Métis
Synopsis:
An Indigenous resistance historiography, poetry that interrogates the colonial violence of the archive
Whitemud Walking is about the land Matthew Weigel was born on and the institutions that occupy that land. It is about the interrelatedness of his own story with that of the colonial history of Canada, which considers the numbered treaties of the North-West to be historical and completed events. But they are eternal agreements that entail complex reciprocity and obligations. The state and archival institutions work together to sequester documents and knowledge in ways that resonate violently in people’s lives, including the dispossession and extinguishment of Indigenous title to land.
Using photos, documents, and recordings that are about or involve his ancestors, but are kept in archives, Weigel examines the consequences of this erasure and sequestration. Memories cling to documents and sometimes this palimpsest can be read, other times the margins must be centered to gain a fuller picture. Whitemud Walking is a genre-bending work of visual and lyric poetry, non-fiction prose, photography, and digital art and design.
Awards
- 2023 Indigenous Voices Awards Co-Winner: Published Poetry in English
Additional Information
144 pages | 5.75" x 8.50" | Paperback
Synopsis:
In his commanding poetry debut, Wolf Sonnets, R. P. LaRose undoes the sonnet's classical constraints, retooling the form for current political circumstances. Packed with family lore, these poems reflect on how deeply we can trust the terms we use to construct our identity. A proud citizen of the Métis Nation, LaRose even questions his right to identify as such: "I was made in someone else's home," he writes. Wolf Sonnets is verse obsessed with names, infinity, numbers, categories, and interconnectedness. Depicting his ancestors as wolves--symbols of survival and protection--LaRose brings fresh insight to his wider poetic project: castigating the inequality, greed, and racism inherent to colonialism.
Additional Information
80 pages | 5.00" x 7.50" | Paperback
Synopsis:
You Might Be Sorry You Read This is a stunning debut, revealing how breaking silences and reconciling identity can refine anger into something both useful and beautiful. A poetic memoir that looks unflinchingly at childhood trauma (both incestuous rape and surviving exposure in extreme cold), it also tells the story of coming to terms with a hidden Indigenous identity when the poet discovered her Métis heritage at age 38. This collection is a journey of pain, belonging, hope, and resilience. The confessional poems are polished yet unpretentious, often edgy but humorous; they explore trauma yet prioritize the poet’s story. Honouring the complexities of Indigenous identity and the raw experiences of womanhood, mental illness, and queer selfhood, these narratives carry weight. They tell us “You need / only be the simple / expression of the divine / intent / that is your life.” There is a lifetime in these poems.
Reviews
"Michelle Poirier Brown’s first collection of poetry is accomplished and gripping. In her five-decade story, perceptions, denial, emotional embroilments and poignant tenderness are peeled back and examined. As the narrative builds, we encounter the sheer alchemical power of poetry. This is rare. You Might Be Sorry You Read This will change you." — Betsy Warland, Bloodroot—Tracing the Untelling of Motherloss
“One of the functions of poetry is to make you uncomfortable.” This epigraph, by Pádraig Ó Tuama, begins Michelle Poirier Brown’s debut collection—a collection that intends, unapologetically, to discomfort the reader. With unflinching precision and the exactness of a fine poet’s eye, Poirier Brown challenges her readers to encounter not only her childhood trauma but, ultimately, the power of her self—her late-discovered Métis identity, her navigation of PTSD, her unwillingness to settle for less than the truth. In the final poem, “Self-Portrait of the Poet,” she concludes, “go ahead. look. / Look as long as you like.” Invitation or command, it’s a hard look Poirier Brown offers. It may make readers uncomfortable. But they won’t be sorry.” —Laura Apol, author of A Fine Yellow Dust
Educator Information
Keywords / Themes: Identity, Trauma, Pain, Resilience, Family, Métis, Indigenous.
