History

Probing Royal Society of Canada scholars’ complicity in the marginalization of Indigenous knowledge and the destruction of Indigenous communities.

The Royal Society of Canada’s mandate is to elect to its membership leading scholars in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and sciences, lending its seal of excellence to those who advance artistic and intellectual knowledge in Canada. Duncan Campbell Scott, one of the architects of the Indian residential school system in Canada, served as the society’s president and dominated its activities; many other members – historically overwhelmingly white men – helped shape knowledge systems rooted in colonialism that have proven catastrophic for Indigenous communities.

Written primarily by current Royal Society of Canada members, these essays explore the historical contribution of the RSC and of Canadian scholars to the production of ideas and policies that shored up white settler privilege, underpinning the disastrous interaction between Indigenous peoples and white settlers. Historical essays focus on the period from the RSC’s founding in 1882 to the mid-twentieth century; later chapters bring the discussion to the present, documenting the first steps taken to change damaging patterns and challenging the society and Canadian scholars to make substantial strides toward a better future.

The highly educated in Canadian society were not just bystanders: they deployed their knowledge and skills to abet colonialism. This volume dives deep into the RSC’s history to learn why academia has more often been an aid to colonialism than a force against it. Royally Wronged poses difficult questions about what is required – for individual academics, fields of study, and the RSC – to move meaningfully toward reconciliation.

Reviews
"This valuable and timely collection should spark reflection and conversation both within and beyond the Royal Society of Canada. Royally Wronged helps unravel the lingering legacies of colonialism in the ‘knowledge' we have produced." - Sarah Carter, University of Alberta and author of Lost Harvests: Prairie Indian Reserve Farmers and Government Policy

Additional Information
336 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 20 Photos | Paperback 

Sharing the Land, Sharing a Future looks to both the past and the future as it examines the foundational work of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) and the legacy of its 1996 report. It assesses the Commission’s influence on subsequent milestones in Indigenous-Canada relations and considers our prospects for a constructive future.

RCAP’s five-year examination of the relationships of First Nations, Metis, and Inuit peoples to Canada and to non-Indigenous Canadians resulted in a new vision for Canada and provided 440 specific recommendations, many of which informed the subsequent work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC). Considered too radical and difficult to implement, RCAP’s recommendations were largely ignored, but the TRC reiterates that longstanding inequalities and imbalances in Canada’s relationship with Indigenous peoples remain and quite literally calls us to action.

With reflections on RCAP’s legacy by its co-chairs, leaders of national Indigenous organizations and the Minister of Indigenous Crown Relations, and leading academics and activists, this collection refocuses our attention on the groundbreaking work already performed by RCAP. Organized thematically, it explores avenues by which we may establish a new relationship, build healthy and powerful communities, engage citizens, and move to action.

Reviews
"Sharing the Land, Sharing a Future provides a critical assessment of the limited progress made in implementing RCAP’s recommendations and consideration of the actions needed to move forward with the TRC’s Calls for Action – that might be a second chance to truly decolonize the situation of Indigenous peoples with homelands in the Canadian territory.” — Peter Russell

“In the current political landscape Sharing the Land, Sharing a Future is an important and necessary work that brings a wealth of scholarship into conversation with post RCAP and TRC realities. By centering the vision of RCAP and asserting decolonial pathways toward Indigenous sovereignty, it will trouble the notion of reconciliation and what that really means in a settler colonial state.” — Jennifer Brant

Educator Information
Other contributors: Marlene Brant Castellano, Frederic Wien, Frances Abele, Erin Alexiuk, Satsan (Herb George), Catherine MacQuarrie, Yvonne Boyer, Josée Lavoie, Derek Kornelson, Jeff Reading, René Dussault, Georges Erasmus, Perry Bellegarde, Natan Obed, Clément Chartier, Robert Bertrand, Carolyn Bennett, Francyne Joe, Jo-ann Archibald (Q’um Q’um Xiiem) Jan Hare, Jennifer S. Dockstator, Jeff S. Denis, Gérard Duhaime, Mark S. Dockstator, Wanda Wuttunee, Charlotte Loppie, John Loxley, Warren Weir, Caroline L. Tait, Devon Napope, Amy Bombay, William Mussell, Carrie Bourassa, Eric Oleson, Sibyl Diver, Janet McElhaney, Cindy Blackstock, Jonathan Dewar, Lynne Davis, Chris Hiller, Aaron Franks, Daniel Salée, Carole Lévesque, Michael Adams

Additional Information
504 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

One of the few accounts by care-givers in an Indian Residential School describing the horrific conditions.

