the secret pocket: children's books on residential schools, reading for reconciliation, and other library things

This post started as a standard "what i'm reading" post. But as I thought about it, I realized that it touches on several other themes that are important to me: history, Reconciliation, libraries, readers' advisory... and maybe some others I'm not seeing yet.

The Secret Pocket

In September, for National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, I was updating a list of children's books about residential schools, and found The Secret Pocket, by Peggy Janicki. It immediately became my favourite children's book about the residential school experience.

The Secret Pocket tells the story -- in the first person -- of a Dakelh girl who was taken away from her family when she was four years old. She is brought to a place far away from her home, where the children are always hungry and cold. The girls are forbidden to speak their own language, and are frequently punished -- often by the withholding of food.

The older girls sew hidden pockets into their clothes. They secretly gather materials and sew at night, then use the pockets to hide pieces of apples, carrots, and bread to share with the younger girls, and the girls who are hungriest.

In the Dakelh culture before contact, sewing skills were passed down through generations of women. The girls who were a bit older when they were forcibly removed from their families already had this knowledge. So not only were they helping to feed each other, they were keeping a piece of their culture alive.  

The Secret Pocket records and preserves the stories that the author's mother told her about her own experience -- a story of courageous, creative, and collective resistance. I highly recommend it to all adult readers as well as children. 

How to talk to kids about...

Canadian schools now teach about Canada's colonization of Indigenous people, and about the Residential Schools, at every grade level. It's about time! My Canadian-born friends never learned about this when they were growing up. Many of them lived right near a Residential School but never knew about the genocidal system that they represented, let alone what went on behind the prison walls. 

Many people I know are particularly upset at learning that Duncan Campbell Scott was one of the principal architects of the system that vowed to "kill the Indian in the child". (Apparently this phrase is falsely attributed to Scott. Nevertheless, he created the system that tried to make it a reality.) In school, my Canadian friends and co-workers learned about Scott as a celebrated Canadian poet. They learned about his dark legacy as adults, through Reconciliation education through their workplaces. 

(Incidentally, those three names -- Duncan, Campbell, and Scott -- are found all over Vancouver Island place-names. I hope one day those names will be expunged, and places returned to their ancestral names.)

Reconciliation education stands in stark contrast to so many school districts in the United States that are no longer teaching about slavery. This choice is truly Orwellian, even surreal. And so indicative of the progress of the fascist state.

There are ways to talk with children about difficult topics, in age-appropriate ways. I'm no student of education, so I'm not well-versed in method and curricula, but I see it taking place all around me. 

Reading for Reconciliation

For non-Canadian readers, Reconciliation is the process of educating ourselves about the historical (and ongoing) colonization and oppression of the Indigenous people who live in what is now called Canada, and finding ways to create more equity and justice. 

This work is happening in workplaces, schools, unions, churches, and other organizations, and it is also happening on a personal level. Individual Canadians are taking responsibility for learning, and to the extent that we can, for decolonizing our lives. The 94 Calls to Action created by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission provide a framework for this. 

Obviously not every Canadian cares about this, and a certain percentage of the non-Indigenous population is blatantly hostile to the idea. But evidence also shows that huge numbers of non-Indigenous Canadians care deeply about this and are finding ways to participate in acts of Reconciliation.

One of the ways that Canadians further their own Reconciliation journeys is through reading. Books written by Indigenous authors, both fiction and nonfiction, for every age group and nearly every genre, are burgeoning in sales, libraries, and book clubs. I find this especially heartening when I consider that much of the subject matter in these books is disturbing -- and many people (unfortunately, in my view) avoid reading anything with disturbing content. 

I want to note that in Indigenous Relations: Insights, Tips & Suggestions to Make Reconciliation a Reality, author Bob Joseph lists reading work by Indigenous authors as a tangible act of Reconciliation.

If you have not already done so, I highly recommend reading Joseph's 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act. It's a short, highly accessible book, and my number one pick for beginning Reconciliation awareness. Here's a very good interview with Bob Joseph in The Tyee.

We💓booklists

Many library systems, including mine, offer booklists -- lists curated by librarians, grouped by subgenre, age group, or subject matter, to highlight hidden gems and help customers choose titles.

Booklists are an important form of readers' advisory. Staffing levels -- in every library in North America -- are very low, and in many libraries, there may be no professional staff who have been trained in readers' advisory. Even if staff are available, many customers won't ask for reading recommendations, for various reasons. So most libraries offer various forms of passive readers' advisory. Booklists are a part of that. 

In our system, lists are created by any staff who have an interest. A call goes out, staff sign up for topics within an audience group (adult, youth, or children), or suggest creative list ideas. We put our annotated picks into a template, so the lists have a uniform look and feel. Our lists are always diverse and current, and many are really creative.

I love readers' advisory, and my position doesn't give me much opportunity to keep those skills alive, so when the call goes out, I always raise my hand. It's an opportunity "to librarian". Right now I'm working on two adult lists -- current travel memoirs, and memoirs and biographies. I almost always choose nonfiction lists, with one exception: I love the challenge of creating diverse lists of modern classics. I also sometimes contribute to lists of children's books, which is how I found The Secret Pocket.

national truth and reconciliation day 2023: blankets, and an apology

National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Port Hardy was especially meaningful this year. Not quite as many people joined the walk as in the previous two years, but there was still a good-sized crowd of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.

Totem pole at Port Hardy Secondary School

In Port Hardy, NDTR begins with a gathering at the high school, where this a magnificent totem pole, and a drum and song blessing. Then everyone walks (elders ride) to Carrot Park, on the bay, for a ceremony. In the park, folding chairs have been set up, and food is being prepared under a huge tent.  

Elders sit in the front row, and most non-Indigenous people wait to be invited to sit if they choose. The emcee always encourages everyone to sit; clearly they know that the settlers present don't want to presume. There are many families there, both First Nations and settler -- although not as many non-Indigenous children as I think should be there (as in, everyone). 

After the ceremonies, elders are served lunch in their seats, and everyone is invited to partake. I've never stayed for food; it just feels wrong to me. I'm here to witness this catastrophic trauma in your community, now please feed me? I'm sure our Indigenous hosts would insist that I eat -- I've never been to a First Nations event that didn't include food -- but I don't feel right, so I don't. I also don't bring a camera or use my phone for photos or videos. 

NDTR 2023

This year's ceremony included two pieces that were especially meaningful.

The emcee invited two people to the mic, people who are employed by Island Health, our health authority. I know them to be the director and manager of mental health and addiction services in our region.

The spokesperson from Island Health acknowledged the historic and systemic racism that caused Indigenous people to go without appropriate care, and the actions disguised as care that actively caused harm. They called all Island Health workers who were present (many of whom I recognized from my community connections) to come up. 

