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                                            Chapter 1

       As the train leaves the Ottawa train station I am adrift in emotions; none stronger than the reason why I am leaving. The clicking sound of the train undulating over the disjointed tracks only serves to add to my discord. As I look out my window at the rolling pictures I can only think how apart from everything and everyone I am. I feel a great heaviness of being; a web of darkness has envolped me in a mask of despair.

        As I leave Ottawa I find above all else I want to be at peace with myself but given that I am trapped listening to the same old tired voice in my head twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year I can not see this occuring. Simply, I think therefore I am, and that makes me feel truly terrified and very alone.

        It is important for the reader to know that as this story begins I am a shattered, bitter, angry man; for a moment I was going to say young, but I feel old beyond time. I am  withered and wrinkled pragmatist, aged before my season, and possibly not strong enough to stand a changing wind. I was born a few years before 1900; I am only in my thirties but I have struggled and suffered everyday of my existence.

        Life it seems to me is a series of questions, with few if any answers. What am I doing here? Why do I live? What is it all for? The questions are endless. But it can all be reduced to one question; a question I fear I am destined to never answer, yet I am compulsively driven to keep asking. Why?  When I think I have found an answer it only raises more questions; life it seems is an endless path, a treadmill of anguish and frustration. I am striving to find hope, faith, and harmony in a world of chaos. This is what we are all doing are we not? Why?

       Today finds me nothing but a network of fragmented thoughts. The only direction I see is down; down a tunnel that spirals into an ever growing darkness until even the blackness defies description. In fact, I have been disheartened so long I know no other place; I have only one redeeming idea, a dream really, but it has been caught in my many folds of darkness. My name is Christian Thomas, and even before my life as a journalist I was called Doubting Thomas. In fact, one thing I can say for sure I have spent my life doubting.    

        My dream is not a particularly exceptional dream; I want to write a novel, not just any novel, but one in which a person may find answers and hope. for

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that is what I want. I I I I that is all there is, this I. I believe that the purpose of a novel is to illustrate man’s struggle for meaning. So as I sit on this train I find myself writing, not because it is my dream but because I am propelled to do so by forces that will become self evident. I have this beginning, it is just that I have no answers, only a forced upon direction to a land I have never been. To write a novel you have to have some sense that you have some redeeming qualities. I have none. Uncertainty and disbelief are the overriding principles that rule my life.

       My dream to write a novel has been around a long time, how or why it survives when little else has is a mystery. Yes, every person who has written a paid word on paper has the same fantasy; but I truly thought I could, then the war came, and the ghastly smell and sight of rotting flesh painted my canvas black. In truth I would rather not write because it provides no relief to my scorched brain matter; what was once determined is now blackened beyond belief. If I am to be an authentic writer what do I write about? I could pretend to write about things that free a man; I have fabricated more fanciful stories for newspapers. I am a reporter after all, but all I know how to write about is man’s imperfections; it has all been done before, and by men far better and able than I. So why write at all, I fear the answer. My guess is that I hold one to this single strand of optimism to write because it suggests there is hope.  

        I often think of ending my life, like my Father did; in actuality it is often seems to me to be the only clear thought in my head. I am prevented from doing so only by my lack of courage. I once heard, I can not remember when, who, or where it was said, that in our blackest moment we will hear a message of transformation; that at the bottom of the abyss a voice of salvation will come. I am here to tell you, this is a myth. I know because an abyss is, by definition, bottomless, an unvarying black sickness.  As Fredrich Neitzsche said, “ When you look into the abyss the abyss looks into you.”  Yet I hang on to the possibility that there is a voice; for all I know it is just a line in one of the many books that gather dust in the bleak dark one room hovel that is my domicile. Can any order come out of this chaos? This is a question that I must avoid if I have any chance of success.

        My years as a newspaper reporter, and more recently as a political correspondent, have taught me the discipline of writing. I easily find myself lost in the process, but a novel is different; I am used to sensational headlines with brazen conclusions, facts with few details; a narrative in less than two

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 hundred words. I am now faced with writing with no headlines and  no lead-in or necessary conclusions. I know this process will be laborious and agonising, but I admit that there is a certain freedom that comes from not being confined to a few words. As I begin writing I realise that I must deal with the realities of my own alienation, even though it is painful. I have run, avoided, and hid all my life; and am governed by only base interests; it is the penalty a person pays for non-involvement. None of this is a surprise to me; I have deliberately avoided looking into a mirror for a long time, because when you look into a mirror the mirror looks back at you. Now I am propelled to look into knowing that in the process I will have to grate through the shattered fragments of mirrored glass that is my brain.  

        My emotions ebb and flow to the sounds of clickity clack of the railway track. Every mile post that the train passes marks a growing rise in apprehension; to leave one’s place, even if it is a place of darkness, is to leave a comfort zone. Fear of the unknown beats strongly in my heart. Yet at the same time I begin to feel the stimulation that a new challenge brings, whether it was born out of a need to escape, or out of the idea that any movement is progress does not matter, it is enough that it is here. I first set myself the task of chronicling the series of events that have led me to this point and dare myself to find some glimmer of hope among the syllables, even when I know it is pointless. I push on in the knowledge that it is the only thing I can do that can be described as constructive.

        This story begins on the fifteenth of June in the year 1930; the day my world changed forever. It is important to set this scene for you, for this is the moment when I did see a light; a light that it has been said is always there. I can remember clearly when it happened; the memory is so fresh and severe that it is like it is happening right this instant. I am standing on Parliament Hill in Ottawa doing my job as a political reporter for one of the cities newspapers, like I have done for more days than I wish to count. It is a day I thought was going to be like all the rest, funny how wrong a person can be. It is two weeks before a general election, to be held on the twenty-eighth of June. The matters of ruling the wide dominion of Canada have all but stopped. The Parliament buildings are normally quiet during an election; candidates are more likely to be found fighting for their political lives in their ridings than addressing to the affairs of the nation on the Hill. There are signs that there is going to be a

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change in government. For truly this is the darkest of times. During this period

politicians are very much like the weather, unpredictable, blustery, with brave promises of sunshine and clear sailing, and very capable of promising you heaven on earth.

       I am attending a position outside of Prime Minister Mackenzie King’s office, a regular habit of mine. I like to be nearest to those also dancing in the dark. The government of Mackenzie King is currently fighting for its political life and like many of my brethren of the press I am looking to capitalise on King’s apparently beaten position; a time when politicians notoriously make outlandish promises. The savvy King I fear will not go gentle into this goodnight, he is like a bad smell-always returning.  He lost his parliamentary seat in the 1925 federal election, and did not re-enter the parliament until he won a by-election in 1926. Why should this one be any different?

       As the country stands the economy does not appear capable of changing. Canadian bonds have fallen fifty percent and Canada’s gross national product is down forty-three percent. Canada is in the grips of a depression. The prairies have suffered a second year of drought after a wheat surplus in 1928, and are now in a state of spoliation. King has refused to negotiate more money to the prairies despite the fact that King himself is a liberal member of parliament for Prince Albert Saskatchewan. This has done nothing to endear him to western voters. In fact it appears that the government is quite willing to let the people of Canada starve, as long as they do it quietly. It is as if King has decided to throw the fight because he knows that winning this election is worse than loosing it.

        So in the hallowed halls of parliament a very unfavourable smell lingers. This is honey for journalists, and a very busy time in the newspaper business. There is nothing like the smell of death and decay to bring the buzzards rushing in. I hear King and his entourage coming down the hall; his voice rings out like an echo in a mausoleum, “ Gentleman of the press I am sorry I can not talk to you now I have important matters of the country to attend to. ” King barely stops to mouth the words; at the precise moment when he is about to escape through a door to the safety of his office there is a loud booming voice that echoes from every direction.

