Courtesy of Kathryn Hollinrake
“My own children are hugging me and their hugs are a little bit longer than usual.”
A chuckle escapes from Edmund Metatawabin as he reports on the response to the release of Up Ghost River: A Chief’s Journey Through the Turbulent Waters of Native History (Random House). Fellow residential school survivors approach him to shake hands and express gratitude. Grandchildren of the same victims arrive at his door in Fort Albany First Nation to request their own copies of the memoir. An ever-so-slight change has come to the Ontario community that he once served as chief.
“A big reason why I wrote it was to encourage people to deal with that monster in the closet” says Metatawabin speaking from Fort Albany Ontario. “I say ‘monster in the closet’ because we’re afraid to acknowledge to our colleagues and friends in the working world that these things happened to us. If you continue to talk about it you open that closet and stare at your monster it will get smaller and become just a memory and something you can talk about as a matter of fact.”
The potent work shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction covers much emotional terrain in a surprisingly concise page count. At the age of seven Metatawabin was sent to the notorious St. Anne’s residential school. He escaped following Grade 8. During that time he was electrocuted beaten starved sexually assaulted and forced to eat his own vomit.
The following years were equally as torturous for Metatawabin — further sexual abuse and struggles with alcoholism are detailed in Up Ghost River — but the book’s not as bleak as it could have been. There’s a profound and detailed reverence for traditional ways and the significance of a unified community that reverberates throughout. That’s not to suggest it was a simple book to author; partway through Alexandra Shimo stepped in to help Metatawabin steer the writing.
“I submitted the manuscript and the publisher said ‘It’s a good story but you have to be the central character in the book’” says Metatawabin. “So I began modifying it to be a first-person singular instead of narrating the story. That’s where she came in. You assume that the reader can guess what’s going to happen in the room but Alex said ‘No why don’t you tell them what happened in that room?’ So that’s when I started to do that.”
Up Ghost River’s a highly considered work. Trauma dominates the first half; there’s no way to avoid delving into the nauseating treatment of indigenous children. The strength of the collaborative writing is most evident in the latter section when Metatawabin reports on his gradual resurrection from cultural and spiritual genocide. It’s not a delicate path; jobs are lost and a family’s nearly dissolved. But in the course of 100 pages Metatawabin evolves from victim to leader.
The reader’s certainly not absolved of any responsibility. Up Ghost River begins with a brief summation of Bill C-45 the omnibus bill introduced by the federal government in 2012 that helped kick off Idle No More. The book ends with a list of topics to get involved with which include abolishing the Indian Act and dropping the youth suicide rate. Not easy subjects but absolutely vital ones.
“We’re increasing in numbers faster than anybody else” Metatawabin notes. “Our young people are getting frustrated with their own communities: ‘What’s going on? Why are our houses like this? Why does the pavement end when you enter the reserve?’ There’s a lot of things they question. If we leave that their numbers and anger will multiply. What do we do in 20 years from now when they’re fully grown and have their own children?
“We remain quiet because we know there will be a backlash” he says. “You have to gauge when you say something and how often you say it. In my case I’ve met the worst things. I’ve already been in jail for eight years when I was a child. For no crime at all. If I’m going to be punished for saying things that I see it would just be a typical behaviour on the part of the government.”
