Description as an Act of Othering

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Descriptive practices throughout Canadian archives have portrayed Indigenous societies and their members as romanticized, exotic “others” or as an uncivilized race in need of being saved from themselves. The policies, acts, and programs of governments across Canada have resulted in profoundly harmful and long- lasting impacts on Indigenous peoples. This article seeks to further understand these impacts by examining two different historical photo albums in the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development fonds held by Library and Archives Canada. Photographs are often considered connections to the past and memories of things or places that no longer exist. But what happens to those ideas when the photographs are taken not for the subject of the image, but for an institution that seeks to enshrine a particular set of ideals in order to substantiate settler actions? Photographs are not neutral objects. The subjects within the studied photographs remained either unnamed or were described using pejorative language and ethnographic “types.” Photographs act as a physical reminder of the colonial policies and interventions enacted by the settler-colonial Canadian government at both the federal and provincial levels.