Popularly thought of as a recreational vehicle and one of the key ingredients of an ideal wilderness getaway, the canoe is also a political vessel. A potent symbol and practice of Indigenous cultures and traditions, the canoe has also been adopted to assert conservation ideals, feminist empowerment, citizenship practices, and multicultural goals. Documenting many of these various uses, this book asserts that the canoe is not merely a matter of leisure and pleasure; it is folded into many facets of our political life. Taking a critical stance on the canoe, The Politics of the Canoe expands and enlarges the stories that we tell about the canoe's relationship to, for example, colonialism, nationalism, environmentalism, and resource politics. To think about the canoe as a political vessel is to recognize how intertwined canoes are in the public life, governance, authority, social conditions, and ideologies of particular cultures, nations, and states. Almost everywhere we turn, and any way we look at it, the canoe both affects and is affected by complex political and cultural histories. Across Canada and the U.S., canoeing cultures have been born of activism and resistance as much as of adherence to the mythologies of wilderness and nation building. The essays in this volume show that canoes can enhance how we engage with and interpret not only our physical environments, but also our histories and present-day societies.
Popularly thought of as a recreational vehicle and one of the key ingredients of an ideal wilderness getaway, the canoe is also a political vessel. A potent symbol and practice of Indigenous cultures and traditions, the canoe has also been adopted to assert conservation ideals, feminist empowerment, citizenship practices, and multicultural goals. Documenting many of these various uses, this book asserts that the canoe is not merely a matter of leisure and pleasure; it is folded into many facets of our political life. Taking a critical stance on the canoe, The Politics of the Canoe expands and enlarges the stories that we tell about the canoe's relationship to, for example, colonialism, nationalism, environmentalism, and resource politics. To think about the canoe as a political vessel is to recognize how intertwined canoes are in the public life, governance, authority, social conditions, and ideologies of particular cultures, nations, and states. Almost everywhere we turn, and any way we look at it, the canoe both affects and is affected by complex political and cultural histories. Across Canada and the U.S., canoeing cultures have been born of activism and resistance as much as of adherence to the mythologies of wilderness and nation building. The essays in this volume show that canoes can enhance how we engage with and interpret not only our physical environments, but also our histories and present-day societies.
Bruce Erickson is an Assistant Professor in the
Department of Environment and Geography at the University of
Manitoba. His work investigates the cultural politics of recreation
and tourism within the context of settler colonialism in Canada and
beyond. He is the author of Canoe Nation: Nature, Race and the
Making of a National Icon.
Sarah Wylie Krotz is an Associate Professor of
English literature at the University of Alberta. Her research
explores the complex web of relations among literature, land, and
ecological thought. She is the author of Mapping with Words:
Anglo-Canadian Literary Cartographies, 1789-1916.
"The Politics of the Canoe, like the books that inspired it,
advocates a new, progressive politics of the canoe: one that
rejects the old nation-building icon in favour of an ancient,
multiform watercraft that speaks to Indigenous accomplishment and
Native history."--David Massell "American Review of Canadian
Studies"
"This book is poised to create positive ripples among its readers.
It simultaneously appeals to lovers of the canoe and challenges
them to examine their assumptions about canoeing as an activity
that happens somewhere out there, in "nature," which many of the
contributors remind us is a Euro-colonial construct. Politics of
the Canoe is an invitation to learn, and I suggest the editors have
accomplished a difficult task: speaking to the non-converted,
creating critical conversations, and promoting deeper learning
about the canoe and the ways it is tied to our colonial
histories."--Leigh Potvin "BC Studies"
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