Assignment:
Write a blog that hyper-links your research on the characters in GGRW according to the pages assigned to you. Be sure to make use of Jane Flick’s reference guide on your reading list.
My response:
I was assigned pages 114-130, which opens with Eli arriving at his mother’s place and meeting Clifford Sifton. My assigned pages also cover the history of Charlie and Alberta’s relationship, Lionel and Norma picking up the Old Indians on the side of the road, and Bill Bursom setting up The Map in his store.
The first section of my assigned pages covers Eli’s introduction to Sifton. Given that Sifton is named for Clifford Sifton, a federal minister and knight who promoted immigration to Western Canada, thus displacing the natives, it is no surprise that Eli’s initial gut feeling towards Sifton is of dislike.
Eli seems to be named for Elijah Harper, “who blocked the Meech Lake Constitutional Accord in 1990 by being a standout vote in the Manitoba legislature” (Flick 150) and “voted against a debate that did not allow full consultation with the First Nations and that recognized only the English and the French as founding nations” (Flick 150) and for Pete Standing Alone, a Blood Elder and subject of a trilogy of documentaries, who took a “50 year journey from cultural alienation to pride and belonging” (Pete Standing Alone Trilogy). Given Eli’s alienation from his culture in Toronto and later stand against the Grand Baleen Dam, both these fit.
The Grand Baleen Dam is named for the Grande Baleine or Great Whale River Project in James Bay which destroyed traditional Cree hunting territories (Flick 150-151). It is also reminiscent of the Oldman River Dam, which was constructed on Peigan land without consultation with the Peigan people and is located near the fictional town of Blossom (Flick 151). The Grand Baleen Dam is, of course, reminiscent of numerous industrial projects that the government and corporations have pushed through without proper consultation with First Nations peoples.
The next section I was assigned, from pages 115 to 120, covers Charlie’s contemplation of his relationship with Alberta. While Alberta may have been named for the province which King lived in for many years, her full name – Alberta Frank – is reminiscent of Frank, Alberta, the site of “Canada’s deadliest rock slide” – according to the Huffington Post – where “82 million tonnes of rock fell from the summit of Turtle Mountain into the Crowsnest River valley below. The slide lasted a mere 90 seconds but in that short time at least 90 people were killed and the southeastern corner of the coal mining town of Frank, Alta., disappeared” (Graveland). 1903, the year of the disaster, is one of the dates Dr. Hovaugh tracks (Flick 144). While the disaster certainly fits with King’s environmental concerns, I am not sure what the disaster has to do with Alberta herself. Does King mean to suggest that she is a disaster? Or that she risks becoming the site of one?
Charlie represents the token Native whom Western corporations employ to fight against his own people. Charlie is not ready to accept his cultural identity and represents the view that, once taken, an action cannot be undone. Charlie firmly believes that the dam cannot be stopped now that construction has started (King 118). He is representative of western progress and linearity.
On page 117, it is noted that the media made the project appear to benefit the Natives – financially – and that someone suggested they rename the dam the Grand Goose or Golden Goose. The only reference I can find to the Grand Goose is an alcoholic drink (perhaps suggesting that any joy brought by the dam will be short-lived and followed by negative consequences?); however, the Golden Goose is a reference to an old European folktale, recorded by the Grimm brothers. The tale tells of a young man who helps an old man whom the young man’s brothers refused to help and who is rewarded with a golden goose. While the goose brings him much prosperity, eventually leading to his marriage to a princess, it could be argued that the goose does nothing but cause trouble. The goose is overly attractive, causing a number of characters to attempt to steal a feather from it; however, as soon as their hands touch it, they become stuck, unable to let go. The group is forced to follow the young man around the country. As for the young man’s prosperity, it is not so much the goose but the old man that brings it to him. As such, the Golden Goose would be a fitting name for the Grand Baleen Dam which seems to promise prosperity but will only bring trouble for those foolish enough to reach for it.
The next section I covered, from pages 121 to 125, covers Norma and Lionel picking up the four Old Indians on the side of the road and their conversation en route to Blossom. This passage alone is full of references, from the literary references to the Lone Ranger, Ishmael, Robinson Crusoe, and Hawkeye, to the trickster reference to Coyote.
