There is a certain irony that the review for a book, whose thesis is that the most important and influential aspect of Canada’s history are its three seacoasts, was assigned to someone who lives in the Rocky Mountains, about as landlocked as you can imagine. After a little chuckle about that, my wife half-jokingly pointed out that the very mountains out our window were once the floor of an ancient sea, as was much of the prairie to the east.
The premise behind Victor Suthren’s intriguing new book The Island of Canada: How Three Oceans Shaped Our Nation is simple and compelling: that we have the longest and most geographically diverse coastline of any nation on earth, and that this extensive, beautiful, and dangerous coastal geography has produced a remarkable maritime heritage and has had a profound impact on the history of our nation.
To illustrate this point, Suthren begins thousands of years ago with the migrations of First Peoples south along the Pacific coast during the ice ages. He progresses to the Norse exploration and settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, the first European explorers of the St. Lawrence, the quest for the Northwest Passage, and much, much more.
Setting aside any lingering landlubber quibbles about historically important events that have little direct relevance to the sea — Louis Riel and his rebellion, the hunting of millions of plains bison to near extinction and replacing them with cattle, the quest to blast the CPR through the Rockies, or Alberta’s nation-changing oil and gas discoveries come immediately to mind — Suthren does a good job of justifying his thesis. Whether one accepts it without reservation is beside the point — it is a solid concept for a fine book that explores a wide-ranging smorgasbord of Canada’s history.
I particularly appreciated Suthren’s broad, sweeping backstory, much of it taking place in Europe and the Mediterranean, which provides a firm explanation for why many of these voyages in Canada’s waters were taking place. He remedies a problem I notice frequently in Canadian historical writing: a failure to connect events in Canada to global forces, as if we exist independent of rest of the world.
At times Suthren’s writing made me smile in appreciation of a well-crafted sentence. A couple of examples: “On this tidal wave of curiosity, commercial avarice, religious fervour and sudden technical improvements, the Portuguese led Europe to sea in a great exploratory emergence even as, halfway round the world, the Chinese were leaving their ships and looking inward.” And: “It is ironic that these northern Canadian waters, once explored at such human and material cost simply because they might serve as a route to riches elsewhere, are about to be contested for because of the riches they themselves retain.”
“There is a certain irony that the review for [this] book… was assigned to someone who lives… as landlocked as you can imagine.”
The minor issues that I had with the book stem from the ambitious and wide-ranging concept. By covering such a great time period, no particular story can be fully explored and much personal or biographical information about the intriguing characters is necessarily omitted. While Suthren’s prose is clear, lively, and insightful, it is primarily about ideas rather than people in a biographical sense. This is not a bad thing, but it is worth noting: The Island of Canada is not a gripping, page-turning narrative, but rather a lively essay.
There was also some overlap and repetition caused by the structure of the book. Ordered chronologically and geographically, some information logically fits into more than one category or chapter. I won’t say this is a flaw, because as a writer I can appreciate struggling with the same dilemma, but it does provide a few déjà vu moments.
Even for those well-read in Canadian history, The Island of Canada is an excellent contribution to the understanding of Canada’s past. It is written for, and deserves to find, a wide readership. Anyone who appreciates “the magazine formerly known as The Beaver” will find much to enjoy in this book.
— Stephen R. Bown (Read bio)
Stephen R. Bown is the author of Madness, Betrayal and the Lash: The Epic Voyage of Captain George Vancouver and most recently Merchant Kings: When Companies Ruled the World, 1600–1900.