[LINK] "Not invited to the party"

[rfmcdonald]

The Globe and Mail's Billy curry has an article up ("Not invited to the party" exploring how the Algonquin people, a First Nation now residing mostly in western Québec, is marginalized, using Québec City's quadricentennial celebrations as a frame.

Samuel de Champlain wrote fondly of his adventures with the Algonquins, the native allies who helped the founder of Quebec navigate the dangerous white-water rapids of the New World and fought at his side against the Iroquois.

"I wished to help them against their enemies," the French explorer recalled in his journals of his 1609 encounter with more than 200 Algonquins as he explored the St. Lawrence River. "They had asked all the Indians I saw on the river's bank to come to meet us for the purpose of making an alliance with us. ... And that they now besought me to return to our settlement, for them to see our houses, and that three days later we should all set off on the war-path together."

On the war path they went, winning the first battle of the Iroquois Wars at what would come to be known as Lake Champlain. The explorer famously sketched the battle, depicting himself in the heroic lead defeating the Iroquois with the Algonquins - as well as Montagnais and Hurons - backing him up with bows and arrows.

This summer, Champlain has come to the fore again, as rock concerts, fireworks and foreign dignitaries toast the 400th anniversary of his founding of Quebec City. His Algonquin allies, however, are now even further in the background.

"They're celebrating, but what most of the [Algonquin] people are looking at ... is 400 years of misery," says Algonquin elder Hector Jerome, a long-time activist on the Barriere Lake reserve, three hours north of Ottawa.

Go read the rest.