Arthur Manuel & Grand Chief Ronald M. Derrickson

Arthur Manuel and Grand Chief Ronald M. Derrickson, Unsettling Canada: A National Wake-Up Call. Between the Lines, 2015.

Unsettling Canada tells a captivating narrative of activism, identity, and lived experience, tracing Indigenous rights and land claims struggles in this country between the 1960s and 2000s. Manuel and Derrickson engage with the history of political activism as insiders. Hence, the book makes an important contribution on this understudied period through personal insight on everything from the internal debates within the grassroots movement for equity and sovereignty, to how leaders balance the pressures of activism and family life. Not only is the book highly readable and broadly accessible to those in this country, it has an even wider reach in scope as it demonstrates the impact of Indigenous people from Canada like Manuel had on the global stage and in global activists’ strategies. The book is grounded in Indigenous intellectual traditions and perspectives, and carries the timely message about how bringing justice to Indigenous peoples will also create a more sustainable Canada.

Honourable Mention
Emilie Cameron, Far Off Metal River: Inuit Lands, Settler Stories, and the Making of the Contemporary Arctic. University of British Columbia Press, 2015.

Cameron examines the story of the 1771 “Bloody Falls massacre” and its influence on Inuit-Settler relations historically, geographically and for contemporary arctic relations. She concludes that while the narrative has served to shape violence and resource extraction in the Coppermine River region for Inuit, it remains a Qablunaat (non-Inuit, non-Indigenous) story. Theoretically rich, notably in linguistic and post-colonial analysis, Cameron presents a framework for Qablunaat to engage with Inuit histories without claiming those stories as their own.