Exploring Canadian Literature

In Thomas King’s “Green Grass Running Water,” a number of characters have names that are references to other things. Almost right at the beginning of the novel this occurs with characters such as Alberta Frank, Henry Dawes, John Collier, Mary Rowlandson, Hannah Duston, Elaine Goodale, Helen Mooney. All of those characters are introduced between the page 16 and 21.  This blog post will examine the meanings behind the names of those characters with help from some hyperlinks, and Jane Flick’s, “Reading Notes For Green Grass Running Water.” I chose these pages because of the large amounts of references in them. Eight pages with eleven character references seems sufficient for this assignment.

Alberta Frank: According to Jane Flick’s, “Reading Notes For Green Grass Running Water,” Alberta Frank is a character who embodies the fondness that Thomas King has for the Canadian province of Alberta, since he lived there from 1980-1990. She also says that it was the disaster sight of The Frank Slide. The slide is similar to Alberta Frank’s life in that she feels like she overwhelmed and that her life could come crashing down at any moment. To tie the ideas together, the idea of “crashing down at any minute” is why Frank, Alberta never thrived as a town despite having a large hotel, sanitarium, a zoo, and originally a zinc mine.

Henry Dawes: In GGRW this character is asleep during much of Alberta Frank’s lecture about how Indigenous peoples were forced onto reserves and that seems to fit his historical character perfectly. The real Henry Dawes was completely apathetic to indigenous rights and was the man who created the Dawes Act of 1887 which put Indigenous peoples into reserves. This act was not only cruel because it took indigenous people’s land, but also because the small pieces of land that got passed down to the next generation could not be farmed because the act was made at the same time that residential schools came into place, and that generation was never taught farming. With all of this is can be said that the character Henry Dawes, and the real person Henry Dawes are ignorant of the plight that Indigenous peoples have facing in during colonization, confederation, and post confederation.

John Collier: A good listener in Alberta Frank’s class, this character is the modern student version of  a real man who reversed Dawes’s assimilation policies, organized the American Indian Defense Association to fight the Bursum Bill and was responsible for Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, according to Jane Flick’s, “Reading Notes For Green Grass Running Water.” The real John Collier believed that the general allotments of Indian reservation land was a complete failure that led to the increasing loss of Indian land. That is probably why the character Collier was so focused on Alberta Frank’s lecture – one tends to focus more on topics that they believe in.

Mary Rowlandson: This character is read to be talking to Elaine Goodale during class. According to Jane Flicks, “Reading Notes For Green Grass Running Water,” Mary Rowlandson was an held captive during King Philip’s War. Eventually she authored an ‘anti-Indian narrative’, “The Sovereignty and Goodness of God Together with the Faithfulness of His Promise Displayed: Being, a Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. After reading some of this narrative, it was heavily steeped in Christian meaning. Rowlandson steadily interjects meaning into her work about “The Lord” or about “The Bible.”

Hannah Duston: Was basically in John Collier’s lap during Alberta Frank’s class. This does not actually makes sense historically as the real Hannah Duston brutally killed multiple indigenous people and her actions were less political and more brutal. She scalped people, including children in revenge for the death of her baby, according to Jane Flick’s, “Reading Notes For Green Grass Running Water.” I would have placed Henry Dawes and this women together. I wonder what Thomas Kings intentions were with this character.

Elaine Goodale: This Indigenous reformer is characterized to be in a discussion with Mary Rowlandson. This character’s biography made me rather confused of the pairings of characters in this part of the story since yet again an Indigenous reformer is paired with someone who is rather anti-indigenous.  I’m wondering if there is some sort of inside joke that readers need to figure out about the placement of characters like Goodale.

Helen Mooney: This historical figure is characterized as the typical class keener, and is seemingly the only one writing down notes in class from Alberta Frank’s Lecture. The real Mooney was an Indigenous reformer and first wave feminist.  Perhaps Mooney is characterized in such a way in Green Grass running water because the real Mooney was also a teacher, like Alberta Franks character and Thomas king himself. After all those who value education tend to spend more attention at it.

As you have read, the characters above are listening to Alberta Frank lecture about how some Indigenous peoples were forced onto reservations while others were imprisoned in Fort Marion. All of characters are students while the real life people that they depict were either Indigenous reformers or anti-indigenous reformers. As stated above I’m not sure what the inside joke is about putting those kinds of characters together in a class room. Classrooms are usually diverse places, but not usually so divided – at least in my experience.

