I agree that James Bay/Great Whale is critical today, and (as a New Yorker)
I am working to stop that project.
On the other hand, I cannot agree that Columbus Day (or, more correctly,
the quincentennial of Columbus getting lost and ending up in the Bahamas
and Haiti) is of interest only to people in the US. This week, there is
a hemisphere-wide gathering of indigenous Americans (North and South)
in Guatemala, the third such after events in Quito and Mexico over the past
year and a half. Perhaps it's not so relevant north of the border, but
people to the south certainly seem to find it so. Could it be because
the Spanish colonization never got into any of Canada? I just spent a
weekend with a "Native Peruvian" activist, Hugo Blanco, who finds it
very relevant to his work.
It's relevant not only because it began a pattern of slavery, land theft,
colonization, exploitation, and genocide that lasted for half a millenium,
but because the same patterns of behavior continue to this day (as in
James Bay, Behm Canal, Big Mountain, ...). When will we ever learn?
.......... Charlie Scheiner