the last place on earth you probably want to beart + space + audience

As a long-time fan of Douglas Coupland, I bought both Souvenir of Canada books as soon as they were available. I read them both cover to cover but remained fairly neutral about either of them. There were parts that reminded me of the Canada I know, and other parts that felt as foreign to me as a country I’ve never visited. Since I have been sharpening my criticism skills at OCAD, however, Coupland has emerged as a problematic figure in the conversation about nationalism, and the construction of a unified Canadian identity. Below is a (long-ish) essay I wrote for a class about Canadian Contemporary Art. I hope you like it! And of course, I am ever accepting of feedback.

Canadians largely perceive themselves as middle class. Canadians love the middle, not just because it’s safe but also because it’s inherently democratic and fair. But…if you become too different from the others, little bells collectively go ding-ding-ding, and you will be shunned and mocked. Your only option will be to leave the country. – Douglas Coupland, Souvenir of Canada 2, p. 126.

Canada is a geographically and demographically vast country. With 9,984,670 square kilometers of land and water,  an estimated population of 33,441,300 sprawled over ten provinces and three territories,  with over a hundred non-official languages spoken by said population,  the chances of crafting a universal Canadian experience are slim. This is a mere sample of indicators that speak to the difference and diversity of Canadians; a sample of indicators that proves the futility of arriving at an agreed-upon package that constitutes Canadian identity. Certainly, with as much difference as exists in Canada, each resident is privy to a unique experience of their country—depending on their age, ethnic origin, economic background, or place of residence; Canada has the potential to be many places at once. Despite this, the fruitless search for a collective Canadian experience is continually sought out. Erin Manning, in her deconstruction of a Canadian beer commercial, notes that, “the voicing of a nationalist sentiment…has been reiterated throughout Canadian history,”¹ and this seems to be a fact of Canadian life that artist and author Douglas Coupland actively indulges in. In his attempt to construct an anthology of authentic Canadian-ness, Coupland, in his books Souvenir of Canada and Souvenir of Canada 2, instead produces an exclusive view of Canada predicated on his inclusion within the dominant culture, and his location within an economic privilege that many Canadians do not have access to.

In an attempt to differentiate Canada from any other country in the world, Coupland uses Souvenir of Canada and Souvenir of Canada 2 to outline an “authentic” Canadian experience with the use of photography, ephemera, and text vignettes. The appearance and format of these books are important elements of their overall communication. Both books are highly polished, minimally designed, and, based on their identical production, are meant to be collected as a set. Their short, anecdotal musings are interspersed with images that represent, to the author, the products, places, materials, environments and experiences that, supposedly, all Canadians can relate to. Coupland often uses the phrase, “Only Canadians ever know that,”² (or some similar iteration,) at once implying that all Canadians know the obscure tidbits he speaks of, and that their knowledge is automatic by virtue of being Canadian. The images in both books are taken from a number of sources: some of them are still-life photographs that Coupland has produced as part of his artistic practice; some are picturesque landscapes from a variety of archive sources; some are reproductions of artworks that reference Canadian experience; others still are ad-like photographs of Canadian commercial goods. Each image contributes to the atmosphere of Coupland’s book—an atmosphere that would perhaps be quite different had someone else compiled it. Aside from Coupland’s pull as a living icon of Canadian literature, the books themselves as meticulous, professional products are easily touted as an authoritative perspective on Canadian experience. Their sheen makes them downright believable. But there is an enormous disparity between the content of the books—the Canada Coupland describes—and the experience of so many other Canadians who have not been exposed to the same privilege that Coupland has. This disparity is most aptly expressed in Coupland’s use of language when discussing First Nations.

Canada’s history of colonialism, and the subsequent (and continual) marginalization of First Nations populations within Canada, appears to be lost on Coupland who surprisingly uses the language of “us” and “them” to differentiate between the dominant culture (“us”) and First Nations populations (“them”). In fact, this divide (in addition to an economic one, which I will explore later,) is how Souvenir of Canada begins—setting an exclusionary tone for the rest of the series and identifying his audience (“us”) as members of the dominant culture. (Does this mean that First Nations or immigrant readers cannot relate to a Canadian identity or experience?) In “Baffin Island,” an appropriately landscape-themed vignette, and the first one in the book, Coupland recounts his numerous journeys by airplane across Canada’s “extreme northerly spots,”³ which he considers to be disconnected from the rest of the (urbanized) country:

There’s just all of this land down there, blank and essentially uninhabited, no roads or power lines—just land, and maybe a spot of lichen. There are parts of it even the Inuit must look at, shake their heads and shrug in wonder. Down there is the land that time and space forgot. Down there are the First Nations inhabitants—roughly twenty-seven thousand—of Nunavut, a new territory created in 1999.⁴

