Contributing Threads

Pages 167 to 186 (1993 HarperCollins Edition, different page numbers than in assigned list)

WHAT ARE THE CONNECTIONS?

Part One:

This section opens up with Lionel, Norma and the four old Indians in Lionel’s car. This story is interjected with the story of Lionel inviting Alberta over to meet his family.

The first theme I noticed here that is interwoven into Alberta and Charlie’s stories in the following parts of this section, is the idea that Lionel needs help. The Four Indians decide they are going to help Lionel, because humans need help (167), and the best place to start is with his jacket. King uses language specifically about choices, mistakes, and getting off to a good or bad start in this section to connect the story of Lionel and the Indians with Lionel and Alberta in his parent’s home. Good ways to start include: changing the jacket, having dinner at Lionel’s mother’s house, and singing. Bad ways to start include: talking about work at the television store and Lionel’s absence from his parent’s lives. King uses this language of good versus bad starts to highlight what are seen as good and bad choices made by Lionel. Lionel is seen as rejecting his own family and culture. He doesn’t accept his father’s request for help around the house because he feels he needs to work and make money. This is another theme that King connects throughout Lionel, Alberta and Charlie’s stories in this section: the contrast between values of tradition, family and one’s own culture with a dominating western capitalist value of consumption and material wealth.

This part ends with Lionel at home, settling into the familiar routine of watching television in the dark: “Lionel squeezed past the Formica table, fumbled his way into the easy chair, and found the remote control without ever having to turn on the lights” (173). The way King describes this indicates a level of practice. As someone that is portrayed as not really being accomplished at anything, and struggling because of that, King can subtly point to the fact that Lionel is accomplished at this task of sitting down to watch t.v., and make us reflect on the problems with that and why that is so.

When Lionel thinks about the old Indians and their singing of Happy Birthday to him, he is filled with an ominous feeling, “as if something was coming apart, as if he had unknowingly made yet another mistake” (173). Perhaps King is trying to show the mistake is his inability to embrace his own culture, history, and elders. He is blinded by the ideal of making money, watching t.v., and wearing the gold jacket that represents western society’s glorification of consumption.

Part Two:

Now we find Alberta, just arriving in Blossom to visit Lionel for his birthday. This story is intercut with flashbacks of Alberta’s experience trying to get pregnant through artificial insemination.

In her motel room in Blossom, Alberta also contemplates how she can help Lionel; to start with, “He could use a new jacket” (177). The gold jacket, representative of European ideals and values, is seen again as something that is holding Lionel back, contributing to his helplessness.

Here television is again seen as a constant presence, background noise when Alberta gets into her room and immediately turns on the t.v. before flossing her teeth (176). She is forced to watch a Western, as nothing else is on, a theme that comes up again later in this section.

The process Alberta goes through to gain access to services of artificial insemination to highlight a disconnect in western medicine between patient and healer. Her conversations with the many characters of the medical profession involved with this process remind me of Lionel’s mixup with the hospital and his “heart problem” at the novel’s beginning. The name of Alberta’s gynecologist, Dr. Mary Takai, also might be an allusion to the cost of our medical system, as Takai, can be translated to mean ‘expensive’ in Japanese.

Alberta isn’t being heard by the medical community, what she wants doesn’t fit into the social norm. She isn’t being listened to. This is seen most obviously during her conversation here:

“And when you get the interview, make sure your husband comes with you. We can’t begin the interview process unless both the husband and the wife are here.”

“I’m not married.”

“A lot of people make that mistake.”

“I’m sure.”

“The women come and the men stay home.”

“I don’t have a husband.”

“And then we have to start all over again.”

The woman from the clinic is not listening to Alberta, not responding to what she says. She simply continues her dialogue.

Alberta’s part ends with a return to thinking about how to help Lionel. She then reflects on the differences between Charlie and Lionel, Charlie being “pushy and slick” while Lionel is “sincere and dull” (179), a theme that King brings back again with Charlie in the following pages.

Part Three:

This part follows Charlie, in Blossom to visit Alberta, interwoven with stories of his dad, and their move to Hollywood after Charlie’s mother’s death.

Like Alberta, Charlie also can’t find anything else on television but a Western. Here King is able to highlight the lack of diversity in western media, the lack of choice. The availability of only one channel, showing only a Western comes up in several characters’ worlds, exaggerating the strict lens through which the media controls what we watch, think, and like. We see another connection later to this idea, as well as the earlier portrayal of Lionel, when Charlie’s dad, after his wife died, “would sit in the chair and flip through the channels, never watching any program for very long. Except the Westerns” (181).

Charlie, like Alberta, also reflects on the differences between himself and Lionel. Charlie sees himself as “better, better, better” because he has a ‘better’ job, education, car, clothes, physical appearance, and bank account (182).

King’s placement of Charlie and his father in Hollywood, further highlights western society’s glorification of financial success and material wealth. The first character we are introduced to from that world is a man named C.B. Cologne, short for Crystal Ball Cologne, a manufactured perfume.

