David A. Robertson Reviews Thomas King's Indians on Vacation

Thomas King. Indians on Vacation. Harper Collins Canada. $32.99, 304 pp., ISBN 978-1-443460-54-5

In the 80s and 90s, during my formative years, the world taught me about Indigenous people, of which I was one. Within the pages of a book, a comic, on the silver screen, the news, my education was relentless and profoundly damaging. King himself, in The Inconvenient Indian, explains why when he breaks down stereotypical classifications of how Indigenous people were, and are, viewed by Canadians. I would argue this perception was, and is, heavily informed by the same instruments that influenced me. Dead Indians. Live Indians. Legal Indians. It’s the Dead Indian that destroyed my self-esteem and sense of worth. Of course, Dead Indians aren’t deceased but rather existing within a dead culture. But a comfortable one for white people, and profitable. Just look at Pocahontas or Tonto. It’s a stereotype based on headdresses, bare chests, shamanistic powers, savagery, deerskin clothing, and so on. I’m sure you’ve no trouble picturing it. Because of this manufactured self-perception, I wanted no part of being Indigenous as I barrelled into my teenage years. I’d encountered all these negative representations and nothing to teach me otherwise. And then two things happened. My father, who was Cree, started to teach me about my Indigeneity from a place of truth (another, long story), and I read what’s referred to as own voices books: stories with Indigenous characters written by Indigenous people. These books began the long process of destroying the damage a childhood of misrepresentations had done and reconstructing my identity on a foundation of truth. There was Culleton (now Mosionier), there was Campbell, there was Maracle, and there was King.

These authors did more than write iconic books that have stayed relevant as the decades have passed; they opened doors for authors like me, and so many artists I respect and admire. Dimaline. Van Camp. Rice. Vermette. Robinson. Elliott. Flett. Belcourt. Whitehead. It’s a good problem to have that I could spend the rest of my space here just listing Indigenous authors, but you get the point. And as more and more Indigenous writers create new and exciting works, trailblazers like King have endured. Canada, in turn, is better for it. I know that I am. 

When I read Green Grass, Running Water and Medicine River, I felt seen. Not just because basketball was a big part of Medicine River, although that helped, but rather, I read characters that I saw myself reflected in for the first time. Following Will’s journey, a protagonist who didn’t fall into a stereotype, helped me feel empowered by my identity as an Indigenous kid. 

Now, I have Bird, and decades removed from my first experience reading King’s work, I feel seen all over again. For different reasons, sure, but seen nonetheless. Stories resonate with people for various reasons. While I could spend my time dissecting the skill in King’s writing, how he layers complex ideas and themes underneath his trademark humour (which is pretty much unmatched), I want to discuss why this story, and character, resonated with me. 

I have Bird, and I have his demons, entities that embody Bird’s insecurities, anxiety, disillusion, and depression. Some of these demons, which King has given names like Desi and Kitty, are shared. I’ve lived with anxiety for a long time, disillusion and depression, and have come to think of these mental health struggles as physical beings that accompany me wherever I go. A black dog often represents depression. Mimi, Bird’s wife and anchor, has simply named that black dog Eugene. Eugene may not be a black dog, but he casts a long, dark shadow on Bird’s life and his ability to enjoy the success he has found as a well-known photojournalist. As depression goes, Bird and Mimi can do things like go to Prague, but Bird cannot appreciate the beauty and curiosities they find on their journey, as they chase a long-lost relative’s bundle, which is explained but essentially a MacGuffin. The repeated refrain of “So we’re in Prague” reads almost blasé. Each time the phrase appears on the page, which is often, you can practically hear Bird say the words with exhaustion and indifference, like anything in Prague can just as easily be found and experienced in Guelph, Mimi and Bird’s home. 

King avoids, thankfully, any sort of fish out of water construct here, which is refreshing. So, while the title of the book might allude to the possibility that this is the sort of tale that we’re entering into — Indians on Vacation — Bird, though disillusioned, is not so because of the place he is in or his cultural background (Blackfoot and Greek). One gets the sense that he would be the same way in Guelph, that his struggles have followed him to Prague, and they will be with him when he and Mimi return home. He and his wife function quite well in Prague — there’s no drama in their sense of belonging. They are tourists, like any other tourist. This comfort in a foreign place, their, or perhaps just Bird’s, stagnancy is not because they are Indigenous, but because they are people, and people can feel stagnant. “So we’re in Prague” is only slightly more common than the spiders in their room, or the heat they can’t avoid. These are obstacles they face because tourists face these obstacles, not “Indians.” At least, not the Dead Indians we’ve come to expect, and that King has articulated so well in his work. In reading The Inconvenient Indian and then Indians On Vacation, you get the sense that King is trying to do similar work in breaking down stereotypes while building something else. In this way, while Bird and Mimi do not ever find the bundle, readers find essential truths King has laced within the narrative thread. 

The journey I have taken towards my own Cree identity has left me with an acceptance: that I am Cree no matter what I do. I am Cree even without a war bonnet, even without deerskin pants, even without a glistening bare chest (which nobody would want to see anyway). Nothing can make me more or less Cree, and whether I’m in Winnipeg or Prague, the definition of who I am, the good and the bad, the anchors in my life and the demons, I am who I will always be. However, that doesn’t mean my journey and the experiences within it can’t change how I define myself. That doesn’t mean Bird cannot come to terms with his demons, that he cannot change, that he cannot find a moment of peace even as his demons haunt him. That he cannot find a way to carry them with him in a better way. While the beauty that King uncovers in Bird’s revelation, in his acceptance, could have happened anywhere, it happened while in Prague. And if something so hopeful can happen in Prague, with the heat and spiders, if Bird can fall repeatedly and get back to his feet, then it can happen anywhere.

David A. Robertson is the author of numerous books for young readers including When We Were Alone, which won the 2017 Governor General’s Literary Award and was nominated for the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award. Strangers, the first book in his Reckoner trilogy, a young adult supernatural mystery, won the 2018 Michael Van Rooy Award for Genre Fiction (Manitoba Book Awards), and Monsters, its sequel, won the McNally Robinson Best Book for Young People. His memoir, Black Water: family, legacy, and blood memory, and his middle-grade fantasy, The Barren Grounds, came out in fall 2020. A sought-after speaker and educator, Dave is a member of the Norway House Cree Nation and currently lives in Winnipeg. Follow him on Twitter: @DaveAlexRoberts