Edward Hedican

About Me

Professor Edward Hedican is a social anthropologist with graduate degrees from McMaster Univerity (M.A.) and McGill University (PhD.). Edward Hedican’s long-term ethnographic interests have been with Canadian Aboriginal peoples, especially concerning the Ojibwa or Anishenabe peoples living north of Lake Superior. Research in this area involved living in a remote community without cars, roads, or electricity. The Aboriginal people spoke their Native language and for the most part, continued to hunt and fish in the traditional subsistence pattern. Professor Edward Hedican's research was conducted from a small log cabin which he heated with a wood stove. In all, Edward eventually wrote three books on various aspects of Aboriginal life in Canada. More recently Edward Hedican’s research interests have shifted to the Irish, especially focusing on two areas: first, how the contemporary Irish in rural Donegal are coping with their association with the European Union, and second, a historical study of an Irish farming community in the Ottawa Valley after the Great Famine. Currently, Edward is writing a book on Irish farmers in Renfrew County from 1851-1881.