        “ I wish to speak to you about the land you promised my people.”  The voice momentarily quiets the cackling of buzzards, not in what it is saying so

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much as how it is said. It is a voice as haunting and chilling as any you are

ever likely to hear. I like the others in my flock, strain to see where it is coming from. One reporter turns to the Prime Minister and repeats the words, not allowing King to play dumb. The infectious smell of a confrontation quickly spreads. The voice has succeeded where we all others have failed, momentarily stopping the Prime Minister in his tracks.

       “ Is this about treaties, ” a reporter asks?  To my comrades credit the question is offered equally to both parties but all attention is on the Prime Minister;.

       “ Gentlemen we will have a word on that later, ” King offers to no one in particular before he quickly walks through his office door, not even looking back at the challenge, but it does not save him, for the smell of news is ripe, and it has been a particularly uninspiring campaign so far. All the reporters turn as if one and focus on the speaker.

       Standing not twenty feet from us is an Indian of intermediate height standing at attention clothed in native dress, his long black hair falling past his shoulders. The sight strikes me with a force that I no longer knew existed. I ponder the face, the high cheek bones, the long hair; but it is his  eyes set deep in their sockets glittering with all the intensity of a planet in a moonless night sky that draws my attention and triggers off a cascade of memories. The face abruptly becomes hidden behind a veil of darkened memories; then it hits me like a slap in the face; I know this man. It is Simon Joseph. Memories continue to surface with all the intensity of an exploding bomb. Darkness, the horrible screams of young men dying, the stink of gaseous air burning the lining of my lungs. I will never forget the smell; even now it threatens to choke the life out of my lungs. The ghastly sight and stench of blood and guts in various colours of decay flood before my eyes, blinding my vision, just as it had done only a few years before. I can still smell gunpowder and searing flesh, it pricks my nostrils like worms crawling over decaying flesh; the undeniable, unbelievable, illogical, sight, smell, and taste of death. I do not want to go there, but the sight of Simon Joseph brings it all back in a rushing torrent, complete with all its sickly horror. It is like a hand grasping my throat; I struggle to find my breath; the pain, the misery, above all the loneliness, and the darkness, the blackest of blacks. I call out his name with the last vestiges of air in my lungs; the result are words that come out raspy and without confidence.  Our eyes lock on each other, but I can not focus in the present I

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am back in the war   I was deemed unfit to serve my country in the war because of my difficulty breathing; asthma the doctors called it.  What good is man’s life if he can not choose what to die for? This defeat, a twist of fate in the dark void of reason, is bitter sweet as it most likely saved my life. I went to the war but as a reporter. I was convinced that I was a coward that no clothes, position, or title could possibly hide, nothing has changed. During the last two years of the war my job, which I refused to leave even when the opportunity arouse, was to send home reports of bravery, heroism, and optimism, anything but the truth. I was not permitted to tell the real story of how hundreds of thousands of young men were living and dying in a sea of mud, or how many suffocated in the clutches of poison gas, or of the thousands of men torn apart by fragments of twisted metal. I was not allowed to recount anything about the stench of rotting flesh, or of the numerous diseases which blew on the poisonous winds, or of the countless bodies piled so high they served as solid ground upon which the living walked.

      On the battlefield it was impossible to tell where life started and death ended. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do, hiding the realities of war from the people who read my war bulletins back home, but I did, but I could not hide them from myself. I have always wondered what would have happened if I had told the truth. I was under direct orders and was told what I could and could not write about- but in the end that mattered not because I did not have the courage or the conviction to do so. I consider it my fate to suffer from the discord of all those tormented recollections. I still can not reconcile the simple fact that man is brutal, sadistic, and capable of unimaginable horrors; I can not imagine how life can ever get worse. Seeing Simon Joseph’s striking features silhouetted in the flickering light of Parliament Hill brings the memories flooding back in a torrent of uncontrolled rage and anger. I have done my best to forget them, mostly at the bottom of a bottle, but I can never disremember the sick depraved manifestations that humanity created. The psychological and spiritual fallout I experienced during the war set me firmly on a lonely path of seething desperation, but admittedly this is not where it began. One thing I brought back with me from the war is the undeniable opinion that you can not solve anything with the same mind that created it.

        One day during the war I was dispatched by my press head to interview a hero that was convalescing in one of the many field hospitals that littered the countryside. “ Show me a hero and I will show you a calamity. There are

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no heroes in all this madness, ” I retorted to my boss upon hearing of my new assignment.

         “ We all need heroes Thomas, ” he replied; his face drained of colour and conviction.

         As it turned out the hero of the moment was, an Indian named Simon Joseph, which made it an even more amazing story. I recall being absorbed by it right from the moment his commander told me that Private Joseph had gone out into no man’s land on one of his nightly missions and was shot five times. Despite suffering these serious injuries he went on to capture an enemy machine gun single handily and then obliterated a platoon of enemy soldiers.

“ Through his selfless and defiant action the lives of many men were saved, ” the commander declared then stood at attention as if to salute, but taking the look on my face to be one of complete disbelief he continued, “ It is Private Joseph’s regular practice to scout the area called no man’s land, an area that lay between opposing forces. His job involves staying still for long periods of time under the cover of darkness and search for documents and maps among the dead, there’s and ours; to report enemy movements, positions, and capabilities, and finally to act as a sniper. ” The commander related the details in a matter of fact voice that betrayed the reality that no man’s land is an area of total horror and barbarism. The final point the commander took great pains to inform me was that, “ It is a job that takes ineffable bravery to perform, one that few people survive, and a job that is essential to the war effort. I wish I had a platoon of Indians like Joseph”
      When I finally located Simon Joseph I bid him to tell me about the act of heroism he had performed.  What he admitted to doing after a long period of refusing to admit he had anything brave, was to defiantly, so superbly, despite impossible odds was a task so cold, so calculating, so unfathomable I wondered if anyone would believe it, even if we did need heroes. I am not sure I believed it at the time. Not until I had confirmed his story with men from his regiment, many of whom he saved from immanent death on the battlefield that day, did I accept it.

       I found myself driven to try and understand why anyone would go into an area that leaves you grasping only one thing, that war is undoubtedly the lowest form of human depravity. For it is in no man’s land, a place that no one can possibly imagine less describe; a place where thousands of dead and rotting bodies lay unclaimed for days and weeks, if not forever, in the mud,

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the freezing cold, and the dark. A place where the smoke and gas got so thick that it blocked out the sun, turning the days into one long endless night. No one that I talked to in his regiment could recall what the original field looked like; only that on the maps the land had once been flat but became full of mounds that resembled waves on the ocean; in reality it was an ocean of bodies piled one on top of the other until it was impossible to know how deep they went; impossible to know what was ground and what was not. At times you could almost believe they were hills and valleys until you realise what the highs and lows really were.  The smell confirmed this more than any other sentient fact, and with it came the realisation that turned everything black.

        The reason Simon Joseph gave for doing what he did was that he believed his skills, he refused to accept that they were extraordinary, gave him no choice but to fulfil this indispensable mission. It was a remarkable statement made without posturing, and with all the humility of the simple truth. I left my first interview with him in a quandary of disbelief, after which I could not stay away. After interviewing him a second time I came to the realisation that there was a silent intangible confidence running through the man, in a place so badly lacking it.

        I interviewed his commander again looking for more facts; he told me that Private Joseph always worked alone despite the fact that snipers always worked in pairs, one partner shooting and the other scanning and reporting the enemies’ movements. I asked Private Joseph why he went alone, “ Because the feet of the White Man [will] get me killed, ” he replied without emotion, in a tone that betrayed neither self service, or a desire to impress. I instantly believed that it was the undeniable truth, in a place where there was little truth and certainly no judicious thought.

        I kept track of Simon Joseph personally and for my readers back home; by the end of war he had eighty-eight confirmed kills with his rifle while acting alone; no one knows how many unconfirmed kills, for he would not say, if he knew. But what made Simon’s story even more amazing was the fact that he was a Native Indian and Indians did not have to fight in the war. He had volunteered, into an organisation that did not even consider him human. This was something that I could never reconcile myself to, especially after seeing him lying in a field hospital after having five bullets removed from his body, and then hearing that he returned to duty. In Canada at the time, the government of Robert Borden had in fact discouraged Natives from enlisting.        

