Living on the Edge: Nuu-Chah-Nulth History from an Ahousaht Chief's Perspective

Kerry Abel is a professor of history at Carleton University. She is the author of Drum Songs: Glimpses of Dene History, co-editor of Aboriginal Resource Use in Canada: Historical and Legal Aspects, and co-editor of Northern Visions: New Perspectives on the North in Canadian History.

Over the last 20 years, there has been a small but steady output of
books by First Nations authors that are promoted as offering first-hand
insight into contemporary Aboriginal-rights issues or as accounts of
history “from the Native point of view.” The subtext is that
scholars and other outsiders have it all wrong, and that truth can be
told only by those who have actually experienced it. Chief George’s
contribution to the genre is presented in an attractive package,
illustrated with photographs (both archival and contemporary) and maps.

The book is primarily a personal memoir, but readers are also
introduced, in a series of loosely organized chapters, to the importance
of the sea and land resources to the Ahousaht people of Vancouver
Island, and to some key historical events. Reading the book feels rather
like sitting and listening to a series of evening storytelling sessions
led by a man whose life has spanned important changes and who has risen
graciously to meet the challenges these have posed.

Unfortunately, however, it is not clear what Chief George believes is
unique about his perspective or exactly what it was that scholars “got
wrong” about the Nuu-Chah-Nulth (once known to Europeans as the
Nootka). For example, years ago, historian Robin Fisher explored the
maritime fur trade and Chief Maquinna’s role in it as developments
that benefited the coastal peoples; Chief George prefers to stress the
negative impact of that trade and sees Maquinna’s rise to prominence
as something independent of the trade. But a reader unfamiliar with the
literature would not be aware of such differences in interpretation.

Chief George hopes in this book to explain to outsiders the importance
of the special relationship between his people and the land and sea, in
part because that relationship forms the core of the negotiating
position in the ongoing land claims discussions (which Chief George
prefers—I believe rightly—to call the “treaty”). Although the
position he presents here is clearly heartfelt, it is not presented in
such a way as to convince skeptics or opponents of Aboriginal rights.