How did British colonists in Victorian Montreal come to think of themselves as “native Canadian”? This richly illustrated work reveals that colonists adopted, then appropriated, Aboriginal and French Canadian activities such as hunting, lacrosse, snowshoeing, and tobogganing. In the process, they constructed visual icons that were recognized at home and abroad as distinctly “Canadian.” This new Canadian nationality mimicked indigenous characteristics but ultimately rejected indigenous players, and championed the interests of white, middle-class, Protestant males who used their newly acquired identity to dominate the political realm. English Canadian identity was not formed solely by emulating what was British; this book shows that it gained ground by usurping what was indigenous in a foreign land.

Gillian Poulter's profile page

Gillian Poulter is an associate professor of Canadian history at Acadia University.

It is a rare pleasure to have to wait until the final half-dozen pages to find anything to quibble about. The quality of poulter’s writing is uniformly excellent and jargon-free.

H-Canada