Dr. Trépanier’s book De l’hydre au castor: Imaginaire et représentations de la Confédération dans la presse de l’Amérique du Nord britannique, 1844-1867 received the Prix pour le Meilleur livre en français 2024 du Réseau d’études canadiennes/Canadian Studies Network.
Graham Fraser, former commissioner official languages of Canada, writes:
A Canadian studies professor at Carleton University, Trépanier notes how the historical record tends to ignore the political engagement of nineteenth-century First Nations: “Figuring among the great excluded of the Canadian Confederation in 1867, Indigenous people paid a price for the profoundly racist policies introduced by Confederation. Nevertheless, they were not passive witnesses.” In describing lengthy debates and proposals before and after the British North America Act of 1867, she demonstrates how tribal leaders had as sophisticated an understanding of the stakes involved as did the politicians in the Maritimes: “In both cases, emancipation and Confederation, it was a question of choosing citizenship in a new country and concluding a pact with a political community larger than any of them could have imagined until then.”