The Frontier World Of Edgar Dewdney

The Frontier World of Edgar Dewdney is a biography of a man who played a key role in the events which marked the political, social, and economic transformation of western Canada in the latter half of the nineteenth century. An immigrant adventurer seeking his fortune in the colonies, Dewdney was embroiled in the gold rushes of the 1860s, the B.C. debates on Confederation, the Riel Rebellion of 1885, political evolution in the North-West Territories, and the Klondike gold rush. In following his exploits, we follow the story of a region experiencing breathtaking change.

In arresting, but harrowing, prose, James Daschuk examines the roles that Old World diseases, climate, and, most disturbingly, Canadian politics--the politics of ethnocide--played in the deaths and subjugation of thousands of aboriginal people in the realization of Sir John A. Macdonald's "National Dream." It was a dream that came at great expense: the present disparity in health and economic well-being between First Nations and non-Native populations, and the lingering racism and misunderstanding that permeates the national consciousness to this day. " Clearing the Plains is a tour de force that dismantles and destroys the view that Canada has a special claim to humanity in its treatment of indigenous peoples. Daschuk shows how infectious disease and state-supported starvation combined to create a creeping, relentless catastrophe that persists to the present day. The prose is gripping, the analysis is incisive, and the narrative is so chilling that it leaves its reader stunned and disturbed. For days after reading it, I was unable to shake a profound sense of sorrow. This is fearless, evidence-driven history at its finest." -Elizabeth A. Fenn, author of Pox Americana "Required reading for all Canadians." -Candace Savage, author of A Geography of Blood "Clearly written, deeply researched, and properly contextualized history...Essential reading for everyone interested in the history of indigenous North America." -J.R. McNeill, author of Mosquito Empires

"William Henry Jackson was born an Anglo-Saxon Methodist in Southern Ontario. Leaving behind that identity, he served as Louis Riel's secretary during the 1885 Resistance, narrowly avoiding lengthly imprisonment. Escaping an asylum for the insane, he went on to become a prominent labour leader in Chicago, finally trying his hand as a real estate developer in New York City. Along the way, he adopted the name Honore Jaxon, and assumed a prairie Metis identity." -- from publisher.

Schwantes gathers historical photos, advertisements, posters, and contemporary accounts to recreate one of the most colorful periods in the American West. 255 illustrations, 40 in color.

Economic developments in irrigation, agriculture, and hydroelectric power generation in western Canada at the turn of the last century challenged the way Native peoples had traditionally managed the watershed environment. Facing rapidly expanding provincial and federal power as well as private industries, Native peoples saw opportunities to protect their self-governing rights and explore reserve-based economy. Through a combination of field work and archival research, Kenichi Matsui offers an original and pioneering overview of the evolution of water law and agricultural policies in the Canadian west. By incorporating the history of water law philosophies, water development technologies, agricultural policies, and cross-cultural theories, Matsui constructs an interdisciplinary analysis of how both Native peoples and non-native stakeholders struggled for better rights and livelihood through litigation, political campaigns, and direct actions. The dramatic stories of early cultural, legal, and political conflict in interior British Columbia and Alberta featured in Native Peoples and Water Rights enrich our understanding of current Native rights disputes throughout North America.

The complex relationship between subsistence practices and formal markets should be a growing matter of concern for those uneasy with the stark contrast between commercial and local food systems, especially since self-provisioning has never been limited to the margins. In fact, subsistence occupies a central space in local and global economies and networks. Bringing together essays from diverse disciplines to reflect on the meaning of subsistence in theory and in practice, in historical and contemporary contexts, in Canada and beyond, Subsistence under Capitalism is a collective study of the ways in which local food systems have been relegated to the shadows by the drive to establish and expand capitalist markets. Considering fishing, farming, and other forms of subsistence provisioning, the essays in this volume document the persistence of these practices despite capitalist government policies that actively seek to subsume them. Presenting viable alternatives to capitalist production and exchange, the contributors explain the critical interplay between politics, local provisioning, and the ultimate survival of society. Illuminating new kinds of engagements with nature and community, Subsistence under Capitalism looks behind the scenes of subsistence food provisioning to challenge the dominant economic paradigm of the modern world.

•Finalist, Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Non-Fiction When Candace Savage and her partner buy a house in the romantic little town of Eastend, she has no idea what awaits her. At first she enjoys exploring the area around their new home, including the boyhood haunts of the celebrated American writer Wallace Stegner, the back roads of the Cypress Hills, the dinosaur skeletons at the T.Rex Discovery Centre, the fossils to be found in the dust-dry hills. She also revels in her encounters with the wild inhabitants of this mysterious land-three coyotes in a ditch at night, their eyes glinting in the dark; a deer at the window; a cougar pussy-footing it through a gully a few minutes' walk from town. But as Savage explores further, she uncovers a darker reality-a story of cruelty and survival set in the still-recent past--and finds that she must reassess the story she grew up with as the daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter of prairie homesteaders. Beautifully written, impeccably researched, and imbued with Savage's passion for this place, A Geography of Blood offers both a shocking new version of plains history and an unforgettable portrait of the windswept, shining country of the Cypress Hills.