Bleak, Melancholy. Depressing at times. Brutal. But, let’s face it. So many Indigenous people don’t have a great deal of hope or opportunities. And, we don’t always treat them kindly. That’s an understatement in Wayne Johnson’s moving book, The Red Canoe.
Buck went to a Catholic off-reservation boarding school over forty years earlier. There he was called Michael Fineday but his Ojibwe name is Miskwa’doden (Red Deer). He makes a good living as a carpenter and boatbuilder just off the Shakopee Sioux Reservation. But, when his wife, Naomi, serves him with divorce papers, Buck contemplates suicide. It’s only luck that he chooses not to kill himself, luck, a feral cat, and a feral young girl.
Lucy Walters’ Ojibwa name is Gage’binch (Everlasting bird). At fifteen, she really only has her father to live for. She’s bright, does well in school, and has three close friends there, but when her father, a cop, is at work, his cop buddies take turns raping her. But, the first one threatened her, saying they’d take care of her dad if she said anything.
Like Buck, Lucy is spiraling downward until she comes across his garage, where he’s working on a boat. Buck is careful because Lucy is as feral as his cat, naturally fearful of strange men. But, the biggest reason Buck’s wife is leaving him is what she calls his sainthood. He won’t back down, and he takes on projects to save them. Lucy is Buck’s latest project.
Buck is an unusual savior, though. He teaches Lucy to build a canoe, and then he plans to use that canoe to help her get revenge. These two have a couple canny allies in two of Lucy’s friends, Ryan, a Chinese immigrant, and Booker, a young Black man who tries to protect Lucy because he knows she was sexually abused by the cops. Then, there’s Ryan’s mother, a woman who saw more than anyone should have to in China.
It really doesn’t come as a surprise when men in this book abuse their authority. The accounts of missing Indigenous women in the U.S. and Canada hint that those women face abuse and criminal activities. But, if you’re like me, when you read The Red Canoe, you’ll find yourself rooting for Buck and Lucy, hoping both of them can take back their lives.
Wayne Johnson’s website is https://www.waynejohnsonauthor.com/
The Red Canoe by Wayne Johnson. Agora Books, 2022. ISBN 9781951709723 (paperback), 340p.
FTC Full Disclosure – I received a .pdf to review for a journal.
