Do you know where you are going this tourist season?

The summer tourism industry in Nova Scotia is about to reach its peak, and tourists from around the world, are packing their bags for what they are told will be a pleasant vacation in the charming province of Nova Scotia. Without a doubt, it is one of the most beautiful regions in North America and has become popularly known as being rich in history. Nova Scotia boasts “over 200 museums and historic sites” (NovaScotia.com), and has recently been dubbed "The Province of History” by scholars Ian McKay and Robin Bates.

   

In their new book, In the Province of History (to read recent coverage click here and here), McKay and Bates argue that the historical narratives found in Nova Scotia’s tourism industry were created by public/government intellectuals who, allied with big businesses, sought to make profits. Rather than adopting a critical and detailed engagement with the past, the state crafted, and “forcefully imposed,” a history of Nova Scotia that was romantic and palatable so as to create saleable commodities and experiences. The authors trace the emergence of this “new kind of history” – what they coin as “tourism/history” – which created a fictive province “conjured up from concepts of race and liberal order.”

 

The creation of Nova Scotia’s public past and the emergence of tourism/history started in the 1930s, and were supported by government officials. Three men in particular, Will R. Bird, Thomas H. Raddall, and Angus L. Macdonald – all government employees – used their “creative endeavours, organizational skills, and leadership capacity” to make the people of Nova Scotia aware of their own identity and function, “in a way that altered the terms of social and cultural life.” A process of reification took place, in which Nova Scotians came to identify quite strongly with their ancestors. Meanwhile, these intellectuals were able to market a version of history that appealed to visitors’ desires for an ‘authentic’ experience, free from the knowledge of unpleasant historical events.

 

Tourism/history made certain groups of white people highly visible, while it attempted to make less visible other racialized groups. It even went so far as to label five distinct groups, the English, the Scotch, the French Acadian, the Hanoverian, and the Irish as the “Native Types” of Nova Scotia. Meanwhile it omitted recent immigrants from Europe and Newfoundland, Afro-Nova Scotians (“the longest-settled black population in Canada”), and the Mi’kmaq First Nations, who had, and have, been living in Nova Scotia for over ten thousand years. In doing so, those who assumed power could create a history and culture that legitimized a hierarchy of races – a hierarchy in which they were on top. Further, because a history showing anything but the heroism of white settlers would have undermined their supposed superiority, one could argue that the white intellectuals left out the events in which they or their ancestors had committed dark and dirty deeds. In order to do this, they had to exclude those who had suffered at the hands of settlers. As such, certain European immigrants, Afro-Nova Scotians were not given space on the stage of tourism/history. As for the Mi’kmaq, they were represented as a backwards people who would soon “die out,” and were valued for the souvenir crafts they could produce – a representation that was typical in Canada in the first half of the twentieth century.

 

While there is a growing awareness of the colonial history of Canada, tourism/history is a force that persists in dominant discourses of Nova Scotian history (as well as other regions). Through what were careful reconfigurations of the past, tourism/history has the ability to gloss over a past of resistance, disruptions and horrific events. The long and drawn out assault and colonization by the Europeans on the Mi’kmaq (and their resistance) is but one example of an entire process that is left out of tourism/history.

 

Another event that is absent from tourism/history is the expulsion of the Acadians, many of whom, in 1755 were deported by the British. It comes as news to many that as the result of an official government decision, over 6000 Acadians were sent to diverse Anglo-American colonies by ship. Many died on board, and the British “took care to destroy Acadian houses and barns so as to preclude their return.” The motivation for this government decision was largely based on a disdain of the Acadians, who were catholic and had “ambiguous allegiance” to the crown. While Acadians are popularly represented in tourism/history, the events of their expulsion are not.

 

A defense of tourism/history may persuade us that these events are too upsetting to hear about, and their present or then-day consequences too real and too painful to see. Tourists want to relax and enjoy themselves, and it’s easier and more convenient to hear “happy” stories from the past. Surely, stories of mass killings, displacement and cultural repression cannot be transformed into saleable commodities, and they definitely don’t evoke enjoyable aesthetic and emotional experiences.

 

But, they happened, and their consequences are real.

 

Tourism/history encourages people to accept “an implicit philosophy of history that shelters them from its storms and allows them the comfortable illusion that history happens to other people… [and] that we are not part of history ourselves, but merely consume it.” In other words, tourism/history does not force people to engage with the past or to think about how they may be implicitly involved in processes that continue to this day. Because tourism/history “collapses the boundaries between fact and fantasy,” it becomes impossible to create a genuine connection to the past.

 

The magical thoughts (false knowledge) about the past that tourism/history creates endows tourists with a “false sense of security, by imparting a delusive impression that social disruption represents only a passing, surface phenomenon in a world that still  fundamentally operates according to the deeper working of ineffable essences, which have always been there and always will be.” History/tourism breeds ignorance, when it claims to spread knowledge, and the consumerism it pedals allows for a passive audience. Without knowledge of conflict and problems in the past, it is easy to be blinded from the systemic nature of current day inequalities, and is thus irreconcilable with notions of social justice. As Mckay and Bates so succinctly state: “[t]his consumable past offers nothing that can help one live one’s life.”

 

In place of tourism/history, it is clear that we need to popularize a new understanding of history – one which adequately represents all groups, acknowledges contradictions, past abuses of power, and opens up a dialogue. Such a dialogue could only happen if historical events are presented in a way that encourages the learner (or tourist) to ask the ever important questions of “why?” and “for whom?”

 

To create a new public history, is everyone’s responsibility. Alternative histories need to be projected on a large scale; however, they may also take root in one’s personal life. These alternatives can be as simple as doing your own history research before or during a visit to Nova Scotia (and, for that matter, anywhere else in Canada), and situating yourself in relation to that history. Ask questions, start conversations, and discuss where you are and who was there before you. Such dicussion will bring new life and more interest to the communities we visit and live. And it is quite likely that we will find it more interesting than so many brochures.

 

 

Comments

[mackay]

why does the desire for alternative nova scotian history have to be presented in a negative fashion. it seems that it was not men conspiring to not be inclusive as this article suggests, but rather that people may have focused on their heritage as is normal for all people to do. with the changes in population this history will b/c diluted. however, i think it is ridiculous to imply that the history was manipulated for tourism profits and that scholars can point out how easily misguided the rest of us the common morons really are. My scottish family was many generations in nova scotia, and left pre ww1-no one passed a history on to us for tourism profits. the oral tradtions and other traditions were passed down and acepted with pride. and ,yes, i was told about the acadians also.the condescending,snobbish remarks about hiding tartans in closets ect. that i read from nova scotians (concerning nova scotians ) leads me to believe they are ashamed of their history.no one needs to destroy their own history to allow alternate histories.
po'd mackay