They were five: The Dionne Quintuplets revisited

Journal of Canadian Studies, Winter 1994 by Wright, Cynthia

Because the Dionne Quintuplets were and still are the only surviving identical quintuplets in history, it is tempting to assume that little needed to be done to get millions of tourists to come and visit them. After all, they were a natural wonder even more amazing than Niagara Falls. But just as Karen Dubinsky has argued that the Falls have in fact been constructed in various ways for tourism, so too can it be argued that a "naturalistic" reading of the Quints' popularity is not sufficient to understand why millions came to see them.(f.14)

The Key Quadruplets of Texas, for example, with whom the Quints were sometimes compared, did not receive anywhere near the attention the Quints did, and not just because they were four rather than five sisters. For one thing, although the Key sisters did dress alike, they otherwise tended to de - emphasize what Physical Culture ("The Personal Problem Magazine") charmingly referred to as their "quadruplicity."(f.15) More obviously, the Keys were never nationalized as a commercial resource as were the Dionnes. Two questions therefore need to be asked: how were the Quints represented at Quintland for tourists, and why did people come to see the five sisters?

While the Ontario government guardianship did manage the Quints as a natural resource, Quintland was not quite Niagara Falls. Quintland was not an "empty" landscape; it involved living human beings. Of course, part of the appeal of a trip to Quintland was the apparent remoteness and emptiness of the landscape, particularly for American tourists. Drawing on images which were already familiar in popular culture, Hollywood films featuring the Quints suggested that Canada was a snowy community of gentle idiots, and tourist literature evoked the rustic character of Quintland and its northern Ontario surroundings. The birth of the Quints, while astonishing, seemed fitting in a land already full of natural wonders.

The fact that French Canadians in general and Oliva Dionne in particular were by definition seen as simple peasants facilitated this association between Quintland and "the rustic." Of course, any reference to native peoples as the original occupants of the landscape was largely obliterated; instead, one of the few commercial opportunities at Quintland was the chance to photograph for 25 cents "a single Indian in a tepee."(f.16)

This was a safe rusticity: the image of northern Ontario as rough and masculine was edged out during the Quintuplet years, for Quintland was a "family" tourist destination, and dozens and dozens of tourist camps were built to accommodate these new tourists and their cars. "In the eyes of the tourist trade, Quintland's great value lay in the fact that it was known as a 'family attraction' -- as opposed to the hunting and fishing holidays that appealed only to men and boys. It was known that if women went along, progress was more leisurely and spending more liberal."(f.17)

While the appeal to "the rustic" was important, it was obviously secondary to the tremendous draw of the Quintuplets. The Quints themselves were not portrayed as rustics, although some calendar illustrations show the five sisters on canoe trips or in outdoor contexts. But if the Quints were not to be represented as freaks in a circus or rustic souls like their parents, what other meanings were open to the Ontario government, the media and the tourist industry?