Includes bibliographical references and index.

Figures -- Preface and acknowledgements -- Map of Canada with place names -- Introduction : complex subjectivities, multiple ways of knowing / Laura Peers and Carolyn Podruchny -- Putting up with poles : power, navigation, and cultural mixing in the fur trade / Carolyn Podruchny, Frederic W. Gleach, and Roger Roulette -- Dressing for the homeward journey : western Anishinaabe leadership roles viewed through two nineteenth-century burials / Cory Willmott and Kevin Brownlee -- Anishinaabe Toodaims : contexts for politics, kinship, and identity in the eastern Great Lakes / Heidi Bohaker -- The contours of everyday life : food and identity in the plateau fur trade / Elizabeth Vibert -- "Make it last forever as it is" : John McDonald of Garth's vision of a native kingdom in the northwest / Germaine Warkentin -- Being and becoming Metis : a personal reflection / Heather Devine -- Historical research and the place of oral history : conversations from Berens River / Susan Elaine Gray -- Border identities : Metis, Halfbreed, and mixed-blood / Theresa Schenck -- Edward Ahenakew's tutelage by Paul Wallace : reluctant scholarship, inadvertent preservation / David R. Miller -- Aboriginal history and historic sites : the shifting ground / Laura Peers and Robert Coutts -- Afterword : Aaniskotaapaan - generations and successions / Jennifer S.H. Brown -- Contributors -- Index.