University of British Columbia Press
The Iconic North
Cultural Constructions of Aboriginal Life in Postwar Canada
9780774831840
9780774831833
Distributed for University of British Columbia Press
The Iconic North
Cultural Constructions of Aboriginal Life in Postwar Canada
Resilient ideological assumptions, shifting economic priorities, and government policy in the postwar era influenced how northern culture was represented in popular Canadian imagery. In an enlightening exposure of Canada’s cultural landscape, The Iconic North lays bare the relationship between settler nation building and popular images of Aboriginal experience. Joan Sangster redirects the debates about the geopolitical prospects of the North by addressing how women and gender relations have played a key role in the history of northern development. She reveals how assumptions about both Indigenous and non-Indigenous women shaped gender, class, and political relationships in the circumpolar north – a region now commanding more of the world’s attention.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1 Narrating the North: Sojourning Women and Travel Writing
2 The Beaver: Northern Indigenous Life in Popular Education
3 North of Schamattawa: “Indians,” “Eskimos,” and RCMP
4 NFB Documentary, Indigenous Peoples, and Canadian Northern Policy
5 Irene Baird’s Northern Journeys
6 “Mrs. Bird Flies North”: The Royal Commission on the Status of Women in the North
Conclusion
Notes; Bibliography; Index