Canadian Literature: Parkinson Perspective

53, 65-67, 85-90, 124-125, 171-172, 367-369, 377, 412-413, 422-423

One of the great narratives present in Green Grass Running Water is Alberta’s story and perspective on domestic partnership, pregnancy, and parenting. Women are central to the origin story, each of the four ‘Indians’ are female, all women who fell from the sky and were ‘discovered’ by white men (Flick). Of course, each of these women are given male names according to recorded history (King 53). As we continue on Alberta’s journey, we encounter Alberta’s own complicated reminiscence of her childhood and her parents, as well as her marriage that did not really feel like a partnership. By examining her past, as with many stories in this novel, her present choices make more sense. This is but one sliver into Alberta’s story, many contrasting details create her character.

Alberta Frank

The central theme of this post is Alberta’s relationship with marriage and partners, and by extension what she learns about other notable women in the novel and their partnerships.

That being said, I would first like to address Alberta’s namesake in GGRW. Flick suggests that Alberta is named after the town Frank, AB which experienced a devastating landslide when a mine collapsed:

Flick also comments on Alberta’s ‘nature’ being frank, or to the point. I do not agree with this statement completely – she will state her opinion, but King never fully allows a conversation about Alberta’s pregnancy to occur with Lionel or Charlie. In fact, we are never told by Alberta directly that she is in fact pregnant, it is assumed by other characters (Norma and Latisha) that she is (King 377). Alberta is asked by Charlie if she is pregnant, but she denies it. The reader could allude that this is a possibility, as she is in tears. In my experience, people who are throwing up generally have activated their tear ducts too. All in all, it is up to the reader, but many characters suggest that Alberta is pregnant. Isn’t this what she wanted?

“There was the matter of children. Alberta wanted at least one, perhaps two.” (King 65)

Alberta was married. She didn’t see this as an option again, considering her options of Charlie and Lionel. Her first marriage was with Bob. Nondescript Bob, who seems to symbolize the 1950’s college ‘sweetheart’ who wants a wife but not a partner. An interesting antithesis is Princess Louise Alberta’s partner, a man of a thousand names, but who went by the name of Marquis of Lorne. According to the Parliament of Canada website’s history on the Marquis, as Governor General to Prime Minister Macdonald, he recommended, “…call for greater respect for Métis and Indian treaties.” Perhaps it is propaganda from the parliament website, as most individuals in positions of power in the Canadian government did not really follow through with their beliefs of good will towards the Indigenous population, but it seems as if Alberta is seeking a partner who truly does respect all that she is and intends to be. A tall order, according to the women in this novel.

“And all the time, that faceless, nameless man sat in the nose of the plane… completely oblivious to impending disasters. Marriage was like that… But there were those driving expectations that hemmed her in and herded her toward the same cliffs over which her mother, her brothers, sisters, cousins, and friends had disappeared.” (King 85)

Alberta’s mother and Amos

Another relationship that Alberta is basing her idea of what marriage becomes, is from an early time in her life, watching her parents. As readers we are introduced to Amos as the man with his pants around his ankle in the snow, but in reality, he always stood up for his rights. Two instances, one with an American border guard, and the other, with the ‘missing’ truck (which was actually stolen and sold to a car dealership). Eventually he took to drinking (King 88).

Amos is a Hebrew name, originating from an 8th century Old Testament prophet. It means strong and brave. Although the namesake is not there, Amos shares a similar struggle to Queen Victoria’s husband, Albert (parents of Princess Alberta), who felt as if he was never quite in a position of power that would allow enough change. Arguably, Amos held a position of power as a police officer on the reserve, and was seen as a leader in his community. Though he never really had the amount of power that the white male border guards had over him.

Alberta’s mother, is referred to as ‘Ada’ by Amos (King 89). Sources indicate that the name means nobility (Behind the Name). Queen Victoria was renowned for her parenting ability, and in a time coinciding with the end of the first Industrial era and the dawn of a more consumerist ideology, children were beginning to be seen as a prize, to be cherished, unlike previously when they were considered additional labour (though I do not think this theory could be fully true).

