1 IN 1904, NEW BRUNSWICK CULTURAL, POLITICAL and business leaders celebrated the achievements of the explorer, cartographer, soldier and administrator Samuel de Champlain, internationally known as the Father of New France and a "maker" of Canada.1 In June 1604, prior to the founding of a temporary settlement on the Saint Croix River, Champlain, as part of the Pierre Du Gua, Sieur de Monts expedition, had "discovered" and named la Rivière St-Jean, the waterway that would dominate the history of much of anglophone New Brunswick. Three centuries later, celebrations honouring the beginning of the French presence in western Acadia also took place at Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia and Saint Croix Island on the New Brunswick-Maine border. The Saint Croix habitation had gone down in history as a false start. Port-Royal (the French name for present-day Annapolis Royal), despite its slow beginning and military vulnerability, would remain the foundation of Acadia until its final capture in 1710. Essentially anglophone festivities with an international dimension, the "Acadian" tercentenary celebrations anticipated the more lavish events at Quebec in 1908.2 They reflected the pattern of 19th-century historical commemoration in that they were "largely for, but not of, the people".3
2 This paper examines the cultural politics surrounding the Champlain-de Monts tercentenary in Saint John from 1904 to 1910. Civic elites used the history of early French exploration in the region to celebrate Saint John’s role in a larger national and imperial history that extended from 1604 to 1763, the American Revolution and even the South African War (1899-1902). In this context, the ahistorical connection in the 1904 Champlain celebrations to the exploits of Canadian volunteers in South Africa made perfect sense. Moreover, in contrast to the Annapolis Royal and Saint Croix-area celebrations, Champlain was privileged over the actual leader of the 1604 expedition, de Monts. Like more recent commemorations (i.e., Cabot in 1997), the celebrations of 1904 and 1910 were exercises in civic boosterism as well as attempts to establish historical authenticity for the masses. In terms of public history, the anglophone majority acknowledged not only the province’s growing Acadian minority, but also the bicultural character of the nation. At the same time, the tercentenary celebrations revealed that the city, and the province of New Brunswick, were divided communities.4
3 At the turn of the 20th century, Saint John, an important British North American commercial and shipbuilding centre in the previous century, was at the height of its metropolitan ambitions. Increasingly, in contrast with the transatlantic focus of Confederation-era trade, Saint John’s orientation was continental. The city benefited from industrialization following the inauguration of the National Policy in 1879, and its status as a winter port for Montreal was furthered in the 1890s with the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway "Short Line" and the beginnings of subsidized steamship service. Over the next three decades, the business community supported railway and harbour development (leading to the nationalization of the port in 1927) that would make Saint John a seasonal adjunct of the port of Montreal, with an emphasis on handling Western grain. In 1904, the value of goods shipped through Saint John was equivalent to the exports of the ports of Quebec City and Halifax combined.5
4 Champlain was commemorated in an era that worshipped the historical agency of the Great Man and the necessity and legitimacy of colonization. Academic history in Canada was in its infancy; local, provincial and national history was the creation of what a later generation would call "antiquarians": journalists, clergy, lawyers, bureaucrats and business people.6 History activists were not numerous; the Saint John-based New Brunswick Historical Society (NBHS), for example, admitted only 106 members from 1874 to 1906, and of these 30 died and 40 resigned.7 Popular notions and uses of history were, at least for middle class and elite practitioners, difficult to fathom. According to commentator Goldwin Smith, writing in 1891, the Canadian "masses" did not "read much history or cherish antiquarian feuds".8
5 Champlain began to attract increasing attention from North American historians in the last third of the 19th century.9 While Thomas Chandler Haliburton (1829) and Beamish Murdoch (1865) in their histories of Nova Scotia had addressed early French exploration and colonization, Champlain (as hero and nation builder) emerged more clearly in post-Confederation historical writing. Quebec historian N.-E. Dionne’s study of early New France, reflecting messianic French Canadian nationalism, stressed Champlain’s moral and religious legacy.10 The influential work of American historian Francis Parkman, although distorted, did much to interest English Canada in the epic of New France and in "heroic" figures such as Champlain and Frontenac. To Parkman, Champlain was "a true hero, after the chivalrous medieval type, his character was dashed largely with the spirit of romance". Starting in the late 1870s, the Prince Society in Boston translated Champlain’s 1613 Voyages, with notes and illustrations by E.F. Slafter.11
