The City of Winnipeg has a sometimes fraught relationship with the source of its water supply: the city depends upon the Shoal Lake for necessary drinking water, but has been accused of neglecting the indigenous community that lives on its banks. Manitoba is a province birthed in the contact zone between indigenous peoples and settlers, and the Shoal Lake issue is representative of this larger relationship.
Adele Perry, professor of history, situates her work within this place of contact: from early encounters between indigenous peoples and the settlers who arrived, through to current days. It is at this juncture that her latest publishing endeavour, Aqueduct: Colonialism, Resources, and the Histories We Remember, which explores the relationship between the city of Winnipeg and its water supply, has come to be.
The book has been read by several reading groups, and has been discussed in scholarly and non-academic circles alike. The book has garnered significant praise, capped by two short-listings for the Manitoba Book Awards. It was also short-listed for the Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction, as well as for the McNally Robinson Book of the Year.
Aqueduct examines and explains the relationship Winnipeg has with its water supply, and traces the history of what was done between then and now to the people who live in that area. The Anishinaabe community of Shoal Lake 40 First Nation have been cut off from the land except for an ice road in the winter, their supply of water significantly less clean than that enjoyed in the city.
For any people interested in learning more about the history of Winnipeg, and those people who live here and in further away communities, Aqueduct is available from most good bookshops.
