The missing map: a meditation on allyship

In 2019, I went on a search of the National Library and Archives of Canada. I was looking for the petitions of Pierre Shawinipinessi, an Algonquin leader who successfully petitioned the British government for land to be set aside for his community, only to have the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, twenty years later, deny that such a promise had ever been made. One of the documents I set out to find is a ‘map or sketch’ referred to in a letter. I never found this map. I position this map that I couldn’t find as a starting point, to identify and address the ways in which settler colonialism makes its presence felt, even among settlers working closely in allyship with Algonquin communities. The map is a metaphor for colonial engagement with Algonquin land, illuminating some of the forms of ethical trespass that settlers fall into, and exploring possibilities for maintaining or re-creating ethical space. Through a self-reflective examination of seven years of research and community work with Algonquin communities and settlers in Algonquin territory, this paper explores some of the challenges inherent in this work, and possible solutions related to the authority of Algonquin peoples in Algonquin land.