As all stood facing the assembled crowd, the speaker apologized for these past wrongs, and pledged to move forward as partners with the Nations in timely, appropriate, and culturally safe care. They announced the opening of a new local health resource. It was a huge piece to witness.

Naturally, the emcee and the local chiefs talked about the residential "schools," and the impacts of intergenerational trauma. The speaker asked survivors of the schools to stand. Members of the Nation came out with brightly coloured blankets and wrapped each of them in a blanket, standing and holding these elders in a tight, blanketed embrace. It was deeply moving. 

I recognized several regulars from our library. I knew they had been affected by residential school trauma, but did not know they themselves were survivors. I'm glad to know this about them.

Never assume

We left shortly after, stopping at a food truck for something to eat. There, I saw a lovely library customer I know, and her husband. She told me that he is Métis, and a residential school survivor himself. She told me she is also mostly First Nations, but her family somehow escaped this fate. 

I didn't know this about her or her husband, and never could have guessed based on their appearance. This conversation was a perfect example of something I frequently encounter. You never know. You never know someone's background or their experience. You cannot make assumptions.

A few days later, at the library, I received an invitation that read, in part:

We invite you to celebrate with us and witness the cedar blessing of the opening of the Port Hardy Primary Care Centre's A’ekaḵila’as Room One—a welcoming, culturally-safe space for our Indigenous Community Partners, our patients and their families. We invite you to share with us how you see the space evolving over time. It is a meeting space, a place for care and a sacred space that we hope you will call your own.

This must be the health resource mentioned in the ceremony. There's an open house that I look forward to attending.

When I think about what Canada and the Church did to Indigenous people, I wonder how there can ever be justice, and I despair. And when I witness the spirit and resiliency of the Nations and their peoples, and I connect with all the non-Indigenous people who want to help the healing, I have hope.

twelve reasons i loved the pacific northwest labor history association conference

I mentioned here that I recently enjoyed two back-to-back opportunities, one for work and one for union. 

Through my union, I was extremely fortunate to attend the annual conference of the Pacific Northwest Labor History Association, this year held in Tacoma, Washington.

This was amazing timing for me, both logistically and in terms of my ongoing labour history self-education. Between labour book club, my own reading, and now this conference, I've recently absorbed a big chunk of learning, with overlapping and criss-crossing connections that are very satisfying.

I plan to write about the conference in more depth, but meanwhile thought I'd get some thoughts out in a listicle. As always in my lists, these are not in any particular order.

And so, twelve things I loved about the PNWLHA annual conference:

1. Synchronicity. The first book the labour book club read was The Cold Millions by Jess Walter. And the first event of the conference was an interview with two authors of historical fiction set in the Pacific Northwest: Karl Marlantes and Jess Walter. I was able to ask Jess Walter a question that came up in our group's discussion. How cool is that?

2. Radicalism. This was very much a gathering of labour activists outside of the structures and confines of unions. Opportunities like this allow us to explore a broader spectrum of possibilities, which we can then use to move our unions forward. 

3. Belonging. As I said in 2009 when I attended the International Socialists' Marxism conference for the first time: this is my tribe. It's a powerful feeling to be among your own people, and it's soothing: an antidote for frustration and despair.

4. History. I believe the only way to understand where we are is by understanding where we came from and how we got here. 

5. Local history. I was in high school when I learned that the main roads where I grew up in Rockland Country, New York, were originally traveled by Native Americans. I've been fascinated by local history -- wherever I am -- ever since. 

6. Young workers! This was by far the most exciting event I attended: a panel of young labour activists. Of course I'm aware of the organizing going on in Amazon, Starbucks, and the fast-food industry -- but there is so much more -- and it so much better -- than I knew. I'll write more about this.

7. The keynote: "Reckoning with the Past to Move Forward". The keynote speaker was Moon-Ho Jung, a historian at the University of Washington. His speech was riveting, and set the radical tone for the day. More about this later, too.

8. The Washington State History Museum. The conference was held in this beautiful (but strange) building, and included admission and free time to see the exhibits. There was an exhibit by Japanese American artists called "Resilience -- a Sansei Sense of Legacy ," about Executive Order 9066; "Fine Lines," about cartooning; and a permanent collection. Interesting factoid: Lynda Barry, Gary Larson and Matt Groening all grew up in Washington State.

9. "Labor Wars of the Northwest". There was a screening of this documentary, which was great for someone like me who needs an overview. There was also some protest from PNWLHA members who claim the movie "is telling the boss' story," and want the organization to withdraw their association with the film. Although I didn't understand their cause, I appreciated that they were given a forum.

10. The IWW! The International Workers of the World are a constant theme in my reading and thinking. This conference was bursting with Wobby goodness.

11. Women. You can't talk about the IWW without highlighting the matriarchs of the movement. The courageous and outrageous organizing by women in labour was everywhere in this conference.

12. How history is constructed. Much of this conference, both overtly and indirectly, was about how history is written -- who writes the official stories, what sources are available to us, how we access other versions of our own histories. This is also linked to literacy, to a web of literacies that working people are often denied. 

the canoe family: reconciliation retreat

I'm in the middle of two amazing opportunities, one through my work, and one through my union. The work thing is complex -- and important.  

Decolonizing the library: walking in two worlds

Circle of Life, Trevor Hunt

I am part of a small team that is creating a framework of Reconciliation -- decolonizing our library system, and all the people who comprise it, from the Board and the executive management to the frontline workers and all the supporting departments. 

In 2019, BC became the first province to put the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) into law, with the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA). We are very fortunate that the new leadership of our library system (more about that in the future) cares deeply about this responsibility, and is making it a priority. 

The journey of decolonizing

All the institutions that make up our modern North American world are the products of colonialism. 

Every institution -- educational, cultural, financial, judicial -- is built on colonial foundations, and work with colonial practices. In Canada these practices were, for a long time, hidden under myths of peacekeeping and multiculturalism. Canada appeared to be a benign and peace-loving nation, especially when compared with its blood-stained, racist neighbour to the south.

Now Canadians know better (or at least they should). When the truth about the so-called Residential Schools (i.e. concentration camps) came to light, those myths were stripped away. The brutality that was revealed was wholly at odds with Canadians' image of their country. 

The profound and sustained response by vast numbers of Canadians gives me hope. Now it falls to us to understand how colonization has harmed Indigenous peoples, and how systems continue to harm all of us. 

I say "all of us" because (as I've written about in many different contexts) exclusion and inequality harms both sides, the oppressor as well as the oppressed. Never to the same extent, of course. But a divided world benefits only the ruling class, and even that, not very well. 

When we begin to see the our world through a decolonizing lens -- when we make the structures visible -- we can gradually begin to remake them. And, whenever possible, we can intentionally embed Indigenous worldviews and ways of knowing into our systems.

This work will always be imperfect and always incomplete, but we cannot use that as an excuse for inaction. 

