I first encountered Drew Hayden Taylor's work when I was a young adult. I'm pretty sure my mom had a copy of Funny you don't look like one: Observations of a blue eyed Ojibwe. I thought his writing was clever.
He is incredibly prolific. He has authored 22 books, and edited 5 collections. And he continues to write for The Globe and Mail. You can read about his impressive body of work on his author website.
Overall, I am a fan. However, I kind of have mixed feelings about a small fraction of his work because some of it leans too heavily on trauma tropes. I remember a colleague telling me that the thought the short story Boy in the ditch was a good read, but I found it disturbing.
In this collection, I would avoid using Mr. Gizmo. It made me uneasy. I don't mind being uneasy as long as there is some kind of redeeming underlying purpose to making me uneasy, but I could not find the purpose within Mr. Gizmo. For entertainment value, I found Superdisappointed to be a funny read. And I thought Petropaths would be fun to teach. I tried to include a range of works in my dissertation, and so I challenged myself to pick only story from this collection. The story I chose to reflect on was Lost in space.
Mitchell had been hovering effortlessly, drifting both in the gravity vacuum of space and, more interestingly, in and out of consciousness. Small tethers from the right shoulder and left pant cuff of his jumpsuit anchored him to opposed bulkheads. This was to make sure he didn’t bump into the walls of the ship and ruin his fun. His mind had no such restrictions and had meandered back and forth between alpha, beta, delta, and all remaining brain-wave frequencies. The small room was dark and the temperature was neutral. A sort of purgatory. Additionally, the oxygen in this hyperbaric chamber had been reduced to the minimum, allowing for a more recreational time alone. In other words, he was mellowing out in the twenty-first century version of an improvised isolation tank. (Taylor, 2016, p. 46-7)Ojibway author Drew Hayden Taylor’s 2016 short story “Lost in space” begins with the protagonist, Mitchell, using oxygen deprivation to put himself in an altered state (p. 47). He is on a spacecraft mining the asteroid belt, and his only company is the ship’s artificial intelligence, Mac (p. 48). Mac informs him that his grandfather has died (p. 48). His grandfather was his only Indigenous grandparent and inspired his love of space (p. 49). He recalls a conversation with his grandfather, where his grandfather reflected on the connection between Indigenous identity and the land, and how his grandfather told him, “I can’t help wondering if it’s possible to be a good, proper Native astronaut” (p. 51). Mitchell reflects on the barriers to expressing his Indigenous identity in space, including not being able to burn sage because of fire suppression technology; no dawn to greet; no Four Directions to honour; the complexity of honouring Mother Earth and Father Sky while being “closer to the backside of Mother Mars” (p. 52); and no drumming due to the calibration of technology on the ship (p. 53). Mac locates a video of his grandfather drumming, and as Mitchell watches it, he reflects on how his grandfather encouraged him to “represent” (p. 55). “Song after song made him realize that even though he was only one quarter Anishinabe, he could be fairly confident he was the only Anishinabe out here in the asteroid belt, possibly the only one outside of Earth and the three space stations. This was the only drum music for millions and millions of kilometers. This was a responsibility. As his grandfather used to say, he’d better step up and represent, because he was a hell of a long way from home” (p. 55).
Drew Hayden Taylor’s story is fun. The question that his grandfather poses is an interesting one. Note that his grandfather doesn’t ask if it’s possible to be a Native astronaut, rather, he questions whether it is possible to be a good, proper Native astronaut. The main character reflects on cultural practices that he cannot do in space, the implication here being that being “good” and “proper” are expressed through cultural activities such as smudging and drumming. Ultimately, he decides that he is being a good and proper native by virtue of his commitment to “represent”, and he expresses his identity by celebrating his ancestor. What this story highlights is the fact that sometimes we are put in positions where there is no one around to affirm our Indigenous identity, and when we are put in those positions, we have to affirm ourselves.
After reading this story, I did have some questions. What exactly does it mean to represent? What are the unique responsibilities tied to being in a professional context where you are the only Indigenous person? How do you conduct yourself when you have no family present to help you navigate identity? These questions are especially relevant in the university environment, where Indigenous people are under-represented.
Taylor, D.H. (2016). Take us to your chief. Madeira Park, British Columbia: Douglas & McIntyre.
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