In the early twentieth century, Canadians were discovering how much their country had to offer. The combination of new infrastructure and a healthy economy, started the expansion of Canadian society into remote regions of the country. The unexplored areas of Canada became a place for the tourism and resource extraction industry. This expansion was effective in commodifying, and civilizing the remote landscapes of Canada. On the behalf of the totalizing regime that is the Canadian government, forms of media worked towards diminishing the significant relationship between Aboriginal communities and the land. From here, Canada is able to move towards expanding into Indigenous lands, and not consider it an act of colonialism. Opposite of guilt in fact, the government of Canada acts in a way to prove that the presence of the state will benefit all of those in the nation.

In order for the hegemonic state to assert its power it first proves to itself that it’s way of knowing is superior to Aboriginal ways of knowing. In the case of caribou conservation in the North of Canada, it is easy to see this dismantling of traditional knowledge. The Dene, and Inuit people of Northern Canada have relied on caribou meat since time immemorial and their ways of hunting have stood the test of time. The Canadian government however did not agree with the seemingly unregulated hunting practices of the Dene and Inuit[1]. The government saw their hunting practices as a threat to the caribou population, so they began to create an image of the Dene and Inuit people as wasteful and barbaric [2]. By doing this, the government was able to regulate hunting practices and relocate entire communities without much resistance from the public because Canada poised itself as the savior of the lands. This image helped the government convert the landscapes that Indigenous people were once part of, to landscapes that they could conquer and commodify. By imposing state regulations on wildlife management, the government was not only able to control the wildlife but also the Indigenous communities that depend on it.

This type of knowledge domination is very similar to the implementation of residential schools by the Canadian government. In 1892 residential schooling became mandatory for children of Indigenous communities[3]. The purpose of these schools was to assimilate children to the Canadian culture. TIme spent in residential schools taught children the ways of the western world, but it disconnected them from their own culture; “Residential schools prohibited children from using their traditional language”[4]. This disconnection from their traditional culture, and was compounded by their entire communities being relocated in favour of Canadian exploration.

The change in purpose of the Canadian landscapes is well documented in the article The Group of Seven and the Tourist Landscape in Western Canada, or The More Things Change. Through their art, The Group of Seven and others presented the “new world” as an unpopulated place that was seemingly waiting to be discovered and developed by the growing Canadian population. Now that the government had physically removed many Indigenous communities from their traditional lands, it was the work of the media to separate Indigenous communities from the landscape within the minds of Canadians[5]. The culture of consumption that was present within cities across Canada was now poised to consume the outdoors. New infrastructure made accessing National Parks easy for the growing middle class of Canada.
The National Identity that Canada was creating for itself was based on progress, and the development of a new nation. Indigenous people were in the way of this creative process, so the Canadian government systematically worked towards pushing them out of the picture. By physically removing Indigenous people from their lands, silencing their cultural ways of life, and then replacing their presence with Canadian development, the government was able to continue with its creation of nationhood.