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Abstract
James Brady was a mid twentieth-century Indigenous political organiser, trapper, prospector, writer, and intellectual. He was also a prolific photographer. This article considers the significance and aesthetics of Brady’s photographic archive through the lens of Indigenous visual sovereignty. Brady was Métis – one of Canada’s three recognised Indigenous peoples along with First Nations and Inuit. The Métis engaged in two conflicts with the Canadian state and negotiated the entry of a province into confederation. For a significant period of history, they lived outside Canadian infrastructures, whether the system of First Nations’ reserves created in the post-treaty era or Euro-Canadian settlements. Particularly vulnerable to land loss and displacement, the Métis were in desperate condition when Brady first began travelling with his camera. Brady’s photographs document the political rebirth of Métis people and the resilience and persistence of Métis communities in northern Alberta and Saskatchewan. They bear photographic witness to the lived experience of sovereignty rooted to place and continue to resonate with his subjects and their descendants.
Notes
1 See Carol Geddes, Picturing a People, George Johnston, Tlingit Photographer, Montreal: National Film Board of Canada 1997; and Peter Pitseolak and Dorothy Eber, People from Our Side: A Life Story with Photographs, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press 1993.
2 See Mique’l Icesis Askren, ‘From Negative to Positive: B. A. Haldane, Nineteenth Century Tsimshian Photographer’, MA thesis, University of Washington 2006. Benjamin Richard Throssel was the grandson of Métis who fled to the USA after the 1885 Saskatchewan Resistance and was enrolled in the Crow Reservation in Montana. See Peggy Albright, Crow Indian Photographer: The Work of Richard Throssel, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 1997.
3 Murray Dobbin, author of a political biography of James Brady and Malcolm Norris, only mentions his photography once. Murray Dobbin, One and a Half Men: The Story of Jim Brady and Malcolm Norris, Metis Patriots of the Twentieth Century, Vancouver: New Star Books 1981. A recent film, Jim Brady: In the Footsteps of the Métis Leader (2011), focused exclusively on Brady’s political career and death.
4 Jolene Rickard, ‘Sovereignty: A Line in the Sand’, in Strong Hearts: Native American Visions and Voices, ed. Peggy Rolf, New York: Aperture 1995, 51–59.
5 Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie, ‘When is a Photograph Worth a Thousand Words?’, in Native Nations: Journeys in American Photography, ed. Jane Allison, London: Barbican Art Gallery and Booth-Clibborn Editions 1998, 40–52.
6 Ibid.; and Michelle H. Raheja, Reservation Reelism: Redfacing, Visual Sovereignty, and Representations of Native Americans in Film, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press 2010, 191–92.
7 Kate Morris, ‘Picturing Sovereignty: Landscape in Contemporary Native American Art’, in Patrons, Patrons and Identity: Essays in Native American Art, ed. Joyce Szabo, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 2001, 187–209.
8 Laurent Garneau and Eleanor Thomas met in the Red River Settlement and married at the Little Britain Church, near Lower Fort Garry around 1870, the time of the Red River Resistance. Eleanor Garneau née Thomas Half Breed Scrip Claim, File 143511, vol. 508, Series D-11-1, Record Group 15, Library and Archives Canada.
9 There is a voluminous body of literature on Métis history and political struggle. See Chris Andersen, Metis: Race, Recognition, and the Struggle for Indigenous Peoplehood, Vancouver: UBC Press 2014; Christopher Adams, Gregg Dahl, and Ian Peach, The Métis in Canada: History, Identity, Law and Politics, Edmonton: University of Alberta Press 2013; and The New Peoples: Being and Becoming Métis in North America, ed. Jacqueline Peterson and Jennifer S. H. Brown, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press 1985.
10 James Brady Interview no. 5, Art Davis, 1960, p. 14, IH-425D, SAB.
11 Ibid.
12 James Brady to Ben (unidentified), Stanley Mission, Saskatchewan, 14 September 1952, Metis Virtual Museum, available at http://www.metismuseum.ca/media/document.php/03852.J.P.Brady.Ben.Let.pdf (accessed 10 November 2016).
