Between 1957 and 1969, the print media overwhelmingly portrayed the construction of a large dam on the Peace River in northern British Columbia as necessary for economic development in the region, while failing to discuss the repercussions of the project for the Sekani who lived in the valley that would be flooded. This study explains how and why that happened. Media coverage, analyzed in the context of communications theories, reveals that although the local and regional mainstream press showed interest in aboriginal issues, it ignored the potential consequences of the dam for the Sekani despite concerns raised at the time, particularly by an aboriginal press seeking to politicize the general public. Because of the significant role of mainstream press structures and journalistic practice, stories conveyed notions that development had no negative consequences, and that marginalization of Indians was caused by factors unrelated to industrial resource exploitation. This study contributes to our understanding of aboriginal history, the history of hydroelectric development, and the history of the media by exploring press coverage of the W.A.C. Bennett dam and the Sekani during a period marked by significant changes in the structure of the Canadian media and the practice of journalism in Canada.
The 1850s in the Pacific Northwest were marked by conflict between the territorial officials of Oregon and Washington and an apparent majority of the settlers of those two territories, on the one hand, and a small number of federal officials and a very few settlers, on the other. Thus, the historical memory of the Indian Wars of the Pacific Northwest was complicated by controversy almost immediately upon the commencement of hostilities. The struggle to construct and maintain the historical memory of the conflicts of 1855-56 in a way that would support the quest for Congressional funding continued throughout most of the nineteenth century. This struggle resulted in two vastly different accounts of the war, one account very supportive of the war, the other highly critical. The critical, minority, account was excluded from the developing historical memory of the conflict in the Pacific Northwest. This exclusion led to a fundamental lack of honesty in the mainstream historical memory, which shifted the responsibility for the Indian wars away from the settlers.
The Resilience of the Babine' argues that the arrival of the fur trade did not alter fundamentally the economic and social networks of the Babine before 1830. These conclusions are drawn through examining the relevant Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) archival materials which serve as the foundation for this research. Literature from anthropology, the cultural material found in the Delgamuukw court case, linguistics, and environmental science corroborate and provide context for the evidence found in the HBC journals. The conclusions reached run counter to the general scholarly trends regarding the impact of the fur trade on aboriginal networks and suggest the need for a significant re-evaluation of not only the history around Babine Lake, but of all interior regions where the indigenous inhabitants had access to coastal markets through trade networks. --P. ii.
It Happened to Me in Barkerville' argues that aboriginal people were participants in many aspects of gold rush life in Barkerville and the surrounding region. Despite the fact that many of the records of aboriginal participation are restricted to the areas in which they came into contact with the British-influenced social elite, a critical examination of the existing documents partially reconstructs the experiences of aboriginal people living there. Letters and correspondence, mining company ledgers, newspaper accounts, and court records suggest that aboriginal experiences were complex and diverse. This was especially true of their integration into Barkerville society, opportunistic participation in the gold rush economy, and relationships with colonial administrators at the Richfield courthouse. These conclusions help provide a more complete history of the Cariboo gold rush at Barkerville, and contribute to a better understanding of the history of indigenous people in British Columbia. --P. ii
Metis women listed as Edmonton and District Stragglers made strategic familial and economic decisions during the treaty and scrip period of the nineteenth century. In so doing, they influenced the development and administration of the Canadian government's treaty and scrip policies. Department of Indian Affairs Inspector Thomas Wadsworth created the straggler classification as an expedient solution to a bureaucratic problem - a way to pay people who, by not belonging to an Indian band, were behaving in a way policy makers had not anticipated. The deconstruction of ethnic and band categories reveals that aboriginal women used administrative categories, including 'straggler,' 'Indian,' and 'halfbreed,' in ways unexpected by government authorities. The ways women used these categories of rule had long-term implications. Their decisions influenced their descendants' ethnic identities. Furthermore, official policy was far different from practice. When individuals responded differently than expected, new administrative categories and policies were created to accommodate for the discrepancies between expected and actual responses.
