Red Mitten Nationalism: Sport, Commercialism, and Settler Colonialism in Canada by Estée Fresco (review)

Reviewed by: Red Mitten Nationalism: Sport, Commercialism, and Settler Colonialism in Canada by Estée Fresco Michael Dawson Fresco, Estée – Red Mitten Nationalism: Sport, Commercialism, and Settler Colonialism in Canada. Montréal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2022. 240 p. In 1988, at the age of 16, I made a point of only purchasing gasoline at Petro-Canada or Shell stations. There were plenty of other options, of course, but, as avid sports fans, my family enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to collect Calgary Olympic souvenirs. Petro-Canada offered Olympic-themed glassware. Shell boasted colourful Olympic pins. We did our best to collect them all. We were not alone in our enthusiasm for Olympic-themed souvenirs. As Estée Fresco demonstrates in Red Mitten Nationalism, millions of Canadians eagerly sought out these tangible connections to that sporting mega-event. Our actions, Fresco explains, were part of a broad pattern of settler colonialism that frequently embraced highly selective understandings of Canadian history and national identity that were devised, revised, and marketed to ensure the success of global sporting events. The book examines five major sporting events hosted in Canada: the 1976 Montréal Olympics, the 1978 Edmonton Commonwealth Games, the 1988 Calgary Olympics, the 1994 Victoria Commonwealth Games, and the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. But the focus here is not on athletic competitions and medal counts. Instead, Fresco examines how these events were promoted and celebrated. Hence, the core of the study explores the "fusion of nationalism and commercialism" (p. 6) End Page 184 that was given voice through a wide variety of advertising campaigns, educational initiatives, mascots, team uniforms, souvenirs, and opening and closing ceremonies. The result is a complex and nuanced history of Canadian nationalism and neoliberalism. Event organizers consistently called upon Canadians to demonstrate their national pride and support for the country's athletes by embracing highly selective depictions and understandings of the country's history. And the evidence suggests that they keenly embraced this opportunity by rallying to a variety of causes: supporting torch relays, purchasing Hudson's Bay Company mittens, and, of course, the aforementioned gas-station pins and glassware. Organizers frequently championed reassuring, if inaccurate, messages about national unity while carefully sidestepping the realities of colonialism. Hence the Hudson's Bay Company's promotional tie-ins for the 1978 Commonwealth Games embraced a generic and strategic focus that aligned "its brand identity with its early contributions to Canadian nation-building" while doing its level-best to avoid acknowledging the company's role "at the heart of the Settler colonial project in Canada" (pp. 64–65). But on some occasions the focus was more regional. In 1980, amid tensions between Alberta and the federal government over energy policy, the Calgary Olympics bid team lobbied International Olympic Committee members by providing them with "samples of Alberta's tar sands" (p. 77). Such initiatives frequently drew upon corporate financial contributions and government support. But they did not go unchallenged. Indeed, these sport mega-events were contested sites of public memory. Official statements championing facile notions of unity were pervasive, but their dominance was never complete. Vernacular and oppositional voices consistently sought to disrupt simplistic narratives and to shine light on overlooked realities. In 1988, for example, members of the Lubicon Lake First Nation seized upon the Calgary Games to protest the ongoing impact of oil extraction on their reserve. Amid an alarming tuberculosis outbreak, Lubicon community members targeted a Glenbow Museum exhibit that coincided with the Olympics. Sponsored by Shell, the exhibit promised to display "artifacts of early Canadian and Indian" culture, many of which would be borrowed from institutions outside Canada (p. 89). The Lubicon call to boycott The Spirit Sings exhibit gathered enough media attention and support from foreign museums to at least temporarily disrupt organizers' comforting portrayal of the host country as a land of unity and tranquility. Over time, event organizers pursued more collaborative relationships with Indigenous Peoples. In 1994, organizers of the Victoria Commonwealth Games "established a Native Participation Committee … to promote and co-ordinate Indigenous peoples' involvement in the Victoria Games" (p. 108). Organizers of the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver officially partnered with the Lil'wat, Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil...