History or Heritage?

Someone I respect recently asked me why I call the research, storytelling, and writing I do for GanWalking “heritage.” “Wouldn’t people find it easier if you called it historical? We know what that is.” I’m sure my response of “perhaps” sounded unconvinced. A few days later, I found myself researching historic vs heritage. What I found pleased me and was interesting enough that I decided to share it.

According to Merriam Webster, historic is “of, relating to, or having the character of history,” or “based on history.” That explained some of my resistance. I do not consider myself an historian. I understand facts and dates are of considerable importance when dealing with history. Numbers are difficult things for me, my dyslexia makes it hard to remember them and I often mix them up when I repeat them. 1890 is not 1980. I understand that, but expect my brain not to use them interchangeably and life gets humorous at best.

So, what is heritage? How is it different from history? Why do I feel I work with heritage not history? This quote from a blog post of the American Association for State and Local History helped to explain it for me.

“. . . This is where heritage and history collide and part ways.
Heritage: something that comes or belongs to one by reason of birth; an inherited lot or portion . . .

History: a continuous, systematic narrative of past events as relating to a particular people, country, period, person, etc., usually written as a chronological account.

Our personal and collective narratives tend to be handed to us as part of our birth right, our heritage. These narratives, comprised of how one’s ancestors fit into heroic stories of perseverance and bravery, are told at the knee of a relative or as part of a community heritage group.”

Researching Gananoque is difficult. There are annoyingly few books on the subject. It's something that produced one of the stories I enjoy telling about why I started GanWalking.

In my first few years living in Gan, I haunted second hand bookstores hoping to find books devoted to local history – specifically about Gananoque. The owner of Kingston’s Berry & Peterson enthusiastically set aside local history books for me. After about a year though, he grew tired of hearing some form of, “Yeah, I’ve seen that one, not enough in it about Gan though.” Finally one day in frustration he said to me, “Well, why don’t you write the book then.” I contemplated it for a moment and said, “But I don’t want to write a history book.” He chuckled and said, “Neither did anyone else.” I have come to believe that is because Gananoque was founded as an industrial town. History was not a priority, industry was. River Rats and summer visitors had adventures and stories, but they were not people who wrote of history either.

Gananoque’s industrial heritage has been and still is wonderfully photogenic.

It turns out that I am happy to write articles and tell stories of Gananoque found in the scattered oral tradition of the town. I delight in providing a place for them to gather and be found. “They’re not history,” the people who share them say. “Nobody will be interested.”

People are interested, mostly because they aren’t “history.” Gathered as GanWalking are stories of residents of Gananoque, narratives of the people who have lived in Gananoque, heroic stories of everyday life, and only occasionally history. As important as the heritage buildings and stories of well-known families of Gananoque’s past are to us in Gan, mostly they were not part of notable Canadian history or Ontario history, except as industrial and tourism history. It makes them no less valuable, but their value is in our enjoyment of them.

By Sherry L.B. Johnson

Sherry Johnson lives in Gananoque and is a writer and researcher, for GanWalking, which is focused on heritage storytelling, research and building a strong accessible research and genealogy community. Sherry has provided over half-dozen articles for TI Life. Each one provides a window of research on this small and proud Ontario Town.

Editor's Note: As another non-historian - but passionate about history - I want to thank Sherry for her interesting essays. Years ago, I started researching the history of the Thousand Islands. One day I found a book in the Westmount Library in Quebec. The Picturesque St. Lawrence River, by Jno A. Haddock and I was devastated. Suddenly there was a book with ALL THE HISTORY. Was my quest over? No. As upset as I was, I soon discovered it was only the tip of the iceberg, and now many years later I know, for a fact, that there is a lot more under that tip. TI Life proves it.