National Network for Equitable Library Service

In order to interpret and implement a treaty between the Crown and Canada’s First Nations, we must look to its spirit and intent, and consider what was contemplated by the parties at the time the treaty was negotiated, argues Aimée Craft. Using a detailed analysis of Treaty One – today covering what is southern Manitoba – she illustrates how negotiations were defined by Anishinabe laws (inaakonigewin), which included the relationship to the land, the attendance of all jurisdictions’ participants, and the rooting of the treaty relationship in kinship.

Thomas Isaac looks at the broad picture of trends that are developing in the law and the background, highlighting aspects of Canadian law that impact Aboriginal peoples and their relationship with the wider Canadian society. While covering issues such as Aboriginal and treaty rights, constitutional issues, land claims, self-government, provincial and federal roles, the rights of the Métis, and the Indian Act, this book pays particular attention to the Crown’s duty to consult.

In recent decades, educators have been seeking ways to improve outcomes for Indigenous students. Yet most Indigenous education still takes place within a theoretical framework based in Eurocentric thought. Teaching Each Other provides an alternative framework for teachers working with Indigenous students – one that moves beyond merely acknowledging Indigenous culture to one that actually strengthens Indigenous identity.

First Nations Cultural Heritage and Law explores First Nations perspectives on cultural heritage and issues of reform within and beyond Western law. Written in collaboration with First Nation partners, it contains seven case studies featuring indigenous concepts, legal orders, and encounters with legislation and negotiations; a national review essay; three chapters reflecting on major themes; and a self-reflective critique on the challenges of collaborative and intercultural research.

Aboriginal peoples in Canada have diverse cultures but share common social and political challenges that have contributed to their experiences of health and illness. This collection addresses the origins of mental health and social problems and the emergence of culturally responsive approaches to services and health promotion. Healing Traditions is not a handbook of practice but a resource for thinking critically about current issues in the mental health of indigenous peoples.

Drawing on treaties, international law, the work of other Indigenous scholars, and especially personal experiences, Marie Battiste documents the nature of Eurocentric models of education, and their devastating impacts on Indigenous knowledge. Chronicling the negative consequences of forced assimilation, racism inherent to colonial systems of education, and the failure of current educational policies for Aboriginal populations, Battiste proposes a new model of education, arguing the preservation of Aboriginal knowledge is an Aboriginal right.

The North American fur trade of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was a vividly complex and changing social world. Strangers in Blood fills a major gap in fur trade literature by systematically examining the traders as a group -- their backgrounds, social patterns, domestic lives and families, and the problems of their offspring.

In 1982, Canada formally recognized Aboriginal rights within its Constitution. The move reflected a consensus that states should and could use group rights to protect and accommodate subnational groups within their borders. Decades later, however, no one is happy. This state of affairs, Panagos argues, is rooted in a failure to define what aboriginality means, which has led to the promotion and protection of a single vision of aboriginality – that of the justices of the Supreme Court.

Until recently, most residents of Puvirnituq, an Inuit settlement in Northern Quebec, made their living off the land. Successful hunting, fishing, trapping and gathering, so vital to people’s survival, were underpinned by the expectation that food should be shared. As the Inuit moved into – both forced and voluntary – they have had to incorporate the workings of a monetized economy into their own notions of how to operate as a society.

Resilient ideological assumptions, shifting economic priorities, and government policy in the postwar era influenced how northern culture was represented in popular Canadian imagery. In an enlightening exposure of Canada’s cultural landscape, The Iconic North lays bare the relationship between settler nation building and popular images of Aboriginal experience. Joan Sangster redirects the debates about the geopolitical prospects of the North by addressing how women and gender relations have played a key role in the history of northern development.