2017 The Year of Reconciliation

2017 The Year of Reconciliation

Harmony by Robin Rewa Haworth 1996

Readers will know that most years, rather than resolutions, I set themes for the year to come.  Last year’s was The Year of Writing Daily and while I fell far short of this “goal” I did have my work I need no reference book to know (about the work of Joseph Drapell) featured in the Art-Poem-Art Experiment (and chap book) by Camosun College Visual Arts Department, won first place in the 420 Tiny Story Contest at the Greater Victoria Public Library for my story Tsunami, staged the first reading of my play-in-progress WestCoast Adventures at Impulse Theatre’s Peek Show, and joined a regular writers’ circle.

Browsing in the stacks at the Esquimalt branch of the GVPL, I stumbled upon Tracey Lindberg’s first novel Birdie, shortly before the issue of Joseph Boyden’s heritage arose. And, as is the way of the interwebs, in reading about it, I meandered from story to story including 19 Aboriginal Authors to Add to Your Reading List.  Victoria’s former poet-laureate Janet Rogers figures there as does the aforementioned Birdie, I’ve read stories by Lee Maracle, Thomas King, and Richard Wagamese but many of the authors are unfamiliar to me.

What a chance–after all, 2017 is The Year of Reconciliation both nationally and locally in the City of Victoria.   The Malahat Review’s next edition–no. 197–is the Indigenous Perspectives issue, available early in 2017.

I am the product of the generation on the West Coast that saw desegregation of the education system.  It was the mid-1960s before First Nations children arrived in our elementary and secondary schools. Little did I know (I am ashamed to say) that the residential school at Kakawis (Christie Residential School) on Meares Island near Tofino would not close until 1973.

In 2017 I can do something concrete to pay attention to the voices of our First Nations communities, past and present.  Here’s a small list of some of the resources I’ll be using. Will you join me?

The pen and ink artwork, Harmony, featured above, is by Robin Rewa Haworth who gifted it to my late husband Yves Loran in 1996; Robin lived where he worked at the Douglas Hotel (now Rialto). I am unable (as of yet) to find out any more information about this artist. He passed away far too soon.

The Truth and Reconciliation Report Executive Summary
trc-report-summary-2016

Aboriginal Literatures in Canada a Resource Guide, by Renate Eigenbrod, Georgina Kakegamic and Josias Fiddler, 2003
http://csc.immix.ca/files/30/1278480166aboriginal.pdf

8th Fire Discovering Aboriginal Literature, a CBC documentary series
http://www.cbc.ca/8thfire/

Aboriginal Heritage, Library and Archives Canada
http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/aboriginal-heritage/Pages/introduction.aspx

University of Saskatchewan, Aboriginal Research Resources
http://library.usask.ca/indigenous/holdings/index.php

“Yours Aboriginally”: Twentieth-Century Aboriginal Authorship in Canada, McMaster University, Historical Perspectives on Canadian Publishing
http://hpcanpub.mcmaster.ca/case-study/quotyours-aboriginallyquot-twentieth-century-aboriginal-authorship-canada

Canadian Museum of History, An Aboriginal Perspective
http://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/aborig/fp/fpindexe.shtml