Works Cited:

“Biography – MOONEY, HELEN LETITIA (McCLUNG) – Volume XVIII (1951-1960) – Dictionary of Canadian Biography.” Home – Dictionary of Canadian Biography. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2016.

“Dawes Act.” N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2016.

“Elaine Goodale Eastman.” Only a Teacher: Schoolhouse Pioneers. PBS, n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2016.

“Frank Slide – The Mountain That Walks – Mysteries of Canada.” Canada History and Mysteries. Mysteries of Canada, 2016. Web. 19 Nov. 2016.

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Canadian Literature 161-162 (1999): 140-172. Web. 19 Nov. 2016.

“Hannah Duston Massacre Site Statue, Penacook, New Hampshire.” RoadsideAmerica.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2016.

“John Collier (Reformer)”. Project Gutenberg. World Heritage Encyclopedia. Web. 19 Nov. 2016.

Rowlandson, Mary. “Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary …”  Project Gutenberg Canada, 2009 Nov. 3. Web. 19 Nov. 2016.

Before I type this assignment let me apologize for its lateness. I’ve been ill with a chest infection and the unfortunate symptoms that go with it for the past week or so, and I’m only well enough now to begin typing again. It is a good thing that my symptoms do not show up in writing, or there would be coughs and sniffles all through my work.

When the names ‘Polly Hantos’, ‘Dr. Joseph Hovaugh’, ‘Louis, Ray and Al” are used in Thomas King’s written work, “Green Grass Running Water,” the reader must read such names out loud to understand their full meaning. King playfully changes names of biblical and historical figures to get his readers to look further into his writing and to understand his humor. Phonemes are whimsically used to recreate the names, but they are also used to deconstruct the understanding in the reader that written language is more complex than spoken language. It puts spoken language on equal grounds to written language since phonemes are effectively used in both forms of communication and in doing so lessens the boundaries between those two forms of communication.

The name Polly Hantos when read aloud sounds like Pocahontas. King adds this name into his book as part of a joke. On page 182, it is found among such other names as Sally Jo Weya, Frankie Drake, Sammy Hearne and Johnny Cabot. The names are westernized and the joke on the page is that they all work in the background of Hollywood films as extras and get typecast in the same roles again and again. This is unfortunately true of history as it is written in books (such as those that I read for high school social studies in the early 2000’s), that ‘explorers’ and ‘indians’ are typecast. We know from this course that there are however many sides of history and ‘explorers’ were also colonizers and that ‘indians’ are not the people who are mentioned in history books, but living breathing communities of people living among us who took their land and resources.

The name Dr. Joseph Hovaugh is a reference to Jehovah, which is the name of the Christian God, and to Joseph, who fathers Jesus, despite not being his legitimate father, according to The Bible. The passage where Dr. Hovaugh makes his first appearance is on page 16. He is sitting looking at something that sounds close to the garden of eden. Then a woman named Mary (‘coincidentally’ named the same as the mother of Jesus in the Bible) walks into Dr. Hovaugh’s office and  talks about the ‘Old Indians’ who disappeared from his hospital. In a later passage, on page 94 he talks with a policeman about just how old the missing Indians are, and frankly he does not know. The running joke in the passages with Dr. Hovaugh show that colonialism and Christianity go hand in hand and also that the garden of eden is not the beautiful  place that it once was (thus, colonialism and Christianity are dying and old. )

Louis, Ray, and Al show up on page 335. I knew the first part of the joke because when the names are said out loud they sound like Louis Riel, a Metis Leader who tried to start a founding Metis nation among English and French nations during Canadian confederation. That the men were fishing in Manitoba helped make the joke more understandable. The part of the joke that I did not get was brought to light for me by Margery Fee’s and Jane Flick’s, “Coyote Pedagogy Knowing Where the Borders Are in Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water,” where it is pointed out that the names could be an allusion to Canadian modernist poets Louis Dudek, Ray Souster, Al Purdy.

