Making Indigenous Water Worlds: Settler Colonialism

(Re)Making Indigenous Water Worlds: Settler Colonialism, Indigenous Rights, and Hydrosocial Relations in the Settler Nation State by Shaun A. Stevenson A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Language and Literature Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario © 2018, Shaun A. Stevenson Abstract This dissertation examines several sites of conflict between Indigenous and non- Indigenous peoples over water and water rights in Canada, from the 19th century up to current articulations of environmental policy and land rights. Through examination of a selection of public policy, land rights decisions, grassroots activism, and Canadian and Indigenous fiction and non-fiction, I probe relationships to water that have structured and limited the legibility of Indigenous rights in Canada. I track a history of settler colonialism through the lens of water, querying whether water offers a productive site that might challenge the current land-based constraints of colonial legal and policy frameworks that have led to what are often irreconcilable relationships between the settler state and Indigenous peoples. Through Indigenous legal orders, social, cultural, and political expression, as well as strands of materialist and environmentalist Western philosophy that focus on water, ontology, and narrative, I explore the limits and potential for decolonial approaches to water governance that might better support the inherent rights of Indigenous peoples. Using an interdisciplinary methodology, I read public policy and land rights decisions in dialogue with settler and Indigenous literatures and community action in order to understand the often-competing worlding practices that materially, socially, subjectively, and figuratively construct settler and Indigenous approaches to water—what I am calling settler and Indigenous water worlds. Specifically, I analyze four sites of conflict and their various representations where competing laws, philosophies, and social registers of water come up against one another: the 19th century establishment of a liberal order in the Trent ii Severn Waterway, and its expression in early settler life writing and environmental policy; the mercury pollution of the English-Wabigoon River Systems in Treaty 3 Anishinaabe territory, and the ironic representation of late liberal environmentalism in M.T. Kelly’s A Dream Like Mine; the James Bay Hydroelectric conflict, and the political response of the Grand Council of the Crees, as well as the conflict’s figurative reimagining in Linda Hogan’s Solar Storms; and Haudenosaunee and settler relations in Grand River territory in Southern Ontario, and the impetus to engage these relations through the historic treaty, the Two Row Wampum. iii Acknowledgements To imagine this project as the result of a single author would be to deny the force of relationality that I hope it in some way expresses. This project is the result of years of conversations with my supervisors, committee members, colleagues, and friends. Namely, I am especially appreciative of the unwavering support and engagement of my co-supervisors, Drs. Jennifer Henderson and Eva Mackey. Their insight, rigour, and commitments to the development of this project pushed my thinking in directions that I hadn’t thought possible. They’ve done nothing short of teach me how to be a thinker and a scholar. I am also grateful to have been able to work with Dr. Brian Johnson on this project, whose support through every avenue of my PhD, and of this dissertation, was a gift of kindness and intelligence that sustained me through some of my most difficult moments. I am incredibly thankful that Dr. Heather Dorries agreed to be a part of this project. Her generosity of time and incisive engagement helped me to take the project in essential directions. I am appreciative for Dr. Peter Hodgins’ willingness to act as an internal examiner on this dissertation. Dr. Hodgins dedicated time to help me think through the earliest iterations of this project, and his guidance was critical to getting it on track. I’ve probably ridden the elevator more with him than any other person at Carleton. I would also like to thank Dr. Cheryl Suzack for agreeing to act as my external examiner. Dr. Suzack’s work is instrumental for how I am trying to think about relationships between literature, law, gender, and Indigeneity and I am honoured to have her engagement with this project. I must also extend a huge thanks to Dr. Stuart Murray, whose support and encouragement throughout my PhD has shaped me as a scholar in important ways, and to iv Dr. Sarah Brouillette, who has generously offered her time and insight at every juncture of the PhD process. Drs. Murray and Brouillette have taught me what it means to be an academic, what it means to extend care and support, and they have been models of the type of professionalism that I aspire toward. I am incredibly thankful for the friends and colleagues who saw me through this long and trying journey – to Dallas Hunt, who is always there, inspiring me to be better, keeping me going, a true friend and colleague; to David Thomas and Tad Lemieux, who taught me what it means to debate, reminded me what I wasn’t reading, stretched my thinking in strange directions, and most importantly, never stopped supplying music for me to listen to; to Chris Doody, who has been helpful from the moment I set foot in Ottawa, a model of generosity and integrity, and who has caught every grammatical or formatting error I’ve ever made; to Greg Fenton, Steph Cheung, Bridgette Brown, Alicha Keddy, and Ranae and Stuart Hammond who have kept me grounded and offered their wisdom and support whenever I’ve needed it; and of course, to my family, who have instilled in me the discipline and fortitude to take something like this on. Their support for something so intangible at so many moments never ceased. I offer thanks to my dog, Nox. How do you capture the space in your heart that gets filled by a giant slobbering beast? Whatever the dissertation took out of me, this dog returned. He brought me to water, forcing walks in the woods when I needed them most, laughter when I thought my brow was permanently furrowed, and a reminder that I wasn’t isolated—that I wasn’t the only creature in the house, nor the most important one. Thank you Nox. v Finally, I offer thanks for that which I could never adequately express here, and what I can only hope to have the privilege of continuing to express my gratitude for over and over again. Sarah Drumm, I could not have written a word without you. In all of its anxiety, self-consciousness, learning, hope, and commitment to relationship building, I dedicate this project to you. Financial support for this project has been generously provided through a Joseph- Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship, an Ontario Graduate Scholarship, a John Lyndhurst Kingston Memorial Scholarship, and a Carleton University Graduate Research and Innovative Thinking award. vi Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. ii Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ............................................................................................................ vii Preface: Why Water? ....................................................................................................... x Introduction: (Re)Making Indigenous Water Worlds: Settler Colonialism, Indigenous Rights, and Hydrosocial Relations in the Settler Nation State ................. 1 Research Questions ......................................................................................................... 4 Methodology ................................................................................................................. 13 Theoretical Framework and Context ............................................................................ 23 Chapter Breakdown ...................................................................................................... 99 Chapter 1: Making Settler Water Worlds: The Establishment of a Settler Liberal Order in Upper Canada/Ontario in the Writing of Catharine Parr Traill and J.W.D. Moodie and the Legislative Measures of the Navigable Waters Protection Act ..... 105 The Establishment of a Liberal Order in the Waterways of Upper Canada ............... 115 Catharine Parr Traill and the Liberal Incorporation of “Indian Rice” ........................ 123 J.W.D. Moodie and the Masculine Liberal Ordering of Upper Canada ..................... 139 The Navigable Waters Protection Act and the Extensive Projection of Liberal Rule 163 vii Resisting a Settler Liberal Order ................................................................................. 180 Chapter 2: Managing Settler Worlds: Late Liberal Governance, Environmentalism, and Indigenous Resistance in the English Wabigoon-River Systems and M.T. Kelly’s A Dream Like Mine........................................................................................... 186 From a Settler Liberal Order to Late Liberalism ........................................................ 193 Late Liberal Environmentalism in M.T. Kelly’s A Dream Like Mine ....................... 212 Environmentalism of the Poor: Resisting Late Liberal Governance in the English- Wabigoon

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