Other characters from this Hollywood world include: “Sally Jo Weyha, Frankie Drake, Polly Hantos, Sammy Hearne, Johnny Cabot, Henry Cortez . . . Barry Zannos . . . all waiting in the shadows of the major studios, working as extras, fighting for bit parts in Westerns, playing Indians again and again and again” (emphasis added, 182). Mary Flick provides notes on what these names most likely represent for King, connecting them all to historical European explorers. Using the names of historical heroes of colonial history to describe characters all trying to act as Indians in Hollywood, helps King point to the misrepresentation of indigenous culture. His discussion of the invisible Indian in “The truth about stories” is echoed here. We see it again when C.B. says to Charlie, “Nobody played an Indian like Portland. I mean, he is Indian, but that’s different. Just because you are an Indian doesn’t mean you can act like an Indian for the movies” (183).

Returning to Charlie in Blossom, contemplating the differences between himself and Lionel, we see a subtle connection between the two worlds when Charlie decides that Lionel is helpless, and that is why Alberta is interested in him. Could King be drawing a connection between Charlie’s dad acting as an Indian in Hollywood westerns, and Charlie thinking he needs to act helpless like Lionel to attract Alberta? Charlie’s idea that being successful and self-sufficient is “better, better, better” comes into question here. He concludes with the words, “Damn. Damn, damn, damn” instantly reconnecting us to the existence of the dam.

Some final points of interest:

• “Don’t need a stereo, honey,” Camelot said. “That RCA you gave us for Christmas still works real good” (168). This comment made by Lionel’s mother helps challenge the value of material consumption and waste as opposed to using what one has if it still works, not needing more than you have.

• Camelot’s “Hawaiian Curdle Surprise.” She revises the recipe, saying, ‘You’re supposed to use octopus for the stock, but where are you going to find octopus around here?” (170). This could be a comment on western consumption of international goods, ability to import anything and everything, not valuing local resources. International recipes are available to Lionel’s mother, still she chooses to use what she has, against what would be considered “normal”

• “Birthday?” said the Lone Ranger. “I guess we got to sing that song” (169): Even the happy birthday song is imported, foreign.
• “She had to go back to Calgary.” “Alberta?” (172): Play on words, Calgary, Alberta the place
• Red car in “small lake” (174): Foreshadowing cars floating towards the dam
• “You can’t always tell by looking,” he said. “How true it is,” said Alberta. “I could have been a corporate executive” (174): comment on judging people based on race and gender, status and education assumptions and expectations

Works Cited:

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water.” Canadian Literature. 1999. Web. 30 March, 2016.

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

Vaux, Bert. “Crystal Ball Cologne.” Columbian Inventions 1996. Web. 30 March, 2016.

Vincent, Alice. “Happy Birthday song and its strange past.” The Telegraph. 9 Feb 2016. Web. 30 March, 2016.

1. Identify and discuss two of King’s “acts of narrative decolonization.”Please read the following quote to assist you with your answer.The lives of King’s characters are entangled in and informed by both the colonial legacy in the Americas and the narratives that enact and enable colonial domination. King begins to extricate his characters’ lives from the domination of the invader’s discourses by weaving their stories into both Native American oral traditions and into revisions of some of the most damaging narratives of domination and conquest: European American origin stories and national myths, canonical literary texts, and popular culture texts such as John Wayne films. These revisions are acts of narrative decolonization. James Cox. “All This Water Imagery Must Mean Something.”Canadian Literature 161-162 (1999). Web April 04/2013.

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I would like to focus on the stories involving Changing woman and Old Woman. When it comes to “some of the most damaging narratives of domination and conquest” these two characters take on particularly heavy-hitting aspects of European American origin stories.

Changing Woman and King’s revision of the Christian-European origin character of Noah and his ark:

First, King uses several elements of humor to begin this act of narrative decolonization.  He is prompting his audience to re-examine a story that has been told for centuries, by poking fun at it. King highlights elements of the story that are not normally included in its original form, like the acknowledgement that the boat would most likely have been covered in poop (King 144). We then meet Noah, a character traditionally revered as a hero of the Christian faith: “a little man with a filthy beard [who] jumps out of the poop at the front of the canoe” (King 145). The imagery King creates challenges the seriousness and respect I imagine is expected to be given to Noah within the Christian tradition.  King forces his audience to question how they’ve traditionally viewed Noah. This questioning can then lead to additional reflection on how we view the entire story he belongs to originally. King continues to shock his audience into re-thinking this European origin story with accusations of farting amongst the boat’s animals, Noah’s demand to see Changing Woman’s breasts, along with a hope that God remembered he likes big ones (145).

Next, King uses this same story to highlight differences between European and indigenous views on the appropriate way to interact with animals. Noah reprimands Changing Woman for talking to the ship’s animals, stating “This is a Christian ship. Animals don’t talk. We got rules.” (145). The topic of “Christian rules” is reiterated throughout Changing Woman’s interaction with Noah (King 148). King uses Coyote’s interpretation of these rules to help communicate what it might be like to be learning them from a position outside of the tradition within which they were created, taught and unquestionably followed. He does this while still using humor to derail the traditional mindset around such rules, like, for example, when Old Coyote explains that Noah’s first rule is “Thou Shalt Have Big Breasts” (King 147). The narrative around Christian rules continues in the story of Old Woman.

