www.water-alternatives.org Volume 14 | Issue 1 Strube, J. and Thomas, K.A. 2021. Damming Rainy Lake and the ongoing production of hydrocolonialism in the US-Canada boundary waters. Water Alternatives 14(1): 135-157 Damming Rainy Lake and the Ongoing Production of Hydrocolonialism in the US-Canada Boundary Waters Johann Strube Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education, The Pennsylvania State University, United States of America;
[email protected] Kimberley Anh Thomas Department of Geography and Urban Studies, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, United States of America;
[email protected] ABSTRACT: Transboundary water governance between the United States and Canada – ahistorically described as cooperative and harmonious – has been instrumental to Settler colonialism and the dispossession of Indigenous peoples around the Great Lakes. At Rainy Lake, on the border between the American state of Minnesota and the Canadian province of Ontario, transboundary water governance supported a binational, Settler colonial joint venture through which European-descended Settlers established themselves in this area. It allowed for the construction of hydroelectric dams that enabled industrial development but also damaged ecosystems and species on which local Ojibwe and Métis communities depended, particularly the lake's wild rice (Zizania palustris) stands. We reconceptualise transboundary water governance in the region by expanding the framework of hydro- hegemony to include relations between Canada, the United States, and Indigenous Nations. By recognising Indigenous Nations and Settler colonial states as having equal status in political negotiations around the use of water, our analysis reveals negative hydro-hegemony between the United States and Canada on one side, and Indigenous Nations on the other.