Citizens of Convenience by Lawrence B. A. Hatter

The so-called “Jay Treaty” – named after American envoy John Jay – was highly controversial at the time because it encompassed a broad trade agreement between the fledgling republic and its former colonial overlord.īut it is the unintended consequences of that agreement that live on more than two centuries later. Officials there charged Desautel for hunting without a permit on lands that his ancestors had hunted for thousands of years.Īt the heart of the dispute between Canada and the Native peoples of the Pacific Northwest is a long-forgotten treaty, agreed between the United States and the British Empire in 1794. In a case still winding its way through the Canadian courts, Rick Desautel, a member of the Colville Tribes, stalked an elk across the border into British Columbia in 2010. The border is no abstraction for Eastern Washington tribal members.

Panelists, including former government officials and Native leaders, explained the difference between the relative ease with which Canadian tribal members can enter the United States and the obstacles that Canada has thrown in the way of American tribal members traveling north. border were a topic of discussion at last month’s Arctic Encounters Symposium hosted in Seattle and sponsored by the Canadian government. The challenges facing transnational indigenous communities on the Canada-U.S. Not so for indigenous residents of the Pacific Northwest, whose transnational communities are threatened by Canada’s mistreatment of American tribal members at the border. border in the post-9/11 world, they can at least take some comfort from knowing that the misery of sitting in your car at border control is an experience shared by Canadians and Americans alike. Though many Spokanites have experienced the frustration of crossing the Canada-U.S.

Citizens of Convenience by Lawrence B. A. Hatter