In 1970, the authors, Nancy Dyson and Dan Rubenstein, were hired as childcare workers at the Alert Bay Student Residence (formerly St. Michael's Indian Residential School) on northern Vancouver Island. Shocked when Indigenous children were forcibly taken from their families, punished for speaking their native language, fed substandard food and severely disciplined for minor offences, Dan and Nancy questioned the way the school was run with its underlying missionary philosophy. When a delegation from the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs visited St. Michael's, the couple presented a long list of concerns, which were ignored. The next day they were dismissed by the administrator of the school. Some years later, in 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Reports were released. The raw grief and anger of residential school survivors were palpable and the authors' troubling memories of St. Michael's resurfaced. Dan called Reconciliation Canada, and Chief Dr. Robert Joseph encouraged the couple to share their story with today's Canadians.

St. Michael's Residential School: Lament and Legacy is a moving narrative - one of the few told by caregivers who experienced on a daily basis the degradation of Indigenous children. Their account will help to ensure that what went on in the Residential Schools is neither forgotten nor denied.

Additional Information
200 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

White settlers saw land for the taking. They failed to consider the perspective of the people already here.

In The Land Is Not Empty, author Sarah Augustine unpacks the harm of the Doctrine of Discovery—a set of laws rooted in the fifteenth century that gave Christian governments the moral and legal right to seize lands they “discovered” despite those lands already being populated by indigenous peoples. Legitimized by the church and justified by a misreading of Scripture, the Doctrine of Discovery says a land can be considered “empty” and therefore free for the taking if inhabited by “heathens, pagans, and infidels.”

In this prophetic book, Augustine, a Pueblo woman, reframes the colonization of North America as she investigates ways that the Doctrine of Discovery continues to devastate indigenous cultures, and even the planet itself, as it justifies exploitation of both natural resources and people. This is a powerful call to reckon with the root causes of a legacy that continues to have devastating effects on indigenous peoples around the globe and a call to recognize how all of our lives and our choices are interwoven.
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What was done in the name of Christ must be undone in the name of Christ, the author claims. The good news of Jesus means there is still hope for the righting of wrongs. Right relationship with God, others, and the earth requires no less.

Additional Information
224 pages | 5.25" x 8.00" 

As the settler state of Canada expanded into Indigenous lands, settlers dispossessed Indigenous people and undermined their sovereignty as nations. One site of invasion was Kahnawà:ke, a Kanien’kehá:ka community and part of the Rotinonhsiónni confederacy.

The Laws and the Land delineates the establishment of a settler-colonial relationship from early contact ways of sharing land; land practices under Kahnawà:ke law; the establishment of modern Kahnawà:ke in the context of French imperial claims; intensifying colonial invasions under British rule; and ultimately the Canadian invasion in the guise of the Indian Act, private property, and coercive pressure to assimilate. Daniel Rück reveals increasingly powerful and aggressive colonial governments interfering with the affairs of one of the most populous and influential Indigenous communities in nineteenth-century Canada. What he describes is an invasion spearheaded by bureaucrats, Indian agents, politicians, surveyors, and entrepreneurs. Although these invasions were often chaotic and poorly planned, Rück shows that despite their apparent weaknesses they tended to benefit settlers while becoming sources of oppression for Indigenous peoples who attempted to navigate colonial realities while defending and building their own nations.

This original, meticulously researched book is deeply connected to larger issues of human relations with environments, communal and individual ways of relating to land, legal pluralism, historical racism and inequality, and Indigenous resurgence. It is one story of the "slow violence" of Canada’s legal and environmental conquest of Indigenous peoples and lands, and the persistence of one Indigenous nation in the face of the onslaught.

This book will appeal to legal historians, historical geographers, and scholars of Quebec history, Canadian history, and Indigenous studies.

Reviews
"In this excellent book, Daniel Rück has woven a seamless web of law, history, geography, and Indigenous knowledge, and has made it all look easy." — Philip Girard, professor, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University

"The Laws and the Land is an account of colonial harm. It is an unprecedented look at the dispossession and oppression of the People of Kahnawà:ke by slowly taking their lands away. This book is a must-read for our People but also for all Indigenous peoples who have been dispossessed by the settler governments, churches, and unscrupulous individuals. And it also shows the perseverance and survival of a Mohawk community." — Kenneth Deer, former secretary of the Mohawk Nation at Kahnawà:ke and honorary doctor of laws, Concordia University

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Introduction

1 Kahnawà:ke and Canada: Relationships of Laws and Lands

2 "Whereas the Seigniory of Sault St. Louis Is the Property of the Iroquois Nation": Dissidents, Property, and Power, 1790–1815

3 "Out of the beaten track": Before the Railroad, 1815–50

4 "In What Legal Anarchy Will Questions of Property Soon Find Themselves": The Era of Confederation, 1850–75

5 "The Consequences of This Promiscuous Ownership": Wood and the Indian Act, 1867–1883

6 "Equal to an Ordnance Map of the Old Country": The Walbank Survey, 1880–93

7 "It is Necessary to Follow the Custom of the Reserve Which is Contrary to Law": Rupture and Continuity, 1885–1900

Conclusion

Notes; Bibliography; Index

Additional Information
336 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 27 b&w photos, 5 maps | Hardcover

Popularly thought of as a recreational vehicle and one of the key ingredients of an ideal wilderness getaway, the canoe is also a political vessel. A potent symbol and practice of Indigenous cultures and traditions, the canoe has also been adopted to assert conservation ideals, feminist empowerment, citizenship practices, and multicultural goals. Documenting many of these various uses, this book asserts that the canoe is not merely a matter of leisure and pleasure; it is folded into many facets of our political life.

