The New Buffalo: The Struggle for Aboriginal Post-Secondary Education in Canada (review)

Today, elders say that education, rather than the bison, needs to be relied upon for survival.

(p. 2)

The plains "buffalo" is a North American icon, a symbol of the First Nations who inhabited the Great Plains and once depended on these huge mammals. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "buffalo" actually refers to several species of Old World oxen belonging to the genus Bos and only "in popular unscientific use" to their distant relatives in North America, the subspecies Bison bison bison (plains bison) and Bison bison athabascae (wood bison).

Famously appropriated by the United States Mint, the bison features prominently in the coat of arms of the province of Manitoba, the crest of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and also that of the University of Manitoba (whose press published this book). It is a Prairies icon, of course; other First Nations might prefer the salmon, the Canada goose, the beaver, or the three sisters (corn, beans, and squash). What makes the buffalo unique as a symbol of survival, however, is that its decimation more than a century ago —recently attributed to international trade (M. Scott Taylor, Buffalo Hunt International Trade and the Virtual Extinction of the North American Bison) —threatened the very existence of the First Nations (and Métis) in Western Canada and forced them to find new ways of living. Ironically, the Tories' 1980s cost-cutting strategy used the appalling metaphor of a buffalo jump (Katherine Graham, "Indian Policy and the Tories: Cleaning Up After the Buffalo Jump," in How Ottawa Spends 1987–88: Restraining the State).

One of the ways in which First Nations survived their colonization was through, or despite, formal education (J. R. Miller, Shingwauk's Vision: A History of Native Residential Schools; John A. Milloy, A National Crime: The Canadian Government and the Residential School System, 1879 to 1986). Before Blair Stonechild's pioneering study, we knew little about the history of federal and provincial post-secondary policies regarding Aboriginal peoples. There was one paragraph in the first volume of Indian Education in Canada (Jean Barman, Yvonne Hébert, and Don McCaskill, eds. Indian Education in Canada, Volume 1: The Legacy) and only scattered bits in its sequel (Volume 2: The Challenge). Publication of Stonechild's PhD dissertation ("Pursuing the New Buffalo: First Nations Higher Education Policy in Canada," University of Regina, 2004) puts this important analysis of a little understood aspect of Aboriginal education policy into the hands of a wider audience. The New Buffalo acknowledges previous authors (pp. 4–5) and helps to contextualize more recent studies of specific institutions, like Celia Haig-Brown's Taking Control: Power and Contradiction in First Nations Adult Education and several of those in Marie Battiste and Jean Barman's First Nations Education in Canada: The Circle Unfolds.

Post-secondary schooling for Aboriginal peoples "has evolved from a tool of assimilation to an instrument of empowerment" (p. 2), but there is still a fundamental disagreement about the federal government's responsibility in this area. Indeed, the future of First Nations Technical Institute in Ontario, briefly acknowledged by Stonechild (p. 120), is very much in doubt as I write this review (First Nations Technical Institute website, http://www.fnti.net, accessed March 6, 2008).

In chapter 1, The New Buffalo reviews the assimilationist assumptions underlying early Indian legislation and the western numbered treaties. It also uses archival records to illustrate the difficulties experienced by three of the first Indian students attending McGill University (Stonechild's alma mater) and the ultimately futile efforts of Emmanuel College to establish "the first institution for Indian higher education" in Western Canada (p. 27).

Chapter 2 summarizes the broad approaches to Indian policy under Diefenbaker, Pearson, and Trudeau. It also provides information on university enrolment by Indians during this period. Chapter 3 summarizes the accomplishments of the 1974–1978 Joint Cabinet/National Indian Brotherhood Committee and proceeds to examine: the 1971 establishment of cultural/education...