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12/30/1970 - A MIDDLE NORTH RHAPSODY by David A.W. Judd

INSTITUTE OF CURRENT WORLD AFFAIRS DAWJ A MIDDLE NORTII APSODY Those tunes anthems fronti still linger national repetoire The romance West Pacific accomplish nation destinY Granary Empire built quarter section ingenuity muscle those chiselled spiral tunnels shovel black powder straight Mounties could scowl Yankee perdition Montana westward advance sturdy hearth piety family escape servitude satanic mills honest yeoman independence frontier grubstake small operator clamour those Bill Smith transmogrified Amor Cosmos slick progress power tycoons stayed Donald Smith beatified Lord Strathcona An Arthur Lower wrote Without West Canada would continued minor They these bracing tunes glory Songs Dominion singing Glorious songs Canada Confederation ditty But their plsce They D Arcy Magee could contemporaries about building horthern nation bound shield Achilles ocean Many responded This heroic which mistrusts corporate tional heroics We disgruntled given official enthus We virtuous pioneers hopefully which compensation being cynical We unlikely respond Magee Homeric about Achilles shield remember anything terms heros fatal frontier flawed society frontier exploitation swindles scandals jingoism double dealing hypocrisy I forty million slaughtered buffalo Metis before rattling musketry Queen Own Rifles bitten Indians signing their reason living political murder Riel burghers Vancouver Clubbing S water front Asiatic Exclusion League It ominous shifting topsoil prairie It Was become dustbowl depression It ended began Mounties That professional vanguard demolish western romance rhapsody Regina Dominion Day It disillusioned those Police promised fifty years before pummelled authority ironic Pile Bones lived These doleful tunes frontier prefer listen The lament rather march This predilectJon dismal lyrics creeping decadence phoney ennui But probably It symptom style rumbling rectitude vanished conviction It oardy rihte0uS commodities which built dozen other frontiers belief superiority civilization infallibility tchnolosy inalienable rights under something called tural losing these conceits mission place ethical mental stuff pioneers cnnot their songs praise behave It matter being irreverent about pioneerin irrelevant We tunes scripts repetoire middle northof esrne Palliser Sifton latterly A C Bennett words models definitions ideals Canada bifocal north There north tundra Arctic Islands Eskimo There middle north great swath country southern border Prince Prince Rupert Prince Georz Prince Albert south Princeton iewfcundland hypothetical northern limit It these characteristics common trees water minerals mammals Itswinters those Edmonton Saska innipeg There patches Fort Vermillion world prize wheat Philadelphia Centennial That Growing conditions Vermillion changed economics future middle north There succinct Middle northers disputatious breed brought prophecies stone tablets mountain share infallibility corpus common ideas Here personal preachments should happen middle north fringe country bably always Will It required south Southern advantage It backyard perpetual hinterland place people relatively vacant Lack settlements S ettles region might Some efficient Se northern natioal resources people north Prince numbers maybe wrong reasons escape cities The middle north should become asylum unresolved problems south however people north The Canadian deprived He lives orged society priced himself pioneer market He unlikely specimen lnguae animal revive those archaic roots frontier vocabulary Those ouannah oodie burgeoning middle north assure independence It grail nation Despite Group Seven _erate sufficient psychic energy influence notions C nadian identit culture The shieling Hebridean mists senti mental value It replaced Laure Grand Besch Man perhaps because version mytology required again south country determination persists foreign different independent middle north could provide substance finance costs making sustaining image This middle north could times rather periphery Canadian events Its national tunities blematical national problems certainty The Indians instance They numerous middle north often number whites They increase They antagonis antagonized In parts middle north dubious advan treaties If discovered Old Crow Yukon Indians there share The Indians future beyond solutions poverty questions How their style Many converted seduced accordin77 point Fairbanks topless Eskimo waitresses winter Many conform swallow criteri success They Indians being redefined Indians selves involve tionally ethnic variety ethical mosaic Can understand appreciate importance apparent diversity human values aspirations This ethical variety products which previously unable afford significant vital human evolu older harsh social exigencies exclusiveness prohibition rejection narrowness something essential prooress survival world which order survive provide sorts conditions The IidianS likely force answer these tions other people Canada today We cannot consign their traditions values Mickey world How exploit middle north already slightly jaded wilderness It experience The techniques ecological remedy repair sparinly applied fractured southern environment wholly Instead Canadians study create beginning altered northern environment which wrecked diminished chances adaption survival And finally planning This could exercise national lessons results The Ottawa C Y R B C supporting roles The middle north complex ntieth century phenomenon regional commonwealth which lacks machinery forum consultation planning without prudent forethou hinterland suffer mouth judgements duplication great hubris tiers giantism Thinking longer adequate substitute planning It inherited attitude which mayhave suited Industrial Revolution which clumsy cramping notion looming industrial society One point about those ballads They probably swollen bravado swagger In challenge opportunity It appalling unnerving problem Canadians willingly They dragged there uncertainty This where analogy between frontiers And never liked prophets frontier They remind agoraphobia We D Arcy Magee trying expand horizons David Judd Darwin College Cambridge