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Reviewed by:
  • Blockades and Resistance: Studies in Actions and Peace and the Temagami Blockades of 1988-89, and: A Way of Life that Does Not Exist: Canada and the Extinguishment of the Innu
  • Jean L. Manore
Blockades and Resistance: Studies in Actions and Peace and the Temagami Blockades of 1988-89. Edited by Bruce W. Hodgins, Ute Lischke, and David T. Mcnab. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2003. Pp. xi, 276. $45.00
A Way of Life that Does Not Exist: Canada and the Extinguishment of the Innu. Colin Samson. St John's: ISER Books, 2003. Pp. 388. $27.00

It is the premise of Hodgins, Lischke and McNab that blockades and resistance on the part of Aboriginal peoples are not actions of war, that [End Page 537] is, actions that mean to sever the relationship between Native and settler populations, but rather actions of peace, and means of bettering that relationship. Peaceful relations are those in which the people involved respect the other's integrity and sovereignty as human beings and communities. The nation-state of Canada has not respected the First Nations; thus they have pursued various forms of resistance, including blockades, in order to acquire the respect they deserve.

Blockades and Resistance is a collection of articles and perspectives that provide numerous examples of Aboriginal resistance. Specifically featured is the blockade of the Red Squirrel Road by the Teme-Augama Anishnabai ( TAA) who were resisting attempts by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources to open up the TAA's lands to logging. The articles were authored by various participants in the blockades, from members of the TAA, to local non-Native TAA supporters, to government employees at the time. All the authors were deeply affected by these events and recognize that the resistance continues.

Other articles in the book offer examples of resistance apart from the Temagami blockades. For example, Ellesa Clay High from West Virginia University ( WVU) talks about the attempts there to establish a Native Studies Program and the resistance faced by her and others to it. The article focuses on the planting of a white pine tree, a symbol of peace, on the grounds of the university in 1992 as a counter-response to the celebrations of Christopher Columbus's quincentenary. In 1996, it was chopped down. Apparently the non-Native community at the university could not embrace its signification. In response, the people involved in the first planting recognized that 'you can't chop Peace down' and so another tree was planted in the former's place, and the attempt at peace between the two communities was renewed. Clay makes the link between the White Pine at WVU and the attempted cutting of the pines at Temagami; perhaps we should too.

Other examples of resistance include the forced closing of the mines in northwestern Ontario by the Anishnabe in the mid-nineteenth century, the use of Christianity as a means of maintaining control of lands, and the claim for damages by the Longlac Ojibway whose lands were flooded as a result of hydroelectric development. These articles take a historical look at resistance, while others focus on contemporary resistance as exhibited in prisons, literature, and post-secondary education.

Blockades and Resistance not only highlights examples of Aboriginal efforts at establishing peaceful relations but is, in itself, a vehicle of peace because its primary function is to educate its readers, to explain why and how Aboriginal resistance occurs. One dimension to peaceful relations [End Page 538] that is not explored, however, is the very real 'siege mentality' that exists within the non-Native community. I too have experiences with Aboriginal blockades, having worked, like one of the authors, for the Ontario government during the siege at Oka. I watched with disgust as the people working in my office 'circled the wagons' and established a 'communications command centre' in the event that the standoff at Oka created corresponding blockades in Ontario. That Oka would cause such a panic in Ontario demonstrated to me that the old 'frontier fears' of 'savages in the woods' was still very much a part of our political culture. If there is to be peace between Native and settler populations in Canada...

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