The British Empire According to Players Cigarettes

The following series of 50 cigarette cards produced by the Imperial Tobacco Co. of Great Britain for Players Cigarettes purports to show interesting scenes from across the vast expanse of the British Empire. It is a fascinating glimpse not only into the cultures that made up the empire upon which the sun never set, but also into how British imperialism was celebrated. 

In modern times is difficult to understand, and rightly so, the mindset in which imperialism was considered a source of pride rather than shame. People in the west today often shy away from words denoting any kind of excess of nationalism or patriotism, perceiving them as racist affronts to multicultural values, let alone holding a belief that for their culture to dominate and exploit others was a manifestly good thing. Yet empires from Babylon to Rome to Britain have arguably been history's dominant vehicle of cross-cultural exchange. The movement of goods and peoples across a unified political body exposed the average person in them to a variety of cultures, foods, religions, arts, and ways of life. This is not to excuse or deny the horrors of imperialist regimes, but simply to recognize that empires are complicated entities. 

There is a more interesting question implicit to the sort of exercise in imperialism that these cards represent. It would be easy to dismiss them as artefacts of a disgusting episode in recent human history... It is more challenging to ask of the extent to which modern ideas of multiculturalism are themselves a colonialist, imperialist project.

These cards are from the amazing Digital Collections of the New York Public Library. Click on a card for a larger view.

Early Canadian Futurism: Tisab Ting, The Storm of '92, and The Dominion in 1983

Unlike its neighbour to the south, Canada has no strong history of Scientific Romances. It has only really been in the last 40 years that the Dominion has developed a strong voice in Science Fiction as a whole. Even then, amidst the Robert J. Sawyers, A.E. van Voghts and William Gibsons, there is still plenty of ambivalence towards the genre. The great dame of Canadian literature, Margaret Atwood, still seems undecided on whether to allow her works to stoop to being called SF. 

The oddity of our lack of Scientific Romances comes into sharper focus when considering that Canada is, truly and uniquely, an invention of the Victorian Era. From earlier historic roots among Indigenous peoples, fur traders, and early French and British settlers, the Dominion of Canada as a single political institution began life with Confederation in 1867, when the independent colonies of Upper and Lower Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia unified. In 1870, the Hudson's Bay Company sold its vast western holdings to the fledgling nation, all of which became the North-West Territories. Other colonies joined later, and other provinces were carved out of the NWT. Perhaps the most influential member was British Columbia. It joined Confederation in 1871 by the promise that within a decade, a Transcontinental Railway would be built connecting the Pacific coast to the Atlantic.

Not only is Canada a product of the Victorian Era, but it is even more so a product of the Steam Age. Perhaps no country on earth owes as much of its existence to the construction of a single railway. The driving of the last spike at Craigellachie, British Columbia, in 1885 linked Vancouver to the mouth of the St. Lawrence Seaway at a distance of some 5000 kilometres, allowing for the fast movement of immigrants, troops, and tourists through the rugged Canadian northwoods and beyond. Thanks to Canadian Pacific Railway's fleet of Royal Mail Steamers, the well-heeled could travel from England to Hong Kong, Australia, and New Zealand by way of Canada, journeying halfway across the world without ever leaving the British Empire.    

Imperial pride reflects in two of the earliest Canadian futurist tales... The only three early Canadian futurist tales to speak of. The Dominion in 1983, The Storm of '92, and Tisab Ting; or, The Electrical Kiss share the same essential conceit of showing the status of Canada in the decades hence. Published in 1883, 1889, and 1896 respectively, all dared to make technological and political predictions while imposing Victorian attitudes upon the 20th century.

Importing the Tourists: Canada's Banff National Park

If we can't export the scenery, we'll import the tourists.

This simple and pragmatic quote, spoken by William Cornelius Van Horne, vice-president of the Canadian Pacific Railway, not only articulates something fundamental about the creation of Canada's first national park but also something fundamental about Canada itself.

Banff National Park at dusk. All photos by Cory Gross unless otherwise noted.