Old Woman and King’s revision of the Biblical story of Christ walking on water:

In Old Woman’s interaction with Young Man Walking on Water, (Jesus Christ with an “indian sounding” name as Jane Flick puts it (161)), King again tries to upset the traditional Christian-European idea of rules. Here he is more subtle, however, as he attempts to expose a very deep-rooted rule within European storytelling: that a story cannot be changed. He highlights this difference with one line spoken by Young Man Walking on Water. After Old Woman falls into what appears to be the story of Jesus Christ walking on water to save a boatload of his disciples, she finds him looking for the boat he is ‘supposed’ to save. Old Woman, spotting a boat, asks him if that is the one he is looking for. Young Man Walking on Water responds: “Not if you saw it first” (King 349). I interpret this as King’s way of communicating the assumption that elements within a European origin story cannot change. Within that tradition, stories accepted as fact leave no room for change. Change presents a need to re-evaluate which version is ‘true’ and can lead to doubt or uncertainty about the validity of the original story. By highlighting this inability to accept change, within a novel comprised of stories that are continually changing and being retold, King is able to expose one more difference between European and Indigenous narrative styles. With the awareness of this difference, we as readers move one step closer to being able to view each tradition on their own, to slip out from under the dominant legacy of colonial narratives.

King’s representation of women in his many acts of narrative decolonization is one topic I have not touched on. He provides so much to think about in regards to how women are portrayed in traditional European narratives and origin stories. However, I’m curious, what did you learn from how Changing Woman and Old Woman were treated by the familiar European literary characters they encountered?

Sierra Gale

Thoughts on Assignment 3:5

Works Cited:

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water.” Canadian Literature 140-172. 1999. 04 April 2013. Web. 21 March 2016.

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

“Matthew 14:22 – 33 – Jesus Walks on the Water.” Holy Bible, New International Version. BibleGateway. 2011. Web. 21 March 2016.

Deem, Rich. “Who Was Noah?” Evidence for God. godandscience.org. 16 Dec. 2014. Web. 21 March 2016.

3 ] It is interesting, and telling of literary criticism at the time, that while Frye lights on this duality in Scott’s work, or tension between “primitive and civilized” representations; however, the fact that Scott wrote poetry romanticizing the “vanishing Indians” and wrote policies aimed at the destruction of Indigenous culture and Indigenous people – as a distinct people, is never brought to light. In 1924, in his role as the most powerful bureaucrat in the department of Indian Affairs, Scott wrote:

The policy of the Dominion has always been to protect Indians, to guard their identity as a race and at the same time to apply methods, which will destroy that identity and lead eventually to their disappearance as a separate division of the population (In Chater, 23).

For this blog assignment, I would like you to explain why it is that Scott’s highly active role in the purposeful destruction of Indigenous people’s cultures is not relevant for Frye in his observations above? You will find your answers in Frye’s discussion on the problem of ‘historical bias’ (216) and in his theory of the forms of literature as closed systems (234 –5).

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I find this question very difficult to answer, not because of a lack of content or understanding, but because of a feeling of discomfort and unwillingness to write the answer that I keep returning to. I must be missing something, and I hope I am, because all I can come up with is: in Frye’s mention of Duncan Campbell Scott, Scott’s role in the purposeful destruction of Indigenous people’s cultures is not relevant because to him, indigenous people’s cultures are outside of what he deems important elements of what forms the Canadian culture, history, and imagination.

Frye argues that Canada’s history, its speed of growth and lack of a rooted social imagination, inhibits Canadian writers’ ability to establish its own unique tradition of writing (Frye 221). He sees the Canadian awareness as lacking something, which lends to its inability to establish a concrete identity. In an attempt to define what is missing, he argues that it is not the question of “Who am I?” that is so difficult to answer, it is the question of “Where is here?” (Frye 222). This brings us back to the connection between land and stories. When I read this sentence of Frye’s  I excitedly wrote in my page margin, “if this is your land, where are your stories?” (Chamberlain Intro).  Frye alludes to our inability to answer this question with his discussion of the historical disconnect between Canadians (European settlers and their descendants, to Frye) and the land that they began to call home. He points to our inability to answer the question “Where is here?” as the prominent barrier to carving out a definable Canadian identity.

When it comes to Frye’s lack of commentary on the role of Duncan Campbell Scott, as our professor has already pointed out, one key aspect of his theory helps us understand how he views the role of indigenous culture in the formation of the Canadian literary mind. He argues that “the forms of literature are autonomous: they exist within literature itself, and cannot be derived from any experience outside literature” (Frye 234). So, what about orality? It would appear that for Frye, stories found in oral traditions have no influence on the form of literature adopted by a nation. However, he goes on to argue that “literature is conscious mythology: as society develops, its mythical stories become structural principles of storytelling” (Frye 234).  I interpret Frye’s argument as coming from a linear understanding of the progression of a society’s form of storytelling. Returning to the idea that the dominant western school of thought views societies as “progressing” from mythology in the form of oral traditions to the eventual discovery of the written word; Frye, in line with this mode of thinking, is perhaps arguing that the literary mind of most societies begins historically with a shared mythology that then “progresses” into a more structured, written form of storytelling unique to that society. For Frye, the problem with the Canadian literary mind is that it hasn’t gone through that progression. The Canadian history of European settlers and their descendants begins with their first steps on this land, plucked from overseas and dropped here without any mythical knowledge of the land’s history (233).

