Garrison Gothic: Timber Con(I)fers the Anglo-Canadian Subject

Abstract

Gothic Revival architecture projected a sense of unity throughout the British Empire, even though the materials used to construct such architecture varied by available resources, geographic location and climatic conditions. In Canada, this led to the proliferation of wooden churches during the mid-nineteenth century, including William Hay’s Anglican “Garrison Church” for Toronto. The resulting forms allowed Anglo-Canadians to participate in a global discourse of Britishness while laying claim to local materials. However, the contested legality of local lands disrupts timber’s ability to ingrain Anglo-Canadian identity. Instead, I speculate that the transformation of local forest growth into timber-constructed designs is haunted by an uncanny act of appropriation, and I use the “garrison mentality” of a Canadian gothic novel to discuss the unstable boundaries between the demonised Indigenous peoples of Canada’s mostly coniferous forests and the would-be civility of Anglo-Canadians sheltered behind the wooden walls of Hay’s Garrison Church.