The Drama is in the Details

What should history teach us? 

History should teach us that there is no one single component to the story of the past. There are many strands to the narrative, and to truly understand what was happening we have to do more than just list a string of important events and people. Instead, we have to try to explain and understand those events and all the different people involved in them, including those with minor roles.

Even if they contradict each other, disparate voices can teach us a lot on a question as fundamental as whether the transcontinental railway was a force for good. From our modern perspective, it is clear the Canadian Pacific Railway gave Canada a spine. But during its construction the CPR severely disrupted the way of life of many Indigenous peoples. Many rail workers, particularly the Chinese in British Columbia, faced horrific working conditions. These positive and negative facts are all part of the total story that history has to tell.

How do you try to make history interesting to the average person? 

I try to focus on the people: How they lived, what they ate, how they worked, suffered, succeeded, and survived is of great interest to nearly everyone. Although people were genetically the same as us, the conditions were different. There were few roads, no telephones, limited policing and regulation. So, the world was more chaotic. Yet people lived their lives and still had much to celebrate and hope for.

How do you broaden the narrative, and what is the goal in doing so? 

Broadening the narrative is about including different people and their points of view, even those who were in the minority or on the “wrong” side of a conflict. The story of the Hudson’s Bay Company isn’t just about financiers in London or nabobs of the trade in Montreal, it’s about the Cree traders who brought in the furs, the Indigenous guides who helped the company expand westward, the lonely and isolated Scottish post workers who married into Indigenous societies and raised their families, the daring explorers, and even the beavers.

Simplistic narratives of the great triumphs on the road to the present aren’t interesting, and they aren’t accurate. There is a view that the world of the past was the same as today except people were less enlightened or more racist and colonial. This is inaccurate. Most people were just struggling to live their lives, feed their families, and make the world a little easier for the next generation. This doesn’t excuse immoral behaviour, but only looking at the bad is as much of a distortion as only looking at the good.