NEWS photo Terry Peters

HISTORIAN and North Van resident Daniei Francis
explores Canadian iconography in National Dreams:
Myth, Memory and Canadian History, his 14th book.

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ALCOHOL remains the
abused drug of choice for most
people.

During Drug Awareness
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Six hundred and nine mect-
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The majority of meetings
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AA meetings last an hour
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CP Rai

Layne Christensen

News Reporter
laync@nsnews.com

MYTH: The Canadian Pacific
Railway was a heroic endeavor
that created the nation.

Fact: The CPR wes a pavateiy owned
railway, supported wath public land and
cash, and aggressively promoted by its cap-
italist owners as a nation-building machine.

Myth: The CPR was the iron road that
united the country from sea to sea,

Fact: The CPR was the fint private
enterprise to turn the Canadian wilderness
into 3 profit centre.

Historian and North Vancouver resi-

dent Daniel Francis took on the myth of

myth exp

Nationa! identity
built on advertiging
images for tourists

the CPR when ke penned Nariondl
Dreams: Myth, Memory & Canadian
History (Arsenal Puip Press, $19.95),
released last month.

The Last Spike, the Mountie. the
canoe, the Great White North — Francis
questions them all_as icons thar build our
sense of national identity.

“So many of these images were 2 result
of the tourist industry. They're all present-
ed as a kind of shorthand way of describing
ourselves to foreigners,” says Francis.

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~The CPR was one of the foremost cre-

ators of these sterconpes.” he continues.

“Thev did it largely to attract tourists to
ride on their trains. They created the idea
of tthe West as Indian country, They were
behind the formation of the national parks.
Everywhere vou go vou find the CPR in
Canada.”

But is that wrong?

Francis says iC's nota case of good or
bad. It’s a case of knowing our history, and
questioning the versions of thar history
that reach us through the media and other
information sources.

Without an Independence Day or an
event like the American revolution,
Canadians are without a defining moment

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