The Long Journey of a Forgotten People
Métis Identities and Family Histories
, David T McNab
Checking Availibility...Description
Known as "Canada's forgotten people," the Métis have long been here, but until 1982 they lacked the legal status of Native people. At that point, however, the Métis were recognized in the constitution as one of Canada's Aboriginal peoples. A significant addition to Métis historiography, The Long Journey of a Forgotten People includes Métis voices and personal narratives that address the thorny and complicated issue of Métis identity from historical and contemporary perspectives. Topics include eastern Canadian Métis communities; British military personnel and their mixed-blood descendants; life as a Métis woman; and the Métis peoples ongoing struggle for recognition of their rights, including discussion of recent Supreme Court rulings.
About this Author
Ute Lischke teaches German literature, film studies and cultural perspectives at Wilfrid Laurier University where she is Associate Professor in the Department of English and Film Studies. Lischke is the author of Lily Braun, 1865-1916 German Writer, Feminist, Socialist (2000). Her most recent books, edited with David T. McNab, include Blockades and Resistance: Studies in Actions of Peace and the Temagami Blockades of 1988-89 (2003), Walking a Tightrope: Aboriginal People and their Representations (2005), and The Long Journey of a Forgotten People: Métis Identities and Family Histories, (2007) all with WLU Press.
|David T. McNab is a Métis historian who has worked for three decades on Aboriginal land and treaty rights issues in Canada. McNab teaches in the School of Arts and Letters in the Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies at York University in Toronto where he is Associate Professor of Indigenous Studies. He has also been a claims advisor for Nin.Da.Waab.Jig., Walpole Island Heritage Center, Bkejwanong First Nations since 1992. In addition to more than seventy articles, McNab has published Earth, Water, Air and Fire: Studies in Canadian Ethnohistory (editor) (1998) and Circles of Time: Aboriginal Land Rights and Resistance in Ontario (1999) as well as the co-edited (with Ute Lischke) Blockades and Resistance: Studies in Actions of Peace and the Temagami Blockades of 1988-89 (2003), Walking a Tightrope: Aboriginal People and their Representations (2005), and The Long Journey of a Forgotten People: Métis Identities and Family Histories, (2007) all with WLU Press.
Reviews
``The volume is arranged to provide a breadth of perspectives on the fluctuating personal, familial, and national identities of the Métis... This extensive coverage challenges previous historic accounts of Métis communities by bringing into focus archival sources, recently acquired manuscripts, diaries, journals, and oral and autobiographical accounts of the variously constituted Métis communities in Canada. One of the most striking aspects of this volume is that each of the Métis contributors addresses the distinctiveness of these communities and expertly traces their historical significance.... As a Métis woman and educator, I was personally thrilled to review this volume of essays, and I expect they will provide very significant contribution to the increasing knowledge of who we are, and have been.''
``Not unlike the Powley [Supreme Court of Canada R. v. Powley, 2003] decision itself, The Long Journey outlines new scope for contemporary Métis studies.... The Long Journey is a remarkable collection for a number of reasons, not the least its breadth of topics and types of writing.... Two of the articles...are primarily biographical, while a number of others include thoughtful sytheses of biographical and historical materials. I found these especially germane, as in my own experience of community-based historical research I have found that many Métis understand and express their own history in family and personal terms; the historiography thus offered is both from and about Métis. Also of note in this collection is the geographical scope; the historical chapters cover communities from Drummond Island and the Sault to the Athabasca region of present-day Alberta, British Columbia, and the Northwest Territories, and the communities discussed are wonderfully complex in terms of their origins and sociological trajectories.''
``The volume succeeds in making history personal and relevant, bringing Métis voices to bear on Métis issues, and expanding on new methodologies. Following the seminal works of Jennifer Brown, Jacqueline Peterson, and Sylvia Van Kirk in the 1980s, it carries on a tradition of social history with an emphasis on family and kinship as essential principles of Métis culture.[1] Consequently, many of these essays fit nicely into the recent historiography which has reinstituted this trend outside of fur trade history, thus inspiring a geographical, thematic, and methodological expansion of Métis history.[2] The Long Journey of a Forgotten People contributes to this genre by incorporating personal narrative into articles that will meet a wide range of interests, provide broader perspectives on ethnogenesis, and offer potential examples of larger trends. This makes the collection as relevant to social historians of any interest as to those engaged in Métis studies.''
If the product is in stock at the store nearest you, we suggest you call ahead to have it set aside for you, or you may place an order online and choose in-store pickup.
