Firing the Heather: The Life and Times of Nellie McClung

Patricia Morley is professor emeritus of English and Canadian studies at
Concordia University and the author of Margaret Laurence: The Long
Journey Home and As Though Life Mattered: Leo Kennedy’s Story.

Stephen Leacock’s wit made him known round the world early in this
century. McClung, with as witty a pen and as sharp an eye for human
folly, became a forgotten writer until women historians and critics
rescued her reputation in recent decades. Firing the Heather gives this
feisty social reformer her due. Readers may be surprised to discover the
extent of her accomplishments, the power of her elegant polemic, and the
wit of her satirical romance.

The late Mary Hallett (Ph.D. King’s College, University of London,
and professor of history at the University of Saskatchewan) spent many
years researching and writing the biography. Marilyn Davis, from the
same two universities, revised Hallett’s writing and integrated the
whole. The two have succeeded in revealing McClung’s character, and in
providing social and political context for her work.

The biographical voice becomes firmer as the story unfolds, and the
biographers’ sense of the legitimacy of their intuitions and opinions
grows with the telling; backed by an impressive body of research, it
remains soft and unobtrusive.

Drawing on McClung’s two-volume autobiography, Hallett and Davis
sketch a vivid picture of life on a stony farm in Grey County, and in a
rough cabin near Millford, Manitoba, where winter temperatures fell to
58 below zero. Nellie learned early the necessity of responsibility,
hope, and cooperation. Her marriage to Wes McClung, a pharmacist, was by
all accounts a happy one. At first, she was free to write. In later
years, with four children, Nellie began supporting the family
financially: she was by then a speaker with a national reputation and a
very active social reformer.

In rural Scotland, “firing the heather” meant burning the old to
make way for the new, an apt image for a social reformer who worked not
only for women’s rights, including suffrage and ordination, but for
the rights of all Canadians. Hallett and Davis have fashioned a fine,
balanced study.