Crisp Blue Edges: Indigenous Creative Non-Fiction

Dave Hutchinson is assistant superintendent of the School District of
Mystery Lake in Thompson, Manitoba.

There is a unique genre currently under development in Canada’s
Indigenous writing community. This is perhaps the first text that
consciously attempts to define this genre under the name of
“Indigenous creative non-fiction.” Essentially, this collection
centres on the dialogue and readings shared during a forum initiated by
the En’owkin International School of Writing. The complex issues
underscoring the definition and naming of this genre are evident in the
transcripts of the writers’ sharing circle. First, the label is
problematic because of its distinct relationship to British and Western
European literary criticism, and hence, a hegemonic and colonial
construct. Second, the label may not reflect the definitions of story
that are unique to Indigenous nations in Canada, and therefore may lack
a clear signal of the culturally restorative nature of this genre. This
complexity is in part articulated by writer Jeannette Armstrong:
“I’m not sure anyone knows what creative non-fiction is. I think
that’s one of the reasons we wanted to have this dialogue, because we
get a lot of different versions of it. I think it’s really exciting
because it is a genre that seems to be something that a lot of Native
people use. I’m a writer and I also come from an oral and traditional
storytelling tradition. For me, whenever we are talking about our
legends, we are talking about non-fiction because our stories come from
our people. Now the non-Natives may call it mythology, or legend, but
it’s a history and a tracking of our people in terms of their
intellectual discoveries, historical discoveries, scientific
discoveries—all of that.”

This is the thing I find most impressive about this genre: it has broad
application across a host of disciplines (history, anthropology,
science, literature, etc.) and is accessible to a broad readership. Yes,
the debate about genre may have a place at the university, but the
authors’ contributions are equally useful in a junior high classroom.
The text is also of general relevance to any reader or scholar with a
strong interest in culturally restorative models of Indigenous pedagogy
and storytelling.