[Dr. Young is with the Department of History at the University of New Brunswick; the following talk was delivered at the Atlantic Studies Conference at UNB in May 1994. We are pleased to accept Dr. Young's offer to reprint it here, together with some additional material that he has collected about the beginnings of our own organization.]

The papers presented in 1974 made Canada aware that historical scholarship in these provinces was putting on seven-league boots and was ready to take a place in the forefront of regional studies in this country. The very fact that so many excellent papers were available may be taken as an indication that the holding such a conference was an idea whose time had come. But it takes ingenuity, energy and persistence to turn an idea into an institution. That came from Professor Phil Buckner, the founding editor of Acadiensis, the first number of which had appeared two and a half years earlier.

Acadiensis and Atlantic Studies Conferences have gone hand in hand since that time. The third conference, called The Grand Chautauqua of 1978, was a joint venture with Western Canadian historians, with sessions in Calgary in February and in Fredericton in April. Since then Atlantic Studies has made its way from one university or college to another. Somehow, thanks to Phil Buckner's secret potion from A Midsummer Night's Dream, or more probably from The Tempest, it found its way to Bermuda in mid-winter 1984. Almost as exotic was the conference's visit to the University of Edinburgh in 1988.

In 1969, five years before these biennial sessions were instituted, the intellectual stirrings at various campuses led historians from across the Atlantic Provinces and the University of Maine to come together for discussions. News still travelled slowly twenty-five years ago and awareness of the revolution under way in scholarly endeavours in these parts had not yet reached some historical circles in Upper Canada.

I remember sitting beside Prof. Jules Leger of the University of Moncton during one of the sessions of that March 1969 meeting. An Ontario colleague was declaiming on the platform. After a time Jules handed me the printed copy of a paper he had brought with him. It was the recently published text of an article by another Ontario professor, and miracle of miracles, it was word for word the same as the paper we were listening to.

According to the press release at that time, "the idea for the formation of an Association [of Atlantic Provinces historians] was generated simultaneously by UNB and Dalhousie." What that means is that James K. Chapman and John Flint had put their heads together. Dr. Chapman did not take office, Dr. Flint became the acting president and Jules Leger agreed to act as secretary. They organized the founding meeting where a constitution was adopted. It was held at St. Mary's University in March 1970.

Jules Leger also made the arrangements for the first annual meeting, held in Moncton that autumn, Jules was New Brunswick's representative on the Canadian Historic sites and Monuments Board. He and his wife Jackie were killed when a plane chartered by that Board crashed in Labrador in 1978, a tragic loss to our whole historical community.

The Moncton meeting he organized set the tone of delightful informality at get-togethers of historians in this region. That meeting was notable in being entertained by a concert featuring Edith Butler and for an announcement from Phil Buckner that arrangements had been made for launching a journal of Atlantic Provinces Studies.

The Atlantic Association of Historians was organized as an inter-university group representing all fields of history. Its annual autumn meetings were concerned with the teaching of history and with improving facilities for carrying on historical research. A forum was still required for the presentation and discussion of scholarly papers on the region -- This need was filled by the institution of these Atlantic Studies conferences.

Not that Atlantic Studies was ignored at Association meetings. The 1971 meeting in Charlottetown was memorable for a panel discussion featuring Professor Stewart MacNutt upholding the cause of Maritime Union against opponents from Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and the Acadian community. It was Stewart MacNutt at his rambunctious parliamentary best. It was Stewart that was rarely seen, but he dearly loved a knock 'em down, drag 'em out debate. I can still hear his voice as he led his provincial critics in a direction where he was able to deliver a quietus by quoting an aphorism from the discussions on the 1860s __ "The smaller the holes, the faster the rats."

It was not mere chance that brought Stewart MacNutt to UNB shortly after World War II, nor was it mere chance that once here he dedicated so much time and effort to research in the history of New Brunswick and of these north-eastern provinces. The invitation to UNB came from Dr. Alfred Goldsworthy Bailey. Some months earlier Dr. Bailey had written an Introduction to what he hoped would be a series of historical monographs on the region. It was in intent a charter, a call for the study of historical documents, in order to reach an understanding of "the forces that impinge upon and affect the course of life in this area." In planning the new Canada that was promised at the end of the war, historical studies were vital," he said, "to supplement the works of scholars in economics and other related fields." It was necessary to create an "intellectual ferment." "Without it," he argued, "there can be little hope of progress towards the realization of a better life for all."