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The official line of reasoning reason being that they thought that if an Indian was captured he might suffer inhumane treatment at the hands of the enemy who would consider them savages; a stereotyped fear, and one, I am ashamed to say, not only held by the enemy. All of this comes from a system of administration with a long record of treating them with great inequity. But it was a policy the government did not enforce. Partly, I am sure, because the Indians proved so invaluable in both their abilities and their unquestionable valour. In 1917 the government even gave these brave men the temporary right to vote, a big step in their minds I am sure, but what did it mean to the Indians? They were considered savages, and not in the noble sense. By 1918 Indians were officially exempted from combat duties by an Order-in-Council, by then the war was all but won

         I have often wondered over the years why so many Indians chose to serve? I have little tolerance for injustices; it is perhaps my only redeemable quality. To be honest I did not know how to ask Simon directly. I have came to view that in part it may have been because modern life made Indian men less important, especially if they were living on reserves, which effectively made once proud and brave men mere children.

         After the war land grants were given to soldiers who had survived under the Soldier Settlement Act of 1919. Over twenty-five thousand soldiers redeemed that right, of that number, only two hundred and twenty-four Indians out of a total enlistment of three thousand five hundred actually received land.

        Forcing myself out of the dark memories I called out, “ Simon, Simon Joseph it is Christian Thomas.”  His eyes appear to glaze over for a moment before he focuses his stare on me. “ I was a reporter ...”

     “ Hospital,” he states as if trying not to give form to the memory, that despite all efforts still invade my dreams on a regular basis.

      “ The last time I saw you, you were suffering from five gun shot wounds,” I declare making sure the announcement is loud enough to alert the other reporters.  Suddenly, I want them to care; it is in this moment I realised I cared, and I have not cared for anything in a long time.

      “ Hey, who is he Thomas?, ” crackles a seasoned voice from the back. Suddenly I am the focus of attention. Taking a long slow swallow breath, preferring to cover the news not be in it, I force a reply. “  Simon Joseph is a war hero; a hero like no other. When I first saw him…” I tell the reporters his story easily falling into a journalistic jargon. An audible pause in the audience’s breathing is accentuated by the fact that Simon is dressed in full

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Indian dress; a soft caribou skin with a wonderful sequence of colourful arabesque beadwork and porcupine quills across his shoulders, emphasised beautifully by a pair of decorated moccasins. I modestly admit to have even covered fashion in my days as a reporter.  “ He was,” I declare continuing my soliloquy, “ decorated with the Military Medal plus two bars for bravery. The two bars are for heroic acts committed after receiving the Military Medal.”  I am tempted to go on, and could have easily done so, but the look on Simon’s face makes it clear my point has been made. Then two guards arrive with the sole purpose of escorting Simon from the building; despite numerous complaints from bystanders, that is exactly what they do. Simon is marched from the building and unceremoniously thrown down a flight of stairs that serve as a side entrance to the Parliament buildings. I follow them out as the rest of my colleagues disperse to other parts of the building looking to whip up some controversy in the final days leading up to the election.  They can never see Simon as I see him. War, death, and destruction are not considered worthy news in journalistic circles, unless it is embroiled in controversy, and definitely not when the staring role in the drama is held by a man not considered human by most.  

       As I follow him out I hear the voice of one passer-by say, “ That’s just what we bloody need Indians on Parliament Hill. ”

      As I pass through the doors to the outside I overhear one of the guards who threw Simon out say, “ I am going to have to wash after touching that savage. ”  

      “ Just wait right there,” I interrupt in a voice as disdaining as I can muster, but my words are disregarded in his haste to get away from the scene. The action leaves me gasping in horror and short of breath; it is beyond my comprehension. I want to tell everyone how wrong they are at the top of lungs, but my voice fails between gulps for air. The moment is not lost on me; there is still a hint of humanity left inside.

       I rush down the steps of the Parliament buildings with a renewed sense of purpose, for what exactly I do not know. “ Simon. What are you doing here? ” I call out to him. By now he has pulled himself up and manages to look tall despite having suffered such an indignity. “ I am here to get justice for my people. And why you here? ”

“ I am a reporter on Parliament Hill for a newspaper here in Ottawa.”

      “ Can you help me ? ” he responds to my declaration. It seems a transparent

plea for help, even as his posture remains stoic.                                                                          

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       “ How can I help? ” I say momentarily taken back by the absurdity that I could possibly help this man.  

      “ Help me see the person who deals with the lands of my people.”

      “ Oh boy!” I reply, immediately recognising it as a comment not worth recording in the annuls of history. “ It is going to be very difficult, because there is a general election in two weeks. I am afraid every member of the government is out trying to get re-elected, not that it will help their cause any,” I offer consciously avoiding the fact we had just seen the Prime Minister. “ I doubt there is anybody working on the business of the people right now. ” I try to keep my voice even in a hope that I will not betray the fact that I doubt that they ever do. I want for some reason to be positive; but I fear that I am failing. “ They are too busy making promises to the country that they have no intention of keeping,” I add wanting for a moment to be honest. I expect Simon’s face to fall with disappointment; instead he just stands tall with an expression that spells unflappable. I look into his eyes; if it is true that the eyes are the windows into the soul, then his eyes spell desperation; the blackness of his pupils caste deep pools in a sea of white; hope has become a distant dream replaced by endurance and a need to survive, no matter the consequences. I saw the stare too often in the war. A desperate man, like a wounded animal, becomes a shadow of his former self, almost unrecognisable, and capable of anything. But looking further into Simon’s eyes I sense there is still the undeniable presence of both strength and will power in the man; it is similar to the look I saw in his eyes in the field hospital in France, one of determination and faith with the confidence to succeed. It leads you to believe that anything is possible. With this sudden confrontation with my past comes an uncomfortable feeling; I want to escape but my feet wont move; it is as if they are caste in stone.

      “ How about we get some refreshment and you tell me what you have been doing since the war,” I finally offer in an effort to seem friendly while at the same time trying to hide my discomfort.

       “ Can you help me? I must see someone about the land of my people? ” Simon reiterates with such conviction that he leaves me no choice. What surprises me is that I do not want one, most uncharacteristic of me I freely admit. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred I would have run away by now.

       “ Well I can help you get to the office of Superintendent General. He is in charge of Indians affairs, that is probably the best place to begin, but,”  I reply

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casting doubts again, “ he is likely to be away from his office.” Why I add the last part I do not know; there is no way I could know where the man is.  

        “ I be in your debt, ” he states with a look of complete honesty that effectively stills my mind; my reporter’s memory, despite all efforts on my part to distil it, sets off.  Under a Constitutional Act that has been debated recently in the commons, land rights were transferred to the provincial governments. I remember the bill met with little opposition. I choose not to relay this information to Simon before I have more facts, once again a display of unusual humanity one my part; a third such occurrence in a matter of a single day. When will it end?

       After a meal, held away from the prying eyes of Parliament Hill, I decide to take the rest of the afternoon off and help Simon. My initial feelings of discomfort soon fall away to curiosity as Simon fills me with some facts about his life and why he is here. Later I help Simon find the officials office previously mentioned, only to discover that the current Minister, a certain Charles Stewart, is off campaigning in Northern Ontario. Simon makes quite an impression with the secretaries, more in their desire to call someone to eject him than in his cause I am afraid. I know the futility of voicing direct honesty when approaching the government. Letting them know, and quickly, what’s in it for them is the only way to approach business with bureaucrats. Honesty and conviction has nothing to do with it.

       After a lot of confusion and pleading on my part, the best we can do is get into see the assistant superintendent Duncan Campbell Scott. He assures us very quickly that he has been in his present post since 1913, and is therefore certainly capable of answering our inquiries. The fact is he goes to great lengths to explain that the rights of Indians have just been transferred to the provinces; by some coincidence the bill was confirmed by the Senate this very day. Joseph,” he says, as if the Mr. catches in his throat, “ will have to return to Edmonton and take his case to the proper authorities there.”  This strikes me as an ominous sign. Just like the government to deflect their responsibilities, but I do not vocalise these thoughts to Simon. The possibility

forced yet another human response in me; a fact that has as much affect on my mind as the sudden appearance of Simon Joseph, in all his regal glory, did.