6 In 1879, James Hannay, destined to be the most influential New Brunswick historian of the late-19th and early-20th century, published The History of Acadia, a work that drew heavily on the published writings of Champlain, Lescarbot and the Jesuit Relations.12 Like his later contemporary W.O. Raymond, Hannay helped popularize the idea that New Brunswick had a European presence prior to the Loyalists.13 In his history of Acadia, Hannay praised Pierre du Gua, Sieur de Monts, the leader of the Acadian venture of 1604-07, as the founder the "the first permanent settlement in the Canadian Dominion".14 His assistant and colleague Champlain was noted for "activity, daring, firmness, enterprise and valour", and above all a zeal for promoting Christianity. An unselfish patriot, Champlain was also "tender and compassionate".15
7 Hannay accepted that Champlain had discovered and named the Saint John River on 24 June, the feast of John the Baptist, yet he noted, as had Champlain’s narrative, that other Frenchmen explored the actual river. Other than Lescarbot’s book of 1609, the account of Father Pierre Biard, published in 1616, is the earliest and most detailed report of conditions in southern New Brunswick. In 1611 traders and fishers from Saint Malo maintained a post on Eménenic (Caton’s Island) in the Long Reach section of the lower Saint John. In 1911, the NBHS erected a cairn and plaque on the island, located in Westfield parish, King’s County, to commemorate "the first settlement in New Brunswick". A permanent European presence at the river’s mouth began only in the 1630s, but fur traders, according to Hannay, were not settlers.16
8 The commemoration of Columbus, Cartier and Cabot in the 1890s, and the rise of local and regional historical societies, helped sustain interest in exploration history, especially in the North Atlantic region of North America. Historical narratives usually preceded monuments, statutes and public ceremonies marking historical "firsts" and dramatic events such as battles. In both English and French Canada, the Champlain industry began to grow.17 N.-E. Dionne’s biography of Champlain appeared in French in Quebec in 1891. American Justin Winsor, in Cartier to Frontenac (1894), described Champlain as "the most commanding figure in the early history of Canada". Winsor, who appreciated the explorer’s detailed and surprisingly accurate maps, viewed Champlain’s Acadian and New England experiences as diversions from "the great river of Canada", a sentiment no doubt shared by most Quebec historians.18 Marc Lescarbot’s charming 1609 account of his time in Acadia, which offered a counterpoint to Champlain’s narrative, was published in 1911.19
9 William Francis Ganong, a professor of botany at Smith College in Massachusetts, was a native New Brunswicker who became an expert on early French exploration and cartography in Acadia. As a trained scientist, Ganong brought an unprecedented degree of empiricism to the study of New Brunswick history, including an emphasis on cartographic studies and in the determination of the exact location of key historic sites. A translator and editor of the 17th-century Acadian narratives of Nicolas Denys (1908) and Father Chrestien le Clercq (1910), he became one of the key scholars in Champlain studies and a frequent contributor to the publications of the New Brunswick Historical Society (NBHS), the New Brunswick Magazine and Acadiensis.20 Ganong’s interest in Champlain’s geographic record was longstanding. In 1889 he presented a paper on the cartography of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence from the 1530s to 1604. In 1902, he delivered a detailed paper to the Royal Society of Canada on Dochet or Saint Croix Island, the site of the de Monts colony of 1604-05. In addition to conducting document-based research and translation, Ganong prepared maps, took photographs and gave slide presentations. Because of this expertise he would take part in the cross-border Saint Croix celebrations of 1904.21 In 1918, Ganong finished translating and editing Champlain’s Voyages, volume III, in the monumental publication of the explorer’s works by the Champlain Society that appeared in 1922. Later he published a series of papers in the Royal Society’s Transactions on "crucial maps" of the Atlantic coast of Canada.22
10 Aside from periodic triumphs such as the tercentenary, the cultural activists who promoted public history in early-20th-century New Brunswick believed themselves to be waging a lonely battle. The NBHS catered to an educated, elite audience. Ganong, writing in 1902, regretted that the lack of a civic or provincial museum in Saint John meant the loss of valuable "relics" from the Loyalist era.23 G.U. Hay, author of A History of New Brunswick for Use in Public Schools, published in 1903, wrote that "too little is now thought of the deeds of these brave explorers; and so little honor is paid to Cartier, de Monts and Champlain, who came first and prepared the way for others to follow". Regrettably, he continued, "no place in New Brunswick bears the name of any of them; no memorial marks the spot of their landing". Although few had read "the quaint stories they have told of the shores and natives of the province", the writings of early French explorers had been or were being translated, hopefully for use by a wider readership.24