We can’t forget that Frye is a Canadian, formed by Canadian history and not outside the “Canadian literary mind” he is trying so adamantly to dissect. Perhaps for him, he doesn’t feel it is necessary to address the contradictory actions and writing of Duncan Campbell Scott in relation to indigenous peoples’ culture because their culture is outside of the Canadian literary mind he is interested in, and does not belong in his discussion. In the historical establishment of Canadian literature, he defines the role of indigenous peoples, their culture, mythology and land, as “nineteenth-century literary conventions” (Frye 235). I am reminded of King’s ‘imaginary Indian.’

Sierra Gale

Works Cited:

Chamberlin, Edward. If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground. Toronto:  AA. Knopf, 2003. Print.

Frye, Northrop. The Bush Garden; Essays on the Canadian Imagination. 2011 Toronto: Anansi. Print.

Houston, James. “Inuit Myth and Legend.” The Canadian Encyclopedia. Feb. 07, 2006. Web. March 10, 2016.

Klymasz, Robert. “Folklore.” The Canadian Encyclopedia. Feb. 07, 2006. Web. March 10, 2016.

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Toronto: Anansi Press. 2003. Print.

2] Read Susanna Moodie’s introduction to the third edition of Roughing it in the Bush, 1854. I use the Project Gutenburg website which has a ‘command F’ function that allows you to search the entire document by words or phrases. Moodie’s introduction is often read as a warning to would be emigrants as well as an explanation of why her family emigrated from Britain. See if you can find echoes of the stories discussed above: a gift from god, a second Garden of Eden, an empty/wasted land, the noble but vanishing Indian, and the magical map. By echoes I mean reading between the lines or explicitly within Moodie’s introduction. Discussing what you discover, use your examples as evidence to write a blog that explores what you think might have been Moodie’s level of awareness of the stories she carried with her. And accordingly, the stories that she “resurrects’ by her appearance in the Dead Dog CafŽ in Green Grass Running Water.

               Moodie begins her introduction by arguing that most of the time, “emigration is a matter of necessity, not of choice” and “may, indeed, generally be regarded as an act of severe duty.” This language contains echoes of the religious and nationalistic values held by many Europeans of her time, but it also gives us an idea of what kind of motivations were driving her and her fellow immigrants. One line in particular, which I find reminiscent of the stereotypical American love of independence (another tribally-embraced story), explains the “higher motive” driving European immigrants forward: “that love of independence which springs up spontaneously in the breasts of the high-souled children of a glorious land” (Moodie Intro). Her sense of religious duty, as well as her image of Canada as a free land to claim, become clearer with her discussion of Providence working to “reclaim the waste places of the earth, and make them subservient to the wants and happiness of its creatures” (Moodie Intro).  In an attempt to explain her and her fellow pioneers’ motivations, Moodie argues that “they go forth to make for themselves a new name and to find another country, to forget the past and to live in the future, to exult in the prospect of their children being free and the land of their adoption great” (Intro, emphasis added). Here we again see echoes of the ideal of a ‘second Eden’ as well as this land being empty and available to adopt.

How serious is she when she uses language like this? Is she intensely devout and patriotic, or is she playing to what she believes are the values of her audience? If she knew the stories she carried with her, and that these stories were shared by her audience, perhaps she capitalized on this, as a writer, to create a connection with her readers. If she was not aware of the stories she carried with her, and genuinely took ownership of the patriotic and religious language she was using, these stories that form her view of the world are intensely strong. They are coming from deep core values, values of faith and devotion that were necessary for survival in her circumstances. These stories are her, and her fellow pioneers’, tools and weapons necessary to “gird up the loins of the mind, and arm themselves with fortitude to meet and dare the heart-breaking conflict” (Moodie Intro).

Moving away from the stories that color Moodie’s writing, I want to touch on the idea that she sees Canada as a different future, a place where her children can live freer lives than they could back home. To live in the future is to live in an imaginary world, a world created by one’s own mind from stories heard and absorbed throughout the life, conditioning that creates our entire worldview from birth. Motivated by the desire to create a future for one’s children is a very powerful motivation, one that taps into our most basic instincts. When someone is put in a position of necessity, as Moodie finds herself, the imagination is a survival tool, and in her case, and I’m sure the case of many European immigrants to Canada,  the stories she carries with her are her lifeline, and to question them is suicide. We are all walking around, viewing our surroundings through filters that have been built into our minds since childhood. These filters are our stories, or maybe our assumptions, as King would say (183). In my experience, it is very difficult to first, identify our own assumptions and second, remove or change them. Whether or not Moodie knew the stories she carried with her isn’t the most pressing question, in my opinion, because they have been disseminated in her writing, told again and again.

