Canada: Who Do We Think We Are?

Ookpik, the Snowy Owl, Salutes Canada’s Flag

Many saw this Inuit-style owl as a better national symbol for Canada than the beaver. To them, an arctic symbol defined a northern country best. Few were concerned, at the time, about borrowing from Inuit culture.

Ookpik was a hit during the 1960s. It even helped introduce Canada’s flag. But it’s now almost impossible to find Ookpik outside of an archives.

Government of Canada after Jeannie Snowball, 1967
Enamel on metal

Library and Archives Canada, e008303237. ©Government of Canada

Monsieur Juchereau de St. Denis Le Moine dressed as Jacques Cartier

Madame Juchereau de St. Denis Le Moine dressed as the Dominion of Canada

This pair of costumed party-goers illustrates a common colonial myth. The man is dressed as an explorer, or conqueror. His wife symbolizes his conquest, Canada. For women, and Indigenous peoples, the message is especially problematic.

LAC has the complete records for Ottawa’s Topley Studio. These important images capture an entire era of life in Canada.

William James Topley, 1876
Reproduction

Library and Archives Canada, e011091705 and e011091707

Scenes from the Caribou Hunting, Moose Hunting and Trapping series

The photographs in these series show Canada as a wilderness in need of taming. In them, hunting is a metaphor for colonizing. They were obvious souvenirs of Canada for British officers, like Thomas Grant.

Taking photographs used to be too complicated for amateurs. People bought them instead. It was the way they arranged images that made albums personal.

From The Grant Album, compiled by Captain Thomas Grant
William Notman, ca. 1866
Albumen prints

Library and Archives Canada, e011155051-52

Cree or Assiniboine Lodges in front of Rocky Mountain Fort

This field sketch was part of a project to document Canada’s west—the idea was to be as authentic as possible. To modern eyes, it portrays an Indigenous task in a distinctly romantic way.

When artist Paul Kane used this sketch to develop an oil painting, he hardly changed anything. The picture already reflected his period’s idealizing style.

Paul Kane, April 1848
Watercolour over graphite on wove paper

Library and Archives Canada, e011169208

Saskatchewan, Canada Day 1984 series

Quebec artist Jean Paul Lemieux called this series his personal vision of Canada. As part of the project, he made paintings for every province and territory in the country. This is his impression of Saskatchewan.

LAC’s collection includes many original works of art created for postage stamps. These paintings resulted in a set of stamps, issued to celebrate Canada Day.

Saskatchewan
From the Canada Day 1984 series
Jean Paul Lemieux, ca. 1983
Oil on canvas

Library and Archives Canada, e011155058. ©Gestion A.S.L., inc.

Canada Day 1984

Library and Archives Canada, e011169217. ©Canada Post

Temples of Today

Photographer John Vanderpant saw Canada’s grain elevators as temples. They were part of his utopian vision for the country, based on a faith in trade and industry. For him, industry would define the nation’s future.

LAC’s collection includes prints by Canada’s earliest art photographers. Vanderpant was one of the first to experiment with creating a national style.

Temples of Today
John Vanderpant, ca. 1934
Silver gelatin print

Library and Archives Canada, e011155050

Old Centre Block, Parliament Buildings, details of wing tower

The nation’s first Parliament was a tour de force of Gothic revival. This was the architectural style of British parliamentary democracy. Canada gave the style a freer interpretation, but these plans are— still—more colonial than Canadian.

The first Parliament of Canada was lost to fire. Its replacement has more of a Canadian flavour. The original plans, for both, are preserved by LAC.

Old Centre Block, Parliament Buildings, details of wing tower
Fuller & Jones Architects, 1859
Reproduction

Library and Archives Canada, e006078903

Map showing new discoveries north of the south sea, east of Siberia and Kamtchatka, and west of New France…

These respected mapmakers convinced many that Canada’s unexplored regions included a vast western sea. This new route to China was too good to be true. It turned out to be based on false information.

This map reinforced the daydreams of a French King. A surprising number of official maps and plans present wishful thinking, rather than facts and figures.

Map showing new discoveries north of the south sea, east of Siberia and Kamtchatka, and west of New France…
Joseph-Nicolas Delisle and Philippe Buache, 1752
Reproduction

Library and Archives Canada, e003901120

Beaver Hunting in Canada

The images of Canada published by serious travel encyclopedias are often surprising. This beaver guards a three-story lodge.

Attractive prints like this one were often detached from books and sold separately by dealers. The public loved them. The more exotic, the better!

Beaver Hunting in Canada
From Charles Theodore Middleton’s A New and Complete System of Geography… London, printed for J. Cooke Taylor after Chiedel, 1777-1778
Reproduction

Library and Archives Canada, Winkworth Collection of Canadiana, e001201323

The Red Canoe

Nothing could be more Canadian than this watercolour. It features the canoe, a defining national symbol. And it presents that symbol in a distinctive, nationalistic colour. It was one of the showpieces of Jackson’s series.