11 For the most part, the 1904 celebrations focussed not on Champlain or the beginnings of Acadia but on the European discovery of the Saint John River as well as Loyalist settlement and the South African War. In addition to its historic importance, the river, according to promoters such as historian Reverend W.O. Raymond, was notable for its length and beauty. The idea to stage a public commemoration of the discovery of this major waterway originated with the Saint John-dominated NBHS.25 Organizers of the tercentenary on Saint Croix Island and at Annapolis Royal decided to honour de Monts, official leader of the Acadian venture. Although the Port-Royal habitation had been established in 1605, a promotional letter from the Nova Scotia Historical Society described the French visit of 1604 as "the first landing of Europeans on the soil of North America resulting in permanent settlement".26 Although Port-Royal itself had not been founded until the following year, the de Monts expedition had reached the Annapolis River on 21 June 1604, and it was that date that the Nova Scotia Historical Society chose to mark in 1904. Charles Langelier, an invited speaker from Quebec, lauded de Monts as a relatively unknown but courageous pioneer of civilization who had established the "germs"of the future conflict in North America between France and Britain. The patriotic business and organizational efforts of de Monts, although economic failures, had led to the establishment of "un peuple". Finally, the de Monts expedition was based on religious toleration, one of the necessary conditions of a modern, progressive state.27
12 Although the Nova Scotia, Maine and New Brunswick tercentenary celebrations were coordinated to avoid scheduling conflicts and to maximize the use of dignitaries and warships, Saint John organizers decided to pay special attention to Champlain, who had spent less than three years in early Acadia. The organizers, aware of similar events planned for the better-known sites in Nova Scotia and Maine, were attempting to place Saint John and its river on the historical map.28 Saint Croix Island, where celebrations were scheduled for 25 June 1904, was in American, not Canadian territory, and it was a considerable distance from Saint John. Champlain, not de Monts, had left behind the first map and one of the first descriptions of Saint John’s harbour. In addition, Champlain, by virtue of his large body of writings, his contributions to geographic knowledge and his later career, had a greater recognition value and prestige as an early national leader.29 Celebrating the Acadian exploits of Champlain was an opportunity to blend English Canadian nationalist historiography, elements of French Canadian writing and a provincial or regional perspective. Brook Taylor has suggested that the "Saint John school" of historians of the late 19th century was handicapped by nostalgia and regional pessimism. Yet the events of 1904 and 1910, which were shaped by these writers, were expressions of material and cultural confidence and an attempt to link Saint John’s past and future to that of the nation.30 As E.R. Forbes has noted, prior to the development of a more self-conscious regional identity in the 1920s, Maritime economic, political and cultural elites identified with the rest of Canada.31
13 At a meeting of the NBHS in May 1904, W.O. Raymond, a student of the early history of the Saint John River, and a cultivator of the Loyalist myth, spoke on Champlain’s connection to Saint John. The society also discussed the planned tercentenary, which the Telegraph described as "surpassing in interest anything of the kind ever attempted in this part of Canada".32 As municipal, business, religious, labour and voluntary organization representatives joined a broader organizing committee, the planned event took on a larger significance for the community. The tercentenary committee was chaired by Mayor W.W. White. David R. Jack, who in 1882 had spoken to the NBHS on the Saint Croix settlement of 1604, was the secretary. An insurance agent and tourism operator, Jack edited and was the principal contributor to the journal Acadiensis. The committee included NBHS President Father W.C. Gaynor and a number of Irish Catholics, including representatives of voluntary organizations. A number were present not as Catholics, but as labour leaders; organized labour, like the business community, was recognized as one of the important groups in civic life. The Trades and Labour Council, recently affiliated with the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada, was represented as was the non-affiliated painters’ union. The fire and salvage corps companies and local militia were also involved. The Catholic New Freeman enthusiastically promoted the tercentenary as an event for citizens of "all classes and creeds". Prominent visitors to the city during the celebrations included Archbishop Cornelius O’Brien of Halifax, a past president of the Royal Society of Canada and an expert on Cabot.33