Campbell, Mike. “User Comments For The Name Ada”. Behind the Name. Web.

Flick Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Canadian Literature 161/162 (1999). Web. April 4^th 2013.

“Heraldic Symbols In The Speaker’s Chambers – Senate Of Canada”. Parl.gc.ca. Web.

King, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. Toronto: Harper Collins, 1993. Print.

Senior, Jennifer. For Parents, Happiness Is A Very High Bar. 2014. Web.

(Response to Question 1)

Each story connects to the foundational creation story, which involves the First Woman, Ahdamn, Coyote and ‘God’. King uses a circular way of storytelling, where the last statement from one storyline (section) connects to the following section. For example,

“‘What else would you like to know?’ said the Lone Ranger” (King 49).

“‘What else would you like to know?’ said Babo” (King 50).

Multiple perspectives are used for the dialogue of the creation story, where Lone Ranger, Ishmael, Hawkeye, and Robinson Crusoe are wondering about the entirety of the story being told. The dialogue with ‘God’ addresses the audience directly, but is not knowledgeable of the other parts of the story from King, while the individual characters such as Lionel, Alberta, and Eli are all figuring out their individual lives, while the author parallels their experiences to the circumstances starting with ‘creation’ that made it so ‘Indians’ were more likely to experience systemic disadvantages created from Imperialist British-Canadian society.

King’s motif of water throughout the novel is present in each storyline. However, water first began to emerge when Changing Woman leaned too far forward into the water and then landed on Noah’s Ark. This imagery of water is present in the interview with Babo (how the novel begins, her car is being washed away by yellow water). It is also present with Eli Stands Alone, it is green-gray water that is seeping through the cracks in the damn, that if operational, would wash through his mother’s log house that she built.

Perhaps most notable is the use and definition of colour. ‘God’ says the water is blue, and coyote questions why, but the only response is ‘because’ (King ). However, Eli describes the water coming out of the dam as gray-green, and Babo says the water around the car is yellow. The significance of the colours mentioned within the text cannot be assumed, and perhaps changes for each subplot within the novel and the culture being represented in each section. King borrows traditions and customs from several First Nations communities in the text, as is the case where each of the old ‘Indian’ women are from different cultures (Chester 52). Although Siksika (Blackfoot) culture is commonly represented due to the setting of many of the characters in the novel, it cannot be assumed that the use of the colours for describing the water would always be related to one culture or another. I think this may be intentional on King’s part.

As there are four women, each representing traditions from different Indigenous mythology, this is why it is often necessary to trace back to the creation story, to see what colour and water represents within various sections of the novel. For example, with our first introduction to Eli, he  describes the water coming through the dam as gray-green (King 110). Colour is also used to describe the dam itself – white – where Sifton says it is like a shell, and Eli says it reminds him of a toilet (King 136). Sefton also says his favorite part is the evening, when the sun gets behind the dam (King 136). This section may be alluding to the treaty signed by Siksika Chief Crowfoot on September 22, 1877; “as long as the sun shines, the grass grows, and the water flows” (Siksika Nation). In this passage, the water is slow, but should be building up as the dam is cracking. The sun has limited ways of shining through the dam, something the white worker (Sifton) admires about it. Eli also senses change on the horizon though, which is alluding to an impending event regarding the dam (King 112). The government did not keep its promise to the Siksika (and many other Indigenous groups for that matter), and the foundations it structures were built upon (quite literally in the case of the dam) are starting to crumble.

Of course, in the end the whole story connects, it began with the Indians at Fort Marion and ends at Fort Marion. We are never certain who was responsible for the dam collapsing outside of Blossom (King 415). But we do know that the water is running strongly again.

This is unrelated to the novel, but I find the opposition to the Site C dam in BC to be a relevant example of water rights and Indigenous land. There are parallels to the Grand Balleen dam. 

Chester Blanca. “Green Grass Running Water: Theorizing the World of the Novel.”Canadian Literature 161-162. (1999). Web. April 04/2013.

King, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. Toronto: Harper Collins, 1993. Print.

