Migrations & Gatherings in the West: Western Canadian History Conference
Wanuskewin and University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon
“What are the chances I’m actually going to have to pull something together to present at this thing?”, I asked, somewhat regretting the proposal I had submitted. “Pretty good, I think!” That pulling together resulted in a paper titled Treaty Discussions During Lord Dufferin’s Visit to Roseau and St. Peter’s, which offered a textual analysis comparing the formal versions Address from Roseau Tribe and Address from the Chippewa and Cree Indians, St. Peter’s Reserve, Manitoba (?) with the informal accounts preserved in Lady Dufferin’s Journal and newspaper coverage from the time. A program and additional information are available here. The crux of this paper was that the formal record emphasizes a celebratory upkeep of the Treaty relationship, while more obscure documentation highlights grievances that Indigenous peoples presented to Lord Dufferin.
This was entirely different than anything I had experienced thus far. The amount of knowledge and experience that was present became evident through how many names I recognized from various bibliographies, books, and journal articles.
It’s one thing to quote an expert in your field in a conference paper; it is entirely another thing to do so when they are sitting in the same room, and you’re presenting on an obscure topic they wrote articles about, after they published monographs that have become foundational in the field. [Yikes, how did I get HERE?].
