Marking the Tides of Nova Scotia’s Elastic History: Margaret Conrad’s At the Ocean’s Edge

Abstract

Marking the Tides of Nova Scotia’s Elastic History: Margaret Conrad’s At the Ocean’s Edge Thomas Peace (bio) MARGARET CONRAD IS THE BEST PROFESSOR I NEVER HAD. Teaching at Acadia during the first few years of my undergraduate career, she had a reputation as an engaged scholar who expected her students not just to know the details about their chosen area of study but also the context in which it was situated. Though I never took a course with her, at that time her influence on me was three-fold. First, she once gave me a good ribbing for my poor trivia knowledge at a faculty-student mixer. Second, she was the author of my Canadian history textbook – History of the Canadian Peoples (affectionately known by the names of its two co-authors “Conrad and Finkel”).1 And third, just before she left Acadia I caught her talking about history on a national television program as she modeled civically engaged scholarship. From these experiences I learned that good history carefully balances detail and context with an eye to its significance in shaping the present and future. Without taking a class with her, Conrad had taught me several important lessons about what it means to be a historian; they continue to shape my professional life today. Conrad’s At the Ocean’s Edge: A History of Nova Scotia to Confederation exemplifies these qualities of Conrad’s scholarship.2 The book begins with Sylvia Hamilton’s evocative poem “Keep On Keepin’ On,” a poem about persistence, exclusion, and inclusion in Nova Scotia. Conrad uses Hamilton’s work to suggest that the foundation for the province’s cultural, social, and political developments lies somewhere between the region’s awkward geography (her exact words are on xiv) and the diverse communities that made this place home before 1867. Over the book’s 12 chapters, Conrad provides a beautiful narrative that well balances her careful eye for detail with an explanation of the significance of her arguments about Nova Scotia placed in national and [End Page 96] international contexts. Her book carefully weaves together local events into their broader regional and global significance. Though its title implies that its subject matter will be geographically and chronologically bound, At the Ocean’s Edge is expansive in its scope. The first chapter tackles “Ancient History” while the “Afterword” brings the reader through a nuanced discussion of the province’s post-Confederation history. Though we might quibble about the necessity of including the region’s distant past as part of a book that explains Nova Scotia’s early history, a reader would be mistaken if they dismissed the book’s powerful “Afterword.” It is here where Conrad’s argument – that this period matters significantly if we want to understand the province today – is at its strongest. The watchword for this part of the book is “continuity” as the post-Confederation Nova Scotian world built upon the substantial moments of change that occurred over the two centuries preceding the colony’s entering Confederation: “It is not that Nova Scotians have resisted making adjustments to national and global trends since 1867, but rather that continuity as much as change has defined the results of the adjustment process [to the industrial age]” (336). Conrad’s chronological scope is matched by her geographical framing. This is a book that forcefully grapples with Nova Scotia’s fluid identities and elastic borders. Though the province is a place that we might easily define today by its political and geographical boundaries, Conrad recognizes the legacy of its earlier iterations. Following the work of John Reid (among others), Conrad considers Nova Scotia as a place with multiple meanings – identifying Mi’kma’ki and Acadie as relatively coterminous geopolitical spaces that remain meaningful for many people living in this place today. In taking this approach, Conrad draws attention to aspects of the region’s history often neglected in sweeping overviews of colonial or provincial histories written in the mid-to-late 20th century or earlier. One captivating strategy that she uses is biography. As the reader makes their way through this book, they will be introduced to dozens of the people whose lives shaped, or...