What I want to know is: if you knew Moodie could identify and separate herself from the stories of national superiority and religious duty that we see throughout her writing, could you blame her for continuing to hold onto them given her circumstances?

I’m curious.

Sierra

Thoughts on Assignment 2:6

Works Cited:

Funk, Ken. “What is a Worldview?” Essay published by Associate professor at Oregon State University. 21 Mar. 2001. Web. 2 Mar. 2016.

King, Thomas. “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial.” Unhomely States: Theorizing English-Canadian Postcolonialism. Mississauga, ON: Broadview, 2004. 183- 190.

Moodie, Susanna. Roughing it in the Bush. Project Gutenburg, 18 January 2004. Web. 1 Mar. 2016.

Tsai, Robert. “Why Americans love to declare independence.” The Boston Globe. Boston Globe Media Partners, 29 June 2014. Web. 2 Mar. 2016.

3. We began this unit by discussing assumptions and differences that we carry into our class. In “First Contact as Spiritual Performance,” Lutz makes an assumption about his readers (Lutz, “First Contact” 32). He asks us to begin with the assumption that comprehending the performances of the Indigenous participants is “one of the most obvious difficulties.” He explains that this is so because “one must of necessity enter a world that is distant in time and alien in culture, attempting to perceive indigenous performance through their eyes as well as those of the Europeans.” Here, Lutz is assuming either that his readers belong to the European tradition, or he is assuming that it is more difficult for a European to understand Indigenous performances – than the other way around. What do you make of this reading? Am I being fair when I point to this assumption? If so, is Lutz being fair when he makes this assumption?

The first question I need to clarify is what is this “most obvious difficulty” a barrier to? My interpretation is that Lutz is trying to find common ground wherein we, as audiences to the stories of first contact, can learn from the moments in which European and indigenous peoples could be seen “speaking to each other” as opposed to “speaking past each other” (“First Contact” 31). If this interpretation is accurate, I assume he is arguing that the difficulty of comprehending Indigenous performances acts as a barrier for us as an audience. This “most obvious difficulty” inhibits our ability to learn from the moments in which European and indigenous people could have been considered successfully speaking to each other, as he puts it. With that clarified slightly, we can tackle the question of Lutz’s assumption. First of all, I disagree with Lutz’s assumption that comprehending historical indigenous performances is “one of the most obvious difficulties” of learning from first contact stories. By pointing to indigenous performances only, he has left out an entire element of what makes it so difficult. As we’ve seen from this lesson’s other readings, the ability to learn from contact stories is difficult because of barriers to interpreting European narratives as well. Barriers such as the acknowledgement that many written European narratives are wrongfully accepted as first-hand accounts or “true” interpretations; long inherited assumptions that written narratives are somehow superior to oral; and that in many cases, European first contact narratives are products of “expectations, conditioned by imaginary worlds conjured long before [their] arrival” (Lutz, “Myth Understandings” 2). If we widen our perspective and focus on the difficulty of interpreting both sides, Lutz’s argument that interpreting contact performances is difficult because one must “enter a world that is distant in time and alien in culture” stands stronger. As someone that could be considered to belong to the European tradition (although even for myself I don’t really understand what that means, the best I can muster is defining that as not being raised in an indigenous tradition), I find it just as difficult to try and imagine how I might perceive Europeans in the context of contact stories. I imagine their world to be just as alien and different from my own as that of indigenous peoples. To me, this distance in time and culture is the most obvious barrier to learning from contact stories now, no matter what tradition one belongs to.

Lutz’s choice to omit the obvious difficulties of interpreting European narratives in this section of his argument makes it easier to agree that he is assuming his readers belong to the European tradition. Whether or not it is fair to say he is assuming that it is more difficult for Europeans to interpret indigenous performances than the other way around is more difficult.  If we accept that he is assuming this however, I argue that he is making an additional assumption, incorrectly, that readers belonging to the European tradition (again, what that means is probably a topic for a separate blog post) might find it easier to span the distance in time and culture to connect with the European world than the world of indigenous peoples.

To conclude, I would like to move away from discussion of the many difficulties that stand in our way of learning from contact stories to focus on a couple of points made by Lutz that I found hopeful and interesting. I believe Lutz was successful in his attempt to find common ground wherein we can learn, now, from historical contact stories. I found this in his discussion of how both groups approached each other initially, both seeking “to minimize the danger and maximize opportunities” (“First Contact” 30). For me, this point bypassed cultural and historical differences to land on a basic quality shared by most human beings: the desire to survive and prosper in uncertain or potentially threatening circumstances. I experience this (much more subtly of course) on a daily basis whenever I meet someone new. I understand how it feels to ask the types of questions Lutz imagines both parties to have asked themselves, like “What face to put forward to show the right mixture of strength and openness? What precautions to take to indicate readiness but not fear?” (“First Contact” 30). By framing the instances of first contact in this context of basic human interaction I could more easily travel that distance of time and culture to understand how it might have felt, for either side.

What about you? Have you caught yourself approaching interactions with new people in your life similarly? Or is there another way that you’ve been able to travel the distance of time and culture to truly connect with a story from the past? I’m curious.

