The Riel Problem: Canada, the Métis, and a Resistant Hero

Tracing Louis Riel’s metamorphosis from traitor to hero, Braz argues that, through his writing, Riel resists his portrayal as both a Canadian patriot and a pan-Indigenous leader. After being hanged for high treason in 1885, the Métis politician, poet, and mystic has emerged as a quintessential Canadian champion. The Riel Problem maps this representational shift by examining a series of cultural and scholarly commemorations of Riel since 1967, from a large-scale opera about his life, through...