Conversations with a Dead Man
The Legacy of Duncan Campbell Scott
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- $25.99
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- $25.99
Publisher Description
As a poet and citizen deeply concerned by the Oka Crisis, the Idle No More protests, and Canada’s ongoing failure to resolve First Nations issues, Montreal author Mark Abley has long been haunted by the figure of Duncan Campbell Scott, known both as the architect of Canada’s most destructive Aboriginal policies and as one of the nation’s major poets. Who was this enigmatic figure who could compose a sonnet to an “Onondaga Madonna” one moment and promote a “final solution” to the “Indian problem” the next? In this passionate, intelligent and highly readable inquiry into the state of Canada’s troubled Aboriginal relations, Abley alternates between analysis of current events and an imagined debate with the spirit of Duncan Campbell Scott, whose defense of the Indian Residential School and belief in assimilation illuminate the historical roots underlying today’s First Nations’ struggles.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Duncan Campbell Scott was one of Canada's four great "Confederation Poets," but today, he is most often remembered as an architect of monstrous social policies, the terrible legacy of which haunts modern Canada. It is not for nothing he was named as one of the 10 worst Canadians of all time. In his nearly two decades as the head of the Department of Indian Affairs, Scott worked to force the people of First Nations to assimilate, suppressing their traditions, presiding over the charnel house residential school system while turning a blind eye to the abuses his policies facilitated. The author attempts to humanize this great monster in a series of imagined conversations with the shade of the poet, giving Scott the chance to explain why he felt the policies he carried out were the correct ones, in the process underlining how Scott's essentially racist views inform some of his lauded poems. While the conceit used to frame the work is not always successful, the author does a sterling job of placing Scott in context; rather than an exceptional villain working in shadows, the poet and would-be genocidaire stands as an exemplar of fledgling Canada's ruling classes.
