The Art of Nation Building: Pageantry and Spectacle at Quebec's Tercentenary

by H.V. Nelles

In 1908 Canada Celebrated Its 300th Anniversary -- The Tercentenary Of Champlain's founding of Quebec City. In two glorious weeks of parades, ceremonies, bals, and festivities, Canadians commemorated, their history in a spectacle that would not be surpassed until the Centennial of 1367. The climax of the 1908 celebration was an historical pageant in which 4000 sumptuously costumed citizens re-enacted classic events in Canada's history. Canada's leading artists were also there to cap_are thee memorable scenes for posterity. The past was being celebrated, but with the present and the future in mind.In The Art of Nation Building, H. V. Nelles uses contemporary literary techniques to convey the scope, colour, and intensity of the Tercentenary from various perspectives. Drawing on intimate diaries and letters of leading social and political figures, he leads us behind the scenes disclosing the politics of memory, the theatrics of history, and the making of a modern monarchy. Nelles reveals what we actually do when we commemorate, how we use the past, and the multi-vocal character of mass-celebration.

This richly illustrated, thought provoking interpretation of public celebrations offers a novel perspective on Quebec and the upcoming celebration of the Millennium.

397 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Dasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this book, Nelles investigates the events surrounding Quebec’s founding three hundred years prior by Samuel de Champlain, celebrated over two weeks in the summer of 1908. The chapters trace the competing meanings of the tercentenary and the layers of meaning that the spectacles make up the event communicated. Governor General Earl Grey immediately took interest in the event as he viewed it as an opportunity to unite the nation, and empire, around a place of empire-building and evoke unity around a bicultural nation. While perhaps well-intentioned, these goals shifted the goal of the celebration away from only highlighting French nationhood and towards placing Canada within the history of the British empire. For example, the original plans focused more on Champlain’s discovery and the survival of the French-speaking and Catholic-going population in the battle at the Plains of Abraham in which the British empire claimed victory over the territory. It is clear the organizers manipulated the events of the past in order to illustrate these points. For example, Indigenous peoples were imagined only to add spectacle and demonstrate loyalty and subservience to nation and empire. However, Indigenous participants in the event, as well as French-speaking doctors, lawyers, and middle-class women, managed to inject their own meanings into the events. In all, the event was an exciting and dramatic high point of the year for many visiting but it did not overcome social, cultural, and political divisions that Grey hoped it would as evidenced by the ongoing questions of Canadian and Quebec heritage.
Despite being an interesting read I believe there remains a lot to be said about class, race, and employing more involved gender analyses.

[J. Pearce · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book opens with a panoramic and exciting description of the events and celebrations around Quebec's Tercentenary summer in 1908. In prose both purple and exhilarating, Nelles recreates an image for the reader of the splendour of the celebration, the breathless enjoyment of the participants, spectators, and organizers, and the overwhelming nature of the events. This description is supplemented with a variety of images (of varying quality), giving the reader a better understanding of what those viewers would have seen in the celebration allegedly of the founding of Quebec, but actually of the attempts of Canada to build a nation in the naive Edwardian period. It's almost disappointing to realise how the vision of Governor General Earl Grey was ultimately dashed by the reality of Canadian society and the crush of history.

After this description, Nelles pulls back to show the lead-up to the summer celebration, showing the complicated negotiations of various planners and politicians in attempting to make the tercentenary a reality. It's quickly realised how the various personalities and political factions jockeyed for position and attempted to put their own stamp on events. This includes newspaper editors, religious orders, political factions, and nobility, and spreads to include French, British, and even US politicians.

Nelles' focus on the spectacle and pageantry created around the Quebec Tercentenary in 1908 is an excellent choice in exploring how these, along with memory, monuments, and historical recreations can work in tandem to create a particular idea of the past, but also how these same choices can amount to little effect after the fact. This is an especially fascinating read in light of the upcoming memorials to the War of 1812 and the ongoing commemoration in the United State of the US Civil War.

Nelles' prose, as I alluded to in an earlier update, is very purple in the beginning, but as the book develops its arguments it apparent that the purple prose is a choice Nelles made in order to demonstrate the nature of spectacles being created. By the time I got to Chapter 8, the purple prose was mostly gone. In its place was a subtle and interesting argument about the various ways that people both participated in and resisted the narrative being created by the principles in the organisation.

I found most interesting Nelles' highlight of the role of Iroquois, Ojibwa, and other aboriginal peoples in the creation of and resistance to the narrative. Of all the people who participated in the grand spectacles "recreating" historic events, the aboriginal participants were the only ones paid; in addition, they were considered the most effective and playing their roles, even though they were required to put on the headdresses expected of Plains Indians. As professional performers, they knew how to work a crowd, and as people who were aware that this was a spectacle for Two Nations (the French and the English in Canada), they chose to assert their own space as a Third Nation who participated in the various historic events. Having been frustrated this year with little of my reading including First Nations peoples, this discussion (and the ongoing inclusion after Chapter 8) was interesting and exciting put alongside the other narratives in the book.