History Does Matter

When the Literary Review of Canada’s editor approached me about writing an essay for this special eastern issue, she suggested that I might like to address the question: is history an albatross around the Maritimes’ neck? I wonder if such a question is ever asked of other regions of Canada. Designed, she suggested, to “get my dander up,” the question was, for me, yet another example of the stereotypical way that Atlantic Canada is viewed elsewhere in the country. Those folks out East are mired in the past, don’t you know? For those readers who are still with me—that is to say those who have not been turned off by the very mention of the Atlantic region in the title of this piece—I will offer a sampling of what dander can muster when it is up. ((For a more measured discussion, see the essays in “Forum, Re-Imagining Regions,” Acadiensis volume 35, number 2 (Spring 2006), pages 127–162. ))

First, let me point out that I am expanding my comments to...