       “ It is possible they do not realise that the natural resources will also be included, as well as negotiating hunting and land claims,” I offer by way of a                                                                        

that Simon’s journey has all been in vain has the strange effect of garnishing sympathy in me. In recalling this event I recognise an inexplicable wind had

                                                                       Haig, For All My Relations. Pg. 15

contribution. I am not totally ignorant on this subject; in my job as a reporter I am expected to be on top of a variety of information, which despite all my efforts to drink them into oblivion I somehow manage to retain.

        During the long afternoon it becomes obvious to me that little is going to get done or achieved in Ottawa, but you would never have known it by the look of determination on Simon’s face.  After spending a day with him I can not help but be affected by his cause and decide right here to educate myself about land claims and about the plight of Indians in general. As I have stated before I hate injustices, and my reporter’s instincts tell me there is big one here.  

      “ I will wait to after the election,” is all Simon says after all of the frustrations the day has brought on.

     “ Things will most certainly change. That is a good idea,” I offer, but not very convincingly.  I decide to make a great leap, at least for me; and resolve to try and get the paper involved; even if it means recalling his war efforts, a subject that I doubt that anyone really wants to be reminded of, especially during this time of aridity and pessimism that is running ramped over the country. But there is always a place in people’s hearts for heroes; he served as a source of inspiration to the country once; I want to believe he can do so again. It may do well to remind people what sacrifices millions of young men made in the war; it was certainly not to suffer in a depression, where millions of people are out of work and many have little or no food. I rationalise that it could work.  “ I will help you,” I offer, and that is that, and most surprisingly I mean it. “ Where will you live in the mean time? ” I inquire.

      “ I will find a place, ” he replies without emotion. To cut the story short Simon comes and stays with me. It is the least I can do for someone who has created a stirring of genuine heartfelt emotion in a vessel long thought void of such a thing.

       Simon and I, despite our transparent differences, find a common ground that fuels several late night discussions.  But it is the differences that fascinate me. I want to know how he finds his strength, courage, and self assurance

 against such insurmountable odds. The world to Simon is not only in his head. Where I am a self proclaimed pragmatist whose world is a creation of ideas in my mind, and a source of endless suffering I might add. The world to me is an enigma and that fact alone prevents me from finding any bearing. Simon’s attitude and spirit is infectious. The longer we talk the more determined I am to find why he is having such a positive affect on me.

                                                                     Haig, For All My Relations. Pg. 16    

 I decide early on that I need to know more about Indian history. In process of doing so it becomes obvious to me that Simon’s people are in the middle of struggle with a force they can not and do not understand- the White Man.  Simon describes his people’s current state of being as a world of suffering, hopelessness, and abject poverty.  In the process he recounts what his thoughts were the first time he visited with white men, and saw how they lived, “ They lived on top of themselves. Was there not enough land for them to live separately, I totally confused by what I see.”  As it turns out Simon is describing a multi-storey building that was his residential school.  His simple observations remind me of the pure innocence of a small child not yet jaded by the world, how is that possible. He proceeds to tell me about being forced to go to school, “ I remember thinking we were on our way to meet our death at the hands of the White Man. ” I am startled by his feelings of alienation, but the clarity of his observations seduce me to try and see things from his perspective, especially the ones he makes about governments. “ We do not separate the Great Spirit from government. That is one thing the White Man has changed. When the White Man did that he removed the creator from his life. ” The comment astounds me, first and foremost because I confuse my idea of religion with his words, “ Great Spirit.”  His observations send a chill up my back because it becomes clear we are not talking about the same thing. This realisation has the profound affect of providing me with the first glimmer of hope that I can remember in a very long time. Is it possible that there is another view of this world that I have not considered or experienced? I start to wonder, and as I do the vale of darkness, ever so slightly, slips away from my eyes. Can I possibly entertain such an idea? The more I ponder it the more I am determined, because I have so steadfastly believed that it is not possible for so long, that such an idea is necessary to prove beyond any shadow of doubt.

       Such is the profound affect of Simon and his view of the world upon me that I am driven to go deeper into the Indian condition in my research.  As is my journalistic habit I keep notes on my findings. One fact above all else

stands out during my research; the fortunes of the Indian in the 1920’s have declined both economically and numerically.  What is also clear is that this is not the beginning. In the 1500’s when the first white men arrived in North America there were an estimated one million Indians and over fifty major tribes, by the 1900’s waves of pestilence and violence had greatly reduced that number. I can not find a current census but upon examination of records I am

                                                                       Haig, For All My Relations. Pg. 17

able to narrow the search down to Simon’s area of the country.  In the census

of 1881 there were 56,500 people in the North-West Territories; of that number 49,500 were either Indian or Metis.  By 1901, of a total population of 159,000 only 26,304 were listed as Indian or Metis. The reason for the decline appears to be threefold; there have been two major flu epidemics, the last one being in 1919, which effectively decimated the population. Secondly, many Indians and Metis have moved beyond the area of census takers as the region floods with more white men. Thirdly, many people are reluctant to identify themselves as Metis, fearing persecution. As it stands in 1930, the Indians, a once proud and fiercely independent race, are clearly demoralised and more than ever before dependent on hand outs.

        The White Man has a long history of leading both legal and physical wars against the original inhabitants of the continent. The legal aspect came in the form of the Indian Act of 1876. Upon reading the document one clear fact emerges; it was designed to control virtually every part of the Indian’s life, including economic development, government, land use, and education. The Indians, for their part, have no concept of ownership; to them no one can own the land, the water, or the sky. They have but one desire, to hunt and fish on the lands they have always known.

      I notice during my research that the routes the first explorers of this country used coincided directly with the spread of diseases that decimated the Indian population. In every occurrence of an epidemic one can trace a visit by white men bearing gifts shortly before. Blankets are one item always listed among the gifts given. Is it possible that those blankets were deliberately infected? I wonder, and the more I ponder the idea the more I believe it to be more than just possible; though at first I am horrified that anyone could even consider such an act. Then I remember the war and all the weapons of mass destruction that were invented, as well as the many acts of barbarism that we inflicted upon each other. The reality is that if white men could do that to each other they certainly can do it to another race. War is a man made disaster after all. One fact is clear, Indians haver died in large numbers as a result of his contact with the White Man. The more I struggle with this theory the more I realise that it is too large a coincidence to dismiss, and it is consistent with the White Man’s appetite and desire for power. Land means power and the Indian was and is in the way- goes to motive. This conclusion leaves me stupefied; I am driven to invest more time and effort in looking into the writings from people of that time.

                                                                       Haig, For All My Relations. Pg. 18    

      I found a great wealth of information in the journals of the first explorers. One that particularly fascinates me is Alexander Mackenzie; Canada’s premier explorer. I have come to admire his honesty and point of view. He, more that anyone else, presents me with a view of the adventure of Canada’s west, specifically the area that Simon heralds from. One quote I read contains a description he makes of his first meeting with a tribe of Beaver Indians in the late 1780’s, in an area that would later become Alberta. It provides me with a clearer insight into the situation, and as a consequence into my own rapidly formulating opinions.

         When traders first appeared amongst these people, the Canadians were    

         treated with the utmost hospitality and attention; but they have, by

         their subsequent conduct, taught the natives to withdraw that respect

         from them, and sometimes treat them with indignity…

      Mackenzie even tried to persuade white men from venturing forth into the expanse of the West because he feared the result would be the contamination, and ultimately the demise of the culture and traditions of the natives. He confessed in his journal that he knew he would fail in this attempt, concluding that he hoped that when the White Man did command his power over the Indians that he would at least set up places where they could continue to live in their unique and respectable bond with nature.  

