1 COMMEMORATIVE CELEBRATIONS ARE USUALLY ABOUT the continued existence of a particular people with ties to a particular place.1 For instance, the Quebec tercentenary of 1908 was designed to tell a story about the role that French Canadians might play in the early-20th century, in the process drawing upon an unbroken heritage that stretched back to the arrival of Samuel de Champlain in 1608.2 What happens, however, when the "founding" people are no longer on the scene, and leaders of groups that arrived at some later point in time have the opportunity to commemorate that "founding" moment? Precisely such a scenario unfolded during the summer of 1904 when commemorative celebrations were staged at Annapolis Royal (Nova Scotia), Saint John (New Brunswick) and Île Ste-Croix (on the New Brunswick-Maine border). These three carefully connected events were all designed to mark the tercentenary of the beginning of permanent French settlement in what became Canada. However, the individuals who organized these events, nearly all of those who participated in them and most of those who attended were English-speakers, who had little interest in the French legacy and who frequently used the occasion to express their loyalty to the British empire. In this context, one Saint John newspaper, reporting on the staging of a re-enactment of Champlain’s visit 300 years earlier, remarked in a headline: "Glorious Welcome for Champlain II, At The Spot Where First Loyalists Set Foot".3

2 While there would be considerable manipulation of French Canadian history at the Quebec tercentenary, Earl Grey, the Governor General who was eager to convince Quebecers of their debt to the empire, never considered removing them from the picture. How could he have marginalized French-speakers who constituted 80 per cent of the population of Quebec City? The situation in these three Atlantic sites of memory was very different, given that the original areas of French settlement had fallen to the British in 1713, with the Acadian deportation to follow in the 1750s. While the Acadian population of the early-20th century was growing both in absolute terms and as a percentage of the larger population in the Maritime Provinces, the Acadians had long ceased to have any connection with the specific sites of the tercentenary celebrations of 1904. The Acadian population was growing particularly rapidly in certain parts of New Brunswick, but was almost non-existent in the vicinity of the three sites of memory under consideration here.4 As a result, the tercentenary events were invariably organized by English-speakers who managed to tell stories about French settlement in a way that had meaning for them but not necessarily for the Acadians.

3 While French-speakers, both Acadians and representatives from Quebec, had difficulty in having their voices heard during the summer of 1904, they could not be completely silenced. In the end, commemorative celebrations inevitably provide the opportunity for individuals and groups with various perspectives on the past to express themselves on a public stage. While those with the resources to stage such events usually have the best opportunity to have their voices heard, once the process of organizing and mounting such celebrations begins it is hard to silence interested parties with views that may clash with those of the organizers. In the end, some voices are easier for historians to hear than others, but with some careful listening multiple perspectives on the past, and by connection on the present and future, can be detected. This essay, then, is an account of the various voices that could be heard during a five-day period in late June 1904.

The Outlines of the Story

4 The celebrations of June 1904 were largely constructed to mark the exploits of two men, Pierre Du Gua de Monts and Samuel de Champlain. In 1604, the former was the leader of an expedition to establish a permanent settlement in the Americas in his capacity as lieutenant-general "of the coasts, lands and confines of Acadia, Canada, and other places in New France".5 As for Champlain, who as a cartographer was a fairly humble member of de Monts’ entourage, his presence might well have been forgotten had he not emerged as the founder of Quebec City later in the decade and had he not left behind detailed accounts of his adventures.6

5 In 1604 de Monts’ expedition crossed the Atlantic and then set about looking for a propitious site to establish a permanent settlement. After sailing along the south shore of what would become Nova Scotia, the expedition entered the "Baie française" (later Bay of Fundy), soon exploring the site where the settlement of Port-Royal would be established the following year. On this occasion, however, the Frenchmen kept sailing, ultimately entering, on 24 June, the mouth of a river that flowed into the bay and which was named by Champlain the "Rivière St-Jean" in honour of St. John the Baptist on his feast day. It would be some time before the town of Saint John would be established here, but Champlain’s role in christening the river justified the inclusion of New Brunswick’s largest city on the tercentenary itinerary. De Monts and his crew continued west until they found an island not far from the mouth of yet another river, establishing what turned out to be a short-lived settlement on Île Ste-Croix. Following a difficult winter, that settlement was taken down in the spring of 1605, transported across the Baie française and reassembled to create a somewhat more permanent settlement at Port-Royal, whose site had been visited in the previous year. "Permanent", however, is a relative term: de Monts, faced with financial difficulties, lost his claim on New France in 1607, with the result that he brought most of the residents of Port-Royal back home. So that there should be no doubt that this was a short-lived colony, it was burned down by the English in 1613.7

6 For the organizers of the 1904 tercentenary, de Monts and Champlain offered, depending on one’s perspective, either a possibility or a challenge, since the former was a Huguenot and the latter a Catholic. As a pair, they could be viewed as the first in a long line of Canadians who embodied the two "founding" nations upon which the country had been built. Although they were both Frenchmen, since they represented the two major religious traditions in Canada it was possible, if one tried hard enough, to see them as anticipating the pairs of Baldwin and LaFontaine or Macdonald and Cartier. This perspective upon de Monts and Champlain would not be shared by all, however, as some were fearful of giving too much credibility to the idea that Canada had been founded as a compact between English and French (or Protestants and Catholics); they preferred, instead, to concentrate upon de Monts and push Champlain to the margins. There was some logic in focusing upon de Monts, the leader of the expedition and a genuinely Maritime figure, as opposed to Champlain, who in the early-20th century was being championed as the founder of a civilization rooted in the St-Lawrence valley. Nevertheless, the treatment of the two Frenchmen over the summer of 1904 suggested that religious issues were never far from the surface.

