Thunder Through My Veins Read online

  ALSO BY GREGORY SCOFIELD

  • •

  The Gathering: Stones for the Medicine Wheel

  Native Canadiana: Songs from the Urban Rez

  Love Medicine and One Song

  I Knew Two Métis Women: The Lives of Dorothy Scofield and Georgina Houle Young

  Singing Home the Bones

  kipocihkân: Poems New and Selected

  Louis: The Heretic Poems

  Witness, I Am

  With gratitude to Silas White for helping to shape the story.

  Anchor Canada edition published 2019

  Copyright © 1999 Gregory Scofield

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written consent of the publisher—or in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, license from the Canadian Copyright Licensing agency—is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Anchor Canada is a registered trademark.

  Cree words and phrases used in this book have been spelled in their standardized roman orthography.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Scofield, Gregory, 1966- author.

  Thunder through my veins : a memoir / Gregory Scofield.—Anchor Canada edition.

  Originally published: Toronto: HarperFlamingo Canada, © 1999.

  ISBN 978-0-385-69274-8 (softcover)

  ISBN 978-0-385-69275-5 (EPUB)

  1. Scofield, Gregory, 1966- —Childhood and youth.

  2. Poets, Canadian (English)—20th century—Biography

  3. Métis—Biography. I. Autobiographies.

  PS8587.C614 Z53 2019 C811’.54 C2019-005520-0

  Book design by Jennifer Griffiths

  Cover images: (clouds) Mark Cerny / Getty Images; (prairie) Michael Bourgault / Unsplash

  Published in Canada by Anchor Canada,

  a division of Random House of Canada Limited,

  a Penguin Random House Company

  www.penguinrandomhouse.ca

  v5.3.2

  a

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Also by Gregory Scofield

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Introduction

  Between Sides

  Preface

  Part I

  1. Goodbye Before I’ve Begun

  2. New Beginnings, Old Worlds Forgotten

  3. Only the Memories Live Forever

  4. The Birth of Shadows

  5. A Merciless God

  6. Refuge in Silence

  7. tâpâhkômêwin (Making Relations)

  8. Storms to Come

  9. House of Rooms

  Part II

  10. Roots in a Dry Desert

  11. The Long Road Ahead

  12. First Passage

  13. Seeds

  14. A Light in My Heart

  15. Spirit-Keeper

  16. Second Passage

  17. The Weight of Belonging

  Part III

  18. Land of the Grandfathers

  19. Quest into Darkness

  20. pêkiwê, pêkiwê - (Come Home, Come Home)

  21. A Voice to Speak With

  22. The Boy of Yesterday

  23. Endings / Beginnings

  24. Thunder Through My Veins

  About the Author

  For my mother, Dorothy Scofield, who taught me to persevere and to keep dreaming, no matter the darkness.

  • •

  SO MUCH HAS changed in the twenty years since I first wrote this book. In fact, so much has changed, I hardly recognize myself in the pages of this story. My once fragmented world that was filled with ghosts and shadows is now a place of wholeness and clarity. I’ve grown into the eyes left to me by my mother, my grandfather, and all the kêhtê-ayak, the Old Ones, who led my feet forward when I couldn’t find my way. I’ve been blessed by their singing, nikamowin, when I couldn’t hear my own voice. I’ve been blessed by their laughter, pâhpiwin, when I was angry. But above all, I’ve been blessed by the rattle of their bones, oskana. They have brought me to the lodge within myself where I’ve been awoken by a new thunder, and where I am now home.

  At the time, I wrote Thunder Through My Veins for all the young First Nations and Métis kids who’d grown up in a situation similar to mine. I’d written it for those who’d survived and for those who were still struggling. The book was meant to serve as a document of resilience. It was meant to provide hope where there was none. It was meant to offer a reflection where there was no mirror. It was meant to offer a voice where there was silence. And it was meant as a wake-up call for Canadians, a written account of the effects of colonization and societal indifference, and of the generational trauma and disconnection to family history and community as experienced by so many First Nations and Métis people. However, in 1999, when Thunder Through My Veins was published, it seemed as if many Canadians were tired of traumatic Indian stories. This, of course, was nine years before the founding of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and sixteen years before the TRC brought forward its findings and its ninety-four calls to action, many of which address historical injustices and the contemporary realities faced by Indigenous Peoples in Canada. After 2015, there appeared to be a genuine interest in Canada’s relationship with Indigenous Peoples. For the first time, since the passage of the 1876 Indian Act and the 1884 amendment to the act, which made it compulsory for First Nations children to attend residential school, and including the 1885 ban of the Sun Dance and Potlatch, the Canadian government seemed committed to reconciliation. And, as more Canadians became aware of their own history and the effects of colonization, the more they began to read stories by, for and about Indigenous Peoples. Up until this point, Indigenous stories were largely seen as reaching a niche market, celebrated, of course, in our own circles, but somehow disconnected from the Canadian narrative and the founding history and the hard truths of this country.