Coupland describes this region of Canada as a mass of landscape that is somehow not actually Canadian—so far removed from the “functioning society” of Canada that it can hardly be considered a relevant part of the country. He even deems the northern land forgotten by space and time—a supposed void of Canada (is there one?)—and correlates it to the place that the residents of Nunavut call home. “Even the Inuit…” implies that of all Canadians, only the Inuit is adequately qualified to judge uninhabitable terrain. The language and sentiment used by Coupland is alienating not only toward the First Nations population in Canada, but also to Canada’s large immigrant population, which comprises approximately 13 per cent of all Canadians.⁵ A few sentences later, Coupland says, “Do the Inuit visit Canada’s south, see trees and wonder the same thing about us—how can these people live in such a freakish place?”⁶ This remark underlines Coupland’s unapologetic and exclusionary view of a Canadian experience that he attempts to universalize, and reinforces the patronizing attitudes that media has adopted toward the First Nations population since the early twentieth century.

This language of “us” and “them” in the context of Canadian nationalism, belonging and citizenship is particularly problematic in light of Canada’s very recent (and current) history of co-opting First Nations’ material culture in order to create an alluring tourist industry for European visitors and settlers. As recently as 1992 (proving that this is not a problem of the past,) symbols of Native culture have been used by the dominant culture to construct a unified vision of Canada. Daniel Francis, in his book The Imaginary Indian: The Image of the Indian in Canadian Culture, cites numerous examples of this phenomenon, most striking being an ad published in an issue of New York Times Magazine and paid for by the Canadian federal government. The headline read:

“Only in God’s Country could you meet such interesting souls.” A stunning photograph shows two figures, presumably Native people, seated on a sandy beach. They are both wearing large raven’s head masks, brightly painted, with long beaks. In the background, a third figure, carrying a ceremonial drum and wrapped in what appears to be a Chilkoot blanket, emerges from the mist at the water’s edge. Offshore, islands melt into a blue haze.⁷

This co-optation is dangerous not only because it communicates an experience that is, in fact, alien to most Canadians (less than 1% of Canadians identify as First Nations),⁸ but it is problematic in that the federal government, who conceived of the ad, has little First Nations representation within it. Francis believes that the dominant culture (including institutions) in Canada appropriates these symbols in an attempt to resolve their feeling of not belonging. Coupland does not fall into this trap but instead creates a new one. While overall, throughout both books, Coupland avoids using First Nations imagery and symbolism to construct his version of “Canadian-ness,” (although I will present an example where he does this on an employer’s behalf,) he further widens the gap of belonging. Instead of hinting at a feeling of not belonging (or infringing upon a land of which his ancestors were not the original inhabitants,) Coupland does not appear to believe that he and the First Nations population even co-exist in any way worth discussing. Additionally, he seems unaware of the fact that, as Manning puts it, the “propagandistic desire to coin ‘Canadian identity’ once and for all depends on the obfuscation of the history of Canadian nation-building which often continues to be narrated without drawing attention to the extermination and oppression of the native peoples.”⁹ Despite a brief entry including information about the genocide enacted (and being enacted) on First Nations by the dominant culture in a chapter called “Reserves,” Coupland fails to see that his entire Souvenir of Canada project is predicated on and made possible by this shameful facet of Canadian history.

In the “Reserves” vignette, the Native population of Canada is treated as ephemera of a nation instead of as an equal faction of citizenship. “Reserves” is one of the longer entries in the book, and although it includes apt questions about white-Canada’s relationship to “Indians,”¹⁰ it is largely rife with anecdotes that perpetuate the “Imaginary Indian” that Francis describes. An anecdote about a summer job Coupland held designing props for the Pope’s Vancouver visit includes this jarring admission:

In my case, one of the stadium’s…designs was to be a First Nations motif. I was told to mock up one quickly for a meeting, so I invented a fake thunderbird-motif flash sequence. The meeting went well, and a week later I was asked to prepare a flash-card sequence using genuine First Nations imagery. So I began to do research and generated designs.…As the day of the visit neared,…it was finally decided to go with the original fake thunderbird sequence because it looked the most “Indian-y.”¹¹

This design project illustrates the fictional “Indian” that European settlers invented and continue to perpetuate—when authentic Native culture is no longer sufficient for marketing and entertainment, let it be contrived by a white, middle-class designer who was admittedly exposed to very little Canadian history.¹² Coupland may not have learned much about Canadian history, but his experience as a writer and artist has allowed him extensive privileges of travel, and permit him to see Canada through the subjectivity of non-Canadians.

