Conclusion

This exhibit has been an attempt to showcase the wide variety of sources from the early twentieth century, most especially colonial photography, that reflects the contemporay attitudes toward Metis and 'Half-Caste' populations within Canada and Australia respectively. Through analyzing countless newspaper articles, book chapters, photographs, legislation, reports and many other materials, this exhibit has sought to convey a somewhat obvious reality, that colonial photography was used in different ways for different purposes and to achieve different ends in the Canadian and Australian contexts when it came to depicting individuals identified as either Metis or 'Half-Caste'. To that end, there was not only a difference in the assimilation policies of Canada and Australia as discussed in the section on historical background, but there are visible differences in the construction of the photographs themselves. 

A distinct cultural identity is apparent in photographs of the Metis, in terms of the clothing for the most part, while comparable markers are virtually non-existent in the 'Half-Caste' photography. This was arguably due to the strategy of the authorities in the Northern Territory, as well as the Australian Commonwealth as a whole, to pursue the total assimilation of the mixed-race population with the establishment of 'Aboriginal Institutions,' the encouragement of interracial marriages, and the passage of crucial legislation, such as the Aboriginals Ordinance of 1911 that essentially endowed the territorial government with the power to regulate and control the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. Therein, Australia's assimilation project was focused quite narrowly on the 'Half-Caste' portion of the population. In contrast, the Canadian State struggled rather mightily with the specific status and place of the Metis in the national landscape, and that struggle contributed to the lack of an official definition of 'Metis' within Canadian legislation historically. 

To end, there is a passage from Macdougall in Contours of a People that captures the sentiment of this exhibit rather perfectly:  

"It has been argued that we do not know how [they] understood themselves because they did not leave us clearly articulated statements in the available records…But perhaps it is just that we have not understood the clues in their identity and sense of self that were left behind". [1]

Reflections...

In the process of creating this virtual exhibit, I experienced a lot of ups and downs. I can honestly say that I have never been as excited about a project or eager to work on an assignment over the course of my undergraduate degree, and for the experience alone, I am very grateful. 

At the beginning, I had a mental image of what this exhibit would hopefully become. Of course, there was to be an introduction, a section on historical background, a detailed explanation on the analysis of the sources and the integration of secondary source material, and a conclusion, all of which was included in the final version of the exhibit. However, in the course of the creating process, there were a few 'bumps in the road' that were predominately related to the technological challenges of creating a map, timeline and importing supplementary educational material from other websites. Fortunately, I was able to include the YouTube videos and podcasts thanks to some greatly appreciated help from my professor and staff at the University of Ottawa; however, the difficulties in attempting to pin items to a physical location on the Omeka map plug-in persisted nonetheless. As a result, I was forced to abandon the map and timeline components of my project in the interest of time and manageable work load. To offer a sense of what I had originally imagined for this exhibit, I have included a series of rough sketches that were done in the initial planning stage. In hindsight, I realize that my ambitions were perhaps too great for this project and in trying to achieve them all, I may have stretched myself a bit thin. Nevertheless, I was able to present the core of my research in a very unique fashion that was well worth all the headaches over malfunctioning technology in the end. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of using primary sources in a digital format. In particular, it was an incredibly beneficial opportunity to engage in such depth with a vast array of archival databases like the State Library of South Australia or the Gabriel Dumont Institute of Native Studies and Applied Research, both of which are resources that I likely would never have accessed unless it had been for this specific project. Overall, the experience of conducting my research, building my virtual exhibit and finally compiling all of my information into a technological format was a huge learning curve. Yet now, I am fairly comfortable with the Omeka program, at least enough to use it again in the future in some capacity, and I have come to realize that virtually any source is available online, as long as you know how to find it. 

Footnotes

[1] Nicole St-Onge, Carolyn Podruchny, and Brenda Macdougall, Contours of a People: Metis Family, Mobility, and History, vol. 6, New Directions in Native American Studies (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2012): 451-452.