The George River caribou herd increased from 15,000 animals in 1958 to 700,000 in 1988 - the largest herd in the world at the time. The authors trace the fluctuations in this caribou population back to the 1700s, detail how the herd escaped extinction in the 1950s, and consider current environmental threats to its survival. In an examination of the life history and population biology of the herd, The Return of Caribou to Ungava offers a synthesis of the basic biological traits of the caribou, a new hypothesis about why they migrate, and a comparison to herd populations in North America, Scandinavia, and Russia. The authors conclude that the old maxim, "Nobody knows the way of the caribou," is no longer valid. Based on a study in which the caribou were tracked by satellite across Ungava, they find that caribou are able to navigate, even in unfamiliar habitats, and to return to their calving ground, movement that is central to the caribou's cyclical migration. The Return of Caribou to Ungava also examines whether the herd can adapt to global warming and other changing environmental realities.

Among the many upheavals in North America caused by the French and Indian War was a commonplace practice that affected the lives of thousands of men, women, and children: being taken captive by rival forces. Most previous studies of captivity in early America are content to generalize from a small selection of sources, often centuries apart. In Setting All the Captives Free, Ian Steele presents, from a mountain of data, the differences rather than generalities as well as how these differences show the variety of circumstances that affected captives’ experiences. The product of a herculean effort to identify and analyze the captives taken on the Allegheny frontier during the era of the French and Indian War, Setting All the Captives Free is the most complete study of this topic. Steele explores genuine, doctored, and fictitious accounts in an innovative challenge to many prevailing assumptions and arguments, revealing that Indians demonstrated humanity and compassion by continuing to take numerous captives when their opponents took none, by adopting and converting captives into kin during the war, and by returning captives even though doing so was a humiliating act that betrayed their societies' values. A fascinating and comprehensive work by an acclaimed scholar, Setting All the Captives Free takes the study of the French and Indian War in America to an exciting new level.

Earth into Property: The Bowl with One Spoon, Part Two explores the relationship between the dispossession of Indigenous peoples and the making of global capitalism. Beginning with Christopher Columbus's inception of a New World Order in 1492, Anthony Hall draws on a massive body of original research to produce a narrative that is audacious, encyclopedic, and transformative in the new light it sheds on the complex historical processes that converged in the financial debacle of 2008 and 2009.

Part anthropological history, part informed critique, Encounters examines the relations between the people of southeastern Labrador and the many visitors who have come to fish, heal the sick, and extract the region's resources. John Kennedy presents the latest archaeological, genealogical, and ethno-historical research that changes scholarly understandings of southeastern Labrador. Departing from the conventional view that coastal Labrador has distinct Inuit and non-Inuit regions, he argues that the coast should be viewed as a continuum of "Inuitness." Encounters unravels the social implications of the region's complex mercantile fishery, describes how twentieth-century military and resource development have impacted Labrador's seasonal economy, and suggests that Newfoundland continues to use Labrador as a colony. Kennedy uses field research he conducted in 2013 to describe the origins, current economies, and future challenges of the region's tiny villages. Although he is a strong supporter of Aboriginal land claims, Kennedy explores the impact of identity politics in the region, showing how land claims based solely on geography can unintentionally create inequities. Drawing on decades of field and archival research, Kennedy demonstrates how Aboriginal politics are transforming society in southeastern Labrador, empowering local people to overcome the stigmas of history and finally acknowledge their Inuit ancestry.

In recent years the circumpolar region has emerged as the key to understanding global climate change. The plight of the polar bear, resource extraction debates, indigenous self-determination, and competing definitions of sovereignty among Arctic nation-states have brought the northernmost part of the planet to the forefront of public consideration. Yet little is reported about the social world of environmental scientists in the Arctic. What happens at the isolated sites where experts seek to answer the most pressing questions facing the future of humanity? Portraying the social lives of scientists at Resolute in Nunavut and their interactions with logistical staff and Inuit, Richard Powell demonstrates that the scientific community is structured along power differentials in response to gender, class, and race. To explain these social dynamics the author examines the history and vision of the Government of Canada’s Polar Continental Shelf Program and John Diefenbaker’s “Northern Vision,” combining ethnography with wider discourses on nationalism, identity, and the postwar evolution of scientific sovereignty in the high Arctic. By revealing an expanded understanding of the scientific life as it relates to politics, history, and cultures, Studying Arctic Fields articulates a new theory of field research. Advocating for a greater appreciation of science in the remote parts of the world, Studying Arctic Fields is an innovative approach to anthropology, environmental inquiry, and geography, and a landmark statement on Arctic science as a social practice.