Dr. Bailey's vision of half a century ago has been approached, milestone by milestone, over the years. The 1974 conference was a significant milestone on the road.

Memory plays strange tricks __ what it chooses to put in storage is often only incidental to the main action. My most vivid recollection of 1974 is of a very brief exchange between two very senior and very eminent Canadians __ Dr. Eugene Forsey, the extremely clever analyst and historian of labour, and Dr. Milton Gregg, VC, who at one stage of his life had been Mr. St. Laurent's Minister of Labour. In a gentle, polite way, Dr. Gregg took Dr. Forsey to task for belittling another member of parliament from Cape Breton in the 1940s. In Eugene Forsey's world, statistics were quarried from the same bedrock as the ten commandments. They were sacred. For Clarie Gillis statistics were figures of speech, words the lent themselves to being transformed into hyperbole and he used them to great effect in getting the media to pay attention to labour's problems. Part of Eugene's commentary at one of the 1974 sessions was taken up with a comedy sketch of Clarie's use of statistics. It was extremely amusing, a very high level of music hall comedy, but Milton Gregg looked upon it as a cruel caricature and he spoke up to point out that Clarie Gillis was far and away the most effective voice for labour in Canadian politics.

I suppose I remember the incident because I shared Milton Gregg's respect for Clarie Gillis, and my laughter at Eugene's wit was accompanied by pain at hearing Claire represented as a buffoon. But I suspect that I also remember it because it was refreshing to see an 82-year-old non-historian stand up and remind a 70-year-old icon that the power in the hands and tongues of historians carries with it an obligation to be fair in exercising their power over the reputations of those who can no longer defend themselves.

Dr. Alfred Goldsworthy Bailey still makes his way up the hill every day in 1994 as he has since 1938. A quarter of a century ago he wrote a poem, the first line of which is "I have to go up that hill again this morning". It ends by declaring the faith that underlay his emphasis on the need for regional history, his faith "That knowledge was in itself a good and would bear issue in season, as did the earth around us and keep us whole."

One aspect of our regional background that intrigued Dr. Bailey was the extent that we shared a geographic territory and a historical background with the people of New England. He instituted colonial American studies at UNB. A closer liaison developed between the history departments here and at the University of Maine in the 1960s. Visits between scholars from Atlantic Provinces and the University of Maine became frequent after the establishment of the New England __ Atlantic Provinces Study Center at Orono in 1966. Dr. Alice Stewart gave her support to the founding of the Atlantic Association of Historians and the University of Maine was a full and very welcome participant at sessions of the Association and of the Atlantic Studies Conference from the beginning.

There are some early records of the Association in the archives of the Harriet Irving Library, UNB. When I looked at them in 1994 they were scattered in two different sets of papers. I asked that they be combined into a single file but I don't know whether this was done.

21 March 1969

Conference of historians at UNB organized by James K. Chapman and John Flint, chairmen of the History Department of UNB and Dalhousie. According to a news release: "The idea for formation of an association was generated simultaneously by UNB and Dalhousie."

Reports from several departments agreeing that an association was desirable were received by John Flint, acting chairman, James K. Chapman, April-June 1969. These included the university of Maine, Orono, where Alice Stewart had established the New England - Atlantic Provinces Study Center in 1966.

6 March 1970

Founding meeting at St. Mary's University adopted a constitution and appointed John Flint interim chairman and Jules Leger of the University of Moncton interim secretary. Following the meeting an effort to conduct a postal ballot to elect officers failed.

1 November 1970

Meeting in Moncton convened by Jules Leger. In the absence of John Flint due to illness, Roy Haines of Dalhousie acted as chairman. At this meeting it was emphasized that the Association was intended to represent all historians and not just those whose primary interest was in the Atlantic region.

2 February 1971

Call for nominations for positions on the executive sent to history Departments, balloting to be conducted by mail. Notice sent to members on April 6 declaring that the following had been elected by acclamation: Murray Young, chairman, Brian Tennyson, secretary and Judith Fingard, Treasurer.

19-21 November 1971

Annual meeting at Charlottetown. It was expected to coincide with the appearance of the first number of Acadiensis, but the journal didn't appear until some weeks later. I think that it was at this meeting that the first session of representatives of the department was convened. The executive was directed to examine the feasibility of coordinating visits of visiting lecturers to the region.