Maps & Dreams: Indians and the British Columbia Frontier [Paperback]

Hugh Brody (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1997 | ISBN-10: 0881339652 | ISBN-13: 978-0881339659

The Canadian subarctic is a world of forest, prairie, and muskeg; of rainbow trout, moose, and caribou; of Indian hunters and trappers. It is also a world of boomtowns and bars, oil rigs and seismic soundings; of white energy speculators, ranchers, and sports hunters. Brody came to this dual world with the job of "mapping" the lands of northwest British Columbia as well as the way of life of a small group of Beaver Indians with a viable hunting economy living in the path of a projected oil pipeline. The result is Maps and Dreams, Brody's account of his extraordinary eighteen-month journey through the world of a people who have no intention of vanishing into the past. In this beautifully written book, readers go on a moose hunt; trap beaver; mourn at a funeral; drink in white bars; visit camps, cabins, and traplines by pickup truck, on horseback, and on foot. Brody's powerful commentary also retraces the history of the ever-expanding white frontier from the first eighteenth-century explorer to the wildest corporate energy dreams of the present day. In the process, readers see how Indian dreams and white dreams, Indians maps and white maps, collide.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Eloquent." -- Kirkus Reviews

"Privileged as few whites have been, Brody took part in several hunts during his stay. His accounts of these expeditions are stirring and dramatic . . . when he writes of Indian life, his prose sparkles." -- Washington Post

"This is a wonderful book, as unique and quietly successful as the way of life it describes." -- Maclean's

From the Publisher

Titles of related interest from Waveland Press: Jarvenpa, Northern Passage: Ethnography and Apprenticeship among the Subarctic Dene (ISBN 9780881339901); Rohner-Bettauer, The Kwakiutl: Indians of British Columbia (ISBN 9780881332254); and Ziker, Peoples of the Tundra: Northern Siberians in the Post-Communist Transition (ISBN 9781577662129).

Product Details

• Paperback: 294 pages
• Publisher: Waveland Pr Inc (October 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0881339652
• ISBN-13: 978-0881339659
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #613,843 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars When Dreams Collide, February 8, 2001

By 

Robert S. Newman "Bob Newman" (Marblehead, Massachusetts USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Maps & Dreams: Indians and the British Columbia Frontier (Paperback)

The Big Boys planned to build a pipeline from Alaska down to the US Midwest, bringing energy from source to consumer. The line had to cross some hundreds of miles of British Columbia, over land that had once belonged exclusively to Indians, but which had already been invaded by trappers, sport hunters, ranchers, oil and gas explorers, loggers, drillers, and the beginnings of suburbia. By some miracle, somebody thought that it might be a good idea to see what the Indians thought about this. It seems they had never been consulted up to then. Treaties had been made, then subverted---the old North American pattern. In general, nobody had paid much attention to the Indians of northeastern British Columbia. It was believed that their way of life was kaput, that they were all alcoholics living on welfare, and that they hadn't kept their traditions. It seems they had been living for centuries in an "energy corridor" without a viable way of life. But now they were seriously in the way. Enter Hugh Brody, a British anthropologist.

In MAPS AND DREAMS, Brody accomplishes the near impossible. He writes a marvelously sensitive, interesting report, incorporating such often-boring details as hunting and land use maps, and accounts of meetings. Not only does he show that the culture of the Athapaskan Indians was alive in 1979, he allows them to speak, describes the land use situation from their point of view, and connects their economy with their culture and daily lives. His book is at once a report, an answer to those who had written off the Indians, and a readable work of anthropology. White man's dreams of ever bigger projects, ever more exploitation of the land, he says so exactly, "are the most established carcinoma of the North American imagination". They are ever poised to crush the Indian dreams. The Indian dreams, of how to find game, how to find their way to Heaven, stand in the way of the white man's maps---the maps that show where to put the pipeline, where to drill, where to stake out more claims. Both the Indian maps on paper, which showed how they used the land and their traditional dream maps, showing the way to the Beyond, stood in the way of the white man's dreams. A few thousand souls against the tide of Western visions of "progress". We don't find out what happened, but it wasn't looking hopeful. Different maps, different dreams. For good anthropology, for deeper understanding of the problems of the Far North, for just a fascinating book, you can do a lot worse than read MAPS AND DREAMS.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Eloquent Argument for Co-existence, August 6, 2000

By 

"[e-mail]" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Maps & Dreams: Indians and the British Columbia Frontier (Paperback)

I came to this book in an effort to understand how First Peoples adapted to the landscape they live in. Mr. Brody eloquently presents the people, their land, and their inherited way of life. It is heartbreaking to read how their claims to this way of life have been ignored in the past hundred years under the impact of colonization. I lived in this area as a child and it is difficult to describe the impact of this book - it presents aspects of experience so many in our inherited colonial culture wish to either eradicate or to ignore. This book is a powerful indictment of the way the people and the land in this province have been abused.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant Writing -- Timeless Perspective, October 8, 2008

By 

R. J Szasz "Rod Szasz" (Tokyo, Japan Japan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Maps & Dreams: Indians and the British Columbia Frontier (Paperback)

I usually eschew much associated with Canadian History. Canadians, like Australians, have an exagerated sense of their own importance in the world. Most of the literature from Canada, especially on native peoples either is very particular or waxes wildly about such things as noble indians with a mystical, yet undefined attachement to their land. Such analysis does nothing either for the First Nations peoples or the whites that might be trying to understand them.

It takes of course a Brit like Hugh Brody to really tell Canadians what exactly that connection is with the land. Sometimes mysterious, sometimes just simply empathetic, from hunting practises to the function of dreams in Beaver culture, Brody descibes in a combination of narrative and anecdotal evidence the beauty of the Beaver People in North Eastern British Columbia.

While the context is noticably Canadian (the Canadian and British govts. never waged war against the Indians in the same way the US did) the lessons are truly timeless and something that one can take away and extroplate on other social problems and situations. The economics of the attachment to the land are well detailed - that is the function of the maps. Brody shows that there is a clear link, palpable and real, to the land and it is hard to argue with him.

One personal thing I would add is that having camped and hunted in this region with my father, Brody's prose are so evocative that I could at times feel the bite in the fall air, the smoke from fires around the village and the wide sweeps of gravel in the wild rivers and creeks teaming with trout. Brody writes extremely well and on the strength of his prose alone I am looking to add more or his titles on native peoples to my reading list.