Opinion: Indigenous Cultural Police and Joseph Boyden

By Maurice Switzer

The Indigenous Cultural Police are at it again!

Their latest target is “Through Black Spruce”, a film to be premiered this coming Saturday at the Toronto International Film Festival, and based on Joseph Boyden’s 2008 Giller Prize-winning novel of the same name.

On the surface of it, the current controversy over the film is that its director, award-winning actor-screenwriter-director Don McKellar – whose impressive credentials do not apparently include the presence of Indigenous blood in his veins – was chosen to oversee the production of a story featuring Indigenous characters.

But it’s more likely that the less-obvious agenda of the vociferous Indigenous lobby against the Great Satan of cultural appropriation is the relentless hounding of Boyden, who retreated into self-imposed purgatory in 2016 after the Aboriginal Peoples’ Television Network dedicated a prodigious amount of their limited journalistic resources to a feature profiling what they described as the author’s “shape-shifting Indigenous identity.”

Boyden’s talents at crafting stories with Indigenous themes had been considered good enough to draw praise from Indigenous icons like Tomson Highway, Wab Kinew, and Kent Monkman, as well as from hundreds of thousands of readers of all cultural backgrounds all around the world. Typical of the 12,000 Goodreads.com ratings of “Through Black Spruce”, his second novel of a trilogy about the multigenerational adventures of a Cree family from Moose Factory/Moosonee, was this comment: “It satisfied me by making me care deeply for its cast of characters, feel connected to their challenging rural environment, and empathize with the plight of Native peoples trying to sustain some identity in the larger society.”

When he was named to the Order of Canada in December, 2015, the citation by Governor-General David Johnston praised Boyden’s “social engagement, notably in support of First Nations.”

What eventually eclipsed his undoubted  artistic abilities was the determination by a small but vocal cabal of self-proclaimed Indigenous activists that the author’s claims to an Indigenous pedigree were too flimsy for their liking. An aggressive social media campaign followed the APTN story, and  Boyden became the target of what can only be described as a public lynching.

Sadly, some piling-on sounded a lot like it was motivated by sheer envy, coming from people who were jealous of Boyden’s literary success.

In one of his last public comments on the controversy, Boyden said: “A small part of me is Indigenous, but it is a huge part of who I am,” and he sounded appropriately contrite for his role in what had become a firestorm.

According to acclaimed Cree actor Tina Keeper – who optioned “Through Black Spruce” as a possible film project in 2012 and is a cast member and co-producer – the author was not involved with the screen adaptation of his novel, but has seen the film.

The fact that she and fellow cast member, Oscar nominee Graham Greene from Six Nations of the Grand River, are key players in the movie is in itself a ringing endorsement for bringing Boyden’s novel to the screen and having a talented – if non-Indigenous professional – direct it.

None of this is to deny that cultural appropriation is a legitimate concern for members of any  community. Entrepreneurs continue to make billions selling dreamcatchers , moccasins, tipis, and snowshoes, which Indigenous peoples “invented”, but for which they do not hold patents. Fashion houses routinely engage in the theft of intellectual property  by incorporating Indigenous patterns and designs in their styles.

Even if Joseph Boyden did not have a single drop of Indigenous blood in his veins, or the blessing of Indigenous individuals or communities to craft stories about their realities, he and every other aspiring writer have every right to do so. To try to equate their artistic expression with every colonial crime from land theft to the horrors of residential schools, as some Indigenous critics have done, is just silly.

Regardless of the circumstances of their births, novelists like Boyden and W.P. Kinsella have made substantial contributions to public awareness in Canada of Indigenous peoples and issues. They demonstrated artistic talent, even though they might both be rightfully accused at times of lacking humility and cultural competency. And they marched to the tunes of very different drummers.

Kinsella bragged that he never sought advice from authoritative sources in creating “The Fencepost Chronicles” – hilarious tales about life on a fictitious Alberta First Nation – he scoffed at the very notion of cultural appropriation. But he did not have to endure the scrutiny of social media when he boasted that he didn’t need anyone’s permission to write anything.

Boyden, on the other hand, has a reputation for doing extensive research, seeking out numerous Elders and knowledge-holders, as well as eminent historians, before putting his stories on the page. Some of his most persistent critics – like Haudenosaunee readers furious about his depiction of their ancestors in “The Orenda” as ruthless savages – might dislike his plotlines, but they could never accuse him of not doing any homework.

The key roles in the film version of “Through Black Spruce” are being played by Indigenous actors, including the legendary Tantoo Cardinal, who this summer was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The veteran Alberta-born Cree/Métis actor is among 928 new members — from diverse backgrounds and dozens of countries — who were invited to join the movie industry’s most prestigious club.

Cardinal says her invitation to the Oscars academy represents a shift toward increased cultural diversity at the star-studded event.

“There has been a cry out for more diversity at the Oscars and kind of all over in our society, actually,” Cardinal told a CBC interviewer.

Fellow cast member Graham Greene exemplifies the extent to which that diversity is expanding. He portrayed the immortal Jewish moneylender Shylock in a 2007 Stratford Festival production of Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice”.

Perhaps for the immediate future, Indigenous Canadians can regard as a great achievement the fact that the entertainment industry in general, and the Toronto International Film Festival in particular, seem to be scrambling to find ways to tell their stories – in the best ways they currently know how.

Maurice Switzer is a citizen of the Mississaugas of Alderville First Nation. He lives in North Bay, where he is the principal of Nimkii Communications, a public education practice with a focus on the treaty relationship that made possible the peaceful settlement of Canada.