Leslie Robbins-Conway and Paul Conway, Storytellers
Coach House, Green College, UBC
Tuesday, November 28, 5-6:30 pm, with reception to follow
in the series
Green College Special Lecture
Before John Maynard Keynes there was Stephen Leacock. Before John Ralston Saul there was Stephen Leacock. Before Margaret Atwood there was Stephen Leacock. Before Rex Murphy there was Stephen Leacock. Before all those Leacock Medal winners there was Stephen Leacock. Before Stephen Leacock there was nobody like him. What is left of him now, after eighty years? This will be the culminating talk in a series of presentations retracing Stephen Leacock’s 1936-37 tour of Western Canada. For information on other stages of the “Re-tour” of Stephen Leacock, go to www.voyageurstorytelling.ca
Stephen Leacock was a professor at McGill University, a political scientist, writer and humorist. In 1936, he embarked on an extended lecture tour of Western Canada, from Port Arthur to Victoria. Leacock's account of his Tour won the 1937 Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction. You can download a free copy of the eBook here.
What did Leacock say about Vancouver?
Vancouver is a wonder city. There will be a million people in it in twenty years. It has the combined excellence of nature's gift and man's handiwork. God did a lot for Montreal, but man didn't add to it. Quebec is historical and has a majesty of situation, but a lot of it is squalid: Toronto,—I come from there myself, so I have the right to insult it,—Toronto is a village and always will be, if it spreads out a hundred miles wide: the prairie cities are impressive in their isolation and extension—fill in houses and they will be wonderful—but Vancouver is wonderful right now.
My Discovery of the West: A discussion of east and west in Canada (Thomas Allen, 1937)
This fall, Leslie Robbins-Conway and Paul Conway are re-tracing his footsteps, on their Leacock re-Tour, which concludes with the lecture at Green College on November 28.
Leslie Robbins-Conway was raised and educated in Toronto, and lived for a year in Israel before returning in 1971 to Toronto where for the next 27 years she raised her family and worked first as a teacher, later as a professional storyteller and founder of Jewish Storytelling Arts. In 1998 she moved to Yellowknife where she and Paul Conway formed their partnership, Voyageur Storytelling.
Paul Conway was raised in Huntsville, Ontario, educated in Canada and abroad, and lived for 25 years, from 1971 until 1996, in Edmonton, Alberta, where he raised his family. In 1996 he moved to Yellowknife to re-build a failing Family Service agency, a project that took three years. Leslie joined him in 1998.