Essay: Totem Pole Art: Changing Perceptions with comments on Collection, Preservation and Renovation

Much of my time from 2008 to 2010 was spent taking courses at Athabasca University. It might be of some general interest if I convert a few of my essay assignments into blogs. One of my courses was titled ‘Introduction to Heritage Resources Management’. I wrote an essay on the following topic:

Discuss how Northwest Coast native art has been collected, restored and preserved.  Give emphasis to the totem poles found in villages of the upper Skeena River valley.  Include a discussion of how they were viewed by earlier visitors and how that view has changed.

The following is an edited version of my student submission:

The native peoples of the northwest coast of North America created monuments – especially totem poles – from the Western Red Cedar which grows abundantly in local forests.  This is a wonderful carving material, but in the wet coastal climate anything created in wood requires care, preservation and restoration if it is to survive.  The practices and policies that promote totemic preservation and renewal have changed several times in the last century.  These changes have brought conflict between the Canadian government and local Native[1] nations.

Changing times have brought new respect for totem art.  To illustrate changes in attitudes and practices, it is useful to include a history of a representative sample of the many totem poles that were carved in a few small villages near British Columbia’s upper Skeena River.  This small area contains perhaps the best preserved collection of totem poles still found in the same original locations where they were first raised.  It is an area that the author has known from both readings and personal experience.

While it is uncertain when free-standing totem poles were first created, it is certain that the Natives were making fine carvings with metal tools before they were ‘discovered’ by English, Spanish and Russian explorers.  When Captain Cook visited Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island in 1778, he observed that the local people’’’s “great dexterity in works of wood, may, in some measure be ascribed to the assistance that they receive from iron tools, for, as far as we know, they use not other; at least we saw only one chisel of bone.”[2] Apparently, iron tools were in common use before the coming of the white man.  Some were received in trade with other tribes who had European contact. Other iron had drifted ashore in wreckage, so much so that Haidas believed these “iron logs” to be the original source of the metal.[3]

Edward Keithahn notes that other Europeans, visiting before 1800, described large communal houses with big vertical support poles.  Some of these poles were carved and painted.  Free standing poles were seen in front of a few houses but they appeared to be rare.  Their carved surfaces were commonly painted red, green and black.  Shorter mortuary poles were erected with wooden boxes at the top where the remains of chiefs were placed.  He concludes that “interior house posts were in general use throughout the region before the coming of the white man; that the mortuary pole was common in Tlingit and Haida villages; that the exterior house post is Haida in origin.”[4] Exterior poles became more common and became known as “totem poles”.

The heyday of totem pole creation started about 1830 with the acquisition of new wealth from the fur trade and new steel tools.  By the 1880s the art was already in slow decline. The Native population was devastated by smallpox and other disease, Canadian policy discouraged the carving of totem poles, and perhaps most importantly, government policy discouraged the ceremonies required to raise new poles as replacements for the old ones which had fallen.

On the subject of Totem Restoration[5], Edward Keithahn says that the act of moving, repainting, altering or replacing a pole would require a potlatch and the same ceremony as though he were erecting a new pole.  It required great expense and brought no prestige to the owner.  “Wind and weather, fungi, insects and plant life all contribute to the decay of a totem pole… once fallen it is generally left to return to the earth”.  To raise it again requires a new potlatch ceremony.  “A contemporary pole raising may include traditional elements such as a full-blown potlatch that involves the feeding of many hundreds of people at a lavish sit-down dinner.”[6] In the wet coastal climate a wooden totem pole could barely be expected to outlive the lifetime of its creators, yet the traditional cycle which created new copies to replace the old eventually became almost completely broken.

Totem poles were collected by the great museums of the world.  Museums sent collectors to gather as many ethnographic objects as they could persuade the Natives to part with.  Between the 1870s and the 1920s hundreds of poles were purchased or simply removed without permission.  When a village was empty for a few years – or even just for a season of fishing and harvesting – the totems became fair game for removal by unscrupulous collectors.  Museums from Chicago to Stockholm to New Zealand treasure their totem collections.  In Canada, one finds prime examples in Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal.[7]

In the 1890s, parks were created in Alaska near Sitka and Wrangell.  Many totem poles were moved there for restoration and preservation.[8] In the illustrations of a 1905 Worlds Fair guide book one finds a photo labelled “Totem Poles – The finest collection in existence, arranged in a semi-circle in front of Alaskan wing of Government Building.  Made by Indians from the Prince of Wales Island. ...  Vary rare and valuable curiosities.”[9] These totems appeared to be well appreciated by their American audience, but perhaps the appreciation was quaint curiosity in a dying art more than it was any artistic appreciation.  The same guide book has a photo depicting a sculpture of four roughrider cowboys mounted on horses. The cowboys appear to be drunk and shooting pistols in the air.  The description reads “A striking group of sculpture, characteristic of early days in the great Northwest.  The sculptor has certainly caught the right spirit in his interpretation of the daring cowboys of the plains—a type that is rapidly disappearing and giving place to the onward march of civilization.”[10]

