Highway is a fine novelist (Kiss of the Fur Queen) but this is a memoir, subtitled “Growing up Cree in the land of snow and sky”. Born in 1951, he grows up in remote Indigenous communities in NW Manitoba. The Indian Act declared that status Indian children MUST be sent to residential schools, so at age 6, he is flown to Guy Hill Indian Residential School in The Pas. Over the next 9 years, he describes academic challenges to learn English, but he does NOT experience institutional cultural genocide and has only a brief experience with sexual abuse at age 11. Overall, his residential school experience is positive even for a two-spirit individual, so an important perspective.
Tag: Tomson Highway
Kiss Of The Fur Queen – Tomson Highway
Given the struggles with reconciliation and ongoing issues of cultural appropriation, I have decided to read more Indigenous authors. This novel begins in Northern Manitoba in 1951 with fishing and hunting as dominant activities in a simple but harsh life. Two brothers experience abuse at a Residential School and then settle in Winnipeg where alienation and estrangement complicates their struggle to survive. Dance and music provide a welcome respite. Although emotionally complex, the novel has a triumphant tone. And throughout, the brothers are watched over by the trickster fur queen. An excellent look at remarkable changes in Indigenous life over a 40 year period.
What David Read 