Earth, Water, Air and Fire: Studies in Canadian Ethnohistory is a collection of 17 articles that resulted from a conference sponsored by Nin.D.Waab.Jig. and Wilfred Laurier University in 1994. The conference addressed the status of ethnohistory in Canada as it related to Aboriginal People and was designed as multidisciplinary and holistic. Two of the contributors reflect the Aboriginal Perspective and the essays by Dean Jacobs of Walpole Island and renowned historian Olive P. Dickason are important contributions. The remaining topics are wide-ranging and a few are noteworthy. Elizabeth Graham's paper reports on a work in progress, The Mush Hole: a History of the Mohawk Institute and Mount Elgin Residential Schools. This paper explores some of the negative uses and abuses of power in the administration of these two southern Ontario residential schools. Historian David T. McNab offers another notable essay that explores the importance of water to the people of Walpole Island as reported in the treaty-making process. Other papers discuss Walpole Island history and oil and gas rights; Mi'kmaw history, fishing rights, agriculture, and folklore; Ontario history, law, and sovereignty including the Six Nations Confederacy. The final section includes essays about Samuel Hearne, Canadian reserves and apartheid, and the Sechelt and Nunavut agreements. Overall this volume provides a wide range of historical research with an Ontario First Nation focus.