Mr. Longley’s Party

7 All commemorative celebrations are works of imagination, and this one was no exception. There was no logical reason for celebrating the establishment of the Port-Royal settlement in 1904, since it had been founded in 1605. However, no one seems to have been unduly bothered by this fact, least of all J.W. Longley, the Nova Scotia Attorney General, who was the leading figure behind what came to be popularly referred to as "DeMonts’ Tercentenary"; Champlain was not to figure in the official view of this celebration. Longley, a member of an old Nova Scotian family, was born not far from Port-Royal, in Annapolis County, which he had represented in the Nova Scotia Assembly since 1882.8 More significantly, however, Longley was the president of the Nova Scotia Historical Society which, like its counterparts in New Brunswick and Maine, would provide the leadership for staging the various tercentenary events.

8 While Longley may have shared Earl Grey’s belief, fairly widespread at the turn of the century, that commemorative celebrations could foster a sense of national identity, the two had very different conceptions of both how such celebrations should be staged and what nation should be fostered. Grey was a strong supporter of the construction of public spectacles that would grab the public’s imagination, while Longley preferred events that were "intellectual rather than spectacular".9 This preference for matters of the mind was reflected in Longley’s willingness to engage in public debate through his extensive writings. In addition to publishing biographies of two fellow Nova Scotians, Joseph Howe and Charles Tupper, he also wrote at great length about the relationship of Canada with both the British empire and the United States. He indicated no sympathy for the integration of Canada into an imperial federation, and was publicly in favour of reciprocity with the United States or even a fuller integration of the two countries to create a commercial union.10 Writing in 1888, Longley remarked: "Sir John Macdonald and the Canadian Parliament have decreed that the people of Manitoba shall sell their wheat in Montreal or Toronto, and trade with Ontario and Quebec. God and Nature have decreed that they shall sell their wheat in and trade with St. Paul, Minneapolis and other contiguous western cities".11

9 As to the question of whether there should be some sort of political union with the Americans, Longley was evasive, observing at one point that it deserved a "fair discussion". He had sympathy for the the views of Goldwin Smith that much could be gained through "a union of English-speaking people on this continent", apparently writing French-speakers out of the equation.12 Nevertheless, Longley told Smith that he could not come out openly for annexation because such an admission "might injure a man not only as a candidate in his constituency but his usefulness generally as a public man in Canada. Under these circumstances I am pursuing what I conceive to be the most judicious course". Feeling less restrained when south of the border, Longley is on record as having "told a meeting in Boston [in 1887] that he was ‘both a commercial unionist and an annexationist’".13 Whatever Longley’s precise vision of the ideal relationship between Canada and the United States might have been, he clearly wanted closer ties between the two countries. By supervising the construction of a celebration in 1904 that transcended the international border, he presented a past that was in tune with his view of the present and which contrasted with Grey’s vision of the empire. Moreover, while Grey was forced to face up to the "French fact" in building the tercentenary in Quebec City, Longley felt no particular affinity with that reality as he prepared a celebration of the early-17th-century arrival of the French.

10 In late 1902, following some preliminary discussions among community leaders, Longley was appointed to a committee of the Nova Scotia Historical Society which was given responsibility for mounting a celebration at Annapolis Royal.14 It soon became clear, however, that it was really Longley alone who was in charge and that he had a larger vision of the celebrations, given that the landing at Port-Royal was "with the exception of the landing at St. Augustine, the first by Europeans on the soil of North America resulting in a permanent settlement". After the fact, he observed that "a mere local celebration could easily have been arranged but the circumstances seemed of such moment as to justify an international celebration which would involve a demonstration of a some what [sic] imposing character".15 Longley explained that France deserved to be present because de Monts had sailed under the French flag, Britain because of its ultimate assumption of control over Port-Royal and the Americans because "it was the English colonists of Massachusetts, who finally wrested from the French this Port Royal".16

11 Longely’s interest in creating more than a "mere local celebration" was reflected in the wide array of guests that were sent invitations to the two-day fete scheduled for June 1904. Every conceivable public figure in Canada was invited as well as the presidents of both France and the United States and representatives of historical societies and universities from across North America.17 Recognizing the extent of Longley’s dreams, the Governor General, Lord Minto, confided to Sir Archibald Douglas, the commander of the British navy in North American waters, "Longley asked the King and the President of the French Republic to come in person! – he may for all I know have invited the Sultan and all the crowned heads of Europe". Minto clearly did not want to attend the events in Annapolis Royal, but felt some obligation because "Longley is so enthusiastic about it I do not like disappointing him". In the end, however, Minto did not attend, his sense of obligation to Longley outweighed by the fact that "it is an enormous distance for me to go for a short ceremony and might make it difficult for me to get out of other things that would at once be proposed at St. John and elsewhere – I hardly think that under the circumstances that I need go".18

12 Minto’s unwillingness to participate was matched by that of the elected officials in Ottawa. Neither Sir Wilfrid Laurier nor any cabinet minister made the trip east, claiming that they were too busy because Parliament was in session.19 Of course, the prime minister and his colleagues could have found the time had they wanted to. While Laurier’s cryptic response to Longley, claiming that he was too busy, is not particularly revealing, one has to wonder if the prime minister was not staying clear of a commemorative celebration that was dominated by English-speakers and which might have been viewed with a jaundiced eye in Quebec, where he had to deal with a growing chorus of nationaliste opponents. Indeed, in 1908, he would do everything he could to discourage the organizers of the tercentenary in Quebec City, recognizing that someone inevitably would be alienated by reference to the past. In the end, he could not avoid the Quebec tercentenary, although he limited his participation as much as possible. However, Annapolis Royal was far enough away that he could remain comfortably in Ottawa; Laurier stayed completely removed from the celebration, delegating the local MP to represent his government.20

