What are the things about Dundas that we really want to remember?
Understanding our history will make our community memorable in ways that matter
The first house my partner and I bought was at the corner of Hatt Street and Peel Street, a small white cottage with pine plank floors and a glorious sprawling perennial garden.
In the years between then and now I have come to have great affection for this community called Dundas. I love the winding hiking trails, the majestic escarpment, the regular rumble and swish of the trains. I love the warmth of the greetings at India Village and the library and Picone’s. I love the studio tours, the chance to see each year what beauty can be made by the people of this place.
And yet Dundas is more than these things, and at this present moment people all over southern Ontario are learning about aspects of the history of our communities that are much less pretty than many of us knew.
In the book “A North-Side View of Slavery,” Benjamin Drew gathered the stories of fugitive slaves in Can- ada, “narrated by themselves.” Sophia Pooley was one of the contributors. She was over 90 years old at the time of the telling, and she begins by letting us know that she was stolen from her parents and brought to Canada at the age of seven. She tells a difficult and fascinating story that includes this line: “At 12 years old, I was sold by Brant to an Englishman in Ancaster, for one hundred dollars — his name was Samuel Hatt.”
So the street sign that marks the site of my first home in Dundas is also a tribute to a man who bought a 12-year-old girl.
Samuel Hatt was not exceptional, and many of the landmarks in southern Ontario pay homage to people who owned slaves. The question many of us are asking is: as we come to know a fuller story about these landmarks, how should we respond?
Councillor Arlene VanderBeek has considered this question, and answered with the slogan that pushed back against amalgamation — “Dundas forever!”
When VanderBeek rallies us in this way we have to ask, which Dundas does she mean? What is she trying to make lasting, what does she want to preserve, about this place?
I expect that the Dundas VanderBeek has in mind is the Dundas I describe in the first lines of this article.
But her claim that this community is welcoming and inclusive is profoundly undermined when she refuses to take seriously the present-day significance of these landmarks.
Our Dundas neighbours have explained how the names of these landmarks harm them. In her inattention to this harm, VanderBeek makes this harm lasting, preserves it and allows it to continue.
In the same way that I’m grateful to the volunteers who maintain the hiking trails and organize the studio tours I appreciate the people who are making a fuller history of Dundas visible. All of these people are giving their time and attention to important things we all share.
Their efforts help us understand that we have choices about the things we want to be “forever” here.
It is not a problem that I think of Hatt Street fondly as the site of our first home, as the place where wild roses spilled across the picket fence.
It is a problem if I refuse to know Hatt Street in any other way, or from any other standpoint.
If we want to be (or believe we are) a community that would welcome Sophia Pooley we can take inspiration from other proud communities that have acknowledged and grappled with legacies of racism. The National Film Board documentary “Speakers for the Dead” explores what happens in Priceville after a farmer buries the tombstones of a Black cemetery, and Black and white descendants of the original settlers come together to restore it. A CBC interview with Cindy Blackstock, executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, describes the process of creating a new plaque on Duncan Campbell Scott’s grave, one that described his role in creating Canada’s residential school system alongside his contributions as a poet and public servant. I’m sure Spec readers know of more examples.
Whatever we believe about the specific question of renaming Hatt Street, or Dundas, this moment offers us an opportunity. Choosing a fuller understanding of the landmarks around us and the values they carry, and taking greater care in how we respond to the debate about them now, will make us better neighbours — will make us the kind of community we’d want to be forever.