14 Tourism was central to the planning. The 1883 Loyalist centennial had attracted thousands of visitors. The tercentenary would coincide with Old Home Week, a heavily-publicized attempt to attract tourists (most of them assumed to be expatriates) from the United States and Canada. According to an official of the New Brunswick Tourist Association (operated by the Saint John Board of Trade), the week had been publicized by historical and local colour articles placed in Canadian and American magazines and newspapers, through the Intercolonial Railroad and the Maine Central Railroad, stamps, mass mailings of booklets, and postcards (including a card that depicted Champlain, de Monts and contemporary political leaders Laurier and Borden). The Tourist Association arranged for railroad companies in New England and eastern Canada to provide special fares. During Old Home Week, the press reported increased numbers of passengers on the express train from Boston and steamships from Boston and Maine.34
15 Organizers decided that the main event would be a re-enactment of the landing of the French in 1604. The ceremony would unfold at Market Square at the foot of King Street, on the east side of the harbour, where the slip normally was crowded with schooners. Champlain’s map placed an Indian village or encampment on a nearby island, and a large cross supposedly erected by the French, on the western side of the harbour. Although the French likely had landed to the west, Market Square was the business centre of the port; it also was known as "the landing place of the Loyalists".35 The celebrations would not be entirely historical in content. The downtown would be decorated with bunting and flags and citizens and visitors would be entertained by band concerts, sporting events, a display by the Boy’s Brigade, fireworks, bonfires and harbour illuminations. In addition, sailors from visiting British, French and American warships would be asked to perform parades and gun drills.36
16 The dramatization of discovery included an encounter between the "Souriquois" or Mi’kmaq and the French. In 1904, the Saint John River Valley was identified with the Maliseet or Wolastkiyik people, who dwelt in the middle and upper reaches of the "Wolastook". Exactly who had been living at the mouth of the river in 1604 is not clear. The French had called the settlement on the island in Saint John harbour "Ouigoudy", which was probably a Native term for village. The people who inhabited the valley, the "Etchemins", were culturally similar to the groups later identified by the French as Maliseet, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot. Yet early-17th-century writers also place the Mi’kmaq at the mouth of the river. Work by Bruce Bourque and others, which suggests rapid territorial and cultural change in western Acadia between 1604 and 1620, including Souriquois attacks on Maine and the spread of pandemic disease from the south, makes a definite conclusion difficult.37
17 The "Indian part of the program", consisting of warriors in canoes, was handled by members of the Neptune Rowing Club, who also managed a harbour regatta.38 Although other contemporary re-enactments of colonial or national history, in order to stress "racial progress", involved Aboriginal people, no Mi’kmaq or Maliseet appear to have taken part in the Saint John events. At this time the Aboriginal population of the province, numbering roughly 2,000, was far removed from public life.39 Historical accounts of Champlain and the French in general in early Acadia and New France emphasized amicable relations with First Nations, although Champlain’s decision to ally with the enemies of the Iroquois, an event which contributed to the disastrous war with the Five Nations, was a topic of controversy. Ganong’s paper on Saint Croix Island referred to the "mild and inoffensive disposition" of the Passamaquoddy Etchemins. Hay’s school history text of 1903 stressed that the Indians encountered at Saint John in 1604 ("half-naked savages") prepared no ambushes, shot no arrows and demanded no scalps, but offered "the pipe of peace" to the French explorers.40
18 Likewise, the official message of the tercentenary, and the popular interpretation of Acadian-First Nations interaction, was that relations between Natives and newcomers were friendly and mutually beneficial. Champlain’s own writings, and those of Lescarbot and other 17th-century observers, indicate tensions and mistrust in the relationship, hint at conflict and detail actual violence between the two cultures, notably two fatal attacks on the French along the shores of "Norumbegue" (New England) and the cold-blooded revenge exacted on the Nauset by the French in 1606.41 Mistrust probably stemmed from prior contact and ill treatment by English and French fishermen and traders. Lescarbot recalled a visit to Saint John harbour where the French, fearing an ambush, put to sea, and threatened to lay waste to the First Nations village. An irate "medicine man", refused aid, had vowed that the "Normans" eventually would all be killed. A cautious Lescarbot and company also refrained from landing at Grand Manan.42 As historian John Reid notes, early-17th-century northeastern Native cultures had changed since the 1500s because of European trade goods and diseases.43 And, as recent historiography suggests, the Indigenous peoples of Acadia may have been using the French for their own reasons of economic power, diplomacy and status.44
