Written by David A. Robertson
Illustrated by Scott B. Henderson
Colours by Donovan Yaciuk
HighWater Press
978-1-55379-975-7
48 pp.
Ages 14-18
May 2021
In my family, silence has been the currency of injustice.
~ Senator Murray Sinclair, Foreword to Sugar Falls
Too many of the truths about injustices perpetrated against Indigenous peoples have been hidden, suppressed and ignored. With the original publication of Sugar Falls: A Residential School Story in 2011, some of those truths were told, based on the true story of Betty Ross, Elder at Cross Lake First Nation. Today with the release of this tenth anniversary edition of Sugar Falls, I hope even more readers are ready to hear those truths.
When a present-day class is given an assignment to look at the residential school system, with strict instructions to approach Elders with respect and an offering, Cree student April offers to introduce Daniel to her Kōkom, an Elder who survived it but whose story even April had not heard.
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| From Sugar Falls by David A. Robertson, illus. by Scott B. Henderson, colours by Donovan Yaciuk |
Abandoned at age five into the winter's cold by her own mother who had survived the residential school system, she is found and brought up as a daughter and sister in a loving family. A few years later, after he has a vision of darkness in her future, her father takes her to Sugar Falls where he teaches her to feel the beat of their hearts as drums in rhythm with that of the falls, and that "The beat of the drum represents the strengths of our relationships, between our ancestors, our traditions with Mother Earth, and with each other" (pg. 13) and that remembering this would keep her strong.
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| From Sugar Falls by David A. Robertson, illus. by Scott B. Henderson, colours by Donovan Yaciuk |
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| From Sugar Falls by David A. Robertson, illus. by Scott B. Henderson, colours by Donovan Yaciuk |
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| From Sugar Falls by David A. Robertson, illus. by Scott B. Henderson, colours by Donovan Yaciuk |
I did it to keep her memory alive. My story, her story are stories that we should never forget, no matter who we are, they are important to all of us. (pg. 39)
Governor-General award-winning author David A. Robertson does so much in the telling of Sugar Falls. He honours Betty Ross by giving her story new life so that more will know of her courage and resilience and that of so many who endured and those who did not at the hands of a brutal system that never should have happened. Generations later, Indigenous people continue to live in the aftermath of that horrific injustice and with each story told, the silence is broken a little more, allowing an opportunity for justice to manifest. By giving voice to Betty to speak of her past, from abandonment to loving family and residential school nightmare, and those of her granddaughter and non-Indigenous friend to hear her story from their own perspectives, David A. Robertson lets us see Betty as a survivor with heart, strength and compassion.
Because this is a graphic novel, less needs to be said in text and more can be carried by the artwork, and illustrator Scott B. Henderson and colourist Donovan Yaciuk take on their task with reverence and empathy. The despair of life at the residential school is clear in the starkness and gloom of the shapes, lines and colours of those scenes, with Scott B. Henderson and Donovan Yaciuk saving the brightness for outdoor scenes with family and the contemporary settings of school and Kōkom's home. It was clear where the lightness in Betty's life is, past and present.
Today, with the release of David A. Robertson's tenth anniversary edition of Sugar Falls, there is a new opportunity for the world to listen and see this story, to silence the silence and give survivors of the residential school system, both those who lived it and those whose legacy it is, a chance to tell their stories and have them remembered.