Taking a critical stance on the canoe, The Politics of the Canoe expands and enlarges the stories that we tell about the canoe’s relationship to, for example, colonialism, nationalism, environmentalism, and resource politics. To think about the canoe as a political vessel is to recognize how intertwined canoes are in the public life, governance, authority, social conditions, and ideologies of particular cultures, nations, and states.

Almost everywhere we turn, and any way we look at it, the canoe both affects and is affected by complex political and cultural histories. Across Canada and the U.S., canoeing cultures have been born of activism and resistance as much as of adherence to the mythologies of wilderness and nation building. The essays in this volume show that canoes can enhance how we engage with and interpret not only our physical environments but also our histories and present-day societies.

Reviews
“An engaging study of where the canoe finds itself in post Truth and Reconciliation Commission Canada. From being coopted and used by settlers as a symbol of Canadian nationalism, this collection of essays from academics, activists, and community leaders demonstrates how the canoe has been reclaimed by Indigenous people and is being used as a powerful tool for to build Indigenous sovereignty and heal communities.” – Dale Barbour, Department of History, Brandon University

Educator Information
Contributors Include: Cameron Baldassarra, Hillary Beattie, Albert Braz, Frank Brown, Vina Brown, Chris Ling Chapman, Chuck Commanda, Rachel L. Cushman, Jon D. Daehnke, Jessica Dunkin, Danielle Gendron, Jonathan Goldner, Tony A. Johnson, Ian Mauro, Larry McDermott, Sarah Nelson, Peter H. Wood, John B. Zoe

Topics: Indigenous Studies, Social History, Sports and Recreation

Additional Information
272 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 40 b&w illustrations, maps, index, bibliography

Authenticity Note: This book has received out authentic Indigenous text label because it contains Indigenous contributions.  It is up to readers to determine if it's authentic for their purposes.

These are the Stories is a memoir presented in short chapters, comprising the life of a survivor of the Sixties Scoop. Christine Miskonoodinkwe Smith reveals her experiences in the child welfare system and her journey towards healing in various stages of her life. As an adult, she was able to reconnect with her birth mother. Though her mother passed shortly afterward, that reconnection allowed the author to finally feel "complete, whole, and home." The memoir details some of the author's travels across Canada as she eventually made a connection with the Peguis First Nation in Manitoba.

A memoir in the vein of Colleen Hele Cardinal's Raised Somewhere Else and Alicia Elliot's A Mind Spread Out On the Ground, These are the Stories is an inspirational and courageous telling of a life story.

Additional Information
170 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | Paperback

"I hear so much power in these pages. I also feel it." —Richard Van Camp

We Remember the Coming of the White Man chronicles the history of the Sahtú (Mountain Dene) and Gwinch’in People in the extraordinary time of the early 20th century. This 2021 Special Edition of the book recognizes the anniversary of the signing of Treaty 11, which is greatly controversial due to the emotional and economic fallout for the People.

The remastered film “We Remember,” is included with the book, on DVD and as digital Vimeo links. As well as poignant essays on Treaty 11, the book includes transcripts of oral histories by Elders. They talk about the early days of fur trading and guns; the flu pandemic; and dismay about the way oil and uranium discoveries and pipelines were handled on their land. A new section of stories is included as well — stories by Leanne Goose, Antoine Mountain, Raymond Yakeleya, and George Blondin.

Dene Elders in the book (now all deceased) are Joe Blondin, John Blondin, Elizabeth Yakeleya, Mary Wilson, Isadore Yukon, Peter Thompson, Jim Sittichinli, Sarah Simon, Johnny Kay, and Andrew Kunnizzi. Dene translation is by Bella Ross.

