The Bank of Blanda strikes again

So I read where they've issued a new $100 bill -- God rest, Robert Borden, even if you did knock back free trade 80 years -- and that radical changes are afoot. It seems it has finally occured to someone in Ottawa that the country is populated by something other than wildlife. Accordingly, CBC reports, "the back of the $100 note will no longer feature a Canada goose. It has been replaced with a new theme -- 'innovation and exploration' through mapping." Well this sounds encouraging, I think. The exploration and opening up of Canada is a heroic story, with few parallels in the history of mankind. Perhaps a picture of David Thompson the Mapmaker, or Sir Alexander Mackenzie ("from Canada, by land" to the furthest frozen corner of the North-west), or La Vérendrye, who made it all the way to the top of Lake Winnipeg and halfway down the Missouri besides. You know, heroes. No, no, and no. Rather, this: The same people who turned Canada's ferocious war record into a collection of standing mutes, who extracted every ounce of vitality or menace from the game of hockey, have brought you this impenetrable gloss on the greatest story ever told, in which no actual people appear. Apparently, it was all done with wires. It's so predictable, so wearying, and so strangely consonant with everything else that's going on. It is the bureaucratization of everything into a bland, lifeless mush. Bleh. But then, perhaps it's best our heroes were left in peace. Look what happens to them when they are disinterred. Here is the account of Sir Alex's epic voyage on the Histori.ca website, in what is described as a lesson plan for teachers:

Mackenzie was reliant on First Nations for survival and guidance in the Canadian wilderness. They played a significant role in his travels, and it is questionable whether or not he would have achieved his goal of reaching the Pacific without their assistance. His achievements for European civilization were great, but so were the pain and anguish felt by the Aboriginal communities who were destroyed by those who would follow Mackenzie's routes. Students should remember that although Mackenzie's discoveries are impressive he would not have succeeded without the support of First Nations who for thousands of years lived on the land he set out to "discover."

It goes on and on in this tedious, tendentious vein. This, from the people who describe their mission as "to engage our young people in the fascinating stories that make our country unique." Well, as the child said, I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it. UPDATE: The peripatetic Andrew Potter has actually been to Mackenzie's Pacific terminus. "I made a pilgrimage to Bella Coola last summer on the anniversary of his arrival," he reports. "And what do you know? The local native band is actually proud of the reception they gave Al, and proud of their place in the history of his journey." For more of an exceptionally scholarly Donnybrook, click on the Comments link below. UPPERDATE: Not coincidentally, the banknotes our new $100 most closely resembles are those in the Euro denomination, with their hilariously chillingly placeless images of buildings and bridges that do not exist. An example:
UPPESTDATE: By way of contrast, here are some of the actual flesh-and-blood people currently or recently featured on the Bank of England's notes (in addition to the Queen, of course, dei gratia): Sir Isaac Newton The Duke of Wellington George Stephenson (of Stephenson's "Rocket" fame) Elizabeth Fry (the prison reformer) Florence Nightingale Charles Dickens Charles Darwin William Shakespeare Michael Faraday Sir Edward Elgar Christopher Wren That is what a country that takes pride in its history does. That is what a country that remembers its history does. (Incidentally I see my old LSE professor Mervyn King was made the governor of the Bank of England last summer. Good for him: at least he's making a decent salary now. Readers of Michael Lewis's Liar's Poker will recall a scene where the young grad student informs his professor that he has been hired to work on Wall Street, at the then astronomical salary of $250,000 (if memory serves). The professor, whom he describes as being "at the top of his profession, as I was at the bottom of mine," blanches: he would have been making, oh, $50,000. I was at LSE with Lewis, and I am convinced it was King: he often talked wistfully about his old classmate Fischer Black, who'd gone on to immense wealth on Wall Street as a designer of impossibly complicated hedging instruments -- one of the original "rocket scientists.") UPPESTDATER: The old Banque de France notes, before they were suppressed, were also marvellous. I remember there was one with Delacroix. Can anyone fill me in on the rest? UPPESTDATEST: A list of all the banknotes of France instantly and obligingly provided by regular correspondent "Paul". (From -- of course -- banknotes.com.) They include: Eiffel Cezanne A. de Saint-Exupery Pascal Montesquieu de la Tour Debussy Berlioz Corneille Voltaire Pasteur Racine the Curies Hugo Napoleon Richelieu Chateaubriand Descartes By way of contrast, here is the list of Canadian banknotes. Or to make the point more explicit, which do you prefer, this, or this? This, or this? YOUR SUGGESTIONS PLEASE: Who, in a saner world, would we honour on Canada's banknotes? Or coins? We've already got Macdonald and Laurier and King and Borden, of course (two Liberals, two Tories: how neat). Who else? Soldiers? Statesmen? Writers? Inventors? Explorers? My nominees would include George Brown and Sir William Osler. Who else? Banting and Best? Billy Bishop? The Valour Road trio (for those unaware: three men from the same street in Winnipeg won the Victoria Cross in WWI)? The Group of Seven?