Between 1920 and 1945, more than 50 American totem poles were restored and moved to locations that ranged from Seattle to Ketchikan.  Keithahn uses the term “purloined” to refer to the 1899 totem in Seattle’s Pioneer Square.  The restoration and removal was a joint effort of the US Forest Service, the U.S. Indian Service, the Governor’s Office and many other public agencies.[11]

In Canada restoration projects were carried on “to a certain extent” ever since 1900. Up until 1925, the official policy was to acquire totem poles from deserted villages and then bring them to Victoria and Vancouver where they would be restored, placed in museums or displayed in public parks.[12]

In 1925 an extensive restoration project was started in British Columbia along the Skeena River.  Keithahn mentions Barbeau writing about the difficulty in getting Native permission to restore the poles.  “’Why,’ they asked, ‘do you wish to preserve totempoles which only a few years ago you forbid us to erect?’”[13]

Leslie Dawn writes of the international appreciation of Canada’s Native art in the 1920s.  In Europe this art sometimes received a more favourable reception than did the works of artists who were far more respected back home in Canada.  For example, in 1927 the Canadian government sponsored an Exposition d’art canadien at the prestigious Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris.  There were several rooms of fine landscapes painted by all the great Canadian painters including the complete Group of Seven.  There was also one small table with eleven small Native pieces; mainly Haida works carved in black argillite slate.  A prestigious French reviewer wrote that the works of the Canadian landscape painters were rugged and had potential.  He then described the Native carvings as having “a rare perfection of execution, a remarkable character and a styling that had nothing of the banal.”[14]  He noted a direct dependence of the modern painters on Native traditions.  Such a dependency would have been rejected almost immediately in Canadian art circles.

Back in Canada, the general consensus was that the natives were dying off, that their culture was dying with them, and that Native “tribes” such as the Gitxsan had already given up any claim to control of their ancestral lands.  For each of these ideas, Dawn provides much evidence to the contrary.  He writes of the absurd situation in Alberta where government bureaucrats did everything they could to stop native dances and ceremonies at the same time that the CPR tourism department, and the organizers of the Calgary Stampede, encouraged photogenic Native gatherings in Banff and Calgary.  In Northern British Columbia the CNR was encouraging the restoration of totem poles in their original locations while civic boosters in Vancouver, Victoria and Prince Rupert vied to get the best specimens for their public parks.[15]

The history of some individual totem poles can be readily tracked.  One pole was purchased from Alert Bay, British Columbia in 1928 and shipped to Stanley Park in Vancouver for display.  This pole was photographed in its original location and was painted there by Emily Carr.  By the 1980s it was so deteriorated that the original was shipped to the Northwest Coast exhibit of Ottawa’s Museum of Civilization.  A replica was carved in Vancouver and erected there in 1987.  A raising ceremony was conducted by the Native peoples of Alert Bay.[16]  The Stanley Park totem pole group is the most photographed and visited tourist spot in B.C.[17]

Canadians finally started to appreciate their Native arts.  Starting in 1935 more than a dozen poles were moved from Massett and Skidegate to various public locations in Prince Rupert.  In 1940 a Thunderbird Park was established in Victoria.  Keithahn predicted that in the future the totem will be considered as significant as the pyramids of Egypt or the ruins of Rome.[18]

Marius Barbeau relates trying to purchase a pole at Kincolith on the upper coast. The chief / owner was on his death bed and refused to sell. The chief said that selling his totem would be like selling the gravestone of BC’s first governor.  Barbeau says that “The figures carved on it were not pagan divinities, as is often supposed, but the heraldic emblems of the clan; they were like the coats of arms of our nobles.”  He then relates his efforts to buy that same pole from the old chief’s sons after his death.  Barbeau is proud that it “stands now in a better place for its preservation. Lost to all notice in the northern jungle, it would soon have tumbled to the ground and decayed, whereas it is now on display for everyone to see and may last forever.”[19]

