They were five: The Dionne Quintuplets revisited

Journal of Canadian Studies, Winter 1994 by Wright, Cynthia

Finally, another vital aspect of the Dionne story which has received little serious attention is the vast tourist, film, photo and souvenir industry which was generated around the five sisters.(f.9) Yet such representations of the Quints shape popular understanding of the Dionne story even today. People still visit the Quint museum in North Bay, Dionne souvenirs (including postcards, dishes and the coveted Dionne dolls) continue to fetch good prices and Jimmy and Fay Rodolfos of Massachusetts run a flourishing Dionne Quintuplet fan club which sponsors a "Quinvention" every five years. In the early years after the birth of the five girls, newspaper photographs, newsreels and three Hollywood films (The Country Doctor, Reunion and Five of a Kind) featuring the Quints were especially popular.(f.10)

For most Depression - era people, dreaming of a Dionne doll or watching the Quints on film was as close as they would get to the real Dionne Quintuplets. But millions of others, many of them American tourists, did make the trip to Quintland where the sisters were put on public display. What they found in Quintland was a contradictory combination of ultra - modern hospital, royal family tour, and rustic northern Ontario tourist site. This final section of the introduction will look at the elements that went into the construction of what was in essence Canada's first theme park.

Our Own Royal Family": The Making of Quintland as a Tourist Site

The Quints were big business. According to Berton, they "launched Northern Ontario's flourishing tourist industry" and rescued "an entire region from bankruptcy."(f.11) The Quint phenomenon also generated tremendous anxieties about commercialism and exploitation -- both of which were heavily identified with American - style hucksterism and slick, fast - talking promoters. The Dionne parents were regarded by many people as somehow too ignorant or simply unwilling to resist the allure of commercial pleasures, an impression enhanced by the Chicago trip, during which they shopped, saw the sights and appeared on a stage. Indeed, whatever the differences -- and there were many -- that existed between the anglophone and francophone communities, both were troubled by the problem of "commercialism." In a period in which it was not uncommon for parents with "freakish" children to exhibit them publicly, members of both communities were opposed to the contract which Oliva Dionne signed with Chicago promoters.(f.12) Leaders in both the francophone and anglophone communities criticized Elzire and Oliva Dionne for appearing on a Chicago stage -- even though the Dionnes did not involve the sisters. Popular anxieties about "American" commercialism linked two groups otherwise divided along linguistic lines on the question of whether the Quints oughtto be returned to their parents.

The Ontario government, after rescuing the Quints from the jaws of Chicago promoters, was thus constrained to show that Quintland was far from the American freak show model. No admission or parking fees were ever charged at Quintland, even as the Ontario government made millions from the commercial exploitation of the Quints.(f.13) Indeed, the Ontario government dilemma was difficult and unprecedented: how do you organize a tourist site around the daily display of human beings without following the American freak show model?