A Sixties Scrapbook, Volume 14 #1

Theme Park for a Happy Future

Canada celebrated the hundredth anniversary of confederation in 1967 with some large projects--the Trans-Canada Highway, the National Arts Centre in Ottawa (delivered later)--and with smaller flag-waving-and-fireworks occasions in every village and city. But the most expansive expression of the centenary was Expo 67, a class A-1 world's fair built on Île Sainte-Hélène and Île Notre-Dame in the St. Lawrence River at Montreal.

While the Trans-Canada Highway endures for our use today, Expo, transitional like the stages of our lives, is long past. But in its year it was a joyous and wondrous festival. We felt we were a young nation, and like a strong youth we hosted the rest of the world. We weren't shy to meet them, and we were embraced by the attention, affection and admiration of the nations.

I had moved to Montreal the summer before and could watch the physical construction of the fair site from a distance. This building process was an important experience for Canada, but more particularly for the province of Quebec and the city of Montreal. The coming of age of the Quiet Revolution was being confirmed in the eyes of the world.

What took shape was a futuristic utopian city of buildings, streets, waterways, parks and public squares. It felt very new. It was the way life could be, or so the designers thought. Some of the individual buildings, such as Bucky Fuller's geodesic dome, were the cutting edge of architectural thinking. The harmony of overall space, water and buildings was the main statement. These islands were to be a microcosm of the world: many nations, many languages, many cultures, but the one great harmony of humanity. The title seemed to sum it up: Man and His World/Terre des hommes. (But it would never be used today.)

When the fair finally opened we were not disappointed. The millions from the world came, mainly Americans but many others too. We locals began to take it in stride: "I saw the chairman of the Soviet Union today." We bought the "passport" that allowed entry for the full six months, studied our maps and lists, and planned our visits as one might plan a European holiday. We wanted to see and hear and smell and taste everything. I still remember a baroque altarpiece in the Belgian pavilion, the Alexander Calder statue in the great square, and the space capsule in the U.S. pavilion. In the Iraqi pavilion I experienced the beauty of Islam for the first time. The world was a wonderful place: at least this microcosm of it told us so. I had never before had an opportunity to take it all in.

But we were younger then. A look back from almost thirty years later provides a more critical view of what the theme park for a happy future really relied on: unfailing technology. Our ingenuity would conquer all; "Man in Control," as one of the theme pavilions proclaimed.

Now I feel older and my country seems much older. The island site is still there but it is much stripped down and now houses a casino. More important, we seem incapable of making the promised political and social changes as a country and our energy and care are measured out by deficits. Do we care any more what we can offer to the the rest of the world? Can we age so quickly? But this heady remembering of that miraculous summer of 1967 awakens again the hope of global peace, Canada's modest place in the world, and our need for maximum openness to diversity, beauty, the spirit and what is different in the other. Concern for the future is still a human theme.

David Eley SJ is a member of Compass's Publishing Policy Committee, director of the Loyola Peace Institute and a chaplain at Concordia University in Montreal.