There are plenty of other allusions that King makes throughout his book, and it seems like the more times that I read it, the more of King’s jokes I understand. This is my sixth read so far since I’ve read it in other courses throughout the last few years. I’m glad that King uses his jokes in such a way as to connect them to the language that they are read/spoken in and to make a point that orality is just as complex as the written word. Perhaps when I write my book, I’ll have to make a point like that.

Works Cited:

“Cheeky Phonemes,” Recipes for the EFL Classroom. Web. November 11/2016. https://eflrecipes.com/2015/10/24/phonemes/

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water.” Canadian Literature 161-162. (1999). Web. November 11/2016.

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

“The Fate of Louis Riel” Le Canada. CBC Learning (2001). Web. November 11/2016.  http://www.cbc.ca/history/EPISCONTENTSE1EP10CH4PA4LE.html.

Before I start today’s blog, I’m going to hyperlink one of my favorite graphic novels of all time, “Louis Riel: A Comic Strip Biography” by Chester Brown. I’m a visual learner and years ago when I first learned about Louis Riel, this comic let me see that there is more than one side to Canadian history. Hint-Hint: There is an evil depiction of John A MacDonald from the shadows that surround him to the things that he says.

When Louis Riel and his Metis led government of Manitoba attempted to negotiate directly with the new government of the confederation of Canada to establish their territories as a province under their leadership after the Red River Rebellion, the Metis did not get the land rights that they desired, and eventually Riel ended up being hung for treason in the aftermath the North-West Rebellion.

The reason that the Metis did not get the land rights that they desired according to the Canlitguide’s article assigned for this week is that “Canada at the time was not willing to accommodate more than two founding nations.”

Firstly, Canada was reluctant even for the second nation that it held as a founding nation. According to those who had power in Canada at the time: British, Protestant, Caucasian Males, the ideal future of Canada was Caucasian, Protestant, descendants of Brits. The reason why the French were kept on in Canada was mostly for their population density, as Roman Catholics tended to have many children. The proof in this last statement was in that loyalism was more colonial than national at the time. French Canadians are still largely separated from English Canadians to this day. It was not until Pierre Trudeau launched multiculturalism as a ploy to enact bilingualism that that French Canadians started thinking of themselves as not so separate from the rest of Canada.

If it took that long for the French, who were as Caucasian as the British, to be accepted into Canada, Louis Riel had little chance of creating a third founding Metis nation. After confederation, the future outlook of Canada saw Indigenous peoples, which somehow included the the Metis in the minds of Canada’s first Government lead by John A MacDonald,  as a trading partners to make money from rather than allies in the future of Canada or as peoples to be assimilated in residential schools. Residential schools were already taking away the identities of Indigenous youth then years before the Red River Rebellion and Louis Riel’s provisional government.

Thus for racial, cultural, and political reasons it was incredibly unlikely the Louis Riel’s Metis Government would get to represent a third founding nation.

Works Cited:

“A Timeline of Residential Schools, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.” CBCnews. CBC/Radio Canada, 16 May 2008. Web. 28 Oct. 2016

“Louis Riel.” Drawn & Quarterly. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2016.

In Susanna Moodie’s introduction to “Roughing It In The Bush” she talks of the hard life that some of the first colonial population of Canada had and how in forty years, at least the eastern part of Canada transformed into a place somewhat more like Europe in that cities were built, more resources were available, and European colonial culture had become highly dominant. She describes Canada in many different ways and alludes to Canada as a second Garden of Eden, an empty/wasted land, the noble but vanishing Indian, and the magical map. Below are examples of those allusions, minus he “Magical Map” allusion, which I could not find.

Garden of Eden:

Mudi speaks of the Canada that she lives in as somewhat of an untapped second Garden of Eden, and she most likely understands what she is writing, as she writes about churches in Canada at on page seven (Moodie, 7). She also alludes to advertisements of the riches to be made in Canada on the same page, even if originally, no one would have chosen to immigrate to Canada, according to her.

A Gift from God:

She also alludes to Canada being a gift from God in the poem on page twenty-five. It reads, ” Canada, the blest—the free! (Moodie, 25)”

Wastland/Empty:

There is however a  negative side to her explanation in that she warns her readers who are possibly prospective immigrants that if families move to Canada and decide to live in the middle of the woods, they will live in a vast nothingness. Moodie describes, “remote and unfavorable localities, far from churches, schools, and markets,” early in her introduction on page seven (Moody, 7.)

