A few weeks ago, my daughter and I drove across the border to attend Lauryn Hill’s Miseducation 25th anniversary concert which did not disappoint.
Driving across the Canada/USA border was very emotional for me. When I was a kid, my uncle Colin drove me and my cousin Coleen across at a time before 9/11 when you could cross the border without a passport. My cousin and I wanted to go to Seattle so badly but for some reason, he turned around in Birmingham just outside of the big city named after Duwamish leader Chief Sealth.
This time as I drove over the border, in my heart I told my beautiful beloved cousin, who was more like a sister to me, that this time I’d take her with me. She passed tragically almost 10 years ago now and my uncle joined her last year. When in Seattle we had a bit of trouble with the Jeep, so we had it brought into an old mechanic shop and while we waited for it to be fixed, we scooted all around the city on electric scooters in the rain.
We even had time to pay our respects to Kurt Cobain’s shrine up in the hills where he lived after starting a revolution of grunge before his untimely passing.
It just so happens that my new editor lives in Seattle, not in New York City where Harper One is based. Yes, I said it — Harper One, only the second biggest publishing agency in the world. We had tea and because I’m often awkward in one-on-one conversation with people I just meet, especially since working from home and not getting out much, I unexpectedly told her the story of how when I was once driving up in the mountains, I saw a black bear on the side of the road that gave me a sign to slow down. I took heed and it ultimately saved us from getting into a car accident.
This got us onto the conversation about talking animals altogether and I learned there is a name for that in literature: anthropomorphism. The bear story will be in the book by the way as I like to incorporate what’s categorised in the publishing world as magical realism into my writing. Before we parted ways, I made sure to offer her a gift of tobacco as a way of saying thank you for agreeing to publish the important work that I’m about to embark on.
The day after returning home from Seattle, I was off to Toronto for a housing conference, where I also had the chance to tour the offices of Penguin Random House, and meet my other editor. Walking into the tall office building made of glass and concrete felt like a movie. It was a dream come true. I finally felt like all my hard work had paid off but in reality, the work is now only just beginning.
I now have the important job of going back home and listening to Dene Elders and knowledge carriers from across Denendeh who are willing to share with me their understandings, teachings and unique views on climate change and what they think about the future of mother earth in a book called Mother Earth is Our Elder, which will be available worldwide in all languages. If they don’t know already, then the world will finally know who the Dene are in our own words and the important messages we have to share through the many voices that will be present in this book.
I’m looking forward to the journey and have already begun piecing together the outline while also keeping in the back of my mind the infamous words “as long as the sun shines, the grass grows and the water flows.” These words bring about unanswered questions for the future that we must grapple with today in order to share our understandings just as we share the teachings of our Dene Laws. I have many tobacco seeds to share so that we can each grow our own tobacco leaves and share in the benefits of our labour to others when needed.
Mahsi cho!
—Katlia (Catherine) Lafferty is a published author and an Indigenous law student who grew up in Yellowknife.