Bellevue House, a national historic site in Kingston, Ont., was once the home of Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald. (courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
In 2017, as part of Canada’s 150th anniversary, Tania Willard, a Secwépemc artist from the B.C. Interior, co-curated Many Voices: Indigenous Art, a temporary exhibition at Bellevue House, a national historic site in Kingston, Ont.
“It was definitely one of the more challenging curatorial-practice projects of my career,” says Willard, who was tasked by Parks Canada with shaping a more inclusive narrative about Confederation. This was no small feat, especially considering Bellevue House’s most famous resident – Sir John A. Macdonald.
Willard, a professor at UBC Okanagan, and co-curator Carina Magazzeni wrestled with Macdonald’s complex legacy as both a founder of Canada and the architect of the systemic cultural genocide of the Indigenous peoples who have lived on this land since time immemorial.
Tania Willard (photo by Billie Jean Gabriel, courtesy Tania Willard)
“It’s a powerful experience for people who understand our histories and the impact Macdonald had,” says Willard. “And then to be in a place that he called home … there is so much to sort out and unpack from a really visceral reaction to colonization in that space.”
The show, on view for four months, featured works by well-known artists like Maria Hupfield, Kent Monkman, Shelley Niro, Melissa General, Greg Hill and others, including pieces on loan from the federal government’s Indigenous art collection.
The following year, Parks Canada closed Bellevue House to repair the roof and carry out other restoration work. Now, as the site prepares to reopen to the public later this year, its storyline is shifting from Macdonald’s early life in Kingston to a broader exploration of his political legacy. The move accords with Parks Canada’s 2019 framework for history and commemoration, which sets out a plan for greater inclusivity. A key part of the strategy for Bellevue House is a permanent display of Indigenous art.
“Parks Canada is seeking to tell broader stories, more inclusive stories, adding other perspectives to the heritage places that we manage across the country,” says Elizabeth Pilon, who is overseeing the project. “And in support of that goal, we’re gauging different approaches to help expand or tell the story.”
An 1890 painting of Sir John A. Macdonald by Robert Harris. (courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
Macdonald, born in Scotland in 1815, came to Kingston with his family as a boy and became a prominent lawyer. He rented Bellevue House, for a year or so, around 1848, well before he became Canada’s first prime minister in 1867. The house, one of 171 national historic sites across the country administered by Parks Canada, was opened to the public by Queen Elizabeth when she visited in 1967.
As part of the its renewal project, Parks Canada consulted with Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee and Huron-Wendat nations in the area. And then, in January, it issued a call for Indigenous artists. It is seeking seven pieces of art – three exterior works and three interior works with a budget of $2,000 each, as well as a larger “signature piece” to be displayed outside the house, with a budget of $8,500.
How will this Indigenous work reflect on Macdonald’s legacy, and how much freedom will artists have to express their views?
Pilon says the artists will work in conjunction with pre-written text panels covering Macdonald’s tenure. “The panels were written by Indigenous community members,” she says. “And our Indigenous partners will be working with the artists … to help illustrate certain messages and themes.”
Willard says there is much to consider when integrating First Nations works into a site like Bellevue House.
“Context is key,” she says, remembering how her team installed a piece by Mohawk artist Melissa General above the home’s entrance only to learn later that a large floral component was being added in front of the building. Willard says it took power away from General’s work, a stunning photograph of a woman in a red dress, its long train flowing behind as she walks through a lush forest, evoking a new path forward.
Macdonald's painful legacy
Willard recalls some staff at the site “seemed threatened by any critique of John Macdonald’s legacy.”
That doesn’t surprise James Daschuk, author of an award-winning 2013 book, Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life. Daschuk, a history professor at the University of Regina, says a strong cult of personality still exists around Macdonald.
“Macdonald was successful in completing the railway and establishing what we now consider to be the settler colonial country of Canada,” he says. “And for the many defenders of Macdonald, those people are tied to that idea – that without the railway, who knows, we could be we could be in American territory right now.”
But this legacy must be weighed against the foundation Macdonald laid for the inequities that continue to haunt Canada. For 10 years after his re-election for a second term in 1878, Macdonald, an expedient bureaucrat, acted as both prime minister and superintendent of Indian Affairs. During his tenure, he oversaw the tactical starvation of Indigenous peoples on the Prairies, the creation of the residential school system, the criminalization of Potlatches and other cultural practices, and the brutal repression of the 1885 Riel Resistance.
Given that history, Willard views displays of glorified nationalism as painful reminders of Indigenous struggles. She also wonders why Bellevue House is recognized as a historic site, while places sacred to Indigenous Peoples are not.
Kent Monkman’s 2017 painting, “Study for The Scream,” which depicts Indigenous children being forcibly taken to residential school
a policy established by former prime minister Sir John A. Macdonald, was one of the works on display at Bellevue House in Kingston in 2017 as part of “Voices: Indigenous Art.” (courtesy the artist)
While Macdonald is remembered by some for his political vigour, his obstinate and calculating nature also left deep rifts in the national identity.