In 1957 a group of carvers including Bill Reid went to Ninstints on Anthony Island in the Queen Charlottes.  They found a fine house frontal pole on the ground: “We turned it over,” Bill Reid said, “expecting to find total decay, but to our delight the carving was intact except for some rot and a long crack.”  The original was cut in half for transportation to UBC. It is on display at the UBC Anthropology museum.  A 2/3 size copy was made by Bill Reid and others. It is now on display outside that museum.[20]

The villages of Gitwangak[21], Gitanyow, Gitsegukla and Kispiox have had a quite different history than many other Native sites in Canada.  Their Skeena River locations were far enough from the coast that they were little visited before the arrival of the Grand Truck Railway.  There was a good supply of local food and plenty of wood for carving.  The local people were just warlike enough that government agents were willing to try a little negotiation before using the full force of the law.[22]  New Histories for Old provides a background on the early relations between Natives and white people in the Skeena Valley.  The native villages operated their own form of government. When there were conflicts between them and white intruders – usually missionaries, prospectors or fur traders – they insisted on operating according to their own rules and their own sense of morality.[23]

Writing in 1940, Barbeau reports that the best collection of totem poles, still fairly complete, was found that area. There were more than a hundred poles or carvings in scattered groups found in “eight tribal villages of the Gitskan nation. (The Gitskans are one of the three nations of the Tsimsyans.)”[24] [His commentary uses both the words nation and art.]  “Their own alien and bizarre appearance was enhanced by the striking background of darkly wooded and mist-shrouded, ice-capped peaks.”[25]

George F. MacDonald writes a lot about the totem poles at Gitwangak. He notes that Gitwangak is the best-documented totem village in the Northwest.  The National Museum of Man’s files in Ottawa contain more than 500 photographs of the Gitwangak poles.  He states that with the exception of nearby Kitwancool, Gitwangak has the most extensive collection of old totem poles of any village in British Columbia.[26]

In 1958 the village elders of Gitanyow allowed several old poles to be moved for museum preservation as long as they were replaced with carved replicas.  In 1960, master Kwakiutl-style carvers made a replica of an original that is now seen in the Great Hall of UBC’s Museum of Anthropology.  This replica pole is now displayed at Thunderbird Park in Victoria.[27] In this case, native carvers from a distinctly different artistic tradition carved a Gitxsan design for public display in Victoria.

Leslie Dawn’s book has several chapters about the complicated relationships between the Gitxsan Natives, various Canadian governmental agencies, ethnographers – such as Marius Barbeau – and a variety of visiting artists.  The Gitxsan nation has never signed a Land Treaty with Canada.  Ever since the Grand Trunk (now the CNR) railway was built through this area, the government has been anxious to pretend that the “dying race” had abandoned their land and their culture was almost gone.  Efforts were made to collect, record and preserve the remnants before all traces were gone.[28]

Barbeau writes that the totem poles of BC and Alaska are “known all over the world.  The excellence of their decorative style at its best is nowhere surpassed by any other form of aboriginal art”.[29]  “The art of carving poles belongs to the past.  Racial customs and stamina are on the wane everywhere, even in their former strongholds.”[30]

A.Y. Jackson, W. Langdon Kihn and Emily Carr all sketched and painted extensively in Kitwanga and the other Gitxsan villages.  They were encouraged by the authorities as long as they recorded a land nearly empty of people.  The government – and its ethnographer Marius Barbeau – preferred a land of scenic mountains, some mighty rivers, a few ancient cultural monuments and perhaps a handful of Christianized locals.[31]

Gitwangak village, also known as Kitwanga, still has a dozen standing poles.[32]  Most of the totems were originally erected facing the bank of the Skeena River.  As the river banks eroded the poles were moved inland.  Most now face the gravel road through the lower town.  The CNR tracks are a hundred yards away but the train station is gone and passenger trains rarely stop.  A bridge across the Skeena was built at Kitwanga in 1974 so access from the highway is now easy.  The setting is quite spectacular.  The mountain range known as the Seven Sisters can be easily seen from the totems.  That is one of the most spectacular mountain scenes viewable from any paved road in BC.

It is interesting to speculate that while Natives following the buffalo would mark their flat prairie with simple stones circles; here in the midst of dense forests and steep mountains these more-settled Native peoples carved bright monumental poles to compete with their surroundings.

These individual totem pole histories illustrate how government policy, international interest and Native attention have all modified the care, preservation and restoration of Gitwangak totem poles.  Illustrations from national and international sources have shown how appreciation has changed for these and other Monuments in Cedar.  Wooden objects will never remain erect without care and attention in the harsh weather of the Northwest coast.  If totem pole carving is to remain a vibrant living art, then future training, preservation and government support will be required.

