For many Canadians, wilderness is a fairly straightforward idea – an untouched natural place to visit and to protect. Yet, in Temagami’s Tangled Wild, Jocelyn Thorpe shows in vivid historical detail that “wilderness” is not what it seems.
Tracing the processes and power relationships through which the Temagami area of northeastern Ontario became famous as a site of Canadian wilderness, Thorpe uncovers how struggles over meaning, racialized and gendered identities, and land have made Temagami a place of wild Canadian nature. While the Teme-Augama Anishnabai have for many generations understood the region as their homeland rather than as a wilderness, their relationships with this traditional territory have been disrupted by the mechanisms of forestry, tourism, and Canadian law. In the end, the concept of wilderness has been employed to aid in Aboriginal dispossession and to create a home for non-Aboriginal Canadians on Native land.
An eloquent and sophisticated analysis, Temagami’s Tangled Wild challenges readers to acknowledge how colonial relations are embedded in our notions of wilderness, and to reconsider our understanding of the wilderness ideal.
A sophisticated and eloquent analysis that will appeal to students, scholars, and others interested in Native, postcolonial, and environmental studies, as well as in Canadian history, cultural geography, and gender studies.