George McDougall and Methodist Conceptions of Death

Image No: NA-659-44
Title: Reverend George McDougall.
Date: [ca. 1875-1876]
Photo: Field, Montreal, Quebec

The death of the Reverend George McDougall, in January of 1876, has all the elements of an iconic moment in Western Canadian history.  Out on a buffalo hunt with his son John, George lost his way and was found in the snow laying on his back as if readied to meet his maker.  Sarah Carter wrote of the event in her 1981 thesis:

In January of 1876, George and John McDougall and two other men were buffalo hunting north of present-day Calgary. On one clear evening George rode ahead to prepare supper for the others but did not make it to camp. The search lasted for several days during which there was a fierce blizzard. His frozen body was eventually found but there were no clues as to the cause of death. The mystery was that there was no explanation for how an experienced frontiersman could become lost on a clear night. (Carter, Man's Mission of Subjugation, p.20)

John McDougall, George's son who also took up a missionary calling, wrote of the event in the final version of his autobiography. 

When I lifted the shawl and saw the position in which he was frozen I felt whatever may have happened to father toward the last he was conscious and feeling that death was upon him he had picked a spot as level as he could and laid himself out, limbs striaght and hands folded...His face was perfectly natural and there seemed to be an expression upon it of a conscious satisfaction. (John McDougall, Opening the Great West, (Glenbow Institute, Calgary, 1970), 36)

Canadian Methodist missionary writings of the nineteenth century often take a surprisingly positive stance on death.  Oftentimes, the prayers and confessions of dying aboriginal peoples are taken as moments of joy which show the soon-to-be-departed are in transition to a peaceful eternity in heaven. The general report of the Canadian Methodists in 1876-77 stated of their northern missions, "cheering accounts of happy death-bed scenes have been received from the Missions in the north." "Cheering" and "death-bed" seem peculiarly paired. 
53rd Annual Report of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Church of Canada, from June 1876, to June 1877,CIHM 00934-1875-76.

John McDougall

John McDougall seemed to feel the same way of the deaths of those who had converted to Christianity. He wrote of the deaths of two Stoney Nakoda during the year 1874-75: "these were triumphant in the faith, and leaning upon Jesus, they passed from the wretched tent to the Heavenly mansion." In 1891, he wrote of the Stoney Nakoda at Morley, "there have been some very triumphant deaths. The testimonies of some when nearing the 'border land' have been full of assurance and victory."
 ("Fifty-first annual report of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Church of Canada from June 1874 to June 1875." Toronto: Methodist Conference Printing Office 1875. CIHM no 00934-1874-75. and 57th report, 1890-91)

Ironically, George McDougall took death as the topic of a letter he wrote James Ferrier on 6 January 1876, very shortly before he died himself on the plains somewhere near today's Calgary, Alberta.

There is something that strikes on all hearts in the spectacle of a great man's funeral. The hearse, the solemn march of the procession are both very impressive, and yet the subject of all this show may have been heedless of the great salvation, and if so, is now suffering the doom of a lost spirit.[...] Reflections like these often cross the mind of the Indian missionary, as he looks for the last time upon all that is mortal of one of his Sabbath School scholars. In the past twenty five years I have assisted at the burial of hundreds of these little red children; the squirrel now gambols in the boughs of the trees that everhang their graves, and the partridge whistles in the long grass that floats over the solitary place, but the incidents connected with their short pilgrimage cannot be forgotten.

(James Ferrier Canadian Methodist collection, Public Archives of Alberta, PR 1975.0572)

The passage acknowledges the tragic mortality rate of indigenous children attending missionary schools, but seems to rest assured in their eternal salvation.

Monument to George McDougall.
 He is interned in the Wesley Cemetery

Alison Jackson Photograph Collection, AJ 1458

Calgary Public Library

McDougall wrote the piece for a model Sunday School curriculum that Ferrier was organizing, and included the death stories of two aboriginal children.  There is a curious  serendipity to McDougall's morbid topic.  It must have come as a shock to Ferrier to learn, shortly after, if not before he received McDougall's letter, that the famous missionary had departed the mortal realm.