---

Appendix
Looking at the varied histories of a few notable Gitwangak poles illustrates the how policies and practices have changed:

(Gitwangak Totem Pole No. 5) Pole of the Mountain Lion.[33]

This was carved and erected as a house pole about 1865.  It was reinforced with back support pole about 1885.  It was reinforced or moved in 1926, 1942 and 1967.  After more than 140 years it has significant rot.  It is still standing within a hundred metres of its original location and the original figures are still easy to distinguish.

1. A separately carved mountain lion.

2. Wolf, head down. The mountain lion is impaled on its tail.

3. Ensnared bear.

4. Wolf.

5. Ensnared bear around doorway.

 (Gitwangak Totem Pole No. 9) Bear's-Den-Person

This pole was erected about 1840 and destroyed in 1969.  It had an interesting story.  It was one of the earliest erected after the local people moved from the Kitwanga Hill Fort.  Barbeau described it as “one of the most valuable relics of the kind on the Skeena.”[34]  It was photographed standing to the west of the village in 1899.  It fell in 1912. By 1924 it was lying on the ground split in two.  It was then moved and later fell again.

“Disaster struck in the summer of 1969 during the totem pole restoration project when one of the workers decided on his own to that the pole was beyond repair and burned it in a bonfire ‘to clean up the site’… The loss of this monument of national heritage value is a sobering reminder of the destruction that can accompany restoration projects.”

1. Eagle.

2. Bear's-Den-Person.

3. Bear's-Den-Person.

4. Split Eagle.

 (Gitwangak Totem Pole No. 10) Dog Salmon

This one was erected about 1860. It was leaning badly by 1925. Reinforced and re-erected the next year. It was threatened by a 1936 flood. Re-erected and repainted in 1940's. Fell down about 1960. A copy was made with rubber and fibreglass moulds in 1969 and shipped to Ottawa. The original remained in Kitwanga and a replica was made in Ottawa. The replica was shipped back and eventually erected in Kitwanga. The fibreglass version went to Ksan village in Hazelton and the original went to Ottawa.

1. Person-with-the-Fish-Spear stand on tail of dog salmon with salmon's tail behind person's head.

2. Dog salmon.

3. Split-Person hanging onto the fin of a second dog salmon with head in mouth of first.

4. Dog salmon with two dorsal fins.

5. Split-Person in the mouth of the second salmon.

 (Gitwangak Totem Pole No. 12) Halibut

Erected around 1880, blown down 1925 and re-erected in 1926. This pole was moved in 1928 without owner's permission to the side of HBC store. There it remains long after the store building was removed in the 1980s.  Barbeau lists it as "among the best at Kitwanga."  It faces train tracks and road crossing; therefore is the only one easily seen from the railway.

1. Person-with-Drum.

2. Split-Person or Half-Man merging with Bear's-Den-Person.

3. Person holding halibut.

4. Two halibut; one held in each hand of person.

5. Split eagle.  Possibly borrowing on Russian eagle concept.

6. Person-with-Drum holding a crest or mask in his hands.

(Gitwangak Totem Pole No. 16) Whereon-Climb-Frogs.

Carved about 1900 to 1905.  It has a distinctive appearance with a canoe containing three figures.  It was featured in paintings by Emily Carr.  It can be easily traced in photos from 1926, 1974 and 2007.

1. Eagle with a frog facing upwards on body.

2. Copper-Smell-Person in shape of a human being holding two animals that might be white groundhogs.

3. Climbing frog.

4. Canoe with three figures: Kewok on top, his son Nekt attached by tongue and bottom Lutraisu, Nekt's mother.

5. Climbing frog.

6. Half-Bear.

---

Bibliography and references used in this Essay

Barbeau, Marius Totem Poles (2 vols)
Ottawa, Ontario: Department of the Secretary of State,
National Museum of Canada, 1940

Binnema, Ted and Susan Neylan (editors) New Histories for Old: Changing Perspectives on Canada's Native Pasts.
Vancouver, BC: UBC Press, 2007.

Dawn, Leslie National Visions, National Blindness: Canadian Art and Identities in the 1920s
Vancouver, BC: UBC Press, 2006.

