The very term ‘cultural appropriation’ is inappropriate. Perhaps that Grey Owl, the renowned Indian author and spokesman for the Canadian North, was an Englishman? while on a trade mission; to the great embarrassment of Canadians and Indians alike. Grey Owl decried the tendency of European Canadians to despise the North. Playing the role of Indian chief, Belaney tied a symbolic white prisoner to a pole and "told him the wrongs that the white man had done to the Indian" (Smith 1990: 74). In his writings Grey Owl condemns those half-breeds who try to pass themselves off as whites without recognizing that their aspirations might not be that dissimilar from his own – to find a better life in the life of the other. Bordering on: Framing the Canadian/American Imaginary, From 'We the People' to 'We Are the World' and Beyond, Mirror Images: Anne of Green Gables and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (with Constance Classen), Margaret Atwood, Two-Headed Woman (with Constance Classen). On the other hand, when whites speak not only with the voice of the conquerors of the New World, but also with the voice of the conquered, there is no longer a place for any one else to speak. These narratives reflect not only the artist’s reclaimed Kaska Dene cultural heritage, from which he was estranged while growing up, but also the personal and intergenerational traumas he has witnessed as a community worker with at-risk Indigenous youths in Whitehorse, where he is based. The North provides the world-weary with an antidote to civilization, an antidote no longer available in much of the Western world. He learnt how to snowshoe and how to canoe, how to track and trap animals, how to survive a Northern winter in the woods. Increased prices for pelts and lumber, and a growing railway, brought droves of trappers and loggers into the North. One culture (specifically, white North Americans) adopts and abuses elements of another culture (in this case, the indigenous peoples who were here l0,000 years before us). So opposed are the two in Grey Owl’s mind that for many years he would not have a radio in his cabin for fear this strange device of modern technology would disturb the Northern climate: We all had an idea in those days that radio caused electrical disturbances that had a bad effect on the weather, so that on account of some gigolo with corrugated hair singing "Ting-a-ling" or "You’ve got me crying again" in Montreal or Los Angeles, a bunch of good men had bad snow-shoeing all winter (Grey Owl 1934:19). This was imagined to be an inevitable consequence of progress. Many of the watercolour images are so strangely surreal that it is difficult to fully understand what is going on. I’m not... You frequently walk or bike along the seawall Everyday we look in each others eyes and smile as... Facebook comments not loading? At a time when it was taken for granted by most whites that civilization was superior to wilderness, and whites superior to Indians, Grey Owl insisted on their equality. The Canadian North, therefore, has a very different ethos from the American West. Unlike the storybook Indians who lived up to the romantic ideals of their white readers, most real Indians – as reported by immigrants to the Canadian colony – seemed to be depressingly unromantic, drunk, dirty and hapless. In later life, Belaney would describe this rite of adoption (which Grey Owl’s biographers tell us never actually took place) as follows: A blood-brother proved and sworn, by moose-head feast, wordless chant, and ancient ritual was I named before a gaily decorated and attentive concourse … The smoke hung in the white pall short of the spreading limbs of the towering trees, and with a hundred pairs of beady eyes upon me I stepped out beneath it when called on … Hi-Heeh, Hi-Heh, Ho! Belaney’s reputed Indian identity certainly must have contributed to the enormous popularity of his books and lectures and also lent authority to his conservationist message. In Post No Bills, a naked Indigenous man crawls across the ground, dragging a wagon on which are perched pieces of weird machinery and a phantom drummer, this unhappy scene witnessed by Indigenous children in residential-school uniforms. Writers and artists, indeed all human beings, necessarily engage with the experiences of others. ... in arts and letters now centre on allegations that this sacred way of knowing is being despoiled through the heresy of cultural appropriation. The ambiguity about his parentage led the boy, with his love of Indian lore, to fantasize that his mother was an American Indian and that he himself was therefore half Indian. Grey Owl (or Wa-sha-quon-asin, from the Ojibwe