13 With the federal government essentially on the sidelines, this celebration turned into what one newspaper described as the coming together of "three great nations".21 Both the French and American governments, unlike their Canadian counterpart, saw the value in participating in such an event and responded positively to Longley’s request for both representatives and ships. France was represented by the cruiser Troude and by Alfred Kleczkowski, the French consul in Montreal, who was an old hand at attending commemorative extravaganzas in Quebec. On this occasion (as well as at the other two stops on the commemorative tour), Kleczkowski was one of the few to speak in French, but the message that he communicated (with the same text in both French and English) focused upon the French contribution to what had become a successful English-speaking settlement. Philosophically, he observed: "On more than one shore has France thrown by the handful the good seed of effort in which, so spontaneously, she gives her heart and her genius. Many a time has the initiatory idea come from her; she sows but does not always reap. I state the fact, not as one who complains. In the balance of things eternal, beautiful will ever be, ‘Le geste auguste du sémeur’".22 For his efforts, Kleczkowski was praised for his "social grace" in the midst of what one observer described as "a difficult situation . . . Frenchmen were here, in an English town, celebrating their planting of a tree whose fruitage had been wrested from them by the arms of England".23

14 As for the Americans, an officer of their consulate in Halifax recommended in the fall of 1903 that "the occasion which it is proposed to celebrate next year is one which, so far as I am able to ascertain, will assume an importance which would make it quite fitting that the President and Government of the United States should be represented".24 Strangely, this was a more enthusiastic endorsement of the Port-Royal celebration than would ever come from Ottawa. As a result, two American vessels made their way to Annapolis Royal, and the commander of one of them followed Kleczkowski to the podium on the first day of the celebration. Seemingly moved by the event, Captain Dillingham spoke from the heart about the parallels in 1904 between Canada, celebrating the tercentenary of the westward voyage of de Monts to its shores, and the United States celebrating the centenary of the Louisiana Purchase, which had made another westward trek possible.

15 In addition to the French and Americans, there were the British, who also contributed to the ships on hand by sending the flagship Ariadne. In the end, however, only the American and French ships were able to sail to Annapolis Royal; the Ariadne proved too large and was forced to anchor 30 kilometres away at Digby. In a sense, the distance of the British ship mirrored the absence of the Governor General. While the lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia was on hand, the leading British and Canadian officials of the day were conspicuous by their absence.

16 While Longley had difficulties in delivering the dignitaries whom he had worked so hard to attract, the events at Annapolis Royal, which had not been constructed with the general public in mind, managed to bring 10,000 people into a town with barely more than 1,000 permanent residents. In line with Longley’s insistence that such events should not be too ostentatious, over the course of the two-day celebration there were numerous speeches, a visit to the site where Port-Royal had stood and the laying of the cornerstone for a monument to de Monts, which would be completed later in the year on the grounds of Fort Anne. In a sense, the closing of the festivities with this tribute to de Monts was appropriate, since this event had been unambiguously billed as his tercentenary. Among the speeches that opened the affair, the lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia, A.G. Jones, placed de Monts in the company of "other illustrious men" such as Columbus, Cabot, Cortes and Pizzaro, not giving Champlain as much as a mention in passing. Champlain did not necessarily deserve special mention in the context of the establishment of Port-Royal since he had been no more than a humble member of de Monts’ crew. However, if Jones was prepared to recognize the larger contributions to the European occupation of North America of men such as Columbus and Cabot, one has to wonder why he could not mention any of the leading French Catholic figures such as Cartier or Champlain.

17 Cabot, of course, had played a role in Canadian history, but had sailed for England, thus making him an acceptable figure for celebration, even if he were an Italian Catholic by birth. On the other hand, Champlain was a much more complicated figure, a Catholic who had represented the French state. Accordingly, invoking the name of Champlain alongside that of de Monts suggested a certain equal treatment of Protestants and Catholics (or of English and French) within Canada.

18 In that context, in his speech at Annapolis Royal, Longley referred to de Monts in terms that side-stepped the religious divisions within his crew which were embodied by the presence of noteworthy Protestant and Catholic leaders: "The expedition headed by De Monts . . . was sent out under the authority of a French king, it was commanded by a Frenchman and was composed of French colonists". By secularizing de Monts and his colleagues, Longley avoided reference to divisions that might have been seen as presaging the creation of a country with two religious traditions that reflected, to a certain degree, the presence of two linguistic traditions.25

Display large image of Figure 1

19 The task of raising the matters that Jones and Longley tried so hard to avoid was left to the two French Canadians on the programme. While no other province had an official delegate at Annapolis Royal, Adélard Turgeon, the Quebec minister of colonization, was delegated as its representative. Much like Kleczkowski, Turgeon was an orator of note, and in 1908 would be asked by Laurier to speak on his behalf at one of the major public events of the Quebec tercentenary. Even on this occasion, there was some ambiguity as to Turgeon’s precise role, since Longley described him as both representing Quebec and "in the absence of Sir Wilfrid Laurier . . . speak[ing] in the name of the French population of Canada".26 Addressing the crowd mostly in French (so that Longley recorded none of his remarks in the "official" account of the festivities), Turgeon observed that he stood with those who had "seen in the maintenance of the French element a token of greatness, of progress and even of security for our Confederation. . . . National dualism is not a bar to the growth of a young nation. . . ".27 Laurier could have said the same words, but probably recognized the risk of presenting a message that might not have been universally embraced.

