Border Crossings and Polar Bears: How Indigenous Hunting Rights in Canada Become Part of a Transnational Economy

This article considers a specific, highly complex, and contentious case study, the uniquely Canadian phenomenon of the sale of hunting rights by First Nations Canadians to non-Indigenous, non-Canadian trophy hunters who want to hunt polar bears in Canada. These hunters, largely of European ancestry, come mainly from the United States and, more recently, from Western Europe as well. Ultimately, this analysis demonstrates both the necessity and the utility of anchoring transnational analyses in a more-than-human world because access to and protection of living non-human beings plays a crucial role in defining nations and communities. The essay addresses questions such as “What can we understand about the role of the Canadian state, the national government, the US-Canadian border, the philosophical constitution of a more-than-human world in both Indigenous and European-derived epistemologies, and the politics of Indigeneity in the international marketplace, through this one case study focused on human-animal relations?”