Connections Across the 49th Parallel: A Panoramic View and Life Stories

This is an important, path-breaking book. Major strengths include its sweeping range and scope: geographically, temporally, topically and thematically. There are histories of the Canada-US border and borderlands, but they focus on sub-regions, selected peoples, and communities of these regions within restricted timeframes. As Benjamin Hoy writes, this approach has “obscured interactions and connections” (5) that the vast panoramic canvas of this book brings to light. Another strength of this book is the frequent steps back it takes from the big picture with individual stories and voices of those whose lives were deeply affected or constrained by the border, who found refuge or opportunity through crossing the border, or who defied and ignored the border. Particularly compelling are the voices of Indigenous Peoples, drawing on sources such as the 1930s interviews of anthropologist David Mandelbaum with the Nehiyawak (Plains Cree) and the Robert Goodvoice (Dakota) and George First Rider (Kainai) transcripts. This book is not comparative history, though it is in part. It refreshingly departs from the “good marks, bad marks” approach to comparisons of Canada and the US, and it largely steers clear of the worn out and simplistic conclusion of many comparative studies, as apt as it may be, that the outcome for Indigenous Peoples was depressingly similar on both sides of the border. Perhaps the term transnational history comes the closest to describing this book, but it does not entirely fit that category either, as scholars of transnational history focus on the transit of ideas, people, policies, laws, organizations, and institutions between and across nation-states. This book pushes at the boundaries of all of these approaches. In a sense, this book is trans-Indigenous history in that it highlights the ancient and persistent Indigenous nations upon which the border was drawn, and much of the history told here is about how authorities on both sides tried to get Indigenous Peoples to recognize the existence of the border and obey laws and regulations they imposed, with limited success. It is the first study to link the border experiences of Indigenous Peoples from as far east as the Haudenosaunee to the Coast Salish of the West. But the book is about diverse non-Indigenous peoples as well, including African Americans, European immigrants, the Chinese and the laws that excluded them, and individuals like Myron Pratt. The writing is lively and engaging. The border comes across as a living, breathing entity from its conception to childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. I like the metaphor of the border as body found throughout the book. It grows in size and strength over the course of its life. Sometimes the border is described as a frail skeleton onto which a body had to be scaffolded; muscle and flesh had to be added to the frail framework. There are many unique and innovative features in this book, including the maps that quantify and permit comparison of patterns of federal control in each nation. There is one, for example, of customs employees in Canada and the United States where you can visualize the dramatically different levels of control depending on the region. US soldiers’ locations are mapped and can be compared to the map of personnel of the North-West Mounted Police. There were in fact militia units in Canada such as the Border Horse, a cavalry regiment later renamed the 12th Manitoba Dragoons, of which my grandfather was one. But this was a “non-permanent active militia” unit distinct from the army postings in the United States. There are maps of Indian Affairs employees on both sides of the border. Hoy admits there are limitations to the maps, …