       In all dealings between the Indians and the White Man there are two dominant and repeating themes; the Indians at no time were perceived as competent to manage their own affairs. Secondly, they were always regarded as inferior to the White Man. During my research I came across a very interesting quote made by a Jesuit priest named Sebastian Cromoisy in 1637. He said,“ It is hard to believe there is a race, under heaven, more at peace. ”  What has become obvious to me is that a lot has happened to the Indians since then.

        One fact I did find while researching the treaties made with the Indians (mainly treaties six, seven, and eight; the latter being signed in 1899) was that all legal obligations made to the Indians under the treaties are exclusively the responsibility of the federal government. The provinces do have a legal obligation, not to the Indians, but to the federal government, in regard to outstanding land entitlements. In other words the federal government is trying to avoid their responsibilities by putting them onto the provinces. As I have  

                                                                     Haig, For All My Relations. Pg. 19

previously mentioned the government of Mackenzie King has just, as one of their last acts of power in 1930, confirmed that it is the responsibility of the provincial governments to make provisions for the Indians, but for those Indians who have not received the benefit of reserves to which they are entitled to it is still the federal government who decides. From what information I could gather no Indian band has to date received all the lands they have been promised; such is the reality of Simon’s predicament.

        Simon’s tribe, The Chipewyans, had signed treaty eight in 1899, but the sudden influx of more white men into the North has as a consequence placed intolerable demands on both the land and the people living within it. Simon’s desires for his people are very basic, to maintain their traditional fishing and hunting rights. According to Simon the White Man has never delivered on his promises. What is obvious to me after reading the treaties and subsequent documents detailing the distribution of land and land rights is that the White Man has no intention of doing so. Even clearer to me, after my discussions with Simon, and I repeat myself, is that the Indian does not understand ownership, it is simply not in his compass of understanding, or in his vocabulary. I can only come to one conclusion in regards to how the government views the settlement of land claims, especially since the signing of treaty eight, where there are white settlements near, or imminent to, a given area, the government is interested in discussing land claims, where there is no such interest the government simply ignores the Indians. In Simon’s case, Northern Alberta, there was no such interest, until now.

      I was told, in confidence, that it is the government’s belief that the Indians are not using their lands properly, specifically, they are not farming it. How are people who have been hunters not farmers expected to suddenly change thousands of years of tradition and become something they are not? This, it appears, is not a question that anyone in the government has even considered.

      I found a document from a Chief Seattle, an Indian from Washington State in the Untied States, which best highlights the disparity between the two races. In the document, dated around 1852, Chief Seattle is replying to a letter sent

by the US President Millard Fillmore; the President had inquired as to whether the Indian’s would consider selling tribal lands to the many new arrivals that were flooding into America during the period. In Chief Seattle’s reply I have found a few relevant quotes to illustrate what I have come to see as the Indian’s dilemma. The document is a mastery of prose, and worth reading; it has

                                                                    Haig, For All My Relations. Pg. 20

certainly served to help me understand Simon’s position more clearly.  Chief Seattle says,

      …how can you buy or sell the…land.  The idea is strange to us. If we  

      do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can

      you buy them?  Every part of the earth is sacred to my people…Will you

      teach your children what we have taught our children…This we know;  

      the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things

      are connected like the blood that unites us all…

      In discussions that I have had with Simon I have came to see how the Indians were greatly confused when the White Man offered them money. The last treaty, number eight, which was signed on June 21st 1899, between the Indians, including the Chipewyans, and Queen Victoria of England, covered a land mass of 522,063 miles, and thirty-nine individual communities. In the treaty the Indians were to be given $25.00 a year per Indian chief, $15.00 per councillor, and $5.00 per registered member of the band. A family of five were to receive six hundred and forty acres or 160 acres for each person. Each chief and member of council was to receive a new suit of clothes every three years for “  …as long as the sun shines, the grass grows and the river flows…”  All this for something the Indians, by their way of thinking, did not own. One thing the Indians did understand was that there were changes coming.  What they gave up, without knowing it, were their traditional means of hunting and fishing for reserves. They never understood how this happened, because according to Simon, “ How can we sell what we do not own. Only the Great Spirit can own the land and the sky. ”

       The affect of all this research does nothing to change my current view of society, if anything it just confirms my conclusions; we are doomed to a fate of increased suffering. Perhaps Longfellow said it best in two lines of his poem The Song of Hiawatha,

                  Why then are men not content,

                  Why then will you choose to hunt each other?                  

       When I read the literature a realness keeps gnawing at my brain; the common word used to describe the Indians is savage. The government used it to discourage Indians from enlisting in the war; one of the guards used it when he unceremoniously threw Simon out of the Parliament buildings. At some

                                                                      Haig, For All My Relations. Pg. 21

point it clicks in my brain, Rousseau’s concept of the Noble Savage.  I scavenge through some of my old books that until Simon appeared I had stubbornly refused to even look at; Rousseau in the late 1750’s invented the myth of the Noble Savage in an essay called Social Contact.

     Man in his natural state is innocent; in a state of nature he is good, it is

     the influence of civilisation and government that brought about crime.  

        Rousseau assigned power and spirituality to, what he called the primitive forests. This idea does not let me rest. Rousseau goes onto suggest that, “ The innate goodness of man is superior to the artificial goodness of sophisticated man. ” I slowly begin to light onto the possibility that it may summarise exactly the situation we have now.  After spending time with Simon I begin to consider Rousseau’s point of view, but I am far from accepting his premise. One does not go from black to white in an instant. But I can not deny the growing affect Simon is having on me; like a shinning light peering through darkness, even if it is just the size a key hole. It also makes me stop and consider if it might not be the very thing that is driving me. Am I looking for lost innocence?  I am beginning to consider the prospect that nature can be a healing force. The very fact that I am even considering this suggests a significant change in me. But in typical fashion I must consider the question; am I the light that carries the message, or the message that carries the light?  All of these thoughts are exploding around in my head during this time with Simon; while outside civilisation continues on its futile march.

       The long hot days of summer are advancing towards July 1st Canada’s sixty-third birthday, and a holiday. Why people choose to celebrate a descent into hell I can never understand. I guess it helps propagate a kind of hope. On this day we are to celebrate our countries independence, and our march into the future. A future into what I wonder; every year I ask the same question. There is also of course the federal election on the twenty-eighth; I assure Simon nothing can be done until after both events are over; he takes the delay in his stride. An uneasy trust begins to build in our relationship; on my part it is admiration; on his I do not really know for sure; I think he trusts me. But if the truth be told I can not help feel like it is a case of the blind leading the

blind. I have come to greatly admire his persistence and the purity of his mission. And so I resist telling him that I think his cause is futile, despite

                                                                  Haig, For All My Relations. Pg. 22

desperately wanting to several times. I do not wish to see him fall into my abyss, but I am convinced from experience that is the only direction he is headed.

      There was a moment during our time together when Simon turned to me and said, “ I owe you a great debt.”  I tried to assure him that I have done nothing. In fact I feel like I have done worse; I have encouraged him in his hopeless assignment.  

      I replied, “ If I was in your home town you would do the same for me.” It was yet another way I tried to deflect the utter futility of his mission.

       “  This is how I can repay you. You must come and stay at my home and see the beautiful northern lands, ” he said with an honesty and conviction that almost made me agree to do so right there and then. I rationalise that he is just being considerate for the hospitality I am providing, but I underestimate the man, and not for the last time.  

       During our several days and nights together Simon often recants stories about his home, describing the rivers, the sky, and many of the animals. These marvellous descriptions have me recall a dream I had once, but have long since discarded as a child’s folly. When I was a youth we played cowboys and Indians; I always wanted to be an Indian. I spent many wakeful hours in my bed dreaming about being an Indian. I saw myself riding through tall grasses on a hunt and canoeing down white water rivers. I disclosed this idea to my mother one day in a rare excursion into honest communication with her.

