How did British colonists in Victorian Montreal come to think of themselves as “native Canadian”? This incisive, richly illustrated work reveals that colonists adopted Aboriginal and French Canadian activities – hunting, lacrosse, snowshoeing, and tobogganing – and appropriated them while imposing British ideologies of order, discipline, and fair play. In the process, they constructed visual icons that were recognized at home and abroad as distinctly “Canadian” national symbols. The new Canadian nationality mimicked indigenous characteristics but ultimately rejected indigenous players, instead championing the interests of white, middle-class, Protestant males who used their newly acquired identity to dominate the political realm. Becoming Native in a Foreign Land demonstrates that English Canadian identity was not formed solely by emulating what was British. In fact, it gained enormous ground by usurping what was indigenous in the fertile landscape of a foreign land. A vital and original study, it will appeal to scholars and enthusiasts of Canadian history, identity, and culture.

In the author's ten years living in China, Chinese friends and foreign friends alike have told him that in many ways he is more like a Chinese person than an American. He sees himself as an "egg," which is white on the outside and yellow (Chinese) inside. For cross-cultural ministry, we learn from the apostle Paul: "I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some" (1 Cor 9:22). Paul's purpose in becoming all things to all men is so that some may be saved. We can see this displayed in his preaching to the Athenians in Acts 17, how he becomes a local by relating to them through their culture. This book first looks at how we are to imitate Christ's love and humility to effectively love the locals to whom we are ministering. Then the book covers many specific aspects of life abroad and how we can better live like the locals in many areas that some may be saved. Though this book is particularly targeted for those readers who are ministering cross-culturally, it is also a very beneficial book for Christians aiming to be light in their home country.

When Canada hosted the 1976 Montreal Olympics, few Canadian spectators waved flags in the stands. By 2010, in the run-up to the Vancouver Olympics, thousands of Canadians wore red mittens with white maple leaves on the palms. In doing so, they turned their hands into miniature flags that flew with even a casual wave. Red Mitten Nationalism investigates this shift in Canadians’ displays of patriotism by exploring how common understandings of Canadian history and identity are shaped at the intersection of sport, commercialism, and nationalism. Through case studies of recent Canadian-hosted Olympic and Commonwealth Games, Estée Fresco argues that representations of Indigenous Peoples’ cultures are central to the way everyday Canadians, corporations, and sport organizations remember the past and understand the present. Corporate sponsors and games organizers highlight selective ideas about the nation’s identity, and unacknowledged truths about the history and persistence of Settler colonialism in Canada haunt the commercial and cultural features of these sporting events. Commodities that represent the nation – from disposable trinkets to carefully curated objects of nostalgia – are not uncomplicated symbols of national pride, but rather reminders that Canada is built on Indigenous land and Settlers profit from its natural resources. Red Mitten Nationalism challenges readers to re-evaluate how Canadians use sport and commercial practices to express their patriotism and to understand the impact of this expression on the current state of Indigenous-Settler relations.

Decolonizing Sport tells the stories of sport colonizing Indigenous Peoples and of Indigenous Peoples using sport to decolonize. Spanning several lands — Turtle Island, the US, Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand and Kenya — the authors demonstrate the two sharp edges of sport in the history of colonialism. Colonizers used sport, their own and Indigenous recreational activities they appropriated, as part of the process of dispossession of land and culture. Indigenous mascots and team names, hockey at residential schools, lacrosse and many other examples show the subjugating force of sport. Yet, Indigenous Peoples used sport, playing their own games and those of the colonizers, including hockey, horse racing and fishing, and subverting colonial sport rules as liberation from colonialism. This collection stands apart from recent publications in the area of sport with its focus on Indigenous Peoples, sport and decolonization, as well as in imagining a new way forward.

Celebrating Canadian athletes and sporting history. The cultural impact of sport on a nation is not slight. Famous for a Time explores a number of important, if not well remembered, Canadian athletes and the sports they played to help explain the nation’s complicated history, sporting and otherwise. It is an exploration that reveals the socio-cultural trends that have shaped Canada since Confederation. Through the prism of some exceptional athletes, the prevailing attitudes of many Canadians about class, race, masculinity, femininity, and national identity are laid bare. Here, from the sidelines, we learn how these attitudes have changed — or not, as the case may be — over time. From team sports such as lacrosse, baseball, and cricket to Canada’s cycling craze, track and field, and boxing, each chapter offers insight into an important aspect of the nation’s narrative. The winners and losers of Canada’s games simply mirror the larger questions that have faced Canadian society across three centuries.

