Aboriginal Resource Use in Canada: Historical and Legal Aspects

Franзois Boudreau is a sociology professor at Laurentian University in
Sudbury.

This collection of articles by 20 Canadian scholars depicts Native
history from relatively new, more critical anthropological and
historical perspectives. The contributors, without romanticizing, are
able to comprehend the dignity and coherence of Native culture in
documenting their social and economic life before and after 1492.

The book is divided into five parts. Part 1 reveals the sophistication
and magnitude of the resources used by Natives; we learn about the
complex knowledge Natives had about their environment and their shrewd
strategies for survival. Part 2 chronicles their skilful dealings with
white people involved in the fur trade and questions their so-called
dependency on it. (Perhaps the authors could have shown more precisely
the intricate relationship that Natives saw between trade and politics,
one governed by the rule of gift giving and reciprocity).

Part 3 exposes government endeavors to deprive Natives of their
ancestral rights to the land and its resources; to paraphrase one
author, it is as if the spirit of the treaty and the recognition of the
Indians’ understanding of the treaty has been lost at the federal
level. Part 4 is a detailed illustration of the struggle between the
federal and the Ontario governments over land possession—a struggle
that specifically concerned Treaty 3 area under the terms of the BNA
Act; the conflict was about which level of government would control the
55,000 square miles of land and its resources that this treaty covered.
Part 5 deals with court cases and land claims.

Overall, this collection of articles is refreshing in the more
realistic perspective it brings to bear on Native lives. It would make a
valuable acquisition for any college or university library.