“ Why would you want to be a heathen, ” she retorted over and over as she stood by and watched my father beat me with a belt until my ass almost bled. That was the first time I realised that to speak of one’s dreams is a punishable offence.

       Simon, one day, asks me about my job at the newspaper, and what I do there. I tell him that I write articles on politics, and that seems to appease him, and saves me from having to go into details. We get along well despite some initial awkwardness; perhaps we are just two souls desperately looking to be saved, admittedly for opposite reasons and from different directions. He is looking for the salvation of his people; I for personal redemption. I warm to Simon’s personality, to his cause, despite its futility, and to his stories about his home and family. Simon wife is dead but he has three children living in the far North of Alberta near Fort Chipewyan. I looked it up on a map one day at

the office of Indian affairs. It is not only very distant; it fails to appear within the confines of my imagination.

                                                                      Haig, For All My Relations. Pg. 23

        “ This is what we can do, come to my home, write our story, ” he announces one morning. I try to tell him that I am a reporter on Parliament Hill for an Ottawa paper, not a paper that goes across the Dominion. But by this stage Simon has got very enthusiastic; I do not have the good conscience to tell him that it will not happen. Even worse, I can not tell him that any deal the White Man has given him, in a land he has always known to be free, will most certainly result in his people loosing their hunting and fishing rights. He is so clear in purpose, in a modern world that to me has none. I liken his outlook to a child’s belief in Santa Clause. If the truth be told I have begun to think about writing something about his plight and his cause. How I will get it passed by the editor I can not begin to fathom. I even tell Simon that I will talk to my boss. I just can not refuse his genuine innocence. How can he still be so naive after what he has lived through? Then Simon tells me he wants to meet my editor. Why not let the truth be told by someone else I decide; it is an easy escape. We talk late into the nights and for the first time in a very long while I am not falling down a blackened abyss. I feel almost human.

       The next day I am sitting at my desk at the paper when a security guard comes rushing into my office. “ Mr. Christian we have a problem, ” he conveys with a look of absolute disbelief on his face.

      “ So why tell me, ” I retort with open hostility. They know better than to bother me; I am famous for my open distemper and general meanness of character.

      “ There is a,” the guard pauses and takes a deep breath, “ a heathen, I mean there is a savage downstairs; he says he is known to you. ” Ah Simon! He did come down to see where I work. I had hoped that he would not fallow through with this desire. It is at this moment that I realise that Simon is not one to waste idle chatter and empty platitudes; when he says he will do something he does it; a refreshing wind for a reporter used to the rhetoric of politicians busily massing a fortune of lies and deceit.

      “ He is a man damn you, ” I quickly retaliate in a voice that would make a lawyer proud. I rush down stairs to find Simon standing proudly and defiantly by the welcoming desk, a euphemism for a guard post; its job is to keep people out. I proceed to make a dramatic rescue of Simon at the hands of the enemy, and find myself enjoying it. We both stride up to the papers offices with a sense of defiance, at least I did; for Simon seems to walk with a strength and a balance that I have never laid witness to before. Any lesser man would have shrunk under the weight of all the scrutiny. It is a stand that makes me feel

                                                                       Haig, For All My Relations. Pg. 24

proud to walk in his shadow.

     “ Simon why have you come here, ” I finally ask him after recovering my breath in my office.

     “ I wished to see where you think. ” I want to interrupt him right there and tell him that I do not think; I react out of conditioning, nothing more, but I hold back from saying so, and in so doing almost begin to believe that I am worth the visit when Jock Stevens, my editor, walks by. One look at Simon stops him dead in his tracks, not an easy task I assure you. Jock sizes up Simon with the surgical precision of a doctor; I notice a glint in his eye like he has just hatched a scheme of impossible magnitude.

      “ Well now this must be this Simon that you have talked about. ” he announces, like it is a speech from the throne; keep in mind that Simon had just been declared a heathen only a few moments ago. That is what I admire about Jock; he says what is on his mind and be dammed to those who choose to express a dislike for what he says. A general conversation proceeds to take place and I can tell that Jock is drawn to Simon’s force of personality, just as I am. Jock leaves not before asking for permission to do so, this is something I have never seen him do with anyone, including the Prime Minister. I give Simon a quick tour of the paper; more I admit for my pleasure than his. I can not resist the shock value from the staff of the newspaper seeing an Indian in full dress, perhaps for the very first time in their lives. Simon has no other clothes.

        Our time together proceeds on a steady course when the heavens revolve to June the 28 th, election day. I am busy covering the election; in truth I have been covering politics for so long I can do it in my sleep; there is nothing new. So I will do a small recap of the results. Sixty-nine percent of Canadians allowed to caste a vote elect to do so; and they do so with a resounding condemnation of King and his Liberal government, unceremoniously throwing them out of office; King even loses his own seat in Parliament, again.

       The election is quickly followed by the nation’s birthday celebration on July 1st. Early in the day Simon and I agree to attend the celebrations on Parliament Hill for Canada’s birthday. Simon says he would first like to go for a walk and that he will meet me at an arranged spot on the Hill when the sun starts to move down in the sky; I have no idea what time that is but I am going

to be there covering the event all day so I am not concerned about the ambiguity of his statement.

                                                                     Haig, For All My Relations. Pg. 25

        I look for him all afternoon but Simon never shows; a fact that I think little about at the time, but it should have been a signal that all was about to change, forever. I spend my day acknowledging the presence of colleagues and government employees, finally returning home around 7:00 p.m. On the steps of my apartment building I am met by a policeman, a fact unusual in itself; police notoriously avoid this area of the city, despite the fact or maybe because it has the highest crime rate in the city. He asks me if my name is Christian Thomas; I acknowledged that it is, and then he asks if I know one Simon Joseph. I proudly say I do, despite the conspicuous disdain on his face. The policeman clearly is not comfortable.

       “ I am sorry sir but I must ask you to accompany me down to the morgue, he sheepishly responds.”  I insist on knowing why. The policeman tells me that Simon has been run over by an automobile and died just before three this afternoon. I am struck dumb for a moment.

        “ When the sun moves down. ” Simon words echo in my head. Time is not a relevant point at this juncture; the sky has just turned to mud.

       “ How is that possible ? ” I manage to stammer. “ This is a man who survived being shot five times in one day during the war? ”

     “ The driver of the car, a one Reginald Thumbolt, admits openly to being at a bar drinking in celebration of the nations birthday, when he and his mates decide to go to another bar, and… ” he never finishes the sentence, his face clouds over with a discernible look of pain. There is something he hasn’t told me.

      “  The man was drunk, what else? ” I insist on hearing what else he has to say.

      “ No doubt Sir, drunk that he was, but,” his words tail off again.

      “ Where, how? ” I choke on a sudden rush of emotion,“ Simon. ” I can not finish the thought.

      “ We got his name from papers we found on his body, one had your name and address. He has been taken to the morgue.  Can you possibly come down and identify the body Sir? ” There is a disturbing jarring pause. “ He is an Indian dressed in…” The rest of his words fail to register in my psyche, but the fact that he is referring to Simon in the past tense makes it all too real.

       “ There is something else you should know Sir,” the policeman finally declares, as shame makes his body sag. “ Simon Joseph died saving a little girl

who was playing outside the front of her building when the said car swerved onto the pavement moving directly towards her. By all eyewitnesses accounts                                                                          

                                                                       Haig, For All My Relations. Pg. 26

Mr. Joseph threw the girl from the cars path and was struck; he died immediately, there was no pain, so the doctor says, ” again a long pause follows this pronouncement, “ he did not suffer. ” An age seems to pass; my lungs gulp for air.

      Eventually I am able to say, “ How do you know he did not suf… ” I can not finish; the policeman kindly takes up the challenge.

       “ There were witnesses to the action; to a person they told the same story to the first policeman on the scene. ”

       “ Did he say…,” once again I fail to finish.

