Three New Reviews: "Stitching Our Stories Together: Journeys into Indigenous Social Work," edited by Jeannine Carrière and Catherine Richardson; “nēhiyawētān kīkināhk /Speaking Cree in the Home: A Beginner’s Guide for Families” by Belinda Daniels and Andrea Custer; and "The Haunted Horn" by Edward Willett

“Stitching Our Stories Together: Journeys into Indigenous Social Work”

Edited by Jeannine Carrière and Catherine Richardson

Published by University of Regina Press

Review by Shelley A. Leedahl

$34.95  ISBN 9-781779-400574

   

The stimulating essays in Stitching Our Stories Together: Journeys into Indigenous Social Work—edited by Métis scholars and thesis supervisors Jeannine Carrière and Catherine Richardson—reveal how nine Métis social work graduate students from across Canada are incorporating individual Indigeneity, histories and experiences, plus “Indigenous ways of knowing and being,” into their research in innovative ways, from using dance as a method to learn Michif to beading. The essays are disparate, imaginative, frank, and encouraging. 

The anthology includes an introduction and conclusion from the editors. They’ve chosen the culturally resonant metaphor of “stitches” in their title, as “Métis have stitched together blankets, quilts, fishing nets, and clothing[,] as well as mended relationships and kept families on track.” They hope the book will inspire “Indigenous undergrads who are contemplating entering a post-graduate program,” and that future students will find a few of “the possibilities offered by Indigenous research” in this handsome collection. The editors point to the importance of “meaning making … the process of how we take the gifts of participant interviews or other information to a level that adds to existing knowledge,” and in their roles as supervisors/mentors, they express a desire to support students in ways that are “meaningful” to the scholars.

The thesis topics are varied, from Robert Mahikwa’s aspiration to support “Indigenous Youth Aging Out of Ministry Care”—whilst simultaneously “working towards a genuine re-connection with, and re-understanding of” his own “cultural knowledges, traditions, and ancestral peoples”—to Juliet Mackie’s research project, “Reconstituting Indigenous Identities through Portraiture and Storytelling: Reclaiming Representation for Indigenous Women and Two-Spirit People.”

Even as a non-academic, it was compelling to read about the various scholars’ Indigenous research methodologies. Mahikwa used “Storywork” as his methodology and incorporated “oral traditions and storytelling practices as [his] methods.” Shelley LaFrance, in BC, utilized “storytelling and autoethnography” in her project, “A Métis Grandmother’s Knowledge,” with research guided by “decolonizing theory” and “the Cree Medicine Wheel.” Tanille Johnston, from the We Wai Kai Nation, examined “Indigenous Fathers and Their Paths into Fatherhood.” Her essay “encourages social workers to strive for Father inclusion,” and she also used a storytelling methodology. mel lefebvre deliberately renounced capitals to honour the traditional, noncapitalized michif and nêhiyawêwin languages, and used podcasting to highlight the “decolonization, collective care, and self-care” of “urban indigiqueers, trans, two-spirit folks and indigenous women.” Juliet Mackie applied portraiture and storytelling in her research, and I applaud her “Métis Kitchen Table Methodology,” which includes visiting, food, and music.

My favourite piece is Shawna Bowler’s. Bowler employed “a beading methodology” to “explore the experiences of five urban Indigenous women in Winnipeg,” and gifted each participant with a beaded medicine bag she’d made. The act of beading with others was “decolonizing and healing,” and the writer did an excellent job of relating beading and social work. “Bead by bead, we retell our stories.”

As Carrière and Richardson maintain, “In the midst of ongoing colonizing practices in Canada, we look for signs of light.” This book is one of those bright signs. 

THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM THE SASKATCHEWAN PUBLISHERS GROUP WWW.SKBOOKS.COM

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“nēhiyawētān kīkināhk /Speaking Cree in the Home: A Beginner’s Guide for Families”

By Belinda Daniels and Andrea Custer

Foreword by Solomon Ratt, Illustrations by Lana Whiskeyjack

Published by University of Regina Press

Review by Shelley A. Leedahl

$89.95 Hardcover, $19.95 Paperback   ISBN 9-780889-779037

   

It’s been said that learning one’s Indigenous language is fundamental to the process of decolonization, of understanding one’s culture, and also of understanding the world, and thus I’m pleased to see this book that helps Indigenous peoples’ learn Cree at home, and “begin their own journey of reclaiming and revitalizing Cree.” 

nēhiyawētān kīkināhk / Speaking Cree in the Home: A Beginner’s Guide for Families is an attractive manual that “helps re-forge connections between identity, language, family, and community” in a practical way. Authors Belinda Daniels (founder of the not-for-profit language revitalization organization nēhiyawak Language Experience Inc. and an assistant professor at the University of Victoria in Indigenous Education, Daniels hales from Sturgeon lake, SK) and Andrea Custer (a Woodland Cree from Pelican Narrows who earned her MEd from the University of Saskatchewan, taught in numerous schools, writes curriculum, and now works at Regina’s First Nations University as a Cree language lecturer) are equally passionate about language revitalization. Custer says “language shapes our beliefs and values, which in turn affect our attitudes and behaviours.” On her website, andreacuster.ca, she writes: “For over a decade, I've dedicated my life to teaching and preserving nīhithawīwin, our Cree language, as I believe it holds the key to our identity, culture, and future.”

Custer is a first-language speaker, Daniels a second-language learner. Together these educators have the rich experience necessary to steer Cree language learners in the right direction, as “The way Indigenous people learn and understand this world is very different from how Europeans learn and understand this world.”

This guide, shortlisted for the Saskatchewan Book Award Publishing in Education Award 2023, includes short chapters that outline Cree language history, Cree’s broad geographical landscape and the five dialects of the language (Plains Cree is the ‘Y’ dialect), a section called “The Invasion” concerning the arrival of European explorers to “the territory of what is now called Saskatchewan,” plus a few pages on Indigenous ways of learning, education, and “Colonization and Decolonization.” In Part Three readers are treated to personal essays in which the editors “position [themselves] as mothers and caregivers of [their] homes.” Custer explains that her youngest daughter “learned English first and Cree second,” and her last-born child (she has five) “is currently immersed in Cree so that it becomes his first language.”

The chapter on various methods of learning Cree is interesting, ie: “Once you learn a word or phrase in Cree … never use that word in English again,” clapping syllables, using complete sentences when talking to children, and monthly goal-setting. As “language activists” and parents, Daniels and Custer include practical and fun ways to bring Cree into the everyday, ie: via beading, berry picking, road trips, mealtimes, nature walks, music, websites, Facebook, creating a photo album, smudging and praying.

Parents may chuckle over a few phrases in the glossary which demonstrate that this is a very realistic guide for contemporary families. If parents wish to communicate “Put your iPad away” or “No more gaming,” they’ll find the Cree translations here.   

THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM

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"The Haunted Horn"

by Edward Willett

Published by Endless Sky Books

Review by Shelley A. Leedahl

$19.99  ISBN 978-1-998273-70-6

 

Wow: Regina’s Edward Willett has done it again. He’s written a book—this time a light-hearted, middle years’ horror—that’s certain to keep young readers transfixed. The longtime multi-genre writer and publisher’s cracked the code to literary success: his plots zoom; his characters are credible and maintain distinctive voices; and he understands literary craft. In The Haunted Horn, the American Civil War meets present day and reality meets the supernatural, and it’s all more fun that a bunch of bugles.    

This engaging, republished novel (first edition, 2012) is set in “Oak Bluffs, Arkansas,” where Union soldiers defeated the Confederates in a fiery battle that closed out the Civil War. It revolves around eighth-grader Alex, a creative only child—he fancies himself “a future best-selling novelist”—small for his size, smart in science and English, and a French horn player in the school’s marching band. Willett notably reveals that Alex’s family is upper middle class: antique-obsessed Mom picks Alex up at school in a Lincoln SUV; Dad recently left retail management when elected to town council. Alex is a target for bully Sammy Findlater and his gang, and Sammy’s on the war path more than usual after Alex accidentally knocks over the fiend’s “elaborate toothpick model of the Great Wall of China.”

