The North in English Canada and Quebec

Abstract

The North has become one of Canada’s defining ideologies and an important location for its literature. Many Canadian and Québécois ¹ writers use northern settings, symbols, and motifs as a means of demarcating their fiction as distinctly Canadian or Québécois. Perceiving Canada as “the true North strong and free” (as the well-known line from the national anthem goes) is a widespread myth in the English Canadian imagination, and the intrinsic nordicity of Quebec is unquestionably a significant component of Québécois self-perception and culture. Yet the development of the idea of North, or imaginaire du Nord , in the two cultures is rooted in different historical events and cultural references. A significant deviation between the literature of Quebec and English Canada is the acceptance of the city as a location of North. In this chapter, I will provide a comparative study of the development of the idea of North in English Canada and the imaginaire du Nord in Quebec from a cultural studies standpoint, which takes into consideration historical, literary, and cultural developments.