the accepted procedures was a way to probe strengths and weaknesses. Forming the question is a way of framing the answer. In effect, my friend was agreeing with the late Marshall McLuhan, who used to quip, “Ask me a question. Learn something.”
In my books I have tried to make available, to the general reading public, important or interesting facts and fictions about the lore, history, and culture of this land and its people. While there are nationalistic and patriotic reasons for this activity, what has motivated me is the need to encourage self-knowledge and, with it, national knowledge. I have always felt that if we learn more about the spaces we inhabit, as well as our national past and our possible future, in the process we will acquire knowledge about ourselves ... as human beings — what we are, what we were, and what we may be.
At the same time, I enjoy positioning our regional knowledge in a national setting and our national setting in a global context. Patriots, jingoists, and boosters like to boast about superlatives: Canada has “the first of this,” “the biggest of that,” or “the best of everything.” In this book there are such points of distinction, to be sure, because I am not immune to their appeal. But I try to back away from simply making or repeating such claims, for such boasting is self-defeating and a form of bullying. As well, one’s superlatives are always being called into question or in time are surpassed by other peoples’ superlatives. A good instance of this is Toronto’s CN Tower, which was “the world’s tallest, free-standing structure” from 1976 to 2010, when it was finally eclipsed by the Burj Dubai, now known as the Burj Khalifa, which stands even higher.
Increasingly, I prefer to dwell on subjects of quality, distinction, and ongoing interest. I believe that this approach to national knowledge was in the back of the mind of editor-and-commentator Andrew Coyne when he was interviewed about national goals by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy on March 14, 2007:
It seems to me our goal should be to make ourselves the highest exemplar of universal values. If we think that freedom is a good thing for the people of the world, let’s try to be the freest country. If we think that fairness is a universal human value, let’s try to be the fairest country. Let’s try to be the most democratic country. That won’t necessarily make us different from other countries in terms of the values that we pursue, but I hope that maybe we’ll do a better job at it. It means we share in a common heritage to which most of democratic countries subscribe. The goal of trying to be the best rather than trying to be unique is a better and more appropriate objective of national policy.
The command rings true: “Do a better job of it.” Coyne finds a national purpose in determining what qualities of life are important and then realizing them nationally and internationally.
My approach to deciding what subjects to include in these pages is based on what excites me and on what I believe may excite the readers of this book, fellow Canadians all. I have a taste for the offbeat, and I find when I indulge it, I attract the attention of other people.
Perhaps the best instance of a feature entry is an offbeat one and a personal favourite. It asks the following question: “Have Canadians contributed to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London?” If the wary reader assumes the answer is “yes,” the reader is right, otherwise why would the question be asked in the first place? The original Globe Theatre was built on the south bank of the Thames River in London, England, in 1613; the present-day one, a re-creation of the original, was built in 1997. Here is how my research began: My attention was caught by an advertisement in The Times Literary Supplement for the Globe’s production of Henry IV. It featured an attractively designed coat of arms, arms that appeared too modern to be those of King Henry. This proved to be so when I checked the monarch’s armourial bearings on Google, for his appeared to be ancient, whereas the one in the TLS looked modern. Then I checked the website of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and found that the repertory company had commissioned a series of beautifully designed crests, by a noted English designer, for the season’s productions. Note that so far there was no Canadian connection at all, though later there would be.
In my research I learned about the history of the Globe and the rebuilding of a facsimile of the original stage on the site of the old one on the Thames, now close to the Tate Modern gallery. In the process I kept coming upon the name of Sam Wanamaker, the American actor and producer who led the restoration project, as well as the name of his right-hand man, theatre historian John Orrell. The latter’s name was new to me, so I checked it out. Here, I hit pay dirt! Although born in England, Orrell acquired a doctorate in drama from the University of Toronto and then devoted his academic career to teaching theatre at the University of Alberta. He spent the summers in England, where he researched the skyline of Elizabethan London and advised Wanamaker on the form and structure of the original playhouse. Today, there are plaques on the wall of the reconstructed playhouse to honour both men for their invaluable contributions.
Then I learned about two literature professors in the Maritimes who donated their private libraries of Elizabethan publications to the English company, which named their collection “The Canadian Library.” Finally, I discovered the existence, in Toronto, of the Shakespeare Globe Centre of Canada, supporters of the London playhouse. So, Canadians played an important role in the phoenix-like rebirth of the Globe. I asked myself a follow-up question: As Canadians, do we have any connection with the original playhouse, where Shakespeare’s plays were premiered some four centuries ago? It may have been a dumb question, but it yielded a smart answer.
The Stratford Shakespeare Festival is North America’s largest classical repertory theatre. It was established in 1953 in Stratford, Ontario, and Tyrone Guthrie, the Anglo-Irish director, a student of the Elizabethan stage, agreed to serve as its artistic director on one condition: he insisted on introducing the so-called thrust stage, known to Shakespeare and his fellow actors, to the modern world. He was able to do so and thereby set the stage for the innumerable new and renewed playhouses that have appeared over the last sixty years. Through my research I was able to show the synergy of ideas that link the original Globe, the reconstructed Globe, and the Stratford Festival Theatre in Ontario. I wrote up my findings and had them vetted by the specialists in London. All of this may sound a bit odd, but it is an instance of serendipity (being interested in an off-beat subject with no obvious Canadian content) as well as an example of associative thinking (linking Globe I and Globe II with Ontario’s Stratford). It took more than a month to make these connections, a few minutes here, a few minutes there. The entry that I wrote, greatly condensed, may be read in the present book in the section devoted to ideas. Check the index for its location.
To know parts of ourselves we need to know parts of our country. The reverse is also true, for there is little self-knowledge without national knowledge. Over a hundred years ago, an editor in Toronto wrote, “Canada only needs to be known in order to be great.” I believe that this statement applies to the country as a whole but especially to the people who live here. So it is also true that “Canadians only need to be known in order to be great.” I hope that this book contributes in a limited way to offer its readers that necessary national knowledge and to encourage that essential self-knowledge.
The present book consists of 357 short questions and the same number of long answers. They are loosely arranged, not really in any particular order. I resisted the tendency to group the entries by subject or topic, though from time to time they benefit from this treatment. The book is designed for browsing and for making accidental and serendipitous discoveries. Having said that, let me add that the contents will prove to be useful to specialist readers, because the book does have an the overall arrangement of questions and answers in four general sections: People, Places, Things, and Ideas.
The book’s Index consists of more than 500 entries. These references will be of use to the reader, the browser, the researcher, and the specialist in search of names, places, concepts, phrases, etc. Not every reference in the text could be indexed. One caveat: the numbers in the Index are entry numbers, not page numbers.
PEOPLE
001.