Table of Contents
1 The Father I Had
3 God Was a Baby
4 A Child’s Book of Holy Services
6 Her Breath on My Face
8 Other Side of the Glass
10 Effect on Her Throat
11 The House on Strathnaver Avenue
15 Mothers Who Know
16 The Thing About Snow
22 Photograph
23 Under the Covers
25 The Girls I Grew Up With Are Everywhere
27 Short Change
28 After the Test
29 Walk on the Left-Hand Side
30 5:53 PM
32 A Perspective on Women
33 Collard Greens
34 Lasts
36 I’m Allowed to Have Whatever Kind of Father I Want
38 Intimacy
39 On the Porch
41 At Times, My Teeth Chatter
about face
46 What It’s Like to Have My Face
47 Understanding My Face
52 Wake
54 A Fragile Defiance
55 Smoke
57 Winnipeg Trip
59 Commitment
61 Two Mornings, 2018
63 Boxed
64 Those I Call Friends
66 Duck Ugly
67 Beneficiaries of a Genocide
69 Slow
70 Sometimes You Learn Things Quite Late in the Game
72 Something Purple
75 what it is like to be this extreme and appear normal
78 The Other Grandmother
80 Self-Portrait of the Poet
83 addendum
87 poetic statement
90 acknowledgements
Additional Information
104 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback
Synopsis:
20.12m: A Short Story Collection of a Life Lived as a Road Allowance Métis celebrates and acknowledges the humble living conditions of Métis Road Allowance families and it exemplifies their grit and tenacity to survive and indeed succeed in the face of so many hardships. “20.12m” refers to the narrow width of many of the road allowances throughout the prairies. This unoccupied crown land became one of the meagre options for many impoverished Métis families as so few owned land.
In this passionate coming of age book, Arnolda Dufour Bowes honours the true-life experiences of her father, Arnold Charles Dufour, a resident of the Punnichy, Saskatchewan Road Allowance community. The strength of the oral tradition has kept these stories solidly in place in Arnolda’s memory. Weaving true elements with those drawn from her own creativity, these five engaging stories share a lived experience that is little-known to most Canadians. This collection of cherished remembrances of this Métis family will also strongly resonate with many other Métis families who lived similar lives. In keeping with the family focus, Arnolda’s sister, Andrea Haughian, skillfully complements these poignant stories with expressive illustrations, which both honour and richly portray road allowance life.
Educator Information
Recommended by publisher for secondary, post-secondary, and adult readers.
Additional Information
Paperback
Synopsis:
In A People and a Nation, the authors, most of whom are themselves Métis, offer readers a set of lenses through which to consider the complexity of historical and contemporary Métis nationhood and peoplehood. Multidisciplinary chapters on identity, politics, literature, history, spirituality, religion, and kinship networks orient the conversation toward Métis experiences today.
The chapters within are themselves also a reorientation given that the field of Métis Studies has been afflicted by a longstanding tendency to situate Métis within deeply racialized contexts, and/or by an overwhelming focus on the nineteenth century. A People and a Nation confronts such problematic characterizations head on, training a critical gaze on conventional historiographical positionings of the Métis people as a primitive intermediate force that opened up the Canadian West.
A People and a Nation dismantles the impoverished notions that continue to shape political, legal, and social understandings of Métis existence. It is a timely collection that convincingly demonstrates how racialized interpretative frameworks diminish the Métis people and are incompatible with the task of understanding Métis peoplehood and nationhood.
Reviews
Educator Information
This important work will appeal not only to scholars in Métis studies but also to scholars and students of Indigenous studies, political science, sociology, history, and cultural studies, and to policy workers and others seeking a better understanding of the Métis people and the current state of Métis studies.
Table of Contents
Introduction: A New Era of Métis Studies Scholarship / Chris Andersen and Jennifer Adese
1 Peoplehood and the Nation Form: Core Concepts for a Critical Métis Studies / Chris Andersen
2 The Power of Peoplehood: Reimagining Metis Relationships, Research, and Responsibilities / Robert L.A. Hancock
3 The Race Question in Canada and the Politics of Racial Mixing / Daniel Voth
4 Challenging a Racist Fiction: A Closer Look at Métis-First Nations Relations / Robert Alexander Innes
5 Restoring the Balance: Métis Women and Contemporary Nationalist Political Organizing / Jennifer Adese
6 Alcide Morrissette: Oral Histories of a Métis Man on the Prairies in the Mid-Twentieth Century / Jesse Thistle
7 “We’re Still Here and Métis:” Rewriting the 1885 Resistance in Marilyn Dumont’s The Pemmican Eaters / June Scudeler
8 Mary and the Métis: Religion as a Site for New Insight in Métis Studies / Paul L. Gareau
9 Building the Field of Métis Studies: Toward Transformative and Empowering Métis Scholarship / Adam Gaudry
List of Contributors; Index
Additional Information
252 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback
Synopsis:
asowacikanisa: A Guide to Small Métis Bags is a continuation in the series of “how to” books on Métis material culture. This resource will guide you in the step-by-step process on how to create two different bags, a tobacco pouch and a sash bag, which were traditional utilitarian items used by the Metis. These bags are used today to carry traditional medicines and other treasured items. Complete with historical information, easy to follow instructions, detailed photos and accompanying DVD, this resource provides everything you need to know to make your own traditional bags. (Materials not included).
