So I got competitive and stockpiled water in all available containers. I tried to wake my partner up but he didn’t care. He didn’t even read the status update. In the morning, he seems sure he can filter water from the Delusional River with a handful of sand and saran wrap and some coffee filters. While he’s doing that, I’ll just put a bucket outside.
Situation Update #25
It’s stopped raining and I’m feeling a LOT less Biblical. Stopping raining is the first step to stopping flooding. That means the situation should be returning to normal and I should be returning to normal writing, even though only one day is left in my residency, and to celebrate, the head of the Banff Centre is having a free cocktail party for all the people that have survived thus far, which for sure means free sparkly water.
Status Update #26
The road is open in one direction and we have the entire national park to ourselves. A gift no NDN should waste.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
“Airplane Mode” was previously published in Kimiwan ’Zine, issue 8, fall 2014; “Selfie” was published in As/Us literary journal, issue 4, fall 2014; “Leaning In” was published by the Art Gallery of Windsor and again in Decolonization, Indigeneity, Education and Society volume 3, issue 1, fall 2014; “Seeing Through the End of the World” was published in Kimiwan ’Zine, issue 6, 2014; “Akiden Boreal” was published by House of Anansi press in an ebook as part of Luminato’s The North-South Project, 2015; “constellation” was published by C Magazine, fall 2015; “i am graffiti” was published in The Walrus, summer 2015; “how to steal a canoe” won an Editors’ Choice Award in Arc Poetry Magazine’s Poem of the Year contest and was published in Arc Poetry Magazine 77, spring 2015; “caribou ghosts & untold stories” and “this accident of being lost” were published in Arc Poetry Magazine 76, winter 2015. This work was financially supported by the Ontario Arts Council. Thanks to the team at House of Anansi Press, especially Janie, for their ongoing support of this work.
Chi’miigwech to Rebecca Belmore for the cover image, and for the revolution her work invokes in me.
I am forever grateful to my editor, Damian Rogers, for caring so deeply about these stories and for holding space for me in the literary world. Damian went beyond the standard job of the editor in her acknowledgement that these stories were born out of a Nishnaabeg world. She followed me to uncomfortable places, listened very deeply, advocated for me, and encouraged me to pursue artistic excellence according to my nation’s storytelling practices. She supported my desire to write these stories unapologetically and truthfully so I see myself and my community in these pages. She protected the part of me that can create and respected my sovereignty throughout this process, and for that I’m eternally grateful.
NOTES
I AM GRAFFITI The lines “three white Xs / on the wall of the grocery store” reference the performance piece X by artist Rebecca Belmore.
PLIGHT, DOING THE RIGHT THING The character Sabe is a Bagwajiwininiwag within the context of the Nishnaabeg, known in english as Bigfoot.
CARIBOU GHOSTS & UNTOLD STORIES The line “train tracks six pack riff raff” was posted by the Vancouver-based slam poet Zaccheus Jackson on instagram hours before he died in Toronto. The phrase “best trained troops that refuse to fight” is based on the beginning sample from Public Enemy’s song “Fight the Power,” from a speech by civil rights attorney and activist Thomas “TNT” Todd in which he used the line “our best-trained . . . troops refuse to fight.”
CONSTELLATION The line “mama = your first ocean” is based on a line from the poem “52 Notes for the Products of Conception” by Damian Rogers, which appears in her collection Dear Leader (Coach House, 2015). Used with permission.
TRAVEL TO ME NOW An adapted version of this piece is part of a track of the same name on Tara Williamson’s 2016 record Songs to Keep Us Warm. The line “there’s nothing in this that isn’t love” riffs on a line from the poem “You Cannot Shed the Difficult, Most Stubborn Aspects of Your Nature with One Dose” by Damian Rogers, which appears in her collection Dear Leader. Used with permission.
LEANING IN Ashkiwiwininiwag, according to Elder Doug Williams, were Mississauga Nishnaabeg guerilla fighters that were so-named because they surprised their foe as if they were jumping out of piles of leaves; Zhaawanoog (Zhauwunook) literally means “the people of the south” and is the Anishinaabe name for the Shawnee, according to Basil Johnston in his Anishinaubae Thesaurus; Tkamse and Taagaamose are Anishinaabeg names, each from a different dialect, with the same meaning as the Shawnee Tecumseh. Taagaamose comes from Dr. Tobasonakwutiban Kinew and is used with the permission of his son, Wab Kinew. I learned the word Tkamse and its meaning from Anishinaabe scholar Brock Pitawanakwat. Bizhiw gidoodem means “lynx is your clan.” Eniigaanizijig means “leader.” Deshkaan Ziibing means “antler river” and is the Anishinaabe name for the Thames River, along which Tecumseh died. I learned this word from Eva Jewell. Binaakwe Giizis is October. Zhaawan (South) and Niibin (Summer) are two spirits in Anishinaabeg thought. Bkejwanong is Wapole Island.
ROAD SALT The line “hostages first trap themselves” is from Lee Maracle’s Celia’s Song (Cormorant Books, 2014), and is used with permission.
MINOMIINIKESHII SINGS The line “long rays of deepening sun” is from Louise Erdrich’s Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country, and I learned about Minomiinikeshi, the spirit of wild rice, first from this source. “If the stalk is floppy, we call it a poor erection” and “if the stalk is too wet, we call it a penis soaking in its favorite place” are direct translations of Anishinaabeg words from Kathi Avery Kinew’s Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Manitoba, called “Manito Gitigaan, Governing in the Great Spirit’s Garden: Wild Rice in Treaty #3.” The idea of “before it’s illegal to be together” also comes from Kinew’s work. Both of these works carry the knowledge of Tobasonakwutiban Kinew.
UNSUBSTANTIATED HEALTH BENEFITS The line “I’m lost, I’m afraid. A frayed rope tying down a leaky boat to the roof of a car on the road in the dark and it’s snowing” is from the song “Reconstruction Site” by the Weakerthans, written by John K. Samson, and is used with permission.
PRETENDING FEARLESS This story references the line “Someone send a runner / through the weather that I’m under / for the feeling that I lost today” from the song “England” by the National, which appears on their record High Violet.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
© Nadya Kwandibens
LEANNE BETASAMOSAKE SIMPSON is a Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg writer, scholar, and musician, and is a member of Alderville First Nation. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Manitoba and has lectured at universities across Canada. She is the author of three previous books, including Islands of Decolonial Love, and the editor of three anthologies. She has released two albums, including f(l)ight, which is a companion piece to this collection.
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
House of Anansi Press was founded in 1967 with a mandate to publish Canadian-authored books, a mandate that continues to this day even as the list has branched out to include internationally acclaimed thinkers and writers. The press immediately gained attention for significant titles by notable writers such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, George Grant, and Northrop Frye. Since then, Anansi’s commitment to finding, publishing and promoting challenging, excellent writing has won it tremendous acclaim and solid staying power. Today Anansi is Canada’s pre-eminent independent press, and home to nationally and internationally bestselling and acclaimed authors such as Gil Adamson, Margaret Atwood, Ken Babstock, Peter Behrens, Rawi Hage, Misha Glenny, Jim Harrison, A. L. Kennedy, Pasha Malla, Lisa Moore, A. F. Moritz, Eric Siblin, Karen Solie, and Ronald Wright. Anansi is also proud to publish the award-winning nonfiction series The CBC Massey Lectures. In 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011 Anansi was honoured by the Canadian Booksellers Association as “Publisher of the Year.”
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, This Accident of Being Lost
This Accident of Being Lost Page 9