A one-time British Columbia park ranger, who hunted with local people who had not seen a white person until their forties, talks about the presumption of the invaders.

ONE OF THE more sobering moments in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s celebrated series of Little House books, in which the pioneering Ingalls family make their way though the American Midwest in the 1870s, comes when the clan fetches up in Indian Territory. What does pious, humble, kindly Mrs Ingalls make of the people whose camp-fire smoke can be seen wafting across the trail? Alas, “Ma hated the Indians”. Somehow, Ma’s shadow hung across Horatio Clare’s fascinating contribution to the Archive on 4 franchise like sea fret.

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