The Halifax Herald article on Canadian History for Dummies
History for the Dummy on Your List
Kelly Shiers
If you ever slept through a Canadian history class - or
were tempted to - it might be hard to convince you the stories
of our past are scandalous and juicy, dramatic, full of
intrigue, misery, conspiracies and folks who were adventurers,
heroes, villains and rogues.
But give Will Ferguson's Canadian History for Dummies
a few minutes of your time, and see if you still feel that
way.
Consider our very own "hangin' judge," Matthew Baillie
Begbie, a large, imposing man who travelled among the mining
camps during a gold rush in British Columbia's Cariboo Valley.
Dressed in the proper wig and red robe of a British judge,
he held court in saloons, music halls and even on horseback.
Credited with preventing the lawlessness rampant south
of the border, he once waded into an angry mob intent on
rioting at Wild Horse Creek, and shouted: "Boys, if there
is a shooting in Kootenay, there will be a hanging in Kootenay."
There were no shootings.
Ferguson's book is broken into 29 chapters, beginning with
Canada's First Nations and their contact with Europeans
and ending with the politics that are taking us into the
21st century. It also includes great quotations, most notable
French, English and Native leaders, and political firsts
for women.
In easily digested bits of concise and well-researched
narrative, little asides, lists, anecdotes and humourous
accounts, Ferguson describes the events and people that
made Canada what it is today.
He also includes Web site addresses for people who want
to know more on a particular topic.
Did you know Canada's first separatist movement began in
Nova Scotia - not Quebec? Halifax newspapers bitterly heralded
July 1, 1867, the first day of Confederation, with the headline:
"Died! Last night at twelve o'clock, the free and enlightened
Province of Nova Scotia."
Or that women owe - in part - their battle to be considered
'persons' to a questionable police magistrate named Alice
Jamieson who sentenced Lizzie Cyr, a prostitute, to six
months' hard labour - without ever giving her a chance to
defend herself.
The trumped-up charge had been pressed by a customer angry
that Cyr had given him a sexually transmitted disease and
refused to pay for his medicine. Her defence lawyer asked
the Supreme Court of Alberta to rule on whether Jamieson
could hold office, since she wasn't legally a 'person.'
When the court ruled Jamieson was a person, it affirmed
women could hold the office. But forgotten in what is considered
a milestone in the fight for women's rights, Ferguson notes,
is the travesty of Cyr's conviction.
"Canadian history is not boring. Far from it." said Ferguson,
in Nova Scotia to promote the book.
Ferguson remembers well those old days of history when,
in school, emphasis was placed on things he couldn't care
less about, and our past was treated only as a mishmash
of confusing events, the sociology of lifestyles, demographics
and working conditions, and not a story.
"Sod huts, man," he says. "It seems I spent half
my life in school learning about sod huts . . . Kids don't
want to know that in the 1800s, pioneer kids had to sweep
with a straw broom. They don't care. Why should they? They
want to know which general kicked whose ass and why does
it matter?"
It's those cause-and-effect ramifications that are so important,
he said.
"It's not only the story of it. It's why we should care,"
he said. "It's not just Wolfe and Montcalm on the Plains
of Abraham as a great story but also the huge ramifications
of it."
Ferguson said the bestselling For Dummies format
gave him the opportunity to present history in an informal,
chatty and fast-paced way. It also allows him to interject
his own opinions and personal anecdotes. "I'm trying to
reach people who think they don't like history," he said.
Halifax Herald
December 10, 2000
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