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Dammed: The Politics of Loss and Survival in Anishinaabe Territory
by Brittany Luby, University of Guelph


Dammed explores Canada’s hydroelectric boom in the Lake of the Woods area. It complicates narratives of increasing affluence in postwar Canada, revealing that the inverse was true for Indigenous communities along the Winnipeg River.

Dammed makes clear that hydroelectric generating stations were designed to serve settler populations. Governments and developers excluded the Anishinabeg from planning and operations and failed to consider how power production might influence the health and economy of their communities. By so doing, Canada and Ontario thwarted a future that aligned with the terms of treaty, a future in which both settlers and the Anishinabeg might thrive in shared territories.

The same hydroelectric development that powered settler communities flooded manomin fields, washed away roads, and compromised fish populations. Anishinaabe families responded creatively to manage the government-sanctioned environmental change and survive the resulting economic loss. Luby reveals these responses to dam development, inviting readers to consider how resistance might be expressed by individuals and families, and across gendered and generational lines.
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Luby weaves text, testimony, and experience together, grounding this historical work in the territory of her paternal ancestors, lands she calls home. With evidence drawn from archival material, oral history, and environmental observation, Dammed invites readers to confront Canadian colonialism in the twentieth century.
 

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“Dammed is thoughtful, deeply researched, and urgent. Utilizing the tools of Indigenous Studies, environmental history, and women’s history and drawing on oral and written archives, Luby gives us a nuanced and supple analysis of Annishnaabe history in an eventful, and often very difficult, hundred years in Northwestern Ontario.”
– Adele Perry, FRSC, Distinguished Professor, History and Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Manitoba
 
“In Dammed: The Politics of Loss and Survival in Anishinaabe Territory, Luby offers a history, based on archival and oral resources, of the damming and transformation of the Winnipeg River system, all to the detriment of Indigenous people. A history of race, class, gender and labour, Dammed is also a compelling argument for an increased ability to think in systems and to think deeply about how a pathway to reconciliation needs to be bathed in historical reciprocity.”
– Matt Henderson, Winnipeg Free Press
 
“Brittany Luby’s Dammed is an important book that pushes the reader to question Canada’s nation-building process and to reconcile with the fact that Canada’s growth and prosperity were at the expense of Indigenous peoples – with the experience of the Anishinaabeg along the Winnipeg River, and Luby’s home territory, being the example focused upon.”
– Chadwick Cowie, Journal of Australian, Canadian, and Aotearoa New Zealand Studies
 
“Luby presents the reader with an erudite, but eminently readable, account of the last hundred or so years of human interaction with, and manipulation of, the waterways of Northwestern Ontario… weaving together archival material with Indigenous knowledge and perspectives in an accessible and compelling way.”
– Sarah Moar, EVENT Magazine
 
Meet the author
Dr. Brittany Luby, recipient of the Governor General’s History Award for Scholarly Research (2020), is renowned for her skill at communicating across disciplinary and cultural divides. The Canadian Historical Association has described her research as “innovative in its structure and responsive to Indigenous research methodologies.” Luby’s expertise in Indigenous methods influences her teaching. She is an award-nominated educator known for engaging undergraduate students in experiential learning projects. Luby’s traditional academic work is complemented by experience working for First Nations to produce historical reports on Treaty Rights for court use. Her commitment to sharing Indigenous issues with diverse audiences has spurred creative outputs like art installations and children’s books. The Toronto Star notes that Luby’s work for children “models how to build love and respect.”
 
Learn more about Brittany and Dammed here:
The Champlain Society, Witness to Yesterday Podcast - https://champlainsociety.utpjournals.press/podcast/wty/surviving-natural-resource-development-and-environmental-degradation
NiCHE, Nature’s Past Podcast - https://niche-canada.org/2021/04/12/natures-past-episode-71-water-and-anishinaabe-territory/
Brittany’s website: https://www.uoguelph.ca/arts/history/people/brittany-luby

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  • Home
    • About
    • Contact
  • JOIN US
    • Volunteer
  • Featured New Book
    • Past Featured Books >
      • Keyes - American Burial Ground
      • Hines - Water for All
      • Luby - Dammed
      • O'Gorman - Wetlands in a Dry Land
  • PROJECTS
    • Revise & Resubmit Support >
      • Hickman - The Doctor's Garden
    • Recent Books by Members
    • The Syllabus Project
    • Tracking Publication Rates
    • #FlipTheList!
  • Explore
    • Women Also Know History
    • Race and the Environment Series
    • Environmental History Now
    • The Greenhouse Book Talks
    • NICHE: Network in Canadian History & Environment
    • Edge Effects
    • Center for Environmental Futures: Just Futures Institute