       “ As I said Sir he died immediately. The doctor said his head hit, ” the officer kindly refrains from finishing the sentence. My world is once again thrown into darkness. I can not move my limbs; I have no recollection of how long I remain standing there stunned. Eventually I accompany the policeman to the morgue but I have no memory of having done so. I only remember hoping that there has been a mistake. In my duties as a newspaper man I have had the misfortune to visit the morgue on a number of occasions. I keep assuring myself that this must be a mistake, despite knowing full well that it is not. How many traditionally dressed Indians are there on the streets of nation’s capital? I am doing the same thing I have seen so many others do in the past when faced with bad news; deny the very possibility that it could happen. I am a seasoned war correspondent and journalist, who has just found a glimmer of light in his miserable life, and now the candle, has been snuffed out. I can’t think, the blackness is strangling the life out of my genetically weekend lungs. I gasp for air on instinct alone.

        After identifying the body as Simons, questions and only more questions flood my brain, none of which I can find answers to. The utter futility of it makes me sink lower and lower into the abyss. I pull myself together somehow. The subject eventually gets around to what to do with the body; since I have identified the decision then lies with me. The only family Simon has, that I know of, is in Northern Alberta- for all intense and purpose another world.  What am I to do?  A question I repeat to myself over and over until there comes a sudden rush of sobering reality; I feel responsible, and I was not even there. The darkness and my ineptness has taken another life. I would have freely offered my own; if there is any justice I would have been the one taken, but I know there is no fairness, let alone justice, in this world. I who

have no direction and no purpose, and he with so vital a cause to champion; I    

  feel suddenly that I can not go on. The coroner determined the cause of death;                                                                          

                                                                       Haig, For All My Relations. Pg. 27

 surely it is killed by a metal box on four wheels; a man made machine accidental death he stated on the death certificate and gives it to me. He then tells me that I can take the body. It strikes me hard that he put no emphases on his words; they were fixed and devoid of emotion. The word accident does not even register in my brain. All I want to do was run away, hide in a bar and get drunk, but my feet fail me; I can not move. I am incapable of making any decisions at this point, but there is no one else. I argue with the coroner but to no avail; followed by a long period of quiet desperation I determine that I have to do something. This is not right, simply not right, but when has it ever been. How can the coroner call it an accident? From what the policeman told me it was murder. Later, I have no idea when, for time has stopped and the stillness of the abyss has circled its talons around my throat. In a sudden burst of clarity I know I have to take him home to his family. I can not see taking the body back; from my adolescent readings that I hid under my mattress I remember that Indians, when they died and were not on the land of their birth, where lit on fire; their bodies cremated in a giant burst of flames in order to aid their ascent into the great beyond. Do they believe in heaven? Such a mental venture is beyond my faculties at this time. So I decide to cremate Simon. It is the only course of action I can think of.

       Four days after Simon was killed the body is cremated and a service is held. The day is overcast and cold; no sunlight permeates through the clouds; it is as if nature is angry, as it should be. A chilling wind blows; a wind that despite the smell of decay smells of change. The paper runs an obituary, a kindness to me, mentioning the heroic saving by one Simon Joseph of a little girl, but gives no other details. Despite the honourable mention of a hero I am the only person to attend the service. The family of the little girl Simon saved does not even care to show their gratitude with their presence. A fact I am damn well going to challenge them on. Throughout the brief ceremony my body is numb; but my mind rages with questions that have no answers. A local priest reads a sermon. “ The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want... on earth as it is in heaven. ” The words filter through me; empty platitudes, meaningless words offering no respite from the anger, guilt, and remorse that are now my constant companions; there is simply no closure. I stand alone, truly alone, on this dark day. How can this happen? The words echo in my head, louder than the beat of my solitary heart. The only ending that I can come up with is what Oedipus said in the last chorus of Sopholcles’ Oedipus Tyrannos, “ Call no man happy until he is dead.”

                                                            Haig, For All My Relations. Pg. 28

       When the time comes to say a few words I find it difficult to swallow; fear has dried my throat until all that finally comes out is a croaking sound, words fail me, so I elect to be silent and let the inexplicable, unimaginable, and preposterous remain just that.

       I knew Simon, not well, but I consider him a friend. Can anyone ever really know another person, or what they are capable of ?  These became constant questions and companions of my every waking hour. A hero, a selfless warrior, Simon gave, lived, and acted for others, even when they did not treat him just. He died saving the life of someone he did not even know. There is no more selfless and tragic act than that. If there is a lesson to be learned then it must be in the nobleness in which he lived, but I do not know how he lived. I confess that I did not understand him, but I do know that I have never met a more honourable man. If there is any justice in this life, and every part of my being tells me there is not, it is in the hope that somehow Simon’s cause will be served. The emotions build up, I can no longer swallow back the tears; for the first time since I was a young boy being beaten by my father, I cry.

        I look over to the priest who must have given the same service at many funerals if his age is anything to go by; I think I catch a hint of wetness in his eyes. I find myself hoping that there is some form of a better world beyond, because if any one deserves to be in it Simon does.

        I do not expect things to get easier, and they do not. I desperately try, mentally, to move on, filling my mind with work; but I always return to Simon’s body lying in the morgue and the same old question why? I feel a great heaviness in my being; chastened I am now grieving for a man whose light has been extinguished, and with his departing the world surely grows dimmer. I can find no answers, light, hope, or charity in this madding world. Maybe it is the search for answers in this great unknown that drives humans, but drives them to what more importantly. I admit that drowning in a bottle of whiskey usually precedes such pronouncements. In the bottle, the demon of distilled dreams, I customarily attempt to find something that makes sense, but it always becomes in the end an exercise to exorcise away any such proclamations; it is only the bravery of wastedness that lasts in the end because all attempts to forget fail. All I accomplish is to have forty-five proof of trouble snaking up my ass the morning after. I am stuck in this snake pit of human waste, waiting, frustrated, aching and raw; my wants and desires calcified. I am

                                                                       Haig, For All My Relations. Pg. 29

helpless to change a single thing in this world, and haunted by not being able to get around this cycle. Whether or not I am falling down the long dark tunnel of depression, or feeling the bitter agony of lying in the waste of broken dreams, the blackness is the same. What can I do? I must do something. This refrain plays over and over in my head until all I want is a drink. I have holidays that I can take, not that it matters; I care nothing for my job. The paper can hardly complain, in the last ten years I have taken exactly one week off.  Doing nothing makes me more crazed then working. I need a drink.  The thought makes me retch and tremble. I desire the very thing that killed Simon. The nausea of this revelation makes me do something I did not know was possible. I vow, right here and now, to give up drinking.  A hell of a time to be sober is my next thought, but I have to, it is one thing I can do. I retch again and again until my stomach and throat burns in disgust, anything to forget, but my body is incapable.

        I have to keep my self busy so I decide to try and find the man who drove the car that killed…; the details of which were on the accident report I saw at the police station where I had gone to demand action after the morgue. I go to the address on the police report determined to face the man whose little girl Simon saved and ask why he and his family were not at the funeral. Upon arriving at the address I first walk to the spot of the accident; initially I want to avoid it, but I am driven to see how this could have happened, to make some sense out of the incomprehensible. Several children are there playing a game in the street, which is quiet of congestion; I can easily see why the children find it safe to play here. I expect the sight to have some form of marking declaring it as the spot where Simon died heroically. There is no marker, only a dark stain on the road, blood, Simon’s blood. Pictures of Simon in the field hospital in France sweep through my mind, I hear Simon saying, “ The feet of the White Man get me killed.” Well they did, feet driving a car. After an indeterminate time I make my way up to the front of the house and rap on the door as loudly as possible, fully intending it to wake up the souls of anyone who is in the home. I do not have to wait long before a plain woman comes to the door with a little girl hiding between her knees. This must be the little girl Simon saved. She is delicate and fragile dressed in a pink frilly dress. The realisation sends a series of shivers through my body like an electrical current.

