The Line Which Separates

In the late nineteenth century the forty-ninth parallel was a key site of Canadian and American efforts to shape their respective nations and to create national identities. The international border sliced through Blackfoot country, creating the Alberta-Montana borderlands yet the dynamic arising out of this region's landscape, aboriginal people, newcomers, railroads, and ongoing cross-border ties proved to challenge each government's efforts to colonize and nationalize this region. Sheila McManus makes an important and useful comparison between American and Canadian government policies and attitudes regarding race, gender, and homesteading. Drawing on government maps and reports, oral testimony, and personal papers, The Line Which Separates explores the uneven way in which the borderlands divided a previously cohesive region.