Many of Coupland’s musings about life in Canada are made possible by his economic position and the opportunities granted to him as a well-known cultural producer. Coupland often uses the rest of the world as a barometer of Canada’s “unified” culture, and by contrasting his Canadian experience with his experience in other countries he has visited, he is able to highlight what he believes are Canada’s quirks—a perspective many Canadians are not able to experience and therefore, one that many Canadians cannot share. The median after-tax income of Canadians is just over $23,000 per year,¹³ hovering just barely above the official poverty line.¹⁴ This limiting median bars many Canadians from partaking in activities such as noticing that the Robertson screwdriver is unique to Canada,¹⁵ or observing the differences between Atlantic and Pacific fishing.¹⁶ The Canadian-ness that Coupland describes throughout both books is one unhindered by marginalization and especially financial capacity. Returning to the vignette entitled “Baffin Island,” Coupland blankly outlines his privileged condition. The opening of the book is as follows:

I fly more than most people. On a recent flight to Frankfurt I sat and mapped out my past twenty years and made a count: I’ve flown across Canada a conservative total of fifty-five times, most likely more. And then there have been the times flying not strictly across Canada, but over it—to and from Europe—above Hudson Bay and the Ungava Peninsula, Ellesmere Island, Baffin Island…¹⁷

This show of mobility, in a Canadian-centric way, contributes to the notion of foreign validation described by S.M. Crean in “The Invisible Country,” wherein “Canadian art is good depending on how well it measures up in terms of Art, the art of the grand old imperial centres of Rome, Paris, London, New York and so forth.”¹⁸ Is Coupland an expert on Canada because he can assess it against the rest of the world? Coupland’s evaluative strategy is based heavily on his experiences with non-Canadians;¹⁹ experiences made possible by extensive travel. Indeed, even his experiences with Canadians are made possible by extensive travel—with such a vast amount of ground to cover in traveling across the country, it is likely that many Canadians will rarely visit outside of their home province. Because Coupland is so well traveled, are we obligated to believe him? Does his worldliness make him a better Canadian, or better equip him to describe what being Canadian is like? In reading both editions Souvenir of Canada, readers are expected to take his word for it.

Amongst the pages of Souvenir of Canada and Souvenir of Canada 2, many readers will likely find snippets of text and images that stir a touch of nostalgia. As an image of Canadian-ness, for all Canadians, however, the books largely communicate the experience of an upper-middle-class, white, English-speaking Canadian who has access and status gained by professional achievements. This limited view, touted as an “authentic” Canadian experience, preserves the alienation of marginalized and minority communities throughout Canada; a country whose geography and landscape is vast enough to allow for complex, intercultural interstices, connections, and webs, which Manning notes are “much more compelling.”²⁰ Ultimately, Coupland’s Souvenir of Canada series “perpetuates an exclusionary, racist and gendered locus of enunciation that is well-rehearsed in Canada”²¹ and surely leaves plenty of readers wondering how they fit into the puzzle of Canadian-ness.

Notes:
1 Manning, Erin. “I AM CANADIAN: Identity, Territory and the Canadian National Landscape.” Theory and Event. 4:4. 2000. 7.
2 Coupland, Douglas. Souvenir of Canada 2. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2004. 29.
3 Coupland, Douglas. “Baffin Island.” Souvenir of Canada. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2002. 4.
4 Ibid.
5 This figure is expected to reach 20 per cent by 2017 and does not refer to first-generation-and-beyond Canadians. (“Ethnic diversity and immigration.” Statistics Canada: Canada’s national statistical agency / Statistique Canada : Organisme statistique national du Canada. 14 Mar. 2009 http://www41.statcan.ca/2007/30000/ceb30000_000_e.htm.)
6 Coupland, Douglas. “Baffin Island.” Souvenir of Canada. 5.
7 Francis, Daniel. The Imaginary Indian: The Image of the Indian in Canadian Culture. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 1992. 187.
8 “Aboriginal peoples.” Overview 2007. 17 Mar. 2009 http://www41.statcan.ca/2007/10000/ceb10000_000_e.htm.
9 Manning, Erin. “I AM CANADIAN: Identity, Territory and the Canadian National Landscape.” 30.
10 After using the term, Coupland asks, “Can we even use the word ‘Indian’ any more?” (Coupland, Douglas. “Reserves.” Souvenir of Canada. 98.)
11 Ibid. 95.
12 Ibid. 7.
13 “Selected Demographic, Cultural, Educational, Labour Force and Income Characteristics (830), Mother Tongue (4), Age Groups (8A) and Sex (3) for the Population of Canada, Provinces, Territories, Census Divisions and Census Subdivisions, 2006 Census – 20% Sample Data.” Census of Canada.
14 “Poverty Lines, 2001.” Canadian Council on Social Development / Le Conseil canadien de développement social. 13 Mar. 2009 .
15 Coupland, Douglas. “Hardware.” Souvenir of Canada 2. 38.
16 –. “Fish.” Souvenir of Canada. 24.
17 –. “Baffin Island.” Souvenir of Canada. 4.
18 Crean, S.M. “The Invisible Country.” Who is Afraid of Canadian Culture? General Publishing Co., 1976. 12.
19 See, particularly, “Canucks?” (7) and “Cheeseheads” (10) in Souvenir of Canada, though nearly every entry includes an anecdote with or about a non-Canadian.
20 Manning, Erin. “I AM CANADIAN: Identity, Territory and the Canadian National Landscape.” 13.
21 Ibid. 69.

Image, from the cover of Souvenir of Canada 2 from here.

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