The nature of empires and the empires of nature : Indigenous peoples and the Great Lakes environment

Hele, Karl S. (Karl Scott), 1970- (Added Author).

Summary: Drawing on themes from John MacKenzie’s Empires of Nature and the Nature of Empires (1997), this book explores, from Indigenous or Indigenous-influenced perspectives, the power of nature and the attempts by empires (United States, Canada, and Britain) to control it. It also examines contemporary threats to First Nations communities from ongoing political, environmental, and social issues, and the efforts to confront and eliminate these threats to peoples and the environment. It becomes apparent that empire, despite its manifestations of power, cannot control or discipline humans and nature. Essays suggest new ways of looking at the Great Lakes watershed and the peoples and empires contained within it.

Record details

ISBN: 9781554584888 (pbk.)
Physical Description: print
xxi, 348 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.
Publisher: Waterloo, ON : Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2016, c2013.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

Introduction: A meditation on environmental history-- Tricky medicine : something old for something new -- Rediscovering relationships -- Learning to relate : environmental and place-based education in Northern Ontario -- Bridging academia and indigenous environmental science : is it too late? -- Empire revisited : the covenant chain of silver, land policy, and the Proclamation of 1763 in the Great Lakes region, 1760-1800 -- Lines on the land : surveying townships after the 1790 Treaty -- Poisoning the serpent : the effects of the uranium industry on the Serpent River First Nation, 1953-1988 -- Divided spaces, divided stories : animal control programs in Canada's indigenous communities -- First Nations diasporas in Canada : a case of recognition -- Assessing environmental health risks through collaborative research and oral histories : the water quality issue at Walpole Island First Nation -- Landscape and mindscape conjoined : the empire of nature and the nature of empire in the journals of Ezhaaswe (William A. Elias) (c. 1848-1929) -- A world of beauty : the spirits within nature in the writings of Louise Erdrich -- Settler narrative and indigenous resistance in <i>The Baldoon Mystery</i> -- The great Indian bus tour : mapping Toronto's urban First Nations oral tradition.