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Governor General's party
crossing Lake of the Woods
1881, by Sydney Prior Hall
In 1881, the Governor General of Canada, Sir John Douglas
Campbell (the Marquess of Lorne) went on a much-publicized
tour to promote the agricultural potential of western
Canada. Accompanying the entourage were a number of
foreign journalists, among whom was "special artist"
Hall. Here Hall sketched the Governor General's party
as it crossed Lake of the Woods. Since the transcontinental
railway was still under construction, much of the Governor
General's western tour was by boat and carriage and,
at various times, included a contingent of North-West
Mounted Police.
[more]
Although Governor General Campbell's tour ostensibly
promoted western Canada as an economically-rewarding
destination for British immigrants, it served Canada's
western agenda in other related ways. For example,
the Canadian government desperately wanted to differentiate
its west from the wild frontier south of the 49th
parallel. Campbell's tour, and the reports and fine
art created as a result, heightened this differentiation
by demonstrating to the world that the Canadian West
was morally superior to the American West. Thanks
to Canada's benevolent approach to its First Nations,
so the reasoning went, and the presence of such equalizing
factors as the North-West Mounted Police, the Canadian
West was so safe and secure that it could afford to
send its head of state on tour through the region.
Frontier tours for a head of state were out of the
question for the Americans, especially in the 1880s
when the Indian Wars were at their peak. In this respect,
the Governor General's tour also helped to demarcate
and justify the international border - north of the
border newcomers to the West could expect to find
honesty and integrity, and south of the border there
were only lies and unkept promises.
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