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Westside Road, Monday July 18, 6 a.m.

Today is a travel day.

Status

Last week I posted the second paragraph from the http://ushistoryscene.com text on "Indian Policy" and Reconstruction (for the full text, click here). Below is the fifth paragraph:

Grant’s peace by choice or force policy occurred in tandem with the demise of the treaty making system. Based on humanitarian concerns regarding the power imbalance between the federal government and tribal leadership negotiating treaty terms, the abandonment of the treaty tradition “was part of a movement to end Indian tribal organization and make Indians wards of the government and ultimately individualized citizens.”8 This change in policy, however, was not the result of reformers’ efforts but the resolution of political conflict between the Senate, the governmental body with which treaty making powers reside, and the House of Representatives, which had to appropriate funds for treaties it had no power to influence. Promising to uphold treaty agreements already in place, the Indian Appropriation Act of 1871 formally ended the long-standing treaty tradition. Despite these formal changes, the practice of acquiring Native approval to formal agreements continued past 1871, although now both houses of Congress were involved in shaping the terms of such arrangements. Operating together, the end of treaty making and the prominent role Christian reformers played in Indian affairs represented considerable changes to federal Indian policy and practice, speeding along the erosion of Native American sovereignty.

In Canada, the federal government proceeded similarly through that statute known as the Indian Act. 

Today, the Canadian federal government encourages First Nations to exercise symbolic power -- not political economic power. But that, too, can be taken away.

An example of symbolic power is the Canadian twenty dollar bank note. In 2004, the Liberal government introduced on the "reverse side" of this note an image of a sculpture by Haida Gwaii artist Bill Reid. In 2012, under the Conservative government, the image of Reid's sculpture was replaced with an image of a First World War memorial commemorating the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

Kelowna

I was early for last Thursday's readings and performances at the Kelowna Public Library, so I did what I usually do -- or need to do more of -- and that is walk about, take note of the town and its design, its people and what they get up to.

The route I take from campus to downtown turns right onto Highway 97 for a kilometre past Edwards to Sexsmith, where I turn right (west) and climb successively higher, veering right of the left tine where the slope forks to climb higher still, veering right again until Sexsmith levels off and goes by another name, then another, before knowing when to turn right and arrive at Glenmore, which begins earlier on the highway, well before campus, and runs to Clement, which is north of the curving highway, but close.

So I turn left at Glenmore, then a right where I know to turn right until I come to a street where I know to turn left, then a right at Clement until Ellis. I park across from the manor house that is Prospera Place, a complex of apartments (or is it a hotel?) named after a financial institution, and from there walk south.

The Kelowna Public Library is on Ellis, but because I am early I walk a couple blocks further to Bernard, where I turn right and take in the increased obviousness of a town that feeds off the usual gaggle of reproductive families, hockey players, foreign students and that update on what was once a truckload of horny teenage farm boys and is now an SUV filled with horny fifty-something cougars. "Show us your balls!" one of them screeches at a pair of too-young skater dudes, both of whom turn their boards wheel-wise to look for something that is not there.

Thirsty, I decide to have a pint at the only joint whose entertainment, at least from its posters, is closest to the more dangerous experiments of my youth, and that is Fernanado's, a high-ceilinged wooden eatery that feels as if it has been around forever, while at the same time never existed.

Behind the bar are two young women, one of whom could be a cougar-in-the-making, the other her alt Juliette Lewis-like  sister. They make a good team -- saucy and sweet -- and have earned their following. But rather than engage, I fall into the amber of my beer. Not quite like Julie Christie did with that ceramic vessel at the end of McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), but close.

Receptions

When Farheen had us prone on her tablecloth I thought about what Richard said the day before -- how the pubescent member is placed at eye level with the terrain, because that is the best position in which to receive information.

The information I was receiving while lying on Farheen's tablecloth more or less corresponded to what was going on around us, but because we were lying there and not standing or sitting there, it came together differently from how I am used to making sense of my experiences.

This relates to what Carmen had us experiencing days before we met Richard, when Carmen asked residency participants to chain together behind him, hands on shoulders, eyes closed, before taking us on a walking tour of the city, what he calls his Blind Field Shuttle.

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Openings

At the Kelowna Art Gallery last night, an opening of white people…

…for a show about brown people.

Across the way at the Alternator was an exhibition by Farheen HaQ. Entitled Being Home, the exhibition opened outside the gallery with a group lie down and dinner atop the artist's extended table cloth. After that we headed inside for two sculptural installations and some video.

Also inside is a member's gallery, featuring Shannon Lester's Of Goddesses & Monsters portrait series.

Is it me, or does the subject below look a lot like a certain Canadian art magazine editor?