Reviews
"We Remember The Coming of the White Man should be crucial reading for anyone in Canada because it speaks to the resiliency of the Dene and Metis people of Denendeh. It's also a testament to the power of memory carried in the oral tradition. To think what our ancestors have seen in one lifetime: relations with the Hudon's Bay Company, TB, Influenza, Treaty signings, the first musket loader, Residential Schools, the first radio, the first TV, a man on the moon. It is staggering. I hear so much power in these pages. I also feel it. I am grateful to everyone involved in this project because it is a life's work honouring the witnessing of so much change in so little time. Mahsi cho, everyone. I am grateful. We will have and celebrate this book and the DVD that accompanies it forever."— Richard Van Camp, Author

"Our traditional knowledge is recorded in the stories of our ancestors since time immemorial. In this book, you will read our oral history and traditions that are our Dene parables, used to guide ourselves and our People.” — Norman Yakeleya, Dene National Chief

“All Canadians are enriched by the stories in this collection. By listening to these stories, we take a step together towards reconciliation. We are learning the truth and building an understanding. We are nurturing respect and reciprocity. We are honouring our relations in a good way.”—­Colette Poitras, Chair of the Canadian Federation of Library Associations Indigenous Matters Committee

Educator Information
Author royalties for this edition are being used to create a scholarship for an emerging Indigenous writer in conjunction with Northwords Writers Festival.

Keywords: Indigenous, Dene Nation, Elders, Treaty 11, Hudson Bay Company, Missionaries, Northwest Territories.

Contains DVD of film We Remember.

Editors: Sarah Stewart & Raymond Yakeleya
Foreword : Walter Blondin,
Elders: Elizabeth Yakeleya, Sarah Simon, Mary Wilson, Joe Blondin, John Blondin, Isadore Yukon, Johnny Kaye, Jim Edwards Sittichinli, Peter Thompson, Andrew Kunnizzi
Storytellers and Authors: Colette Poitras, Leanne Goose, George Blondin, Raymond Yakeleya, Antoine Mountain
Artists: Antoine Mountain, Ruth Schefter, Deborah Desmarais

This book is part of the Indigenous Spirit of Nature series.

Additional Information
272 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 100 b&w photographs, 10 b&w line drawings 

Where the Power Is: Indigenous Perspectives on Northwest Coast Art is a landmark volume that brings together over eighty contemporary Indigenous knowledge holders with extraordinary works of historical Northwest Coast art, ranging from ancient stone tools to woven baskets to carved masks and poles to silver jewellery. First Nations Elders, artists, scholars, and other community members visited the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia to connect with these objects, learn from the hands of their ancestors, and share their thoughts and insights on how these belongings transcend the category of “art” or “artifact” to embody vital ways of knowing and being in the world. Texts by the authors sketch the provenance of the objects, and, in dialogue with the commentators, engage in critical and necessary conversations around the role of museums that hold such collections.

The voices within are passionate, enlightening, challenging, and humorous. The commentators speak to their personal and family histories that these objects evoke, the connections between tangible and intangible culture, and how this “art” remains part of Northwest Coast Indigenous peoples’ ongoing relationships to their territories and political governance. Accompanied by over 300 contemporary and historical photographs, this is a vivid and powerful document of Indigenous experiences of reconnection, reclamation, and return.

Featuring contributions by:

ʼLiyaaʼmlaxha—Leonard Alexcee, Goldʼm Nitsʼk—Wii Gandoox—Mona Alexcee, Widiimas—Peter Alexcee, Kʼodalagalis—Byron Alfred, Skwiixta—Karen Anderson, Chaudaquock—Vera Asp, Don Bain, Stan Bevan, Jo Billows, Dempsey Bob, Raymond Boisjoly, Naxshageit—Alison Bremner, Wákas—Irene Brown, Tʼaakeit Gʼaayaa—Corey Bulpitt, Vanessa Campbell, Jisgang—Nika Collison, Nalaga—Donna Cranmer, Gloria Cranmer Webster, Joe David, Guud san glans—Robert Davidson, ʼWalas Gwaʼyam—Beau Dick, Idtaawgan—Mervin Dunn, Sharon Fortney, Yéil Ya-Tseen—Nicholas Galanin, qiyəplenəxw—Howard E. Grant, sʔəyəłəq—Larry Grant, taχwtəna:t—Wendy Grant-John, Müsiiʼn—Phil Gray, Tʼuuʼtk—Robin R.R. Gray, Wii Gwinaał—Henry Green, secəlenəxw—Morgan Guerin, Haaʼyuups, KC (Kelsey) Hall, J̌i:ƛʼmɛtəm—Harold Harry, qoqʼwɛssukwt—Katelynn Harry, 7idansuu—James M. Hart, YaʼYa Heit, Kwakwabalasamayi Hamasaka—Alan Hunt, Corrine Hunt, Tłaliłilaʼogwa—Sarah Hunt, Tsēmā Igharas, Pearl Innis, Haʼhl Yee—Doreen Jensen, Kwankwanxwaligi—Robert Joseph, kwəskwestən—James Kew, Gigaemi Kukwits, Peter Morin, Nugwam ʼMaxwiyalidzi—Kʼodi Nelson, ʼTayagilaʼogwa—Marianne Nicolson, Gwiʼmolas—Ryan Nicolson, Jaad Kuujus—Kwaxhiʼlaga—Meghann OʼBrien, Ximiq—Dionne Paul, A-nii-sa-put—Tim Paul, Xwelíqwiya—Rena Point Bolton, Oqwiʼlowgʼwa—Kim Recalma-Clutesi, Skeena Reece, Nʼusi—Ian Reid, Greg A. Robinson, Siʼt Kwuns—Isabel Rorick, Maximus (Max) Savey, Anaht pi ya tuuk—Sheila Savey, Linda Smith, Xsim Ganaaʼw—Laurel Smith Wilson, θəliχwəlwət—Debra Sparrow, səlisəyeʔ—Leona Sparrow, Wedłidi Speck, Marika Echachis Swan, Simʼoogit Gawaakhl of Wilps Luuyaʼas—Norman Tait, Snxakila—Clyde Tallio, Nakkita Trimble, Xˇùsəmdas Waakas—Ted Walkus, Nuuwagawa—Evelyn Walkus Windsor, Hiłamas—William Wasden, Jr., Tsamiianbaan—William White, Tania Willard, Skiljaday—Merle Williams, Gid7ahl-Gudsllaay Lalaxaaygans—Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson, Tʼɬaɬbaʼlisameʼ—Tʼɬalis—Mikael (Mike) Willie, Lyle Wilson, Nathan Wilson, and Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas.

