Nishnaabeg Encounters: Living Indigenous Landscapes
Madeline Whetung2016
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Abstract
This thesis is an exploration of Nishnaabeg geography in what is now known as Southern Ontario that takes into consideration the dominating settler colonial context. Using a mixed method of textual document analysis, and embodied research, I develop a Nishnaabeg geography of a region colonized by a the Trent Severn Waterway (TSW), a large canal composed of several locks and dams that connect natural lakes, and dense settlement in the form of privately owned cottages. The TSW was integral to establishing settlement in the region and is commemorated as a part of Canada’s nation-building project over Indigenous lands. This research considers how the colonization of the water contributed to the creation of a built colonialscape and helped to spatialize Indigenous land relations as belonging “somewhere else.” I argue that in spite of these imagined spatializations, the Indigenous landscape continues to live on beneath the built colonialscape in geographical layers.
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Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-48767-9 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-48767-9 NOTICE: The author has granted a nonexclusive license allowing Library and Archives Canada to reproduce, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, communicate to the public by telecommunication or on the Internet, loan, distribute and sell theses worldwide, for commercial or noncommercial purposes, in microform, paper, electronic and/or any other formats. AVIS: L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public par telecommunication ou par Plntemet, prefer, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou autres formats. Canada Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. "Wilderness" is a term commonly used to describe the forested landscapes of northern British Columbia. The western colonial ideologies embedded in this interpretation of the land had the effect of dehumanizing and erasing an extant vibrant Aboriginal landscape during the long process of colonization. This rewriting of the landscape was accomplished through various colonial mechanisms. Primary and secondary literature demonstrates the extent to which the concept "wilderness" has become a meta-narrative of the landscape. Ethnographic work with the Tsimshian First Nation community of Kitsumkalum in northern British Columbia indicates that their ideologies of the land have not been erased through colonialism, but continue to exist and are deeply embedded in their culture and in their everyday lives. Thus it is important to work towards a space where more than one ideology of the land can be acknowledged and accepted especially when faced with treaty negotiations over land and rights.
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