National Heritage: 'Capital-H History'

CA-NA-DA!, the song of Expo 67 and Canada's Centennial celebrations. The video features the song's composer, Bobby Gimby, leading a children's choir around the exposition grounds in Montreal. Good luck getting that tune out of your head!

When Canada's Centennial and Expo 67 rolled around Canadians were forced to ask themselves 'what is Canadian national identity and culture?' As the offspring of Britain and France and a nation culturally overshadowed by its American neighbour, some even wondered whether Canada had its own culture. Canadian cultural elites often rejected the philistinism associated with American-cultural influence in Canada, taking it as a sign that Canada had not progressed to forge its own national identity, and that the public had not been cultivated into an educated citizenry. With these cultural and national concerns in mind, Expo 67's organizers were tasked with engineering a fairground that would celebrate the diversities of Canada's population while simultaneously presenting a unified narrative of Canada - both to Canadians and to the world.

Events such as Expo point to the role of the state in controlling monumentalization and memories of the past for the needs of the present. Creation of a national heritage and citizenship is a process continuously in flux. A nation's history is always subject to streamlining - forgetting certain parts (such as American cultural influence in Canada, or the ongoing tensions between the government and Aboriginal peoples), while remembering and reinforcing others. The CA-NA-DA song, for example, commodified the narrative of Canada's expanding population and territories, and was sold by the hundreds of thousands to Expo visitors. In addition, Aboriginal art was exhibited at the 'Indians of Canada' pavilion, to offer a foundation myth for Canadian identity and culture. Expo 67 is remembered as a moment of pride and celebration in Canada's history, a moment of looking back to see all that Canada had become and looking forward in anticipation to the future of this modern nation.

As we approach Ottawa 2017, Canada's 150th celebration, it remains to be seen how the past, memory and Canadian heritage will be mobilized for the state to present its own version of 'capital-H history'.