6. Roughing it in the Bush by Susana Moodie

I picked this one up at Chainon with reservations.  Canadian history is notoriously boring and this looked very much to have that potential. The trade dress (I'll get into this more later) is from the absolute nadir of Canadian boringness, the late 60s and 70s and I sort of expected a way less charming but perhaps more realistic portrayal of 19th century settlers coming to Canada.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.  This book isn't boring at all.  It's actually quite funny at times.  Even better, it really blows away the myth of hard-working Europeans cooperating to tame the savage land.  Holy shit, the people are just awful!  I mean I know we all know that settler colonialism was awful to the people already living here and the environment.  In Roughing it in the Bush, they are also totally shitty to each other!  Moodie was of the fallen gentry, educated but poor.  She's quite a snob and naive about what she and her husband are getting into.  So you are prepared for some class conflict when she comes to a "republic".  Even taking that into account, these people are just scumbags.  Her neighbours constantly steal from her and presumably each other.  They just walk into her house and take stuff and she accepts unwanted guests for months and months.  Community barn-raising parties seem to end in drunken brawls and deadly accidents before any barns get built.  There is a bizarre tradition of gathering outside newlywed homes and making tons of noise all night long that can go on for weeks and weeks.

This all takes place around Peterborough, which is wild to think of as an untamed wilderness.  My sister calls the Onscarions and after reading this book, you can see how the descendants of these yahoos voted for Doug Ford.  

The story itself is not really a narrative of championing the elements and getting their lives established in the new world.  They do make some progress, but in the end, the husband gets a job as a sheriff in town and they move away into civilization.  Moodie became a succesful writer at the time.  It's more a collection of anecdotes.  They are quite good and entertaining.  I recommend this book for anybody who wants an eye-opener on the origins of our great nation.

On to the trade dress, I am sure Frank Loconte was a talented artist, but god this is just the most boring, meaningless and safe book design.  It's just so Canadian.  Hey we wouldn't want to create any kind of excitement (nor sell any books), as that is what uppity Americans do.  This is reflected even more annoyingly in the jumbled and anodyne introductory essay by Western's Carl F. Klinck, which also shows the worst of Canadian academia: smug, safe and undeservedly superior.  What's particularly vexing is that he starts out by saying the book is too long and that Moodie stuffed it for a British audience.  So this genius makes his own decisions and cuts a bunch of stuff out, including all the chapters discussing her relationships with the First Nations!  He's desperate to make the argument that she fancified her experiences but gives neither evidence nor analysis beyond that she wrote it several decades after the experience.  And this guy got an Order of Canada!  I apologize for my lack of nationalism at this time when all Canadians need to be pulling together to combat fucktard Elon Musk and his little butt boy Trump, but honestly we should not forget our own sins even in these times!