My favourite tea mug along side Indigenous author Louis Erdrich’s book, “Tracks”, which I highly recommend if you haven’t read it already. This story is an excellent one that deals with the loss of heritage and land through the eyes of fictional Ojibwe peoples.
Greetings and salutations! Welcome to my first ever blog, which is bound to be a rich source of my inner mind as I navigate through English 372 99C.
A little about me: I’m an English Literature major with a minor in Medieval Studies. My pathway at UBC has been an interesting one to say the least. With the mix of my major and minor, I have elicited the opportunity to take a lot of courses studying cultures around the world through their history as well as their literature. Funny enough, I didn’t think to look into my own backyard until my final year as an Undergrad. This is my second course that has a focus on Indigenous literature, and my first that focuses mainly on Canadian literature.
I have been introduced to Thomas King previously through his non-fictive book titled The Inconvenient Indian. While my previous professor, Dr. Dory Nason, only had us read the first few chapters, my impression of King’s book is that it is a good resource to understand the history of Indigenous people within North America. Though like any history book, the book itself has its strong points and its weak points; part of the reason why Dr. Nason had us read other Indigenous writers on Indigenous women.
Beyond that of written literature, Alanis Obomsawin, and Indigenous documentarian, has some interesting short films and documentaries on the Nation Film Board of Canada website (found here: NFB). Obomsawin was another source I was introduced to through my previous Indigenous literature studies course. While I have not watched all of Obomsawin’s work, the few that I have were really enlightening. In particular her documentary titled Hi Ho Mistahey! is an excellent piece documenting the troubles of schooling on Indigenous reserves and the fight for funding started by the late Shannen Koostachin.
Based on my previous exploits into Indigenous literature, I have some ideas as to what to expect for ENGL 372. However, I recognize that this course is taking a different approach. Where my previous experience delved more into the non-fictive literature – there was some fiction such as Louis Erdrich’s Tracks, another highly recommended text – I expect this course to deal more with the fictive stories written by Canadian Indigenous authors.
The fun thing about literature is that you never know how a story is going to affect you until you’ve read it. You never know what ideas will stem from one sentence that will lead you down the research rabbit hole. So, join me by grabbing your steaming cup of tea and let’s dive in!
Works Cited
“The Inconvenient Indian.” CBC.ca. CBC Books, 2017. https://www.cbc.ca/books/the-inconvenient-indian-1.3972080. Accessed 16 January 2021.
“Alanis Obosawin.” NFB.ca. Directors, 2021. https://www.nfb.ca/directors/alanis-obomsawin/ Accessed 16 January 2021.
Hello Cayla,
Thank you for a lovely introduction to your interests in literatures in general and your background in Indigenous literatures, you have a wonderfully rich background. I look forward to working our way through this course together and hope you will enjoy the challenges ahead.
I look forward to what I may add to my knowledge through this class! I have always been interested in Indigenous storytelling — or really any culture’s storytelling. Typically my interests stem from creation myths which I find can be very enlightening towards learning about a people and how they developed to be what they are today.
Hello Cayla, it is wonderful to meet you!
I am intrigued by your major and minor! I have always loved Medieval history, and focused a lot of my art history studies on Anglo-Saxon and Romanesque.
During my teacher education program I also read ‘The Inconvenient Indian’. I found it to be beautifully written, and a wonderful look at an alternative perspective of Canadian/American colonial legacy. I am interested to know the titles of the other works Dr. Nason introduced to your class, if you would be able to share them!
What really drew me into your post was your statement “the fun thing about literature is that you never know how a story is going to affect you until you’ve read it. You never know what ideas will stem from one sentence that will lead you down the research rabbit hole”. It reminded me of a quote from Star Trek: The Next Generation: “that’s the thing about crayons; they can take you more places than any starship”. I always loved jumping into a novel, and getting away from my own surroundings. It was especially thrilling when it was a random find at a thrift store with only the cover to go by (I know people say you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover, but I do, and I have not been disappointed yet!) I am eager to see where the texts in 372 will take us, with all of the new voices we will have the chance to hear.
Like Dr. Paterson, I am also looking forward to learning along with you this term, and the many resources you bring with you! I hope you have had a lovely cup of tea today 🙂
Hi Samantha!
Thank you for your comment. I wanted to list a few more readings (as you requested) selected by Dr. Nason that I think would be excellent additional readings for anyone who has the time. I mentioned that we read Louis Erdrich’s Tracks but also an excerpt from a later novel of the same series titled Four Souls. Both novels are part of Erdrich’s larger series that follows the same fictional Ojibwe reservation, telling the stories of the peoples struggles with Colonization and the changing systems the American Government adopted in order to steal the land out from under them (i.e. taxation systems, money grants for giving up sections of lands, etc.).
Another great read was Leanne Simpson’s Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back which has Simpson recounting traditional Nishnaabeg recreation myths (as she calls them; very similar to creation mythology). We only read an excerpt from the book, but I recommend checking it out as the first chapter has some powerful imagery about the resistance against the loss of Traditional Nishnaabeg (and Indigenous in general) culture.
For the fictive side of the class, we read This Accident of Being Lost, also by Leanne Simpson, which is a collection of short stories and poems from an Indigenous perspective. I found them to be very powerful. We were going to read Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson, but Dr. Nason was intrigued by the idea of watching the newly released CBC adaptation of the Novel. It was refreshing to digest literature in a different form, and I really enjoyed the show. I hope that I will have time to go back and read the novel series written by Robinson soon.
Thank you so much for these! I took a look at them, and they would be a great way to incorporate First Peoples lit into the secondary room. I am eager to add them to my own reading list!
Hi Cayla!
It is very nice to know that there are other students in this class who also took ENGL 373 last semester in which we can connect the texts we learn in this course to those studied from Dr. Nason. I also think that you and I come into this course with similar expectations because I also have not spent a lot of time learning about the literature that is produced here in Canada. However, I have spent the past 3 years now learning about the literature and history of other culture’s literature. I think ENGL 373 gave us a a taste though of what types of literature and perspectives we will learn about through the semester.
Your last point about not knowing how a story affects us until until we read it really “hit the nail on the head” for me as well. Although this is a film I am talking about I remember after watching Hi Ho Mistahey, it really opened up my eyes about how different communities across Canada receive different qualities of education which should not be the case. I wasn’t too familiar with the different types of resource struggles Indigenous communities faced today but after watching that film it really changed my perspective on how we should allocate that resource to these small communities. I hope we can dive into these topics more through a literary lens in the course about how these small Indigenous communities across Canada are treated compared to our metropolitan communities.
Look forward to working with you this semester!