Strangers Devour the Land by Richardson, Boyce - 1991

Vancouver: Douglas & Mcintrye, 1991. Softcover. pp. xiv, 376. 8vo. Illustrated covers. Black-and-white maps, illustrations, etc. Bright, clean, and unmarked. Appears unread; as new.

"East of James Bay, at the base of Hudson Bay, the lake-pocked granite of the Canadian Shield stretches for thousands of square miles. When, in 1971, the James Bay Development Corporation announced that it would build a series of gigantic dams and reservoirs here, the area was described as barren, uninhabited, and fit for nothing but flooding. Yet there were people who lived on this land and cared deeply about it. For uncounted centuries it had been the central homeland, the hunting grounds, the "garden" (as old Job Bearskin calls it), of some 6,000 Cree Indians. The conflict between the Cree and the project that threatened to destroy their heritage is a classic one and this is a classic book. To produce it, Boyce Richardson, an experienced journalist with the Montreal Star, left his job to absorb himself in the Cree people's fight, travelling with them on their traplines and sitting with them through hours of courtroom testimony. The legal battle was a clash between cultures which the Indians were doomed to lose. Now, with recent events in Quebec, the whole James Bay project is again in question."