Westward Bound

Westward Bound debunks the myth of Canada’speaceful West and the masculine conceptions of law and violence uponwhich it rests by shifting the focus from Mounties and whisky tradersto criminal cases involving women between 1886 and 1940.Erickson’s analysis of these cases shows that, rather than adesire to protect, official responses to the most intimate or violentacts betrayed an impulse to shore up the liberal order by maintainingboundaries between men and women, Native people and newcomers, andcapital and labour. Victims and accused could only hope to harnessentrenched ideas about masculinity, femininity, race, and class intheir favour. This fascinating exploration of hegemony and resistancein key contact zones draws prairie Canada into larger debates aboutlaw, colonialism, and nation building.