Our guides in this journey speak about “walking in two worlds". That describes the ultimate goal: to think, reflect, and incorporate Indigenous ways of being and knowing into our present systems.

That’s a lot of words, and if you don’t know what it means, you have a lot of company. Not so long ago, I didn’t know what it meant, either. Understanding has come to me gradually, over years, as I read, watch, listen, and explore. This week my understanding made a big leap forward.

Decolonizing our library

I have the amazing good fortune to be part of a team whose purpose is to guide the Vancouver Island Regional Library on this journey. Each person on the team lives and works in a different geographic region of the VIRL service area, which is associated with one or more Indigenous Nations, usually several Nations that make up a language group or family group. 

I should emphasize that hundreds of VIRL staff care deeply about Reconciliation. This team is just a fortunate few who are geographically diverse, passionate about this work, and were invited to participate.

VIRL has hired a consulting team to help guide the journey: Toro Marketing. Toro are two women with deep connections with several Indigenous communities, and a lot of experience in this work.

After a series of online meetings, it was decided that our team would meet in person to create the Reconciliation framework. When I confessed to another librarian on the team that I really had no idea what that meant – what we were actually going to do – I learned I was not the only one.

Going into this retreat, all we knew was: we are excited about this work; we believe in its importance; we are approaching it with openness, curiosity, and honesty. For me this means checking my cynicism and pessimism. I can acknowledge that sometimes I have those feelings, but I will consciously put them aside, and approach the work with optimism and hope.

The Wildwood retreat: day one

The retreat was held in an incredibly beautiful natural setting, in the Wildwood Ecoforest, outside the town of Ladysmith. We were guests of both Toro and members of the Stz’uminus and Snuneymuxw Coast Salish First Nations, including a hereditary chief.

On the first day, we sat on seats and benches around a fire, and mostly listened and observed. There was beautiful singing, and drumming, and stories – both individual stories of trauma and recovery, and discovering and claiming identity, and also sacred stories. Some of the people around the fire were related by blood and birth, others were people invited into the Nation -- adopted, so to speak.

While we listened, one young man was preparing salmon to be cooked in the traditional way on the fire. (My photos from another, similar salmon meal are here.)

Many of the stories were intensely moving. Many were fascinating and felt like a privileged glimpse into another world. 

The First Nations people among us all expressed thankfulness and gratitude towards us. It was a bit overwhelming. We all enjoy such privilege, and the original inhabitants of this land have lived through a genocide. Yet they are thanking us! I felt wholly undeserving of this; we all did. But it was clear that their thanks and respect were completely genuine. 

We enjoyed a lovely simple luncheon that some community members made, and we spent some time walking the beautiful land. 

Land-based learning. Life is a circle.

Indigenous ways of knowing and learning are always connected to the land. "The land" is what we non-Indigenous people call "nature". 

Indigenous beliefs teach that the land is alive – from the tops of the mountains to the bottom of the sea -- and that all life is interconnected. And if we can quiet our minds and approach the land with respect and openness, we will learn. Conversely, it is believed that many (or even most) of the world's problems derive for disconnection with the land, and from living wholly disconnected from the Earth.

(I’m saying this very poorly. My understanding of this grows all the time, but not to the extent that I can easily explain it.)

There are hundreds, thousands of Indigenous nations, each with its own language, traditions, culture, and histories. Yet there are some commonalities among all Indigenous cultures of the Americas, and throughout the world. One such commonality is a worldview of connectedness -- a respect for all beings (including things we may not regard as beings, such as rocks, water, air, and mountains), and the belief that all beings are connected with each other, and all are sacred. 

Indigenous belief systems see humans' place on the land (in nature) differently than western and Judeo-Christian culture. Living creatures are not divided into a hierarchy, with humans on top. Humans are not superior, and do not have “dominion over” other life. Rather, life is a circle, or a web. All are connected, all our related. This worldview is found in every known current and past Indigenous culture.

Brushing ceremony

Towards the end of the day, we participated in a Coast Salish brushing ceremony. 

Every Indigenous nation has some type of cleansing ritual (some of which have been appropriated into New Age and other spiritual practices). Many people are familiar with smudging, which may involve the ritual burning of sage or sweetgrass. 

Stz’uminus and Snuneymuxw people perform brushing, using the tree that is central to their lives -- the cedar.

People sang, drummed, and chanted, as each of us took a turn standing and having our bodies, head to toe, brushed with cedar fronds. It was very intense, and also very calming and relaxing, at the same time. You can see videos of some cedar brushing ceremonies here. 

This first day, we just listened. We did introduce ourselves and shared briefly where we live and work, and a bit about our motivations for this work. But mostly we listened.

The library people all stayed in a hotel in Nanaimo, and were shuttled back and forth by a local person with a transportation business -- Janie's Got a Bus. At the close of the day, we walked back through the woods, met our shuttle, and went to our hotel, exhausted.

The Wildwood retreat: day two

The following day we spent working in the lodge. 

The lodge is one of those gorgeous buildings that I think of as "rustic elegance," all hewn wood and stone, huge windows overlooking the forest and river, natural light pouring in.  

We sat in a circle -- the executive director, librarians, managers, and a library assistant -- and the consultants guided us through a process of creating a framework. 

Here is one of the tools we used. This was created by Laura Tait, an Indigenous educator, for use in schools. We are adapting it to the library system.

Many questions, some answers, and a very, very long timeline

There were many decisions to be made and points to be discussed. 

Where are we individually, and where is the organization as a whole? Do we assess those at the same time on two parallel courses, or do we assess each separately? How and when do we bring along all the other employees of the organization? How can we incorporate decolonization into every facet of the organization – into finance, purchasing, hiring practices, facilities maintenance? What would true decolonization of public services look like?

How do we support people who are just beginning their journey -- and how do we approach people who want no part in this? What resources do we need to continue our journeys? 

Many questions, much discussion. Some consensus, some open questions. 

One thing we keep coming back to is approaching this work itself from a decolonizing lens, a meta discussion if you will. In our library work -- in most work in the so-called western world -- there are agendas, checklists, deadlines. We check off a task and move on to the next. Decolonizing means putting all that aside. Reconciliation is not a checklist to be conquered. It is ongoing work, work that never really ends. This work is all process. All journey. Never finished. 

It helps me to think of decolonizing the way I think about being a writer, or being a librarian, or trying to be a better version of myself. That work is never complete. It is always becoming. And the work is not linear. It doesn't happen in clearly defined steps. It often develops in ways we cannot anticipate.

So when we look at that rubric, above, we are likely in many places on that grid at the same time. And we'll each move through the grid at different paces and in different ways. But one thing we know: this work is not optional. This will be mandatory work for every library employee.

In the lodge, we had another simple and abundant lunch, and continued in the afternoon, deciding our next steps. Another walk through the woods to the shuttle, then dinner and drinks at a local pub. Then back to our hotel rooms.

