Canada’s Rielity

After learning about Canada’s confederation, it was time for us to head westward and move on to learning about the Métis and their fight against Canada. We hopped right in to it and gathered a sense of who the Métis were by completing notes which we collected from an interactive website. This helped us get an understanding of what we are about to start.

From there we were briefed on the graphic novel we were going to read; Chester Brown’s Louis Riel. Louis Riel was the leader of the Métis people in the Red River Rebellion against the government and their opposition towards their rights. Through reading this book we learned about the tension and struggles of Canada at the time and how Louis went insane just dealing with all of it. During our reading, we had to complete summaries for every part of the book, 4 in total. The first two were simply written summaries answering questions given to us by Ms. Maxwell.

The 3rd one was a little different, we were tasked with taking a section of the book and animating it using an animation type of our choice. I chose Keynote Magic Moves as I knew that I wouldn’t be able to create a hand drawn animation, and also because I had previously used Magic Moves. It took me about an hour and a half to two hours to complete my animation and was super happy with the way it turned out. It looked smooth and the visuals paired with the voiceover made for a cool little snippet of the book.

The final summary we had to compete was a written piece that included our thoughts on the book, and if we felt like Louis Riel’s death was justifiable (sorry, spoilers!). If you would like to learn more about the story of the Red River Rebellion and Louis Riel, I suggest you take a look at all of my summaries.

The whole idea of this unit is power, and how it can alter relationships. This is why our final project of the unit, as well as the year, was to create an animation of a story that includes the topic of power. We had to choose a story/event that took place within the time span we were learning about, which is basically just pre WW1. To come up with a story was pretty tricky seeing as we had so much choice. After searching around and brainstorming, I settled with the general topic of slavery in Canada, figuring I might do something about the Underground Railroad. After talking with Ms. Maxwell, we decided it was best for me to choose something a little more Canadian, so I ended up with the story of Chloe Cooley. 

She was one of many enslaved women who lived in Upper Canada, and she made waves by fighting back against her owner when she was shipped over the river to be sold in the US. Basically, people were appalled, and the Executive Council decided to prosecute her owner, which ultimately led to an act to limit slavery in Upper Canada. That very act inspired many American slaves to escape to Canada, as well the abolition of slavery in Canada.

Creating this animation was much more difficult than creating the previous one about the Louis Riel book. That’s because there aren’t many images of Chloe Cooley, in fact there is one and I’m not even sure of its credibility. I struggled with getting myself off the ground in the beginning, but eventually I got a hold of everything and managed to create an animation I am happy with. I think my script is well written and paired with my animation can display a detailed, concise story.

In this unit we touched on the CPR, and learned all about why it was created and who it was created for. A lot of Canada’s history is built on the creation of CPR, as it resulted in many new jobs and towns, which in turn brought in many people from around the world to populate the new towns. Among other reasons, B.C. joined Canada because their terms to create a nationwide railway were met, and this whole thing really kicked off the immense westward expansion of Canada.

Our last topics we learned about were the Oregon Territory and the Caribou Gold Rush. It was important for us to touch on the B.C./Oregon dispute and how it was finally settled with the 49th parallel we all know of today. B.C. brought fourth James Douglas’ Fort Victoria as well as the exploration of the Fraser River and eventually the Douglas Treaties. Needless to say, there was a lot going on in B.C. at the time.

In the 1850’s B.C. became booming when news of gold reached every corner of the earth. Men from all around were eager to head to B.C. and strike it rich. The lure of gold highlighted the greed, and inhumanity in people, and we can really see this by taking a look at the confrontations between the white miners and the indigenous people whose land was being consumed.

From all of this we can really see how the concept of power managed to mess up Canada’s relationships with some of its own people. It’s crucial to understand that the history of Canada isn’t a simple and easy one, but one filled with dispute and unjust acts. Through this unit I definitely grasped an understanding of the power imbalances within Canada at the time, and how they altered our nations history.