Throughout the week, we discussed the topic of “Public and Private Canada” with a main focus on Children and Families. Within this topic, we have Ontario summer camps for children to get out of the city and “play Indian” in the wilderness, and we have the reunion of families after the war. The articles that we read all deal with family life in this period of time. In Sharon Wall’s article, “Totem Poles, Teepees, and Token Traditions: ‘Playing Indian’ at Ontario Summer Camps, 1920-1955”, she starts by talking about the “the summer camp phenomenon… [and how] it reflected middle-class unease with the pace and direction of cultural change, with the world that appeared to be irrevocably industrial, decidedly urban, and increasingly secular”[1]. “Above all, at summer camp playing Indian reflected modern desire to create a sense of belonging, community, and spiritual experience by modelling anti-modern images of Aboriginal life”[2]. Throughout Wall’s article, she continues to discuss these summer camps and “the children who attended these camps… encountered strikingly similar recreations of so-called Indian tradition”[3] and how these camps brought the children into nature and to be one with nature like that of the “Indians”. In addition to this, these camps were a way to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city. These camps consisted of “handicrafts, archery, back packet games, and bunk beds… [which was a] summertime escape for tens of thousands of Canadian children”[4]. Whereas Wall’s article deals with family life in terms of children and summer camps, Magda Fahrni’s article “The Romance of Reunion: Montreal War Veterans Return to Family Life, 1944-1949”, talks about the homecoming of the soldiers and back to the family sphere. As men posted overseas, single and married, had had plenty of time in which to [think] of marriage and parenthood”[5]. Coming home to reunite with family or to start making a family was something these men looked forward to. However, not all reunions were as picture perfect as they imagined them to be. Infidelity and divorce broke families apart and it was noted that “married women pregnant with ‘illegitimate’ children, moreover, were avoiding seeking medical care for the fear that their allowance would be suspended”[6]. “Some family agencies tried to prevent [information getting] to husbands overseas… [so the] wives [could] tell their husband’s themselves rather then have them receive the news from [reports]”[7].
All of the readings contributed to the topic of “Public and Private Canada” but with more of a focus on children and families. The readings show these aspects by using examples such as the Ontario summer camps and “playing Indian” as well as the reunion of soldiers back to family life after the war. These readings not only help us to understand the topics we discussed in the lecture, but also contributes to the wider historiography of the topic “Public and Private Canada”.
Footnotes:
[1] Sharon Wall, “Totem Poles, Teepees, and Token Traditions: Playing ‘Indian’ at Ontario Summer Camps, 1920-1955,” Canadian Historical Review, 86,3 (September 2005): 514.
[2] Ibid., 514-515.
[3] Ibid., 516.
[4] Bryan Grimwood, “The Nurture of Nature: Childhood, Antimodernism, and Ontario Summer Camps, 1920-55 by Sharon Wall (Review),” University of Toronto Quarterly, 82, 3 (2013): 560.
[5] Magda Fahrni, “The Romance of Reunion: Montreal War Veterans Return to Family Life, 1944-1949,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, 9,1 (1998): 189.
[6] Ibid., 194.
[7] Ibid., 195.
Bibliography:
Fahrni, Magda. “The Romance of Reunion: Montreal War Veterans Return to Family Life, 1944-1949.” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, 9,1 (1998): 187-208.
Grimwood, Bryan. “The Nurture of Nature: Childhood, Antimodernism, and Ontario Summer Camps, 1920-55 by Sharon Wall (Review).” University of Toronto Quarterly, 82, 3 (2013): 559-561.
Wall, Sharon. “Totem Poles, Teepees, and Token Traditions: Playing ‘Indian’ at Ontario Summer Camps, 1920-1955.” Canadian Historical Review, 86,3 (September 2005): 513-544.