“About | Siksika Nation | Siksika Nation Tribal Administration Website”. Siksikanation.com. N.p., 2014. Web.

(Response to Question 2)

According to Coleman, state legislation is based on nationalist ideology which in turn excludes certain groups of people who do not fit into that frame work. This would mean assimilation or else be excluded from the national dialogue. Coleman argues that this legislation excludes people of colour, or else purposefully works to exclude these individuals from a passage to full citizenship.

However, is this always the case? I have analysed the Immigration Act of 1910 and it specifies certain requirements in order to immigrate into Canada for that period. Priority immigrants are listed, particularly those from Northern and Western European heritage. Refugees do not exist in this act, in fact, a person is forbidden from entering Canada on sponsorship from a charity or church, and government funded programs do not yet exist.

Alright, so clearly the majority of the immigrants during this period from Western and Northern Europe had fair skin, and ascribed to a more Imperialist ideology. This is not the whole package of ‘white civility’. Men are considered primary property owners during this era, and truly the only ones considered to have an independent income. Women could immigrate if they were sponsored (hmm… despite the fact that sponsorship was considered illegal) it was okay if they spoke English and had an arranged marriage (this is actually the case with my ancestor, Lucy Pannell, see below).

This dowry entertained a specific gender role that aligns with the values of white civility that Coleman claims exists in state legislation. Additionally, women who are considered prostitutes (though more likely victims of sex traffickers) do not have a place in Canada either, and there is also no legislation that exists to protect these individuals (once again, how refugee status would be useful here) instead, they are barred from entering Canada, criminalized much like how the ‘pimps’ and traffickers are. Essentially, enforcing the gender role of women as being docile and obedient is written into the 1910 Immigration Act, which furthers Coleman’s points about white civility.

By the time 1910 had rolled around, the UK was beginning to retreat from its former colonies, declaring them independent nations, which were now deeply indebted to their formed colonizers. This process of globalization, which continues today, is well summarized by Maracle,

“Grinding poverty and dependence build inside the colonized, cumulatively, the longer colonialism lasts.” (Maracle, 86).

It makes sense that by refusing refugees, and stating that immigrants require a certain sum of monies in order to immigrate to Canada, this excludes individuals with lower economic earnings, which have lower earnings as a result of colonization. In turn, this helped purport a nation that ascribes to an Imperialist, white civility viewpoint.

References

Coleman, Daniel. White Civility: The Literary Project of English Canada. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2006. Print.

Image. Ancestry Records Parkinson Family.

“Immigration Act, 1910”. Pier 21. Web.

Maracle, Lee. “Toward a National Literature: A Body of Writing.” Across Cultures/Across Borders: Canadian Aboriginal and Native American Literature. Ed. Paul DePasquale, Renate Eigenbrod, and Emma LaRocque. Toronto: Broadview, 2010. Print.

In order to address this question you will need to refer to Sparke’s article, “A Map that Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and the Narration of Nation.” You can easily find this article online. Read the section titled: “Contrapuntal Cartographies” (468 – 470). Write a blog that explains Sparke’s analysis of what Judge McEachern might have meant by this statement: “We’ll call this the map that roared.”

A narrative of a landscape is often portrayed by a map. Humans are visual creatures, and in order to interpret meaning within space, we have used maps to assign borders or allocate resources that are deemed useful to us.

In the instance with the Gixtsan and Wet’suwet’en and their map which shows their proximity to resources that have been ‘defined’ by colonizers, it is an example of using the colonizer’s language and reappropriating it for the colonized perspective.

Judge McEachern referred to the Gixtsan’s attempt as, “the map that roared,” meaning the map is ineffectual, or as Eades thinks of Sparke’s analysis of the situation, that it was a reference to paper tigers. In this instance, McEachern meant that their attempts are ineffectual, which is why the Gitxsan’s land claims were overturned and they had to proceed with the Supreme Court of Canada. 

This contrapuntal form of cartography is powerful, reappropriating the knowledge so that it is useful for Gitxsan as opposed to the tool being used for colonising purposes.

