Mary-Ellen Kelm is a professor of history at Simon Fraser University specializing in settler colonial and medical histories of North America. Her first book, Colonizing Bodies: Aboriginal Health and Healing in British Columbia 1900-1950 (UBC Press, 1998) won the Sir John A. Macdonald Prize and the Clio award for British Columbia both awarded by the Canadian Historical Association. In 2007 she received the second place award in the BC Historical Federation's annual history writing competition for editing The Letters of Margaret Butcher: Missionary-Imperialism on the North Pacific Coast (University of Calgary Press, 2007), which tell the story of the Elizabeth Long Memorial Home, an Indian Residential School in Kitamaat, BC, from the perspective of an English teacher and nurse at the school. Her history, A Wilder West: Rodeo in Western Canada (UBC Press, 2011) is an illustrated examination of rodeo's small-town roots, and a look at how the sport brought people together across racial and gender divides. She is currently examining the ideas and methods medical researchers brought to the study of Indigenous health in North America from 1910-1990. She is co-editor of the Canadian Historical Review.

The Indian Act remains central to Canada’s relationship with indigenous peoples and their communities. SFU’s Mary-Ellen Kelm, a specialist in settler, colonial and medical histories of North America, co-authored with Keith D. Smith, Chair of the Dept. of First Nations Studies at Vancouver Island University, Talking Back to the Indian Act: Critical Readings in Settler Colonial Histories (Univ. of Toronto Press 2018) as a ‘how-to’ guide for engaging with primary source documents. With analyses of more than 35 sources pertaining to the Indian Act, the authors provide insight into the dynamics of the Act’s creation and maintenance.

Review of the author's work by BC Studies:
Colonizing Bodies: Aboriginal Health and Healing in British Columbia, 1900-50
The Letters of Margaret Butcher: Missionary-Imperialism on the North Pacific Coast
A Wilder West: Rodeo in Western Canada

BOOKS:

Colonizing Bodies: Aboriginal Health and Healing in British Columbia, 1900-50 (UBC Press, 1999)

In the Days of our Grandmothers: A Reader in Aboriginal Women's History in Canada (University of Toronto Press, 2006)

Edited, The Letters of Margaret Butcher: Missionary-Imperialism on the North Pacific Coast (University of Calgary Press, 2006)

A Wilder West: Rodeo in Western Canada (UBC Press, 2011) 978-0-7748-2029-5 $85.00

(Co-authored with Keith D. Smith), Talking Back to the Indian Act: Critical Readings in Settler Colonial Histories (Univ. of Toronto Press 2018) $29.95 978-1-4875-8735-2

[BCBW 2018] "Health" "First Nations" "Missionaries"