Walking through the Roddick Gates, one of the first things to draw the attention of passersby is the statue of a wind-blown James McGill clutching his hat and walking stick. Few students know that before reaching this statue, they’ve passed another monument honouring a completely different side of the university’s history. In fact, lying beneath a line of trees facing Rue Sherbrooke is the Hochelaga Rock. A large stone, with a metal plate drilled to its front, is placed in a patch of dirt facing a bench. A tiny description inscribed on the plate explains that the rock is a memorial to an Iroquois village that once stood on the land now spotted with McGill’s classrooms and libraries, all built on territory that was never ceded to the university to begin with.
“[The rock] really is symbolic of the way that the indigenous community is treated on a lot of campuses,” Allan Downey, a professor in the Department of History and Classical Studies, said. “Sure, it’s here, but it’s pushed into a corner and most people don’t know it exists.”
This summer, after working for a year as an academic associate, Downey accepted a tenure-track position in the Department of History and Classical Studies. Upon accepting the job, Downey, who is Dakelh, a member of the Nak’azdli First Nation, located near Fort St. James, British Columbia, became the only tenure-track indigenous professor currently employed at McGill; a fact that was very publicly celebrated by the university.
Downey’s road to the front of the classroom was somewhat serendipitous. Growing up in Waterloo, Ontario, he travelled on the pow wow circuit, helping with his mother’s native arts and crafts business.
“When I was younger going through the educational system […] I didn’t see myself, or my family, or my history, in the books I was reading,” Downey said. “As an indigenous person, you’re almost [always] confronted with different versions of racism or just ignorance.”