Yamoria the Lawmaker


Book Description

Dene Elder George Blondin creates a spiritual guidebook that weaves together oral stories with the recounting of how the northern Canadian Dene came to depend on the European fur traders. The result is a magical journey for readers of any heritage.




The Science of the Sacred


Book Description

Indigenous naturopathic doctor Nicole Redvers pairs evidence-based research with traditional healing modalities, addressing modern health problems and medical processes Modern medical science has finally caught up to what traditional healing systems have known for centuries. Many traditional healing techniques and medicines are often assumed to be archaic, outdated, or unscientific compared to modern Western medicine. Nicole Redvers, a naturopathic physician and member of the Deninu K'ue First Nation, analyzes modern Western medical practices using evidence-informed Indigenous healing practices and traditions from around the world--from sweat lodges and fermented foods to Ayurvedic doshas and meditation. Organized around various sciences, such as physics, genetics, and microbiology, the book explains the connection between traditional medicine and current research around epigenetics and quantum physics, for example, and includes over 600 citations. Redvers, who has traveled and worked with Indigenous groups around the world, shares the knowledge and teachings of health and wellness that have been passed down through the generations, tying this knowledge with current scientific advances. Knowing that the science backs up the traditional practice allows us to have earlier and more specific interventions that integrate age-old techniques with the advances in modern medicine and technology.




Troubling Tricksters


Book Description

Troubling Tricksters is a collection of theoretical essays, creative pieces, and critical ruminations that provides a re-visioning of trickster criticism in light of recent backlash against it. The complaints of some Indigenous writers, the critique from Indigenous nationalist critics, and the changing of academic fashion have resulted in few new studies on the trickster. For example, The Cambridge Companion to Native American Literature (2005), includes only a brief mention of the trickster, with skeptical commentary. And, in 2007, Anishinaabe scholar Niigonwedom Sinclair (a contributor to this volume) called for a moratorium on studies of the trickster irrelevant to the specific experiences and interests of Indigenous nations. One of the objectives of this anthology is, then, to encourage scholarship that is mindful of the critic’s responsibility to communities, and to focus discussions on incarnations of tricksters in their particular national contexts. The contribution of Troubling Tricksters, therefore, is twofold: to offer a timely counterbalance to this growing critical lacuna, and to propose new approaches to trickster studies, approaches that have been clearly influenced by the nationalists’ call for cultural and historical specificity.




Restoring Relations Through Stories


Book Description

This insightful volume offers an analysis of land-based Diné and Dene imaginaries as embodied in their own cinematic, visual, and literary stories. Watchman uses literary and visual texts to explore how relations are restored, showing how literary linkages from land-based stories affirm kinship.




Bearing Witness


Book Description

As the centenary of the Great War approaches, citizens worldwide are reflecting on the history, trauma, and losses of a war-torn twentieth century. It is in remembering past wars that we are at once confronted with the profound horror and suffering of armed conflict and the increasing elusiveness of peace. The contributors to Bearing Witness do not presume to resolve these troubling questions, but provoke new kinds of reflection. They explore literature, the arts, history, language, and popular culture to move beyond the language of rhetoric and commemoration provided by politicians and the military. Adding nuance to discussions of war and peace, this collection probes the understanding and insight created in the works of musicians, dramatists, poets, painters, photographers, and novelists, to provide a complex view of the ways in which war is waged, witnessed, and remembered. A compelling and informative collection, Bearing Witness sheds new light on the impact of war and the power of suffering, heroism and memory, to expose the human roots of violence and compassion. Contributors include Heribert Adam (Simon Fraser University), Laura Brandon (Carleton University), Mireille Calle-Gruber (Université La Sorbonne Nouvelle), Janet Danielson (Simon Fraser University), Sandra Djwa (emeritus, Simon Fraser University), Alan Filewod (University of Guelph), Sherrill Grace (University of British Columbia), Patrick Imbert (University of Ottawa), Tiffany Johnstone (PhD Candidate, University of British Columbia), Martin Löschnigg (Graz University), Lauren Lydic (PhD, University of Toronto), Conny Steenman Marcusse (Netherlands), Jonathan Vance (University of Western Ontario), Aritha van Herk (University of Calgary), Peter C. van Wyck (Concordia University), Christl Verduyn (Mount Allison University), and Anne Wheeler (filmmaker).




A Short History of the Blockade


Book Description

Simpson uses Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg storytelling to deepen our understanding of Indigenous resistance.




Movement and Indigenous Religions


Book Description

This edited book brings together leading scholars in the field of Indigenous religions working with Indigenous Peoples from the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Europe to examine various Indigenous discourses, practices, and politics of movement, as they intersect with issues of religion and spirituality. Indigenous Peoples and their religious traditions have always been mobile and adaptive. Scholars of Indigenous religions have tended to focus their theories of Indigeneity and religion on Indigenous Peoples’ cultural and historic connections to particular land-bases, not always attending to the full complexity of Indigenous Peoples’ mobile lived realities. Attention to mobility within the study of Indigenous religions reveals the many ways Indigenous religions, in addition to being grounded on the land and situated in shared pasts, are expansive, relational, innovative, and future oriented. The contributions to this volume highlight the centrality of mobility to cultivating personhood, maintaining networks of affinity and belonging, fostering political alliances and solidarities, and generating religious meaning. This book will be a key resource for scholars and students in the fields of religious studies, Indigenous studies, anthropology, and history, as well as to a broad general audience interested in larger questions around the politics of decolonization, Indigenous sovereignty, and self-determination. It was originally published as a special issue of Material Religion.




Highway of the Atom


Book Description

A subarctic mine on the far eastern shores of Great Bear Lake provided Canadian uranium for the bombs detonated over Japan in August 1945. However, a complete history of Canada's involvement in the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb has been thwarted by restrictions on classified documents.




The Northern Horizons of Guy Blanchet


Book Description

Guy Blanchet mapped large areas of the Barrens by canoe and soon became caught up in pioneer northern aviation. He did not seek adventure, but it often found him.




The Culture of Hunting in Canada


Book Description

The Culture of Hunting in Canada covers elements of the history of hunting from the pre-colonial period until the present in all parts of Canada and features essays by practitioners and scholars of hunting and by pro- and anti-hunting lobbyists. The result crosses the boundaries between scholarship and personal reflection, and between academia and advocacy. Topics include hunting identities; conservation and its relationship to hunting; tensions between hunters and non-hunters and between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal hunting groups; hunting ethics; debates over hunting practices and regulations; animal rights; and gun control. This book makes an unprecedented contribution to the study of hunting in Canada and its role in our culture.