What I admire about the statement from McEachern is the irony in his word choice. Referring to the map that roared references a Chinese translation of ‘paper tiger’. McEachern professed his love of traditional conservative thought (a great fan of Hobbes for example) though his use of a communist statement that critiques an Imperialist, capitalist state is priceless. Reappropriation is prevalent on both sides of the legal argument, though the Gitxsan’s intentional use is noteworthy.

References:

Eades, Gwilym Lucas. Maps And Memes. Print.

Sparke, Matthew. “A Map That Roared And An Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, And The Narration Of Nation”. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 88.3 (1998): 463-495. Web.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/1950-08-Paper_Tiger.png (Image)

In this lesson I say that our capacity for understanding or making meaningfulness from the first stories is seriously limited for numerous reasons and I briefly offer two reasons why this is so: 1) the social process of the telling is disconnected from the story and this creates obvious problems for ascribing meaningfulness, and 2) the extended time of criminal prohibitions against Indigenous peoples telling stories combined with the act of taking all the children between 5 – 15 away from their families and communities. In Wickwire’s introduction to Living Stories, find a third reason why, according to Robinson, our abilities to make meaning from first stories and encounters is so seriously limited. To be complete, your answer should begin with a brief discussion on the two reasons I present and then proceed to introduce and explain your third reason from Wickwire’s introduction.

Wendy Wickwire illustrates the importance of the storytelling method for creating shared meaning in Indigenous histories by citing her visits with Robinson. She makes a comparison to Robinson’s recount of a story of ‘coyote’ and its relationship with the people of Similkameen, and how similar stories of coyote in literature lose meaning through translation or the written method. Another point with the storytelling method is that not enough detail is given to the origin of the storyteller – therefore the reader is lost, not knowing what potential biases exist on the author’s part, including gender or geographic origin. This form of storytelling is unfamiliar to myself to a large extent, growing up in a highly westernized school system and being of anglo-saxon origin. It was further isolated from society with the laws that prevented its sharing, such as making the pot latch illegal.

Perhaps most interesting to me is Wickwire’s analysis of Robinson in relation to Claude Lévi-Strausse, who would have labelled Robinson’s point of view as ‘ahistorical’ due to the fact that there is no linear chronology for depictions. In some ways this reminds me of magical realism, where the events still have meaning and truth, though the way they are being portrayed has an abstract element to it. Connecting the past with more present events (Robinson’s story of the two twins) and subsequently the one twin’s return to North America has a lot of power to it, portraying the colonizers in a less heroic and more infiltrative light.

Lévi-Strausse describes such storytelling as cold, not relating to any point in history and therefore lacks relevance. The impact of describing First Nations recounts of history in such a way places their perspectives in an ahistorical category. When an entire community’s perspective on events (past and present) are considered ahistorical, this means the community will be taken as less than human, as well as stuck in a cultural timebox.

Examining other blogs in this course, I have noticed an overlapping theme of redefining home based on one’s location. Or perhaps when one has a coming of age, and then the ability to move to a centre that more closely matches a person’s values and could feel more like home.

Building off of this, there is a distinction that Laryssa Legan makes about how one’s roots can differ from the place they call home. Focusing on the importance of place and cultural values, Laryssa feels that Kelowna provides a different sense of home as it is where she is choosing to make her adult life. I can relate to having multiple homes (and also my grandparents home in the North Okanagan in Armstrong) being my original, most perfect, ‘nostalgic’ home.

Family Home

I can also relate to having a binary to my identity, similar to Senae. Though both of my parents are Canadian, I spent half of my childhood (and adolescence) in the United States. Defining my identity as Canadian never crossed my mind until living in the US – where my peers had assumptions about life in Canada (we all live in igloos right?) – and in a way that was isolating to an extent, I was branded as the ‘Canadian’. Friends assumed I came from a people of pasty, pale skin (which negates a large portion of the diversity in Canada), who are polite, bilingual in French and English, and everyone has access to great health care (which is not always true).

As a child when one is relocated there is little choice in home. Rebuilding connections and establishing meaning is the only choice for creating comfort in where a person lives.

