Was Karl May in Canada? The Works of Max Otto: A German Writer’s “Absurd Picture of Canada”

A German Writer's "Absurd Picture o f Canada" Historically, Canada was a country that most Germans associated with wild animals, an abundance o f nature, and Indians.Ever since Hessian mercenaries aided Great Britain during the American War o f Independence, there was an awareness o f Canada in Germany.Even the German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) profes.sedan interest in this new country.'Traditionally, Canada was admired in Germany as a country o f immense size that offered new possibilities for many emigrants.^Prior to World War One (W W I) Dr. Hammann-Perleberg noted that "for most o f those that belong to the educated elite Canada is hardly more than a geographical expression."^Shortly after W W I a German civilian wrote, "Canada is very little known over here.Indeed, during the war when Canadian troops were mentioned one could hear among common people that they took them for red Indians in feathers and war paint.""*More recent writers, including Boeschenstein, wrote that some German authors commenting on Canada "felt themselves commissioned -to see and say what Germany wanted to hear."'Helfried W. Seliger followed a similar line o f thought stating that German literature on Canada written between the World Wars fell into two basic categories.One was the traditional travel account presented by such individuals as Nazi sympathizer Colin Ross, or Lutheran emigration consultant Hermann Wagner; the other was that o f a hunter or trapper in remote areas.O f the second category, a good example can be found in the works o f Max Otto, who.se writings perpetuated stereotypes o f Canada.Seliger stated that such writers were more skilled with a gun than a pen and once their vendetta against Canadian wildlife had ended, they felt compelled to preserve their victims in literary form, "invariably, these writers concentrated on those aspects which had always intrigued the European armchair traveller who searched for things his own environment no longer could provide: the wide open spaces, the vast forests, wild waterways and pristine lakes as yet untouched by the threatening advance o f civilization."^O tto emigrated from the German state o f Saxony in 1912, intending to spend three years in Canada.His intent was to explore the forests and experience the hunting and trapping prospects in western Canada.Little is known o f Otto's education or personal background in Germany, but he quit his job as a forester to experience life abroad.In keeping with O tto's purportedly masculine character, he intended to settle in the northern wilderness and test his prowess as a fur trapper and hunter.He specifically chose the western Canadian province o f Alberta.With the advent o f W W I, his threeyear residence abroad turned into, in O tto's own words, "a nine-year adventure."^This article will look at Max O tto's alleged experiences in the Canadian province o f Alberta between 1912 and 1921 as portrayed in his four major books.These are In kan adisch er W ildnis (In the Canadian Wilderne.ss),1923; Trapper u ndFarm erleh en in kan adisch er W ildnis (Trapper and Farmer Life in the Canadian Wilderness), 1925; In K a n a d a s U rw aldem u n d Prdrien (In Canada's Primeval Forests and Prairies), 1926; and D a s

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.