The Wildwood retreat: day three and final

The third and final day, our two guides and the elder came to the hotel. 

We shared breakfast and a benediction, and we listened to more beautiful stories. Again, the Indigenous elder thanked us, telling us that working with us has helped him be in touch with his best self, and expressed gratitude for our journeys. All three spoke of this work as being grounded in love.

We took turns expressing our thanks and gratitude in return. We were all very emotional.

Two notes of interest

One of our guides said, "You will hear a word, one that is likely to make you uncomfortable. It’s a word we keep out of our schools and libraries: prayer. Here, we use the word prayer because it’s the closest word we can find for a concept that has no English word. These prayers have nothing to do with religion. This is absolutely not a religion. This is a way of seeing and knowing about life and all living things."

Again, I cannot do this justice. All I can say is that I am a hardcore atheist, but I am comfortable acknowledging and accepting the worldview I am being shown. It actually fits very nicely with my own belief systems. 

Then there is the name of our group. I have been calling us the Reconciliation Team. I like the word team, and use it often in both work and union. But I was the only one who liked the word!

Our three guides said we are family. 

Later, at the pub, I said, "I'm going out on a limb here, but am I the only one who is not comfortable calling us family?" And I was! The only one!

Someone went into an explanation of a broader concept of family. Well, yeah. I'm no stranger to that. But this group is not family in any sense. We have much respect and admiration and affection for each other. But family? To me that feels forced.

Others said that as we do this work together, we will become family. I'm not even sure about that. But I won't belabor the point. 

On our last day, during the closing ceremonies, someone in our group thought of our name: the VIRL Canoe Family. All VIRL branches are on or near water. All coastal Indigenous people use canoes. We are on a journey. It's brilliant. 

Pronunciation guide: First Voices

One last note here. If you are interested in learning how to pronounce words of a specific Indigenous language, YouTube and the internet in general are terrible. Often someone (maybe a bot) is just reading the word phonetically. 

Some of the sounds are very difficult for English speakers to learn. Others are fairly straightforward. But sounding out the word phonetically will not help.

The best resource for correct pronunciations is the First Voices Language Archives. The site links to 75 different language websites. If you're interested in learning, a good place to start is with a greeting, or a word of thanks and appreciation. Often one word will be used for all three. One of the first things I learned at the Port Hardy Library was Gilakas'la.

community meetings: what we heard about the library

As I mentioned some weeks ago, our library system is in the midst of the strategic planning process, crafting a roadmap for the next five years. Part of the process is community engagement -- hearing directly from library users and local partners about the library's mission, its place in the community, and what kind of library services they want.

Through quirks of geography and staffing models, I ended up doing the most engagement sessions of any librarian in the system, as a team with one of my staff. We facilitated five public meetings, one in each of the communities we serve, plus we conducted one in-depth interview, and I co-facilitated a focus group on literacy.

All the materials were provided to us, and there was extensive training in the process. And thank dog for that, because even with all the support, it was a huge amount of work. 

In these sessions, we presented a set of guided questions and activities, intended to elicit input on the library's values, mission, and direction. 

In each community, between five and ten people spent an evening with us. This turnout seemed reasonable to us, given the size of our communities -- until we learned that even in much larger branches, participation was usually fewer than ten people. Seen as a percentage of population, participation was actually higher in our towns than in larger, more populous areas. This reflects what I already know: small communities love and cherish their libraries.

*  *  *  * 

In the past few years, open hours and staffing has greatly expanded at two of the five branches that I manage. One was the result of a new branch for a tiny (population under 200), isolated community -- promised for many years, and finally delivered at the end of 2019. The other is in Port Hardy, the largest community I serve (2021 population approximately 4,000). That, I am proud to say, is the result of my advocacy. These changes have had a huge impact on the communities.

That leaves three other communities in our region still stuck with very limited staffing and open hours, and in two of those, also grossly inadequate physical space. I have a proposal for how to remedy this -- a simple and affordable plan, and a bargain in light of the impact it would have on these communities. I believe this will happen eventually; the question is how long communities will have to wait.

When it comes to providing service to rural and remote communities, the approach of most library systems is backwards. It's thought that these little towns don't need many open hours; after all, there aren't many people. But in remote communities, there is such a dearth of resources, so few options, that people depend heavily on the library -- more so than people do in populous areas where there are more options. 

Thus, in our community engagement sessions, it was no surprise that the two things we heard the most was more hours and more space. Our staff works very hard, and partnerships with local agencies extend our reach, but despite heroic efforts, the towns are under-served.

* * * *

This feedback was not at all surprising; it was what I expected. What I didn't expect was the outpouring of ideas. 

The upcoming strategic plan will have four pillars: Reconciliation (relationships with Indigenous communities), accessibility, services to communities without a physical library, and increased access to technology and tech learning. Meeting participants were interested in all four, and offered a wealth of ideas. 

And every idea was built on one idea: the library as community hub. On a list of phrases for a new mission statement, the phrases that resonated the most were the heart of the community, lifelong learning, knowledge sharing, and sparking curiosity and imagination. 

"they thought they were doing the right thing at the time": harmful denialism that we must challenge

They thought they were doing the right thing. They thought they were helping children. Now we know better.

I recently heard this from a library customer. They were referring to the residential "schools", the accepted euphemism for the system of concentration camps that was used to destroy Indigenous families, communities, and cultures in Canada.

Image by Kent Monkman

I was taken aback, but fortunately not so much that I didn't respond. I said, "I don't think they thought they were doing the right thing. They knew it was harmful, and they didn't care."

From the way the customer talked over my response, I realized this was a ready-made statement, a justification they've picked up (likely online) in the current discourse about the residential "school" system in Canada.

I later related this exchange to my partner, who does a lot historical research. He suggested, "You could ask what evidence they have to support that claim." I'm going to use this in the future. It's an excellent response to so many denialist views, parroted as facts, but with no basis in reality.

I'm willing to bet I've read and watched more about the "schools" than the person who made that denialist statement. And I've encountered nothing to support the conclusion that the creators of that system thought they were doing the right thing for children. To do so would mean they cared about the children that they were rounding up and imprisoning. And I see no evidence of that.

* * * *

In the summer of 2021, mass graves -- the remains of thousands of children's skeletons -- were discovered at the sites of former residential "schools". The revelations rocked Canada and sent the country into a period of mourning. Many non-Indigenous Canadians were shocked and profoundly saddened. Many Indigenous people were re-traumatized. The revelations about the graves catapulted the country into a different place in the Truth and Reconciliation process.

At that time, I encountered this knee-jerk response:

Many of those children would have died anyway. There were more children deaths in those days. 

I only saw this online. I don't know anyone with these repugnant views who is either brave or foolish enough to say them aloud, in public. Which tells you something.

Mass graves. Of children. And there's a but? 

Fortunately someone always replies: Did your grade school need a cemetery? Have mass graves been found at the site of any schools that settler kids attended?

