Logging and Settlement beyond the Rapids: Unmaking Algonquin Space in the Ottawa Valley, 1817–61.

This article examines how timber extractivism and settler colonialism jointly facilitated the dispossession of the Algonquin people in the Ottawa Valley during the early nineteenth century, with a focus on Westmeath Township. It highlights that British demand for timber drove loggers deep into unceded Algonquin territory, while timber ships provided cheap passage for thousands of settlers who established farms, transforming the landscape into a neo-European agricultural region. Despite Algonquin petitions and the Royal Proclamation of 1763 requiring Crown negotiation for land acquisition, colonial governments failed to protect Indigenous sovereignty, enabling settlers to claim and clear land, often supported by local markets linked to the timber industry. The study underscores the intertwined economic and environmental impacts of timber extraction and settlement, showing how these processes reshaped both the ecology and political geography of the region, effects that persist into the present.