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Political Science Social Policy

All That We Say is Ours

by (author) Ian Gill

Publisher
Douglas & McIntyre
Initial publish date
Nov 2022
Category
Social Policy, Native Americans, Native American Studies
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781926812441
    Publish Date
    Feb 2010
    List Price
    $27.95
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781771623278
    Publish Date
    Apr 2022
    List Price
    $28.95
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781553657811
    Publish Date
    Nov 2022
    List Price
    $0

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Description

An important volume documenting the struggles of the Haida People and their fight for self-determination, now available in paperback.

Haida Gwaii is Canada's Galapagos, a West Coast archipelago famous for its wild beauty. It is also the ancient homeland of the Haida Nation. In the 1970s, after decades of rapacious logging, the Haida joined forces with environmentalists in a high-profile struggle to save the islands. The battle found powerful expression through Gidansda Giindajin Haawasti Guujaaw, the visionary artist, drummer and orator who would later become president of the Council of the Haida Nation.

The victories over logging interests are just one highlight in the Haida's epic, decades-long struggle to take back control of their own destiny. In 2004, they filed suit against British Columbia and Canada, laying claim to their entire traditional territory. Combining first-person accounts with vivid prose, Ian Gill captures the excitement of their struggle, from high-octane logging blockades to defiant legal challenges. Guujaaw's audacity, eloquence, tactical skills and deep knowledge of his homeland put him at the heart of the struggle, and this book reveals the extraordinary role he played in this incredible story.

In chronicling the Haida's political and cultural renaissance, Gill has crafted a gripping, multilayered narrative that has reverberated far beyond the shores of Haida Gwaii.
Ian Gill is a founding partner of Salmon Nation and former president of Ecotrust. He worked as a writer and broadcaster for CBC Television, where he won numerous awards for his documentary reporting. He lives on an island in the unceded territory of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth people on the west coast of British Columbia.

About the author

Ian Gill is a founding partner of Salmon Nation and former president of Ecotrust. He worked as a writer and broadcaster for CBC Television, where he won numerous awards for his documentary reporting. He lives on an island in the unceded territory of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth people on the west coast of British Columbia; and occasionally in Vancouver, where he is co-founder of the independent bookstore Upstart & Crow.

Ian Gill's profile page

Awards

  • Short-listed, Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Book Prize

Editorial Reviews

"This is a praise song to a people and a place. It is about the spirit of Haida Gwaii, about respecting Haida stewardship, and about recognizing the responsibilities we all have to the world we live in."

J. Edward Chamberlain

"Ian Gill gives voice to the struggles of the Haida people and their fight for self-determination, while at the same time raising troubling questions about Canada's political will and values."

Globe & Mail

"Guujaaw and the Haida Gwai have ispired indigenous leadership worldwide. A compelling story"

CHOICE, Current Reviews For Academic Libraries

"Ian Gill captures this key Canadian story, along with the wit, wisdom, resilience and shifting fortunes of the Haida, with candour and compassion."

John Vaillant, author of "The Tiger"

"[All That We Say is Ours] recounts the journey of a man and his people to correct the total failure of British justice to fulfill its obligations."

Joseph Gosnell

"Ian Gill knows the Haida and their Queen Charlottes, out in the Pacific below the Alaskan Panhandle...the Vancouver ex-newspaperman makes a noble stab at telling the modern-day tale of the Haida and one of their more controversial activist figures in All That We Say is Ours: Guujaaw and the Reawakening of the Haida Nation."

Toronto Star

"Whether it was Gill's intention or not, All That We Say is Ours helpfully undermines the simplistic and familiar version of these events, set within the thematic conventions of colonialism and resistance, with First Nations taking a stand against the dominant Euro-Canadian culture, and indigenous patriots rising up against the oppressive Canadian settler-state. Gill goes along with all that, but he also reveals a more important story of collaboration and cooperation among and between the Haida and their non-native allies. Indeed, it is a story in which the Haida came late to play the leading role, on their own islands."

Georgia Straight

"In telling the story of a modern indigenous hero and his people, Ian Gill has captured a moment in the global resurgence of indigenous people. This book artfully bridges in the vast gulf of misunderstanding that still pervades our society."

Shawn Atleo

"All That We Say is Ours offers rare insights behind colourful cultural curtains hung at potlatches to display a chief's traditional land and resource ownership."

Ottawa Citizen

"This book makes compelling reading for any Canadian wishing to better understand First Nations and why they are willing to fight so hard for land that without which, as Guujaaw puts it, they would no longer exist."

Canadian Geographic

"As Ian Gill's eloquent and deeply researched new book All That We Say is Ours makes clear, dignified Haida resistance has been a regular feature of the contact between the original inhabitants and outsiders."

Vancouver Review

This book raises very difficult questions about our country's political integrity and our civilization's flawed relationship with the earth itself.

Ronald Wright

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