Historian offers compelling lectures

Last night, Dr. Edward Michalik presented a lecture at the Glace Bay Miners’ Museum entitled “1321.” That number represents the number of Cape Breton coal miners killed in the industry over a hundred years.

This was the last in a series of lectures given by Dr. Michalik based on his doctoral thesis “Cape Breton Gothic: A Cultural History of the Coal Fields.”

The lecture “1321,” not unlike “Cape Breton Gothic,” explores the horrific aspects of Cape Breton’s history. One would think that such bleak narratives would be unattractive for an audience already worn by the hardships of day-to-day life in a land systematically dismantled by governments from away. One would hope – if not for happy news – at least happy memories from a historian who so seems to love his home of Cape Breton Island.

But what could be happy about 1,321 people dying in the coal industry, or people starving in the 1930s when coal mines were idle or several thousand Cape Bretoners returning from the First World War with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the subsequent misery inflicted on the starved family members of the dead and maimed?

And yet, here is the genius of Dr. Michalik, a historian with a compelling narrative, and we cannot help but be drawn to listen.

Dr. Michalik was interviewed on CBC radio in the winter of 2017. This was in advance of his lecture at the Old Sydney Society. The topic again was Cape Breton and that time the Gothic theme settled on Cape Bretoners cycle of at times choosing to fight the governments from away and at other times siding with them in order to eat.

His presentation was foremost historically accurate, generated by years of research, but its approach to 19th and 20th century Cape Breton was breathtaking. At times he allowed our history to be seen as with a telescope and on a world stage from afar. At other times, he used painstaking and factual closeness as if Cape Breton was under a microscope.

Using his love of literature, and philosophy, in addition to expertise in world history, Dr. Michalik in just a few brief minutes was able to explain Cape Bretoners to themselves. And despite his focusing on the harshest aspects of our history, his story was the balm of self-understanding, and an erudite and uplifting explanation of who we are.

Would that Cape Breton University hire him and their history department welcome him. If an academic institution is to serve its people, it ought first to assist them in understanding themselves. A learned faculty and administration should be in search of those rare historians who, when explaining even the rawest aspects of our history, offer us dignity and edification in its telling.

Such is the case with Dr. Michalik and we can only hope that his studies continue and we, over the years, be enlightened by them. John Rogers Glace Bay