Keithahn, Edward L. Monuments in Cedar
Ketchikan, Alaska: Roy Anderson, 1945

Lee, William H. Glimpses of the Lewis and Clark Exposition and the Golden West
Chicago, Illinois: Laird & Lee, 1905

MacDonald, George F. The Totem Poles of Gitwangak village: Studies in Archaeology, Architecture and History Ottawa, Ontario: Environment Canada, 1984

Stewart, Hilary Looking at Totem Poles
Vancouver, BC: Douglas & McIntyre Ltd. 1993

Tippett, Maria Emily Carr, a Biography
Toronto, Ontario: Stoddart Publishing Co., 1979

---

[1] To signify aboriginal people in general this author has chosen to use the same capitalized ‘Native’ terminology as seen in Leslie Dawn’s recent book.  While ‘First Nations’ is common Canadian modern terminology, the Canadian nation is still trying to sign treaties with the Native Skeena River peoples.  Therefore, the exact demarcations between what defines a family, a band, a tribe and a first nation are still controversial and under review.

[2] Edward L. Keithahn Monuments in Cedar p. 24

[3] Edward L. Keithahn Monuments in Cedar p. 24

[4] Edward L. Keithahn Monuments in Cedar p. 25

[5] Edward L. Keithahn Monuments in Cedar p. 118 - 128

[6] Hilary Stewart Looking at Totem Poles p. 29

[7] Hilary Stewart Looking at Totem Poles p. 21

[8] Edward L. Keithahn Monuments in Cedar p. 118 - 128

[9] William H. Lee Glimpses of the Lewis & Clark Exposition [The pages are not numbered in book but this is approximately p. 17; the photo shows seven totem poles; apparently brightly painted. In front is a great dugout canoe.]

[10] William H. Lee Approximately p. 37 the photo is labelled “Hitting the Trail”

[11] Paragraph based on Monuments in Cedar p. 118 - 128

[12] Paragraph based on Monuments in Cedar p. 118 - 128

[13] Paragraph based on Monuments in Cedar p. 118 - 128

[14] Quote from Thiebault-Sission, “Une exposition d’art Canadian au Jeu-de-Paume”, in Le Temps March 25 1927 as referenced in Leslie Dawn’s National Visions, National Blindness p. 101.
This entire paragraph is based on Dawn’s chapter Canadian Primitives in Paris.

[15] This section is based on several chapters of Leslie Dawn’s book, including Chapter 5 Barbeau and Kihn with the Stoney in Alberta, Chapter 6 Barbeau and Kihn with the Gitxsan in British Columbia, Chapter 7 Giving Gitxsan Totem poles a New Slant and Chapter 8 Representing and Repossessing the Picturesque Skeena Valley.

[16] Hilary Stewart Looking at Totem Poles p. 89

[17] Vancouver Sun newspaper’s online edition of Aug 02, 2008 Totem poles most-visited site in B.C.

[18] Edward L. Keithahn Monuments in Cedar p. 118 - 128

[19] Marius Barbeau Totem Poles p. 32

[20] Hilary Stewart Looking at Totem Poles p. 54

[21] A note on naming terminology: Every explorer, ethnographer and writer seems to have used a different spelling system.  I chose to use Gitwangak, Gitanyow and Gitsegukla for the Native villages.  (These groups themselves commonly use this particular spelling).  The Gitxsan tribal nation is also spelled as Gitskan.  I refer to Kitwanga (Gitwangak), Kitwancool (Gitanyow) and Kitsegukla (Gitsegukla) where appropriate for the actual physical locations.  These are the most common spellings seen on modern maps.

[22] This paragraph is somewhat based on personal observation.  Regarding militancy, it is interesting to visit the Kitwanga Fort National Historic Site.  It is the only such Native fortification in Canada.

[23] Ted Binnema and Susan Neylan (ed.) New Histories for Old. Skeena native govt. is mentioned in several chapters; especially “Gitxsan Law and Settler Disorder: The Skeena ‘Uprising’ of 1888” by R.M. Galois

[24] Marius Barbeau Totem Poles Introduction p. 4

[25] Marius Barbeau Totem Poles Introduction p. 4

[26] George F. MacDonald The Totem Poles of Gitwangak Village Preface. The National Museum of Man is now known as the Museum of Civilization.

[27] Hilary Stewart Looking at Totem Poles p. 107

[28] See note 12 regarding Leslie Dawn’s book

[29] Marius Barbeau Totem Poles Introduction p. 1

[30] Marius Barbeau Totem Poles Introduction p. 1

[31] See note 12 regarding Leslie Dawn’s book

[32] The comments on the current state of Gitxsan art is based on a tourist visit by this essay writer to the area in July 2007.  Many photos were taken.  This writer also spent most of 1974 working in Kitwanga.  Scenery comments are also based on personal experience.

[33] The pole numbering, pole naming, figuring numbering and figure descriptions used in this section are from George F. MacDonald’s book.  MacDonald based his descriptions on the research of Marius Barbeau.  The figures described are seen from top to bottom.

