Gathering Places - Aboriginal and Fur Trade Histories (Paperback)

British traders and Ojibwe hunters. Cree women and their metis
daughters. Explorers and anthropologists and Aboriginal guides and
informants. These people, their relationships, and their complex
identities and worldviews were not featured in histories of North
America until the 1970s, when scholars from multiple disciplines began
to bring new perspectives and approaches to bear on the past.

"Gathering Places" presents some of the most innovative and
interdisciplinary approaches to metis, fur trade, and First Nations
history being practised today. Whether they are discussing dietary
practices on the Plateau, trees as cultural and geographical markers in
the trade, the meanings of totemic signatures, issues of representation
in public history, or the writings of Aboriginal anthropologists and
historians, the authors link archival, archaeological, material, oral,
and ethnographic evidence to offer novel explorations that extend
beyond earlier scholarship centred on the archive. They draw on
Aboriginal perspectives, material forms of evidence, and personal
approaches to history to illuminate cross-cultural encounters and
challenge older approaches to the past.

These fascinating essays on aspects of the history of Rupert's
Land mark a significant departure from the old paradigm of history
writing and will serve as models for recovering and communicating
Aboriginal and cross-cultural experiences and perspectives.