19 None of these early conflicts or tensions, or the European introduction of disease, firearms and alcohol, were addressed in the celebrations of the tercentenary. Similarly, there was no mention of the basic reality that the arrival of French explorers, traders and missionaries, friendly or not, was the beginning of a long process in Acadia/New Brunswick of the eventual subjugation of the Indigenous peoples.45 In terms of native-white relations, the tercentenary reflected a basic belief of Victorian historiography; as Gagnon noted, "founding a colony presupposed considerable devotion, generosity and distinterestedness".46
20 The festivities began with activities of a more scholarly nature. The elite Royal Society of Canada (RSC) held a general meeting and social at Duck Cove in nearby Carleton on 21 June sponsored by the NBHS, the Natural History Society and the provincial Loyalist Society. The suggestion to invite the RSC to Saint John had come from J.W. Longley of the Nova Scotia Historical Society, who was involved in planning the Annapolis Royal celebrations and who favoured "intellectual" commemorations over spectacles.47 The Royal Society had convened at Halifax in 1897 to commemorate Cabot’s voyage of 1497 and Longley and others favoured a repeat engagement in Saint John.48 The RSC, modelled on the Royal Society of England, had 120 members, all of them leaders in science and letters. Those in attendance at Saint John included Sir Sanford Fleming, David Laird, Sir James Grant and Professor Reuben Thwaites of Wisconsin. Between 1896 and 1901, Thwaites had overseen a massive publication project, the translation of 73 volumes of the Jesuit Relations, sections of which dealt with Acadia. Two literary giants, Charles Gordon (whose pen name was Ralph Connor) and Henry Morgan, were inducted into the society at Saint John. The French section of the RSC included Société Saint-Jean Baptiste activist Senator L.O. David and l’Abbé Bourassa of l’Université Laval.49 New Brunswick’s first Acadian senator, Shediac lawyer and historian Pascal Poirier, spoke on the explorers John and Sebastien Cabot, a favourite topic of late-19th-century antiquarians.50
21 At a public meeting sponsored by the Society during the Saint John celebrations, the featured talk was not on Champlain, Acadia or the River Saint John, but "The Influence of the United Empire Loyalists on the History of North America". The speaker was RSC president and arch-imperialist Colonel George T. Denison of Ontario, an enemy of continentalism. A veteran of the Fenian raids and the 1885 Northwest Rebellion, Denison was an acknowledged authority on military matters, and a long-serving police magistrate in Toronto. A self-avowed "Canada First man", he was past president of the Imperial Federation League in Canada and an advocate of military preparedness.51 Although New Brunswick’s Loyalist tradition, formulated in the 1880s, was not as starkly anti-American as Denison’s more extreme version, the Saint John audience, even in the midst of a Champlain celebration, found ready comfort in the message that the Loyalists were the true founders of Canada.52
22 Friday, 24 June was declared a public holiday. Costumed individuals from the community played the parts of de Monts, Champlain and Poutrincourt. The latter had re-established the tiny Acadian colony at Port-Royal in 1610. Re-enactors also played the roles of Captain Timothée, a Protestant minister, a Catholic priest and a dozen sailors.53 Champlain’s landing and meeting with the Souriquois was witnessed from grandstands by the official party and distinguished guests; the public, especially children, were excluded from the immediate vicinity. The replica barque from which the re-enactors landed, L’Acadie, was a modified Saint John River woodboat. The name and rigging of the vessel used in 1604 was unknown, so organizers improvised.54 The task of crewing the vessel fell to members of the Royal Kennebecasis Yacht Club, situated in the north end of the city. Although harbour boat races and river sculling were established sports, yachting was a fairly recent organized activity in the Saint John area. The replica vessel, "Indian" canoes and various pleasure craft were joined by naval vessels from the three nations that exerted the greatest influence on Acadia and colonial New Brunswick: the Royal Navy’s Ariadine, the French cruiser Troude and the USS Topeka and Detroit. The warships were accompanied by the Canadian government vessels Curlew and Constance. The Saint John Telegraph noted the "doughty men of muscle and bronze" on shore leave who were "free of stride and confident of bearing". The "strong looking" men of "the same blood as Champlain" sought out saloons. The tars of the Royal Navy were described as "deep-voiced, broad-chested and joyous".55