Additional Information
384 pages | 10.31" x 11.96" | Hardcover

Left out of the national apology and reconciliation process begun in 2008, survivors of residential schools in Labrador and Newfoundland received a formal apology from the Canadian government in 2017. This recognition finally brought them into the circle of residential school survivors across Canada, and acknowledged their experiences as similarly painful and traumatic.

For years, the story of residential schools has been told by the authorities who ran them. A Long Journey helps redress this imbalance by listening closely to the accounts of former students, as well as drawing extensively on government, community, and school archives. The book examines the history of boarding schools in Labrador and St. Anthony, and, in doing so, contextualizes the ongoing determination of Indigenous communities to regain control over their children’s education.

Educator Information
This resource is recommended in the Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools 2020/2021 resource list as being useful for grades 10 to 12 for English Language Arts, Law, and Social Studies.

Caution: contains descriptions of mental, physical, and sexual abuse.

Additional Information
528 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

The story of Native peoples’ resistance to environmental injustice and land incursions, and a call for environmentalists to learn from the Indigenous community’s rich history of activism.

Through the unique lens of “Indigenized environmental justice,” Indigenous researcher and activist Dina Gilio-Whitaker explores the fraught history of treaty violations, struggles for food and water security, and protection of sacred sites, while highlighting the important leadership of Indigenous women in this centuries-long struggle. As Long As Grass Grows gives readers an accessible history of Indigenous resistance to government and corporate incursions on their lands and offers new approaches to environmental justice activism and policy.

Throughout 2016, the Standing Rock protest put a national spotlight on Indigenous activists, but it also underscored how little Americans know about the longtime historical tensions between Native peoples and the mainstream environmental movement. Ultimately, she argues, modern environmentalists must look to the history of Indigenous resistance for wisdom and inspiration in our common fight for a just and sustainable future.

Reviews
“Highly recommended for American Indian studies and environmental justice students and scholars.” —Library Journal

“The process of genocide, which began five centuries ago with the colonization of the Americas and the extermination of indigenous people, has now spread to the planetary level, pushing two hundred species per day to extinction and threatening the entire human species. Dina Gilio-Whitaker’s As Long as Grass Grows makes these connections, holding the seeds of resistance, the seeds of freedom, and the promise of a future.” —Vandana Shiva, author of Earth Democracy

“As Long as Grass Grows honors Indigenous voices powerfully and centers Indigenous histories, values, and experiences. It tells crucial stories, both inspiring and heartrending, that will transform how readers understand environmental justice. I know many readers will come away with new ideas and actions for how they can protect our planet from forces that seek to destroy some of our most sacred relationships connecting human and nonhuman worlds—relationships that offer some of the greatest possibilities for achieving sustainability.” —Kyle Powys White, associate professor, Michigan State University

“From Standing Rock’s stand against a damaging pipeline to antinuclear and climate change activism, Indigenous peoples have always been and remain in the vanguard of the struggle for environmental justice. As Long as Grass Grows could not be of more relevance in the twenty-first century. Gilio-Whitaker has produced a sweeping history of these peoples’ fight for our fragile planet, from colonization to the present moment. There is nothing else like it. Read and heed this book.” —Jace Weaver, author of Defending Mother Earth

“In As Long as Grass Grows, Gilio-Whitaker skillfully delineates the stakes—and the distinctive character—of environmental justice for Indigenous communities. Bold, extensive, accessible, and inspiring, this book is for anyone interested in Indigenous environmental politics and the unique forms of environmentalism that arise from Native communities. Indeed, as Gilio-Whitaker shows, these topics are intertwined with a pressing issue that concerns all people: justice for the very lands we collectively inhabit.” —Clint Carroll, author of Roots of Our Renewal

