Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 8-19-2015 12:00 AM Conduits of Communion: Monstrous Affections in Algonquin Traditional Territory Ian S.G. Puppe The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Dr. Regna Darnell The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in Anthropology A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Doctor of Philosophy © Ian S.G. Puppe 2015 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Community Health Commons, Cultural History Commons, Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons, Indigenous Studies Commons, Natural Resources Management and Policy Commons, Oral History Commons, Other Anthropology Commons, Public History Commons, and the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Puppe, Ian S.G., "Conduits of Communion: Monstrous Affections in Algonquin Traditional Territory" (2015). 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CONDUITS OF COMMUNION: MONSTROUS AFFECTIONS IN ALGONQUIN TRADITIONAL TERRITORY Monograph By Ian Sorjo Grant PUPPE GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ANTHROPOLOGY A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIRMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN SOCIAL/CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY THE SCHOOL OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO LONDON, ONTARIO, CANADA © Ian Sorjo Grant Puppe 2015 Abstract This project investigates the legacies of shifting land tenure and stewardship practices on what is now known as the Ottawa Valley watershed (referred to as the Kitchissippi by the Omamawinini or Algonquin people), and the effects that this central colonization project has had on issues of identity and Nationalism on Canadians, diversely identified as settler-colonists of European or at least “Old World” descent and First Nations, Métis and Inuit (Lawrence 2012). Beginning with the partition of their territory into the jurisdictions of Upper and Lower Canada (now Ontario and Quebec), and continuing through the institution and increased surveillance of Algonquin Provincial Park, the Canadian Nation-State has remained an obstacle barring unification efforts made by various First Nations, local and descendant groups in the area (Lawrence 2012). Now often pit against one another during land claims disputes and over access to resources, these First Nations, local and descendant communities are simultaneously involved in factional resistance to one another’s overt dominance, and in unifying “Nationalist” projects enacted implicitly on local scales and through explicitly “traditional” representations. Focusing on historical and contemporary political and social issues related to Algonquin Provincial Park and its establishment, this project explores; 1) Competing claims levied by First Nations People, local and descendant communities as well as representatives of the Canadian settler-colonist Nation-State regarding proper relationships to the environment and its stewardship; 2) Popular discursive and practical approaches to conservation, tourism, naturalism, and heritage management; and 3) The complicated entanglements of First Nations, settler-colonist, local and descendant communities and shifting identifications made evident by changes in economic relationships to the territory in and around the Park and in some people’ legal status vis-a-vis the Nation-State. This dissertation draws on public history and traditional narrative as sources for a reconsideration of history, ethnohistory, and ethnography in relation to studies of the complex contemporary Canadian Nation-State. Contributing to a specifically Canadian anthropology, I develop vocabulary through which to engage the perpetuation of Traditional Indigenous Knowledge regarding the environment, health and relationality, and to counteract Intergenerational Trauma related to dispossession and the breakdown of identity, personal and collective, under settler-colonial pressures. Keywords: Algonquin Provincial Park, Canadian Anthropology, Ethnohistory, Indigenous Studies, Intergenerational Trauma, Conservation, Tourism, Narrative. ii Acknowledgements This would not have been possible without the engagement, support and encouragement offered to me from many directions. To all of my family, friends and colleagues in the Kitchissippi Valley and elsewhere, thank you. Thank you to my family and friends in Algonquin Park, Levack, Onaping, Cartier, Haliburton, Kitchener-Waterloo, London, Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton, Peterborough, Montreal, Buxton, and all of the places in between. To the Kitchissippi and those who care for it, Chii’Miigwech. I will return. Lesley, I will never be able to thank you enough. You brought me back to life and made a new one available to me. I love you. This work is for those past, and for those yet to come; for Ginawaydaganuc. My gratitude goes to my friend and mentor Regna Darnell for her interest in and support of this unconventional work, and of this unconventional anthropologist. I would have been lost without your compass and lantern. Thanks also go to my closest ally Joshua Smith, my committee members and friends Sally Cole, Douglass Drozdow-St.Christian, Andrew Walsh, Calin-Andrei Mihailescu, and Carole Farber, and my comrades, mentors and extended academic family Evan Habkirk, Matthew McCarney, Lisa Brown, José Sanchez, Darren Dokis, Paulina Johnson, Joshua Dent, Gerald McKinley, Tim Bisha, Christopher Roy, Beth Compton, Rick Fehr, Danielle Alcock, Claire Venet-Rogers, Brian Venne, Chelsea Armstrong, Kaila Simoneau, Lynette Fischer, Andrew Schuldt, Robert Ferguson, Jessica Caporusso, Dean Jacobs, Dan & Marylou Smoke, Amardeep Thind, Mark Speechly, Ava Jean-Baptiste, Naseer Chaudhry, Burton Mohan, Sarah Davidson, Laila Ahmed, Rei Ahn, Sherine Fahmy, Zinnia Batliwalla, Stephanie McConkey, Mowffaq Kalantan, Michael Harkin, David Posthumus, Raymond Fogelson, Jennifer Brown, Maureen Matthews, Kim Clark, Randa Farah, Ian Colquhuon, Coll Thrush, David Lumsden, Marilyn Silverman, Phillip Gulliver, Zulfikar Hirji, Shubhra Gururani, Teresa Holmes, Kenneth Little, Michael Asch, Brian Noble, Craig Proulx, Janice Graham, Robert Hancock, Mark Pinkoski, and Sarah Moritz. iii Table of Contents Abstract ....................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ....................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ....................................................................................... iv List of Plates ....................................................................................... vi Preface - On How to Read this Text .......................................................................... viii PART I – ............................................................. 1 Novice Level: “What am I Doing Here?” ............................................................. 2 Epaulettes and Appellations: A Note on Inconsistent Terminologies ............................................................. 17 Taking Care: Notes on Methodical Progression and Progressive Methods ............................................................. 22 Singing the Same Old Tune in Algonquin Traditional Territory ............................................................. 30 Fur Coats, Big Boats, and Feeling Remote: Changing Perceptions of Nature and Otherness in Algonquin Provincial Park ............................................................. 38 Splintering Facade: The Technological Reproduction of National-Cultural Intimacies ............................................................. 65 No Home on the Range: Ruin, Reclamation, and Revitalization in Algonquin Provincial Park ............................................................. 78 Blood-Work: Registering Claims of Authenticity in Algonquin Traditional Territory ............................................................. 95 Big Pines: The Limits of Feeling A/Part in Algonquin Traditional Territory ............................................................. 113 iv Conduits of Communion: Monstrous Affections in Algonquin Traditional Territory ............................................................. 144 “It’s like déjà vu all over again.” ............................................................. 166 Algonquin Provincial Park and the People without Ethnohistory ............................................................. 171 PART II – ............................................................. 183 Paddles, Pigeons, and Passing on Knowledge ............................................................. 187 Packing In ............................................................. 187 Passing I ............................................................. 188 Paddling I ............................................................. 191 Passengers I ............................................................. 193 Pigeons I ............................................................. 195 Passengers II ............................................................. 205 Pigeons II ............................................................. 205 Paddling II ............................................................