13 Eight members of the extended Garneau family died in November 1918, among a total of thirty in St. Paul des Métis. Sister Archange [Jean] Brady, Anne Brady Walther, Dorothy Champman Interview (Brady Sisters), Murray Dobbin, Winnipeg Manitoba, 15 August 1977, IH-350A/B, SAB, 33–34.
14 Ibid., 10.
15 Ibid., 38.
16 Ibid., 1.
17 The stimulus was the difficult negotiations and final signing of the Natural Resources Transfer Agreements, which transferred federal ‘public domain’ lands to provincial jurisdiction. See Nicole C. O’Bryne, ‘“No Other Weapon Except Organization”: The Métis Association of Alberta and the 1938 Metis Population Betterment Act’, Journal of the Canadian Historical Association / Revue de la société historique du Canada, 24:2 (2013), 311–52.
18 J. P. Brady, ‘Vanished Campfires’, trans. David Morin, 1, Virtual Museum of Metis History and Culture, Gabriel Dumont Institute, available at http://www.metismuseum.ca/media/document.php/03834.Vanished.Campfires.pdf (accessed 20 November 2016).
19 Dobbin, One and a Half Men, 50.
20 The Royal Commission on the Condition of the Half Breed Population of Alberta (1934–36), chaired by Alfred F. Ewing, was a public inquiry into living conditions and health in response to political pressure by the Métis Association of Alberta. Joseph P. Brady, ‘Evidence Taken Before the Ewing Commission (Re: Half Breeds)’, Edmonton, Alberta, 1 March 1935, 33–34, M-125-38a, James Brady Fonds (JBF), Glenbow Museum Archives.
21 J. P. Brady to P. C. Tomkins, Boyle, Alberta, 14 April 1934, 2–3, M-125-23-pt. 1, JBF.
22 Brady’s anglicised ‘nestows’ is the Cree/Métis word nistaw (nistawak pl.), which translates as brother-in-law. Brady and his colleagues used it as a slang expression referring to the broad kinship of all Métis men. J. P. Brady to P. C. Tomkins, Boyle, Alberta, 8 April 1934, 2, M-125-23pt. 1, JBF.
23 Royal Canadian Mounted Police Headquarters, ‘No. 716 Weekly Summary Report on Revolutionary Organizations and Agitators in Canada, Report, Ottawa’, 15 August 1934, 152, RCMP Security Bulletins 1919–45, Centre for Digital Scholarship Journals, University of New Brunswick, available at https://journals.lib.unb.ca/ index.php/RCMP/article/viewFile/9390/9445 (accessed 27 November 2016).
24 Ibid., 200.
25 PA 2218 43-57, JBF.
26 Ann Anderson, The First Metis: A New Nation, Edmonton: Uvisco 1985, 284.
27 Dobbin, One and a Half Men, 56–57.
28 On the ‘Nominal Role of Fishing Lake Area No. 10, taken August 21, 1939’, Edward Trottier is listed as thirty-five years of age, his wife as Marie Cardinal, and their four children as aged between two and nine years. M-125-37-pt 1, JBF.
29 Of the original twelve, there are now eight surviving Metis Settlements. See T. C. Pocklington, The Government and Politics of the Alberta Metis Settlements, Regina: University of Regina Press 1991.
30 Jim (Gnr. J. P. Brady) to Jules Petit, Holland, 4 January 1945, M125-7 pt. 1, JBF.
31 James Brady Interview, Art Davis, La Ronge, n.d. [1960], 11, R-1331-A, SAB.
32 Marcel Giraud, The Métis in the Canadian West Vol. 2 (1945), trans. George Woodcock, Edmonton: University of Alberta Press 1986, 524.
