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.
Authors
- Bibliography, etc. Note
- Includes bibliographical references and index
- Control Number Identifier
- CaOOCEL
- Description conventions
- rda
- Dewey Decimal Classification Number
- 797.1220971
- Dewey Decimal Edition Number
- 23
- Distributor
- Canadian Electronic Library (Firm),
- General Note
- Issued as part of the desLibris books collection
- Geographic Area Code
- n-cn---
- ISBN
- 9780887559112 0887559123
- LCCN
- GV776.115
- LCCN Item number
- P65 2021eb
- Modifying agency
- CaBNVSL
- Original cataloging agency
- NLC
- Physical Description | Extent
- 1 electronic text (xi, 256 pages)
- Published in
- Ottawa, Ontario
- Publisher or Distributor Number
- CaOOCEL
- Rights
- Access restricted to authorized users and institutions
- System Control Number
- (CaBNVSL)kck00241756 (OCoLC)1196086074 (CaOOCEL)480963
- System Details Note
- Mode of access: World Wide Web
- Transcribing agency
- NLC
Table of Contents
- Cover 1
- Contents 8
- Preface: The Politics of the Canoe 10
- Introduction 14
- Part One: Asserting Indigenous Sovereignty 38
- Chapter 1. Tribal Canoe Journeys and Indigenous Cultural Resurgence: A Story from the Heiltsuk Nation 40
- Chapter 2. This Is What Makes Us Strong: Canoe Revitalization, Reciprocal Heritage, and the Chinook Indian Nation 62
- Chapter 3. Whaèhdǫǫ̀ Etǫ K’è 86
- Part Two: Building Canoes, Knowledge, and Relationships 102
- Chapter 4. Model Canoes, Territorial Histories, and Linguistic Resurgence: Decolonizing the Tappan Adney Archives 104
- Chapter 5. Ginawaydaganuc: The Birchbark Canoe in Algonquin Community Resurgence and Reconciliation 120
- Chapter 6. Pathways to the Forest: Meditations on the Colonial Landscape 148
- Part Three: Telling Histories 166
- Chapter 7. Beyond Birchbark: How Lahontan’s Images of Unfamiliar Canoes Confirm His Remarkable Western Expedition of 1688 168
- Chapter 8. Monumental Trip: Don Starkell’s Canoe Voyage from Winnipeg to the Mouth of the Amazon 190
- Chapter 9. The Dam That Wasn’t: How the Canoe Became Political on the Petawawa River 212
- Chapter 10. Unpacking and Repacking the Canoe: Canoe as Research Vessel 228
- Contributors 254
- Index 262
