Later on in the same book, Berton describes how a Russian immigrant named Zibarov formed a Christian sect in northern Saskatchewan, known as the Sons of God, within the Russian Doukhobor community and encouraged his thousands of followers to give up their cattle and shoes and embark on a freezing march to a “warmer climate where we could live on fruit.” When they approached the US border a Mountie threw Zibarov on a train car headed back north, before herding the rest of his entourage onboard. (In later decades, the group became known for staging protests that combined nudity and arson).

Father figure

Four years ago, the Canadian government tried to take advantage of Canadians’ muddled knowledge of their own history by attempting to spin the War of 1812, a strange and largely forgotten conflict between the UK and the US that played out along the Canadian border, as a war of American aggression. But in Berton’s telling, the War of 1812 is a near-comic tragedy: a planned American attack on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, for instance, was called off when an American soldier went missing with all of the boats’ oars. Berton also made it clear that, even 200 years later, it’s difficult to pinpoint what caused the war in the first place.

Berton said in 2002 that he “had never set out to be a patriot or a popular historian,” but, if that’s truly the case, his books have crafted the widely accepted popular narrative of Canadian history by accident. In his telling, the Canadian nation was shaped primarily by two forces: Canadians’ deference to authority and their fear of nature. Unlike the US’ westward expansion, and to the relief of most settlers, the colonisation of the Canadian West was conducted under the aegis of the Canadian Mounties. The Mountie, most evocatively embodied by Sam Steele, was so beloved because he represents a “father figure in a nation that adores father figures.” Berton may never have wanted to become a popular historian, but he knew how to tell the story that the Canadian public needed, and wanted, to hear – a story that remains as relevant as ever.

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