[34] As quoted in MacDonald p. 75.

Essay: Irish Letters: Kate Armstrong Overin

Much of my time from 2008 to 2010 was spent taking courses from Athabasca University. I thought that it might be interesting to convert some of the essay assignments – such as this one – into blog postings. 

One course was called Writing Creative Non-Fiction. Here is one of the assignments that I handed in:

The history of my mother’s family includes many people who are now recorded by just a name and a few dates. For one of my distant relatives though, the details of birth and death remain undiscovered even as her thoughts and feelings were preserved in a remarkable series of nineteenth century letters mailed from Dublin, Ireland.

These letters were revealed to me after the death of my late grandmother. (I have photocopies of others that had been inherited by my cousins). I transcribed, sorted and recorded their contents. Fifteen of these letters were from Catherine Armstrong Overin – whom I refer to as Kate –and ten more were sent from her father. They were all sent to Kate’s sister Mary who married a British Army Sergeant named William McCoy. He was sent to Canada to suppress rebellion. Mary later emigrated and they had eight children.

I have an 1869 card-sized photo of Kate. She stands in a photographer’s studio wearing a stiff formal borrowed dress. She stares at the camera with an expressionless face. This contrasts with the letters which express so much feeling ranging from determination to utter despair.

The first note from Kate is dated August 1837 and is addressed to Halifax. The others were addressed to several small towns in Upper Canada. Kate must have been a teenager when she wrote that first letter. Her mother had just recently died. Kate was living with her father and raising her youngest brother.

In the 1840’s the letters were mostly written by Kate’s father James Armstrong. He had been encouraged to emigrate to Canada,but he writes that I cannot bear intense cold and I'm sure one of your severe winters in that country would kill me. These were the years of Irish crop failures and he reveals that the times never was so bad in Dublin as they are at present. Every year gets a little worse and James often complains about the dear prices and poor provisions. Eventually the Harvest is so wet that a great quantity of the Corn rotted on the ground and was only drawn home to be thrown in the Dunghill. In one note Kate writes that a poor man may walk the old Brogues off his feet before he would meet with a man that would give him one penny to earn.

The father writes that his son, James Junior, has a most infernal Blaggerd Drunken Wife (if she be a wife) and Kate gradually becomes responsible for raising their three children. James Senior writes of Kate that i'm afraid she'l hurt herself by working so hard. Kate spent her life in poverty, caring for the children of others yet having none of her own.

In March 1847 James Armstrong reports, I think that between the famine and Emmagration that Ireland will shortly be depopulated. His own brothers had departed for New Brunswick and Pennsylvania. By 1851 James Junior and his brother Robert were in Cincinnati where they write that we are in the hopes to see my father and Kate out here by Christmas, but that would not happen. A common thread in many of these letters is Kate begging for assistance to escape from her poverty. One time her sister sent an Order for £5 which Kate carefully saves for her own departure.

Kate reports in October 1853 on my Poor darling Father in Eternity since the 15th of  june. Even though he was 65 years old and already in poor health, he had started a job where he laboured from before seven oclock in the morning and he wouldent quit nor Eat anything until the Same hour in the Evening. He died within a week of starting. Kate wishes as soon as ever I can I will go out to America. She has long periods of unemployment broken by intermittent drudgery. She turns her hand to Service again, for in 1857 she writes: I hold the situation of Cook in a House of Lodgers… the salary is very small, and the work very hard. Later she works in Turkish-style steam bath.

As I write this, I have before me a large sheet of paper that was folded and refolded to fit a small envelope. The words on this June 1858 letter express Kate’s great despair. The sepia coloured ink starts with a fine careful hand:
My Dear Sister, Your kind and welcome letter of February came safe to hand. She reports waiting for news of the Wanderers – that would be her two brothers lost somewhere in America. She has almost given up hope since I feel sure that if they were on the land of the living they would not neglect writing a few lines…  it is a Melancholy reflection but it is one I cant shake off, for the feel of loneliness and desolation that the thought brings with it, is very hard to bear up against. She interrupts with I fear I Must give up the writing of this to Night for my spirits are to low… so good night for the present.

On June 30^th she resumes writing. This time her pen drips with a darker ink:
I have snatched another hour from the night to try and finish what I commenced more than a fortnight since. She reports on her very good health and the severity of her work. She has a dread of being any length of time out of Employment and she expresses her love for Mary and her family. Now it is getting late. She sits in her little room, perhaps with some cheap gin and a single candle. Her hands would be red and cracked from years of scrubbing floors. (The very next year lack of feeling in her hands led to a long period of unemployment). As she continues this letter her penmanship deteriorates and the letters get large and sloppy. There are some splotches which my imagination sees as tear drops falling upon the fresh ink.

