Before Canada

Before Canada is a collection of papers presented at a 2019 McGill University conference devoted to exploring the longterm human history of northern North America. Editor and emeritus history professor Allan Greer argues that the skewing of written professional history towards modern contexts has distorted both the time range that is studied and the interpretation of our past. 

Within this book’s more expansive time frames, a particular area of focus is Indigenous peoples’ history, including both the remote past and more recent eras involving encounters with European colonialism. Before Canada is both a demonstration and an important validation of what is called “longue duree” history — its expanded periodization and multidisciplinary character contribute to a promising shift in direction for a discipline that’s often preoccupied with present-day issues and concerns. 

In terms of Indigenous history, the contributions address diverse peoples, regions, and historical eras. They include an essay by anthropologists Adrian L. Burke and Christian Gates St-Pierre on the archaeology of social networks commencing in Beringia, the land corridor posited to have afforded Indigenous access to North America; a chapter by anthropologist John W. Ives on the post-Beringia exodus of the Apache people from the Subarctic to the American Southwest; and archaeologist Lisa K. Rankin’s examination of Inuit intercultural exchanges in Labrador over a period of a thousand years. These essays show both continuity and change in Indigenous peoples’ approaches to their environments plus a remarkable series of adaptations over many centuries. 

Other chapters examine the history of European cultures in northern North America as well as European- Indigenous exchanges covering a variety of geographical areas and periods. They include historian Jack Bouchard’s succinct essay on the Newfoundland cod fisheries from 1400 to 1550; marine archaeologist Brad Loewen’s chapter on intercultural exchanges in the Gulf of St. Lawrence between 1500 and 1700, which shows how the Indigenous adoption of the Basque txalupa watercraft facilitated the use of natural resources; and literary scholar Mary C. Fuller’s treatment of the roles of antique maps in both Europeans’ conceptualization of North America and their exploitation of its resources. 

Yet other topics that are explored include, in an essay by French studies scholar Katherine Ibbett, a Jesuit missionary’s account of a near-drowning experience and the precariousness of the colonial project and, in a chapter by historian Helen Dewar, the claiming of Indigenous waterways by European nations seeking to expand their empires.