Theodore Roosevelt's Muckrakers, 1906

Theodore Roosevelt's soft hand towards the business trusts, those great demons of turn-of-the-century America, make questionable the president's commitment to reforming American capitalism.  This being said, Historian Richard Hofstadter, no progressive sympathizer, noted that TR's commitment against corruption, civic indifference, and materialism, qualify him in some respects as a progressive.  He certainly is a closer cut to the archetypal reformer than other presidents of his age.

• Title: [Theodore Roosevelt photomontage]
• Creator(s): Underwood & Underwood, photographer
• Date Created/Published: c1908 Jan. 28.LC-USZ62-131821

Roosevelt was wary of the literature of criticism that was emerging in the first decade of the twentieth-century, hoping that a revolutionary sentiment was not overtaking the nation.  In a speech of 1906, Roosevelt coined the term for the growing clamour of expose journalism, exemplified by Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. (Hofstadter, Richard, ed. The Progressive Movement, 1900-1915. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1963, p. 11, 18)

In Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress' you may recall the description of the Man with the Muck-rake, the man who could look no way but downward, with the muck-rake in his hand; who was offered a celestial crown for his muck-rake, but who would neither look up nor regard the crown he was offered, but continued to rake to himself the filth of the floor.
         In 'Pilgrim's Progress' the Man with the Muck-rake is set forth as the example of him whose vision is fixed on carnal instead of on spiritual things.  Yet he also typifies the man who in this life consistently refuses to see aught that is lofty, and fixes his eyes with solemn intents only on that which is vile and debasing. [...] the man who never does anything else, who never thinks or speaks or writes, save of his feats with the muck-rake, speedily become, not a help to society, not an incitement to good, but one of the most potent forces for evil."

(Roosevelt, 14 April 1906)

Louis Rasminksy and Canadian Antisemitism

Rasminsky.Karsh, Bank of Canada Archives (BCP 153-5)  Currency Museum

Louis Rasminsky was one of a key group of bureaucrats who transformed the Canadian state in the Second World War.  Jack Granatstein's The Ottawa Men (1982) notes that Rasminsky was, "one of the architects of the new monetary system" set up at the July 1944 Bretton Woods Conference.  (p. 134) Despite his talent, Rasminsky would face resistance at home due to antisemitism in the civil service.


In 1930, at the tender age of twenty-two, Rasminksy won the job competition for a position at the League of Nations.  Before he headed to Geneva, however, some domestic business needed to be attended to.  Legend has it that Rasminksy sent the following proposal to Lyla Rotenburg: "Have accepted job League of Nations at 13,700 Swiss francs.  Will you marry me?" (p.136)  Her reply was purportedly, "What is exchange rate on Swiss francs?"  She also agreed to become his wife.


As Rasminksy was Jewish, and Canada was far from the tolerant state that some would imagine, the bureaucrat would come across several barriers during his tenure in the civil service.  In 1932, O.D. Skelton, Under-Secretary for the Department of External Affairs wrote of,

...the difficulties which our unavowed but quite effective Canadian anti-semitism places in the way of such men.  When last in Geneva I was much impressed by a young Canadian of Jewish extraction named Rasminiski [sic], a Toronto University graduate, now in the Economic Section of the League Secretariat.  He struck me as having about the most vigorous and clear-cut intellectual equipment I had met in a young man for years.  Clark, Deputy of Minister of Finance was also impressed...and made efforts to secure him for a minor post...As it happened Rasminiski was not prepared to take the post.... Even if he had been willing there would probably have been difficulties because of the prejudice in question. (Granatstein, p. 138)

Despite such resistance, Rasminsky would join the Bank of Canada in 1940.  At the Bretton Woods Conference in July 1944, which established the groundwork for the International Monetary Fund, Rasminsky helped expedite an international consensus which leaned towards the clout of the Americans.  Rasminksy played the role of broker at the conference, and moved away from John Maynard Keynes' suggestions of a supranational currency (the bancor), and towards the system which set up the basis for the IMF and pegged currency values to the American dollar.  The eventually agreement was a compromise between American hopes for freer trade, and British wishes for full employment and stability.

