Reading Wednesday

[sabotabby]

Just finished: Indigenous Toronto: Stories that Carry This Place, edited by Denise Bolduc, Mnawaate Gordon-Corbiere, Rebeka Tabobondung, Brian Wright-McLeod and John Lorinc. This was excellent and I'll likely buy at least one reference copy for my classroom. The essays were variable in quality, but it's such an important, fascinating, seldom-heard history.

The Breathing Hole by Colleen Murphy and Siobhan Arnatsiaq-Murphy, translated by Janet Tamalik McGrath. This one is about a 500-year-old polar bear, rescued by an Inuit woman as a cub and raised as her son. It follows the bear through the pre-colonization era, the Franklin Expedition, and a climate change ravaged future. It's exactly as depressing as you might imagine. It's also translated into Nattilingmiutut, which is super cool, and an interesting collaboration between a settler playwright and an Inuit writer and translator.

Paying the Land by Joe Sacco. I love everything Sacco does, and this is no exception. This is about the Dene people in the Northwest Territories as they adapt to, and resist in turns the encroachment of settler society and resource extraction. It's a fascinating story of colonization, complicity, and survivance. Sacco is a thoughtful writer, at times questioning his own participation in the process. Is he different than the oil companies, given that he too has come to extract something from the people? It's also a story that is very much aided by the art, as he captures the sweeping landscapes and the sheer difficulty of survival on the land.

I did notice things that I might not have before I read so many books by Indigenous authors. Sacco, as he is in all of his work, comes at the story as an outsider and a journalist, and as always depicts himself differently than he does his subjects, with scathing caricature instead of realism. It seems odd to say that such a brutal story is in some ways not brutal enough, but that was the overall impression I got. As in this is a story where compromise and reconciliation exist as possibilities, whereas I'm not sure that they do. He also uses phrases like "Canada's indigenous people," and it's a credit to the circles I exist in that I stumble upon that rarely enough that it jumps out at me.

Overall, though, I think it's a very effective, powerful book, and it portrays the diversity and nuance in the ways different Dene communities and individuals survive in a very sensitive way.

Comments

[lapinlunaire]

All of these sound good but aaaahhhh I need to get The Breathing Hole! But wait, is it a play?

[sabotabby]

It is a play. Let me know if you can’t find it; I can always mail it to you.

[lapinlunaire]

Thank you for offering! I'll try to track it down once I'm done reading the books I'm reading rn (including yours) but I'll let you know if I can't find it!

Out of curiosity, what is the bear supposed to be like? As in, if it's meant to be staged, do they have a person in a bear costume?

[sabotabby]

Nah it looks like puppets. Here's a link that has some pictures from the stage production.

[lokifan]

These sound great!

He also uses phrases like "Canada's indigenous people," and it's a credit to the circles I exist in that I stumble upon that rarely enough that it jumps out at me.

Sorry, ignorant Brit here, and Google didn't help - why's that bad? The singular?

[sabotabby]

No, it's that it implies ownership. Indigenous peoples belong to their own nations, and most don't consider themselves part of Canada, which was something violently forced on them.

From Elements of Indigenous Style by Greg Younging:

Indigenous Peoples are independent sovereign nations that predate Euro-colonial states and are not “owned” by Euro-colonial states. Indigenous style there for avoids the use of possessives that imply this such as “Canada’s Indigenous Peoples” “our Indigenous Peoples” and “the Indigenous Peoples of Canada.”

It's also just in general a weird phrasing that doesn't get used for any other ethnic group, but does get used for, like, animals. You wouldn't say "Canada's Jews" or "Canada's Black people" but you would maybe say "Canada's birds."

[lokifan]

Ah, thanks so much for explaining! Esp re: 'Canada' being something imposed from outside, I totally see that.

It's also just in general a weird phrasing that doesn't get used for any other ethnic group, but does get used for, like, animals. You wouldn't say "Canada's Jews" or "Canada's Black people" but you would maybe say "Canada's birds."

I actually would say those things, though! I'm surprised to see you say that, maybe it's a regional thing? But idk, "Britain's queer community" or "France's white population" or something wouldn't sound weird to me at all - and would imply connection rather than possession (a la 'my boss'). But ofc context matters with these things so I'm not saying that to disagree the wider point to avoid that phrasing here.

[sabotabby]

Oh, for sure. There's contexts in which it would clearly make sense to say something like that, but it's a less common phrasing much of the time.