J.E.H. MacDonald, 1915
Ink and watercolour on paper card

Library and Archives Canada, e003894355

Parliament Hill, Ottawa, Canada, 2007

For Iroquois artist Jeff Thomas, Canada has always excluded his people. He made this series in order to symbolically place them back in the national picture. Each photograph takes back a major symbol of Canadian nationhood.

From The Delegates on Tour Series
Jeff Thomas, 2007
Chromogenic print

Library and Archives Canada, e008300006. ©Jeff Thomas

Geographical map of New France by Samuel de Champlain

Explorer Samuel de Champlain saw Canada as a land of potential. He published this eye-catching map in his book to advertise the land’s wealth to investors.

From Les voyages du sieur de Champlain…,Paris: Chez Jean Berjon, 1613
Samuel de Champlain, engraved by David Pelletier, 1612

Library and Archives Canada, e010764733

Journal of an Emigrant—with Rough Notes and Memorandum

Pioneer Catharine Parr Traill kept a journal where she recorded observations about Canada. She was especially interested in Canadian plants and flowers. Here, she documents a harsh spring—but still finds beauty in the land.

This priceless manuscript is the only surviving journal kept by Traill. Almost in pieces, it has received extensive treatment by LAC’s paper conservators.

Catharine Parr Traill, April 9, 1837
Iron gall ink on stitched laid paper

Library and Archives Canada, e011169205

Bunch of Wildflowers

Catharine’s sister, Susanna, called Canada’s woods “the prison house.” Flower painting may have been her form of therapy. It allowed her to impose order and refinement on one small piece of nature.

Women’s arts, like flower painting, were labelled less important, in the past. Today LAC recognizes them as some of Canada’s most essential records.

Susanna Moodie, ca. 1870
Watercolour over graphite on wove card

Library and Archives Canada, e011171301

My Police Magazine: The Castle of Terror

Men of the Mounted…

Mounties made ideal pulp fiction heroes. Here, we find two of the most over-the-top examples! Publications like these illustrate the extent to which Canada’s police force became part of popular culture.

My Police Magazine: The Castle of Terror
From La Revue Moderne, Vol. 5, no. 7, Montreal
Jean Stelli, 1945

Reproduction. Library and Archives Canada, e011163998

Men of the Mounted…
Racine, Wisconsin: Whitman Publishing
Ted McCall, ca. 1934

Reproduction. Library and Archives Canada, e011164000

Arrival of the Brides (The Filles du Roi)

This artist imagined a romantic version of the well-known historical event. Her brides step off the boat with perfect hair, wearing elaborate dresses in full court style. They even have a maid!

Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale, ca. 1927.

Reproduction. Library and Archives Canada, c020126

Census of 1871

Can you find the entry for Adolphe Perrault? Times change: Perrault made his living as a voyageur! As time passed, census data would feed social policy. Many programs by which Canadians define themselves are the result.

Census of 1871, p.75
A page for Joliette, Quebec, from the first Census of Canada
Government of Canada, 1871

Reproduction. Library and Archives Canada, 4395461_00499_s1

“O Canada, Beloved Fatherland!” A National Song
O Canada! In Praise of thee we sing

The original French lyrics for “O Canada” remain the same. But the anthem’s English lyrics may change —yet again!—in 2017. Neither of these English versions ever caught on, though Mercy McCulloch’s won a nationwide competition.

Words by L.E.O. Payment, music by Calixa Lavallée, ca. 1912

Reproduction. Library and Archives Canada, e011163999

From Rhyming Through The Years. Toronto: Ryerson Press
Edward Allister McCulloch and Mercy Emma Powell McCulloch, 1951

Reproduction. Library and Archives Canada, e011164001

Canadian peacekeepers on the border between Egypt and Israel

Canada’s first peacekeeping mission, shown here, was in response to the Suez Crisis. Great Britain was deeply involved in that confrontation. At the time, critics saw Canada’s role as a betrayal of the “mother country.”

Government of Canada, Department of National Defence, 1962

Reproduction. Library and Archives Canada, a122737

Reception of Ugandan-Asian refugees by the Canadian Forces
German-Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria reach Montreal
Anxiety, Eagerness & Happiness…” Chinese refugees arrive in Vancouver

Today, Canada welcomes diverse refugees from all over the world. But few victims of Nazi Germany were as lucky as this family, during the 1930s. Canada turned away many of them.

Reception of Ugandan-Asian refugees by the Canadian Forces
Government of Canada, October 1972

Reproduction. Library and Archives Canada, e011052346. ©Government of Canada

German-Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria reach Montreal
From The Gazette: Montreal, Quebec, November 19, 1938

Reproduction. Library and Archives Canada, a156125

Anxiety, Eagerness & Happiness…” Chinese refugees arrive in Vancouver
Government of Canada, ca. 1958–1960

Reproduction. Library and Archives Canada, a202037. ©Government of Canada

Hands and Hearts

Students created this art project during a period when many feared that diversity was tearing Canada apart. The blanket symbolizes warmth. The hearts stand for compassion. And the hands represent diversity.

Hands and Hearts
Grade 9 students of Marymount College, 1990

Reproduction. Library and Archives Canada, e011163992. ©Government of Canada