wenjiganooshiinh, meaning "great horned owl" or "great grey owl") was the name Archibald ... of our articles on people like this don't have passages referencing these changes as being fraudulent or constituting cultural appropriation or any other pejorative characterization. Such dedication was gaining the immigrant to Canada recognition. They were written mainly by European explorers about other civilizations. While Indians had been able to live off the land without changing it, whites, apparently, could only make a living from the forest by destroying it. His father, George Belaney, was an inveterate wanderer, travelling to Florida to try his fortunes at orange growing and taxidermy and returning years later to Hastings a romantic, mysterious figure wearing a sombrero. By this time his imposture had come to seem more interesting and romantic than fraudulent, enhancing, rather than detracting from, his reputation. As he wrote "there are thousands of mixed bloods like myself kicking around the North" (Smith 1990: 166). A Great Grey Owl makes me think of that Canadian Master of Cultural Appropriation, Archie "Grey Owl" Belaney. As an adolescent in Hastings Archie had boasted to a friend that he was going to Canada when he finished school. His message was thrilling to an audience jaded with and troubled by many of the traits of modern Western culture: "You are tired of civilization. And then there was Buffalo Child Long Lance, a black man (theoretically with some Native blood) born Sylvester Long, who grew up in the American south under Jim Crow laws, who found it much better to be Indian. In the careers of Black Wolf, and Grey Owl, and Joseph Boyden, 2 the dense mass of Canada’s denial of Indigenous reality folds in upon itself, like a great star becoming a black hole. I liked the story of Grey Owl which would be considered awful cultural appropriation these days. I come to offer you, what? Grey Owl covered up this silence with his voice. Later Grey Owl would advise his friend to concentrate on exploring "the heart of Wilderness" rather than raving about how "England is the best (or any other nation)" (Smith 1990: 169). In 1936 he declared: Every word I write, every lecture I have given, or ever will give, were and are to be for the betterment of the Beaver people, all wild life, the Indians and halfbreeds, and for Canada, in whatever small way I may (Smith 1990: 162). His message once again seemed vital and inspiring to a generation concerned about the vanishing wilderness. For many a man who considers himself the master of all he surveys would do well, when setting foot in the forest, to take off not only his hat but his shoes too and, in not a few cases, be glad he is allowed to retain an erect position (Grey Owl 1936: viii). Also on view are a series of paintings titled “A Prop for Reconciliation” and incorporating characters from the Archie comics, as well as large-scale, hand-tinted photographs of a “scorched earth” performance in a fire-swept forest, oddly uninflected collages, and assemblages mounted on big squares of artificial turf, which Tisiga employs as a metaphor for the land. His medium, however, is not oral but visual, not the spoken word but paint and collage, sculpture and assemblage, installation and performance photography. The young man who goes North, does not go to conquer, but to survive. But rather than condemning him for his individual acts of appropriation, should not Grey Owl perhaps be praised for emphasizing the worth and importance of Native culture? An odd way of celebrating Queen Victoria’s birthday, but the drama was a great success and got written up in the local paper. These are jokes. The very role of the Indian becomes dominated by whites. No one ever speaks of "how the North was won." An important consideration here is that, while in the United States the Indian was typically the enemy, in Canada the Indian was often an ally. Sometimes, it’s more obvious and offensive to people whose cultural icons have been borrowed. This does not mean it was not an important and powerful vision, only that it was not a Native one. If Grey Owl was not really a "Red Indian", he was not really a "Sussex Man" either. In the opinion of many, Grey Owl’s native persona had been assumed solely to promote his books. But there are more instances when cultural appropriation falls into a gray area - non-Native owned businesses that display Native imagery logos, a … Grey Owl was called "Canada’s ambassador" by his enthusiastic supporters, and deemed "among the greatest Canadians of us all" (Smith 1990: 169). It is not surprising, in many ways, that this should be so.
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