how stories inform future generations.
Canada represents very many cultural interests, and on top of that it covers a vast territory. The continued unity of the country absolutely depends on our ability to know and to understand each other. That has to be done through long distance communication, because very few of us have actually visited all corners of the nation. Stories have an important function in this communication. If seeing ourselves in our stories creates a sense of belonging, then seeing others in their stories creates understanding. Whenever there is discussion about the mandate of the CBC, we always point out that the primary responsibility of a public broadcaster is to reflect and represent the life of the community. The CBC has always been a series of regionally based radio and television stations, and it has always had the greatest impact when it has included a balance of programming from all regions.
Artists, and especially artists in a University setting must always view themselves as custodians of knowledge from all eras and from all places. Preserving information is critical to the survival of a people. There is no way of knowing how much cultural information has been lost simply because there was not a good enough storyteller on the scene.
This does not mean that the story can be preserved unchanged for all time. Stories must evolve. The historian always makes choices, and those choices determine our future understanding of the events. Different commentators will naturally lead to different understanding. Or new information will alter the previous understanding.
And storytellers can only be truly effective if they are aware of their context. No historical drama, for instance, can be presented exactly as it was when brand new, and no past era can be exactly described by a modern commentator. And even if our story could exactly replicate the past, we are offering this story to a modern audience. The relationship between the artist and the audience always changes over time, and different audiences relate in different ways. The challenge is to select those elements of style or philosophy that are relevant here and now, and to try to present them in a meaningful manner. In this way, instead of merely presenting the quaint and the archaic, the storyteller can become part of a vibrant living record of human activity.
During 2000-2001, CBC Television created a series called Canada: A People's History . The events that built our nation were dramatized from the point of view of the ordinary people. They are the central characters. The story is therefore not so much about historical events but rather about the effects of those events. The "important" historical figures are present, but most often they appear as commentators, speaking directly to the camera, explaining and justifying their actions. This is a rather different way of presenting a national story, and it has appeal to an everyday modern audience precisely because it represents and validates the role of the everyday person. So the story becomes part history lesson, and part modern fable. Northrop Frye again: "[the poet] imitates the universal, not the particular; he is concerned not with what happened but with what happens."
A single farmer in this story will become an archtype to represent all farmers. And the destruction of his land by the advancing armies will become a metaphor for the devastation of war. Symbols again, used in a way that has modern relevance. In a post-modern world this sort of symbolic representation is a very effective device. Symbols are intentionally vague, and non-specific images lead to individual interpretations. Those interpretations are very current and very relevant, yet the symbolic bases for those interpretations are the simple building blocks of the most ancient stories. As our culture gets more advanced, and our audience becomes more sophisticated, paradoxically, our storytelling devices become more basic.
Which brings me back to the Salmon People. This story has been passed down orally. Once the story is spoken, it drifts out into the world and without any further record, it is gone. It seems far too transitory and unreliable for something so important. So we try to record our ideas in some form more permanent than the spoken word. Or maybe not so permanent.
Software from fifteen years ago will not open now. Tape recordings from fifty years ago are too brittle to be played. Movies from the 1920's are crumbling. Most books older than 500 years have turned to dust. But we can really only guess how old is the story of the Salmon People. Ironically, the record that has survived the longest is the spoken word. And the technology with the greatest staying power is the campfire.
