How Story Made a People (Almost) Disappear

Witness to Yesterday (The Champlain Society Podcast on Canadian History)

Greg Marchildon speaks with Christopher Patrick Aylward about his book, Beothuk: How Story Made a People (Almost) Disappear. The Beothuk were once thought to be an isolated people made extinct in 1829 due to conflicts with settlers and the Mi’kmaq. This narrative became widely accepted in history. In Beothuk, Christopher Aylward critiques how external accounts, from Viking sagas to European explorers and early anthropologists, shaped the misrepresentation of the Beothuk's history. He argues that the notion of their extinction was never proven and was only questioned when Indigenous perspectives began to emerge in the 1920s. Through new sources such as archaeological evidence, oral histories, and testimonies from Indigenous groups, a more accurate historical understanding of the Beothuk has developed. The book underscores the importance of Indigenous voices in telling their own history. Christopher Patrick Aylward is a filmmaker and associate professor of film studies at Toronto Metropolitan University. Image Credit: McGill-Queen’s University Press If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.