The aforementioned accident—Alex is clutzy—happens on an already horrid Friday, and after school Alex is forced to go to a country auction with his mom. While digging through “junk,” ie: “rusted horseshoe nails … a German Bible, three marbles, a bedraggled stuffed hummingbird posed rather stiffly on a piece of wire above a carved wooden flower”—Willett’s a master of including fine details— Alex also finds a “horned-toad ugly” Confederate bugle for $20. After two hours of polishing, the bugle “glowed in the soft light as though illuminated from within.” Before he’s even had time to blow it, cruel Sammy et al rough Alex up because the ringleader wants the bugle as retribution for the toothpick fiasco.

Everything’s heating up. Tough-looking Annie Parker sticks up for Alex and becomes a friend, though she’s self-conscious about the fact that her mother’s the mayor’s maid. And why does she want to bring Sammy down? Alex’s dad’s plans to stage a Battle of Oak Bluff’s anniversary re-enactment  go haywire because someone (or something) keeps chewing up and burning the town square “battleground.” Even the four historic cannons have been moved. Alex’s band teacher wants him to play the bugle at Friday’s football game. And after a dramatic Chapter Five chase scene (with Chinese food), Alex finally lifts the old bugle to his lips, the “cold metal twisting in his hand as though alive,” and a ghost boy in Civil War garb is awakened. Visceral war nightmares commence, and Alex and Annie collaborate to learn what in the Sam Hill is going on.    

Mystery, horror, and self-deprecating humour abound as Alex learns more about the ghost boy—and more about his adolescent self—in this dynamic, entertaining and highly recommended novel.           

THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM THE SASKATCHEWAN PUBLISHERS GROUP WWW.SKBOOKS.COM

 

 

Two New Reviews: “Wîhtamawik/Tell Them: On a Life of Inspiration” by Louise Bernice Half - Sky Dancer, and Blue thinks itself within me: Lyric poetry, ecology and lichenous form by Kim Trainor

“Wîhtamawik/Tell Them: On a Life of Inspiration”

Written by Louise Bernice Halfe – Sky Dancer

Published by University of Regina Press

Review by Shelley A. Leedahl

$27.95  ISBN 9-781779-400840

 

 

Award-winning Saskatchewan writer Louise Bernice Halfe – Sky Dancer is renowned for her candid, Cree-infused poetry and presentations. Her latest book, Wîhtamawik/Tell Them: On a Life of Inspiration, braids memoir, poetry and essays to reveal where the author’s found inspiration and, I would say, contentment, after a tumultuous early start. In the eloquent introduction by the author’s daughter, Omeasoo Wahpasiw, the latter writes: “My mom dances with both her bones and the bones of our people, and when they poke and punch her with their insistent rattling, she does us all a favour, as painful as it is, and leaves them naked in the wind.”

Until age seven, Halfe lived with her family in a log cabin on the Saddle Lake Reserve and practiced traditional Cree ways of life. She doesn’t pretend that it was perfect. Her father drank and was emotionally volatile (“His heart was a cave of stalactites.”). Her parents “stooked hay, picked rocks/in white farmers’ fields”. Halfe “learned to hunt, skin, and butcher game through non-verbal methods. [She] also watched [her] grandparents work on the land and live their spirituality.” She was forced to attend Blue Quills Residential School in St. Paul, Alberta at age seven, and for the next seven years was stripped of using the Cree language she’d grown up with, endured abuse, and lost her identity.

Regaining the Cree language—nêhiyawêwin is used liberally in this work, and an extensive glossary’s included—has been central to Halfe’s personal and professional development. “We must examine and appreciate the depth and richness of our language in order to understand our ceremonies and the heart of our culture. Indigenous languages … cradle the traditional knowledge and wisdom of the people,” she writes. “We need this language of meaning and purpose, of action and vitality, to lift us beyond the era of victimization.”   

