“The Most Distinctively Canadian City” Representations of the City in Montreal Guidebooks, 1876–1892

Abstract

This article explores three guidebooks written in Montreal between 1876 and 1892. They are all similarly constructed and were subsequently reprinted, the latter testifying of their relative success. Most importantly, they allow a glimpse into the ways in which Anglo Montrealers wished their city to be perceived around the world. As such, I argue that they illustrated understandings of history, of urbanization, of the Dominion, and of Montreal that were characteristic of post-Confederation industrial Canadian elites. Following the lines of the framework of identity construction in a settler-colonial setting, I look at these guides as a window into the perceptions and expectations of this “adolescent” Canadian collectivity. Furthermore, I demonstrate that these guidebook writers wished to imbue the materiality of the city with historical significance. In doing so, they instilled a sense of progress and modernity to the landscape, while symbolically laying claim to distinct urban places. In fact, these guidebooks also enlighten us on the means we use to provide a sense of self, whether individual or collective, to the city. Borrowing from historical geography theorist Brian Osborne, this paper shows how the Canadianness that these booklets promoted relied on interconnections based on social mores, values, and ideas. Places are also conceptualized as the repository for meta-narratives of the nation. By situating these subplots in space, they cultivate an awareness—an “a-where-ness”—of the collective identity. Indeed, the narrative poetics of the guidebooks were grounded in a place whose inhabitants and visitors dove into the story mid-stream, providing social continuity.