Since the mid-twentieth century, sustained contact between Inuit and newcomers has led to profound changes in education in the Eastern Arctic, including the experience of colonization and progress toward the re-establishment of traditional education in schools. Heather McGregor assesses developments in the history of education in four periods � the traditional, the colonial (1945-70), the territorial (1971-81), and the local (1982-99). She concludes that education is most successful when Inuit involvement and local control support a system reflecting Inuit culture and visions.
“It can start with a knock on the door one morning. It is the local Indian agent, or the parish priest, or, perhaps, a Mounted Police officer.” So began the school experience of many Indigenous children in Canada for more than a hundred years, and so begins the history of residential schools prepared by the Truth & Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC). Between 2008 and 2015, the TRC provided opportunities for individuals, families, and communities to share their experiences of residential schools and released several reports based on 7000 survivor statements and five million documents from government, churches, and schools, as well as a solid grounding in secondary sources. A Knock on the Door, published in collaboration with the National Research Centre for Truth & Reconciliation, gathers material from the several reports the TRC has produced to present the essential history and legacy of residential schools in a concise and accessible package that includes new materials to help inform and contextualize the journey to reconciliation that Canadians are now embarked upon. Survivor and former National Chief of the Assembly First Nations, Phil Fontaine, provides a Foreword, and an Afterword introduces the holdings and opportunities of the National Centre for Truth & Reconciliation, home to the archive of recordings, and documents collected by the TRC. As Aimée Craft writes in the Afterword, knowing the historical backdrop of residential schooling and its legacy is essential to the work of reconciliation. In the past, agents of the Canadian state knocked on the doors of Indigenous families to take the children to school. Now, the Survivors have shared their truths and knocked back. It is time for Canadians to open the door to mutual understanding, respect, and reconciliation.
For more than fifteen years, Keith Crowe's A History of the Original Peoples of Northern Canada has informed a multitude of residents in and visitors to the Canadian North and has served as a standard text. Now, in a new epilogue, Crowe describes and analyses the changes in the North which have come about since the book's first publication. The success of this book over the years is due in large part to Crowe's approach. While the majority of works on Canadian history are essentially European in perspective, Crowe has endeavoured to interpret the history of the original peoples of northern Canada from a native standpoint. He has attempted to provide a work that native Canadians can use to learn the broad outlines of their cultural and historical development as well as details about their people, places, and events, while giving non-native people a more accurate version of northern Canadian history and ethnology. Crowe begins with the emergence, in prehistoric times, of the three great groups of hunting people -- the Algonkian, Athapaskan, and Inuit -- describing their contribution to the cultural heritage of native peoples today. He devotes particular attention to the various native tribes and some of their outstanding leaders; to the fur trade, its effects, and the emergence of the Métis people; to the devastating consequences of trading and whaling for the Arctic and the Inuit who lived there; to the Yukon Indians and the Gold Rush; to the coming of Christianity; and to the impact of governmental and economic encroachment on the North and the native peoples' response to this -- moving into the boardroom and elected office. In his new epilogue, Crowe surveys the major land claims since 1974 -- some settled, most still under negotiation, and some, like the James Bay hydro-electric project, being challenged. Crowe also explains the complexities of the land-claims process and points out the irony inherent in native peoples having to help create numerous "foreign" laws and institutions in order to protect an essentially simple way of life. He describes the native peoples' movement into and up the ranks of government at all levels and emphasizes the important role played by regional and national native associations, such as the Assembly of First Nations. He outlines the changes and developments in education in the North and provides a detailed assessment of the still very difficult economic situation, stressing the native peoples' concern that economic development in the North not be divorced from environmental considerations. Keith J. Crowe, who served for many years in the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, is now retired but remains privately active in northern and native issues.