Chi’miigwech to my friend Tamara at Western Sky Books for putting this book in my hands last Sunday and to Leanne Betasamosake Simpson for writing this cure. Easy now, white ladies, the cure is a response to one Susanna Moodie, whose Roughing It In the Bush (1852) is a racist, colonial, settler account of her arrival in her New World. I read the aforementioned text in 1997 and wrote in my journal: “Moodie is a classist and racist—not my idea of Canadian classic literature.” (Yes, I have journals that date back to the early 90s.). I downloaded Moodie’s text for free on Kindle (cause why pay for something like that) and tried to read it again just to compare this to that, but I couldn’t get beyond the first chapter of Moodie’s vehement verbosity. She starts out by slamming the Irish immigrants and moves on from there. Nothing but perfect white homes and sun rippling on water suits Mrs. Pastoral Moodie.

While Moodie uses far too many words to describe her dissatisfaction with “the bush,” Simpson sprinkles her text with enough Ojibwe words to make we want to enrol in an Anishinaabemowin language course. (And forgive me if I use these terms in the wrong way. I’m trying, and hate being only a zhaaganaash.) I knew a few Anishinaabe words before I read this text and I know a few more now. I finished the paperback last night and then, this morning, I went through the whole text using the online Ojibwe People’s Dictionary Simpson recommends in her Author’s Notes, while eating pancakes and maple syrup and thinking of home and Niinatig, the Maple Tree. I penciled in the translations where needed. I apologize, Tara. I know you hate my margin notes. But I’m an academic at heart and need to know. Still, I refuse to look stuff up online when I’m settling into dreamland with a good book; hence the need for a breakfast session.

Anishinaabemowin is a beautiful language that interweaves people, land, weather, culture, and feelings in a soft, gentle, musical rhythm. For example, Makwa Giiziis is the Moon When Bears Wake Up — much better than February, don’t you think? Minomiin Giizis is the Moon of Wild Rice — August or September depending where you live. That connection to what’s happening on the land makes me feel soft and warm inside. That’s how I feel as I read this book, actually. There’s quiet gentle healing here and a good dose of sarcastic “haha” humour (which as we know is healing in itself.)

I’m reading the sign and letting the 4:45 a.m. departure time sink in, sipping the lemon water in the shitty plastic cup, when he approaches me with all the confidence the trifecta of obliviousness and delusion and patriarchy can provide.

We talk about things, but not really, because I can’t remember who he is.

He tells me he’s the director general of Indian Affairs and sometimes I have a poker face and sometimes I just have a face.

He is so clean and shiny. I’m in flannel plaid pyjama pants with a not-matching plaid flannel shirt because who gives a fuck. He has a bureaucratic overcoat and adult shoes that require regular neoliberal maintenance. I’m in bare feet. He looks like he’s lived in Ottawa for too long. I look like I’ve lived in Peterborough for too long (179).

I grew up on Anishinaabe territory (along the north shore of Lake Ontario) later lived near Lake Scugog, and then went to Trent University near the aforementioned city of Peterborough, where I learned from traditional teachers and Elders. If I were ever to move back to Ontario that is where I would settle. I don’t know how authentic this map is, but it will give you some idea of the land of which I speak. And, of course, the Anishinaabe people and their neighbours were here long before maps were drawn. Since forever.

At any rate, this is a book review and all I can say is, “read this book.” Now that I’ve penciled in the meaning of all the words I guessed at (and got most right from the context by the way) I’m going to read it again because it just makes me feel good — not numb, not guilty, not sad, just good. I’m not sure if it was Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s intention to make white ladies feel good, but it worked for this one. Perhaps this is the cure of which she speaks.