

widely honored for his distinguished service to the causes of peace

and security.

MACKENZIE, WILLIAM LYON (1795–1861). A Scottish-born

radical and occasional republican, Mackenzie immigrated to Canada

in 1820 and became publisher of the York (now Toronto) news-

paper Colonial Advocate. He entered politics in 1828 and fought

many elections, some successfully. Mackenzie attacked the Family

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