When We Both Got to Heaven: James Atkey Among the Anishnabek at Colpoy's Bay

John Steckley teaches in the Human Studies Program at Humber College in
Toronto. He is the author of Beyond Their Years: Five Native Women’s
Stories.

When We Both Got to Heaven deals with the stories surrounding a
19th-century Methodist missionary who came to work with the Ojibwa of
what is now the Nawash First Nation in the Georgian Bay area. The
author, an accomplished writer, director, and critic of musical theatre,
is the great-great-great grandson of James Atkey, the main figure in the
story.

Atkey devotes far more attention to the English side of the story than
to the local Ojibwa. His telling of the Ojibwa story has two main flaws.
First, he presents inaccurate translations of Ojibwa words. (For
example, he says Wahbegwunee Keezis means “strawberry moon,”
notwithstanding the fact that the word is clearly not derived from the
Ojibwa word for strawberry, dehmin.) Second, his portrayal of the Ojibwa
is heavily influenced by 19th-century English writers and observers; he
quotes them extensively (often to the point of disturbing the narrative
flow of the text) but fails to supply any commentary on their prejudices
and biases, which pass on to the reader unchallenged.

Atkey would have been better off confining the story to his family
history, which he does a competent job of relating.