Divided by racism, united by hope

Of all the words we associate with the treatment of Indigenous peoples in Canada, "hope" generally sits near the bottom of the list. The authors of a new and remarkably compelling book, Valley of the Birdtail, want to change that. 

"Something that's important about the book is that we want people to leave hopeful," explains Andrew Stobo Sniderman, a lawyer and Rhodes scholar from Montreal. "And we do traverse some very difficult material; we hear from people that they have to put down the book in rage, or in sadness, quite often. But the characters in the book show this amazing capacity for change, and for growth. And we think that's a really important part of what we're trying to do here."

It's an ambitious project. What Sniderman and his co-author, Douglas Sanderson (Amo Binashii), who is Swampy Cree, Beaver clan, of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation, set out to do is show that the two entities, Indigenous peoples and settlers, "are not and have never actually been separate, that we've all been part of the same project." 

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For more on this topic, listen to the Modern Law podcast: Tuma Young, KC, on reviving Indigenous law in Canada

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To achieve this goal, they tell the story of two families -- one Indigenous, the other Ukrainian-Canadian, living in neighbouring Manitoba communities. "We follow these families for many generations, over 150 years, to retell the story of Canada," says Sniderman. 

These two communities, founded at the same time, were not equal due to different government policies, Sanderson said at an event hosted by the Institute of Research on Public Policy in Ottawa in late November, ahead of the book's launch. Residential schools are only part of the story. "Until faced with the physicality of dead children, we looked away," said the Sanderson, who is the Prichard Wilson Chair in Law and Public Policy at the University of Toronto.

The stories of the two communities of Waywayseecappo and Rossburn, depicted in Valley of the Birdtail, are supremely well-written. The authors take great care to balance harsh realities with examples of hopeful moments and penetrating insights. 

The tale of Nelson Luhowy, perhaps the most poignant in a large cast of compelling characters, shows how a person raised to believe in racist stereotypes can learn from working with Indigenous people. He comes to admire the work and dedication they put into bettering themselves through incredibly difficult circumstances resulting from longstanding discriminatory government policies. 

Those included a pass system instituted shortly after the execution of Louis Riel, which restricted the movement of Indigenous people to whatever Indian agents considered valid reasons to leave a reserve. The pass system was illegal, and officials knew it. They applied it anyway. 

Typically, the only valid reasons to allow Indigenous people out of their reserve would include "getting married" (10 days), "going hunting" (21 days) or "visiting a daughter at school" (15 days). Going to work wasn't valid enough, and neither was visiting friends. Getting a pass was considered a privilege and was revocable -- far removed from mobility rights enjoyed by most Canadians. "By design, reserves became an archipelago of open-air prison," the authors write. "A web of interconnected communities was cut into scattered threads." 

When Sanderson discusses public policy with his law students, he reminds them to consider who "the public" is in public policy. Indigenous peoples are dispersed in a way that disempowers them electorally, he told the audience at the Ottawa IRPP event. "And policy reflects this lack of power." 

"The law is one of the characters in this story," Sniderman explains. "We're trying to talk about the law and policy through the lives of real people in a way that is more engaging than maybe the law otherwise is, and the use, and abuse of law is a core part of this book." 

The goal was to write "the most accessible, engaging account of settler-Indigenous relations that's out there," he adds. Valley of the Birdtail reads like a novel and feeds the mind like a first-rate textbook. 

The authors hope to start a dialogue and encourage us to insist on political accountability for the country's treatment of Indigenous peoples today. 

"Individually, it's up to each person to figure out how to operationalize that sense of justice within themselves," Sanderson says. And take comfort that even the real heroes of the story, like Nelson Luhowy, are still uncertain about their own path towards reconciliation. As much as Luhowy realizes he was wrong to be a racist in the past, he possesses the self-awareness to understand that this means he might still be wrong today. "And that's the place I think we want to get people to," Sanderson says, "not where we're certain about things, but where we have a little uncertainty because we can generate empathy in that space."