Context and Action
Starry Ground, watercolour by Rami Schandall ©2021.
I practice what I teach, taking care and discernment with media consumption — yet I am caught in emotion with this week's news. Centered as it is around grave violence against the earth and indigenous peoples in the province where I grew up, it hits very close to home. The confirming discovery of a mass unmarked grave at The Kamloops Residential School, and the hot conflict over old-growth logging on unceded territory at Fairy Creek, are excruciating in their currency — and familiarity.
For many years I have been working on a book set on the north coast of Vancouver Island, where epidemics, residential schools, and sustained inhumane and socially destructive policies brought genocide to indigenous peoples. Clearing the path for extractive capitalism that overexploits the land to this day, the legacy of that callous colonial mindset persists. And in the middle of it all, people try to make a good life. In the story I am uncovering, settler's lives were thwarted by the same callous systems, and there is almost no trace of their efforts — besides lasting, ecological disruption.
How blind we are, so much of the time. The great gaping hole that is our common history is in many ways the subject of my book. It is astonishing how easily we forget. It is harder to remember, and hard to write. I want to do this history justice, because it is inextricably related to NOW.
What should we do with the discovery, rediscovery, of the missing, and of living trauma? Healing is needed, and there must be a real reckoning for settler Canada. What will that look like? The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of 2015 made 94 recommendations, #71-76 refer specifically to missing children and burial. That would be one good place to start.
There is so much to metabolize, to digest and process. Here again, discernment is needed, to learn enough and to stay awake, to not check out in guilt or hopelessness, to move beyond contempt and into compassion, for those hurt, and for those doing harm. There is beauty in rediscovering our interconnection, the necessity and imperative to work together, and to do much better. We are capable of this.
I grieve, and I am cautiously relieved that this story is present in our collective awareness, for now. It demands our sustained attention and respect. None of us have to carry it alone.
Diverse Readings, A Small Sample: Many Eyes, Many Eras
These readings lend some context, and entry points. I will share more in the coming weeks.
This Op-ed by MARY ELLEN TURPEL-LAFOND urges us to honour these children’s lives by implementing the rights of Indigenous peoples in tangible ways.
Following the Good River, the Life of and Times of Wa'xaid
We encountered the life of this beautiful elder in our winter retreat, when I read a little of his story to you. He was a survivor of residential school. He suffered — and recovered — and succeeded in uniting people to protect the Kitlope, his people's territory, and the largest intact watershed in the world.
Epidemics in the Modern World
An excellent textbook overview of smallpox, tuberculosis, influenza etc., published just before Covid. It's all connected...
Stories from 1890s-1930s by the eloquent Sioux writer Zitkála-sá, this collection was published in 2019 with an introduction by the exquisite poet, Layli Long Soldier, whose poetry collection Whereas I also highly recommend.
Un/inhabited by Jordan Abel. “Abel constructed the book’s source text by compiling ninety-one complete western novels found on Project Gutenberg, an online archive of public domain works. Using his word processor’s Ctrl+F function, he searched the document in its totality for words that relate to the political and social aspects of land, territory, and ownership.”
The Intemperate Rainforest — Nature, Culture and Power on the West Coast
Published in 2002, and reflecting on the intense conflicts in the 1990s in Clayoquot Sound. Key takeaway — indigenous concerns were not represented nor heard then. There is more interweaving today of environmental and social justice, more recognition of local indigenous voices — this is so important, not to fall into the trap of short term, celebrity attention cycles. A transition toward stewardship is possible, but the struggle is so very long.
