Where the Rivers Meet Tour

In 1992 Jeff Thomas took a trip to Ottawa. As an Indigenous artist, he was interested in attending the exhibition Land, Spirit, Power: First Nations at the National Gallery of Canada. At that time, the current site of the National Gallery of Canada (NGC) was still a new one having been built only 5 years prior in 1988. Also new was the NGC’s engagement with contemporary Indigenous artists.  He arrived into this changing landscape unaware at the moment how important this visit would become to him.

Just beyond the Gallery’s concrete, glass and granite structure is a lookout point. Standing at the highest elevation, the scene that opens up is a dramatic one: bridges connecting two provinces, the urban infrastructure of two cities (one Anglophone, one Francophone), buildings for administering the Canadian Government’s law and policy as well as for housing the art and culture of Canada.

From this point, looking out towards Quèbec, you will see the Canadian Museum of History, the Indigenous Affairs buildings, and the former town of Hull, now the municipality of Gatineau.

In Ontario, to your right you will see the Canadian Mint, to your left, the Parliament Buildings, the Supreme Court of Canada and the Library and Archives all positioned on the edge of the rocky cliffs.

Colonial buildings dominate both sides.

This was the scene that confronted Jeff. Also positioned into the panorama was a commanding Colonial monument. In 1915 a statue of Samuel de Champlain (1567–1635), attributed in Canadian history as the ‘Father of New France,’ was placed at the site. In 1918, another statue was installed below Champlain. The figure was of an Indigenous man, a native Scout to assist Champlain in his travels through territory that was unknown to him. The statue was placed leaning on one knee while looking out to survey what is also visible in the landscape: the river and shorelines below.

It was his encounter with the monument to Champlain, along with the experience of seeing the Anishinabe Scout, that impacted Jeff in a profound way providing him a reason to stay and engage with the dramatic but also problematic landscape he found himself in.

In 1992 he began a conversation with Champlain as a strategy to question the impact of colonization. He also posed a query to the Scout: “If you could come off this site, where would you go?”

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

• Land, Spirit, Power was co-curated by Indigenous and Non-Indigenous curators that included Robert Houle (Saulteaux), Charlotte Townsend-Gault and Diane Nimroff who was the head curator of the NGC at the time
• Land, Spirit, Power included the following artists: Carl Beam, Rebecca Belmore, Dempsey Bob, Domingo Cisneros, Robert Davidson, Jimmie Durham, Dorothy Grant, Hachiviv Edgar Heap of Birds, Faye HeavyShield, Alex Janvier, Zacharias Kunuk, James Lavadour, Truman Lowe, James Luna, Teresa Marshall, Analis Obomsawin, Kay WalkingSitck, Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun
• In an outstretched arm of the Champlain statue is a navigational instrument called an astrolabe, the statue holds it up but it was mistakenly rendered upside down.
• In 1996 the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), under the leadership of National Chief Ovide Mercredi, petitioned to have the Anishinabe Scout statue removed from its location below the Champlain statue at Nepean Point as it was felt that the Scout was in a subservient position under Champlain.
• The original plans for the site included having a canoe installed beside the Scout but the project ran out of funds to complete the canoe.
• In 2000 Jeff Thomas photographed artist and curator Greg A. Hill at the now vacant spot of where the Scout was once installed. In the images Hill sits inside a canoe built he constructed out of the boxes of popular cereal brands. Jeff also documented Hill’s performance portaging the canoe from behind the NGC at Nepean Point across the road to the then new location of Scout installed in a secluded corner of Major’s Hill Park.
• Thomas went on to take more images of Hill at the same location along with other Indigenous and Non-Indigenous people for his Seize the Space series.

Conversation suggests a process that is open ended. It also suggests a relationship that is ongoing with engagement that can be of value to each individual or group – communication that is reciprocal.

New information about a place where we live or visit enriches our experience of it. Having a deeper understanding is a gift. With a broader understanding we can contribute to our community in more informed ways.

With his work, Jeff demonstrates that national narratives aren’t set in stone, or metal. They can become dismantled, interrupted, reevaluated and renewed. It is this negotiation between the official historical account and the experience and perspective of Indigenous people impacted by it that has informed Jeff’s work.

How has moving through the landscape with Jeff’s perspective changed you?

The above image is taken at the shoreline of Asinabka (Victoria Island), a small island that is located in the middle of the river between the Ontario and Quèbec sides. When at the shoreline, one has a unique perspective of Parliament and other buildings for the Canadian Government.

Asinabka has also been an important site for Indigenous activism.

The map is but a guide. There is no ‘direct’ or ‘correct’ route through the sites the map takes you to. You are invited to find your own path as well as revisit the same locations when the seasons change, the wind shifts, and the sounds and smells are different.

With the assistance of digital technology, the WTRM Tour can be taken by being physically present in the land but it is not a requirement. There are multiple ways you can enter into the story being told and many ways for new perspectives of the land revealed. And those perspectives can be applied to other places and situations.

The photographic images embedded in the WTRM Map cover Jeff’s practice starting from 1992, upon Jeff’s encounter with the Samuel de Champlain monument and the Anishinabe Scout, until now and may also be added to as Jeff continues his engagement with this region.

The Where the Rivers Meet Tour website portal is part of a larger ongoing conversation between Jeff Thomas and digital designer and writer Leah Snyder (The L. Project). Their engagement with each other’s work began in the Summer 2013 when Leah came to Ottawa to cover and write on the events of Sakahàn: International Indigenous Art at the National Gallery of Canada (NGC) for her online magazine Mixed Bag Mag.

Leah’s own research on the deconstructing of national narratives in a digital era, particularly with regards to cyberspace as a site for activism, advocacy and negotiating for social justice, aligned with Jeff’s own research and artistic practice. Since that time Leah has produced multiple online portals featuring as well as archiving Jeff’s work.

Like Jeff, Leah’s encounter with the Champlain Monument at Nepean Point and the Anishinabe Scout, then relocated to a more secluded area of Major’s Hill Park, left a deep impression. Also like Jeff, Leah relocated to the region after experiencing a resonance with what the land here offers.

The WTRM Tour is a continuation of their iterative collaboration process that considers how digital tools can contribute to storytelling as well as contribute to Indigenous presence in places where that presence has been erased and obscured.

It is the hope of both Jeff and Leah that the WTRM Tour deepens the visitor’s understanding of this region through an engagement that can either be embodied on the land or experienced at a distance and that whichever way one comes to the WTRM Tour, one leaves with an important shifting of perspective.