Sierra

Thoughts on assignment 2:4

Works Cited:

Davidson, Lauren. “How European are you? Take this quiz to find out.” The Telegraph. 18 Aug. 2015. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.

Ifould, Rosie. “Acting on impulse.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited. 7 March 2009. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.

Lutz, John. “Myth Understandings: First Contact, Over and Over Again.” Myth and Memory: Rethinking Stories of Indigenous- European Contact. Ed. Lutz. Vancouver: U of British Columbia P, 2007. 1-15. Web. 17 Feb. 2016.

Lutz, John. “First Contact as a Spiritual Performance: Aboriginal — Non-Aboriginal Encounters on the North American West Coast.” Myth and Memory: Rethinking Stories of Indigenous-European Contact. Ed. Lutz. Vancouver: U of British Columbia P, 2007. 30-45. Web. 17 Feb. 2016.

Weatherford, John. “Examining the Reputation of Columbus.” Understanding Prejudice: Exercises and Demonstrations. Adapted from article in the Baltimore Evening Sun, 1989. Social Psychology Network, 2002. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.

The first thing I noticed reading everyone’s blog this week was the passion that shone through. Writing about home, came across, to me, as truly enjoyable. In each blog I sensed excitement, love, positive nostalgia, and a genuine desire to have us, the readers, understand what was being described. The excitement was contagious; I actually got shivers a couple of times, in moments where I felt truly connected to someone’s feeling of home.

Here are some of the shared assumptions, values and stories I noticed:

• Home is a feeling, not necessarily a place
• Home is often associated with family
• Home is defined by a feeling of comfort, safety, familiarity
• The feeling of home can be communicated through the story of one moment, or day; that story is often set in a familiar place from childhood, with family, and fondly remembered smells, tastes and sounds.

A sincere thanks to all of your wonderful depictions of home. I felt I was able to peak through the window of many of your memories and am very grateful for your willingness to share.

Sierra

Thoughts on Assignment 2:3

I recently saw a movie wherein one of the characters says home isn’t a place, it’s a feeling. I understand this. I feel at home often, in many places. My original and most deeply rooted home is Regina, Saskatchewan, the city I grew up in. I almost wrote my parent’s house, to be more specific, but changed it to encompass the entire city, because my feeling of home when I’m there reaches outside of one building. My feeling of home there has spread all over, into my best friends’ homes, certain streets, businesses, and parks. Since moving away however, I have found myself in many places where I feel at home and many where I feel the complete opposite. That opposite-of-home feeling is an interesting one. Perhaps I’ll start there and make my way along the spectrum, to more accurately explain to you how I experience my sense of home.

You might already know what I mean when I say I want to describe the opposite-of-home feeling. It lives at one extreme end of what I’ll call the ‘home spectrum.’ It’s the feeling I get when I’m in a city I’ve never been in before, lost at night, alone. A gut-sinking, heart-quickening, wide-eyed feeling that washes over me when I realize I am somewhere I shouldn’t be and the only thing I want to do is get away as soon as possible. Moving away from that panicky, fear-based extreme there is a more subtle middle ground. I’ve often heard people make comments like, “I don’t feel at home here” or “this place just doesn’t suit me.” I think comments like these are trying to describe the middle ground, not-quite-at-home feeling. It contains a mix of discomfort, alienation, insecurity and loneliness. Many might argue that big cities help perpetuate this feeling, making it difficult for people to feel at home anywhere outside of the space they reside, if at all. Why? Well, that might be a topic for a separate blog post. Here I want to try and help you understand how I experience a sense of home. So let’s keep moving down the spectrum towards that end.

Home to me is a feeling I experience when all discomfort, isolation, and anxiety have washed away. It contains a mix of familiarity, safety, warmth (not necessarily temperature-wise) and certainty. I have an ongoing, written list of things that I love. It contains things like fireplaces, string lights, coffee brewed by a friend, and the smell of baking bread. Many of the things on that list would help me arrive at this feeling of home. It’s the feeling I get when I arrive at a space and feel one hundred percent welcome, like there is nowhere else that I should be at that moment.

Familiarity and time spent in a place, for me, really help foster a sense of home. However, sometimes time will pass, or my relationship with the people I associate with a space will change, and that sense of home will drift away. I’ve returned to a place after being gone for some time, expecting it to look, smell and feel exactly as I remember, but it doesn’t. Perhaps you’ve experienced this as well? It can be surprising and disappointing. One thing that’s great though, is that with time that feeling of home has always returned somewhere new. Sometimes it’s fleeting, as short as the length of a hug, but it can always be found somewhere, at least in my experience.

My experience of the ‘home spectrum’ varies throughout the day, the month, the year. I might experience both extremes in one afternoon, or spend long stretches in that uncomfortable, not-quite-at-home middle ground. I try to be okay with it all, not constantly seeking that feeling of home, because I believe it’s important to be comfortable with discomfort sometimes. I find it difficult however, because the feeling of home is so pleasant.

What do you think? Is your sense of home something that can be sought out and found, or a feeling you need to patiently wait for? Is it valuable enough to structure your life around, or something that you can learn to live without? For me, it is something tangible that I can find for myself and create for others. Having a sense of home is something I value above most things. I’m curious if it’s the same for you.