* * * *

The stated purpose of this system was forced assimilation, and the destruction of Indigenous cultures and families. Those goals existed for the benefit of the colonizers and the world they wanted to build. 

The Indigenous presence on the land claimed by the settlers was an annoyance, an irritant, an impediment. Indigenous people and cultures were a problem, and this was a solution. A final solution, one could say. 

Through the residential "school" system, the colonizers tried to create a captive labour force -- normally called slaves, but here called students. Girls were forced to do laundry, scrub floors, and other domestic work. Boys were forced into manual labour. Typical of a slave society, few resources were expended on the workers, so children were chronically malnourished and denied healthcare. Also typical of a slave society, the children were abused -- emotionally, physically, sexually, psychically, and spiritually.

These systems can only exist when the dominant group regards the subjugated people as less than human. 

Had the colonizers viewed Indigenous people as fully human this system would never have existed. Need proof? Was this done to white, Christian families? To families of immigrants from European countries? Case closed.

Slavery, genocide, apartheid, concentration camps. The specific justifications of these horrors vary with context, but the fundamental conditions are always the same: viewing the "other" as subhuman. 

* * * *

From summer 2021:

8 common claims of residential school deniers and how to shut them down, by Daniel Heath Justice and Sean Carlton. 

Truth and Justification: On the Cruelties Against Indigenous People, by Gaeñ hia uh

national day for truth and reconciliation 2021: bearing witness, finding meaning

On September 30, many Canadians will have the day off in honour of a new holiday: National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. The holiday was created in response to the continuing revelations of mass graves located beneath the sites of the former concentration camps known as Indian Residential Schools. The remains of more than one thousand people have been found, and thousands more remain undiscovered.

How we choose to honour this day will be up to each of us. On one end of the spectrum there may be mourning and grief, contemplation and resolve. On the other end, an aggrieved, bitter racism. In between those poles there are feelings of helplessness and confusion, platitudes, lip-service and window-dressing, and an excuse for a day off with no meaning at all.

Many Canadians celebrate Remembrance Day with reverence, observing a moment of silence at 11:11, and attending events commemorating Canadians who lost their lives serving in the military. Although (as you may recall) my take on this differs from the official reading, I know that the holiday does have meaning to millions of people. I hope that the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation will take on a similar somber meaning. 

Witness Blanket

This week I had the opportunity to bear witness in a small way: my partner and I attended an exhibit of "The Witness Blanket" in Campbell River, about three hours south of where we live, and the closest population centre to our region. The exhibit is of a reproduction of a major installation by the artist Carey Newman. 

Newman spoke with survivors of the Indian Residential Schools, as these concentration camps were called, and visited former sites. He collected physical objects, and incorporated them into a large, carved work. The work lives in the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, in Ottawa.

On the museum's website, you can see images and read about eight of the objects that Newman incorporated into the work. I found this one especially sad. Impossibly sad. Sadness too profound to express.

In the image of the Witness Blanket above, you can see a set of horizontal, rectangularly-shaped slots below each panel. Those hold law books. 

The replica

The Witness Blanket was created in 2015, and was often on tour. It became damaged and in need of restoration. What tours now is a two-dimensional facsimile of the carved work. I hope one day to experience the original carving, although seeing the reproduction was still impressive and deeply moving.

In Campbell River, the Witness Blanket exhibit is hosted by the Laichwiltach Family Life Society, in partnership with the Campbell River Arts Council, the Campbell River Museum, the City of Campbell River, and the Vancouver Island Regional Library. (Laichwiltach is pronounced "lee-kwa-ta".) There was a good video interview with Newman, and, most unexpectedly, a Residential School survivor addressed a small group, speaking about her experiences. That was an unexpected gift.

In this article in the local Campbell River newspaper, you can see more photos of the replica Witness Blanket, including some of the opening ceremony. In one photo, you can see a dancer wearing a traditional button blanket.

There is a Witness Blanket website, but it doesn't seem to function correctly, as well as an app through which you can explore the work and its meaning.

Carey Newman has close ties to our area. His bio reads, in part:

Carey Newman, whose traditional name is Hayalthkin'geme, is a multi-disciplinary Indigenous artist, master carver, filmmaker, author and public speaker. Through his father he is Kwakwak'awakw from the Kukwekum, Giiksam, and WaWalaby'ie clans of northern Vancouver Island, and Coast Salish from Cheam of the Sto:lo Nation along the upper Fraser Valley. Through his mother he is a Settler of English, Irish, and Scottish heritage. In his artistic practice he strives to highlight Indigenous, social, and environmental issues as he examines the impacts of colonialism and capitalism, harnessing the power of material truth to unearth memory and trigger the necessary emotion to drive positive change. He is also interested in engaging with community and incorporating innovative methods derived from traditional teachings and Indigenous worldviews into his process.

September 30, 2021 and beyond

I hope Canadians are seeking out and joining local commemorations, or those offered by their employers, to imbue their day off with meaning. Tomorrow, I am joining a march led by three of the Indigenous communities in Port Hardy. (Of those three, Port Hardy was settled on the traditional Kwakiutl [pronounced "kwa-gi-uth"], territory. Two others Nations, the Gwa'sala and 'Nakwaxda'xw [pronounced "nak-wa-do"] people, were placed here involuntarily, two separate Nations forced onto one reserve, their villages burned behind them.) 

If you have an opportunity to visit the Witness Blanket, even in its current replica form, I think you will be moved and impressed. There are also many books and recordings by survivors, each of their voices bringing us the painful gift of truth.

And of course every Canadian can read the Calls to Action created by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and think about what they personally can do to contribute to Reconciliation.

Reconciliation is not an end goal: it is a process. It's not something governments will achieve, although government has a part to play (one that it is currently and spectacularly failing).

Reconciliation is the responsibility of every person in Canada, every organization, every employer, every family. It's something we must contemplate and consider, and hopefully learn to embrace. As I'm learning from the Indigenous people in my own community, we must walk the path of Reconciliation together, with curiosity, humility, and respect. That is the only way forward.

bearing witness: 215 tiny skeletons speak to us. canadians must listen.

The discovery, last week, of the remains of 215 children on the site of a former Indian Residential School has sent shock waves through Canada, especially through this province, where the gruesome evidence was found. 

The skeletons of the children, some seemingly as young as three years old, were in an unmarked mass grave.

For survivors of residential schools, this has almost certainly brought retraumatization, and profound grief and sorrow throughout their communities. For many of us not directly impacted, this has brought great sadness. I myself feel a deep sadness that I can't shake.

Shocking and not shocking

Many Canadians seem to be shocked by this discovery, which means we have a lot more work to do to educate ourselves about the Residential Schools, and the horrors of imperialism and colonialism -- the home-grown variety, the kind that created this country. The kind that non-Indigenous Canadians benefit from every day.

