ABSTRACT
Suicide is the name for a terrible affliction in many northern indigenous communities. It is the name for something deeper that afflicts many communities burdened with legacies of residential schooling, displacement, and colonization. The absence of suicide in northern and indigenous communities in Canada can be mapped onto the presence of community-building institutions and emergency services. This is, in turn, largely tied to the political will of provincial and/or regional actors and to the historical relationships that exist in place. However, is that historical and political factors often define negative outcomes such as disease outbreak, lack of housing, and mental illness. This chapter posits John Snow as the pioneer of two proto-GIS operations for mapping disease. It also posits counter-mapping as a form of political maneuvering in response to attempts to rename entire landscapes. The genius of Snow was his belief in and systematic gathering of evidence in support of the waterborne nature of the mechanism of transmission of cholera.
