Changing Regional Perceptions Through Theatre

The final piece in a series by Guest Blogger Garrett M. Ryan

What do you think of when you think of Northern Ontario? Lots of snow? Moose? Jackpines? The warmth of the Shabbos candles on frigid December nights? No? Let’s go back a little. 

This above quote is a line from my currently in development theatrical script entitled Fuil, which follows the intersecting journeys of three Northern Ontarian men, one of whom is a Rabbi who runs a historical synagogue on the outskirts of Kirkland Lake, where the Jewish population has virtually vanished. While this production itself is a work of fiction, although with certain autobiographical aspects, the Jewish history of Northern Ontario is anything but fiction. In fact, there has been (or perhaps had been) a rich Jewish presence in the region from the early days of expansion northwards from the mining and railroad industry. However, when one thinks of the primary founding ethnic groups of Northern Ontario, Jews are very rarely in the conversion. We think of the French, the Scottish, the Irish, the English, and perhaps the Italians as well. This is not to mention the historical revisionism that presents itself within the lack of representation of the Indigenous presence in the region for millenia prior, however this is a separate issue in and of itself which I am certainly not qualified to write about. So, as someone who is both proudly Northern Ontarian and proudly Jewish, I sought to write this play which could stand testament to the deep rooted Jewish history of the north, and I want to talk about how this concept developed for me as a theatre creator and why I think work in this vein could aid in both revitalizing and reshaping Northern Ontarian arts and culture. 

Image Description: Garrett M. Ryan, wearing a blue shirt and jeans with a beige kippah on his head, reads from a script in front of a screen in a studio space, projected on which is an image of an old synagogue. He is workshopping a scene from the aforementioned script in development. 

Truthfully, it should have been rather obvious to me growing up that such a Jewish presence had existed in Northern Ontario, or at least in North Bay where I spent the majority of my childhood. In our downtown core, for my entire life, there has stood an old synagogue called the Sons of Jacob Synagogue, which at present remains slightly decrepit and abandoned from the outside, though the inside is quite beautiful and services do indeed occur, albeit rather infrequently on the high holidays. If I was a more observant person, which to my dismay I often am not, I should have noted that the presence of an old synagogue would have subsequently indicated a historical Jewish presence. In fact, Sons of Jacob is older than me, my parents, and my grandparents! According to the synagogue’s website, the building first became used by the Jewish population in 1925 which was the same year North Bay became incorporated as an official city. This is not only older than my own family’s presence in North Bay, but older than the majority of family’s histories in North Bay and older than the vast majority of the churches that remain notable historical landmarks of the city. We often see things differently through other people’s eyes, and that was what occurred when I first gave my now fiancée a tour of my hometown, and we wound up in the cemetery that my great-grandmother had been buried in. It was while walking through the rows of stones searching for my family plots that my Jewish fiancée noted a number of stones written in Hebrew, some of whom had died nearly a century prior! In fact, during this same journey of discovery the two of us noted a number of names of not only Jews, but many Chinese folks as well from around the same time period. It had always been a sort of ignorant presupposition of mine that the history of Northern Ontario was white and Catholic, and any diversity came from families that had immigrated in more recent years. However, in the case of the Jews, as noted by a very interesting JTA article entitled “On a Jewish Tour of Northern Ontario”, we even see Hebrew cemeteries such as the one in Krugerdorf from as early as 1905! And this is what propelled me into taking the journey with this script to explore an often unexplored aspect of Northern Ontarian history in relation to my own Jewish identity in the 21st century. 

Image Description: The Sons of Jacob Synagogue in North Bay. A faded beige walled building with a brown brick roof. The arched windows each have a Star of David featured on the sides.

As can perhaps obviously be discerned by the way I am speaking about the Jewish history of Northern Ontario, the population had gradually decreased to insignificant numbers as many Jews made their way from the north to the south as opportunity shifted. Evidently, this does not mean that the population has vanished completely, but it certainly isn’t what it once was, and due to this, many folks including myself were never taught about the history of the Jews there. Although not my story nor the focus of this play I am developing, the same can be said for the Chinese population, many of whom continued trekking west while working on the railway, which is of course a notably awful history. Simply put, without folks from the community left to tell their stories, the stories slowly disappear, leaving only a trace of the people that once were. It is within this mass exodus of Jews from Northern Ontario in which my production is situated, at least with the story of my character of the Rabbi. The work that I have done thus far, which has only barely scratched the surface of the places I would like to go with this script, has already opened my eyes so much to the untold stories that continue to haunt Northern Ontario. It has been a lovely mix of the historical research and my own personal explorations that have contributed to this script, as well as some incredible conversations with Jews who have done some of this research into their family histories in Northern Ontario. 

So, I hear you asking, why is this type of work important? Of course, the common argument in producing diverse works of theatre is for folks to see themselves represented on stage or on screen (or whatever other medium). In this case however, I am working on a sort of historical representation. Again, the communities themselves are certainly still present in Northern Ontario, but the numbers are very small, and therefore one may question the importance of this work. If it serves to represent only a small and select few, how is it valuable? Well, first things first, I believe that even if a diverse story serves to allow a single person to see themselves represented in media, that constitutes a success. However, I want to answer that question from another perspective, one that goes beyond only the Jewish history of Northern Ontario and beyond the scope of Northern Ontario itself, into any rural / remote or rather homogenous community in the province. We are seeing more and more immigrants moving into areas outside of the traditional cities such as Toronto or Ottawa. There’s the Northern Pilot Project in the Northern Ontarian context which has brought many newcomers to Canada into various cities in the region, in order to rehabilitate the economy with new willing and enthusiastic workers. In even the smallest communities, I have met a variety of newcomers to Canada participating in all facets of life. However, from conversations I have had, many are left to feel as though they are entering into a homogenous society built off a communal history that is difficult to penetrate. What I hope to showcase in Fuil, and what I hope other scripts which showcase the diverse and unspoken histories of rural / remote Ontario, is that no individual group of people (Indigenous notwithstanding) has more of a claim than others on the culture of a given city or town, neither in the present nor in looking at history. In an era of increased white supremacy and cultural chauvinism in Canada, I strongly believe that we need stories like this to combat these narratives in order to welcome diversity and make our province stronger for it. I look forward to getting this production up on its feet in front of an audience sometime, and I am so excited for other stories like it to challenge my perceptions of my own Canadian / Northern Ontarian identity and open up my eyes to all the stories of Canadian / Ontarian life that make up the great quilt of our province and country.