“As Long as Grass Grows is a hallmark book of our time. By confronting climate change from an Indigenous perspective, not only does Gilio-Whitaker look at the history of Indigenous resistance to environmental colonization, but she points to a way forward beyond Western conceptions of environmental justice—toward decolonization as the only viable solution.” —Nick Estes, assistant professor, University of New Mexico, and author of Our History Is the Future

“As Long as Grass Grows, in the way no other study has done, brilliantly connects historic and ongoing Native American resistance to US colonialism with the movement for environmental justice. This book helps teach us the central importance of Native theory and practice to transforming the radically imbalanced world that corporate capitalism has made into a world of balance through extended kinship with the social and natural environments on which human beings are dependent for life.” —Eric Cheyfitz, professor, Cornell University, and author of The Disinformation Age: The Collapse of Liberal Democracy in the United States

“This groundbreaking new book will ignite conversations about environmentalism and environmental justice. Dina Gilio-Whitaker’s beautifully written account of environmental politics compels readers to understand how Indigenous people and the nonhuman world are caught in the gears of settler colonialism—and how an indigenized environmental justice framework can powerfully reframe our debate and our relations to one another and to the natural world around us. As Long as Grass Grows is perfectly timed to offer a fresh and captivating take on some of our most urgent issues of environmental and social justice.” —Traci Voyles, author of Wastelanding: Legacies of Uranium Mining in Navajo Country

Educator Information

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Author’s Note

INTRODUCTION
The Standing Rock Saga

CHAPTER ONE
Environmental Justice Theory and Its Limitations for Indigenous Peoples

CHAPTER TWO
Genocide by Any Other Name
A History of Indigenous Environmental Injustice

CHAPTER THREE
The Complicated Legacy of Western Expansion and the Industrial Revolution

CHAPTER FOUR
Food Is Medicine, Water Is Life
American Indian Health and the Environment

CHAPTER FIVE
(Not So) Strange Bedfellows
Indian Country’s Ambivalent Relationship with the Environmental Movement

CHAPTER SIX
Hearts Not on the Ground
Indigenous Women’s Leadership and More Cultural Clashes

CHAPTER SEVEN
Sacred Sites and Environmental Justice

CHAPTER EIGHT
Ways Forward for Environmental Justice in Indian Country

Acknowledgments
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index

Additional Information
224 pages | 5.99" x 8.98" | Paperback

Charged with fresh material and new perspectives, this updated edition of the groundbreaking biography From Brotherhood to Nationhood brings George Manuel and his fighting tradition into the present.

George Manuel (19201989) was the strategist and visionary behind the modern Indigenous movement in Canada. A three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, he laid the groundwork for what would become the Assembly of First Nations and was the founding president of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples. Authors Peter McFarlane and Doreen Manuel follow him on a riveting journey from his childhood on a Shuswap reserve through three decades of fierce and dedicated activism.

In these pages, an all-new foreword by celebrated Mi'kmaq lawyer and activist Pam Palmater is joined by an afterword from Manuel’s granddaughter, land defender Kanahus Manuel. This edition features new photos and previously untold stories of the pivotal roles that the women of the Manuel family played and continue to play in the battle for Indigenous rights.

Reviews
“Brotherhood to Nationhood is more than just a biography of the life of George Manuel; it demonstrates the roots of an Indigenous internationalism and political theory that is grounded in the ethics, knowledge, and practices of the Secwepemc people.” – Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, author of As We Have Always Done

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Foreword - Dr. Pamela Palmater
Preface - Peter McFarlane
Preface - Doreen Manuel

Part I. The Neck of the Chicken
1. Paradise, Paradise Lost, 1960
2. The Hard-Luck Shuswap Kid, 1920–1932
3. White Plague, Red Victims, 1932–1954
4. Local Agitator to Provincial Leader, 1955–1960
5. A Future for Your Children, 1960–1963

Part II. Building the National Movement
6. Community Development and the Arthur Laing Gang, 1965–1967
7. Down the Garden Path: Chretien Andras Consultations, 1968–1969
8. From White Paper to Red Paper, 1969–1970
9. The National Chief
10. The National Indian Philosophy, 1971–1972

Part III. Indian Shogun
11. International Travels
12. Land Title and the James Bay Battle, 1972–1973
13. Red Power
14. Political Eruptions in British Columbia, 1975
15. A Voice for the Fourth World, 1975–1976
16. Back to British Columbia,1976–1977
17. The Peoples’ Movement, 1977–1979
18. Constitutional Express, 1980

Part IV. Final Days
19. European Express, 1981–1982
20. Passing the Torch, 1982–1989

Epilogue
Afterword - Kanahus Manuel

Additional Information
402 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Revised, 2nd Edition

A detailed transnational history of Indigenous activism in Northwestern Ontario and its global significance.

