Canoe nation: Race and gender in the making of a national icon

Starting with the collusion between nature and nation symbolized by the canoe, this dissertation examines the cultural politics that enabled the canoe to become an iconic marker of the Canadian nation. The canoe, I argue, works as a fetish to hide moments in the production of a unified vision of Canada, naturalized through the long history of the canoe in the nation's material development. In this fetishization, the consequences of our actions in canoes, including the impact on nature, the production of national subjects, and the dynamics of colonialism, are displaced in favour of a narrative that projects a national essence on to the landscape of the nation. This character of the nation is assumed to have always already existed in the landscape, the proof of which is established by the connection of the canoe to both history and nature.;Investigating the processes by which the consequences of the canoe's role in the development of the nation are displaced in the national myth, the dissertation reflects upon the themes of history, consumption, race and nature. By considering these themes through the memorializing of the fur trade, the transition of the canoe from a vehicle of labour to a vehicle of leisure, the production of race through images of nature and leisure, and the relationship between canoeing and environmental action, it becomes clear that the establishment of the canoe as a national symbol was never simply a "natural" occurrence. Rather, the narratives of this national vehicle have always been produced, and the specifics of their production are important to understanding the forms of subjectivity offered by these narratives' articulation. The place of the "primitive," the intimate connection to nature, the innocence of the pastime: these aspects of the canoe's image all speak to its role in the production of colonialism, the legitimization of the nation and the birth of industrial capitalism. Yet, as I demonstrate, the production of these narratives is always contested, and the contemporary celebrations of the canoe should do more to open up these moments of conflict. Doing so, as I argue in the conclusion, can provide for an opening of the canoe as symbol that can incorporate a broader diversity of experiences.