Bruce Erickson ( an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environment and Geography at the University of Manitoba) and Sarah Wylie Krotz (an Associate Professor of English literature at the University of Alberta) have put together a new book called The Politics of the Canoe.

“We wanted to give paddlers and scholars alike a book that gave them lots to think about, as the canoe has the potential to help us think through important relationships.
We are both avid canoeists and we wanted to illustrate how thinking about the politics of the canoe has helped us better understand and enjoy canoeing.” Sarah Wylie Krotz

“Popularly thought of as a recreational vehicle and one of the key ingredients of an ideal wilderness getaway, the canoe is also a political vessel. A potent symbol and practice of Indigenous cultures and traditions, the canoe has also been adopted to assert conservation ideals, feminist empowerment, citizenship practices, and multicultural goals. Documenting many of these various uses, this book asserts that the canoe is not merely a matter of leisure and pleasure; it is folded into many facets of our political life.

Taking a critical stance on the canoe, The Politics of the Canoe expands and enlarges the stories that we tell about the canoe’s relationship to, for example, colonialism, nationalism, environmentalism, and resource politics. To think about the canoe as a political vessel is to recognize how intertwined canoes are in the public life, governance, authority, social conditions, and ideologies of particular cultures, nations, and states.

Almost everywhere we turn, and any way we look at it, the canoe both affects and is affected by complex political and cultural histories. Across Canada and the U.S., canoeing cultures have been born of activism and resistance as much as of adherence to the mythologies of wilderness and nation building. The essays in this volume show that canoes can enhance how we engage with and interpret not only our physical environments, but also our histories and present-day societies.”

You can purchase a 272 page paper copy for $27.95, or a PDF/.ePub version for $20 from the University of Manitoba Press’ online store.

Watch an online launch of the book on June 12th

Update May 27th, 2021: You can attend a virtual launch of the book through the Canadian Canoe Museum’s Facebook page on June 8th from 8 to 9 p.m.