Shaping the Future on Haida Gwaii sits in the usually uncomfortable gap between history (past) and anthropology (current), with important forays into the future. Joseph Weiss weaves these time lines together to allow for places like the village of Old Masset—an Indian Reserve on Haida Gwaii, an archipelago on the northern Pacific coast of Canada—to be historical yet constantly undergoing processes of change and renegotiation. Weiss is a fantastic writer, and his focus on Haida future making offers refreshing insights to discussions of Indigenous identity and politics in British Columbia.
After two introductory chapters that provide methodology and frameworks, part 2 discusses Haida mobility and homecoming (chapter 3) and the ways that various settler populations have altered Haida territory and threatened Haida agency and ownership of Haida Gwaii (chapter 4). This section describes island life in the northern Pacific—a place whose remoteness requires Haida residents to leave to obtain education...