       “ My name is Christian Thomas are you Mrs. Thumbolt, ” I say trying to keep my voice from trembling with the anger I feel rising in my throat; my stomach quivers with the bitter taste of bile. The woman nods an affirmation

                                                                       Haig, For All My Relations. Pg. 30

but does not speak. “ I am a friend of Simon Joseph, ” I declare, then pause for affect, The face registers no acknowlegdment of  the name“ The man who saved your daughter’s life, ” I add with an accent on the saved part.

      “ Yes, ” finally comes a reply. She is visibly shaken by my presence. Unable to hide her discomfort the woman shuffles uncomfortably while trying to hide the little girl from my sight.

      “ His funeral was this morning. Why…” I pause, waiting for the emotions inside me subside enough to continue; this causes me to gulp for air; my lungs are on the verge of collapse. “ Why, why, ” I repeat twice, “ were you not there? ” As angry determination finally gives my voice strength with every pronounced syllable a man appears and shuffles the woman to the side.

      “ I am Mr. Thumbolt. What do you want? ” pronounces a man of large build his face burdened by large red nose, a sure sign of a drinker, I would know.

      “ I am a friend of the man who saved your daughter’s life.”

      “ You mean that savage.” The words are spat out with a force that immediately makes me want to strike back. I wish that I had gun. It is well that I do not for I would have used it without hesitation.  

      “ That savage, as you call him, saved your daughter’s life at the expense of his own. ” I just got the last words out when the door slams in my face with a force that repels me back down the stairs. The sound of a lock being hurriedly forced into place has the affect of a cannon blast blowing up in my head. I am shell shocked. How can this be? Simon died for this! A whole series of thoughts run through my head, mostly of a violent nature. Staggering in disbelief and weak with spent emotion I retrace my steps down the street. Anger reaches a fevered pitch in my head; I see red. I want to strike out, but my body has gone numb. I finally get enough control to reach down and pick up a rock, fully intending to propel it through their window, but my fingers start shaking and I can not get a grip; the rock falls innocently to the ground. I slump to the curve in total disbelief. I am a coward for my inaction.

       After, what feels like an eternity, I pick myself resolving somehow to make it up to Simon? What folly. What can I do? I have to do something.  With a resolve I thought long lost I determine that the thing to do is to follow through and make sure that Simon’s ashes get to his family. I want a drink so badly that my mouth is parched in anticipation and my tongue revolves around my lips lapping at the prospect. I then remember my resolve to give up drinking. A picture of Simon fills my mind’s eye; the picture is serene and

                                                                       Haig, For All My Relations. Pg. 31

untroubled; it calms my nerves to the point that I can walk; and walk I do for hours trying to make sense of something that I know I can not. Many times I crave a drink, but I know it will solve nothing; this is I assure myself a triumph. I take enough strength in that to finally make it back to my hovel and collapse in a heap on the bed.

        Over the ensuing days it dawns on me that my new found determination to give up drinking is the only thing that comes out of Simon’s death that I can honestly say is good. I continue to be obsessed with trying to understand Simon’s plight. It is leading me down a path I never imagined, but it took a death for it happen. In Simon I found a man who lived for his dreams and dreamed what he lived.

       Suddenly I am back on the train dragged out of my memories by a sudden jolt. I am very conscious of the fact that leaving Ottawa is the beginning of a journey, for that is how I have begun to see this trip ior perhaps I should say journey. In the weeks since Simon’s death I have become obsessed with his injustice, something I feel very much alone in; in the process I have become aware of being saved from the abyss, such a quirk of fate. Hearing Simon talk about his family and then dying without his family there to say goodbye has brought me face to face with the failure of my own family life. The best thing I can say about my childhood is that I survived it. I have had very little communication with my family since I refused to settle in Winnipeg after the war; there is simply no common ground between us. Despite the passing of years a dull anguish still beats in my chest when it comes to the subject of family; it is a wound that has never healed, despite the passage of time. My family now consists of three remaining sisters Beth, Gladys, and Dorene. I am the youngest of an original brood of six. My two older brothers died in the war. My bothers, who I considered perfect next only to god, when I thought there was one, were among the first Canadian battalions sent to the front in Europe; they lasted but one battle; a battle in which over a hundred thousand young men died. A black day it was, a day with no victor, both armies had fought over a single piece of ground for five days and nights, at the end there was a stalemate; no ground beyond a single man’s step was gained by either side- what a waste. My only consolation is that my brothers did not suffer the agony and bitter conditions of a long war like so many men I had witnessed. Two years reporting the war was a life time for me. The memory of which still brings waves of guilt thundering down on me; I am still breathing, albeit poorly, when many men more virtuous than I are dead. I still wonder why I

                                                                       Haig, For All My Relations. Pg. 32

was saved from their fate. For a short while I felt there was providence in it,

but I have long since given up believing in such grandiose a concept, just look

at me.

       So having made the determination to take Simon’s body back to Northern Alberta I decided to visit my family in Winnipeg since it is on the way. This is something I do not want to do but feel it is an obligation I can not avoid. The conception of family is consuming me. I am to arrive in Winnipeg on Wednesday afternoon and depart on Saturday morning for Edmonton. This schedule gives me little leeway if I am to catch the Great Alberta and Waterways Railway (A&GW) to Waterways, some two hundred and eighty miles north of Edmonton. It is there that I am to meet up with the SS Northland Echo, a paddle steamer that will take me to Fort Chipewyan. I had but one thought when I had heard the boats name; for every sound there is an echo, there is a sense of irony in that. I can not fully explain it but there are moments when life has begun to taken on a kind of disproportionate affection since Simon imposed his benevolence on me.

        My parents are both dead. My father Frank hanged himself, worn out and bitter with life at fifty three; my mother died soon after, just worn out at fifty-two. My father’s last years were spent at the Fort Gary post office. After years of pulling a plough he ended his days hauling mail. He was bitter with disappointment and plum worn out from farming a piece of useless land year after year. Thoughts of my father still, and I expect always will, haunt me. My father was a farmer, on a hundred and sixty acres that was given to him by the government upon arrival on the prairies on one of the first steamers to forge its way up the Red River from Eastern Canada in 1886. The land, a reward for moving his whole family to Manitoba, was admittedly on the wrong side of a river, the rocky side. My father never had any luck. He had arrived, along with a boat load of hopeful new immigrants, with nothing except hope and what they could carry. I imagine that during the voyage their heads had been full of dreams, but they were soon beaten out of them by a very hostile and unforgiving environment. I have no recollection of the farm; being the youngest of six I had the luxury of escaping the harshness of the open prairie when my family moved to Winnipeg shortly after the dawn of the new century. In reality I have no fond memories of growing up.

       After returning from Europe after the war ended I remember sitting with the remaining members of my family, all female; I was the only male member left. The discomfort had been palatable, the air full of regret; it served only to

                                                                       Haig, For All My Relations. Pg. 33

inveterate my guilt for having survived and left a bitter taste in my mouth, which is regurgitated with any mention of family to this very day. Looking back at my decision to not live in Winnipeg I did the only thing a coward could do and that was to run. It was not something I consciously did; it was something I knew I had to do, there was never a choice. I never felt there was a choice. At the time I told my family I had a job in Toronto with one of the newspapers. I left despite an impassioned plea from my sisters that I was the only man left to carry on the family name. “ I must stay and raise a family,” they pleaded. Their view was that I was the only man left to father the next generation and I should do that with my family there for support. The idea of bringing a child into a world exasperated on death and destruction was, and still is, an abominable idea to me. I saw life differently; I had not been man enough to serve and die for my country, so how could I be considered good breading stock. I carried and still carry the yoke of having survived. My family took my refusal to stay hard; I was too numb to care. I left Winnipeg in 1918 hanging onto one thread in a shattered existence, to become a writer, that was twelve years ago and I am a writer, though I have repeatedly failed to do the kind of writing I once dreamed of. I write hard news copy that pretends to be the truth, not thought provoking and inspiring novels that describe and define the human condition. I am writing now but it can hardly be described as the great Canadian novel more like a running commentary on the tragedy that is man.

     My brief appointment with my family is not paramount to this story except to say that it leaves me beginning my journey to the North feeling even more alienated.