20 The other speaker from Quebec was Charles Langelier, the sheriff of Quebec City, who was on hand to represent the Institut Canadien, a literary organization in the vieille capitale. Langelier, like Turgeon, would occupy a key role in the Quebec tercentenary, playing the part of Champlain in the massive pageants that were staged on the Plains of Abraham. On this occasion, however, he stood out from the other speakers by giving de Monts a religion:Although De Monts was a Calvinist he brought with him Catholic priests and Protestant clergymen, showing thus that his colony was open to all, what[ever] may be their religious beliefs. Yes I proclaim it to be the honour of Nova Scotia, your Province has always shown a great religious tolerance. We have never seen among you those religious conflicts which have caused such crises in other Provinces, and which have caused dissension to endanger our national progress. . . . You have well understood . . . that the diversity of worship is not a necessary cause of weakness of national sentiments. . . . If the celebration of today was only to remind us of those things, it would be sufficient to greet it with joy as a national festival.28

21 Turgeon and Langelier carefully avoided giving Champlain credit that he did not deserve in terms of the settlement at Port-Royal. Nevertheless, they played upon the religious toleration within the expedition of 1605 to advance a message that had a particular meaning in the summer of 1904 in the context of the on-going debates surrounding the rules that would be established in the soon-to-be-created provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan regarding denominational schools. By the time of the tercentenary, Laurier had already made it clear that he felt that the Catholic minorities in the two new provinces "were entitled to some form of separate school system".29 Of course, this was not the dominant view across English Canada, and to indicate his opposition to the prime minister’s goals, Clifford Sifton noisily resigned from the federal cabinet early in 1905. For their part, Langelier and Turgeon reflected the dominant perspective from French-speaking Quebec, namely that Catholics had an historic right to recognition in the educational institutions of the country. This point of view might have been advanced by Laurier had he seen fit to travel east, but was probably not shared by the others on the podium who chose to avoid reference to religion altogether.

22 While Turgeon and Langelier spoke about diversity, there were other French-speakers who might have addressed those issues with greater authority in the context of the Maritime Provinces. In the end, however, Acadian leaders occupied a rather marginal part in celebrations that might have been constructed to mark the start of their existence. Although Longley invited the Société nationale l’Assomption, the leading Acadian organization of the time, to play a part in the Annapolis Royal festivities, in the end no Acadian spoke. To be fair, Senator Pascal Poirier, the president of the Société, did not participate because he was ill; Rémi Benoit, who was there to represent Acadians living in New England, declined to speak "owing to the lateness of the hour".30 Nevertheless, one can understand the frustration of L’Évangéline which observed after the fete was over:Nos Acadiens étaient représentés en nombre, mais leurs principaux orateurs, ceux que nous aurions aimé voir là, l’hon. P. A. Landry, qui a si bien parlé à St-Jean, le sénateur Poirier, notre historien national, et ceux de notre clergé qui se sont distingués ailleurs dans les grandes démonstrations religieuses et patriotiques, la tribune et la chair acadienne en un mot manquaient dans ce concert des représentants de trois pays pour célébrer après trois longs siècles la mémoire des découvreurs du pays. La vieille province de Québec a été fièrement représentée, nous eussions voulu pouvoir en dire autant de l’Acadie.31

23 The only consolation that L’Évangéline could find in light of the Acadians’ marginal status was the satisfaction that "nous sommes au moins heureux dans la pensée que ces personnages que nous estimons étaient au milieu de nous de coeur et d’esprit".32 The personnages in question were, of course, Champlain and de Monts (presented in that order by L’Évangéline), who rarely appeared as a pair in the "official" descriptions of the celebration, but who were generally twinned in the Acadian newspapers of the day, representing the sort of diversity that had been touted by Turgeon and Langelier. Similarly, the pair were presented graphically in the intensive coverage of the event by the Quebec City newspaper, Le Soleil, whose ties to Laurier were well known. The newspaper stood alone from its counterparts by leading every report from Longley’s celebration with an image of Champlain and de Monts superimposed upon one another, ringed with the words Champlain-De Monts, 1604-1904. Whether Champlain "deserved" equal billing with de Monts at Annapolis Royal is besides the point. Le Soleil was trying to make a point as it underscored the messages of Canadian duality that had been delivered by Turgeon and Langelier, and which might have been presented had the Acadians had the opportunity to speak. Here they were in black and white, the Catholic and Protestant "founders" of Canada.33

Display large image of Figure 2

24 As soon as the festivities at Annapolis Royal were completed, most of the dignitaries boarded a steamer that would take them to the next stop along the tercentenary trail. Longley had worked with the organizers at Saint John and Île Ste-Croix to guarantee that one series of events would seamlessly blend into the next. However, at least two of the speakers from Annapolis Royal went home after that celebration was over, this in spite of Kleczkowski’s comment to his superiors back in Paris that "Tous les personnages ayant participé aux fêtes d’Annapolis sont invités à prendre part aux fêtes de St Jean, et aucun ne pourra s’y dérober".34 Le Soleil, which also disappeared from the scene, reported that Adélard Turgeon and Charles Langelier returned to Quebec after a series of meetings in Halifax.35 While the two men had been invited to continue on to Saint John aboard the steamer that Longley had reserved for the occasion, one has to wonder how welcome they were after their speeches in Annapolis Royal. On 21 June, while Turgeon and Langelier would still have been at Longley’s celebration, one of the leaders of the Saint John festivities wrote to a colleague that "Hons Langelier and Turgeon will speak at our meeting if needed".36 Something had happened, however, by the evening of the 22nd when the steamer set sail. Were they no longer needed, or had the two Quebec representatives decided that they had had enough? In either case, their departure underscored the marginal status of anyone at Annapolis Royal whose view of the founding of Canada was more complex than that of Longley and his associates.

25 Reinforcing this point, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who had stayed safely out of the way in Ottawa, received an angry letter early in 1905 from Judge A.W. Savary, a local leader in Annapolis Royal, who had played a bit role in the festivities there during the summer of 1904. The federal government had made a contribution towards the construction of the de Monts monument, whose cornerstone had been laid at the time of the celebrations and which was completed later in the year. Savary was shocked by the fact that the inscription that had been placed on the monument was in English only. He wrote to the prime minister: "I am strongly of the opinion that the inscription on the monument should be in French as well as English. In this, I am sorry to say, the Honorable Mr. Longley decidedly differed from me, and sent forward the inscription written by me, without instructing a French version of it to be placed on the monument . . . [De Monts] was a Frenchman; he founded a French colony, and a large proportion of the people of Canada speak and will always speak the French language". In the end, Savary’s was a voice in the wilderness. As even he recognized, this had been Longley’s party, and the English-only inscription would survive until a French one was finally added in the 1980s.37

Champlain Returns to Saint John

26 If Champlain had been kept out of view at Annapolis Royal, such was certainly not the case at Saint John, New Brunswick. In fact, of the three venues for the 1904 celebrations, this was the one that unambiguously belonged to Champlain, since the event being remembered was the cartographer’s naming of the Rivière St-Jean on the feast day of John the Baptist. Of course, while the "facts" of the case pushed de Monts to the background, they raised an entirely new problem, as Saint John, a proudly Loyalist town, had to find the means to celebrate the exploits of a Catholic from France. A certain reticence to celebrate Champlain too warmly was evident as the process of organizing the Saint John celebrations began with some very tentative efforts by the New Brunswick Historical, Natural History and Loyalist societies in 1902 and 1903. While the Natural History Society was prepared to mark "the three hundredth anniversary of the discovery of the harbour and river of St. John by Champlain", the minutes of the meetings of the Loyalist Society consistently referred to "the tercentenary of the discovery of the River St. John", never mentioning the "discoverer" by name.38

27 The three societies met both separately and collectively with some regularity, but by late 1903 it was clear that the organization of the tercentenary had stalled. This all changed, however, when the indefatigable Mr. Longley became involved in, what he called, "the tercentenary of De Monts’ first voyage". In his typically self-assured manner, Longley wrote to the Reverend W.O. Raymond, an Anglican minister and a local historian of note, stating "if no accident happens, the celebration at Port Royal will be one of the most memorable occasions in Canadian history. My suggestion is that the St. John celebration should be timed so as to follow instantly on the Annapolis [one]. . . . In that way the same persons who will be induced to take part in the Annapolis celebration could be induced by special steamer accommodations to attend and take part in St. John immediately after. . . . I have already spoken to the Admiral of the Fleet about sending one or more ships of war to Annapolis and of course, if he does so, these ships would move promptly on to St. John".39

28 Longley subsequently came to Saint John to give his pep talk to the entire tercentenary committee, which immediately signed on. Accordingly, by the start of 1904 work was being done to give the celebration some substance, so much so that Longley, watching from the Attorney-General’s office in Halifax, could write: "I am very much pleased to hear that your St. John committees are waking up".40 As this letter suggests, Longley viewed the Saint John organizers with some condescension, and he displayed the same attitude when he learned several months later that no invitation had been sent from Saint John to the Governor General. As we have seen, Longley felt that Lord Minto was needed to legitimize these celebrations, and so he was shocked when he found that the work had not been done: "When I was in Ottawa the other day, I found that no invitation had yet been sent to the Governor General and so far as I learned no steps had been taken by your Society to interest him in the matter. . . . I think it is time the St. John invitations were sent to all the Societies and Institutions of which [we] sent you the list".41

29 Longley was even more pointed with his criticism, however, when he learned of the ambitious programme that the Saint John organizers had in mind. While the Annapolis Royal celebrations avoided the sort of public spectacles that had become part of the turn-of-the-century commemorative repertoire, the Saint John people were determined to construct a carefully orchestrated affair. As a result, they were preoccupied with their finances, so much so that Longley admonished them: "You entirely overestimate the necessity for money. . . . Expensive side shows are very nice from a spectacular point of view and please the masses but my idea of historical celebrations of this character is to have them intellectually commemorative and this can be done for much less money".42

30 In the end, the Saint John leaders were in the mainstream of commemorative organizers of the time, as they found themselves investing substantial energy in lobbying governments for significant funding so that their plan could be executed. While the federal government tried to stay clear of the affair, both the municipal and provincial governments soon received demands from tercentenary organizers. In order to assist the lobbying efforts in Fredericton, within days of the drafting of the outlines of the spectacle, the St. John Daily Telegraph, which was a tireless booster of the project, explained that all New Brunswickers would benefit from the tercentenary: "There can be no doubt that the coming celebration touches the population of New Brunswick as could no other event of a similar nature, and while St. John is of necessity the theatre in which the coming tableaux will be staged, residents of the whole province have a definite stake in the success of the undertaking. . . . Of the thousands whom the picturesque programme will attract to the city, a great number will go to other points in New Brunswick, and the whole province will benefit materially from their visit".43 This claim that there were significant economic spin-offs that warranted government support would be repeated on numerous occasions across North America during the heyday of commemorative celebrations at the turn of the century.

31 While the tercentenary organizers had hoped to receive $5,000 from each level of government, they were forced to settle for $2,000, and within days of receiving the news most of it had been allocated to put on the big show.44 Rather small amounts were provided for such "intellectual" events (to use Longley’s expression) as the meeting of the Royal Society of Canada in Saint John and a "literary evening" in which speeches would be given to explain the significance of the moment. A much larger portion of the funds was set aside to stage a landing of Champlain at Saint John on 24 June, precisely 300 years after he had first visited the site. The Neptune Rowing Club and the Royal Kennebeccasis Yacht Club received $500 each, the former so that its members could take to their canoes dressed as Natives who would welcome Champlain and his crew aboard a reconstruction of his ship the Acadie. While the landing of Champlain during the tercentenary of Quebec City would feature "real" Natives, in this case the Frenchmen would be met by "sham Indians in canoes".45 One member of the rowing club had suggested that "genuine Indians could be got for the Champlain welcome". However, there is no evidence, in this case or in any other part of the tercentenary events of 1904, that any serious effort was made to have Natives play themselves.46 As for the yacht club, it would be responsible for both constructing the Acadie and dressing up its members as early-17th-century Frenchmen. As one observer put it, Champlain was decked out in an "ornate 17th Century uniform complete with floppy hat and ostrich plumes".47

Display large image of Figure 3

32 In addition to the funds appropriated for Champlain’s landing, a significant amount was granted to the Trades and Labour Council so that it might take part in a procession that would also include Champlain, his entourage and the Natives. This event began to unravel, however, when there was grumbling that workers not affiliated with the Council would be excluded. At a public meeting, a representative of the painters’ union said that his members "at first intended to go into the celebration at their own expense, but now that $500 was guaranteed to the Council, [they] decided they would not turn out unless they had part of the grant". Faced with the fact that only "half the labour men in the city were connected with the Trades and Labour Council", the tercentenary committee resolved to make the money, previously committed to the Council, available to unions, regardless of their affiliation. D.R. Jack, the secretary of the committee, announced that "there was no plan to give $500 outright to the Trades and Labour Council". Not surprisingly, this reversal resulted in the Council pulling out of the tercentenary, which led to cancellation of the procession of which it was supposed to have been a part. 48

33 Without the participation of the unions, the day of Champlain’s return could no longer claim the involvement of all classes of the city. However, it created an opportunity to stage a completely different type of event that underscored the ambivalent acceptance of Champlain as the centre of attention. For some time there had been discussion in Saint John about the appropriate moment for unveiling a monument that had been erected in the north end of the city in honour of the soldiers who had fought in the Boer War. The cancellation of the labour procession created a hole in the programme that might be filled by the unveiling.

34 In the end, those present in Saint John on 24 June witnessed the arrival of Champlain and his comrades, who then made their way to Market Square "where they made gifts to the Indians and smoked with them the pipes of peace. They took possession of the land, with formal ceremony in the name of the King of France, and their new friends danced the war dance about them". Professor W.F. Ganong of Smith College, a native of Saint John, went on to observe, "All this part of the ceremony was extremely effective. In fact, so well was it done that I quite forgot for a time that it was a show, and even forgot to philosophize and pyschologize, while I had some momentary impulse to approach Champlain and ask him the truth as to certain ambiguous passages in his narratives!" With the close of this ceremony, Champlain, his entourage and the Natives made their way, along with an imposing number of soldiers and sailors, to the site of the war memorial.49

35 On the face of it, there was something incongruous about the 1904 embodiment of Champlain, who had been a Catholic serving the French state, taking part in commemorating the actions of New Brunswick volunteers in a war that had been fought to defend the interests of the British empire. The incongruity was tempered perhaps by the fact that in 1904 France and England were at peace with one another, a situation underscored by the presence of sailors from British and French (as well as American) ships which had made their way from Annapolis Royal. Nevertheless, there was still something jarring about the juxtaposition of Champlain and the veterans of the Boer War, although it was not entirely surprising given the discomfort of some tercentenary organizers with the celebration of a French Catholic hero.

36 While there were those who were prepared to celebrate Champlain, viewing him as the "discoverer" of their town and choosing to overlook his nationality and religion, still others preferred to ignore him altogether, or sought ways to combine his celebration with that of other, more comfortable symbols. For instance, over the months leading up to the two-day celebration, the tercentenary was frequently absorbed in the local press into a week-long celebration of "Old Home Week" which would culminate in Sunday church services. Several days after the dignitaries had left for Île Ste-Croix, thanks would be given in local churches for "the two greatest events in the history of St. John, the landing of the Loyalists and the discovery of the St. John River by Champlain". This merging of two very different celebrations was further reflected on the front page of the St. John Daily Telegraph at the start of the week when Champlain would return. There were large pictures of members of the yacht club, identified as "Champlain and His Companions". Just below them, a large headline announced "Rush to Reunion in Old Home Week Begins".50 Two very different images were also linked on a postcard (see next page) in which the physical representation of Champlain was so unlike anything in circulation at the time as to make him virtually unrecognizable.51

37 The reluctance to embrace Champlain too warmly was expressed in other ways as well. The appropriation of municipal funds for the tercentenary was resisted by some who felt that Champlain had been "an ancient mariner with whose adventure we are nowise concerned".52 The grudging celebration of Champlain was also evident in some of the speeches that were made at the "literary evening" on the night preceding the return of the discoverer. Attorney-General Longley, in his only public appearance, managed to avoid mentioning Champlain’s name, always referring instead to "De Monts land[ing] at St. John". For his part, Dr. A.A. Stockton, the vice-president of the New Brunswick Historical Society was more pointed. He began by identifying himself as "a descendant of the Loyalists" and went on to observe: "We do well to honour the memory of the French discoverer, but we do only half our duty unless we also honour the Loyalists who came nearly two centuries later to these shores. Beside the tablet to Champlain should be one in memory of the Loyalists".53

Display large image of Figure 4

38 The tablet in question was to be unveiled on 24 June, following the return of Champlain and the unveiling of the war memorial, on the occasion of the opening of the new public library. The Historical Society had considered the construction of a memorial to Champlain, which might have paralleled the one to de Monts in Annapolis Royal, but this idea was quickly pushed aside to be replaced by the "erection of a tablet to Champlain and De Monts" at the new library.54 Champlain just could not stand alone in the eyes of some, and even though he had been paired with de Monts on this occasion, there were those who were bothered that the Catholic hero might be given precedence over the Huguenot. In this context, Reverend Raymond, who stood out throughout the affair as an unapologetic advocate for giving the French Catholic hero his due, felt the need to "reply to the criticism that [the organizers] were making this a Champlain rather than a De Monts celebration". Raymond went on to argue, undoubtedly to the displeasure of some, that "Champlain was the greater man. . . . He was the father of Canada and left his impress upon it, while De Monts left no memorial". Raymond cut to the heart of the matter when he observed, "At St. John, de Monts left absolutely nothing to show that he had ever visited it. . . . And yet today the Historical Society, in the tablet to be unveiled, would make the two central characters of our celebrations partners in the honours of the tercentenary".55

