Pop 89: We Think We Know

By Madonna Hamel

In 1867-1914 the Canadian West was “open for settlement.” In the late 1890s, after MacDonald formed the NWMP, Clifford Sifton, minister for the interior, went about some real “quality” folk for The Territories. At the top of the “quality” list were urban Brits, followed by Belgians and Americans, with Dutch, Germans, Finns and Scandinavians at the bottom. But it soon became clear that “quality” in London means a whole other thing on the prairie. “Quality” meant “stalwart peasant stock”. Meant men with farming ancestry and “a stout wife and half a dozen children, all born on the soil.” It did not mean single women unless they were widows who had sons. And it certainly did not mean the people already living on this soil for centuries.

For Hungarians, Icelanders, Romanians, Chinese and Ukrainians, Canada was a second chance, a refuge for refugees. Eldon, Saskatchewan, became the first black community. Jewish newcomers built New Jerusalem. In 1881 Acadia Day was established around the same time the bison disappeared from the plains. While all this was happening, the potlatch and the Sundance were banned. Residential schools were established. It was against the law for Indigenous people to wear their traditional clothing - what the government referred to as “costumes”- off the reserve. The railway was completed the year Riel was hung.

So what’s my point? There was a lot going on when Canada became the Canada descendants of peasants and “quality” citizens know of as Canada. There are stories they lay buried with exhausted bodies of homesteaders who came running from hunger, disease and the law. From tyrants and torturers. And still they come, lost, looking and longing for a place to land. Those of us whose grand-parents came on a boat or a train now consider ourselves “true Canadians.” Many of us suffer from a form of hubris that builds on the privileged behaviour that, now that we’ve made it through the door, let’s close it before more ethnically undesirable types slip in and ruin the place. Before they take all the jobs, buy up all the land, expect us to follow their beliefs and traditions, like we expected native people to follow when our folks arrived.

We don’t know each other. But there are a million reasons why we don’t. We cannot possibly know everyone’s story, especially if efforts were made to keep those stories quiet, hidden, driven underground, like the bison themselves. Still, it behooves us to learn them. In learning about others, we realize: the more we know, the more we know we don’t know.

We don’t know each other, of course, we don’t. To paraphrase Walt Whitman, we are huge, we contain multitudes of wonders and contradictions. Who ever really does know a person, fully? We don’t know each other, and that’s not the problem. The problem is: we think we do.

How many times have we said about a person: If he thinks he’s gonna….Or: She thinks she can just….But how do we get into each other’s heads like that? Why do we build our cases rather than investigate? Herbert Spencer wrote: “There is a principle which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance-that principle is contempt prior to investigation.” And yet, we all have, at one point, felt stymied by a truth we’d rather not face but had to. And when that moment arrived, who did we turn to? Anyone who would listen.

I’ve written about my writing students, keen teens who eagerly immersive themselves for a full week, writing their hearts onto the page while other teens are at the lake, or sleeping in, or playing video games. Their capacity for writing all day long is matched by their interest in each other’s creations. When we started writing this year, I admit I was concerned about how we would approach stories that may be considered “inappropriate” by editors or institutions or parents. How would we discuss “identity,” “diversity,” “appropriation,” and those other hot-button topics of the day? As it turned out, most of the stories took place in another time and space, beyond the reach of the here and now. Escape to elsewhere has become the answer to this world of warnings and suspicions, vituperative and accusations based on assumptions.

But I was saddened because if we don’t, as creators, attempt to walk a mile in another’s shoes - as native elders tell us - then how do we even begin to expand our limited understanding of each other? I asked a Cree friend about having a Metis woman in my novel. (I am Metis, but I never experienced the prejudice levelled at the Metis of my great-grandmother’s generation. If it weren’t for my uncle charting my family’s genealogy, I’d never have known. I’ve managed to hunt down a family member’s lot number dating to the late 1800s.) She said: own where you are coming from- your perspective, your bits and pieces of knowledge. Don’t claim to be her. And do your research. But most of all - listen to the stories of others.

I appreciated the advice because I want a Metis woman in my book. I want her story to be recorded, registered, relayed. I know my view is one author’s view, but it has always been that way. And, I am saddened that while a girl student feels comfortable writing from the viewpoint of a fifty-two-year-old male rancher or two of my boys find their way into the mind of their grand-mothers, they refuse to even attempt a character who is of another race or ethnicity. I understand the respect. But their reticence has lead to an absence of “other.” So, how will they develop empathy? Do I tell them they shouldn’t be writing from the perspective of older people, autistic people, other genders? Soon we’ll have no common humanity to appeal to. Then what? Do we just take off to another planet, where we don’t know each other but assume we do?