Voices from Hudson Bay: Cree Stories from York Factory, Second Edition (Volume 5) (Rupert's Land Record Society Series) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0773551433 ISBN 13: 9780773551435

Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2017

Synopsis

In Voices from Hudson Bay Cree elders recall the daily lives and experiences of the men and women who lived and worked at the Hudson?s Bay Company post at York Factory in Manitoba. Their stories, their memories of family, community, and daily life, define their past and provide insights into a way of life that has largely disappeared in northern Canada. The era the elders describe, from the end of World War I to the closing of York Factory in 1957, saw dramatic changes ? both positive and negative ? to Indigenous life in the North. The extension of Treaty 5 in 1910 to include members of the York Factory band, the arrival of police and government agents, and the shifting economy of the fur trade are all discussed. Despite these upheavals, the elders? accounts demonstrate the continuity of northern life in the twentieth century, from the persistence of traditional ways to the ongoing role of community and kinship ties. Perceptions of Cree life have been shaped largely by non-Native accounts that offered limited views of Indigenous history and recorded little beyond the social and economic interaction that was part of life in the fur trade. The stories in this collection provide Cree perspectives on northern life and history, and represent a legacy bequeathed to a younger generation of Indigenous people. This second edition includes updates to the original text and a new preface.

About this title

About the Author

Flora Beardy is retired from Parks Canada and lives in York Landing, Manitoba. She continues to collect oral histories from today?s elders and encourages youth to learn about their heritage. Robert Coutts worked as a historian with Parks Canada for thirty-two years and is now a research fellow at St John?s College at the University of Manitoba.

Review

"With issues of voice and authority now central to scholarly writing about First Nations peoples, some of the most admired models for scholarly work are those that involve partnerships between university scholars and elders ? works that present and interpret the words of First Nations people. Voices from Hudson Bay is both an important contribution to this genre of collaborative works and a documentary record of Cree life around a Hudson's Bay Company post." The Canadian Historical Review

About this edition

• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0773551433
• ISBN 13: 9780773551435
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 200
• Editor: Beardy Flora, Coutts Robert