Noble, Vanishing Indian:

The noble and vanishing Indian is only written about briefly on page fourteen. The “Indians” are spoken about in the past tense and are described as the mutual enemy of colonials (Moodie, 14).

Magical Map:

I reread again and again to find an allusion to the “magical map” in Moodie’s introduction, but I could not find it.

Susanna Moodie seems fairly aware of a few of her allusions, certainly the allusions that relate to Christianity. I her poem Canada, she creates the picture of a beautiful free new beginning for even the lowest of men, and meanwhile states that such a land is blessed (Moodie 25.) Her allusion to the noble vanishing Indian and the empty wasteland, I do not think that she was aware of. The empty wasteland allusion is made amidst cultural warnings of lack of what she would call “civilization.” Meanwhile the discussion of “The Noble Indian is so quickly mentioned in passing, that it was as if she was helping in vanishing “The Indian” from Canada’s History.

The stories that Moodie re-erects through Thomas King’s work in dead-dog cafe are ones of colonialism and the same optimism that she brings to her introduction of “Roughing It In The Bush.” She says things like, “We’re on an adventure,” which is well suited for her role in the story considering that she is characterized as a tourist (King, 158).

Works cited:

King, Thomas. Green Grass, Running Water. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993. Print.

Firstly, let me apologize for posting this late. I have been through a lot of stress this this week. Case and point, my cabin on Ruxton Island almost collapsed and I’ve had to move out of it to Coquitlam.

Now for this weeks assignment:

John Lutz’s article, “First Contact As A Spiritual Performance: Encounters on the North American West Coast” is not as thought out as it could be and is full of assumptions and at least one contradiction that undermines his own argument.

Lutz assumes that the participation of Indigenous peoples in spiritual performances during first contact  is difficult for his readers to comprehend, he assumes that his readers are of European descent. This is not a fair assumption because the majority of people reading his work are most likely students, and in British Columbia over twenty percent of students attending post secondary institutions are international students, the majority of which are of Asian descent. Meanwhile  according to articles from popular news sources such as the Globe And Mail and Maclean’s Magazine approximately forty percent of UBC students are of Asian descent. Other Universities in Canada share similar statistics such as the University of Toronto. News sources tend to bend the truth so those statistics may not be completely accurate, but that is not the point. The point is that in an age where UBC prides itself for being the most International university in Canada, Lutz’s assumptions do not fit in.

Lutz’s assumption that Indigenous peoples understand performances of people of European descent better than vice versa is fair, but not completely thought out. The reason that Lutz gives is that the mythical identity of ‘the European’ in Indigenous cultures was force-ably shifted over a long period of time due to the implementation of European superiority over other cultures in Christian European spirituality. Meanwhile it is that same idea of superiority over other cultures that has kept those of European descent from understanding Indigenous spirituality and mythical performance such as contact zones fully.  The part of the his assumption that is not thought out is that he states that ALL people of European descent could not understand Indigenous performance fully. As people of European descent read his essay and understand it, they either begin or continue the process of decolonizing their outlooks. These outlooks make up part of their mythic identity as people whose ancestors were colonizers, and those mythic identities are shifted. Lutz undermines his own argument.

Professor Paterson is being fair when she points out Lutz’s assumptions. As an academic, Lutz is accountable for the research that he publishes an is released to the world. As we remember from an earlier week this term, once a story is told, it cannot be taken back.

Works Cited:

It was very interesting reading everyone’s ideas about home and I am honored to share a class with so many accomplished writers. For this post I am going to focus on Chloe Lee’s Blog, Hope Prince’s Blog, and Jenny Bachynski’s Blog. All three of those blogs share much in common. For instance all three students write that home is less about where you are but whom you are with. They also state in their individual voices that home evolves over time and that it is made up of stories. Below are the shared assumptions that these students have of home, what I believe are their shared values, and some stories that they share. Following that is a commentary of what I discovered while reading the class’s blogs about home.

