Happy If You Know it

The poetry, fiction, art, essays, and photography in Happy If You Know It grapple with one question: “What does it mean to trust our intuition?” Women in the anthology answer by sharing their truths, shortcomings, and pain without hesitation. Their voices unfurl revelations that become points of intimate shared knowledge between the contributor and the reader, like a big sister sharing experiences with another big sister. Exploring topics from Kim Kardashian to dating disasters, and suicidal ideation to body positivity, each contributor reflects on what it means to trust one’s self—and the internal screaming and hushed tones that it takes before one does.

One Hundred Years of Struggle: The History of Women and the Vote in Canada

In One Hundred Years of Struggle: The History of Women and the Vote in Canada, Joan Sangster recounts the complex history of Canadian women’s enfranchisement during the 19th and 20th centuries. Sangster delves into the multiple and diverging political perspectives of the movement’s key players and illustrates the flaws in our normative conceptions of the chronology of Canadian suffrage. In particular, Sangster’s honest analysis of the role that imperial and racist attitudes played (and continue to play) in the fight for women’s equal political participation offers a challenge to those who believe that struggles associated with women’s suffrage are entirely historical.

For long stretches of filming, every hour is an off-hour. Denied anything to watch or click or scroll or read, contestants kill time in the Bachelor mansion with what remains to them: eating, drinking, and saying more than they mean to. In contrast with this surfeit of leisure time, minutes spent in the direct presence of the show’s lead are scarce. Referred to as “one-on-one time”—sometimes even shortened to just “time” because everyone knows what kind matters—contestants arrive on set hungry for it and stay never quite sated. It’s the one resource every contestant, no matter what other advantages they might possess, needs in order to conceive and develop romance. As one contestant puts it: “Time is the most important thing in this entire process. You don’t get time—you’re going home. Because how is any relationship going to form if you don’t have time?”

Excerpted from Most Dramatic Ever: The Bachelor © SUZANNAH SHOWLER, 2018. Published by ECW Press, ecwpress.com.

Pemmican Wars: A Girl Called Echo, Vol. 1
By Katherena Vermette

In Pemmican Wars, the first part of Katherena Vermette’s new graphic novel series A Girl Called Echo, we are reminded what comics do best: tell a story through pictures. Illustrated by Scott B. Henderson and coloured by Donovan Yaciuk, it begins when Métis teenager Echo wakes up in Qu’Appelle Valley in 1814 at the height of the Pemmican Wars. She has begun to inexplicably slip back and forth through time, between her lonely life as a foster kid in Saskatchewan, and the sometimes joyful, sometimes difficult history of her people in that same territory. The carefully constructed panels and sparse, meaningful dialogue skillfully remind us the past is never truly in the past but constantly living with us in the present. A Girl Called Echo is a series to watch.

Illustrations by Ian Phillips.

In October 2017, WWF-Canada released its “Living Planet Report,” assessing the country’s endangered and threatened species. Their findings paint a bleak picture of Canada’s wildlife: Between 1970 and 2014, half of the 903 monitored species had declined in population—a loss of approximately 83 percent on average. Habitat destruction, climate change, and human activity are the most common threats to these animals. We’ve selected a few species living across the country to illustrate just how widespread the problem is.

British Columbia

British Columbia is one of the last places that grizzly bears can be found in their natural habitat, but for decades the population has dwindled in some of the province’s most densely populated areas. We’re also killing them—sometimes deliberately. According to the auditor general of B.C., 389 were killed between 2006 and 2015 due to “human/bear conflict.” Though regulations have been put in place to stop trophy hunting and to better track grizzly bear numbers, they have been extirpated in places like Kamloops, Kelowna, and Vancouver. While there has been some population growth in areas of B.C.—in 2012, the Finlay-Ospika and Muskwa Grizzly Bear population units had the highest estimated number of grizzlies in the province, with 971 and 840 respectively—that growth is thought to be happening independently of the ministry’s efforts.

Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario

You can guess by its name where the Greater Prairie-Chicken formerly lived: in the large, lightly grazed grasslands of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario. Because it needs between 5,000 to 6,000 hectares to maintain a thriving population, the urbanization and agribusiness of these prairie lands have all but extirpated the grouse from its Canadian homes. The Greater Prairie-Chicken can now only be found in parts of the United States.

Northern Alberta and southern Northwest Territories

The Whooping Crane nearly went extinct in the 1940s; as of 2016, they’re still listed as endangered. Wood Buffalo National Park—Canada’s largest—is the only place in the world where Whooping Cranes breed in the wild. The park has a history of helping re-establish animal populations; it was created in 1922 to protect the last herds of bison remaining in northern Canada. Still, the Whooping Cranes’ numbers remain fragile, with only 300 of them nesting in Wood Buffalo National Park.

Quebec

The copper redhorse is the only fish that lives exclusively in Quebec waters. It’s been listed as endangered on the Species at Risk (SARA) Public Registry since 2007. While there are no concrete numbers as to their current population, researchers have found that the remaining fish have problems reproducing naturally, due in part to the fact that they reproduce later in the spawning season than other fish.

Pesticide application happens around the time the copper redhorse lays its eggs, and the spike in pollutants in the rivers—along with lower water levels—adds to their vulnerability.

Quebec

Atlantic-Gaspésie woodland caribou are on the brink of extirpation. In 2006, the population’s numbers were pegged at approximately 200. Deforestation and industrial expansion have limited their natural habitats, with many of them now found on the border land of Parc national de la Gaspésie.

While there have been regulations put in place by the park to stop hunting, and to deter predators like black bears and coyotes, the population has continued to decline. In 2015, the SARA Public Registry followed up on that report, and found that the population had dwindled to about 120. They’ve forecasted that the Atlantic-Gaspésie populations will become extinct by the year 2056.

Nova Scotia

While a large portion of Blanding’s Turtles can be found in Quebec and Ontario, an isolated population in Nova Scotia was designated as threatened in 1973, and is now endangered. In total, there are only about 180 Blanding’s Turtles left in their central Nova Scotia home. These turtles don’t reach maturity until at least 15 years old and lay eggs once every year or two. Because of their relatively small numbers, even one female fatality can heavily impact the population. Their biggest threat, apart from increased road development and traffic, are what are called “subsidized predators”—animals, like raccoons, whose populations have grown thanks to human development and urbanization. These predators hunt and eat the Blanding’s Turtles’ eggs before they even have a chance to hatch, further decreasing the number of turtles that actually reach maturity.

Photo by Fubarfoto.

With the first chord of “Burn Your Village to the Ground,” the song accompanying a burlesque act titled “Not Your Stereotype,” a transformation begins. The figures on stage, dressed in racist caricatures of Indigeneity—feathered headdresses, wearing “Indian” Halloween costumes, carrying “Made in China” dreamcatchers—begin to shed their layers. The commodified image of the “Indian” is peeled away, and then the group performs a reverse strip, putting on new burlesque regalia to reveal their true identities. This is Virago Nation, Turtle Island’s first Indigenous burlesque collective.

Vancouver-based Virago Nation engages burlesque performance as a tool of reclamation. It’s through rematriating Indigenous sexuality and identity that community building, workshops, and performance are able to interrogate the racist, oppressive structures of colonization.

By using a colonial register of communication and culture—burlesque—to represent themselves publicly as Indigenous, Virago Nation enacts femininity and sexuality on their own terms. By archaic definitions, virago refers to a woman of “masculine strength or spirit,” or, a female warrior. Today, the term refers plainly to an ill-tempered, domineering woman. This shift in meaning—from one of female empowerment to one intended to strip agency—makes convening member of Virago Nation Shane Sable chuckle, because, of course, it’s all part of the fun.

Virago Nation formed in May 2016 when Sable, feeling uninspired and burnt-out in her work, wanted to build a community of support. She asked five friends to meet at the Heartwood Cafe, a now-defunct community hub for marginalized folks in Vancouver, for brunch. Sable invited everyone to introduce themselves while fully embodying their respective Indigeneity, approaching each other free and in spite of colonial expectations. But what first started as an informal group to share ideas and inspire one another became the formalized burlesque group they are today.