Unlike its neighbour to the south, Canada was not founded on any high ideals about "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." On the contrary, Canada's comparable motto has been "peace, order, and good government"... A much more prosaic ambition, though certainly no easier to achieve. Canada's history is largely economic instead of ideological, a larder of natural resources to be exploited by European industry rather than a new "Promised Land" of liberty.

The first of these industries was the fur trade. The lure of luxurious fur and an expanded French empire drove Samuel de Champlain to establish Quebec in 1608. "Canadien" coureur des bois did a brisk business in beaver fur, independently trading with local Indigenous peoples, until Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard Chouart des Groseilliers ran afoul of Quebec's governor in 1659. Soured to France, the pair turned to England and King Charles II, who signed the charter of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1670. That company, which still exists as Canada's iconic department store chain, followed waterways into the heart of the continent, expanding the British Empire as they went. 

The formation of the Dominion of Canada was also largely economic. In 1867, a quartet of independent British colonies joined together in "Confederation" to solidify trade and reinforce British sovereignty against a rapacious United States. Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick were joined in 1871 by Prince Edward Island and British Columbia. Lying between Ontario and British Columbia was a fair bit of space, monopolized by the Hudson's Bay Company. Anticipating the integration of British Columbia, the government of Canada bought the Hudson's Bay Company's interests in 1870. According to the Royal Proclamation of 1763, full title to the land could only be obtained from their sovereign inhabitants, leading to a series of treaties from 1871 to 1921 between the Crown and the Indigenous peoples of what is now Western Canada. It was from these "North-West Territories" that the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, and the territories of Yukon and Nunavut, were eventually carved out  (Newfoundland did not join Canada until 1949).      

British Columbia, isolated on the Pacific coast, only agreed to join Confederation on the promise that a railway would be built connecting them to the markets in the East. After various and sundry political scandals, the Canadian Pacific Railway finally began construction in 1880. Anticipating a decade-long project, it was actually completed in five years. The CPR still holds the record for the most amount of track laid by hand in a single day. As one can imagine, laying down that much track that quickly is very expensive. When the last spike was driven on November 7, 1885, in Craigellachie, British Columbia, the Canadian Pacific Railway slipped immediately into the tourism business.

Another view of twilight in Banff National Park.

Central to the CPR's strategy was the creation of a new national park. The world's first national park was Yellowstone in the United States, established on March 1, 1872. Within a decade Northern Pacific Railway laid tracks to park's northern gateway, and within the next two decades built up an infrastructure of luxurious lodges like Old Faithful Inn, Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel, and Lake Hotel. This didn't escape the notice of Canadian Pacific, and in the course of building the railway through the Canadian Rocky Mountains they accidentally happened across exactly the attraction around which to build a national park.

For as long as Indigenous peoples have lived in Western Canada, they have known of the hot springs that bubble up from beneath the Canadian Rockies. One of the oldest settlements in the country was found by archaeological surveys on the shores of Vermillion Lakes. 10,700 years ago, Indigenous bighorn sheep hunters camped near hot springs that emptied into the lake, maintaining open waters even during the depth of winter. Early European explorers came across them through the 1850's and 1870's, but they were brought to public attention when railway workers Frank McCabe and William McCardell descended through the roof of a hot spring cave. They attempted to set up a spa by the cave and its nearby open-air hot spring pool, prompting a legal battle into which the Government of Canada (by the CPR's invitation) intervened to establish Banff Hot Springs Reserve in 1885. This was expanded to "Rocky Mountain Park" in 1887, and finally expanded and renamed to Banff National Park in 1930. Banff was Canada's first national park and the second oldest extant national park in the world after Yellowstone.

A panorama of Vermillion Lakes, with Sulphur Mountain to the centre
and the distinctive peak of Mount Rundle to the left.

350 Years of the Hudson's Bay Company on Film

Today's special post comes from the 2020 O Canada! Blogathon. Click on the banner above to learn more about films from the Great White North!