Educator Information
Grade Level: Secondary / Post Secondary / Adult
Additional Information
8" x 10" | 46 Pages
Synopsis:
Daniel is a young Métis man searching for a way to exist in a world of lateral violence, intergenerational trauma and systemic racism. Facing obstacles of his own at every turn, he observes and learns from the lived realities of his family members, friends, teachers and lovers. He finds hope in the inherent connection of Indigenous Peoples to the land, and the permanence of culture, language and ceremony in the face of displacement.
Set in Edmonton, this story considers Indigenous youth in relation to the urban constructs and colonial spaces in which they survive—from violence, whitewashing, trauma and racism to language revitalization, relationships with Elders, restaking land claims and ultimately, triumph. Based on Papaschase and Métis oral histories and lived experience, Conor Kerr’s debut novel will not soon be forgotten.
Reviews
"Kerr has given voice to the reality of Edmonton’s homeless Indigenous youth. People who survive inside of the shadows of what used to be called The City of Champions. The realities of Indigenous youth trying to survive the child welfare system in a city that prides itself on being winners of everything from sport to industry are placed on display. What Kerr has given to us through his humour, and his own lived experience as a Métis hunter and writer, is a fresh voice and one that we will be hearing from for many years to come." — Norma Dunning, author of Tainna, August 2021
"Conor Kerr’s short story collection, Avenue of Champions, is a map of amiskwaciwâskahikan with a host of characters tenderly placed and intricately weaved together. This book firmly held me in its grasp from the very first story and didn’t let go until the book's final lines, at which point I realized my heart had been in my throat the whole time, aching. Like saskatoonberries staining kohkom’s palms, these characters and this novel will live in your skin long past when you are through reading its pages." — Jessica Johns, author of how not to spill, August 2021
Additional Information
224 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | Paperback
Synopsis:
For six decades, Olive Dickason was a remarkable contributor to Canadian public life. An award-winning journalist, influential academic, and respected human rights advocate, her life was a triumph over seemingly impossible obstacles. These many impediments include having a childhood marked by poverty; being forced, as a single working mother, to place her three daughters in foster care for several years; working as a female journalist in the sexist, “Mad Men” era of the 1950s and ‘60s; giving up a successful journalism career to obtain a doctorate in Indigenous history; arguing successfully with the university establishment on whether or not Indigenous peoples had history; and taking her fight against mandatory retirement all the way to the Supreme Court. Olive Dickason faced these challenges with determination and dignity and was an inspiration for all who knew her. Changing Canadian History: The Life and Works of Olive Patricia Dickason is the first full-length biography of this trailblazing icon who forever changed how Indigenous history is viewed in Canada.
Reviews
“Olive Dickason pushed the boundaries of sexism, racism, and ageism, defying colonial narratives upheld by patriarchal systems.”—Dr. Cindy Gaudet, Campus Saint-Jean, University of Alberta
“A biography of a brilliant woman who forged entry into Canadian cultural and intellectual institutions by sheer force of determination.”—Dr. Allyson Stevenson, Gabriel Dumont Institute Chair, Métis Studies
Educator Information
This book is the first biography of this trailblazing icon who forever changed how Indigenous history is viewed in Turtle Island and beyond. Based on years of meticulous research, this work provides readers with an engaging and thought-provoking read about this iconic academic who helped define a discipline.
Additional Information
445 Pages
Synopsis:
In Daniels v. Canada the Supreme Court determined that Métis and non-status Indians were “Indians” under section 91(24) of the Constitution Act, 1867, one of a number of court victories that has powerfully shaped Métis relationships with the federal government.
However, the decision (and the case) continues to reverberate far beyond its immediate policy implications. Bringing together scholars and practitioners from a wide array of professional contexts, this volume demonstrates the power of Supreme Court of Canada cases to directly and indirectly shape our conversations about and conceptions of what Indigeneity is, what its boundaries are, and what Canadians believe Indigenous peoples are “owed.”