Shared Assumptions:

• Home is not a place, it is an idea
• Home evolves over the passage of time
• Ideas of home changed when some of us began University
• Childhood definitions of home are usually much simpler than those that we understand as adults
• We all make internal stories about what we believe is home
• Sense of familiarity is part of home

Shared Values:

• Seeking Control or Stability In Life
• Family
• The Pursuit of Happiness
• Childhood Nostalgia
• Independence

Shared Stories:

• The idea of home evolved when moving to a different place because of lack of familiarity.
• With age home became less a place and more an idea, or choices made.
• While family is important, independence and adventure are celebrated and enjoyed
• Home was not always comfortable, but still held its meaning.

Commentary:

Besides the blogs above, a lot of class members also have similar senses of home. It is of general consensus that home is understood as an idea rather than a place. A lot of us value family, and a lot of us are nostalgic for the simplicity of childhood. Home and childhood seem interconnected somehow, perhaps because the memory of childhood is tied to familiarity, and familiarity is part of the idea of home. What stands out among the group is that the majority of the people in the class seemingly had stable childhoods, but a few of us did not. Home for those people who experienced childhood adversity is not the same as for those who experienced stable childhoods. The idea of home becomes less stable with adversity, and self-worth is threatened with lack of stability.

I would like to thank the class for taking the time to write honestly about happy times an hard times. Some stories are difficult to read and send us into a flurry of emotions, while others lift us up and put smiles on our faces.

Lastly, I’m glad that this assignment did not end up with lots of people writing the stereotype, “There’s no place like home.”

(Giphy, 2016.)

Works Cited:

Bachynski, Jenny. “Shifting: Assignment 2:2.” Canadian Studies Exploring Genres through Canadian Literature. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Oct. 2016.

Giphy, “There’s No Place Like Home” http://giphy.com/search/theres-no-place-like-home. Accessed October 2, 2016.

Lee, Chloe. “2.2 Home.” Chloe’s Blog For English 470.  N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Oct. 2016.

Prince, Hope. “Lesson 2:1 – Assignment 2:2.” Hope Prince – English 470 Canadian Studies Blog.  N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Oct. 2016.

I wish that my story could be happier, but one of my most important values is sincerity, and to tell my story truthfully it has to begin sadly.

Home stopped being a ‘place’ on the day that my mother passed away. I was five years old, months away from entering the first grade, when my father took my brothers and me aside and said, “Mommy is not coming home.”

Looking back, for the next seven years after that, home was the wonderful feeling that I got when I was pretending to be somewhere else with my twin brother. We called it “The Game.” In “The Game” we had the power to do absolutely anything. We created alter-egos as the demigod siblings Sar-Sar (that was me) and Teru (Max) Tamtan. We had a pet koala named Poponicus and we lived in the place where anything could happen. In reality we moved from apartment to house, to larger house to smaller house, and went through a series of stepmothers. My father worked himself into illness, partially because his notion of self-identity was as a breadwinner, but also because his notion of home was mostly from decadent home cooked meals.

When my twin brother and I were twelve, my father told us to stop playing “The Game” and he played us “The Logical Song,” which is an actual song by the band Supertramp. If you’ve never heard the song before, it tells the listener about the experience of growing up. Max took it seriously and immediately became incredibly somber, and for all intents and purposes morphed into an adult. That Halloween, he was forced to go with me, and not wanting to dress in a costume, he dressed as a business man. People thought that he was Harry Potter, so it was not as awkward as it could have been. Meanwhile I did what I had always done when darkness fell upon my life: I soared deeper into my imagination. Max and I never played together again.

Then out of nowhere, my father began to pretend. Another world was born with farmers, lambs, badgers, wolves, mice, and pigeons at its center. I played the farmer’s daughter, the lambs, and the pigeons, and my father played the badgers, the mice, and the wolves.  Home was coming back from school and making stories while cooking meals for my father.

Unfortunately, years into the story, the logical song found its way in. Sometimes I wasn’t the farmer’s daughter. I was “Dullard Daughter” who could never do anything right and whose job was to appease her father, and he was “Footha”, the tyrant authoritarian parent. I never was a dullard though.  In reality I had gotten into university and the time spent making stories with him, and cooking increasingly elaborate meals for him was eating into time for my school work. Even worse, I had never been allowed to spend time making friends. When I asked to stop playing, Footha came to life, and by that time I was in my early twenties.

I could not call on Max because he strayed from the dysfunctionality by quitting university and getting job that took up most of his time. I could not call on my other brother, Benny – who had left my family as soon as he was old enough to.

I had to escape.