Indigenous activism put small-town northern Ontario on the map in the 1960s and early 1970s. Kenora, Ontario, was home to a four-hundred-person march, popularly called "Canada's First Civil Rights March," and a two-month-long armed occupation of a small lakefront park. Canada's Other Red Scare shows how important it is to link the local and the global to broaden narratives of resistance in the 1960s; it is a history not of isolated events closed off from the present but of decolonization as a continuing process. Scott Rutherford explores with rigour and sensitivity the Indigenous political protest and social struggle that took place in Northwestern Ontario and Treaty 3 territory from 1965 to 1974. Drawing on archival documents, media coverage, published interviews, memoirs, and social movement literature, as well as his own lived experience as a settler growing up in Kenora, he reconstructs a period of turbulent protest and the responses it provoked, from support to disbelief to outright hostility. Indigenous organizers advocated for a wide range of issues, from better employment opportunities to the recognition of nationhood, by using such tactics as marches, cultural production, community organizing, journalism, and armed occupation. They drew inspiration from global currents - from black American freedom movements to Third World decolonization - to challenge the inequalities and racial logics that shaped settler-colonialism and daily life in Kenora. Accessible and wide-reaching, Canada's Other Red Scare makes the case that Indigenous political protest during this period should be thought of as both local and transnational, an urgent exercise in confronting the experience of settler-colonialism in places and moments of protest, when its logic and acts of dispossession are held up like a mirror.

Reviews
"I was truly impressed with this book. Rutherford provides detailed insights into historical developments in the Kenora region and the post–World War II racism that is so fundamental in shaping current Indigenous realities. The almost seamless integration with global political commentary and international debates is simply superb. There are tough concepts presented here – and folks will find them uncomfortable – but a study like this is much overdue and will attract considerable international attention." - Ken Coates, Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Saskatchewan

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments / vii
Figures follow page viii
Introduction: The Town with a Bad Name / 3

1 Canada’s Alabama? Race, Racism, and the Indian Rights March in Kenora / 21

2 “Resolving Conflicts”: Culture, Development, and the Problem of Settlement / 40

3 “The quest for self-determination”: The Third World, Anti-colonialism, and “Red Power” / 62

4 “Nobody seems to listen”: The Violent Death Report and Resistance to Continuing Indifference / 83

5 The Anicinabe Park Occupation: Red Power and the Meaning of Violence in a Settler Society / 104

6 The Native People’s Caravan: Surveillance, Agents Provocateurs, and Multi-racial Coalitions / 124

Conclusion: Dear Louis Cameron / 145

Notes / 153
Bibliography / 187
Index / 203

Additional Information
208 pages | 5.98" x 9.01"

Dammed: The Politics of Loss and Survival in Anishinaabe Territory explores Canada’s hydroelectric boom in the Lake of the Woods area. It complicates narratives of increasing affluence in postwar Canada, revealing that the inverse was true for Indigenous communities along the Winnipeg River.

Dammed makes clear that hydroelectric generating stations were designed to serve settler populations. Governments and developers excluded the Anishinabeg from planning and operations and failed to consider how power production might influence the health and economy of their communities. By so doing, Canada and Ontario thwarted a future that aligned with the terms of treaty, a future in which both settlers and the Anishinabeg might thrive in shared territories.

The same hydroelectric development that powered settler communities flooded manomin fields, washed away roads, and compromised fish populations. Anishinaabe families responded creatively to manage the government-sanctioned environmental change and survive the resulting economic loss. Luby reveals these responses to dam development, inviting readers to consider how resistance might be expressed by individuals and families, and across gendered and generational lines.

Luby weaves text, testimony, and experience together, grounding this historical work in the territory of her paternal ancestors, lands she calls home. With evidence drawn from archival material, oral history, and environmental observation, Dammed invites readers to confront Canadian colonialism in the twentieth century.

Additional Information
256 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 2 maps, index, bibliography 

An exploration of anti-Indigenous systemic racism in Canadian health care and the medical establishment's role in colonial genocide.

Launched by healthcare providers in January 2018, the #aHand2Hold campaign confronted the Quebec government's practice of separating children from their families during medical evacuation airlifts, which disproportionately affected remote and northern Indigenous communities. Pediatric emergency physician Samir Shaheen-Hussain's captivating narrative of this successful campaign, which garnered unprecedented public attention and media coverage, seeks to answer lingering questions about why such a cruel practice remained in place for so long. In doing so it serves as an indispensable case study of contemporary medical colonialism in Quebec.

