Encounters: Early Images of Canada's Aboriginal Peoples

David R. Hutchinson is an educator on the Peguis Reserve in Manitoba.

Encounters features a remarkable collection of early photographs
(sometimes with accompanying anthropological notes that were written at
the time the photographs were taken) of Native people taken by surveyors
who were working for the Geological Survey of Canada. Certainly the
photographs reveal the state of aboriginal peoples’ cultural and
historical development during the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
but they also yield insight into the institutional genesis of
Eurocentric approaches to anthropology, which clearly favored the study
of Natives as an exotic species and not as members of human societies.
Perhaps the greatest evidence of this bias lies in the fact that, with
only a few exceptions, the Native people in the photographs were not
identified by name. To their credit, however, the library of the
Geological Survey of Canada is now asking for the identification of
names.

There are a number of good reasons for reading this book: it encourages
critical reflection on early Euro-Canadian images of Native peoples; it
provides insight into how such cultural appropriation can be mediated in
the work of contemporary anthropologists; and it registers as an
important photographic record of a significant sociocultural transition
for Native peoples. Educators at all levels would find this an excellent
resource.