Histories of the Canoe Journey: Border Studies, Critical Indigenous Studies, and the Decolonization and Unsettling of Coast Salish Territory

The fields of Border Studies and Critical Indigenous Studies offer much to social scientists seeking to understand the operation of power in the lives of borderlands communities. This article illustrates why critical Indigenous scholarship should be a necessary framework in exploring issues of state and nation-building by examining four possible origin stories for what is now an annual event on the Northwest Coast of North America: The Canoe Journey. I implore border studies scholars to look beyond national boundaries and consider Indigenous epistemologies and historiographies in understanding the impacts that international borders have on shaping how all peoples make meaning of our world. I argue that doing so will allow border studies to contribute toward an analysis of settler colonialism and highlight the role state borders play in upholding it.