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Elsie Jones Sebastian’s history, like that of the other missing women, is erased in Gastown’s meta-narrative of Canadian history and identity. Gastown wants to tell a story of success, of history, and of progress. Representations of First Nations people are an important part of this history, but within this small tourist trap, their imagined manifestation, their simulacra, has come to take the place of the real (Baudrillard 1994). The image, according to Darren Godwell, “is perceived as having more legitimacy than the ‘reality’. The image and the non-indigenous imagination which created its boundaries assume the measure of authenticity against which contemporary activity, behavior, and images are constructed” (2000:255-256).
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