The Identities Of Marie Rose Delorme Smith

Marie Rose Delorme Smith was a woman of French-Métis ancestry who was born during the fur trade era and who spent her adult years as a pioneer rancher in the Pincher Creek district of southern Alberta. The Identities of Marie Rose Delorme Smith examines how Marie Rose negotiates her identities--as mother, boarding house owner, homesteader, medicine woman, midwife, and writer--during the changing environment of the western plains during the late nineteenth century.

In Metis Pioneers, Doris Jeanne MacKinnon compares the survival strategies of two Metis women born during the fur trade—one from the French-speaking free trade tradition and one from the English-speaking Hudson’s Bay Company tradition—who settled in southern Alberta as the Canadian West transitioned to a sedentary agricultural and industrial economy. MacKinnon provides rare insight into their lives, demonstrating the contributions Metis women made to the building of the Prairie West. This is a compelling tale of two women’s acts of quiet resistance in the final days of the British Empire.

How is identity formed? If you were born in Canada, that makes you Canadian; if you were raised Jewish, that makes you a Jew, right? But what about a teenage boy from small town Saskatchewan who has a secret crush on the guy who sits next to him in homeroom? What does that make him? And how would his identity change if he grew up to become an out-of-the-closet gay man? In Out Spoken: Perspectives on Queer Identities questions like these are addressed by an eclectic range of authors in disciplines that range from sociology and education to cultural studies and literature--as well as playwrights, artists and writers--to reveal the fluid and sometimes confounding nature of identity when sexuality is part of the mix. "Outspoken marks the coming-of-age of queer studies in Canada, covering topics from the analysis of literary classics to the history of sexology to hands-on community work. The range and quality of its contents will be a welcome addition for scholars and an inspiration to younger LGBTQ people." Ross Higgins, Concordia University and UQAM; author of Peter Flinsch and De la clandestinité à l'affirmation.

In recent years there has been growing interest in identifying the social and cultural attributes that define the Metis as a distinct people. In this groundbreaking study, Brenda Macdougall employs the concept of wahkootowin � the Cree term for a worldview that privileges family and values interconnectedness � to trace the emergence of a Metis community in northern Saskatchewan. Wahkootowin describes how relationships worked and helps to explain how the Metis negotiated with local economic and religious institutions while nurturing a society that emphasized family obligation and responsibility. This innovative exploration of the birth of Metis identity offers a model for future research and discussion.

Biography of Marie Rose Smith (1861-1960) for the period 1870 to 1914.

Shining a spotlight on the life, vision, and cultivation of one of Canada's most influential historical figures.

Respected Elder Elmer Ghostkeeper takes us on a journey of rediscovery where we gain a new perspective on the world we take for granted. Ghostkeeper tells the story of his attempt to reclaim and reawaken to his Indigenous worldview on his own terms with his traditional knowledge intact. As he returns to his roots, he shares the series of natural signs that have guided his family through time and shaped their ceremonial activities in living with the land rather than off the land. He reveals how to follow the natural ebb and flow of nature with its spiritual exchange of precise and well-thought-out duties and giftings. As a fluent Cree speaker, he names the Cree words for the 12 moons of the year, setting out these traditional duties and preparations. His writing is a breath of fresh reality and air--air free of exhaust and spiritual exhaustion--air filled with spiritual inspiration.

Born of encounters between Indigenous women and Euro-American men in the first decades of the nineteenth century, the Plains Metis people occupied contentious geographic and cultural spaces. Living in a disputed area of the northern Plains inhabited by various Indigenous nations and claimed by both the United States and Great Britain, the Metis emerged as a people with distinctive styles of speech, dress, and religious practice, and occupational identities forged in the intense rivalries of the fur and provisions trade. Michel Hogue explores how, as fur trade societies waned and as state officials looked to establish clear lines separating the United States from Canada and Indians from non-Indians, these communities of mixed Indigenous and European ancestry were profoundly affected by the efforts of nation-states to divide and absorb the North American West. Grounded in extensive research in U.S. and Canadian archives, Hogue's account recenters historical discussions that have typically been confined within national boundaries and illuminates how Plains Indigenous peoples like the Metis were at the center of both the unexpected accommodations and the hidden history of violence that made the "world's longest undefended border."