Chapters in this book

1. Front Matter i
2. Contents v
3. Acknowledgments vii
4. Introduction: Myth Understandings; or First Contact, Over and Over Again 1
5. Close Encounters of the First Kind 15
6. First Contact as a Spiritual Performance: Encounters on the North American West Coast 30
7. Reflections on Indigenous History and Memory: Reconstructing and Reconsidering Contact 46
8. Poking Fun: Humour and Power in Kaska Contact Narratives 69
9. Herbert Spencer, Paul Kane, and the Making of “The Chinook” 90
10. Performing Paradox: Narrativity and the Lost Colony of Roanoke 103
11. Stories from the Margins: Toward a More Inclusive British Columbia Historiography 118
12. When the White Kawau Flies 140
13. The Interpreter as Contact Point: Avoiding Collisions in Tlingit America 160
14. Notes 177
15. Bibliography 207
16. Contributors 222
17. Index 226