23 The literary symposium organized by the NBHS at Saint Andrew’s Church the evening prior to the landing had attracted the learned and socially prominent from across Canada and included Charles Francis Adams Jr., who also spoke at Annapolis Royal. A prominent officer of the New England Historical Society, and an active orator, Adams was invited in recognition of the international aspects of the history of Acadia. The early history of French activity in North America was part of American colonial history. Because of trade, the English incursions of 1613, 1627-32, 1654-70, and the later imperial wars, much of the existing historical scholarship on Acadia depended on the records of Massachusetts and other English colonies.56 Adams was an admirer of the role of "character" in history. In his remarks he concluded that the Loyalists had been "wrong" in their reaction to American independence in the 1770s and 1780s, but he praised their integrity, much like he had admired Confederate military leader Robert E. Lee. Furthermore, he looked forward to a "re-union" of the Anglo-Saxon peoples of North America.57
24 Father W.C. Gaynor, on behalf of the NBHS, stressed that the discovery of Saint John was a minor incident in the de Monts-Champlain expedition; the settlement of the city, river and province was later carried out by the Loyalists – "men of a race alien to those great and noble Frenchmen". Yet the "noble race" descended from the French pioneers of the 17th century, in the Maritimes, Quebec and elsewhere, had continued to build up a new nation. The tercentenary, therefore, was not celebrating "founding fathers" so much as honouring the "courage and hardihood" of the early explorers.58 A.A. Stockton, a local antiquarian representing the Loyalist Society, remarked favourably on de Monts and Champlain, but reminded the audience of the need to commemorate the Loyalists. Despite the British conquest, he added, French Canadians were loyal citizens of Canada.59
25 Other speakers were Quebec’s "habitant" poet W.H. Drummond; historian and monument promoter Benjamin Sulte, Vice-President of the Royal Society; George T. Dension; John P. Baxter of the Maine Historical Society; and Rémi Benoît of Lowell, Massachusetts, speaking on behalf of the Acadians of New England and the newly-formed Société Mutuelle l’Assomption.60 Nova Scotia Attorney General J.W. Longley, representing the Nova Scotia Historical Society, also spoke. At the recent celebration at Annapolis Royal, Longley had stressed the theme of English-French goodwill, claiming that the "noble blood" of France had enriched Canada, and that the heroes of New France were the heroes of all Canadians. Parallelling the Annapolis Royal de Monts celebrations and the 1908 tercentenary at Quebec, speakers stressed the warm feelings that supposedly existed between English and French Canada. In addition to speeches, there was the inevitable poetry, an important medium of national expression for the Confederation generation.61
26 The nationalist and bicultural tone of the tercentenary was felt more at the elite level, and reflected the realities of national politics and the composition of the literary and scientific elite of the Royal Society. Yet, both provincially and federally, French-English and Catholic-Protestant tensions had been on the rise since the 1890s, with conflicts over such issues as minority rights in Manitoba and New Brunswick and Laurier’s controversial response to the South African War. In the near future, French-English tensions would be tested by the 1905 autonomy bills, Canada’s naval policy and the plight of Franco-Ontarian education. Within New Brunswick, with its growing Acadian presence, religious and ethnic prejudices would shape provincial politics into the 1920s.62
27 The decision to add a representative Acadian to the public program was made relatively late in the planning process. The Societé L’Assomption, which at a Shediac meeting had decided to take part in the Saint John events, was represented by Justice Pierre-Armand Landry of the Supreme Court of New Brunswick. Landry, a prominent "public" Acadian, claimed to speak on behalf of 140,000 francophones (80,000 of whom resided in New Brunswick).63
28 Landry, who had connections with the city’s legal and Conservative party elites, reminded his audience of how the Acadians had survived hardship, isolation and poverty to become happy and useful citizens. The spirit of the Acadian people had originated in the courage and perseverance of de Monts and Champlain. The Acadians, descendants of a "chivalric" race, were in no way inferior to other Canadians. One advantage they enjoyed over others, including Quebecois, was a high level of practical bilingualism. Repeating one of his favourite themes, he also paid tribute to "des nobles qualitiés de coeur et d’esprit des Anglo-Canadiens, des Ecossais Canadiens, des Irlandais Canadiens et des Canadiens Français de ce vaste Canada".64 Landry had benefited from Acadian nationalism and resentment, but he also supported the British empire. He received an honourary degree from the University of New Brunswick and, in 1916, he became the only Acadian to receive a knighthood. Like most elite Acadians, he generally avoided nationalist appeals based on "open hostility to the majority".65
29 The "bricks and mortar" monument in 1904 was not a statue but a commemorative plaque in the new Carnegie-funded municipal library.66 The brass plaque, whose wording had been chosen by the NBHS, described de Monts as the "leader" and "first explorer of the Bay of Fundy", and credited both "eminent men" with having discovered and named the harbour and river of Saint John. Both the mayor and W.O. Raymond spoke at the dedication ceremony, and yet another commemorative poem was delivered. Raymond acknowledged the support of the modern Acadians who had contributed to the costs of the de Monts-Champlain plaque and explained why, despite the wording of the plaque, the latter was being given more honours in the celebrations than the former.67
