Names matter
The 53rd Parallel was written with respect for the large historical events that advance its stories. I have fictionalized those events, I have not distorted them.
That respect extends to my use of labels and names for the First Nations Ojibway and in my presentation of their customs.
My guide in this matter has been my good friend, Steve Fobister. We worked together at Delaney Lake and Ball Lake Lodge in Northwestern Ontario in the mid to late 60’s and he went on to be elected Chief of the Grassy Narrows First Nation, serving his people at a crucial time.
Steve is Ojibway. Others spell the tribal name Ojibwa (which is how I pronounce it because it is how Steve always pronounces it) or Ojibwe. Both of those alternatives seem to be more common today but back in the 60’s I only saw it spelled Ojibway and a couple of years back Steve gave me a T-shirt with ‘Ojibway Nation’ across the chest.
The Ojibway name was given by the first white men to meet these people, the French voyageurs and the Jesuit missionaries, in the late 1600’s. When English settlers arrived they heard the French word as Chippewa, and that is the tribal name that is more common in the US.
Before the white man came these people called themselves Anishinaabe, translated as ‘First People’. Steve says that he always understood ‘first’ to connote ‘original’, and also ‘good’.
In this novel the Irish of the ’30’s refer to First Nations people as ‘red men.’ I believe the novel benefits from that historical accuracy, and Steve agrees.
The label ‘Indian’ is used most frequently, as it would have been at the time. Steve and the many Ojibway I worked with understood the historical blunder was only that, but they never considered ‘Indian’ offensive.
We all support it when a disposed people reclaim their prerogative to determine how they will be known to themselves and we celebrate that self-determination on the way to further victories for justice. The First Nations people of Canada, the Native Americans of the US, these self-determined names will be used when the stories catch up to them.
The presentation of Ojibway customs and habits are accurate. Steve and I were close friends the four summers we worked together. He took me to an Ojibway burial site. He led our first expedition to the Hudson’s Bay Post. He invited me to sweat lodge ceremonies. He was born in a wigwam and didn’t move to Grassy Narrows Reserve until the winter he turned nine, and it is my good fortune that he loves to tell stories as much I love listening to them. He approves of these stories that I tell of his people.
You might find this an interesting note about why his name is Steve Fobister. There are many Fobisters living at Grassy Narrows. It seems that when government officials decided it was time for the Ojibway living in the area to select an English name for census purposes, the man leading the effort was named Fobister. Many of the Ojibway thought they were being told that was the name they should use.