Eating on a Board of Wood – Imagine balancing it with your legs

“The dining table was a plain board called by that name. It was hung on the wall when not in use, and was perched on the diners’ knees when food was served. Over time, the wood board came to signify not just the dining surface but the meal itself, which is where the board comes from in room and board. It also explains why lodgers are called boarders.”

-Bill Bryson, At Home: A Short History of Private Life

Home as we know it today in North America has had a relatively short history. As the travel writer Bryson goes into detail in his book, At Home: A Short History of Private Life, the Victorians first came up with the thought of the private home. One with separate living quarters for its occupants, a bath, a kitchen, and an eating space. Perhaps even a garden out the front or back. A home with locked doors, only the occupants could have full access. 

Those without a home are considered lacking, ‘homeless’ being the exact though not the most intuitive word. It carries significant connotation, often being associated with vagrancy, filth and even mental unfitness or laziness (by the more conservative folk). The term ‘boarders’ has taken on new meaning, usually referring to people on holiday or students studying away from home. With the invention of Airbnb it often means temporary dwellers who are paying for their stay in a standard way (Lee 230). At one point, boarding was a hospitality service, where people paid for the services by exchanging through helping with work around the house so they could have a roof over their head for the night.

We live in a society with locked doors. Where we only open them up to people we know (sometimes), and only let strangers in to stay if the financial means and fortune of having a credit card with good credit history.

Why the context for this particular history of the home? There are many definitions for having a sense of home, or how one defines a dwelling space (arguably one can have a ‘home’ without having an actual space, it could be a feeling of comfort and security). Such diversity in meaning leads me to my own anecdote on living spaces, one based on affordability and security.

As I’ve hinted at in previous posts, I am a western transplant to the province of Ontario. Though I came to this province for different reasons, one of the reasons I have settled in Hamilton, ON is due to the cost of living. Though the GTA is beginning to have an effect on the local housing and rental market upward mobility for someone with limited connections is a lot more possible in this city than in Vancouver .

Accessibility is important to me in a city. Hamilton is currently in the midst of a gentrification process because of the Toronto influence, and it is interesting to see local NGO’s or small businesses fight to keep the diversity that makes this working class city so special. As a soon to be Yuccie, I am likely a part of this gentrification process as much as I would not like to be.

As Chamberlin noted in If this is Your Land, Where are Your Stories?, my life has been a series of displacements, which in turn has displaced other people. Seizing opportunity is one perspective of the events, a buyout of a Canadian company my father worked for in interior BC, which led to our family moving to the United States. Financial restraints to attend university in the US led me to return to Canada for postsecondary education (conversely it is also financial opportunity and physical ability to live on my own in a city separate from my family). An experience of gendered violence displaced me again, to move from Vancouver to Ontario.

I have had the fortune of being able to establish new homes in different geographical areas despite various life events that have been the cause of the displacement. Perhaps that is the most succinct definition I can muster for affordability of the home – it is not always a financial one – but a home is a place  of security and sanctuary that a person can recreate despite displacement.

Works Cited: 

Bryson, Bill. At Home. New York: Doubleday, 2010. Print.

Buzz, Vancity and Lauren Sundstrom. “A Generation Of Young People May Leave Vancouver Because They Can’t Afford To Stay: Poll”. Vancity Buzz. N.p., 2016. Web.

Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?. Cleveland, Ohio: Pilgrim Press, 2004. Print.

“Hamilton Housing Prices See Biggest Jump In Canada”. Thespec.com. N.p., 2015. Web.

Lee, Dayne. “How Airbnb Short-Term Rentals Exacerbate Los Angeles’s Affordable Housing Crisis: Analysis And Policy Recommendations”. Harvard Law and Policy Review 10.1 (2016): 229-235. Print.

Tuttle, Brad. “The Yuccie And 2 Dozen Other Ways To Categorize Millennials”. MONEY.com. N.p., 2015. Web.

I have a great story to tell you. A medical story. Sure, boo. Patients voices can be shrouded, particularly when clarity of thought may not be present. This is not to target any particular physician, but merely react to a situation in my own life, and share how dishonouring a person’s journey (health or otherwise) can become common practice quite easily, and lead to a sort of evil.