33 Lawrence Cook Interview, Murray Dobbin, Cumberland House, 18 August 1976, 3, IH-363, SAB.
34 Dobbin, One and a Half Men, 169.
35 James Brady Interview no. 2, Art Davis, 1960, 23, IH-425A, SAB.
36 David McLennan, Our Towns: Saskatchewan Communities from Abbey to Zenon, Regina: University of Regina Press 2008, 82–83.
37 Until the formation of the CCF in 1932, the Canadian political system was a two-party system: Liberal and Conservative.
38 Brady Interview no. 2, Davis, 28.
39 Ibid.
40 Brady Interview, Davis, 30.
41 River lots were the traditional Métis land use system in settlements – an adaptation of the French river lot systems of New France (Quebec). Given the history of removal and appropriation, a family still in possession of a river lot was worthy of note.
42 Andre Bouthillette Interview, Murray Dobbin, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, 13 January 1978, 22, IH-424/424A, SAB.
43 James E. Carriere Interview, Cumberland House, 18 August 1976, 10–11, SAB.
44 John Cook Interview, Murray Dobbin, Stanley Mission, 14 September 1976, 6, IH-382, SAB.
45 Ann Carriere-Acco Interview, Darren Prefontaine, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, 27 August 2010, 4, available at htttp://www.metismuseum.ca/media.document.php/12915.Anne%20Acco%20interview.pdf (accessed 15 November 2016).
46 Pierre Dorion Interview, Murray Dobbin, Cumberland House, 18 August 1976, SAB.
47 Acco Interview, 2.
48 The large Carriere and Goulet families alone have been at the forefront of educational and political change. A small boy in the photograph of the Goulet family trapline went on to be the first person to teach Cree in a Saskatchewan university, an innovative educational administrator, and member of the provincial legislature, holding several cabinet positions including Minister of Northern Saskatchewan.
49 Sister Archange Brady to James Brady, St. Paul’s Hospital, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, 19 July 1949, 2–3, M125-7 part 1, JBF; underlining in original.
50 James Brady to Ben, Stanley Mission, Saskatchewan, 14 September 1952, trans. David Morin, Metis Virtual Museum, available at http://www.metismuseum.ca/media/document.php/03852.J.P.Brady.Ben.Let.pdf (accessed 29 November 2016).
51 Bouthillette Interview, 13 and 31.
52 Brady Interview no. 2, Davis, 28.
53 Brady was Davis’s collaborator on Edging into the Mainstream: Urban Indians in Saskatchewan, Bellingham: Western Washington State College: A Northern Dilemma Reference Papers 1967.
54 Arthur Davis correspondence file, M125-19, JBF.
55 Richard William Hill, ‘10 Indigenous Artworks that Changed How We Imagine Ourselves’, Canadian Art, 28 April 2016, available at https://canadianart.ca/features/ten-indigenous-artworks-changed-imagine/ (accessed 30 November 2016).
56 Brady and Norris adopted the term for local chapters of the Métis societies in Saskatchewan and Alberta, and its use continues to this day.
57 Stan Durocher Interview, Murray Dobbin, La Ronge, 13 July 1976, 3-4, IH-369, SAB.
58 Bouthillette Interview, 32.
59 Anne Acco Interview, 4.
60 Paul Seesequasis’s social media project ‘Indigenous Photography and Narrative’ is an ongoing project that commenced in 2014. Paul Seesequasis, Twitter Post, 26 May 2017, 9:32 pm., available at https://twitter.com/paulseesequa/status/868324006646104064; and 11 August 2017, 10:32 am, available at https://twitter.com/paulseesequa/status/896061854924947456 (accessed 4 August 2017).
61 Keith Goulet, ‘Algonquian Land Debate: A Cumberland Cree Perspective’, Nituskeenan Anishinaabewaki – Critically Researching Histories, Borders Visible and Invisible: American Society for Ethnohistory Annual Meeting, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Saturday 14 October 2017.