“He built the dysfunctional country that we continue to exist in, with inequitable race relations, with a 15-year life-expectancy difference between First Nations people and the rest of us,” says Daschuk. “So, he was successful in his project. And, you know, to some extent, the marginalization and the intergenerational trauma we’re still dealing with can be directly tied back to Macdonald’s policies.”
James Daschuk, author of “Clearing the Plains,” stands in front of a statue of Sir John A. Macdonald on the University of Regina campus. (courtesy University of Regina)
Over the last few years, more settler Canadians have started to grasp the ongoing impacts of colonialism. In 2018, in a gesture of reconciliation, Victoria’s city council voted to remove a statue of Macdonald in front of city hall. In 2020, protesters toppled a Macdonald statue in Montreal. And a statue of the former prime minister on the grounds of the Ontario legislature in Toronto remains boarded up after it was vandalized several times.
The true costs of Canada’s settlement were thrust into greater public awareness in 2021, when unmarked graves thought to hold the remains of 215 children were discovered on the site of a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. The following month, Kingston’s city council voted to remove its statue of Macdonald.
Decolonizing a colonial institution?
Parks Canada’s effort to be more inclusive has its limits, observes John Sandlos, a history professor at Memorial University in St. John’s, NL, whose research focuses on First Nations and conservation.
He points to Parks Canada’s history of expelling Indigenous people living within parks, including Banff National Park in Alberta and Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba.
The Banff Springs Hotel, now a national historic site, was completed in 1888 by the Canadian Pacific Railway
three years after former prime minister Sir John A. Macdonald created a land reserve around the nearby hot springs. (courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
“There’s this history of the idea that Indigenous people don’t belong,” says Sandlos. “Given racial attitudes of the time, having Indigenous people within the park didn’t fit with the type of high-class wilderness-lodge, golf-course kind of experience that the first parks commissioner, James Harkin, was trying to create.”
Except for certain large parks created in the North in collaboration with First Nations starting in the 1970s, Sandlos says a strong colonial legacy persists in the national parks system.
“The root of colonialism is the taking of land,” he says. “And it really doesn’t matter if it’s being taken for a mine that’s designed to enrich people, or for a conservation area that’s designed to, perhaps, represent some of our ‘noblest ideas’.” Still, Sandlos lauds efforts to disrupt the colonial narratives of “progress” that permeate historic sites – be they political, industrial, economic or environmental – by including the voices and art of Indigenous communities.
A larger version of the flag planted in the snow in this photo, “Kanata Flag on Parliament Hill,” part of Greg Hill’s ongoing “Kanata Project,” was displayed at Kingston’s Bellevue House for the 2017 show
“Many Voices: Indigenous Art.” (courtesy the artist)
Does Parks Canada have plans to upgrade other historic sites? Officials mention Charlottetown’s Province House National Historic Site, the birthplace of Confederation, saying the objective is to tell that history in “a more inclusive way.” They also point to “a dedicated budget” over the next two fiscal years for “commemorating residential school sites, the history and legacy of residential schools, and the contributions of Indigenous Peoples to Canada’s history.” Parks Canada is also partnering with the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies in Banff, to include Indigenous murals at the Cave and Basin National Historic Site, where thermal mineral springs prompted the establishment of Canada’s first national park. But details of other new projects are scant.
Reconciliation in the cultural sector
A growing body of scholarship suggests art is central to reconciliation. And, as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report of 2015 specifies, museums have a crucial role in confronting the past and educating people about historical injustices.
Reconciliation efforts in the cultural sector include a 2017 Indigenous-specific grant program launched by the Canada Council for the Arts for the 150th anniversary of Confederation. As well, various galleries have organized powerful Indigenous exhibitions, including Insurgence / Resurgence at the Winnipeg Art Gallery and Rebecca Belmore’s Facing the Monumental at the Art Gallery of Ontario. But the growing institutional interest in Indigenous art also raises questions related to the politics of art.
Lindsay Nixon (courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
Lindsay Nixon, a Cree-Métis-Saulteaux curator and writer, observes that many projects curated, programmed and organized by Indigenous arts professionals are supported by federal funding and “steeped in colonial institutional politics.”
“Though Indigenous art can seem like it exists within a political vacuum at times, we must recognize, as Indigenous peoples, that we are complicit in the politics we ultimately condone and participate in,” Nixon writes in a 2018 article in Field, an art criticism journal. In it, Nixon poses a weighty question, one that seems pertinent to the Parks Canada initiative at Bellevue House: “How are Indigenous artists being held accountable when they lend support to institutions,” she asks, “and what are their responsibilities when they do?”
Will Parks Canada’s efforts at Bellevue House help precipitate change?
“It’s not feeding any hungry kids or increasing life expectancy,” says Daschuk. “But at least it gets a conversation going.”
And, of course, it remains to be seen how the project is implemented. Will Indigenous artists participate? Will they voice criticisms? And how will Macdonald’s supporters respond?
Daschuk notes the risks, calling it “a minefield,” but concedes that attempting to broaden the dialogue is a move in the right direction.
“Kudos to Parks Canada,” he says. “They’re trying.” ■
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