Blockades and Resistance: Studies in Actions of Peace and the Temagami Blockades of 1988–89

J.R. (Jim) Miller is Canada Research Chair of History at the University
of Saskatchewan. He is the author of Skyscrapers Hide in the Heavens: A
History of Indian-White Relations in Canada and co-editor of the
Canadian Historical Review.

To commemorate the 10th anniversary of important protests in the
Temagami district of Northern Ontario on behalf of a Native land claim,
two of the protesters and a literature specialist from Wilfrid Laurier
University have published Blockades and Resistance. The volume combines
reminiscences by participants in the Native drive to have their
territorial rights recognized with analytical scholarly articles by
academics and reflections by pro-Native activists. As is usual with such
compendia, the result is uneven, both in quality and in the ability of
the authors to stay focused on the unifying theme of Native resistance
to state, church, and society’s oppressive tactics.

The book’s strongest chapters are those that provide historical
context and interpretation of specific events. For example, Chapter 5,
“Remembering an Intellectual Wilderness” by David McNab, gives the
reader both a good understanding of the ideology and interests that
motivated governmental opposition to settling the Temagami claim and a
good summary of events from a governmental insider’s perspective. One
wonders, though, why such a scene-setting essay did not appear earlier
in the volume. Similarly, historical analyses of 19th-century campaigns
of resistance in Ontario by Rhonda Telford and Brian Osborne lend depth
and detail to the story of long-running Native resistance that the
editors seek to tell.

On the other hand, some chapters, such as Michael Ripmeester’s
“Intentional Resistance or Just ‘Bad Behaviour’” and James
Lawson’s “Space, Strategy, and Surprise” are over-theorized to
such an extent that they fail to connect with the reader. The
relationship of others to the theme of Aboriginal resistance is obscure.
For example, Ute Lischke’s “Female Narratives of Resistance,” a
graceful examination of American writer Louise Erdrich’s work, seems
much more about that mixed-ancestry author’s attempt to resolve and
explain her own identity than it is about resistance.

On balance, Blockades and Resistance comprises an interesting and
informative mix of essays; however, a more disciplined editorial
selection of contributors and closer adherence to the volume’s theme
would have resulted in a stronger commemoration of a specific example of
a continuing theme in Canadian history.