Kate then mentions Jane, a hometown cousin. She is now Nine Years since she left Ireland and I have never received one line from her since she left. At this point she writes that I am getting very sleepy so I will conclude… I remain your ever affectionate sister, Kate Armstrong. In the letter’s postscript she begs once again for a reply for if you dont I will conclude that you are angry with me and remember that would be a sin.

The bad years continued. In January 1861 Kate writes that it is such a lonely thing to be without one Friend in the whole wide world, to care whether you live or die, sink or swim… I suppose this will share the place of its Predecessors, and be condemmed to oblivion, but though I am prepareing myself for another disapointment still I couldent help making one more effort to try and win you from your silence. But tragically, Mary McCoy’s eyesight had gone, and she never replied. The news was eventually sent by her daughter, Catherine Maria McCoy, who would eventually preserve the collection of letters. At age 56 William McCoy left his blind wife Mary and married again. He had six more children and I am descended from that second batch.

In 1863 Kate’s youngest brother Robert fought in US Civil War Battle of Gettysburg. He was strok with a shell in the side of his head and killed instantly as his widow so graphically described it.

Any good news seemed fleeting. In 1864 Kate writes that after being thrown once more upon the world she is happy to report her marriage to Samuel Overin. He was a widdower, but without any Family. She started to sign her letters as Catherine Overin; but the happiness was short. In early 1870, Kate wrote that she had not written in seven years and had been a widow for five. Her husband had died of cancer. Two years before I took Rhumatism through a heavy wetting I got and was four Months a Cripple in Consequence and then when I thought I hadent a Friend in the World, God was pleased to send me one. Her brother Henry, who had not written since leaving for Australia 15 years previously, sent word and remitted five pounds which seemed like a gift from Heaven.  She writes her sister Mary that though not Superstitious I have been greatly troubled about you in my dreams lately. When Kate addressed that letter, Mary had already been dead for a year.

The final letter was sent in November 1870 to Mary’s daughter. Kate writes that Mary was a good Faithful Wife and Mother and deserved to be long and kindly remembered, peace be to Her Memory.

While other members of my family tree had their lives briefly recorded in letter fragments or old photo albums, Kate remains the one whose fate I ponder over. Did she live to an old age? Did she marry again? Did she escape the drudgery of her Dublin life? Perhaps she emigrated to live with her brother in Melbourne. I like to imagine that her final years were spent in warm Australian sunshine.

High-Level Contempt for Canadian Parliament (I was naive)

I was naïve until today when my innocent eyes were pried opened by the report of a Canadian parliamentary committee. I have seen the light.

As an antidote to depression brought on by wars, rebellions, meltdowns and earthquakes, I spent much time in the last week watching the Canada's CPAC channel. I have giggled at clever Kady witticisms, been awed at Tabatha eloquence, questioned the legal legitimacy of Bev Oda's Autopen and twittered my own naïve tweet/rants in response.

The big show was called the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs (sometimes known by the Twitter hash: #PROC).
A couple weeks ago the Speaker of the House of Commons passed on to that noble committee the thorny question of just how contemptuous -- or ^NOT contemptuous -- the 'Harper Government' is of the Canadian parliament, the Canadian electorate and the country as a whole. We observers -- whether watching CPAC from a Brick Warehouse LazyBoy, iPhoning tweets at work or reading the coverage in our local Sun tabloid -- were entertained by the attempts at wit as the members (at least 'some' and perhaps des membres) slogged through witness list towards the final report conclusion.
The evidence showed the Minister in Charge of CIDA was guilty of nothing more than having been appointed way over her level of competence. She had risen to a position that expected to her read and initial the executive summaries of 760 memos last year! (That is more than two signatures each and every day. Imagine the carpal tunnel injuries if she had attempted to do that by hand!) Therefore, the Minister used her smarts and her smart phone as she drove herself around Thunder Bay. Instead of using a real legal-type pen to legally sign all those memos, she simply directed her assistant -- or perhaps an office temp or the night janitor -- to push the button on the office Autopen and let it do the signing.  Ms. Oda can honestly plead not contempt but simple incompetence.

In addition, in this country at least, the Mulroney Doctrine has established the legal principle that full honest and open disclosure doesn't require exposing every little possible illegality but only requires exposing the narrowest possible answer of the question as asked.