As death seems to be a large factor of change in my life, serendipitously my grandmother passed away, and my father decided that he had to move to Vancouver Island to be closer to my grandfather. I had to continue my education, so I stayed behind in Vancouver.

After that my idea of home changed completely. I got my first boyfriend at age 24. I took time off from school to start a business. I went travelling. I FINALLY EXPERIENCED REALITY UNSKEWED BY CONSTANT IMAGINATION!

Home became my boyfriend’s laugh, my kitten’s purr, warm slippers, and prospect of future opportunities.

Now, I type here on this little island, with my fiancé nearby, planning to reassemble a relationship with my father through story, planning to begin my own family through adoption.

I don’t like to play pretend any more. Real life is much better.

(Values: Family, sincerity, the pursuit of reality, utilizing opportunity)

I’d tell you why I seek the truth, and why I try not to lie, but that is another story.

Works Cited:

Keller, Sarah. Studying. Drawing, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 2012.

Keller, Sarah. The Badger And The Lamb. Drawing, Vancouver BC, Canada, 2012.

Supertramp, “Logical song.” Online Video Clip. Youtube. alberto meza,  September 27, 2016.

It was a chilly fall afternoon that a large white luxThe Story That Ruined A Man And His Worldury yacht glided into North Bay. Four couples of snowbirds disembarked from the boat and began their stay at the local bed and breakfast, which was really no more than a four room cabin with a small kitchen, propane stove and fridge. No one wanted to go outside because the paths on Ruxton Island were muddy and the steep rocky shores were covered in slippery seaweed. Even so it was a perfectly tranquil environment with little brown birds chirping in trees and river otters playing at the point of the bay. Nothing could go wrong in a place so natural.

After a few hours, the owner of the property arrived at the cabin and welcomed the travelers to his retreat. The snowbirds unpacked their bags and got cozy as night fell. Let us say that the names of the couples were Fred and Abby, Josh and Lucy, Garth and Gail, and Louis and Daphne. The owner of the property was called Mickey.

When everyone was settled, Mickey started a fire in the wood stove, because it gets cold at Ruxton in the fall. It would also make the retreat much more romantic.

Unfortunately, even with the ambiance that the fire created, Garth was bored. He was not exactly accustomed to retirement yet, and was even less accustomed to a cabin setting. Before retirement  he was an accountant and had become a workaholic, and workaholics don’t get out much.

To make himself less bored he asked his wife to tell everyone a story. She was a published author – she had to know how to tell a good tale. Hopefully it would be something funny.

Gail shrugged and looked at the fire dance on the arbutus logs in the wood stove. She began her story with:

“There was once an old man who lived on this island. He was the sole survivor of a terrible car crash that killed his family, so he had terrible trouble sleeping at night. The only thing that helped his insomnia was to sleep in other people’s beds. Once he even slept in this cabin.

As the story goes, if he ever found anyone else in their cabin, he would kill them. His name was-”

“STOP” shouted Mickey, whose face had turned the colour of the light grey linens on the cabin’s beds. “You need to take it back! I don’t kill people. I just don’t sleep right.”

“Well, we all heard it now,” said Garth “– and I think that I’m going to sleep in the yacht tonight.”

“Me too,” said Lucy, and the others nodded in agreement.

Mickey’s bed and breakfast business failed soon after. In his sorrow he burned down his cabin, which set the whole of Ruxton Island on fire. If it hadn’t been for Gail’s story and the negativity that went with it, he would have preceded as normal, sleeping in other people’s beds when their inhabitants were away, and no one would have been the wiser.

Let it be known that stories can be entertaining, but they can also be harmful. It is stories like Gail’s that brought evil into the world.

Once you have told a story, you can never take it back. So, be careful of the stories you tell, AND the stories you listen to.

Here is the conversation that I had with my fiance after I finished telling him the story. I would have told it to a bigger audience but we are currently on a secluded island:

Ljay: “I like that you used true stories from the island that we know and people whom we know as the characters.”

Me: “They’re just the first things that popped into my head. What did you think of the story?”

Ljay: “I’m wondering why the story of the man who slept in other people’s beds became a negative story when he really ended up with a new family in a different place.”

Me: “Oh. I needed to have a negative story for my assignment.”

