Welcome to Resisterville: American Dissidents in British Columbia

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by Kathleen Rodgers

University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver, 2014
250 pp., $29.95 paperback

During the Vietnam War years, thousands of Americans fled north to seek refuge in the West Kootenay region of British Columbia. While some of these migrants were draft dodgers avoiding conscription into the United States army, most were part of an emerging counterculture in search of a more egalitarian, humble, and peaceful society.

In her book Welcome to Resisterville: American Dissidents in British Columbia, Kathleen Rodgers looks at these migrants, their motivations, and their impact. The pages are dotted with excerpts from over fifty oral history interviews, highlighting the personal experiences of both the migrants and the locals in British Columbia.

Amid a growing wave of Canadian nationalism and anti-Americanism in the 1960s, many migrants were met with distrust and animosity. Others, however, found common ground with like-minded groups such as the Quakers and Doukhobors who had also settled in the area. And, in both their private and public lives, all negotiated ways to carve out the society they felt compelled to create.

Slowly but surely, Americans in British Columbia created new institutions, like community centres, schools, and publications, to support and strengthen the counterculture movement. They became active proponents of local food initiatives, co-operatives, and environmental sustainability, and eventually many of their ideals made their way into mainstream society.

Welcome to Resisterville is more a sociological than a historical study of the American migrants and their impact on the West Kootenays. Nonetheless, Rodgers provides insight into this corner of Canada and the legacy of the men and women who were committed to creating change.

— Joanna Dawson (Read bio)

Joanna Dawson is Canada's History Society's Acting Director of Programs.

steve homemoviesdotca

2015-03-22 9:45:56 PM

American Draft Dodgers coming to Canada is the most important pivotal story of Canadian History. When over 125,000 American Vietnam War Draft Dodgers came to Canada in the 1960s and '70s, 50-40 years ago, was when Canada began to die. The American Draft Dodgers became an "American Fifth Column" within Canadian society. They got jobs in every aspect of Canada, industry, education, police, governments, even the military, and Canada's spy institutions. Today there are over 3 million dual citizenship Americans living in Canada, plus a whole lot more without Canadian citizenship. Because of them, there are more American Flags flying over Canada than Canadian Flags. They hire Americans instead of Canadians. They source American suppliers and companies instead of Canadian. They support and vote for everything that benefits the United States instead of Canada. Any Canadian company that grows big enough to challenge them, gets taken over or destroyed, bought up, or driven into bankruptcy. And, they suppress and bury Canadian Unity, Identity, and Patriotism, and Canadian Stories; our History; Music; Television and Movies; News; Magazines; Books; Art; every aspect of Canadian Culture and Multi-culturalism. They allow only that which mirrors American Culture, or any Canadian Cultural Creation that is of mediocre quality, or is claimed to be about Canada but has absolutely no relevance to Canada as a Canadian Story whatsoever, with predictable results. Today there's barely anything left in Canada that is still Canadian. Read the book, and you'll finally know who rightly to blame for all that's wrong with Canada. Americans, yes, but also Canadians for letting it happen.