The discovery is shocking, in that the news rockets us out of our everyday worlds, and forces us to contemplate the enormity of these crimes. But that these graves exist, that this horror actually took place: we should not be shocked. We should know very well this happened. 

The discovery of unmarked graves of Indigenous children should be no more surprising than finding a bullwhip buried in Parchman, Mississippi. No more surprising than finding the extermination rolls in Auschwitz. No more shocking than bones and bullets found at Baba Yar. 

There are almost certainly many more sites like this, all over Canada and in many parts of the United States, where similar institutions were called Indian Boarding Schools.

Canada, this is part of our history. 

It doesn't matter that we didn't personally perpetrate the crimes.

It doesn't matter if our ancestors were not on the continent at the time. 

It doesn't matter if we only learned about the Residential Schools a few years ago.

The Residential Schools and their continuing legacy is part of Canada. 

Most of us enjoy living in Canada, including those who are highly critical of it. We enjoy and benefit from a world that was created by colonialism. By theft. By murder. By genocide. All Canadians must accept and reckon with that legacy. 

We can't pick and choose which parts of Canada, which moments of history, we want to own. We own it all. 

How much does Canada officially resist owning this legacy? The Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded that Indigenous people in (first) British North America and (later) Canada were the victims of "cultural genocide". 

"Cultural genocide" is not a thing.

"Cultural genocide" is not legally recognized by any international body. If we read the definition of genocide -- for example, from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum -- and we look honestly at Canadian history, it's quite clear that Canada engaged in the purposeful genocide of the Indigenous peoples of this land.

But Canada doesn't want to wear that. Instead, it hides behind this qualifier -- as if it were possible to kill a people's culture without actually killing them. And as if the murder of a culture did not actually murder people.

An image that burns in my brain

When I took the University of Alberta's Indigenous Canada MOOC, I was incredibly moved and shaken by the unit on the Residential Schools. 

Quoting myself:

One of the characteristics shared by almost all Indigenous cultures is an emphasis on family, usually extended family. In oral traditions, knowledge is transmitted directly from generation to generation. Skills -- hunting, gardening, cooking, building, healing, everything you can think of -- are learned by observation and participation. Values, morals, and ethics -- all the guideposts of life -- are transmitted through storytelling and observation. From birth to death, every aspect of life is shared communally, and done for the benefit of the new generations, to build for the future.

Now imagine a culture such as this with no children. Villages where all the children have been stolen. The trauma and grief and shame left behind. The despair, the helplessness.

At the same time, imagine generations of children who have never been exposed to familial love, or at best that love was a distant memory. Generations of children who have been raised institutionally, with harsh discipline, meager food rations, minimal health care, forced lessons intended for wage-slavery, and of course, verbal, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. Generations of children who have been forbidden to speak their own languages or learn anything about their cultures -- and who are indoctrinated to believe that their original cultures are dirty and shameful.

When these children become adults, how can they know how to raise families of their own? They have not seen normal parenting. They lack the supports of their culture and communities. They know only shame and abuse.

These entwined conditions are at the root of the intergenerational trauma that echoes through Indigenous communities in countless destructive ways. The wonder is how people and their cultures have survived at all -- a testament to the determination and resiliency of the human spirit.

The image of whole villages and communities where all the children have been stolen burns in my brain. Imagine that in your own community! Imagine you and all your peers were forced into institutions, even though your parents were alive, even though you had loving relatives who could provide a good home.

Imagine your children being forcibly removed from your home -- not because you were incapable of raising them, but because you are -- fill in the blank. Your children being stolen from you because you are Irish. Because you are Black. Because you are Jewish, or Catholic, or an atheist.

Fuck the haters

Since the discovery in Kamloops was reported to the public, Canada has been gripped by a paroxysm of response. The government -- both Federal and of BC -- declared a week of mourning. Flags have been at half-staff. Resources for survivors who almost certainly have been retraumatized by the discovery are being shared widely. There was (thankfully) a moving tribute before an NHL playoff game.

My inbox is full of responses: from my union, Amnesty International, both my federal and provincial representatives, and of course from any Indigenous groups I follow.

Along with these responses comes an inevitable backlash. Racist right-wingers, without a doubt, are flooding local and social media with ignorance and contempt. These are the people who believe Indigenous people should "get over it", who believe First Nations "get a free ride", and subscribe to degrading stereotypes (many of which apply to plenty of white people!).

In some contexts, I can speak to why we must care about this history, and why Indigenous people cannot and should not just "get over it". 

But not right now. 

I am avoiding any space where I might hear or see this type of response. Because my reaction will not be measured, calm, or professional. Fuck them.

Facts are still emerging

The children's remains were found by a private company using ground-penetrating radar. Many people and organizations are calling for ground-penetrating radar to be used at the sites of all former Residential Schools.

I haven't seen good information about why this operation was taking place. It does not appear to have been organized by the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation. 

The remains were not, as some early reports suggested, found on a construction site; the former site of the largest Residential School in Canada was not being excavated. Whether the site will now be excavated will be up to the Nation. 

You may find this summary from The Globe and Mail very useful: The Kamloops residential school's unmarked graves: What we know about the children's remains, and Canada's reaction so far.

How can I be an ally?

I've been trying to write this post since the find was announced. When I sit down to write, I am overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by emotion, by the sheer magnitude of the horror embedded in our past, by our inability to adequately address it. 

Coincidentally, right now I am reading The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present by David Treuer. 

Coincidentally, the horrific discovery came on the eve of Canada's National Indigenous People's History Month, which culminates in National Indigenous People's Day, on the summer solstice. I am part of a team that created this Indigenous People's History Month Challenge.

Coincidentally, I see the continuing effects of the Residential Schools every day.  

It is very, very sad. I wish I could do more.

Education as an act of Reconciliation

Many useful resources can be found through the Vancouver Island Regional Library's National Indigenous People's History Month Challenge.

I highly recommend participating in Indigenous Canada, the online course offered by the University of Alberta. It's a 12-week course, and each unit can be easily done in the course of a week. You can enrol for free; to obtain a certificate is only $65. If your employer has an education fund, you can ask about reimbursement.

Statement from BCGEU Indigenous Advisory Committee statement on discovery at Kamloops Indian Residential School:

On behalf of the BCGEU Provincial Executive Indigenous Advisory Committee and all Indigenous members of the BCGEU, we express our deepest condolences to the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation, the survivors of the Kamloops Indian Residential School and the kin of those who never came home. The BCGEU's Indigenous members across the province, including members of the committee, have shared their stories about the impacts of residential schools on their personal lives and in their communities. We all carry heavy hearts especially at this time.

We know that the discovery made by the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc is not an isolated case; with almost 140 IRS operating across the country over 150 years it is inevitable that other mass graves exist on other territories and that they will be found. In fact, survivors of Indian Residential Schools from across Turtle Island (North America) have shared their lived experiences, including stories of graves similar to the one found this week. In Canada specifically, these stories are reflected in The Survivors Speak: A report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2015) and the transcripts from past reports, such as the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (1996).

In the coming days and weeks as we grieve and heal together, it is critical that every Canadian understand settler colonialism—including the tragic legacy of the Indian Residential School system—not as a historical event or a closed chapter but as an ongoing reality that continues to damage Indigenous lives and communities from coast to coast to coast. The last IRS was shut down in 1996, but the removal of Indigenous children—and the cycle of harm perpetuated in families and communities denied the opportunity to raise and protect their children—continues to this day. While roughly 150,000 children went through Canada's residential school system between 1890 and 1996, more than 130,000 Indigenous children are currently in Canada's child welfare system. 

As the BCGEU Provincial Executive Indigenous Advisory Committee we call on all levels of government to do the following:

1. To provide adequate and sustainable mental health and addictions services to Indigenous Peoples on and off reserve in both rural and urban areas of British Columbia and Canada.  

2. To provide First Nations communities with the necessary funding to conduct ongoing searches of the graves of children who lost their lives in these schools in British Columbia and the rest of Canada. 

3. To fully implement all 94 calls to action from Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action (2015); all 231 calls for justice from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (2019); including providing adequate funding as well as enforcement, reporting and accountability mechanisms to support implementation . 

4. To legislate full adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007), with full support and collaboration from Indigenous Peoples.

From the BCGEU's more than 82,000 members, we would like to share our message of grief and urge all Canadians to join and support us as this healing carries on. BCGEU members and others who want to show their solidarity can:

1. Wear orange shirts during the month of June, which is Indigenous Peoples Recognition month, to honour the children and support the survivors and families impacted by the Indian Residential Schools.

2. Call on your local MLA and MP to integrate the calls to action in the TRC report, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the calls for justice of the MMIWG report into their work, and to advocate for the necessary funding to conduct further searches for grave sites across British Columbia and Canada. Click here to find your MLA and click here to find your MP.

As Indigenous Peoples we have survived government's extraordinary genocidal policies of all levels of government and we will continue to survive, as our ancestors did. We hear the drums in our hearts that give us strength, and we honour the lives of our children who lost their lives and their families across British Columbia and Canada. May they be at peace.

roots and icebergs: decolonizing community spaces: a workshop

I recently attended a six-hour workshop called Decolonizing Community Spaces. The workshop was led by two facilitators, one a Native American speaking to us from her traditional territories in Montana, and the other a Filipina-Canadian. 

About 30 people attended; I believe all were health and service providers in the province of BC. 

All the other participants raved about how much they learned, and how they will change their daily practices accordingly. I don't know if they were exaggerating, or if they were starting from a different place than I was. I encountered few, if any, ideas that were new to me, and was left feeling hopeless about the prospects for change. This was clearly not the intended result!

Making the invisible visible

Much of the course was spent on activities aimed at making visible the many invisible forces and conditions that shape our world. My graduate school experience in Information Sciences often involved similar exercises. One often-used example is uncovering the bias embedded in classification systems, whether the Dewey Decimal System, the dog breed standards, or any other. You quickly learn that no systems are purely objective; there are assumptions and biases built in to every human-made system. 

This is turn reminds me of another favourite topic of mine: how certain beliefs and actions outside the mainstream are labelled "political", while the dominant narrative is thought of as apolitical. For example, my choosing to sit as the crowd in a ballpark cheers a military display is political, but the war display is -- ridiculously -- not thought of as political.

I read a wonderful article once about academic freedom, how professors can enjoy that so-called freedom as long as they don't voice certain opinions, among them "questioning the naturalness of capitalism". 

Trees and icebergs

In seeking to make visible the constant presence of contemporary white supremacy and systemic racism, the course used these analogies: a tree, sometimes called "The Oppression Tree", and an iceberg.

Here are some images of the Tree of Colonial Oppression and the Tree of Liberation, borrowed with gratitude Indigenous Solidarity Ottawa. 

We can contrast the Tree of Oppression with a Tree of Liberation.

Another handy visualization is the iceberg, which (obviously) implies that most of the forces that shape and direct our world are beneath the surface. 

Here are two iceberg visualizations, one very simple and a pear-shaped iceberg that is more fleshed out. (These images seem to be passed around without attribution, so I apologize for not crediting someone's work.)

I find both the tree and the iceberg very useful -- especially the tree. I believe that history is constantly affecting the present, so seeing colonialism, slavery, and capitalism named as constant root forces is satisfying. It feels right.

The view from the leaves

So how do these metaphors apply to our communities, our institutions, and our organizations? 

Here is one tiny example of how institutions and organizations are influenced by these invisible forces, and thus perpetuate the structures of the dominant, white, European-derived culture. 

A new service organization is being formed. In order to achieve official non-profit status so it can legally raise funds, hire staff, and operate, the organization must have a board of directors. 

The interested parties conduct a search for suitable people to sit on the board. They claim they are reaching out to a broad and diverse group of people, and, in all likelihood, they truly believe they are. The people on their list of potential directors reflect a diversity of skin colours, perceived ethnicities, and genders. 

But who is considered for boards? Who is in a position to serve? 

Whose background is deemed "professional"?
What formal education have they had that led to this professionalism?
What familial and cultural background supported their early education, and put them on a track that would lead to this professionalism?
Who has a comfortable retirement, so they can participate in this context without earning income?

In other words, who has the privilege of fitting the profile of board material? 

Thus the search for directors is superficially diverse, but it sees only a small subset of society. 

In 2021, thanks to changes (forced by popular movements) over the past decades, that subset appears more diverse than it did in, say, 1941 or 1971. But the diversity is still very narrow. 

Large segments of our society are precluded from this participation, almost from birth. Poverty, poor nutrition, substandard education, family violence and disintegration, foster care, incarceration, addiction, mental health -- often all of the above. The fact that a tiny percentage of people faced with this suite of barriers manages to overcome them changes nothing. 

The privilege of time

One long thread of discussion in this workshop looked at Indigenous ways of knowing, contrasted with the modes of the dominant (western, white supremacist) society. 

Those not familiar with the term "Indigenous ways of knowing" might like to google and read about it. I had never heard the expression until I took the Indigenous Canada course online. (It's free! Open to all! Go for it!)

Indigenous ways of knowing reflect an entirely different worldview than that of the dominant society. And while there are hundreds, thousands, of Indigenous cultures, most or all Indigenous societies have this in common. 

I'm not at all qualified to teach this concept, but here are some graphics that speak to the general ideas.

Kalantzis & Cope, Works & Days

Full Circle: First Nations, Metis, Inuit Ways of Knowing
Resource from OSSTF/FEESO; more sources found at link.

Combining Two Ways of Knowing

Combining Two Ways of Knowing

 

Combining Two Ways of Knowing: more sources at link.

In a world that didn't reflect colonial oppression, our interactions would be more relational and less transactional. We would make decisions more by consensus and less by top-down authority. To create change, we could try many different approaches, then come together to discuss the results and collectively decide how to more forward. 

I have worked within structures like this, in grassroots activism. It is generally a slow process, which can lead to deep feelings of trust, solidarity, and friendship among members. Unity is forged from shared values and purpose. Leaders emerge naturally, and they serve more as coordinators than authority figures. 

This model has its drawbacks, of course, but working within this framework can be a deeply satisfying experience. It is a framework that exists outside of official, established institutions.

What is possible?

In our work lives none of these things are possible. We have deadlines. We have limited funds and, above all, limited time.

We must justify our time, and in order to continue receiving funding, we must demonstrate results in a manner defined by external sources. For most organizations, funding relies on statistics, and those statistics must be generated on a regular basis.

All this is embedded into the organization. No matter how much good that organization seeks to do in the world, its processes and practices reflect a top-down approach. It is a tree that grows from colonial, capitalist, patriarchal roots.

Where does that leave our prospects for creating change in our work?

Many librarians and library administrators care deeply about reconciliation. We want to acknowledge the deep roots of colonialism and the many poisons that have grown from that tree. We want to welcome all people as equals. We want the community's needs and wishes to determine the direction our libraries take.

But we cannot change roots. Roots are history, and history can never be changed. 

We can pull back the veil to reveal levels of privilege. 

We can seek and create opportunities to use our privilege for the greater good.

We can shut up and step back. We can let others take the floor and we can listen to them when they speak.

We can build relationships, creating opportunities for community input.

If we are white, we will inevitably hear racism from people who look like us, and when we do, we can speak up.

But. 

We cannot change how a board of directors is chosen. 

We cannot change top-down governance in the organizations that employ us. 

We cannot change a system driven by statistics meant to justify the use of public funds.

Thus this workshop left me feeling despair about the prospects of decolonizing our communities.

solidarity with wet’suwet’en land defenders and their allies on the frontlines

Thank you to the Wet'suwet'en people who are courageously defending their land for the greater good of us all.

Thank you to the Kahnawake people who are courageously blocking the rail lines in solidarity.

Thank you to the non-Indigenous allies who blocked the main highway on Vancouver Island, and disbanded only under threats of violence from racist thugs.

Thank you to every person who attended a solidarity protest in cities across Canada.

It's inspiring to see that protest has moved to full-scale civil disobedience. We can't all do it, and we are indebted to those who can.

Shame beyond measure on the Trudeau government for pretending to care about reconciliation. When we doubted Trudeau's sincerity, Liberal Party apologists chided us: give him a chance, he sincerely cares. Have you woken up yet?

Justin Trudeau should never be allowed to speak the word reconciliation again. When he utters the word, everyone in the room should stand up and turn their backs. Everyone should unleash a chorus of SHAME so loud that he cannot be heard.

The pipelines must stop.

Canada must change its relationship with the people whose land this was and is.

what i'm reading: the marrow thieves, the glass beads

Cherie Dimaline's The Marrow Thieves, winner of multiple Canadian awards, is a brilliant book -- and a frightening one. Set in a future Canada after climate change has devastated the planet, Indigenous people are being hunted. The government believes Indigenous people are useful for survival. "Recruiters" kidnap them, and force them into "schools" where they are exploited -- to death.

In other words, it's a future dystopia that sounds and feels all too real.

The reader follows Frenchie, 16 years old and already a survivor of so much loss, as he finds a group of other Indigenous survivors, and gradually bonds with them as a new family. Each member of the group has a back story, each has challenges.

All are believable, heartrending in different ways. Some are resolved in ways that are uplifting, others in ways that are devastating. Each character feels real, complex, multi-dimensional. An astute reader may think they know where a certain relationship is going, based on dystopian novel cliches, but Dimaline is too good a writer to fall back on those templates.

The details of the why Indigenous people are being used, how they are being exploited, adds a touch of magic realism to the plot. After the climate devastation, with millions dead and society struggling to rebuild, white people have lost the ability to dream. And without dreams, they have lost the will to survive. The government believes that the DNA of Indigenous people holds the cure, and is forcibly extracting their bone marrow.

But is this magic realism, or has the government stumbled on an Indigenous way of knowing and tried to harness it to science (or maybe pseudo-science), to exploit it for larger gain? The purpose and origin of dreams are different in an Indigenous worldview. This is left for the reader to ponder.

The chilling storyline also weaves in echoes of the Residential Schools, and the time -- not so very long ago -- when Indigenous children were kidnapped, exploited, and met a spiritual, psychological, and sometimes physical, death. Every Canadian (and hopefully anyone else) reading this book would understand the connection, yet the historical references never stand out uncomfortably.

The Marrow Thieves is generally classified as a young-adult novel, since the main character is a teen. These days, most YA books include some gay characters, as a matter of course. In The Marrow Thieves, this is particularly well done, as an Indigenous man who is one of the leaders of the group of survivors tells his own story, which involves his husband. And although we're long past the time that this should be remarkable, to this reader, at my age, it is and will always be remarkably beautiful.

The Marrow Thieves is a very good book -- engrossing, heartbreaking, uplifting, frightening.

Glass Beads by Dawn Dumont takes place very much in the present, but in a world few non-Native people may know. The story follows the trials and tribulations of four First Nations young adults (who refer to themselves as Native, which is very common in Canada) making their way in the mainstream world.

They are in school or not in school, working or not working, drinking alcohol or abstaining, loving and trusting or hiding their hearts, making good decisions and bad. In other words, they are living their lives. But they are First Nations people, so their stories contain all the cultural and political implications that would imply. As in The Marrow Thieves, here another Indigenous Canadian writer tells stories that illustrate themes, without ever letting the themes overwhelm the story. It's beautifully done.

The best part of Glass Beads, to me, is the humour. There's a lot of casual humour, sometimes self-deprecating, or a funny internal monologue, or a bit of head-shaking sarcasm about a bizarre but ordinary situation. I love when humour is used in decidedly not-funny circumstances, whether it's a coping mechanism or just the human ability to laugh at ourselves. Because I prefer to read books "cold", I didn't know that the author, a Cree woman from Saskatchewan, is also a stand-up comedian who has worked many major venues. (She's also an actor and playwright.) I loved learning that Dumont does comedy professionally. It makes perfect sense.

Glass Beads is called a collection of linked stories, but I disagree. To me, it's a novel. The 20 sections -- which take place over two decades, from the 1990s through the early 2000s --  read like chapters of a whole, not stand-alone stories. I don't read contemporary short stories, and wouldn't have normally have tried this book; it was promoted in my library's first "One Book, One Community" program. If you enjoy an episodic novel with interesting characters and a view into another culture, Glass Beads is a good read.