"A Vision Beyond Reach": Some Recent Atlantic Canadian Studies

Abstract

MAKING ADJUSTMENTS: CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN PLANTER NOVA SCOTIA, 1759-1800. Margaret Conrad, ed. Fredericton: Acadiensis Press, 1991. NINETEENTH-CENTURY CAPE BRETON: A HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY. Stephen J. Hornsby. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1992. TROUBLE IN THE WOODS: FOREST POLICY AND SOCIAL CONFLICT IN NOVA SCOTIA AND NEW BRUNSWICK. L. Anders Sandberg, ed. Fredericton: Acadiensis Press, 1992. GRENFELL OF LABRADOR: A BIOGRAPHY. Ronald Rompkey. Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, 1991. AWAY. MARITIMERS IN MASSACHUSETTS, ONTARIO AND ALBERTA: AN ORAL HISTORY OF LEAVING HOME. Gary Burrill. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1992. THE ATLANTIC PROVINCES IN CONFEDERATION. E.R. Forbes and D.A. Muise, eds. Toronto, Buffalo, London and Fredericton: University of Toronto Press and Acadiensis Press, 1993. Academic research and writing on Atlantic Canada is no longer neglected orphan of Canadian studies.1 The region now has had its past carefully examined, at times with a vengeance.2 But has result been an illumination of what went wrong rather than an attempt to understand better what other options were articulated or realistically available? The crop of six books examined here might be unrepresentative but studies all paint a picture of a difficult past and some underline an even more difficult future for a troubled part of Canada. The books also reveal major contributions now being made by practitioners from disciplines beyond strictly historical; insights from historical geography and sociology are proving especially valuable. Regardless of discipline however - and to their credit historians have welcomed and applied many of findings unearthed by other disciplinary approaches - it is clear that history of this region remains far from completely understood while region's quest for accommodation and integration within Canada remains unachieved. Caught between expulsion of Acadians and arrival of Loyalists, Planter-era Nova Scotia might be quickly passed over but for work of Planter Studies Committee at Acadia University. Making Adjustments, edited by Margaret Conrad, is a selection of papers presented at second Planter Studies Conference, held in October of 1990, which examined these New England settlers who moved northward largely in late 1750s and early 1760s. The intention was to focus on in wider Nova Scotia and international contexts of second half of eighteenth century (9). Papers on genealogy, archaeology, literature, religion, architecture, map-making, and music reveal interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary nature of conference and add new dimensions to our understanding of these American settlers and their descendants. Contributions on non-Planter societies and communities - Germans, Blacks, Micmacs, Scots/Irish and Quakers - provide evidence of preand post-revolutionary Nova Scotia's vibrant cultural mosaic. Hints also emerge of discrimination, neglect, and harsh treatment accorded some minorities. This is not to suggest that Planters must bear total responsibility for policies and attitudes that were very much a part of colonial world in which they found themselves in 1760s and 1770s. It is in touching upon this broader world and in probing systematically inner workings of various Planter communities that this volume makes its most substantial contributions. The keynote address at conference, by John Reid (45-59), emphasizes the devising of collective strategies by peoples who had seen their lives profoundly changed by geopolitical events of 1750s and early 1760s and who now had to adapt as best they could to political and environmental contexts that were unfamiliar to them. Both Planter and non-Planter were confronted by these realities and, as Reid suggests, if linked to imperial changes of 176Os, comparative studies of Nova Scotia, Florida and Louisiana, areas which have received less attention than Quebec and trans-appalachian regions, could reveal a great deal about adjustments made to survive and prosper. …