Sierra Gale

Thoughts on Assignment 2:2

Works Cited:

Babauta, Leo. “Discomfort Zone: How to Master the Universe.” Web blog post. Zen Habits: Breathe. Zen Habits. 24 Jan. 2013. Web. 8 Feb. 2016.

Fletcher, Thandi and Emily Jackson. “A year ago, Vancouver vowed to become friendlier…so how’s that going?” Metro News. Free Daily News Group Inc. 24 Feb. 2015. Web. 8 Feb. 2016.

I have a story to tell you. It’s a story of how evil entered the world.

This story takes place in the past, at a time when human beings grew separate from each other as different individual species, like types of flowers. These humans were quite similar to the humans that currently populate the earth, with one major difference. Each group was born with the ability to experience only one emotion. For example, there was a group that knew only joy, one that knew only sadness, one that knew only compassion and another that knew only fear. Each of these groups, we’ll call them tribes, adapted to their environment using what they knew and only that. They knew the place they were born and only that place. They would spend their lives living in harmony with the individuals of their same type, never leaving and never knowing anyone but their own. Over time, however, each tribe steadily grew in number, requiring more space to live, expanding like drops of ink on a surface of water. As they grew, the elders of each tribe sensed that a change was about to come. Their borders would soon meet with the borders of other species. One elder, from the tribe of Curiosity, decided to go on a journey to see what she could learn about this sense of forthcoming collision.

The first group she came across was the tribe of Joy. She was welcomed with joy upon arrival and brought in to meet the elder of the Joy tribe. Upon connecting, each was able to describe to the other what made them who they were, their stories of Joy and Curiosity. After exchanging these stories, a seed of each other’s emotion was planted in the other’s heart; the people of Joy now understood curiosity and vice versa. A decision was then made that the two elders would continue on to see what other tribes they could find. They traveled far and wide, eventually exchanging their stories with the tribes of Sadness, Compassion, Wonder, Anger, Love and a variety of others. Each meeting resulted in an exchange of stories, and with that exchange, a seed of each emotion was planted in each heart. By this time the travelling band had become a group of much more emotionally complex individuals, yet they were still able to live in harmony.

There was only one tribe left still living in seclusion. This was the tribe of Fear. The elder of Fear had also sensed the forthcoming collision of tribes, but had counselled her tribe to hide, because she was afraid. A time came, however, when they could no longer hide and were forced to accept the encounter with the travelling band of elders. Because her tribe was dominated by fear, they were constantly scanning the horizon and checking their borders, in an attempt to protect their land. They saw the travelling band approaching and immediately told their elder. The Fear elder told them all to hide, for she was afraid of what might happen upon meeting with the strange group of beings coming her way. She retreated to her home and waited for the group to approach. The group of elders approached the same way they had all approached each other throughout their journey. Of course, here, they sensed a difference. There was nobody to be found. Finally they arrived at the Fear elder’s home, and entered, expecting to find nothing. Here they met the Fear elder, huddled in the corner of her space. The group, led primarily by Compassion and Curiosity, approached Fear and encouraged her to share with them her story, as they all had. Fear was overwhelmed with fear but was eventually able to describe to them what that felt like. As she spoke her story, the others slowly understood, as the seed of fear was planted in their hearts. When she finished her story, and her seed had been planted, the group of elders, afraid of what they now felt, begged her to take it back.

“But of course, it was too late. For once a story is told, it cannot be called back. Once told, it is loose in the world” (King 10).

The End.

One quick comment on this assignment as my story is already quite long. I learned this week that for many, current lifestyles make it difficult to even find the time to stop and listen to a story such as this one. In attempts to tell others my story, I was amazed at how difficult it was to be able to get through its entirety without interruption of some kind. I knew I would learn something by the end of this week, that is what I learned. We tell each other stories all of the time: stories about our world, our interactions, our current situations. Do we need to make more time for stories of a different kind? Perhaps.

Sierra Gale

Thoughts on Assignment 1:4

Works Cited

Cherry, Kendra. “Theories of Emotion.” About.com Health. About.com. 20 June 2015. Web. 31 January 2016.

Lennon, John. “Quotable Quote.” Goodreads. Goodreads Inc.. 17 Nov. 2015. Web. 31 January 2016.

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Toronto: Anansi Press. 2003. Print.

4.) Figuring out this place called home is a problem (87).  Why? Why is it so problematic to figure out this place we call home: Canada? Consider this question in context with Chamberlin’s discussion on imagination and reality; belief and truth (use the index).Chamberlin says, “the sad fact is, the history of settlement around the world is the history of displacing other people from their lands, of discounting their livelihoods and destroying their languages” (78).  Chamberlin goes on to “put this differently” (Para. 3). Explain that “different way” of looking at this, and discuss what you think of the differences and possible consequences of these “two ways” of understanding the history of settlement in Canada.