Photo/Scan: Skaha_boY

Rasminsky would later rise to the position of the governor of the Bank of Canada.  Unfortunately in the early 1960s, he was still experiencing trenchant antisemitism from Canadian high society.  The Rideau Club of Ottawa, a long established cloister of the political and business elite, still maintained a policy that Jews could not become members.  In 1964 a group of members would not stand for this continued racism. Rasminsky's name rose as one of four members who must be granted admittance.  As Robert Fulford noted, "the motion passed, and in 1964 one of the institutionalized absurdities of Canadian bigotry vanished."

Sir William Cornelius Van Horne: Prankster, Builder, and Irreverant Pleasure Seeker

William Van Horne was a central figure in the development of the Canadian West.  An American that refused a knighthood three times, before finally accepting the title in 1894, Van Horne worked his way up from modest means. As his father passed away while the boy was young, Van Horne accepted a menial job with a telegraph company.  (Canadian Stories, Kevin Patterson)


One anecdote of these early years related by Kevin Patterson shows that Van Horne could be a bit of a prankster:

Once he ran a ground wire from his employer's office to a steel plate in the [] railway yards - which could be seen from the office he was working in. The wire being charged with electricity, would shock anyone who stepped on it. This was an amusing spectacle for William until his boss stepped on the plate and unlike William's other victims knew about electricity. William was given a serious reprimand for his actions and shown the door.  (Canadian Stories)

Van Horne seen to the left of hammerer Donald Smith.  Van Horne gazes casually down at the completion of the road.

The energetic Van Horne did not let his dismissal stop him from climbing the ranks in the railway business, and he was soon an acknowledged expert in organization and construction.  His role as General Manager of the Canadian Pacific Railway served to solidify his historical reputation, and he posed for the  the most recognized photograph in Canadian history as Donald Smith pounded in the last spike of the road.  As of June 2012, Van Horne's descendants have returned the ceremonial last spike to the public, and it will be held at the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

Glenbow Museum Image No: NA-4432-1
Title: Portrait of W.C. Van Horne.
Date: June 1910

Pierre Berton notes in his popular work The Last Spike that the secret to Van Horne's incredible stamina was explained simply by the man who rose to the CPR's presidency:

"I eat all I can; I drink all I can; I smoke all I can; and I don't give a damn for anything."

Perhaps not an encouraging motto for youngsters.

Glenbow MuseumFile number: NA-2864-1771b-6a
Title: Van Horne students work on school mural, Calgary, Alberta.
Date: May 1967

As a final trivial tidbit, the song Van Horne, by Calgary rock band Chixdiggit!, has absolutely nothing to do with Van Horne himself, and probably refers to a teenage romance surrounding Van Horne high school in north-west Calgary.

Implements and Tariffs: John McDougall vs. the National Policy, 1887

A curious letter of 17 May 1887, from one Duane H. Nash of Millington, New Jersey, to the Reverend John McDougall shows an interesting instance of one American manufacturer's response to the Canadian tariff.  The National Policy tariff had been in place for the better part of decade, hoping to foster Canadian industry, by charging prohibitive levies on American machinery crossing the border.

The American Agriculturalist 1883

Mr. Nash, of the Acme Pulverizing Harrow company, wrote in response to the Reverend McDougall of Morleyville, NWT, that the prices that McDougall had seen quoted were wrong for the North-west Territories.  Nash notes that in response to the Dominion's tariffs, he slashed his prices by $4, bringing the two horse harrow down to $14, and the three-horse harrow down to $17.  As Nash wrote of this tactic, "This is exceedingly low - too low - and there is little or no money in it for me, but owing to the excessive duty levied by your Government I am willing to sell this year at about cost for the purpose of getting them well started there." (McDougall Family Fonds, Glenbow Museum)

Kendallville Standard - Aug 19, 1887

It seems that at least one manufacturer was willing to reduce his profits to establish a market in Canada for agricultural implements.  Perhaps Nash was waiting for a new administration to lower tariffs and reap the rewards of his established product.  Unfortunately for Nash, the 1891 Liberal flirtation with unrestricted reciprocity, (essentially free trade between the US and Canada), would come to naught, and both parties would continue on their protectionist course for some time.