In arresting, but harrowing, prose, James Daschuk examines the roles that Old World diseases, climate, and, most disturbingly, Canadian politics--the politics of ethnocide--played in the deaths and subjugation of thousands of aboriginal people in the realization of Sir John A. Macdonald's "National Dream." It was a dream that came at great expense: the present disparity in health and economic well-being between First Nations and non-Native populations, and the lingering racism and misunderstanding that permeates the national consciousness to this day. " Clearing the Plains is a tour de force that dismantles and destroys the view that Canada has a special claim to humanity in its treatment of indigenous peoples. Daschuk shows how infectious disease and state-supported starvation combined to create a creeping, relentless catastrophe that persists to the present day. The prose is gripping, the analysis is incisive, and the narrative is so chilling that it leaves its reader stunned and disturbed. For days after reading it, I was unable to shake a profound sense of sorrow. This is fearless, evidence-driven history at its finest." -Elizabeth A. Fenn, author of Pox Americana "Required reading for all Canadians." -Candace Savage, author of A Geography of Blood "Clearly written, deeply researched, and properly contextualized history...Essential reading for everyone interested in the history of indigenous North America." -J.R. McNeill, author of Mosquito Empires

The papers in this collection deal with the traditions and past history of the Plains Cree, and the effects, fifty years ago, of a changing way of life. Topics covered are the following: a winter of hardship; Indian laws; revenge against the Blackfoot; Thunderchild takes his first horses from the Blackfoot; it is Pu-chi-to now who tells his story; Thunderchild takes part in a dangerous game; encounter with the Blackfoot in the Eagle hills; a fight with the Scarcee; a story of friendship; truce making and truce breaking; Buffalo pounds; the Buffalo chase; the Grizzly bear; walking wind tell his story of the Grizzly; Thunderchild's adventure with the bears; the foot-race; a faithless woman; the first man; the sun dance; the thirst dance; and, Thunderchild's conclusion.

Born of encounters between Indigenous women and Euro-American men in the first decades of the nineteenth century, the Plains Metis people occupied contentious geographic and cultural spaces. Living in a disputed area of the northern Plains inhabited by various Indigenous nations and claimed by both the United States and Great Britain, the Metis emerged as a people with distinctive styles of speech, dress, and religious practice, and occupational identities forged in the intense rivalries of the fur and provisions trade. Michel Hogue explores how, as fur trade societies waned and as state officials looked to establish clear lines separating the United States from Canada and Indians from non-Indians, these communities of mixed Indigenous and European ancestry were profoundly affected by the efforts of nation-states to divide and absorb the North American West. Grounded in extensive research in U.S. and Canadian archives, Hogue's account recenters historical discussions that have typically been confined within national boundaries and illuminates how Plains Indigenous peoples like the Metis were at the center of both the unexpected accommodations and the hidden history of violence that made the "world's longest undefended border."

"In Health Care in Saskatchewan, the authors explain how health services are organized, financed and delivered in the province. Throughout, Saskatchewan is systematically compared to other provinces in terms of services, spending and outcomes. Marchildon and O'Fee carefully analyse the provincial health system so that health professionals, policy-makers, managers and students get an integrated view of health care in Saskatchewan."--BOOK JACKET.

Based on the author's thesis. Part I was previously published in 1940 by the American Museum of Natural History. This revised edition includes two additional comparative sections.

"Myth has played an important and ongoing role in the development of Saskatchewan's political economy. First, during the time of the National Policy, Saskatchewan was portrayed to immigrants as a promised land. This period served as the psychological and economic foundation for the provice. When belief in Saskatchewan as a promised land was shattered by the Great Depression and Dirty Thirties, the myth was reconstituted through the inspiration of the social gospel. It was then politically reinvigorated in the meaning of medicare and has been expressed in recent decades through the competing visions for economic development. Through all these eras, no matter what the tides of politics, there remained one constant--the singular, collective idea that Saskatchewan was a special place with unrealized potential. The challenge for the public dialogue of Saskatchewan, as the province enters its second century, is to not replay the mistakes of the past. Saskatchewan people must recognize the role that myth has played, and must continue to play, in the life of the province. But, at the same time, they must differentiate it from reality by understanding the power of myth as a force for progress and its potential to create false expectations."--pub. desc.