Indigenous activism put small-town northern Ontario on the map in the 1960s and early 1970s. Kenora, Ontario, was home to a four-hundred-person march, popularly called "Canada's First Civil Rights March," and a two-month-long armed occupation of a small lakefront park. Canada's Other Red Scare shows how important it is to link the local and the global to broaden narratives of resistance in the 1960s; it is a history not of isolated events closed off from the present but of decolonization as a continuing process. Scott Rutherford explores with rigour and sensitivity the Indigenous political protest and social struggle that took place in Northwestern Ontario and Treaty 3 territory from 1965 to 1974. Drawing on archival documents, media coverage, published interviews, memoirs, and social movement literature, as well as his own lived experience as a settler growing up in Kenora, he reconstructs a period of turbulent protest and the responses it provoked, from support to disbelief to outright hostility. Indigenous organizers advocated for a wide range of issues, from better employment opportunities to the recognition of nationhood, by using such tactics as marches, cultural production, community organizing, journalism, and armed occupation. They drew inspiration from global currents - from black American freedom movements to Third World decolonization - to challenge the inequalities and racial logics that shaped settler-colonialism and daily life in Kenora. Accessible and wide-reaching, Canada's Other Red Scare makes the case that Indigenous political protest during this period should be thought of as both local and transnational, an urgent exercise in confronting the experience of settler-colonialism in places and moments of protest, when its logic and acts of dispossession are held up like a mirror.

Scott Rutherford is a PhD Candidate, Department of History, Queen’s University.

Scott Rutherford's profile page

• Winner, Choice Outstanding Academic Title
• Winner, J.J. Talman Award

"I was truly impressed with this book. Rutherford provides detailed insights into historical developments in the Kenora region and the post–World War II racism that is so fundamental in shaping current Indigenous realities. The almost seamless integration with global political commentary and international debates is simply superb. There are tough concepts presented here – and folks will find them uncomfortable – but a study like this is much overdue and will attract considerable international attention." Ken Coates, Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Saskatchewan

“In a manner that other settler historians might emulate, Rutherford deftly positions himself in the narrative without imposing an authoritative voice. Thought provoking and illuminating, the book shows how knowledge of past struggles for justice can illuminate today’s challenges as Indigenous people continue to combat the consequences of settler colonialism.” J.J. Talman Award, Ontario Historical Society Jury

"Kenora, a small city in northwest Ontario, rarely makes headlines in Canadian news. However, for six weeks during the summer of 1974 Kenora gained national attention when 150 Anishinaabe "Ojibway Warriors" occupied a city park as part of a decolonizing protest in connection with the American Civil Rights and American Indian Movements, global Marxism, and decolonization efforts happening throughout what was then called the Third World. Kenora is effectively used as a microcosm to analyze racial and class tensions that pervaded and continue to pervade Canada as a whole. This is essential and accessible reading for anyone interested in understanding the continued resurgence of Indigenous protest in the face of an unchanging racist and settler colonial Canadian state and society. Essential. All levels." Choice

“Canada’s Other Red Scare contains challenging arguments built on exemplary research. It also reveals one pivotal yet understated contribution in its connection to the personal. Rutherford begins and ends this book by situating himself in his research. His introduction makes clear his motivations for wanting to understand Indigenous political mobilizations around Kenora – his hometown – which helps him to personally and professionally come to terms with his role in settlercolonialism and racialized histories that deliberately erased Indigenous peoples as active historical subjects. In many ways, this work enabled Rutherford to unlearn the history of Kenora that dominated his childhood and punctuated his formative memories, while also providing sophisticated interventions into Canadian historiography.” Histoire sociale/Social History