A Missing Genocide and the Demonization of its Heroes

Based in part on its website “Klatsassin and the Chilcotin War,” the Great Unsolved Mysteries project won the 2008 Governor General’s Award for popularizing Canadian history and a MERLOT award from the California State University project on Multimedia Education Resources for Learning and Online Teaching.

It is disappointing, then, to find that “Klatsassin and the Chilcotin War,” makes no attempt at balance, objectivity or even accuracy.

Instead, it flagrantly disrespects the Tsilhqot’in perspective on events surrounding the war and buries its few Tsilhqot’in selections under a disproportionate barrage of unimportant detail.

Just as astounding, as this Review documents at length, the website disregards any standard of care for accuracy from even the written record.

Does the acclaim given to this flawed production reflect a willingness of academics to abandon all scholarly discipline on the Internet, or does it reflect an anti-­indigenous colonial legacy still alive and well at Canadian universities?