30 The historical pageant that unfolded on Saint John the Baptist Day anticipated the ahistorical grandeur of the 1908 celebrations at Quebec, where 16th-century French courtiers mingled with Champlain’s party and 18th-century soldiers of the Marquis de Montcalm. In Saint John, Champlain’s group was brought ashore in the canoes of the Indian re-enactors, who then performed a "war dance". People thronged the wharves and took advantage of rooftops and windows in nearby buildings as troops lined up in Market Square to receive the visitors. Following the reading of an invented proclamation by which Champlain claimed the area for Henri IV, the explorers were taken in wagons to Riverview Memorial Park, where they were joined by the official party.68 Located on upper-middle-class Douglas Avenue, the park overlooked an historic First Nations portage route that bypassed the Reversing Falls rapids. A campaign headed by Mrs. William Baizely had collected funds for the construction of a monument to New Brunswick volunteers for the South African War.69 The attempt to link early French exploration to Canada’s involvement in the South African War was ironic given the opinion of many French Canadians of that imperial venture, but it anticipated the more elaborate pageant at Quebec in 1908 which "breathed the spirit of Empire unity and strength".70
31 The procession to the memorial included veterans of the African conflict as well as local militia. In a blend of imperialism and incipient English Canadian nationalism, even the recent Boer War became subject to "invented tradition". Saint John had an immediate connection with the war: part of Canada’s first contingent, the 2nd Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment (RCR) of Infantry, had been recruited in the province. G Company, which included many former members of the 62nd Saint John Fusiliers, had distinguished itself at the celebrated Battle of Paardeberg in February, 1900, which resulted in the surrender of Pieter Cronje’s forces. When South African War veterans had been given the freedom of the city in 1901, the mayor had spoken of their "pure" British character.71 For many years, local Boer War veterans would gather at Riverview Park on Paardeberg Day to celebrate an exaggerated and partly-fabricated official account of the battle. In that jingoistic version, the Canadians had boldly "charged" the entrenched Afrikaaner forces; in reality, three out of five infantry companies had retreated back to their own trenches. When Cronje’s troops, their positions pummelled by British artillery, surrendered, RCR companies G and H (Maritimers) happened to be pinned down in forward positions. Thus developed the legend that the plucky Canadians had defeated the larger Boer force.72
32 The scholarly centrepiece of the tercentenary was a 200-page "special Champlain number" of the New Brunswick journal Acadiensis. David R. Jack, the editor, warned that new approaches to historical inquiry risked shattering many of the assumptions of the past.73 Described by one local reviewer as "the best issue of its class, that is of a purely historical character, yet published in Canada", the volume featured illustrated articles based on research in the British Museum and the French Biblioteche National, and in Brouage, the birthplace of Champlain in the southwest of France. In addition to contributions by Ganong and others, including G.F. Matthews, a noted geologist and paleontologist, the work contained reprints from the 1613 Voyages and "authenticated" portraits of de Monts and Champlain.74 In a preview of his later translation and annotation work, Ganong provided "Champlain’s Narrative" from 1613, complete with geographic references. The illustrated chapter on "la ville morte", the former port of Brouage in the Saintonge region of France, was provided by a female "near relative" of Jack’s, and appears to have been noticed by subsequent biographers. The volume included a sympathetic account of New Brunswick’s Native peoples by Montague Chamberlain.75
33 In keeping with the dualistic nature of Saint John society, Roman Catholics staged their own celebrations, and the focus was on the spiritual rather than the temporal. Parallelling public history in Quebec, local Catholics stressed the moral and religious basis of exploration and colonization. The Sunday prior to St. Jean Baptiste Day, Bishop Timothy Casey spoke at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, itself a monument to 19th-century Irish immigration, on the religious significance of Champlain’s explorations. In his sermon, New Brunswick-born Casey credited Champlain with having brought Christianity to Canada, by acting as a forerunner to Recollet and Jesuit missionaries, a number of whom had been martyred. These religious pioneers had attempted to raise "the Indians from savagery and heathenism to something of civilization and Christianity".76 No mention was made of the climate of religious toleration in early New France. For Casey, the nature of the state (French, British or Canadian) took a back seat to the triumph of the Church in the wilderness.
