Assignment 2.6 – The Map That Roared

Question 3

In his article, “A Map that Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and the Narration of Nation,” Matthew Sparke examines the court case: Delgamuukw v the Queen. During this case, the Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan people used cartographic tools to “outline their sovereignty in a way the Canadian court might understand” (Sparke, 468). They outlined which territory belonged to them, and presented the map before a judge. While unfolding this map, the judge, Allan McEachern, declared, “We’ll call it the map that roared” (468). McEachern later dismissed the claims made by the Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan people, asserting that aboriginal rights were nonexistent. Despite his judgment, McEachern’s decision was overturned, and the matter was brought back into court.

Sparke argues that McEachern’s decision was motivated by two possible reasons. Firstly, the Judge was making a reference to the 1959 Peter Sellers move ‘The Mouse that Roared,” which took a satirical look at geopolitics during the Cold War. Alternatively, he was referring “to the colloquial notion of a ‘paper tiger’” (468). The latter reason seems to Sparke to be the more convincing of the two. Sparke argues that this decision “evoked the resistance in the First Nation’s remapping of the land” (468). However, regardless of intention, Sparke rightfully believes that McEachern’s comment was harmful towards Native rights and sovereignty.

Through Sparke’s analysis, we can see that McEachern had a bias that interfered with his ability to properly judge this case. Interestingly, this goes against the claim in this week’s lesson: “in the courtroom, the Judge could not read the map presented by the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en” (Paterson). If McEachern viewed the map as a ‘paper tiger,’ Sparke is implying that the Judge was entering the case with a prejudice towards the evidence. To expand, if the Judge believed that the evidence the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en peoples would disclose would be ineffectual, that hints towards his bias. Therefore, perhaps it was not that he could not read the map, but rather that he did not want to read it.

Personally, I think McEachern’s words come from a place of fear. The term ‘roar’ implies such power and force, and it also implies that the Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan people’s claims intimidated McEachern.

In conclusion, I agree in Sparke’s interpretation that the Judge had an anachronistic bias, as well as his relief that the case was eventually overturned. After reading the article, I explored news archives relating to the Delgamuukw v the Queen case. One article in particular was this CBC article, which illustrates the various land claims previously debated. The article also states that we should expect to see more in the future.

Works Cited

Nahwegahbow, David C. “Supreme Court Had ‘No Other Choice’ In Landmark Ruling…” CBC News. N.p., 29 June 2014. Web. 19 Oct. 2016.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 2.3” ENG 470A Canadian Studies: Canadian Literary Genres. University of British Columbia, 2016. Web. 18 Oct 2016.

Sparke, Matthew. “A Map That Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada Cartography, and the Narration of Nation.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers (1998): 468-470. JSTOR. Web. 18 Oct. 2016.

Venetikidis, Aris. “Making sense of maps” TED. September 2012. Lecture.