In order to address this question you will need to refer to Sparke’s article, “A Map that Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and the Narration of Nation.” You can easily find this article online. Read the section titled: “Contrapuntal Cartographies” (468 – 470). Write a blog that explains Sparke’s analysis of what Judge McEachern might have meant by this statement: “We’ll call this the map that roared.”

Matthew Sparke touches on a post-colonial problem concerning Canadian identity, nationalism, and prejudice all bound up within the law by way of cartography. Sparke’s paper reveals an interesting angle to viewing post-colonial issues in Canada because it tackles it from a discipline (geography) I have no background with, and consequently reveals some missed opportunities on Sparke’s part since he does not have the same scholarly background as myself as well as the fact that I am able to write with more retrospective analysis in 2014 compared to his paper from 1998.

The basic argument Sparke makes about Judge McEachern’s comment is that the Gitxsan and Wet’swuet’en First Nations did not back down to the federal government when it came to challenging the government in an arena (the court) in which the government had an enormous advantage. Metaphoric “roar[ing]” referring to a cartographic representation of two groups of people who refused to silently endure the government’s ungenerous dole. And I would agree with Sparke who mentions that the reveal of a literal giant map being unfolded in court has a cacophonous resonance as well.

I don’t disagree with anything Sparke says, I just think for the sake of his geography paper he didn’t hit home the impact of the Judge’s comment as it pertains to my personal understanding and studies in this class and my Arts of the Northwest Coast class. Sparke mentions how the Judge’s comment can be interpreted as a “derisory scripting of the plaintiffs as a ramshackled, anachronistic nation,” and indeed Judge McEachern does his best to justify his un-impartial ruling throughout the case by inappropriately infusing condescending and prejudicial connotations. Of course I was not in the courtroom when the Judge made this comment, but the fact remains that if critics like Sparke and myself are able to connect the comment to racial connotations or satirical allusions to movies, the comment probably was not as neutral as it should be.

I found Sparke’s analysis to be weak by way of not stressing enough the importance of mapping as a Western discipline and not a First Nations methodology, and the relevance of the Gitxsan’s and Wet’swuet’en’s battle in court (another traditionally Western arena) against a governmental body able to strong-arm against them. Mapping with clear-cut boundaries and territorial divide is not a traditional (and this is a charged word) method of understanding and organizing territory. On one of my art history class trips to MOA, Terry Point, a Musqueam consultant described Lyle Wilson’s map in the Great Hall as unforgiving, mentioning how it is difficult to assign one First Nations group to a set territory (especially in BC) because territory isn’t static, and that the government still strong-arms in the courtroom today with regard to land claims because different First Nations groups present conflicting ideas of whose set land is whose. My art history professor, Dr. Charlotte Townsend-Gault, has additionally emphasized this point by explaining how the Canada/US border between BC and Washington cuts across land in a devastating way that separates families and indigenous groups. They even have different labels as either “First Nations” in Canada or “Native American” in the US. A personal anecdote of this proximity/divide is an advertisement for the Tulalip Casino and Resort I saw on my way through Vancouver’s transit where indigenous people were labelled as “Native American” and I had to recall that the resort is actually in the US where that label exists (when looking at that link, think about that image and the logo).

Interestingly, on my transit journey where I saw the Tulalip advertisement, I was reading Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water. Aha. I bet everyone can see what other connection I am going to make now. Bill Bursum‘s map in the novel is actually kind of cool to visualize. Bursum creates the map to screen his Western movies in his store, which consequently kind of transfers prejudices to his customers. By creating a monolithic theatre in his store to play all sorts of cinematic tragedies in which the Indian is never intended to be the hero on a map, Bursum is sort of reinforcing his belief and genuine support for the ideologies expressed through the films, and King himself is asking his readers to consider by what authority pop culture icons are created when concerning indigenous peoples.

References

Bernoe, Jessica. “”The Map” of the Bursum Bill.” Literature in Canada. WordPress, 11 Oct. 2012. Web. 03 Mar. 2014. <http://jessicabernoe.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/the-map-of-the-bursum-bill/>.

“First Nations Territory Map.” Virtual Museum Canada. UBC Museum of Anthropology, 2002. Web. 03 Mar. 2014. <http://www.museevirtuel-virtualmuseum.ca/sgc-cms/expositions-exhibitions/bill_reid/english/resources/map.html>.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 2.3.” ENGL 470A Canadian Studies Canadian Literary Genres. UBC Blogs, n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2014. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl470/unit-2/lesson-2-3/>.

Sparke, Matthew. “A Map That Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and the Narration of Nation.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 88.3 (1998): 463-95. JStor. Web. 3 Mar. 2014. <http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/stable/2564238>.

• Allusions
• Maps
• Thomas King