The first indication of something amiss arrived via email. The contents struck Misao Dean, a University of Victoria English professor, as odd: Why would an American right-wing talk show want to ask about her work on the Canadian symbolism of the canoe?
In the next hour more emails followed. They came from around the world bearing a variety of messages, none of them kind - threats to her safety, obscene insults, calls for her to be fired. By 10 a.m., she sat, shocked, in her office. "I really didn't know what to do or how to react."
Dr. Dean didn't know it then but she'd become the target of an organized campaign from the alt-right. Months before, in March 2016, she'd given an interview to CBC Radio about her book, Inheriting a Canoe Paddle: The Canoe in Discourses of English-Canadian Nationalism (University of Toronto Press, 2013). The book explored the symbolism of the canoe in Canada, arguing the canoe is widely accepted as a symbol of Canadian heritage but is overlooked as an emblem of colonial power. During the radio interview, she asked canoeists to think twice about the way they identify as Canadians when they talk about their pleasure in canoeing. "I was trying to be careful not to be offensive to canoeists, among whom I place myself."
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