Here’s some more summertime reading.

I finished this short book in about two days. Not necessarily because it was short but because of its resonance. Its déjà vu. Somehow her anger is a place I knew and understood.

The book is Half-Breed – A Woman’s Burning Rage for Dignity written by Maria Campbell, a political activist with the Metis Association of Alberta.

This is Maria’s autobiography of what we now call Metis and not the obsolete “half-breed”, growing up in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s of Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.

It’s a cross between Angela’s Ashes and Broken Shackles, the Canadian story of Old Man Hensen’s journey from slavery in America to freedom in Canada written by John Frost Jr. of Owen Sound Ontario under the pseudonym, Glenelg. As an abolitionist, Frost met Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in his travels in support of the movement.

Maria’s humorous, but oh-so-cruel narrative of extreme poverty of the “road allowance people”, the inheritors of no land and no voice, neutered almost a century before by the 1860 Red River Rebellion and the death of Louis Riel, a distant relative.

This social commentary clearly defines how systemic dehydration sucked out the spirit of the Metis from racism, internal violence, addictions, trafficking and prostitution. The highs and lows are so often it’s almost as if the reader is going through the withdrawals with Maria. At times it is too much to bear emotionally and at times becomes disappointing.

But the humor, music and laughter sustain the Metis from expiring from broken hearts. Her stories are worthy of a Spinner, beautiful aboriginal tales, yet none so as the wisdom of her Cheechum, Cree for grandmother, who occasionally uses her cane to get her point across.

Although it was written in 1973 its statement can still describe modern day aboriginal social issues.

This is my favorite passage:

“The CCF party was in power in Saskatchewan for a long time. I remember our people got into some good fights over it. Some things stand out in my memory. A member of the provincial legislature lived down the road from us. When he ran the election he promised our people relief work for which they would be paid.

One of the projects was clearing land for a huge pasture. There was very little money for fancy equipment but plenty of manpower – the Half-breeds from the MLA’s riding. He told every one who wanted a job that a truck would pick them up at the store on a certain Monday. Daddy and I drove over by buggy that day to see them. When we arrived the men were in harness like horses, pulling up stumps and trees. Dad started to laugh when he saw Alex Vandal coming towards us pulling a tree, sweating and panting. He looked at us and said, ‘Danny, did you know the new government felt sorry for us because we’re called Half-breeds? They passed a law changing our name and now we’re CCF horses’. “