A double review with Extraordinary Canadians: Big Bear
by Rudy Wiebe
Lord Beaverbrook, by David Adams Richards, is a lovely book about a subject who is definitely difficult to love, or even to respect.
That William Maxwell “Max” Aitken, First Baron Beaverbrook, was at times a cad, a womanizer, and a glory hound, there is no debate — nor does Richards attempt one. Rather, Richards — who grew up in the same rural New Brunswick hometown as Aitken — portrays Beaverbrook as a sympathetic character who deserves our admiration, despite his many faults.
A novelist by trade, Richards clearly feels empathy for the roguish Beaverbrook. Having walked the same streets as Aitken, he says he understands what drove him to leave Atlantic Canada to seek fame and fortune elsewhere.
Ultimately, his argument is this: Beaverbrook was no better, but no worse than his peers. And, despite all of his mischief, Aitken did much good, including helping win the Second World War for the Allies as a minister under Churchill. To Richards, in Beaverbrook’s case at least, the ends do justify the means. This reader is still not convinced. However, thanks to Richards’ masterful storytelling, I’m also glad to have gone along for the ride.
Meanwhile, Big Bear, by Rudy Wiebe, is a more straightforward biography. You’ll find no moral ambiguities to ponder here.
Wiebe, also a novelist, previously earned a Governor General’s Literary Award for The Temptations of Big Bear. As expected, this is an entirely sympathetic take on the controversial aboriginal leader’s life. And that’s okay, for there is certainly much with which to sympathize.
A Cree leader who became swept up in the 1885 Northwest Rebellion, Big Bear was arrested, tried, and convicted on flimsy evidence. Convicted of treason felony, he was sentenced to three years in Stony Mountain Penitentiary.
Big Bear’s story unfolds during a cataclysmic period for the people of the Plains. Ravaged by European-borne diseases, brought to starvation by the near extermination of the buffalo, the aboriginal tribes were — within a period of about a decade — reduced to utter destitution and reliance on government assistance to survive.
Wiebe, relying on written records and testimonies as well as oral histories, weaves a powerful portrait of a man forced down a path he did not want to tread, and wronged by a justice system he did not understand.
Big Bear compels the reader to question the very notion of cross-cultural justice and to rethink present-day aboriginal issues in a whole new light.
— Mark Collin Reid (Read bio)
Mark Collin Reid is the Editor-in-Chief of Canada's History.