Attention to Daniels v. Canada’s variegated impacts also demonstrates the extent to which the power of the courts extend and refract far deeper and into a much wider array of social arenas than we often give them credit for. This volume demonstrates the importance of understanding “law” beyond its jurisprudential manifestations, but it also points to the central importance of respecting the power of court cases in how law is carried out in a liberal nation-state such as Canada.
Reviews
"This important collection of original pieces focusing on Daniel’s v. Canada and the Supreme Court’s decision will have an impact for years to come. Reader’s will appreciate the diverse areas of expertise found in this volume, including Indigenous leadership, political activism, sociology, law, and anthropology." — Christopher Adams
“Articulate, thoughtful, provocative assessments of how we might assess the Supreme Court’s 2016 decision regarding the Metis People’s legal status in Canada.” — William Craig Wicken
Educator Information
Other contributors: Tony Belcourt, Catherine Bell, Deborah A. Bolnick, Brenda L. Gunn, Arend J.A. Hoekstra, Thomas Isaac, Darryl Leroux, Jason Madden, Brenda Macdougall, Austin W. Reynolds, Rick W.A. Smith, Lauren Springs, D’Arcy Vermette
Table of Contents
Introduction
Ch. 1—Daniels in Context
Ch. 2—Harry Daniels and Section 91 (24) of the British North America Act
Ch. 3—After the Hysteria: Understanding Daniels v. Canada from a Métis Nation Perspective
Ch. 4—Daniels v Canada: A Framework for Redress
Ch. 5—The Other Declarations in Daniels: Fiduciary Obligations and the Duty to Negotiate
Ch. 4—Racism, Canadian Jurisprudence, and the de-Peopling of the Métis in Daniels
Ch. 5—Daniels Through an International Law Lens
Ch. 6—Daniels v. Canada Beyond Jurisprudential Interpretation: What to do Once the Horse has Left the Barn
Ch. 7—Outlining the Origins of “Eastern métis” Studies
Ch. 8—Making Kin in a Postgenomic World: Indigenous Belonging after the Genome
Ch. 9—How We Know Who We Are: Historical Literacy, Kinscapes, and Defining a People
Conclusion: The Multiple Lives of the Daniels Case
Additional Information
336 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | index, bibliography
Synopsis:
Nowhere in the texts on counselling, recovery, or lifespan development does it make links between well-being and not having your land stolen. When an entire people are generally portrayed as mentally ill, because that is, of course, what it means to have a diagnosis of clinical depression, anxiety, or post-traumatic stress disorder, it is easy for the State to view these people as unfit to manage their lives. Then, all sorts of functions are performed on Indigenous families that are tantamount to victim-blaming formulations that, in the end, deny opportunities associated with full citizenship.
The author goes beyond offering social analysis, and possible pathways toward healing, and shares her own experience as an Indigenous woman with Metis, Cree and Gwichin heritage. She talks about her approach to a second cancer diagnosis, and explores the way she characterized her experience of chemotherapy and radiation in a way that cast the journey as personal and heroic, rather than merely medical and out of her control.
One of the main contributions of this book is a discussion of how mainstream counselling and the helping professions have overlooked important facts about oppression, including the reminder from Gloria Steinem that the personal is political.
Additional Information
135 Pages | 6” x 9” | Paperback
Synopsis:
Gabriel Dumont’s Wild West Show is a flamboyant epic, constructed as a series of tableaux, about the struggles of the Métis in the Canadian West. It is a multilayered and entertaining saga with a rodeo vibe, loosely based on Buffalo Bill’s legendary outdoor travelling show. In 1885, following the hanging of his friend Louis Riel, bison hunter Gabriel Dumont fled to the United States. There he was recruited by the legendary Buffalo Bill, founder of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, a gigantic outdoor travelling show that re-enacted life in the American West. It made a huge impression on Dumont, and he dreamed of putting together a similar show to tell the story of the struggle of Canada’s Métis to reclaim their rights.
The creative team behind Gabriel Dumont’s Wild West Show – including ten authors, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, French- and English-speaking men and women – brings Dumont’s dream to life in a captivating, joyously anachronistic saga. The theatrical version of Gabriel Dumont’s Wild West Show presented by the National Arts Centre was one of a number of exceptional projects funded through the Canada Council for the Arts’ New Chapter initiative. (Adapted from nac-cna.ca/en/wildwestshow).