What is it like to have your thoughts all muddled that you lose your own perspective? Most individuals have experienced this occasionally – a blood rush when standing up too quickly, seeings stars. This temporary detachment from your body where you barely feel alive and can feel yourself breathing. Lasts only a second.

Some people experience this on a daily basis, and it is quite constant in nature. Technical words such a hypovolemia, neurocardiogenic syncope, tachycardia are tossed around, but this does not illustrate the sheer terror an individual feels when these events occur. Or when a physician explains that they do not know why a person’s neurological workings are not regulating blood pressure and heart rate in a way that most people take for granted (*cough cough, biological theory on homeostasis).

“I can make anyone faint. Your medication is working, you’re not fainting all over the place. Plop, plop, plop. Stop being so pessimistic.”

As pessimism causes illness, fatigue, and fainting, so one should not feel emotions. Yes, let’s encourage people to ignore negative emotions when they are struggling on a daily basis for basic clarity of thought. What am I writing about again? (I kid).

Insert feminist discussion on fainting and its roots in hysteria. Perhaps more interesting is how originally dysautonomia was known as neurasthenia (imbalance of the autonomic nervous system), then got downgraded at the turn of the 20th century to be known as hysteria (also around the time of twilight sleep) and only at the turn of another century (the 21st), is dysautonomia recognised as an illness that effects 1 in 100 people.

How do we speak for those who lose their train of thought? When the good days are up and down, or the minutes of the day are so topsy turvy? Is there a way to properly advocate for oneself under these circumstances in a medical environment that is so quick to jump to blaming the ‘patient’ for their lifestyle, as the medical reasonings are not yet founded to explain the physiological process that is occurring? How do we work with the layers of a complicated process such as the human body, when we don’t know the whole story of how each individual operates? When we fail to listen to the voices of those we should honour while we try to aid them?

Maybe it is turtles all the way down.

I’ve reiterated this story to family members and my partner. With each telling, the tears and rage come through in different ways. One thing I find is that forgiveness for myself and medical professionals increases with each telling.

Here is a fainting goat for your viewing pleasure:

Works Cited: 

Farmer, A. et al. “Neuraesthenia Revisited: ICD-10 And DSM-III-R Psychiatric Syndromes In Chronic Fatigue Patients And Comparison Subjects”. The British Journal of Psychiatry 167.4 (1995): 503-506. Web.

MIT + K12,. Homeostasis. 2013. Web.

The Goat Guide,. Fainting Goat. 2015. Web.

“Twilight Sleep & Childbirth And Feminism”. Tiny Cat Pants. N.p., 2007. Web.

The menial aspects of the day to day and the rituals we perform without a second thought form the basis of great life decisions. Chamberlin notes how table manners can differ across cultural boundaries, and when one ascribes to a certain social group they have to adhere to their groups rules, which in turn promotes ‘othering’ (Chamberlin 235). This ‘othering’ has a trickle down effect influencing our social circles, how we act in response to differences, and could eventually lead to conflict and disbelief in the ‘others’ storyline or perspective

However, human memory is short and the values we ascribe to certain knowledge today are foreign to those we identified with just over a hundred year ago. These photos are excerpted from a book on sexual health published in the late 19th century that alludes to the human physiology being much like the reproductive process of plants (Kellogg 23). God is referenced in this passage as well, further emphasizing our use of stories in western society (just as in all other cultures) to explain the day to day.

There is a fault in this analysis. Endless divides exist as we are all individuals. Intersectionality proclaims that we are a part of many social groups, some which contradict each other. It is perhaps this that both avoids and contributes to conflict, particularly when a person wishes to please the masses.

When names are not used properly, language will not be used effectively; when language is not used effectively, matters will not be taken care of; when matters are not taken care of, the observance of ritual propriety and the playing of music do not flourish; when ritual propriety and the playing of music do not flourish, the application of laws and punishments is not on the mark; when the application of laws and punishments is not on the mark, the people will not know what to do with themselves. – Confucius in The Analects, from If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?