At the same time though, the testimony before the PROC clearly showed that the Harper Government -- meaning the privy council working collectively under the direction of Stephen Harper -- was operating in contempt not only of the elected members of parliament but was also contemptuous of the institution of parliament and the country of Canada as a whole. In the vernacular, they sent a big fuck-you to the people of Canada, their elected representatives and the Speaker of the House.

Now I finally get to the sad moment where my naivety was revealed and my eyes opened. I was reading today's Report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs regarding the Question of Privilege Relating to the Failure of the Government to Fully Provide the Documents as Ordered by the House. On Page 7, there is a paragraph that starts:

Also on March 16, 2011, the Hon. Rob Nicholson, Minister of Justice, and the Hon. Vic Toews, Minister of Public Safety, along with a number of departmental officials appeared before the Committee to give testimony. 

I suddenly realized who were are dealing with. This is not some anonymous cabal flicking a middle finger to the Canadian public. Here was the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Public Safety -- in other words the authorized head lawyer / chief law-maker along with the prosecutor in chief / head cop of the Queen's Privy Council of Canada  -- presenting a contemptuous and obviously report to our elected representatives!

In respect of the testimony of the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Public Safety, a number of questions arose from some Committee members. There were also comments, including that members found it difficult to understand why the FINA deadline was not respected, and why it took the government four months to provide FINA and Parliament with the information that it had requested.

There is much detail on the next couple of pages, but lets summarize by saying that after watching last weeks testimony and reading today's report, I can easily imagine Mr. Toews and Mr. Nicholson snickering over their morning coffee as they reviewed those obviously inadequate binders which they intended to slap before the committee as 'evidence'. They must have know that this was not the answer that the speaker had asked for. 

My eyes are open. The only thing those binders proved was the utter contempt by our head cop and chief lawyer towards the committee process and committee review by our elected representatives.

Twitter.com, tweets and usage thereof

I have a had a couple of enquiries from my friends and relatives who have not signed up at Twitter.com. It really is simple and a lot of fun. Their system works like a highly simplified version of Facebook or MySpace without all the endless nudges and requests to join or do something. I have been having fun there and so I will write a little about Twitter and how to use it. First: Sign up at https://twitter.com/signup Give them a unique short user name.
Second: Upload your general local location info at http://twitter.com/account/settings.
Third: Upload a small silly photo of yourself or something amusing in your Profile.
You are now a Twitter person! Then use the Find People feature to locate people that you want to follow. You can also search here: https://twitter.com/explore (It could use a better search engine). Whenever you find someone who is interesting writing interesting things in an interesting location then click on the 'Follow' button at the top of their page. (I find that it is best to find some interesting people that update regularly once or twice a day. There are some news feeds that update many times an hour but that can be confusing). When you sign on next day -- or even many days later -- you can see all the updates made by people you are following.
Under Notices (https://twitter.com/notifications) I suggest choosing the option to receive an email when someone starts to Follow you. If they are creepy or if they are a politician or trying to sell something you can easily block them. Just click on where it lists your all your followers and there is 'Block' link beside each person on the list.
If you really want to be a hermit curmudgeon there is a setting to "Protect my updates" so that only Followers that you approve can see your updates. It is up to you to update as little, as much or as often as you wish.
Besides people there are also organizations, schools and companies doing updates. It is a great way to disseminate news to the public. Whenever you return you can see what the people that you are Following are writing about. You can update from a cell phone text message or from twitter.com or from other applications.
(Or you can never update if that is what you wish to do). During Hurricane Ike there were people on Galveston Island updating from flooded homes by their cell phones.
I find the 140 character limit for messages to be liberating. There is no need to get carried away and actually write something serious. Much easier than writing an essay. If you want to add a link to a long web address then the tinyurl.com web page provides a useful to create a short URL instead. Once you create an update you can not edit it but you can remove it. (There is a little trash can symbol on the display). If you have photos that you wish to share on Twitter then upload them at TwitPic.com[obsolete]. That site handles the complications of creating the short URL and creating your Twitter update.
They have a neat new feature at the top of the page where they show the hot topics that people are writing about at that moment. If you add a tag similar to #debate08, #canada or #dinner to the text of your own 'Tweet', then Twitter will 'tag' the subject that you are writing about. (Current hot topic as I write this are updates about McCain saying 'Horseshit' at debate last night). It was fun to watch what people were writing as I was watching the debate on TV.
You can send personal private messages to people if you are following them and they are following you. You can also send public messages -- that everyone can see -- by putting the @ sign followed by the name of the intended reader somewhere in your message.
I hope to see a few of my friends soon. There are more options and ways of doing things but these are the basics. You can find my updates at www.twitter.com/CanadaGood