Canada's Century

Sarah Robertson is editor of the Canadian Book Review Annual.

Originally called The Business Magazine (and subsequently The Busy
Man’s Magazine), Maclean’s magazine published its inaugural issue in
1905. This attractively designed large-format book features 155 excerpts
culled from the pages of Maclean’s between 1905 and 1999, as well as
more than 300 sepia photographs, a preface by Robert Lewis (the
magazine’s current editor-in-chief), a foreword by Peter C. Newman, an
illustrated chronology, and a column by Allan Fotheringham.

Each of the book’s 25 chapters deals with a particular aspect of
Canadian life in the 20th century, including politics, war, science,
disasters, the environment, immigration, Canada–U.S. relations, Native
peoples, the Arctic, and Quebec separatism. The least appetizing (though
perhaps the most revealing) excerpt is a 1908 article on immigration
that begins with the following pronouncement: “Certain misfits and
failures of other lands are proving rather too heavy a burden upon the
exchequer of the Dominion.” A lighter note is struck in chapters
devoted to sports, the automobile, film, television, and fads and
fancies (including LSD and the Hula-Hoop).

Of course, no book that purports to chronicle Canada’s struggle for
nationhood would be complete without a chapter on the ever-elusive
Canadian identity. One of the chapter’s highlights is a 1991 interview
with Northrop Frye, who memorably observed: “If a sculptor were to
make a statue of a patriotic Canadian, he would depict somebody holding
his breath and crossing his fingers.”

Editor Carl Mollins, whose graceful introductions preface each chapter,
has done an admirable job of distilling the best from the almost 2500
issues that make up the Maclean’s archives. Canada’s Century
deserves a place in home, school, and public libraries.