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The story of Canada’s settlement is one I am sure most of us have heard before, in various forms. The version I know best: Europeans arrive on new territory, decide they want to claim it as their own, and do what they feel is necessary and appropriate to get what they want. It features one group’s desire to claim land as their new home, and a resulting need to displace and destroy those they see as a threat to achieving that desire. I think this is why it is so difficult to figure out this place we call home: Canada. It is a home that has been stolen for some and lost for others. For many of us it is built on a “myth of discovery,” a story that was created to help one group manage blame for the pain and loss they were responsible for (Chamberlin 28).  I find it difficult to resist seeing this story as wrong or untrue. However, Chamberlin seems to be trying to get rid of the idea that anybody’s story can be seen as wrong or untrue. He is trying to convince us that more than one truth can exist, more than one story can be seen as ‘real’ or ‘true’ (228). Problems arise, however, when we refuse to believe anybody’s story except our own. The ability to find common ground disappears when we become so convinced that our story is the truth and no other truth can exist. Chamberlin tells many stories in an attempt to shake up our view of ‘reality’ or ‘the one truth.’ He is able to use different perspectives to support his argument that “dividing the world into Them and Us is inevitable. But choosing between is like choosing between reality and the imagination, or between being marooned on an island and drowning in the sea. Deadly, and ultimately a delusion” (239).  One way he does this is by offering an alternative to the language of displacement and destruction often used to describe stories of settlement around the world. He chooses to describe it as: “a history of dismissing a different belief or different behaviour as unbelief or misbehaviour, and of discrediting those who believe or behave differently as infidels or savages” (78). With this different language he has offered us a new way to see the truth of the history of our home, a new way that might be easier to swallow, or at least to move forward from.

The idea that a group of people could so obviously harm another, displace and destroy their home and livelihoods is dreadfully uncomfortable. Chamberlin explores this uncomfortable space in an attempt to use it to help find common ground.  By re-framing the story we have been telling ourselves (as newcomers and settlers of this land) Chamberlin is able to create space for a new story to be heard and understood. By casting European settlers as nomads and those people already living here as the settlers, the understanding of a different story is able to begin (Chamberlin 30). He tells the story of Them and Us, of the barbaric and civilized, before encouraging us to question where those distinctions come from. One way he works to dissect these distinctions is by focusing on the root from which divisions and conflict between groups of people often grow. His discussion of “doodlers and doers” and the “useless and the useful” helps us understand how the stories one group of people tells themselves can colour their view of the other (28). This is where Chamberlin’s ‘different way’ of looking at settlement in Canada becomes helpful.  He is able to bring us closer to the discomfort behind choices that were made and the damage that was done. By bringing us closer to this place of shared discomfort we are better set-up to meet and re-create our story together on common ground.

Sierra,

An Assignment for Lesson 1:2

Works Cited:

Chamberlin, Edward. If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground. Toronto:  AA. Knopf, 2003. Print.

Kenrick, Douglas T.. “Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?: The origins of xenophobia”. Psychology Today. Sussex Publishers, 02 April, 2012. Web. 22 Jan. 2016.

“Protestant ethic”. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., 2016. Web. 22 Jan. 2016.

Hi everyone,

My name is Sierra Gale and I welcome you to read what I have to contribute to English 470’s semester-long discussion.

Seeing as this course will focus on the place we call home, and how we think and speak about that home, it might be useful to share with you the various homes I have called my own. I grew up in Regina, Saskatchewan, a place I have called home for the majority of my life and will continue to for an uncertain amount of time. However, I left Saskatchewan in 2007 and have since lived in Texas, Vancouver, Revelstoke, Hawaii, the seats of various busses travelling throughout South America, and a 1976 Dodge camper van. I am currently splitting my time between Vancouver and Gibsons and am so happy to be back on the west coast.

I graduated from UBC in 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and International Relations. I’ve enrolled in this course with you fine people because I am currently applying to various post-degree teacher education programs. An additional english literature course is something I require to be considered admissible to most schools. Why did I choose this course in particular? My knowledge of Canadian history is, in my opinion, shamefully lacking. The opportunity this class offers, to be able to learn more about Canada’s history online, with a focus on storytelling and First Nations’ perspective, is one I couldn’t pass up.

Throughout my travels, I have often been asked what it’s like to be from Canada. Every time I am asked this, I find it very difficult to form a useful answer. When I am asked about our politics, our culture, or how we relate to one another, anything I say just doesn’t seem accurate enough, or complete. I know racism exists here. I have seen it most obviously in my home province of Saskatchewan. Why it exists has been a topic of many late-night kitchen debates. What I am hoping to gain from this course is a better idea of what it means to be Canadian, truly, through the interpretation of stories and perspectives I would otherwise not be exposed to.

I look forward to learning from, and with all of you. Here’s to the beginning of what I hope will be a supportive, inspiring online platform!

Sincerely,

Sierra

Works Cited:

Gale, Sierra. “Skipping Winter: An adventure in the southerly direction.” Web blog post. Skipping Winter. WordPress, 9 Mar. 2014. Web. 11 Jan. 2016.

Smith, Kim. “Bleak picture painted of racism in Saskatchewan.” Global News. Global News Canada, 23 Jan. 2015. Web. 12 Jan. 2016.