Moncton Forum

Interesting bits of Canadiana from the Canadian Historical Association, compiled by Mark Medley

NATIVE ROLES IN RODEOS

With the Calgary Stampede kicking off this week, it is fitting to consider the rodeo and its place in Canadian culture.

In a paper called, "Riding into Place: Contact zones, Rodeo and Hybridity in the Canadian West," Mary-Ellen Kelm, an historian at Simon Fraser University, ponders the often overlooked historical significance of native roles in the rodeo.

While the rodeo was "not some idyllic never-never land where the sexism and racism of 20th-century Western Canada did not exist," the rodeos and stampedes that set up shop around the dusty towns and burgeoning cities of Western Canada were "cross-cultural contact zones," she said.

There was a financial incentive for rodeo promoters to include natives.

"Reserve communities, always struggling financially, found that inviting local settlers in as tourists could raise some much-needed cash," she said. To get in on the action, promoters had to ensure "that Aboriginal people felt welcome at their events."

Additionally, the organizers sought out natives to bring an aura of authenticity to the events; you can't have cowboys without Indians.

A CASE FOR VINLAND

Viking lore is filled with tales of three distinct lands: Helluland, the land of large stone slabs; Markland, the land of woods, a land two days south by sail; and Vinland, the land of wine, another two days south, which was the most important area for the Vikings, because of lumber and grapes.

The debate about the location of Vinland has been the most vociferous, with various theories ranging from Canada's maritime provinces, New England, or even as far south as Virginia.

Birgitta Wallace, a senior archaeologist with Parks Canada, stakes a Canadian claim for Vinland using the evidence of nature.

Butternuts and butternut wood have been found at L'Anse aux Meadows, a Viking colony on the northern tip of Newfoundland, which Ms. Wallace says were never seen farther north than eastern New Brunswick. Grapes grow in the same area of New Brunswick, and are ripe at the same time as the butternuts.

"[Vinland] is all the coastal areas around the Gulf of St. Lawrence, " Ms. Wallace concludes. "It was wooded with a type of vegetation you find in southern Europe, rather than in Scandinavia."

MYSTERY OF LEGLESS MUTE

A man washes up on shore in a small Nova Scotia village in September, 1863. His legs have been amputated above the knee, and he is suffering from exposure. He is nursed back to health by the townsfolk and nicknamed Jerome. He lives the rest of his life --almost 50 years --in near-total silence, and dies without ever divulging his identity. Was he a pirate? A naval officer who had outlived his usefulness? An injured lumberjack? An Italian nobleman hiding out from enemies?

The debate raged on for decades, but now this mystery has been unravelled by folklorists Lise A. Robichaud and Caroline-Isabelle Caron, both of Queen's University.

"The mystery has lived on. It is part of the lore of Baie Sainte-Marie," Prof. Caron says.

Almost four years prior to Jerome being discovered on that beach, a man was found in the snow by lumberjacks near Chip-man, N.B. He suffered from gangrene and his legs were cut off. They nicknamed him Gamby ("gambe" means leg in Italian.) Eventually, the town decided they didn't want the financial burden of caring for him so they hired a boat to drop him off on the Sandy Cove beach in St. Alphonse, where Jerome was found.

"We confirmed it is the same man," says Ms. Robichaud. She says he was an Italian man named Aleramo, although it is still a mystery how he came to be in the Maritimes.

In St. Alphonse, he lived with the family of Dedier Comeau, where, on Sundays, people from the village would come after Mass, pay a few cents, and have a peek at the legless, mute.

REINDEER IN THE NORTH

In the early part of the 20th century, the government saw Canada's North as a blank slate, waiting to be developed. Out of that vision came a myriad of strange attempts to introduce reindeer to Canada's North.

This "reindeer fever," according to historian John Sandlos, began in 1892, when a missionary successfully introduced a herd of reindeer to Alaska, and the venture infected the Canadian government for most of the first half of the 20th century.

Prof. Sandlos, of Memorial University, says the movement was driven by "ecological imperialism," an attempt to transform the Inuits from hunters to "Christian farmers."

Ottawa wanted the Arctic to become "a settled and prosperous ranching region," he says.

The problem with that plan? It was cold and there was little to eat. The solution, according to his paper called, "Where the Reindeer and Inuit Should Play," was to employ the reindeer as a tool of gentrification and possible source of wealth.

In 1911, 50 reindeers from a Newfoundland herd were transported across the country to the Northwest Territories. They were all dead by October, 1913.

A plan backed by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1921 saw 680 reindeer imported from Norway and dropped off on Baffin Island. Finding an inhospitable terrain and lack of food, "the reindeer apparently did not survive past the winter of 1925."

Prof. Sandlos concludes that the reindeer were actually more apt to be "colonized" by native wildlife: They made a nice snack for wolves.

WHO DISCOVERED GOLD?

The discovery of gold and the subsequent rush of thousands of people north to stake claims is entrenched in the collective histories of Canada and the United States. But the staggering influx of gold-seekers that saw boom-towns built, fast fortunes made and ghost towns left behind has muddled the lore about who exactly discovered gold first.

Was it American miner George Carmack and his wife, Kate, who discovered gold in the waters of Rabbit Creek on Aug. 16, 1896? Or was it the Natives Skookum Jim and Tagish (Dawson) Charlie, who were there that day, too? Or Canadian prospector Robert Henderson?

William Morrison, of the University of Northern British Columbia, and Ken Coates, University of Waterloo, set out to solve this mystery.

They reveal that it was later discovered that a few days prior to the claim being staked by the Carmack group, they had encountered Mr. Henderson, who advised them to prospect Rabbit Creek. They apparently promised him they would tell him if they struck gold. They never did, and by the time Mr. Henderson heard of the gold strike, the creek "was entirely staked by miners."

Prof. Morrison argues that "the argument for Henderson is absurd, and in a way pathetic -- like those Russians of 40 years ago who claimed to have invented everything."

Prof. Coates puts his money on Skookum Jim: "He was regarded, from the early times, by First Nations in the North as the discoverer. The stories, by himself and others, about his role, are consistent."

DESTRUCTION OF BUFFALO

Who was to blame for what historian Georgia Sitara calls "the wanton destruction of buffalo in Canada?"

There was a time when the Canadian Prairies were "black with buffalo" and the dust kicked up by the stampeding animals blinded Prairie settlers. Then, they were hunted to the brink of extinction, says the researcher from the University of Victoria.

Historians put the numbers of Buffalo falling from the tens of millions, to only about 1,000 by 1889.

White officials attributed the declining numbers to the encroachment of civilization, as a natural part of evolution, as if buffalo herds were incompatible with expansion. The buffalo, according to this theory, were replaced with cattle in order for those early settlements to flourish.

Yet the evidence abounds of buffalo being slaughtered, and their skin removed.

When it became obvious that the buffalo were being hunted, "the most recurring explanation offered by white contemporary writers was that white people and their civilization were detrimental to the herds," Ms. Sitara says.

But by the early 1880s, when it was evident the buffalo were disappearing at such a rapid pace, the blame was shifted to natives and their hunting.

Ms. Sitara says the historical records show otherwise: "The published record contains evidence that indigenous spokesmen repeatedly urged white sojourners on the Prairies to restrain their own people's use of the buffalo in order to protect the herds."