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Devastating life events such as war, famine or displacement and homelessness can be attributed to misunderstanding ceremonies, and not seeing a duality of beliefs according to Chamberlin (Chamberlin 229). The Gitskan, as noted in the story about the land claims surrounding the grizzly-earthquake, are an exception, where they believe both storylines. Some may claim that this is because of a financial gain on their part, but I would like to believe that one could respect both trains of thought associated with an event that happened 7,000 years ago. However, these are examples of grand life events. The large blow that leads to a revolution, or destroys a civilization. What about daily conventions?

I found the quote from Confucius to be very applicable to a recent disagreement with my partner. We are making arrangements for our wedding next Spring. Looking at venues I tend to focus on the functionality of a space and he focuses more on the aesthetic value. We both wish for our families and friends to come together next spring and feel comfortable, well fed and hopefully enjoying the festivities of our wedding day. The wedding is a grand event, filled with ceremony and tradition. My partner and I do not ascribe to some of the traditional aspects that originate from the Christian sanctity of marriage, though bits and pieces have seeped through our psyches from families, and these dialogues are deeply engrained in us. Honouring certain traditions will help make our families more comfortable, and to us, there is value in establishing those ties at our ceremony and the events leading up to bringing our families together. Ultimately, having a comfortable space for the ceremony to take place will be both functional and aesthetically pleasing. Otherwise the people will not know what to do with themselves.

References

Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?. Chapter 11: Ceremonies. Cleveland, Ohio: Pilgrim Press, 2004. Print.

Kellogg, John Harvey. Plain Facts For Old And Young. Charlottesville, Va.: University of Virginia Library, 1889. Print.

Why post a photo of a bicycle on a wall? This blog is intended to be a medium for Canadian literature and cultural analysis. I figure the best way to start is with a personal anecdote.

I moved into my new apartment two weeks ago. It is slightly under 200 square feet. Significantly more spacious than the Vancouver dwellings I remember, but for Hamilton ON it is a tiny hobbit hole. Perhaps other areas have varying schemes of what is normal.

The westcoaster at heart could not give up the bicycle, so I lived with it on the floor for two weeks, doing tasks such as cooking, studying and working in and amongst the bike. I’ve been trying to figure out how to fix a bike rack onto the wall by using wooden dowels. Though my father was a heavy duty mechanic and I’m originally from interior BC from a working class background, my mechanical knowledge beyond bicycles is severely limited. I played witness to a host of home and automotive projects since a young age, but I was never really taught the mechanics.

The dowel bike rack operation did not work how I was attempting to do it. I went to the hardware store a few times, but I was too cheap to buy a studfinder and I never mastered the trick of tapping the walls for the solid portions. I also found that using the back of a drill as a mallet is not effective for putting in drywall anchors, even when you predrill. So I went for the functional, though less attractive garage wallmount.

Why share this? Is there a connection to Canadian literature?

Communities shape our experiences. What opportunities to learn or what we value is as much shaped by the skills we learn to value growing up, as it is the centres that the educated youth choose to move to and work in. My roots are in rural BC, my decisions root in logic that is shaped by the abstract web of sciences and arts. I live in a city, though Hamilton is working class in its history.

Within this course I look forward to exploring the intersectionality between class, geography, and economic opportunities for growth in Canadian society. A great deal of this course focuses on colonialism and postcolonial perspectives of the previously colonized. I look forward to hearing the voices that are often muted and distorted by the majority.

As for myself, I am finishing my fourth year at UBC in the interdisciplinary studies program. My expected graduation is this December.

I have a program focus of social and environmental determinants of health, with the majority of my courses in the social sciences and sciences. Primarily I focus on the impact of geography and resources on a persons well being, as well as the interplay between the health of the environment and the health of humans. With this, I leave you with a link to a thesis on phytoremediation, a process that involves using plants to clean toxic soil in urban centres.

References:

Parkinson, Kendra. Bicycle On The Wall. 2016. Print.

Todd, Leila. “Phytoremediation: An Interim Landscape Architecture Strategy For Canadian Municipalities”. Masters. Guelph, 2013. Print.