39 If de Monts had been added to the Champlain tablet so as to make it more palatable to residents of Saint John who might have had trouble embracing a Catholic hero, the manoeuvre did not have its intended effect. Even with both heroes slated for inclusion, it was no mean feat to raise the $160 needed to construct the tablet. Although the official tercentenary committee blessed the idea of erecting such a tablet in early May, it appropriated none of its $4,000 to the effort, even after $500 had been "saved" due to the cancellation of the procession by the Trades and Labour Council. Instead, there was an appeal for funds from the general public. These accumulated very slowly; by early June, two weeks before the unveiling ceremony, only $65 had been collected.56

40 In this context, the secretary of the tercentenary committee wrote to Senator Pascal Poirier, the president of the Société nationale l’Assomption, asking that Acadians pay for half the tablet. While Poirier politely responded that this might be difficult "as we are a community destitute of worldly goods . . .", within days of the request for Acadian support, the treasurer of the Société, Judge Pierre-Armand Landry, appealed to the "descendants des colons acadiens de 1604 de prendre l’initiative d’une contribution volontaire au monument historique projeté; et je prends la liberté d’inviter mes compatriotes acadiens à m’adresser chacun une obole – $1.00 ou moins, selon leur bon vouloir – que me ferai un agréable devoir de transmettre au trésorier à St-Jean".57 By the time of the unveiling, $50 of the $150 subscribed for the tablet had come from Acadians, and further contributions came in the days that followed.58

41 While tercentenary organizers needed Acadian dollars, they showed little enthusiasm otherwise for including Acadian leaders into the celebration, which was perhaps to be expected in a town in which the French presence was even less significant than had been the case in Annapolis Royal.59 While the population of New Brunswick was roughly one-quarter Acadian, the areas of such settlement were far from Saint John, and in spite of the high-minded talk of tercentenary boosters that their fete would benefit all New Brunswickers, Acadians did not really figure in their calculations. This blindspot was reflected in the New Brunswick Magazine, which rather condescendingly observed: "While there are some descendants of the earliest French settlers and many of others of more recent date the country is British, the language English, and the sentiment of the people irrespective of nationality that of loyalty to the British crown and Constitution".60

42 Although there had been talk of planning tercentenary celebrations in Saint John since 1902, there was not a single reference to any Acadian involvement until late May 1904 when Senator Poirier tried to interest organizers in Acadian participation.61 However, all that Poirier’s intervention seemed to achieve was the request from tercentenary leaders for Acadian contributions for the tablet in the library. Invitation lists prepared by the tercentenary organizers at the start of June did not contain the name of a single Acadian leader; nor for that matter was the Société nationale l’Assomption on a list that included societies with varied interests from across North America. One week before the start of the celebration, Senator John V. Ellis, a Laurier appointee from Saint John, sent a telegram pointing out that, "St. John NB might be wise to assign Senator Poirier or some representative Acadian place on public program".62 It would seem that only after this intervention from Ottawa did Judge Landry and Rémi Benoit (the representative of Acadians living in New England) receive invitations to speak at the "literary evening" that preceded the day of Champlain’s return. With the representatives from Quebec, Turgeon and Langelier, preparing to take the train back to Quebec, they were the only French-speakers on the programme.

43 Given an opportunity to address the crowds, Landry spoke not about the legacy of Champlain, but rather the achievements of the Acadians who had surpassed other Canadians in their ability to speak both languages. "The Acadians were progressing educationally and asked the privilege of walking hand-in-hand with their English fellow citizens in the work of nation-building". For his efforts, Landry received, according to the St. John Daily Telegraph, "earnest applause", this in contrast with the "hearty and long continued applause" that greeted Commander Dillingham, the American representative who had made the journey from Annapolis Royal.63 In the end, various voices were heard at Saint John, but some were taken more seriously than others.

The End of the Journey

44 While some continued to celebrate "Old Home Week" at Saint John, the dignitaries made their way to Dochet Island, as Île Ste-Croix was officially known before the summer of 1904, along with the various military vessels that had been part of the journey from its start.64 Much like the other two celebrations, this last stop on the circuit was to a considerable extent the work of an historical society, in this case the Maine Historical Society (MHS), which was only fitting since the island was in American waters. Nothing of substance had been done to stage a tercentenary event until the secretary of the MHS and Baptist minister, Rev. Henry Burrage, became involved in early 1904, corresponding with Longley on the one hand and with the municipal governments in the vicinity of Île Ste-Croix on the other.65 In the end, however, Burrage seems to have had more of an impact upon the Calais, Maine city government, which immediately moved into action, than upon that of St. Stephen, New Brunswick, just across the border, which took no steps to move the tercentenary forward. When a committee with representatives from towns on both sides of the border was formed to look after the local arrangements, the Americans clearly provided most of the initiative. In the end, there were two main events that constituted the Île Ste-Croix celebration, one on the island and the other in Calais, Maine. There was an event held just across from the island on the Canadian side, but it was inexplicably staged "while the services were in progress on the island", so that "the attendance was not large".66

45 In late 1903 and early 1904, as the Annapolis Royal and Saint John organizers were scrambling to put their celebrations together, the leaders in Maine were thinking about Île Ste-Croix, but in a much broader context than their Canadian counterparts. While the historical societies in both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were focused exclusively on 1904, the Maine Historical Society indicated a very different commitment, having already held in November 1901 an event marking the "commemoration of the millenary anniversary of the death of King Alfred the Great". Placing the Historical Society’s interest in the past in the broadest of terms, its president, James Baxter, observed: "It has been the practice from the earliest times for civilized people to publicly commemorate important episodes in the lives of those who have made themselves conspicuous by their achievements, not alone for the purpose of showing reverence for the mighty dead, but for the loftier one of keeping bright the memory of virtues worthy to be emulated by the living". Alfred was particularly worthy of respect because "of what he wrought for a great race from whose loins we sprang".67