The collective uses each performance to leverage a calculated interrogation of the broader sociopolitical landscape in Canada. For example, they use what Sable calls “burlesque regalia”—ceremonial regalia adapted specifically for burlesque—as a tool in their performances to demonstrate postcolonial hybridity and identify each Virago’s heritage. By stripping off layers of costumes in their performances, they seek to strip the weight of the colonial gaze with conviction and freedom. In this way, the performances allow the group to participate in new cultural production while paying respect to traditional Indigenous art.

Virago Nation also offers workshops on pastie-making, burlesque movement, and other artistic skills pertaining to the rematriation of Indigeneity. By doing this, the group hopes to promote the art of burlesque as a tool of empowerment. “Because of the cultural genocide that’s taken place across Turtle Island, people have varying degrees of contact with their traditional cultures.” Sable says. “Burlesque can help bridge some of that lack of connection.”

Most importantly, Virago Nation strives to facilitate positive experiences for members of Indigenous communities, knowing the impact it may have on others’ lives.

“When we were in Las Vegas performing for the Burlesque Hall of Fame, we received a message from an Indigenous woman that said, ‘I didn’t know that I wasn’t alone,’” says Sable.

According to the group, this reaction—a feeling of sudden belonging, like finding one’s long lost family—comes up regularly, confirming the need for Virago Nation’s mission.

Ultimately for Virago Nation, it’s all about rallying for a return to pre-colonial matrilineal power structures and building a community that embraces the identities and supports the flourishing of Indigenous people, especially women, everywhere.

As for their next steps, Virago hopes to tour rural Indigenous communities to help share their positive representations of Indigenous women and to one day create an community where all Indigenous women can be Viragos. Sable says: “We want there to be others after—and alongside—us.”

Commissioned by the National Arts Centre in partnership with the University of Winnipeg, Canard combined her years of experience making murals and facilitating art workshops for her recent piece, Connecting Communities.

“It’s a simple yet meaningful piece,” she says, “because it brought together so many people from different social circles and stages of life for the sole purpose of celebrating the resilience in all of us.”

Canard went beyond the idea of a work of art bringing people together by seeing it—she wanted to involve them directly in its creation. In order to have the community involved in the physical creation of the work, Canard chose to use stamps, which are accessible for all ages, people with limited mobility, and even for those who think they have no artistic ability.

“There was a lot of laughing happening, people sharing stories and kids making butt loads of cards,” she says. “Some people were hesitant to participate because they said they’re not artistic, but once shown the steps, they got into it.”

Canard hand-carved the stamps and hosted three events for people to join in the creation. More than 250 participated, ranging from three years old to senior citizens. The community-created pieces will be featured in her completed mural.

In addition to bringing the community together to create, Canard is excited for what it will mean to have her piece in a public space.

“As a First Nations person I don’t see much that I can relate to in these public spaces,” she says. “I wanted to make sure that what was created came from a place of love and shows the true values of what my culture is about.”

For her stamps, Canard selected the Seven Sacred Teachings animals—significant to Treaty 1 territory—as well as some images representing plant medicine. Those who participated in the art piece were given handbills with information about the Seven Sacred Teachings, which Canard was taught to live by as a child. They are: love (the eagle), truth (the turtle), respect (the buffalo), honesty (the sasquatch), humility (the wolf), courage (the bear), and wisdom (the beaver).

Connecting Communities will be permanently installed on the University of Winnipeg campus in the spring of 2018. “It really does take a community to make big things like this happen,” Canard says.

The Truth is Told Better This Way

The Truth is Told Better This Way by Liz Worth is a book of piercing poetry that reads like a very intimate confession. Worth’s poems let out their mysteries slowly and deliberately, stringing readers along a path of loneliness and grief. At times violent, they crawl under the skin. Poems that echo Toronto’s streets remind readers of the grey, acrimonious side of the city. Themes of nature and divination and a sense of foreboding tie these poems together. This book is not Worth’s first foray into poetry, but it’s a beautiful and personal one, made for readers who want to be enchanted by dark, candid words.