Stuart McLean and the Vinyl Cafe

"We may not be big, but we're small."
This is the motto of the vinyl cafe, hosted and written by Stuart Mclean. The Vinyl Cafe is a staple of Canadian literature that can be heard twice a week on CBC radio, and can also be found in any bookstore on disc or paperback. The vinyl cafe stories are written about a Canadian family that is originally from the Maritimes but now lives in Toronto. Dave, the husband and father of the family, owns a store named the Vinyl Cafe. The stories are a combination of knee-splitting humour about Dave's antics and mixups, as well as more serious notes about the importance of family values and culture.
The author, Stuart Mclean, was born in Montreal, Quebec in 1948. He was originally a host on the CBC radio show, Morningside, with another famous broadcaster, Peter Gzowski. Mclean teaches at the Ryerson School of Journalism and was the former director of the broadcast division at the school. He has also been honoured by Trent University, Nipissing University, and the University of Windsor.
Mclean's books about the Vinyl Cafe have won him the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour three times, which puts him in the top position for most wins of the award. Over 700 000 people listen to the show each week, not including those who attend the live shows across the country.

Stuart Mclean is noted by some to only be a jokester, with his real contribution to Canadian literature being minimal. However, I disagree. Mclean brings people around the country together with his show. Not only can it be heard all across the country, but Mclean incorporates stories from across the country with his story exchange. People can send in their stories about Canadian life and their interpretations, and every week Mclean will read a story on the air. This gives insight into the different ways in which Canadians live their lives, and how they interpret different events.
As I mentioned before, he also tours across Canada, doing shows from coast to coast. While he is on tour, he keeps a blog to update his fans on how everything is going. On his shows, he reads one of his stories, but he also incorporates a Canadian music artist who comes on the show and performs each week. This, along with the Vinyl Cafe Story Exchange, makes for a very diverse and interesting show on Canadian culture every week.
As for his novels, Mclean has tackled many issues within each story. The family is usually grappling with a simple story, but more often than not, the significance behind it is quite large. For example, in a story in which the main character, Dave, returns home to Newfoundland when his mother gets sick, he is forced to deal with memories from his past within Newfoundland, and the ways in which his life had been different. This story links the maritimes with the metropolitan of Toronto, as Dave struggles to see the similarities and embrace the differences between his two very different ways of life. This is a struggle for many Canadians, and Stuart Mclean recognizes this.
Overall, I feel as though Stuart Mclean and his Vinyl Cafe stories are very important for Canadian culture. I feel as though far too often people only view serious and reflective novels and poetry as important when it comes to Canadian literature, however I think that the majority of the Canadian population would be more inclined to read or listen to stories from the Vinyl Cafe. Not only are they interesting and approachable, but they also give a view of our culture from a humorous standpoint. Considering the grim view that we have discovered this semester of the state in which our culture is in, who wouldn't enjoy a good laugh abuot it?

Lucy Maud Montgomery and Avonlea

L.M. Montgomery

Lucy Maud Montgomery was a Canadian author born in Clifton (now New London), Prince Edward Island in 1874. She was raised by her grandparents in PEI, attending grade school in Cavendish, Prince of Wales College in Charlotte town, and in 1895-6 she studied literature at Dalhousie University in Halifax. She taught at various schools in PEI and worked in Halifax for newspapers. In 1908, while living in PEI she published her first book, Anne of Green Gables. She eventually married and moved to Ontario. Of her many works , Anne of Green Gables is probably the most well known.


Anne of Green Gables (100th anniversary!!)
-Series: 8 novels
-2 novels in which the character Anne plays a lesser part

Anne in the Media
-5 TV movies
-3 animated television series
-2 musicals

Tourism
-Setting: Green gables, haunted forest
-Musical
-Gifts and merchandise

Emily of New Moon

-Series: 3 Novels
-TV series

Road to Avonlea

-Aired between 1990 and 1996 in Canada and the United States.
-Took place in Avonlea, a fictional town in Prince Edward Island using characters and plots based out of books by Lucy Maud Montgomery.
-(Next series on CBC was Wind at My Back)

Avonlea Culture
- Family
oFamily content
oEqual focus on child and adult characters
oPart of many family traditions (Sunday night)
-Broad Canadian culture (popular in most provinces)