46 Moving closer to home, starting in 1903 and continuing to 1907, Baxter and his colleagues were involved in a series of celebrations to mark the anniversaries of various incursions by Europeans along the Atlantic coast of Maine. The celebration of "De Monts’ settlement and Champlain’s voyage along the coast in 1604" was just one link in the chain. Perhaps reflecting the experience of the MHS in organizing such events, Henry Burrage did not seem too concerned when he wrote to Longley in February 1904: "We have not yet fixed a date, but shall endeavour to conform to the dates of your celebrations".68 There was still no permanent organizing committee in place until late April, but perhaps the slow pace was possible because this was designed to be a small affair. After the fact, one local newspaper observed that the Ste-Croix celebration had been "less varied" than the one at Annapolis Royal and "less spectacular" than that at Saint John: "With little money to spend, it was simple, solemn and grand".69

47 While there were no carefully orchestrated spectacles, just two events largely dominated by speeches, the words that were spoken (or not spoken) at the Île Ste-Croix stop brought into relief some of the themes that had stood out at the two larger (and thoroughly Canadian) events. While there had been moments at both Annapolis Royal and Saint John when the mere mention of Champlain’s name seemed unacceptable to some, there was no such reluctance on this occasion. Even though the celebration was formally referred to as the "De Monts Tercentenary", the tablet that was unveiled at the brief event on the island included the names of both de Monts and Champlain, given equal credit for establishing on Île Ste-Croix what was "then the only settlement of Europeans north of Florida". While de Monts had received more credit than he deserved in Saint John, the same could be said of Champlain at Île Ste-Croix. The equal treatment of the two men continued in the three main speeches that were delivered over the course of the day, the first of which dealt with de Monts and the last with Champlain. In between the two, Professor Ganong went out of his way to describe the landing at Île Ste-Croix of "two [men who] bore the unmistakable stamp of leadership".70

48 While there had been a few English-speaking voices at Annapolis Royal and Saint John that had presented Champlain and de Monts as presaging the existence of two founding people in Canada, there had also been those, such as Longley in the former case and the leaders of the Loyalist Society in the latter, who could barely bring themselves to utter Champlain’s name. They seemed to feel that in the Canadian context the parallel treatment of the two men somehow legitimized the recognition of two cultures. In the end, the only voices from the Canadian stops of 1904 that consistently spoke about duality in this regard were the French-speakers, and they were, of course, few in number.

49 At Île Ste-Croix, when Judge Landry was unable to attend, there were no French Canadians, but there were also few English Canadians. Instead, most of the speakers were Americans whose references to Champlain and de Monts had different political implications from what they had had at either Annapolis Royal or Saint John. When Henry Burrage referred to the presence of both Catholics and Protestants at Île Ste-Croix in 1604, he saw them, not as harbingers of Canadian biculturalism, but rather as having anticipated American freedom of worship: "In this French colony, Protestants and Catholics were found side by side, both minister and priest being included in the personnel of the expedition". While religious liberty suffered setbacks in France, "it was to have a rebirth on this side of the sea. . . . And now to us, religious liberty is so common a thing that we fail oftentimes, Protestants and Catholics alike, to estimate aright our indebtedness for a boon of such priceless value".71 Burrage did not focus on two founding nations, but rather a much broader acceptance of all religious persuasions.

Remembering the Past and Looking to the Future

50 The tercentenary journey of late June 1904 was a rather modest affair when considered alongside the mammoth spectacles that were staged at the turn of the century on both sides of the Atlantic. Nevertheless, the organizers of the Champlain-de Monts tercentenary, like their counterparts who were involved in erecting monuments and staging spectacles across the western world, believed that the future could be better than the present, and that reference to the past, particularly to the great men of the past, could provide guidance to chart the route. The men (there were rarely women) at the centre of this commemorative movement never denied the existence of class divisions, and believed that the messages they were communicating could lead to a world in which such divisions might be reduced, if only everyone would subscribe to the mantra of progress. While different voices could be heard with greater or lesser difficulty at different stops along this Maritime memory tour, all of the participants (including the Acadian leaders when they had a chance) exhibited a shared belief in the idea that the future might be better than the present.

51 Following the carnage of the First World War, however, an uncritical belief in progress evaporated, and with it the enthusiasm on the part of leaders, in the same mold as J.W. Longley and his associates, to invest the time, energy and money that commemorative events required.72 In the case of the Maritime Provinces, confidence in the future was further sapped by a severe downturn in the regional economy, marked most dramatically by the movement of "tens of thousands of young Maritimers . . . for the United States and Central Canada". While there had been a time when "Victorian Nova Scotians [such as J.W. Longley] . . . were in step with the march of improvement throughout the industrializing world", now "local cultural producers" searched for evidence of a more "innocent" folk culture that might provide a new source of identity.73 In this view of the past, there were no class divisions that needed to be suppressed by imitation of the lessons to be derived from the lives of great men. Rather, the Folk (as Ian McKay has referred to them) suggested an unchanging world in which such divisions had never existed. While McKay has focused upon the Nova Scotian roots for this "quest of the folk", he has also shown it to have been part of a larger process since "practically everywhere in the interwar world, it seems, we find . . . an intellectual search for something more real, natural, authentic and essential".74

52 Seen from this perspective, the 1904 tercentenary, like other such commemorative events, was a product of a particular moment in time, when individuals such as Longley were still looking to the great men of the past to provide lessons for a modern world, confident that the future would be better than the present. By the late 1920s, however, a new set of individuals, best represented in Nova Scotia by the folklorist Helen Creighton, were looking to the past in order to find "ordinary" people who had remained unsullied by modernity. This search for some purer world on the verge of extinction was at odds with the uncritical belief in progress that had been at the root of commemorative events such as those of June 1904.