34 On the appointed day, 900 men of the city’s Catholic societies gathered to celebrate the 300th anniversary of Christianity in Canada. Given the city’s demographics, few of them were francophone. Although no mention was made of ethnicity, this was a celebration of Irish Catholic voluntary associations.77 Headed by Grand Marshall James McCarthy of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the procession included the Hibernian Knights, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Saint Peter’s parish Holy Family Society, the Holy Name Society, Saint Malachy’s Total Abstinence Society, the Father Matthew Society and a parish Young Men’s Society.78 They marched from Saint Peter’s Church in the north end to the Cathedral to attend a mass and to hear a second sermon by Casey, who declared Champlain’s arrival a "miracle" that rescued the region from "superstition and idolatry". Champlain’s move into the Saint Lawrence in 1608, motivated in part by patriotism and economic gain, was providential in that it opened up the interior of North America to the Gospel and "Catholic truth".79
35 The only lasting product of the Saint John tercentenary, other than the writings in Acadiensis, the photographs, medallions and postcards, and the plaque in the new library, was a statue erected in memory of Champlain in 1910. The explorer had been similarly commemorated in Quebec City in 1898. The idea of a memorial to Champlain and the province’s great river was first proposed by members of the NBHS in the early 1900s and the tercentenary committee discussed the possibility of a statue in a Saint John public square.80 In the summer of 1904, the treasurer of la Societé Assomption, the Acadian mutual-benefit organization, writing in Le Moniteur Acadien, called upon "des descendants des colons acadiens de 1604" to take the initiative and send donations for a monument in Saint John.81 This was a challenge, as the three official celebrations in 1904 were all oriented to the Bay of Fundy, not the Gulf of St. Lawrence region, home of many New Brunswick Acadians. For Nova Scotia Acadians, individuals such as Isaac de Razilly, who brought a number of French families to LaHave in 1632, were the actual founders of Acadia.82
36 Although the three levels of government promised to support Saint John’s Champlain monument, the project did not go ahead until 1908. The design chosen by the Saint John committee was by sculptor Hamilton McCarthy, creator of South African War monuments in Halifax and Charlottetown, the Ottawa and Quebec Champlain statues and the Annapolis Royal de Monts memorial. A committee chaired by David R. Jack invited the sculptor to give a presentation in Saint John and by 1907 a design was set. It included a large bronze cavalier Champlain on a pedestal with nautical dolphins on each corner of the base. The casting was completed in New York, its components weighing 36 tons; it arrived in Saint John by rail in late 1909 and was assembled in June 1910.83
37 The setting for the monument was not King’s Square, the site of most of the city’s major memorials, but Queen Square, several blocks to the south, overlooking the harbour. Surrounded by upper-middle-class and elite residences, the square had been redeveloped following the disastrous Great Fire of 1877. A Saint John Globe editorial of 1910 described de Monts as a co-discoverer of the Saint John River, but credited Champlain with being a careful chart maker and "a very entertaining writer" who first chronicled the "future Winter Port of Canada".84 On the day of the statue’s dedication, the Globe explained that "in the history of Canada, as well as in the eyes of the world, Champlain must be regarded as incomparably the greater man".85 The same journal described McCarthy’s statue as embodying "the vigor, energy, spirit, leadership and hopefulness" of Champlain. At the ceremony, the president of the NBHS, Clarence Ward, reminded the audience that Saint John had been founded by the Loyalists, not the French. Dr. D.V. Landry, provincial commissioner of agriculture, spoke on behalf of the Acadians, giving a brief sketch of Champlain’s life and a few words "in his native tongue". Repeating the conciliatory rhetoric of the 1904 and 1908 celebrations, he remarked that both the French and the English had fought bravely, but that both races were now "living in common love for their constitution". He also explained that monuments are "living historians [sic] of great men passed away". The inscription of 1910 was in English only. Attorney General J.D. Hazen complimented the French citizens of Canada and spoke of Champlain as an inspiration for both Canadian nationalists and Maritime patriots. The explorer had been motivated by "the praiseworthy desire to extend the dominion of his race".86
38 Saint John cultural, business and political leaders were ambivalent towards both Canada’s and New Brunswick’s role within Confederation, as the Maritime Rights movement of the 1920s would later indicate.87 Yet the commemoration of Champlain, a "maker of Canada", reflected a blend of provincial patriotism based on Loyalist roots, contemporary imperialism and an emerging Canadian nationalism that embraced the "romance" of New France.88 It was not, in contrast with the 2004 celebrations involving Acadian organizations and funded by the federal Heritage ministry and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, primarily a celebration of the region’s linguistic minority or Canada’s links to France.89 The 1904 and 1910 commemorations reflected Saint John’s metropolitan ambitions, expressed materially through port development and optimism in the Canadian national project. The literary and historical side of the tercentenary highlighted the city’s status as the cultural capital of anglophone New Brunswick, a role that Hannay, Jack, Raymond and Ganong helped to create. Quaint costumes, re-enactments and the Queen Square statue aside, the commemoration of French exploration was an exercise in modernism. McCarthy’s Champlain extends an arm not only towards the River Saint John, but also the Saint Lawrence heartland and the continent beyond. Champlain, although linked marginally to early Saint John, was a figure of national importance, unlike de Monts, a figure of regional or local interest.90 New Brunswick’s Acadian presence was growing (reaching 25 per cent of the population in 1911), but this had little resonance in Saint John where the ethnic and political divide ran along Protestant and Irish Catholic lines. Catholics had taken part in the larger festivities, but their church had celebrated crusading Christianity, not the triumph of a people, a language or a nation. Locally, even the "romance" of the French era, which included the internecine struggles of the mid-17th century, could not challenge the power of "Loyalist" New Brunswick. But anglophone New Brunswickers also were nationalists. Champlain was an honourable predecessor to the Loyalist "founders" of the province. As a founder of New France, he also was a precursor to the French-English conflicts that were considered the "trial by fire of an emergent nation".91
Notes