This is a bilingual book, co-published with Éditions Prise de parole, and enhanced with a historical background, a chronology of the Métis Resistances, and visual documents.
Reviews
“Really excellent. I laughed till I cried!” —Marilou Lamontagne, ICI Radio-Canada Ottawa-Gatineau
“[A] play that pleases, puzzles, and provokes, in a form that keeps shifting wildly from one moment to the next like a bucking bronco.”—J. Kelly Nestruck, Globe and Mail
“If Gabriel Dumont’s Wild West Show is so successful, while being funny and sad at the same time, it’s because the creative team did its research and listened to the communities involved in the rehabilitating of the figure of Gabriel Dumont. What takes shape here is a wave of madness and a rewriting of our national narrative.”—Maud Cucchi, JEU Revue de théâtre
“Gabriel Dumont’s Wild West Show is a crazed, fast-paced Métis 101 history lesson, in which acidity and humour deliver the story.”—Martin Vanasse, Radio-Canada
“[A] seamlessly cohesive narrative ... a zany form ... a phantasmagorical piece of pure entertainment ... a delirious blend of historical drama, musical, burlesque cabaret, hockey night, and TV quiz!”—Pierre-Alexandre Buisson
“Between bursts of laughter (of the uneasy sort at times) and moments of lively emotion, Gabriel Dumont’s Wild West Show takes [us] on a journey up hill and down dale through the history of the Métis Resistances and tells an oft-forgotten part of our collective history.” - Valérie Lessard, Le Droit
Additional Information
304 pages | 5.40" x 8.50" | Paperback
Synopsis:
This stellar debut collection by Métis poet Diana Hope Tegenkamp takes us through many worlds and wonders. In Girl running, we find solace and outrage, grief and tenderness, bewilderment and beauty, all “entangled in hope and dreaming.” The poet’s love of the natural world is both earthy and adamantine, and her passion for literature and art is just as rich a source for her questioning eye.
On the edge of Saskatoon, a woman opens a car door and flees. A child runs away from residential school after a beating. A Métis man’s ghost gallops on a ghost horse across the prairies. Henry James’ 19th-century heroine, Isabel Archer, runs across a wintery yard. Lana Tisdel drives away from Falls City, Nebraska, after the murder of her transgender boyfriend.
After many losses—of a mother known and loved, of a Métis father unknown and imagined—the ‘girl’ of this collection is running towards and away from mortality. In these poems, disappearances, perpetual flights, river walks, shadowy descents and miraculous returns connect daily living and mortality, current social realities and ancient histories, the surface and the subterranean depths of our complicated lives. Lovers of contemporary Canadian poetry will find that this textured collection rewards reading and rereading.
Additional Information
120 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | Paperback
Synopsis:
Home is where we love, suffer, and learn. Some homes we chose, others are inflicted upon us, and still others are bodies we are born into. In this astounding collection of stories, human and more-than-human worlds come together in places we call home.
Four sisters and their mother explore their fears while teeny ghost people dress up in fragments of their children’s clothes. A somewhat-ghost tends the family garden. Deep in the mountains, a shapeshifting mother must sift through her ancestors’ gifts and the complexities of love when one boy is born with a beautiful set of fox ears and another is not. In the wake of her elderly mother’s tragic death, a daughter tries to make sense of the online dating profile she left behind. And a man named Pooka finds new ways to weave new stories into his abode, in spite of his inherited suffering.
A startling and beguiling story collection, Glorious Frazzled Beings is a love song to the homes we make, keep, and break.