While the Old Indians are named for western characters, they come very much from a native tradition. Their journey to “fix up the world” (King 123) should immediately alert the reader to trickster business and it is evident that the four Old Indians, like Coyote, have set out to save the world. The question is whether or not they’re able to successfully do so and we are reminded, when the Lone Ranger says that “we made this mess and we got to clean it up” (King 125), that they – unlike Western heroes – have made mistakes in the past. Amongst other things, the trickster acts as teacher for children and this line is a didactic warning.
While the Old Indians come from a native tradition, their names are borrowed from Western narratives, a reversal of the typical Native character in White writing. The Lone Ranger is the hero of a number of western novels as well as TV shows and movies. He represents the myth that a single man could save a town (Flick 141) and is parodied by King’s Lone Ranger, who says that fixing Blossom is too big a job for the four of them (King 123).
Ishmael is a Biblical name and the name of Herman Melville’s protagonist in Moby Dick. At the end of the novel, Ishmael survives a shipwreck by floating on the coffin of his dead Indigenous friend, much as White Canada and United States have survived on the exploitation and genocide of those indigenous to the land.
Robinson Crusoe is the protagonist of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, the account of a man marooned on an island with his mute, Indigenous friend, Friday. Friday is depicted as a savage, rescued by Crusoe and converted to Christianity (Flick 142), but King’s appropriation of Crusoe makes us question who the savage really is.
Hawkeye is the name of a stock Native character in a number of western movies and TV shows. The name is also used by a white woodsman with “knowledge of Indian ways” (Flick 141-142).
Each of these characters is accompanied by a token Native friend who has left behind his own culture for the “superior” culture of the colonizers. These stories paint Native cultures in a negative light, often calling them cannibalistic and savage, and leave Western readers with a warped view of Indigenous peoples. These stories are dangerous as they reinforce the demand for colonization and assimilation. By appropriating Western characters from such tales into his novel, King shows them to be unfair, single stories that only represent one point of view. From King’s perspective, these characters are at least as ridiculous as their native friends in the stories they come from.
The last reference of importance in this section comes right at the beginning, when Lionel steps out of the car and gets his shoe wet. While he does not yet realize it, this is the beginning of a cleansing process, which will be completed when he is soaked by a sudden rainfall whilst walking to work. At this point in time, however, Lionel is not ready to accept his cultural identity and attempts to dry his shoes. This is a reference to the cleansing power of water in many Native cultures, which King plays with throughout the novel.
The last section of the novel I have been assigned is pages 126-129, in which Buffalo Bill Bursum sets up the map in his store. Buffalo Bill is a play on Holm O. Bursum, a senator who proposed the Bursum Bill, aiming to “divest Pueblos of a large portion of their lands and to give land title and water rights to non-Indians” (Flick 148), and Buffalo Bill who exploited Indians for entertainment in Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show (Flick 148).
The map, of course, represents the colonial power and explorers who came to the Americas to map out the land. They could recognize a location on the map, but had no knowledge of its local fauna, flora, food sources or dangers. Mapping is an abstraction which was brought to the Americas by colonizers who used it to further their claims over land they had no knowledge of. As such, the map is a dangerous colonial tool.
While there are numerous other references I could touch on, I have already surprised the 1000 word limit, so will stop here. These 15 pages, like the rest of King’s novel, are rich with allusions, both to Western and Native culture(s), which interweave to create a complex text which writes back to colonial works and mindsets.
© 2015 Heather Josephine Pue
Works Cited:
Flick, Jane. « Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water. » Canadian Literature 161/162 (1999): 140-172. Google. Web. 15 Mar. 2015.
Graveland, Bill. « Frank Slide, Alberta’s Deadliest Rock Slide, Impresses Visitors To Crowsnest Pass (PHOTOS). » The Huffington Post Canada 11 May 2012. Web. 16 Mar. 2015.
Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. “The Golden Goose.” The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales. New York: Pantheon Books, 1944. 322-326. Print.
Hall, David J.. « Sir Clifford Sifton. » The Canadian Encylopedia. Historica Canada, 2015. Web. 15 Mar. 2015.
King, Thomas. Green Grass, Running Water. Toronto: Harper Perennial, 1993. Print.
Pete Standing Alone Trilogy. National Film Board of Canada. Canada. Government of Canada. 15 Mar. 2015.
Sismondo, Christine. « The Grand Goose. » The Globe and Mail 4 Sept. 2014. Web. 15 Mar. 2015.