  Furthermore, the way in which Indigenous stories were edited for publication in the seventies, eighties and early nineties reflected a non-Indigenous gaze into the lives and experiences of First Nations and Métis people. Stories were neatly tidied up of their too political aesthetic, rocking the boat only slightly insofar as truth telling. Stories were given relevance and authenticity not in how they communicated individual experiences but rather in how they upheld stereotypical tropes that had come to be expected by non-Indigenous publishers and readers. This is not to say, however, that Indigenous writers weren’t firmly established in the lexicon of Canadian literature. By the 1990s, a second wave of Indigenous writers, following in the footsteps of Lee Maracle, Jeannette Armstrong, Thomas King, Tomson Highway, Rita Joe, Basil Johnston, Daniel David Moses, Maria Campbell and Beatrice Mosionier, landed on the doorstep of CanLit. Suddenly, publishers and editors had to rethink their approach to Indigenous literature. Indigenous stories became full on, unapologetic stories of generational trauma and disinheritance, unflinching autobiographical narratives and fictional accounts of broken families and communities that spoke about Canada’s true and undeniable past. Still, many readers were not prepared to listen. They opened the door to this history with trepidation and briefly looked at those of us standing on the other side, before slamming the door
in our faces. It has taken another generation of Indigenous writers and artists to firmly place their feet in Canada’s door, insisting it never close again.

  Further to this, there were few stories other than Campbell’s Halfbreed and Mosionier’s In Search of April Raintree that spoke specifically about Métis culture, history and identity. For many Métis people of my generation, we had few books in which we could see ourselves and even fewer stories in which we were present and visible as a distinct and autonomous nation. The idea of possessing both mixed Indigenous and European ancestry became further clouded in works like John Ralston Saul’s A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada, in which he argues Canada, as a whole, is a Métis nation. This, of course, implies that every Canadian with mixed Indigenous and European ancestry, is therefore Métis. However, what is left out of this paradigm is the historical fact that the French Métis, many with Francophone roots to Quebec, as well as the English/Scottish halfbreeds, many with roots to the Orkneys, have specific cultural, political and familial ties to the historic Red River Settlement in Manitoba and to Western Canada, which was largely based around the fur trade. And so, it appears by the mid-nineties anyone with mixed Indigenous ancestry, no matter the Indigenous nation to which they came from or how remote their ancestry, began to appropriate the term Métis. This is problematic for many reasons, but namely in that it further erases Métis identity specific to Western Canada.

  My understanding of myself as Métis has evolved and changed since I first wrote this book. More so, my understanding of myself as having mixed ancestry, one that includes Cree, Scottish, English, Jewish, Polish and German, has changed dramatically since I’ve found and been given pieces of my history that I didn’t have when I first wrote my story. However, one thing has remained consistent, which I believe is shared by many of us with mixed ancestry. And that is the question “Where do I belong?” I’ve since come to realize, however, that I belong to who I claim, and more importantly to who claims me. And although I belong to many countries and to many ancestors, I belong at my Aunty Georgie’s table, the same table where she taught me Cree and the stories that have accompanied me thus far. I belong to my grandfather’s community, to Kinosota, where my great grandmother lies buried. I belong to the generations of Scottish halfbreeds, who worked for the Hudson’s Bay Company. I belong to the buffalo hunters, and to the medicine makers. I belong to the nôhkomak, the grandmothers, who came from this land. I belong to them, to nitâniskô-wâhkômâkanak, my ancestors.

  In 1998, when I began this book, I believed the process of writing it would somehow free me from the past. I believed, naively, that once the story was written I would be a different person. I would be able to start again in a house of new bones, my life magically cleared of the trauma I had carried for so many years. I believed the nightmares would give way to dreams of peace and safety. I believed my body would hold a different weight, something that didn’t startle easily. A body that didn’t react to the sound of glass breaking or loud voices in the night. A body that moved through the world differently, less angry and ready to fight. I believed that once I committed the past to paper, I would be given new feet, ones that would lead me so far from my childhood that I would never have to hold my breath again.

  The pain of the past seemed still to belong to someone else. I was far from understanding or coping with it on an emotional and mental level. The years of abandonment and separation, anger and fear were so much a part of me that I didn’t recognize them. I didn’t see how they impacted my relationships or my sense of self. I didn’t see how they continued to inform my decisions and choices, most of which related to my feelings of being unsafe in the world. Perhaps most importantly, I didn’t see myself as a survivor, although I’d named myself as one in the story. Deep down, I felt angry that I’d lost so much. I was bitter for having lost Mom, my father, my siblings, Aunty and my grandmother all by the time I was thirty-three. I was angry by my broken family ties and all the decisions that were made before my birth. I was angry with my grandfather and the generations before him. I was angered by my mom for her addictions and poor choices. I was angered by my father for his indifference, his negligence. I was angry with my grandmother for not doing more. I was angry at the homes of my childhood, the welfare hotels and apartments. I was angry at the things I was made to witness, all the things that I thought were expunged in these pages. All the things that I believed were over simply because I’d written about them.

