Stories of Oka: Land, Film, and Literature by Isabelle St-Amand (review)

Although the events that surrounded the so-called Oka crisis occurred nearly three decades ago, they continue to reverberate across Indigenous-Settler relations on a daily basis. Without Oka, there would not have been a report from the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples in 1996, no official federal "apology" for the government's role in the operation of residential schools in Canada in 2008, and certainly no Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015. While most Canadians are aware of these governmental efforts to address and improve upon Indigenous-Settler relationships, very few understand the long, uncomfortable history of land claims and the ongoing frustration felt by Indigenous peoples around land rights and political jurisdiction in this country. Given the recent events witnessed in Wet'suwet'en territory (and beyond) protesting pipeline development, it is clear that Canada is once again grappling with centuries-old disputes that just will not go away – as much as Canadian politicians wish they would. As such, Oka remains perhaps the singular, most prominent moment that has indelibly shaped Indigenous relations and social and political life in this country since 1990 and which deserves further analysis.

Isabelle St-Amand's Stories of Oka: Land, Film, and Literature is therefore a timely and important addition to the ever-growing body of critical texts in the field of Indigenous studies. It is a highly readable and scholarly work that takes up the ongoing significance of Oka from a present-day perspective, incorporating critical analysis of documentary film, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and autobiography. It is an extremely thoughtful, detailed, and insightful study that greatly benefits from the inclusion of French Canadian texts that have been previously overlooked when thinking about the literary "canon" of Oka's impact and legacy. As St-Amand writes in her introduction, "[l]ike the event around which it is constructed and thus helps to reactivate, this book presents various dimensions of the political crisis as seen from contrasting points of view. It seeks a better understanding of what drove and shaped the conflict; what gave it its strategic and symbolic power." By taking a largely literary/film studies approach, St-Amand foregrounds the effect which individual stories can have when thinking about what Oka meant to those most directly affected by it, as well as its ongoing legacy in Canada. In this way, Mohawk perspectives on the 270-year land dispute that led to the "Indian summer" of 1990 are placed alongside the narratives of the post-traumatic stress disorder experienced by those on the front lines of Oka – the price that Indigenous peoples pay for defending their rights in the face of Canadian injustice.

But conflict is also where St-Amand finds the space for hope and opportunity in addressing the legacy of Oka in her work since "it enables us to define the event in all its intense antagonism, with awareness of its negative and positive poles and its potential for violence and healing, affirmation and explosion." This theme of conflict, and the ways in which we negotiate crisis and its aftermath is a significant point about which to think, as such opportunities are present in every land claim dispute across this country. Perhaps this book might have engaged with other examples of Indigenous resistance that have taken place in Canada since 1990 in order to mark similarities and differences, but such an approach would have also taken away from the unique nature of the Oka conflict as presented here.

Stories of Oka is a text that unfortunately will be of continued value and relevance for as long as there are disputes around Indigenous land title in Canada. St-Amand asks readers to reconsider our understanding of Canadian history and the role that literature and film can play in assigning meaning to Indigenous-Settler conflict and how we each have a responsibility to learn from conflict in order to build a more equitable relationship between Indigenous peoples and Canada. If the past thirty years...