Reviews
"Sly, mythical, wise, Glorious Frazzled Beings is an extraordinary work of non-conformist daring: a boy is born with fox ears, an abandoned pregnancy test is encountered by random women in mall bathroom, an overwhelmed mother makes clothing for tiny ghosts. With sharp visionary instinct, Lalonde not only confronts both the magic and cruelty of living, and the border between worlds, mythical and visceral — she lights it on fire. Brilliantly alive, full of devastation and wonder, reading these stories will change you.” — Heidi Sopinka, author of The Dictionary of Animal Languages
“Glorious Frazzled Beings is storytelling magic — a haunting dream of a book, by turns strange and powerfully lucid. I’m captivated by the relations so boldly evoked. I’m moved by the intimacies, the wicked humour, the glorious dare of play. Angélique Lalonde is an original talent who is channeling forces far beyond us in this urgent debut.” — David Chariandy, author of Brother
From the author: "My writing is deeply inspired by walking and being on the land. I see my writing practice as part of my being practice, which is a continuous learning about how to be in relationship with land, place, and the beings who I am responsible to in sharing land. There is a lot to learn and unlearn in this process because we all live on Indigenous lands, whether we are settlers or Indigenous people, or both. I currently live on Gitxsan territory as an uninvited guest so walking on the land is always political as well as spiritual and these complexities emerge in my writing. Lady with the big head chronicle, the first story in my collection, explores some of these complexities from a fictionalized first-person narrator’s point of view. I learned how to walk on the land from my mother, and have always been a displaced person with an unclear relationship to my mother’s ancestors. So I carry her, and my own ancestors with me when I walk and write, sifting through what I’ve inherited and the land and language that holds my walking. I have been blessed to have had several dog friends accompany on my walks throughout my life. They help orient me to a world beyond my human knowing, and these learnings also inspire my writing" - from "Scotiabank Giller Prize Spotlight: Angélique Lalonde"
Educator Information
Curriculum Connections: Short Stories, Small Town and Rural, Family Life, Magical Realism
Additional Information
304 pages | 5.50" x 7.00" | Paperback
Synopsis:
Amber, Bev, Chantel, Jazmyne, Faith, and Jorgina are six Indigenous women previously involved in street gangs or street lifestyles. In Indigenous Women and Street Gangs they collaborate with Robert Henry (Métis) to share an emancipatory expression of their lives through photovoice. Each author shares a narrative that begins with her earliest memory and continues to the present. This is followed by a selection of photographs the woman took to show how she has changed with her experiences. Readers can expect difficult life stories imbued with hope and humour. Throughout, these women show us the meaning of survivance; a process of survival, resistance, resurgence, and growth.
“I don’t think there is any such thing as bad; it’s called healing, you know? It is starting to fix yourself inside your heart, you know? You just got to keep doing it, that’s all I got to say.”- Jazmyne
Educator Information
Caution: mature, triggering, explicit content.
Keywords / Subjects: survivance; photovoice; Indigenous; street gang; critical gang studies; Saskatchewan; women; oral history; community engaged research; relational practice; justice; child welfare; education; health; social work; social services; criminology
Table of Contents
ix Acknowledgements
xi Introduction
3 Amber
23 Bev
39 Chantel
59 Jazmyne
77 Faith
95 Jorgina
115 Photograph Captions
123 Bibliography
Additional Information
144 pages | 9.00" x 9.00" | Paperback
Synopsis:
An intriguing look at the accomplishments and contradictions of Joseph William McKay, best known as the founder of Nanaimo, BC, and one of the most successful Métis men to rise through the ranks of the Hudson’s Bay Company in the late nineteenth century.
When examining the history of British Columbia, one would be hard-pressed to find an Indigenous person who so successfully navigated the echelons of colonial power as did Joseph William McKay (1829–1900). McKay was Métis, born in Quebec, and began his career in Oregon during the dispute over the international boundary in 1845–46. After moving north, he met his mentor James Douglas and, at age twenty-three, was given the job of building the city of Nanaimo from the ground up and establishing its coal mines.
McKay made several exploratory trips with Douglas during the Gold Rush, and he surveyed the route for the Overland Telegraph, which ran throughout BC. He rose through the ranks of the Hudson’s Bay Company, eventually earning the appointment of Chief Factor, the company’s highest rank. This was at a time when few Indigenous employees of HBC were permitted to rise beyond the rank of postmaster.
After leaving the company in 1878, McKay began a second career in the Department of Indian Affairs. He was a federal Indian Agent and later the Assistant Commissioner of Indian Affairs for British Columbia. A product of his time who had found personal success working within the colonial system, McKay is a complicated figure when viewed through a twenty-first-century lens. He advocated on behalf of Indigenous Peoples when he tried to prevent the trespass of CPR crews and European settlers on their ancestral land. Between 1886 and 1888, he personally inoculated more than a thousand Indigenous people with the smallpox vaccine. Yet, he also participated in a system that did untold harm to First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people. This fascinating new biography sheds light on an accomplished and complex man.
Additional Information
224 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | B&W Photo Sections | Paperback