Ljay: “Fair enough. Why would Gail tell a negative story at a retreat though. I thought you said that Mickey tried to create romantic ambiance and that other guy wanted to hear a funny story.

Me: “Because scary stories go well with the light from wood stoves at night. You know that.” (Personal Interview, 22 September 2016.)

Other Commentary:

Unfortunately Ljay did not comment at all about the theme of the story like I expected him to. He reads quite a bit and listens to stories on the radio constantly when he is at Ruxton. Perhaps I should not have told him my story after he spent a day of listening to other, more polished stories.

I tweaked the definition of ‘world’ slightly and used Mickey’s world – his livelihood on Ruxton Island where he has made his home his entire adult life, as the ‘world’ that gets ruined by the evil contained in a story. Ruxton island gets burned in the story as a way to show the consequences of the evil that can inhabit stories. A life and a place get ruined together.

I told Mickey that I was making a story with him in it, but he has not heard it yet. In reality, he is not the man portrayed in my story, though he does run a bed and breakfast from Ruxton Island.

Works cited:

Keller, Sarah. The Shaw Family Wood Stove. Photo, Ruxton Island, BC, Canada.

“Ruxton Island, BC.” Map. Google Maps. Google, 22 September. 2016. Web. 22 Sep. 2016.

“Ruxton Rental Retreat & Sailing Tours.” Salt Spring Exchange. N.p., 15 July 2016. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.

Shaw, Ljay. Personal interview. 22 September 2016

The last chapter of J. Edward Chamberlin’s “If This Is Your Land,Where Are Your Stories,” discusses how there can be multiple equally truthful versions of a single event in history. It all depends on the culture in which one is raised, and how they look at the world, for which version of a story that one wants to believe – or even multiple versions. An example that Chamberlin uses is the story of a large angry bear who tore half a mountain with him when the Gitksan people of the North West of British Columbia got too comfortable in a valley and no longer respected the land or the animals in the way that they once had. After geological analysis, it turns out that there had been a massive earth quake that tore the mountain away in the same time frame that the bear story took place. The Gitksan believe both stories because of their culture, especially since the oral story had been around thousands of years before seismology existed. The land claim court that the Gitksan took both stories to, however, could not use the bear story as evidence because it was not understood in colonial terms. Perhaps the two stories having the same time frame and setting was coincidental. I find this interesting because it make me think that oral histories should be taken more seriously than they have been – even if they are told like a story with elements of religion and spirituality.

The story of land title connected to Aboriginal title is another interesting topic of Chamberlin’s last chapter. Chamberlin explains that land title is a completely fake notion, that people take for granted. This made me think of Vancouver where large sums of money are transferring hands for houses, condos, and the rare commodity of bare land. Likewise Aboriginal title is a made up thing, and rather pan-indigenous, as what makes someone indigenous is as much cultural, as it is genetic, but these days post-colonial governments seem to base Indigeneity on genetics mostly. Before colonists arrived in what is now called Canada, Aboriginal title did not exist. The difference from band to band existed, the stories that they passed down did, and their cultures did – even if those are all made up as well. Just people grouping themselves as they tend to.

The third part of the final chapter that I found interesting is connected to the other two parts of this chapter that I touched on in this post. It is Chamberlain’s idea that knowledge is made up of stories – from science, to religion, to national anthems, to laws. Thus scholars cannot be as objective at they try to be because they read and write with the knowledge that they had before they started writing. They have to choose between stories, and what to believe. Who is ‘barbaric’, who is ‘the other’ are chosen too. Chamberlin says, “Like home, it is at the centre of contradiction,” because there is no ‘home,’ (Chamberlain, 240.)  That is made up too.

This book has really made me question what I know and my place in the construction that is Canada. I think that it is a good step on the path the reconciliation.

Cited works:

1. Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?: Finding Common Ground. Toronto: A.A. Knopf Canada, 2003. Print. 219-240.

2. CTV News. Will Vancouver’s Real Estate Bubble Burst? http://bc.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=875918 , Accessed September 15, 2016

3. Indigenous Foundations. Aboriginal Title. http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/home/land-rights/aboriginal-title.html, Accessed September 15, 2016.

4. Gitxsan_map. http://www.nativemaps.org/files/images/pictures/Gixtsan_map.jpeg Accessed September 16, 2016