Fighting for a Hand to Hold exposes the medical establishment's role in the displacement, colonization, and genocide of Indigenous peoples in Canada. Through meticulously gathered government documentation, historical scholarship, media reports, public inquiries, and personal testimonies, Shaheen-Hussain connects the draconian medevac practice with often-disregarded crimes and medical violence inflicted specifically on Indigenous children. This devastating history and ongoing medical colonialism prevent Indigenous communities from attaining internationally recognized measures of health and social well-being because of the pervasive, systemic anti-Indigenous racism that persists in the Canadian public health care system - and in settler society at large.

Shaheen-Hussain's unique perspective combines his experience as a frontline pediatrician with his long-standing involvement in anti-authoritarian social justice movements. Sparked by the indifference and callousness of those in power, this book draws on the innovative work of Indigenous scholars and activists to conclude that a broader decolonization struggle calling for reparations, land reclamation, and self-determination for Indigenous peoples is critical to achieve reconciliation in Canada.

Reviews
"Fighting for a Hand to Hold denounces with ferocity the utterly inhuman, decades-long practice of separating children from their families during emergency medevacs in northern and remote regions of Quebec. In a precise, compelling, and well-documented narrative, Samir Shaheen-Hussain challenges our collective understanding of systemic racism and social determinants of health applied to Indigenous communities most dependent on medevac airlifts and most impacted by the non-accompaniment rule. An eye-opening, tough, and essential book." — Dr Joanne Liu, pediatric emergency physician and former international president of Médecins Sans Frontières

"In Fighting for a Hand to Hold Samir Shaheen-Hussain exposes the social, cultural, and historical structures that allow medical colonialism to hide in plain sight as it harms generations of Indigenous children and their families. It is an unflinching analysis that should be required reading in every medical school in the country." —Maureen Lux, professor, Brock University and author of Separate Beds: A History of Indian Hospitals in Canada, 1920s-1980s

"The memories of the Inuit children I attended as a young interpreter at the Montreal Children's Hospital came flooding back to me. The sad face of a child looking up at me: nurses informed me that he was not speaking, but I immediately recognized the fear in his face, in his eyes. As soon as I spoke to him in Inuktitut, he looked at me in disbelief, but in the next moment his tears began to roll and I could only sound out the Inuit sound of love, 'mmph,' and tell him it would be all right, that his mom or a relative would be arriving soon. I felt for that child, and as he began to relax and open up, we had a lovely conversation in Inuktitut. He did not feel so alone in this strange place he had just been deposited in, as if he were cargo. To this day, I still feel for him. Throughout all these years, we all have been made to believe that this is how things should work. It was one of those things we stayed quiet about for decades. But no longer. We Inuit, we are a people. We love our children. Fighting for a Hand to Hold helps us understand the issues of colonization in the medical system that have vexed us as Indigenous peoples. Today, we Inuit are working to bring our health back to our communities. Healthy communities and families mean self-governance to us, and the decolonization process will happen." - Lisa Qiluqqi Koperqualuk, vice-president of international affairs, Inuit Circumpolar Council Canada

Educator Information
Foreword by Cindy Blackstock, afterword by Katsi'tsakwas Ellen Gabriel

Table of Contents

Figures | xiii
Foreword Cindy Blackstock | xv
Preface and Acknowledgments | xxi
A Note to Readers | xxix

Part One Above All, Do No Harm

Timeline | 3
Introduction | 7
1 Medevac Airlifts in Quebec and the Non-Accompaniment Rule | 16
2 The #aHand2Hold Campaign: Confronting a System | 27

Part Two Structural Fault Lines in Health Care

3 Social Determinants of Health: Equality, Equity, and Limitations | 47
4 Recognizing Systemic Racism: A Social Justice Approach | 66
5 Medical Culture and the Myth of Meritocracy | 90

Part Three Medical Colonialism and Indigenous Children

6 A Little Matter of Genocide: Canada and the United Nations Convention | 113
7 From the Smallpox War of Extermination to Tuberculosis Deaths in Residential Schools | 122
8 Experimental Laboratories: Malnutrition, Starvation, and the BCG Vaccine | 135
9 Cruel Treatment: Indian Hospitals, Sanatoria, and Skin Grafting | 150
10 Gendered Violence: Forced Sterilization and Coercive Contraception | 165
11 Breaking Up Families: Child Welfare Services, Mass Evacuations, and Medical Disappearances | 179
12 Oral Histories and the Narrative of Genocide | 207

Part Four The Structural Determinants of Health and Decolonizing Our Future

13 Capitalism and the Cost of Caring | 217
14 History Matters: Colonialism, Land, and Indigenous Self-Determination | 236
15 Decolonizing Health Care: Reparations before Reconciliation | 253
Conclusion | 271

Afterword Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel | 277
References | 283
Index | 315

Additional Information
360 pages | 5.98" x 9.01" | 4 maps, 8 illustrations | Hardcover