Gandhl and Skaay are the names of two great poets of the Haida people. Their narrative poems would be lost, but were recited in the original Haida language to an anthropologist who transcribed, translated, and annotated them in English. These texts so impressed the British Columbia poet and scholar Robert Bringhurst that he devoted a substantial book to the study of them: A Story as Sharp as a Knife: the Classical Haida Mythtellers and Their World (1999). He followed it with Nine Visits to the Mythworld: Ghandl of the Qayahi Llaanes (2000) and Being in Being: the Collected Works of Skaay of the Qquuna Qiighawaay (2001).
Ghandl of the Qaysun Aqyahl Llaanas was born about 1851 and died about 1920. He was christened Walter McGregor and in later years was blind. In 1900 he dictated his narrative poems to anthropologist and linguist J.R. Swanton, who translated and annotated them with the assistance of a bilingual Haida named Henry Moody.
Of Ghandl, Bringhurst writes, “He seems to me a great deal more accomplished — and therefore far more worthy of celebration as a literary ancestor — than any Canadian poet or novelist who was writing in English or French during his time. In fact I know of no one writing in any language, anywhere in North America toward the end of the nineteenth century, who uses words with greater sensitivity and skill. He seems to me not just an exceptional man ... but a figure of durable importance in the history of literature.”
Skaay of the Qquuna Qiighawaay is also known as Robert McKay or John Sky. His vital years were roughly 1827 to 1905, and at some point he was crippled. He also dictated his narrative poems to Swanton in 1900. Bringhurst regards Skaay as “the greatest Haida poet whose work survives.”
A typical narrative by Ghandl or Skaay — long and seemingly discursive — relates a tale of archaic creation or everyday event, timeless or temporal, or both together. It might commence with the words “they say” and conclude with the words “this is where it ends” or “so it ends.”
Bringhurst regards the nineteenth century as the classic period of Haida expression. His work is a “reclamation project” of cultural interest, though it is unlikely that the general public will ever be in a position to appreciate the quality and interest of the narratives of Ghandl and Skaay and other Haida “mythtellers” — not to mention the “mythtellers” of the other indigenous languages of North America.
069. Who were LaFontaine and Baldwin and why are they important?
Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine and Robert Baldwin were lawyers and parliamentarians from Montreal and Toronto who, following the Rebellions of 1837, worked against the British administration’s attempts to assimilate the French of Upper Canada into the English society of Upper Canada.
LaFontaine and Baldwin formed governments in 1842 and 1848 and had a profound effect on public administration, the legal system, and public education in pre-Confederation Canada. They are remembered as the architects of responsible government. They set the country on the road to democracy, racial amity, and national sovereignty — aims realized two decades later in the 1867 Act of Confederation.
The achievement of LaFontaine and Baldwin’s achievement, against such heavy odds, was recalled by John Ralston Saul, author and intellectual, who wrote and lectured on the ability of French and English Canadians to work together to deal with common problems.
Saul was the first speaker in the annual LaFontaine-Baldwin Symposium Lectures in Toronto in 2000, a joint undertaking of Saul and The Dominion Institute. The institute, headed by Rudyard Griffiths, is a national, non-partisan, charitable organization founded in 1997 to promote a better understanding and appreciation of Canadian history. Subsequent speakers included Alain Dubuc (Montreal), Georges Erasmus (Vancouver), and David Malouf (Toronto).
070. Who was the first American president to visit Canada?
It was not until July 1936 that a president of the United States visited Canada. The visit was a private one and the response to the express invitation of John Buchan, Governor General Lord Tweedsmuir. That summer, U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt “took the opportunity of a sailing trip off Nova Scotia with his sons at the end of July to see Buchan in Quebec. Amazingly, it was the first official visit of an American president to Canada.”
Buchan and Roosevelt had been friends and admirers for years. Indeed, Buchan had hoped to be appointed Britain’s ambassador to the United States instead of governor general of Canada. FDR referred to Tweedsmuir as “the best Governor General Canada ever had.”
This information comes from Andrew Lownie’s John Buchan: The Presbyterian Cavalier (1995). Howard Taft was one of a number of U.S. presidents who recalled youthful vacations and hunting expeditions in Canada before they assumed the mantle of power.
071. What was unusual about Glenn Gould’s name and signature?
Glenn Gould’s name and signature were quite unusual.
Recipients of letters from the recording artist found that he seldom bothered to write the last letter of his first name. In haste he would sign his letters “Glen Gould.” The signature looks odd.
Scholars have noted that at his birth, on September 15, 1932, he was registered “Glenn Herbert Gold.” At the time anti-Semitism was a factor in Toronto, and although the family was Presbyterian and not Jewish, family members felt it was wiser to spell the family name “Gould” rather than “Gold” (a name identified with European Jewry).
072. Who are the “top ten” Canadians?
People enjoy making lists and reading them, especially graded lists, which organize one’s thoughts on the relative importance of its items. For The Top Ten Greatest Canadians, CBC-TV invited members of the public to vote on the “top ten” Canadians of all-time from all walks of life, and a list of fifty names was supplied as a reminder of claims to greatness. On November 29, 2004, the results of the voting were telecast. Here are the top ten in order of popularity:
1. T.C. Douglas, founder of Medicare.
2. Wayne Gretzky, hockey star.
3. Don Cherry, hockey commentator.
4. Sir John A. Macdonald, first prime minister.
5. Terry Fox, marathon runner.
6. Frederick Banting, co-discoverer of insulin.
7. Lester B. Pearson, prime minister and Nobel laureate.
8. Alexander Graham Bell, telephone inventor.
9. David Suzuki, scientist and environmentalist.
10. Pierre Elliott Trudeau, prime minister.
073. What were Beatrice Lillie’s fondest memories of her hometown?
In her golden years — between the two world wars — Beatrice Lillie was well-described as “the toast of two continents.” She performed in the West End and Broadway and starred in countless touring productions. Called “the ungilded lily,” this star of musical comedy was born in Toronto, married to Sir Robert Peel, and was in her early forties when she agreed to be interviewed by R.E. Knowles of the Toronto Star (March 31, 1936).
Lillie never hid her background of genteel poverty in Toronto; indeed, she sprinkled it with stardust, at the urging of R.E. Knowles, who encouraged her to reminisce about the early years in the city. He asked her about the things she would like to re-experience, so she strode down Memory Lane:
Oh, lots of things — I’d love, once more, to go out with my new parasol the first warm day — or to win a race at the Sunday school picnic — or to duck for apples on Hallowe’en — or to cut a swath, on the sidewalk, with my new skipping-rope — or to hear the bell once more when my boy-friend called to take me to a party — or to go to Hanlan’s Point and stay till it got quite dark. Or, perhaps most, to have one more long day at the Exhibition — and — and this — to gather in all the “samples” — all free and all beautiful. Ah, me! It’s all very fine to imagine all this — but it will never, never, come back again.
Knowles listened and all the while observed her expressive features: “The fine face now aglow with the tender and wistful light