What has it meant to be a man in Canada? Alexander Ross, fur trader; Percy Nobbs, architect, fisherman, fencer; Andy Paull, residential school survivor and athlete; Yves Charbonneau, jazz musician and commune member; “James,” black and gay in postwar Windsor. Who were these men, and how did they identify as masculine? Populated with figures both well known and unknown, Making Men, Making History frames masculinity as a socially and historically constructed category of identity, susceptible to variation across time, place, and social context. This examination of historical Canadian masculinities reveals the dissonance between hegemonic ideals of manhood and masculinity and the everyday lives of men and boys. The volume showcases some of the best new work in masculinity studies. With an introduction that contextualizes the international origins of the field, Making Men, Making History is the first book to explore these themes entirely in Canadian historica settings.

How did a small Canadian regional league come to dominate a North American continental sport? Joining the Clubs: The Business of the National Hockey League to 1945 tells the fascinating story of the game off the ice, offering a play-by-play of cooperation and competition among owners, players, arenas, and spectators that produced a major league business enterprise. Ross explores the ways in which the NHL organized itself to maintain long-term stability, deal with its labor force, and adapt its product and structure to the demands of local, regional, and international markets. He argues that sports leagues like the NHL pursued a strategy that responded both to standard commercial incentives and also to consumer demands that the product provide cultural meaning. Leagues successfully used the cartel form—an ostensibly illegal association of businesses that cooperated to monopolize the market for professional hockey—along with a focus on locally branded clubs, to manage competition and attract spectators to the sport. In addition, the NHL had another special challenge: unlike other major leagues, it was a binational league that had to sell and manage its sport in two different countries. Joining the Clubs pays close attention to these national differences, as well as to the context of a historical period characterized by war and peace, by rapid economic growth and dire recession, and by the momentous technological and social changes of the modern age.

Charts the rise of consumerism and the new cosmopolitan material cultures that took shape across the globe from 1500 to 1820.

A gift from the Creator – that is where it all began. The game of lacrosse has been a central element of many Indigenous cultures for centuries, but once non-Indigenous players entered the sport, it became a site of appropriation – then reclamation – of Indigenous identities. Focusing on the history of lacrosse in Indigenous communities from the 1860s to the 1990s, The Creator’s Game explores Indigenous-non-Indigenous relations and Indigenous identity formation. While the game was being stripped of its cultural and ceremonial significance and being appropriated to construct a new identity for the nation-state of Canada, it was also being used by Indigenous peoples for multiple ends: to resist residential school experiences; initiate pan-Indigenous political mobilization; and articulate Indigenous sovereignty and nationhood on the world stage. The multilayered story of lacrosse serves as a potent illustration of how identity and nationhood are formed and reformed. Engaging and innovative, The Creator’s Game provides a unique view of Indigenous self-determination in the face of settler-colonialism.

The history of Aboriginal people in Canada taught in schools and depicted in the media tends to focus on Aboriginal displacement from native lands and the consequent social and cultural disruptions they have endured. Collectively, they are portrayed as passive victims of European colonization and government policy, and, even when well intentioned, these depictions are demeaning and do little to truly represent the role Aboriginal peoples have played in Canadian life. Hidden in Plain Sight adds another dimension to the story, showing the extraordinary contributions Aboriginal peoples have made - and continue to make - to the Canadian experience. From treaties to contemporary arts and literatures, Aboriginal peoples have helped to define Canada and have worked to secure a place of their own making in Canadian culture. For this volume, editors David R. Newhouse, Cora J. Voyageur, and Daniel J.K. Beavon have brought together leading scholars and other impassioned voices, and together, they give full treatment to the Aboriginal contribution to Canada's intellectual, political, economic, social, historic, and cultural landscapes. Included are profiles of several leading figures such as actor Chief Dan George, artist Norval Morrisseau, author Tomson Highway, activist Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, and politician Phil Fontaine, among others. Canada simply would not be what it is today without these contributions. The first of two volumes, Hidden in Plain Sight is key to understanding and appreciating Canadian society and will be essential reading for generations to come.