Imperial Eden

" Imperial Eden" is a look at the city of Victoria BC through the work of poets published in local newspapers and journals between the years 1858 and 1920. Not long after its founding as a Hudson’s Bay Company trading post in 1843, the town supported a highly literate population which enjoyed several newspapers, stationery shops and bookstores. The writing and enjoyment of verse was a popular pastime in that period throughout Canada and the United States, and Victoria was no exception. The author offers examples of local verse, some comic, some angry, some accomplished — all revealing the attitudes and values held by citizens of British Columbia’s capital a century ago. In their choice of what to print, the editors of local newspapers and journals reflected what the literate classes believed to be important, but the poets came from almost every walk of life, from farmers to children to bureaucrats. This book considers how local poets (and some prose writers) created the image of the city as an “Eden”. Because of its beautiful geographical location on southern Vancouver Island and its benign semi-Mediterranean climate, residents and visitors alike often called it an idyllic, happily isolated “paradise”. As well, because its ruling class was predominantly British, many called the city “a little bit of old England”, although Scots, Welsh, and Irish were well represented in the local population — not to mention Hawaiians, First Nations and French Canadians. But local opinion-makers revered “the mother country” and were intensely loyal to the British Empire, an attitude which would eventually begin profoundly to alter Victoria’s isolation, some of its “edenic” qualities, and its ostensible charm as an outpost of the British Empire . The fact of Victoria’s diverse population was revealed in local poetry, some of which lamented the growing presence of East Asians in the city. Other poems extolled the virtues or condemned the peccadilloes of local political leaders in language which today might be considered slanderous. Fads and fashions were satirized. British Columbia’s several gold rushes, in 1858, the 1860s and the 1890s, which deeply affected Victoria’s economy (but not its developing paradisal image) were documented in verse. Relations with the United States were also a topic, especially when American annexation of Canada was bruited about. Poets enjoyed commenting on (and sometimes satirizing) Victorians’ love outdoor sports, especially golf, and the occasional scandals and crimes which afflicted even this “paradise”. The author gives amusing examples how local newspapers vied — in verse — for subscribers and how businesses used jingles to sell their wares, some of which (like the poems) were of dubious quality. For some poets, life in “paradise” was qualified by technological changes such as electric lighting and the telephone, while the campaign for female suffrage enraged a few male versifiers. At the same time, some writers favoured temperance, while others condemned the growing movement to prohibit the sale of alcohol. The local transit system, deemed overcrowded and unreliable, came in for rhymed attacks. “We love to hear the cannons roar”, exclaimed a Victoria poet, expressing the willingness of many locals to fight for the interests of Britain throughout the world, specifically in the South African War, 1899-1902. The “Great” War which broke out in 1914 was also greeted with joy by many Victorians, who believed that somehow their city was threatened by the Central European powers and that Britain represented the pinnacle of human civilization. Ironically, this conflict and its results helped to diminish local people’s sense of being British and their loyalty to Great Britain. Examples of imperial-patriotic verse declined even in the duration of the conflict. While the war lasted, local writers praised the perceived heroism of local men, while the soldiers themselves expressed a wry, comic, and occasionally disillusioned view of modern combat. Civilian poets vilified the German enemy, sometimes in verses of astonishing violence. The difficulties of life on the home front were recorded and anyone who did not support the war effort was condemned as a “pacifist, boloist, slacker [or] gink”. The author concludes by noting that Victoria has lost little of its geographic and climatic beauty — still extolled by contemporary poets — but its “Britishness” is now recognized as merely a commercial gimmick and its past imperial identity an embarrassment.