I appreciate that this book takes on so much. There’s inspiration and the writing process (she compares it to autumn leaves that “twist and turn with the sun, whipped and rattled by the winds”); personal history (“No running water. Just buckets/of slough water sifted/through a pillowcase.”), including her spirituality, in which ceremony is of great import; her trust in dreams as “a source of information;” the influence of storytelling and Elders; environmental awareness and great respect for the natural world; the value of long walks; legends; much about wind (yótin), which “gives us direction and carries the breath of all life” and is featured in many of the poems; and there is the poetry itself—or simply poetic lines within her prose—that have given me fresh appreciation for her writing, ie: “winter is on the small hairs of my arms.”

“The past is forever present,” Halfe writes in “A Keening,” and many of us spend our lifetimes figuring out how to reconcile this. Halfe appears to be well on her way. “I live and walk this life in both high heels and moccasins,” she shares, and we who read her are the luckier for it.  

THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM THE SASKATCHEWAN PUBLISHERS GROUP WWW.SKBOOKS.COM

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“Blue thinks itself within me”

Written by Kim Trainor

Published by University of Regina Press

Review by Shelley A. Leedahl

$27.95  ISBN 9-781779-401205

 

 

I knew I was in for a different kind of book when I read the author’s dedication, which begins: “For the flying beings, the ones with sharp teeth,/the ones who swim, the fire stones, the trees, the rain.” By the end of prize-winning Vancouver writer Kim Trainor’s text, Blue thinks itself within me, I can affirm that her dedication tracks.

Trainor sees, hears, experiences and questions with the intensity of a scientist and the detail of an artist as she draws readers both into the forest at the two-year Fairy Creek blockade near Vancouver Island’s Port Renfrew—where she joined other protestors to protect old growth logging—and through her elegiac and philosophical quandary re: how best to approach writing a long lyric poem about the oldgrowth specklebelly lichen (a rare and threatened species found on yellow cedar in ancient forests) in a kind of respectful co-making with this oldgrowth resident.

Trainor describes artist Natasha Lavdovsky’s discovery of “over sixty trees draped in glittering specklebelly,” and explains that “The finding of such a large community of oldgrowth specklebelly was evidence of the age of this forest that Teal-Jones [“a privately owned timber harvesting and primary lumber product manufacturing company” – tealjones.com] was in the process of cutting down ...”

The book brims with questions, ie: “What tools might lyric poetry bring to a project of co-making of the world with our more-than-human kin, in the face of this slow-burning ecological catastrophe? What furious witness?” and “How will I stitch the poem’s ecosystem into its seams …?”

Trainor admits that her deep dive into how to work artistically with oldgrowth specklebelly lichen at times “engages with complex poetic and ecological theories.” True thing. I far more enjoyed the concrete, sensory-rich descriptions of the Fairy Creek site, where protestors had “code names”—Trainor was “Crow”—and shared supplies: “headlamps, compressions sacks, dry bags, whistles, and a body cam for arrestees to wear in order to document their experiences.” She acknowledges that the land-defenders “combine[d] the most basic of technologies, fire, and one of the most complex, the smartphone, as [they held] vigil with forest and kin.” Constant rain; working in the dark; difficult terrain; and interactions with RCMP, liaison officers, and paramilitary-trained officers (with the Community Industry Response Group) made for great challenges. The protestors created “hard blocks,” “soft blocks” and “blobs” (with protestors interlocking arms), and Trainor was sometimes on the front line. “A blue [RCMP officer] gouged his thumb under my chin, then slipped his hand down to my neck and pressed so hard I couldn’t breathe, his other thumb screwed into my right shoulder at a painful pressure point.” I understand the passion here; one of my family members also participated in the Fairy Creek blockade.

The nonfiction book also includes Trainor’s quiet, beautiful, sensorial moments—a necessary counterpoint. “At night in my one-person tent, the sound of the creek rises, flows through huckleberry and salal, seeps through thin nylon, flesh, bone. I am awash with creek. World pours in.”           

   

THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM