The Icelandic Canadian - 01.11.2006, Qupperneq 33

Vol. 60 #3
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
1 19
needed food. Why the status of
Aboriginal people declined to the point
where they needed food handouts is not
explained, and what has happened to
Aboriginal people since the turn of the
twentieth century is not discussed.
I first made the connection between
the remembering of settlement and the for-
getting of colonization when we were try-
ing to locate Gudrun Goodman’s property
on the ordinance maps reproduced in the
Foam Lake history. Initially, Stella and I
were very pleased to see Gudrun
Goodman’s name on a quarter section
located on range 12, Township 30, section
28. But as I looked at the map, where the
names of the ‘original’ owners were dis-
played, it became obvious that the mapping
of territory and the renaming of the area
with Icelandic names, was part of the colo-
nization process resulting in the effacement
of Aboriginal history. Does this imply
that the settlers are colonizers? If they are
colonizers, their tales of hardship and
poverty do not fit with the image of cruel
and aggressive colonial masters that I asso-
ciate with colonialism—and allow me to
say, not me. I don’t talk to Stella about my
troubling perceptions for fear of offending.
A year later, in anticipation of giving a
public presentation on this work, I tell
Stella about my concerns. In the first
instance, she allays my fears. ‘Why
wouldn’t I talk to her?’, she asks. But I
also hear hesitations in her voice, as I
explain about colonization and imply that
her ancestors were complicit in this
process. But as I describe the representa-
tion of Aboriginal people in the Foam Lake
history, particularly the suggestion that the
government encouraged settlers to emi-
grate to help feed the Aboriginal people,
she just snorts, “That’s bullshit!” Well
aware that immigrants were enticed to set-
tle in Canada with the promise of cheap
land, Stella easily recognizes the invention
of history to justify actions of the past.
Through the course of our conversa-
tion, we grapple with the impoverished sta-
tus of the settlers and their collusion with
colonial aspirations, realized in part by the
state’s encouragement of European immi-
gration. We understand the settlers to be
‘economic refugees’ in contemporary par-
lance that situates the settlers in a liminal
position between colonizer and colonized.
In his analysis of the colonizer, Albert
Memmi notes the relative positioning of
colonizer, colonized and settler; European
settlers enjoyed privileges on a daily level
(such as protection by the law) denied to
the colonized.37 The settlers benefited from
colonization, as Memmi suggests “by
proxy,”38 and a comparison of the fate of
descendants of both Aboriginal people and
European settlers leaves no doubt as to the
accrued advantages of the latter group.
Parr Two: In the next issue oi the
Icelandic Canadian Magazine. Footnotes
published at the end of essay.
Reprinted with permission. Published
four times annually by the University of
Toronto Press Incorporated. Copyright
University of Toronto Press 2006. All
rights reserved.
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