  I am reminded of an argument I had with Mom, probably two years before she passed away. I was twenty-four, arrogant and judgmental, and so far from understanding what trauma does to people. Mom, who’d long since divorced my stepfather, had been accepting money from him. He would leave large coffee tins filled with pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters with my grandmother, who in turn gave them to Mom. I remember being so angry with Mom for accepting what I considered to be blood money. I felt she had sold out, and that in accepting his charity, she condoned the years of abuse he had inflicted on us. More so, I felt she humiliated herself by accepting his money. To me, it seemed so desperate and pathetic. I was livid that she even considered it. We got into an argument and I accused her of acting like a cheap whore. I’ll never forget the look on her face. It was a mixture of unbelievable disappointment and seething anger. “Do you know what your goddamn problem is!” she yelled. “You’re so filled with hate that you can’t see anything in front of you!”

  Years later, after I discovered her early life, I understood what the look on her face had meant. I felt so horrible and ashamed. And yet, I recall relishing the cool anger that flashed in her eyes that day. It gave me hope that she hadn’t forgotten how to fight.

  Anger had always propelled me. It kept me alert. It carried me through difficult times. It kept me focused and gave me purpose. It gave me a voice where I wouldn’t otherwise have had one. Despite Mom’s observation, I felt anger had saved me from becoming irreparably broken. I was determined that the chaos of my young life would not be duplicated in my adulthood. I was resolute. I would not repeat the mistakes of the past, choosing instead to use words to make the anger as meaningful as I could. However, shortly after the publication of Thunder Through My Veins, I began to realize the anger had caused me, as Mom said, to miss so many things in front of me. I hadn’t allowed myself the opportunity to process the past or to grieve it. I hadn’t allowed myself to be weak or to be fully present in the pain. I stood stone-faced and defiant while I was writing the story. And like any parent, or at least my expectation of one, I stood protectively over the little boy in these pages. I watched him carefully and I sheltered him from more chaos. I kept him safe from further harm and abandonment. But I didn’t know how to hold him, and I certainly didn’t know how to love him.

  I have a photograph of myself when I was two or three. It was taken in Whitehorse at Christmastime. I am sitting in front of the Christmas tree wearing a red-and-black housecoat, which Mom has tied around my waist. I hold a toy wooden guitar, the size of a ukulele. My fingers have been placed on the chords and I am singing a song that Mom probably taught me, which from my earliest memory could be “You Are My Sunshine.” In the photograph everything appears to be ideal. I look to be happy and healthy, my dark blond brush cut and chubby cheeks cherubic and sweet. It’s a typical Christmas photograph taken by a proud and loving mother, a moment in time that she’d never get back. And yet, when I found it in her belongings all those years ago, I saw only the suffering and sadness of her life. I didn’t see my own sadness or suffering. I didn’t see the broken parts of myself or the things that needed healing. And, above all, I didn’t see the people who needed mourning or the other broken individuals who needed forgiveness, no matter how resistant I am to it now. Even this resistance tells me that I’m relatively new to these healing footsteps, albeit I have learned to make ceremony within myself.

  In the years since this book was first published, I’ve returned numerous times to Maple Ridge, the to
wn of my birth, and in 2008, I moved home for a brief period. Perhaps subconsciously I knew I hadn’t finished what I’d intended to do when I first wrote this story. Perhaps, too, I knew that that little boy—the one with the brush cut and chubby cheeks—was still waiting for me to find him? Just as he’d waited for his mother and all the other adults to find him as well. He was still waiting by the river, the undertow swirling in concentric circles. He was still waiting, his eyes fixed on an “Iron Soldier,” the one he believed would save his mother, his aunty. He was still waiting, small and scared, at the doors of strangers. He was still waiting, unable to raise his voice. He was still waiting, his two little feet, more than birds in flight searching for home.

  But I did not find home. In its place were the sad reminders of my childhood: the run-down hotels and apartment buildings that knew too many stories; the same streets that seemed even more desolate; the shops and cafés that had changed so many hands I couldn’t remember their original names; and the cemetery, perpetually quiet and still, that now held the remains of everyone I knew as family. I suppose, in moving home, I’d hoped to somehow reinvent the town of my childhood and to magically change the surroundings and memories into something positive and reflective of my adult life. But the trauma of the past was too great, and more and more I felt as if I were sinking into quicksand. I felt suffocated by the memories, immobilized by my sense of loss and loneliness. I had walked all these miles away from the story only to realize that I’d been made to come back to the beginning. I was made to come back to the place of my fear, and I was forced to find the little boy. In the place of my mother’s hands were my own. In the place of my father’s arms were my own. And in the place of everything once absent, I was made to call myself. Home.