The authors present a comparative analysis of the Saskatchewan Centennial celebrations (2005) and the Québec quatercentenary celebrations (2008) informed by critical race theory, cultural studies, and studies of commemoration as overarching frameworks of analysis. This collaborative work considers two sites rarely analyzed together and examines how these major commemorative events narrate and represent relations among settlers and Indigenous peoples in Saskatchewan and in Québec. The analysis focuses on two significant events in each commemorative celebration: the Centennial Gala in Saskatchewan and Rencontres [Encounters] in Québec. While the contexts and narratives differ in significant ways, the two commemorations reveal their mutual investments in a national settler project. The authors contend that examining how Canada as a nation is remembered and currently imagined through such disparate sites and local histories provides critical insight into ongoing contentions about its constitution as a White settler society.
AgambenG (2000) Means without End: Notes on Politics (trans. BinettiVCasarinC). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
2.
AhmedS (2012) On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
3.
BoykoffJ (2011) Space matters: the 2010 winter Olympics and its discontents. Human Geography4(2): 48–60.
4.
CaldwellL (2013) Unsettling the middle ground: could the world use a more questionable Saskatchewan? In: CaldwellLLerouxDLeungC (eds) Critical Inquiries: A Reader in Studies of Canada. Halifax, NS, Canada; Winnipeg, MB, Canada: Fernwood, pp. 105–123.
5.
CalvertL (2004) Speech by the Premier of Saskatchewan. Diplomatic forum, 1October2004, Regina, SK, Canada.
6.
CardinalHHildebrandW (2000) Treaty Elders of Saskatchewan: Our Dream Is That Our Peoples Will One Day Be Clearly Recognized as Nations. Calgary, AB, Canada: University of Calgary Press.
7.
CarterS (1993) Lost Harvests: Prairie Indian Reserve Farmers and Government Policy. Montréal, QC, Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
8.
CornellierB (2006) L’Indien, mon frère: Identité, nationalité et indianité dans Le Confessionnal. London Journal of Canadian Studies21: 49−70.
9.
CrosbyM (1989) Construction of the imaginary Indian. In: DouglasS (ed.) Vancouver Anthology: The Institutional Politics of Art. Vancouver, BC, Canada: Talonbooks, pp. 155–172.
10.
DaschukJ (2013) Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life. Regina, SK, Canada: University of Regina Press.
11.
DhamoonR (2009) Identity/difference Politics: How Difference Is Produced, and Why It Matters. Vancouver, BC, Canada: University of British Columbia Press.
12.
GarneauDRempellJR (curators) (2005) Contested histories, 29 June–26 August, 2005 (Artists: Michel Boutin, Ruth Cuthand, John Henry Fine Day, Valerie Kinistino, Neal McLeod, Sharon Lee Pelletier, Sheila Orr, and Gabriel Yahyahkeekoot). Art Gallery of Regina, Regina, SK, Canada.
13.
GaudryA (2013) The Métis-ization of Canada: the process of claiming Louis Riel, Métissage, and the Métis people as Canada’s mythical origin. Aboriginal Policy Studies2(2): 64–87.
14.
GordonA (2010) The Hero and the Historians: Historiography and the Uses of Jacques Cartier. Vancouver, BC, Canada: University of British Columbia Press.
15.
GroulxP (1998) Pièges de la mémoire. Dollard des Ormeaux, les Amérindiens et nous. Hull, QC, Canada: Vents d’Ouest.
16.
HaverstockL (2004) A message from the Lieutenant Governor. In: Saskatchewan Centennial Commemorative Newspaper Series, 100 Years of Heart, September.
17.
LavalléeA (2010) Québec 1608–2008: La Société du 400e, microcosme d’accords et de dissonances. Études canadiennes/Canadian Studies: revue interdisciplinaire des études canadiennes en France (68): 61–80.
18.
LerouxD (2010) The spectacle of Champlain: commemorating Québec. Borderlands9(2): 1–27.
19.
LeungC (2006) Usable pasts, staging belongings: articulating a “Heritage” of multiculturalism in Canada. Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism6(2): 162–179.
20.
LozierJ-F (2012) History, historiography, and the courts. In:BucknerPReidJG (eds) Remembering 1759: The Conquest of Canada in Historical Memory. Toronto, ON, Canada: University of Toronto Press, pp. 110–135.
21.
MackeyE (2002) The House of Difference: Cultural Politics and National Identity in Canada. Toronto, ON, Canada: University of Toronto Press.
22.
NellesHV (1999) The Art of Nation-Building: Pageantry and Spectacle in the Quebec Tercentenary. Toronto, ON, Canada: University of Toronto Press.
23.
O’BonsawinCM (2010) “No Olympics on Stolen Native Land”: contesting Olympic narratives and asserting indigenous rights within the discourse of the 2010 Vancouver games. Sport in Society13(1): 143–156.
24.
OrrS (2005) Artist statement for Framed [visual art]. In: GarneauDRempellJR (curators) Contested Histories, 29June – 26August, 2005. Art Gallery of Regina, Regina, SK, Canada.
25.
PalmaterP (2014) Genocide, Indian policy, and legislated elimination of Indians in Canada. Aboriginal Policy Studies3(3): 27–54.
26.
PelletierSP (2005) Artist statement for Trickery of the Trade [visual art]. In: GarneauDRempellJR (curators) Contested Histories, 29June – 26August, 2005. Art Gallery of Regina, Regina, SK, Canada.
27.
RazackS (ed.) (2002) Race, Space, and the Law: Unmapping a White Settler Society. Toronto, ON, Canada: Between the Lines.
28.
RudinR (2003) Founding Fathers: The Celebration of Champlain and Laval in the Streets of Québec, 1878–1908. Toronto, ON, Canada: University of Toronto Press.
29.
SaléeD (2010) Les peuples autochtones et la naissance du Québec: Pour une réécriture de l’histoire?Recherches sociographiques51(1–2): 151−158.
30.
Saskatchewan Centennial (2004) Commemorative Newspaper Series, 100 Years of Heart, September.
SiouiG (1992) For an Amerindian Autohistory (trans. FishmanS). Montréal, QC, Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
33.
SiouiG (1999) Huron-Wendat: The Heritage of the Circle (trans.BrierleyJ). Vancouver, BC, Canada: University of British Columbia Press.
34.
SpillmanL (1997) Nation and Commemoration: Creating National Identities in the United States and Australia. New York: Cambridge University Press.
35.
StimsonA (2005) Buffalo Boy’s Heart on: Buffalo Boy’s 100 years of wearing his heart on his sleeve. Master’s thesis, University of Saskatchewan, SK, Canada.
36.
TaylorD (2007) The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