"The Colony of Unrequited Dreams" by Wayne Johnston

Newfoundland can be considered as a distinct region due to its existing rare culture that is separate from the rest of Canada. Newfoundland's culture is not contrived or artificial. James Overton proposes in his article, "A Newfoundland Culture" the idea that Newfoundland's culture revival rests on certain essential ideological foundations. The key assumption here is that there is a distinctive Newfoundland culture, way of life character, soul and ethnic identity. Overton further goes on to suggest that at the core of regionalist thinking lies the notion that there are distinctive, indigenous, popular regional cultures or ways of life in Canada and that these cultures should be the basis for the nation's future political and economic organization.
Newfoundland's history is known to fall under the whiggish history in that it is a triumphant account of a nation's colony. One that leads to progress and ultimate victory despite its failures. The Canadian Confederation plays a key role in establishing Newfoundland's culture and identity because it was the last province to join confederation in 1949. The Canadian Confederation website explains the reasoning behind Newfoundland’s late entry stating that, “union with Canada was often regarded as a solution to existing problems rather than as a desirable end in and of itself, and so support for the idea was never very strong“.
British influences also assists in creating a Newfoundland culture and identity. The Canadian Confederation website explains that by the beginning of the 1930s, Newfoundland’s debts was at nearly 100 million. Combined with the advent Great Depression, the colony was facing a desperate situation both economically and socially. As a result, an appeal was made to Britain for assistance. This further lead to the establishment of a commission which ran Newfoundland’s day-to-day affairs. The Canadian Confederation website also notes that the Commission of Government took office on February 16, 1934. The commission was responsible for administrative duties, but actual decision-making rested with the British Parliament.
“The Colony of Unrequited Dreams” by Wayne Johnston provides an excellent depiction of Newfoundland’s culture and identity. The main themes of the novel deals with a sense of self defecation, constant struggle and conflict, a lack of accomplishment, and a sense of loss associated with the people of Newfoundland. Although Johnson’s novel provides a negative depiction of Newfoundland, the majority of its contents are fairly accurate. Johnston succeeds in establishing the fact that Newfoundland experiment a great depression and a lack of money during the 1900s indicating its debts reaching nearly $100 million. Johnston also mentions that since all members of the commission was to be appointed by Britain, Britain underwrote Newfoundland of its debts thus coming to its assistance. Furthermore, the novel illustrated the fact that the referendum was a very divisive issue for Newfoundlanders which caused the separation of many families including that of Joe Smallwood’s. Lastly, Johnston’s novel did an excellent job demonstrating how Newfoundlanders have their own sense of culture and identity in which they always return to. This is illustrated through Joe Smallwood’s frequent returns to Newfoundland.
Overall, “The Colony of Unrequited Dreams” by Wayne Johnston is an excellent source of literature which provides a fairly accurate depiction of Newfoundland’s culture and identity. It illustrates the struggles and conflicts Newfoundland had to overcome in order to progress and establish its own sense of culture and identity.

Alice Munro and small-town Ontario

Alice Munro is considered one of Canada's most important writers in the 20th century. She is a three-time winner of the Governor General's Award for fiction, and has penned numerous bestsellers. Born and raised in rural Ontario, the majority of her stories are set in and around the region she was born, Whingham. In one review, her writing is said "both to invite and sustain reading within a realist tradition." Many feel that her characters and plot are very true and real to what life in small town Ontario is like.
Her published books, rather than novels, are mostly collections of short stories that span different time frames and characters. One of her stories, A Wilderness Station, is based on her family's own history. It examines a Scottish pioneer family in the 1850s and the hardships they experienced. The main character, Annie, was sent to become a homesteader in Huron County, and the story tells of her relations with her husband and the community, an experience similar to that of genuine Scottish pioneers. The character of Annie also emphasizes the wilderness as being an important factor in daily life; being out in the wild evokes in her feelings of safety, despite the fact that it is there that her husband is killed. This story exemplifies themes common in Canadian literature, most notably, the British colonial tradition of Canadian homesteading that the story is based upon, as well as the mythic nature of the North.
Douglas Coupland, another Canadian writer, might argue that this is quintessential CanLit: it is government encouraged literature, set in the North, with beautiful descriptions of the scenery, or else about the immigrant experience. It does not go beyond the boundaries that CanLit has set out, and it does well because of it. Many authors such as Coupland feel as if to be considered CanLit, you cannot leave these traditional barriers; in essence, that despite being a Canadian author, you are not actually considered one.
Munro is also considered one of Canada's few cultural exports. Along with Margaret Atwood, she is one of the few authors that make an impact within the United States. Munro has gone on record saying that she will soon retire, worrisome to many because as one of the few Canadian voices south of the border, Canadian cultural influences will be greatly, and sadly, diminished.
Munro has not only made an impact with her books at home and in the United States, but her stories have also been made into movies, most recently Away From Her. Based on the story, The Bear Came Over the Mountain, from her collection Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, which tells the tale of a married couple dealing with the decline of their relationship; the wife, Fiona, suffers from Alzheimer's Disease. Nature is a central theme again in this short story. Fiona and her husband, Grant, have moved into their cottage after retirement, in an attempt to help her remember their past; Grant tries to get her to remember one of the many hikes they would once embark upon. The movie adaptation did well critically and introduced Munro to a wider audience.