In 1763 King George III of Great Britain, victorious in the Seven Years War with France, issued a proclamation to organize the governance of territory newly acquired by the Crown in North America and the Caribbean. The proclamation reserved land west of the Appalachian Mountains for Indians, and required the Crown to purchase Indian land through treaties, negotiated without coercion and in public, before issuing rights to newcomers to use and settle on the land. Marking its 250th anniversary Keeping Promises shows how central the application of the Proclamation is to the many treaties that followed it and the settlement and development of Canada. Promises have been made to Aboriginal peoples in historic treaties from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries in Ontario, the Prairies, and the Mackenzie Valley, and in modern treaties from the 1970s onward, primarily in the North. In this collection, essays by historians, lawyers, treaty negotiators, and Aboriginal leaders explore how and how well these treaties are executed. Addresses by the governor general of Canada and the federal minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development are also included. In 2003 Aboriginal leaders formed the Land Claims Agreements Coalition to make sure that treaties – building blocks of Canada – are fully implemented. Unique in breadth and scope, Keeping Promises is a testament to the research, advocacy, solidarity, and accomplishments of this coalition and those holding the Crown to its commitments.

In 1936 Graham Rowley went to the still-unexplored west coast of Baffin Island as the archaeologist for a small British expedition - the last in the Canadian North that depended on traditional techniques. Cold Comfort, his acclaimed memoir of this period, captures the way of life in the North before World War II, including the experience of travelling by dogsled over unexplored land. This new edition includes the beginning of Rowley's planned sequel covering his post-war experiences in the Arctic. The additional three chapters describe Operation Musk-Ox, the first military exercise to show that it was feasible to manoeuvre in the Arctic even in winter, and Rowley's work for the Canadian Defense Research Board. An afterword by Susan Rowley and John Bennett expands on Rowley's ongoing involvement in the rapid change that took place from the Cold War to the establishment of Nunavut.

Beginning with Elsie Knott, the first female chief in Canada, Cora Voyageur presents the lives of sixty-four of the ninety women chiefs who have assumed the traditionally male role of elected First Nations leadership. Using a range of qualitative research strategies, surveys, participant observation, interviews, and discussions with focus groups, Voyageur presents the colonial histories behind the issues that contemporary Aboriginal communities struggle with and delineates the resulting leadership dilemmas for chiefs, while also articulating a story that is unique to First Nations women.

Fifty years ago, Markoosie Patsauq, then a bush pilot in his late twenties living in the tiny, isolated High Arctic community of Resolute, spent his spare time quietly writing a story that effectively emerged as the first Indigenous novel released in Canada. Published in English under the title Harpoon of the Hunter in 1970 by McGill-Queen's University Press, that version of the story was Patsauq's own adaptation. In the years that followed the widely acclaimed English edition was translated into many different languages, but what has remained obscured until the present day is the Inuktitut text originally produced by the author. In collaboration with Patsauq, Valerie Henitiuk and Marc-Antoine Mahieu have foregrounded the original Inuktitut text to inform their translations into both English and French. This critical edition, complete with the story in both Inuktitut syllabics and Latin script, utilizes the author's handwritten manuscript as well as interviews with Patsauq to produce a new, rigorous examination of this literary and cultural milestone. This work also includes the first comprehensive account of the critical response to his writing while underscoring the way the much-altered English adaptation from 1970 shaped that response. A momentous achievement that situates a new classic in the twenty-first century, Hunter with Harpoon brings readers back to the roots of Markoosie Patsauq's Inuit story to experience it as it was originally written.

As one of the most significant economic innovations in prehistory, hunting architecture radically altered life and society for hunter-gatherers. The development of these structures indicates that foragers designed their environments, had a deep knowledge of animal behavior, and interacted with each other in complex ways that reach beyond previous assumptions. Combining underwater archaeology, terrestrial archaeology, and ethnographic and historical research, The Architecture of Hunting investigates the creation and use of hunting architecture by hunter-gatherers. Hunting architecture—including blinds, drive lanes, and fishing weirs—is a global phenomenon found across a broad spectrum of cultures, time, geography, and environments. Relying on similar behaviors in species such as caribou, bison, guanacos, antelope, and gazelles, cultures as diverse as Sami reindeer herders, the Inka, and ancient bison hunters on the North American plains have employed such structures, combined with strategically situated landforms, to ensure adequate food supplies while maintaining a nomadic way of life. Using examples of hunting architecture from across the globe and how they influence forager mobility, territoriality, property, leadership, and labor aggregation, Ashley Lemke explores this architecture as a form of human niche construction and considers the myriad ways such built structures affect hunter-gatherer lifeways. Bringing together diverse sources under the single category of “hunting architecture,” The Architecture of Hunting serves as the new standard guide for anyone interested in hunter-gatherers and their built environment.