Description:
There is a train rolling up into a station. In the background there is another train, also there is a sign that says illegal territory with a buffalo in the back ground. Beside the buffalo there are two people. At the station there’s is a sign that says Rupert’s land and a sold tag. The ticket booth is open and there are people standing in front of it. On the bench there are three unhappy children. In the train there are two men in each cart.
Documentation:
The station is a representation of Rupert’s land, and since Rupert’s land got sold that’s why there is a sold sign onto on the sign. Underneath there is a police officer the NWC, who is selling tickets and the Canadian passengers only need to pay $1 but the states needed to pay a higher price of $3. This is to represent their dislike towards the us traveling with the train and passing through to Canada.
The woman with a stick, is a nun and she is holding a stick and she is with the three children. This represents the residential school and how unhappy the schools were; how horrible they were treated. The actual train spokes or line has the wooden foundation tracks of the HBC since the HBC is kind of the foundation of why and how the CPR came to be.
There is a beaver chewing on it because people forget the importance of the HBC to the CPR. In the train sits John A. Macdonald with Hugh Allen whom helped him get the illegal money for his campaign to run in the election. In the second is Louis Riel and Mackenzie since they are both apposing Macdonald and have the same views as each other.
Since Macdonald thinks Mackenzie is a joke and shouldn’t be involved in anything he is saying that he should get off and get on another train. Also there is two metis one with a broken pitchfork for farming and the other drunk from alcohol and they are close to going into the illegal territory or illegal deed of hunting for Bison/Buffalo.
Interpret:
My message is mostly I made the cartoon surround the train. Because the train was the main reason that the fur trade started to die also it made it possible for more people to start coming to Canada and, expand. It was the one thing that literally brought Canada together and connected everything together and against the Americans mostly. That’s why the train is the main theme and the people in it. The station represents the racial difficulties (aboriginals and residential school) in creating Canada. Residential schools were a big part in the fact that it was MacDonald’s wanting to create a more European Canada by eliminating the first nations. The two metis and the buffalo also fall under that umbrella.
I feel that in the process of expanding west Canada was mostly expanding over the first nations, they were there first, the Europeans just made law and politics relevant when they came from a different place and just placed it on Canada. Why didn’t the Europeans come to Canada and listen to the first nation laws? Why didn’t the Europeans partake in the first nations culture?