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One of the oldest American film genres is the Western, dating back to 1903's The Great Train Robbery. Being one of the oldest, it has also been the most prone to falling in and out of favour. Worse yet, it can often become a victim of its own popularity. In the heydays when Westerns were everywhere, filmmakers looked for every opportunity to set the next serial, B-movie, or A-lister apart. That sometimes led to inspired insanity of Weird Westerns like Gene Autry's Phantom Empire, but one of the most enduring has been the "Northern." Still steeped in American attitudes and traditions, the action is transplanted to the mighty "Northwoods." Mounted Police take the place of sheriffs and rangers (despite having very different approaches to law enforcement), French Canadians and Métis take the place of Mexicans and swarthy "half-breeds", the Sierra Nevada mountains replaced Griffith Park (few productions ever actually made it up to the Canadian Rockies), but the movie "Indians" remained more or less the same. And snow. Always snow.

The Klondike Gold Rush of 1896-97 became a potent setting, though it was always imagined by Hollywood's writers and directors to be a wild and lawless place more like Nevada, filled with gunfights and swaggering riverboat gamblers. The reality was that the Mounted Police under the command of Sam Steele kept everything very orderly in the Queen's Dominion, much to the surprise of unruly American Stampeders. Sometimes the setting was the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway across the country in the early 1880's, though again, with considerably more bloodshed than happened in fact. Treaties had been signed between the Crown and Indigenous peoples years before the railway was built. Most often, the setting for a Northern was just the far-flung regions of a generic mountainous, forested landscape. The most archetypal of these films is Rose Marie, the 1936 musical starring Nelson Eddy and Jeanette Macdonald. Ostensibly taking place in Northern Quebec maybe, it was filmed in the Lake Tahoe region of California and features a song and dance number under a massive faux-Pacific Northwest totem pole.

But before the Mounties, before the treaties, and before the Canadian Pacific Railway, the vast regions of the Northwoods were the monopoly of the Hudson's Bay Company. Turning 350 years old in 2020, Canada's national department store is the world's oldest retailer and one of the world's oldest extant commercial enterprises. Its exciting images of palisade trading posts, luxurious beaver fur, ribald voyageurs, and isolation in the Northwoods turned Hollywood's head, and often to the Company's chagrin.

God's Country and the Cinema - James Oliver Curwood on Screen

It's that time of year, eh? Today's special feature is part of the O Canada! Blogathon hosted by Speakeasy and Silver Screenings. Click on the banner above to read more about the legacy of motion pictures in and about the True North Strong and Free! While you're at it, revisit last year's contribution, Rose Marie, Renfrew, and the Canadian Mountie on Film. 

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James Oliver Curwood was one of the most prolific and well-paid authors of the early 20th century. Born in Michigan in 1878, his restless spirit dropped him out of high school before graduation, then out of university before obtaining a degree in journalism. The call of the wild beckoned him away from civilized society towards the mighty Northwoods of Canada... A vast, unpopulated hinterland of ice, snow, spruce forest, and craggy mountain passes. More or less. Canada's major metropolitan areas were well-established models of Edwardian urbanity at the height of the British Empire's power, but Curwood's 1909 journey was to the rough and tumble lumber camps. In those backwoods he dreamed up adventures to fill 33 novels and countless short stories in the tradition of Jack London, Robert Service, Ralph Connor, and Laurie York Erskine. Prior to his untimely passing in 1927 of a spider bite, his stories furnished plots for well over 100 silent films. Two of those films - Back to God's Country (1919) and Nomads of the North (1920) - were guided by his own hand as producer.

Rose Marie, Renfrew, and the Canadian Mountie on Film

Today's special feature is part of the O Canada! Blogathon hosted by Speakeasy and Silver Screenings. Click on the banner above to read more about the legacy of motion pictures in the True North Strong and Free!

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Hollywood's "golden age" of the Twenties, Thirties, and Forties never wanted for stories of adventure set in the rugged wilderness of the mighty Northwoods. Between An Acadian Elopement in 1907 and the 1975 publication of Canadian historian Pierre Burton's damning Hollywood's Canada: The Americanization of Our National Image, 575 films were produced featuring mountainous and snowy locales populated by trappers, loggers and the women of disrepute who loved them. More than half of these, over 250, focused on that most iconic figure of Canadian history, the Mountie.

CANADA!