dtmcnab


David McNab

Professor

Office: Atkinson College, 121A
Phone: 416-736-2100 Ext: 22423
Email: dtmcnab@yorku.ca


Professor David T. McNab is a Métis historian who has worked for almost forty years on Aboriginal land and treaty rights issues in Canada. David teaches Indigenous and Canadian Studies in the Departments of Equity Studies/Humanities in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies. He has also been a claims advisor for Nin.Da.Waab.Jig., Walpole Island Heritage Center, Bkejwanong First Nations since 1992.

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He has also been a claims advisor for Nin.Da.Waab.Jig., Walpole Island Heritage Center, Bkejwanong First Nations since 1992. In addition to over eighty articles, David has published Earth, Water, Air and Fire: Studies in Canadian Ethnohistory (editor) (1998) and Circles of Time: Aboriginal Land Rights and Resistance in Ontario (1999) as well as the co-edited Blockades and Resistance: Studies in Actions of Peace and the Temagami Blockades of 1988-89 (2003), Walking a Tightrope: Aboriginal People and their Representations (2005), The Long Journey of Canada’s Forgotten People: Métis Identities and Family Histories (2007), all with WLU Press. He is currently working on the Fourth Edition (with Olive Patricia Dickason), of Canada’s First Nations, (Oxford University Press), which will published late in 2008 as well as “No Place for Fairness: Stories and Reflections of Bear Island”, a book MSS on the Temagami Land rights issues.

Degrees

PhD, University of Lancaster
MA in History, McMaster University
BA (Honours) in History, Waterloo Lutheran University

Professional Leadership

Program Co-ordinator and Chair, Session, Algonquian Conference, York University, October 18th-20th, 2007.

Co-ordinator, International Environmental History Workshop on “The Empire of Nature and the Nature of Empires”, York University/Bkejwanong First Nations Partnership, to be held April 28th-30th, 2006. Submitted SSHRC Grant Application for Workshop on October 31st, 2005. The Dean’s Office of the Atkinson Faculty ($6,000) to hold this workshop and a book length publication with WLU Press which is currently in preparation.

Chair, Panel on Louise Erdrich’s Four Souls, Native American Literature Symposium, Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 8th, 2005

Chair, Session, Workshop on “Lines Drawn upon the Water”, Aboriginal People and the International Boundary through the Great Lakes Watershed, University of Western Ontario, February 12th, 2005

Chair of Session at the Midwest Association for Canadian Studies 12th Biennial Conference, Omaha, Nebraska, October 2, 2004

Co-ordinate Métis Symposium, The Métis: Canada’s Forgotten People, The Years of Achievement? School of Canadian Studies, Carleton University held at the Odawa Native Friendship Centre, March 19, 2003

Commentator, “Relics and Rituals: Cultural Encounters or Cultural Appropriation?” Second Annual Laurier Brantford Conference, "Grave Concerns: The Ethics of the Dead", Wilfrid Laurier University, Brantford Campus, November 30, 2001

Co-ordinator, Wanapitei Colloquium, 1999-2000.

Chair, Session on "Legendary Light in Mask and Doll", Twenty-Fourth Annual Colloquium on Modern Literature and Film, Morgantown, West Virginia University, September 17, 1999

Consultations

Advisory Board Member for the History of Canada On-Line Project, September, 2003 to present

North and South American Consultant Advisor to the Cassells Book Project on Nations world-wide, 2002-2005. Published in 2005 as Peoples, Nations and Cultures, An A-Z of the Peoples of the World Past and Present, General Editor Professor John Mackenzie, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005

Aboriginal Historical Consultant for TV Ontario on an hour long documentary on “Legend and Memory: Ontario First Nations”, aired March 29, 2002, Nominated for a Gemini Award, 2002

Aboriginal Consultant to the Organization for the Advancement of Aboriginal Peoples Health, Fall, 2000

Consultant on Land and Treaty Rights Issues and Historical research projects with First Nations in Ontario and Newfoundland, Bkejwanong First Nations, Mohawks of Akwesasne, Algonquins of Golden Lake, Thessalon First Nation, Union of Ontario Indians, Teme-Augama Anishnabai (Temagami First Nation), Wasauksing First Nation, Shawanaga First Nation, Sauguine Metis Council, Federation of Newfoundland Indians, 1992 to present.

Community Contributions

i) Internal: University level

Co-Chair, Aboriginal Council, July 1st, 2006 to March 2007.

Aboriginal Caucus, York University, 2005 to Present

ii) Internal: Faculty Level Committees

Academic Petitions and Appeals Committee, Atkinson Faculty, 2004 to 2007

Merit Pay Committee, Atkinson Faculty, 2005-2006

Indigenous Studies Graduate Program Proposal Committee

iii) Internal: School/Department level

Curriculum Committee, SAL, 2004-2006

Canadian Studies Co-ordinator, 2005 to Present

Chair, Search Committee, Modern European History, 2005-2006

Member, Search Committee, Applied Media and Cultural Studies, 2005-2006

Public History Program Development, Special Committee, 2006-7.

iv) External/community service

Member, Native Canadian Centre of Toronto; Advisory Board, Toronto Native Community History Project, 1997 to Present

The Champlain Society
Member of Council, 1979-2000
Chair, Special Events Committee, 1996-2000
Co-ordinator, The Champlain Society Symposia,
Documenting Aboriginal History in Ontario, Bkejwanong, Walpole Island First Nation, September 23, 1994
"Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal Histories: Parallel Paths and Convergences?", University of Toronto, May 16, 1998
Member, Publications Committee, 1999-2000

Friends of the Archives of Ontario, 1998-1999
Founding Member and Secretary of the Steering Committee
Co-Editor of The Friends Newsletter, Heritage/Legacy, 1998 to 2000
First Vice-President, Board of the Friends of the Archives of Ontario
Acting Secretary, 1999
Recording Secretary, 1999-2000

Advisor on Land and Treaty Rights and Governance issues, various First Nations and other Aboriginal organizations in Ontario and Newfoundland, 1992 to Present:

Mohawks of Akwesasne
Algonquins of Golden Lake
Thessalon First Nation
Union of Ontario Indians
Teme-Augama Anishnabai (Temagami First Nation)
Wasauksing (Parry Island) First Nation
Shawanaga First Nation
Sauguine Metis Council
Nin.Da.Waab.Jig, (Walpole Island Heritage Centre) Walpole Island First Nation Federation of Newfoundland Indians (Historical Expert on the Status litigation case)

Research Interests

Aboriginal History and Literature, Indigenous Thought, Aboriginal Land and Treaty Rights, Canadian Studies, British Imperial History, Canadian History, Ontario History