“…why did we let the Mounties get away with all those crimes?” he asks, referring to a scandal of the day. For a book written in 1982 (the first letter is dated April 17, the day the Constitution Act was signed), it’s amazing how much of what he says still resonates. The book takes the form of letters written to Sam, an American friend with little knowledge of his northern neighbour. Now apparently out of print, it’s an eloquent and surprisingly undated analysis of those myths and experiences that shaped the national character. In most of his books, Berton examines what it means to be Canadian and where that sense of national pride originates but, to my knowledge, Why We Act Like Canadians is the only volume entirely devoted to this study. Indeed, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a home library in Canada that doesn’t have at least one of his history books, usually The Last Spike (personally, I’m partial to Vimy and Marching As to War).

In his account of this great battle, Pierre Berton brilliantly illuminated the moment of tragedy and greatness that marked Canada's emergence as a nation.When I started this blog in January, the first book I reviewed was Canadians by Roy MacGregor, noting that “I have a particular weakness for navel-gazing books about Canada and the elusive Canadian identity.” While MacGregor wrote eloquently on the topic, there is no author who has done more to articulate the Canadian experience than Pierre Berton. He tells of the soldiers who endured horrific conditions to secure this great victory, painting a vivid picture of trench warfare. How could an army of civilians from a nation with no military tradition secure the first enduring victory in thirty-two months of warfare with only 10,000 casualties, when the French had lost 150,000 men in their unsuccessful attempt? Pierre Berton's haunting and lucid narrative shows how, unfettered by military rules, civilians used daring and common sense to overcome obstacles that had eluded the professionals.ĭrawing on unpublished personal accounts and interviews, Berton brings home what it was like for the young men, some no more than sixteen years old, who clawed their way up the sodden, shell-torn slopes in a struggle they innocently believed would make war obsolete. Within hours, they held in their grasp what had eluded both British and French armies in over two years of fighting: they had seized the best-defended German bastion on the Western Front. One chill Easter dawn in 1917, a blizzard blowing in their faces, the four divisions of the Canadian Corps in France went over the top of a muddy scarp knows as Vimy Ridge.

Vimy by Pierre Berton