One Little, Two Little, Three Canadians: The Indians of Canada Pavilion and Public Pedagogy, Expo 1967

Abstract

Amidst the colonial celebrations of Canada’s Centennial and the pedagogical landscape of 1960s Canada, the Indians of Canada Pavilion at Expo 67 resisted. The Indigenous-led celebration of survivance stood as a mounted critique of historical and present-day settler colonialism. While the pavilion has been remembered as a turning point for Indigenous art and politics, this essay considers its educational impact. Informed by the work of Susan D. Dion, who advocates for ways that Canadians can hear stories that contradict their own subject positions, the author suggests that many visitors were not willing or not able to hear the critical re-education the pavilion offered. The pavilion also anticipated the National Indian Brotherhood’s criticism of colonial education in Indian Control of Indian Education (1972). Visitors, who included non-Indigenous Canadians, residential school students, and teachers, encountered the pavilion in different ways. Using archival documents, audio and film footage, and oral history, this essay frames the Indians of Canada Pavilion as a pedagogical act of resistance to the Centennial year’s colonial pedagogies (the Canadian Pavilion, Expo’s anthem, the Confederation Train, and formal education). In this reading, education is the pavilion’s solution, but also its greatest barrier.