We Are All Treaty People: Prairie Essays
by Roger Epp
Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-88864-506-7, 234 pp., $26.95 paper.

A descendant of Mennonites who left Oklahoma for the Canadian Prairies, Epp understands the displacement of people and the yearning to belong. His ancestors farmed the land they arrived at and their struggle to survive various calamities and their respect for the spirit of the community are some of the issues he writes about. The author knows his subject well, and his writing is profound, lyrical and caring.

As a boy growing up in rural Saskatchewan, Epp was always aware of the land and what it was trying to say, that the land speaks to us more than we realize. If we take care of it, the land will replenish and sustain us; if we abuse it, it will wither and blow away. Early in the book, he writes of rural communities and what it means to be a member. As well as nourishing communities with food, schools, shops and industry, these places act as forces in bringing people together culturally.

In one example he speaks of a group of people in a small town who take an old theatre and renovate it into a movie house with a stage for concerts. This action has come from within the community and not from programmed theories of government institutions, and thus constitutes healing. Epp follows up by saying that until a person becomes "an active member of a community," it is a life untried. (51)

In another section Epp speaks of the agricultural movement in Alberta; he reiterates MP William Irvine's idea that farmers select their own representatives to political office as the "rule by farmers would be more democratic" (63). He further states that farmers had learned this practice as far back as the 1920s when cooperation and self-confidence were a means to survival. With agricultural areas coming more and more under the control of corporate aggregates, we can understand his concern for the decline in family farms. The farmers' struggle for recognition is paramount; the government's failure to heed the needs of the farmers is alarming: "Witness governments' plans to dramatically expand cattle and pig production even as small producers are displaced" (149).

Epp equates this struggle with the government's insensitivity to the Aboriginals who were treated badly, a government that made promises with little redress over a century later. As for the Aboriginals living on the land, they have faced and continue to face political indifference; the road to recognition is slow.

Epp further writes that, "Each culture has been displaced from the centre save for ceremonial occasions, when a distinctive dash of colour and history is required." (185) Perhaps what is happening now with the Mennonites and Aboriginals working together with the Aboriginal Learning Tour program, which began recently, can be seen as a prime example of cooperation between the two communities, of teaching others that we are all treaty people.

In his final essay, Epp says that rural is often seen in today's society as "inferior, red-necked, backward" (190). Opportunity for changing attitude comes by way of education and Epp and his colleagues have reversed the standard role of education by making it rural. With the creation of the Augustana Campus, the identity of what is rural gains a face. This campus is one that is to be "a university genuinely at home in the rural" (191). Here students come from local areas and from all over the world to learn. Epp argues that those who attend it will have the chance to experience small communities. By participating in this milieu, students will deepen their relationship with rural people. They will know the land is not a commodity but our very being; that we are not to pollute this land with toxic waste or pesticides. Rather we are to apply our skills for food, shelter and the kinship of humankind.

Epp's essays raise important questions and that is good. He has provided us with a powerful tool by writing these essays. The writings give rural communities a voice, one of quiet resistance, but it is a voice that speaks louder than the wind and it is saying "witaskiwin (living together on the land)" is what we need to be aware of, to believe in (141).

Mary Barnes is a writer living in Wasaga Beach, Ontario.

Buy this book at McNally-Robinson Booksellers.


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