New Arctic Novel about clash of cultures in North Country

(PRLEAP.COM) White Bird Black Bird by Australian born author and journalist, Val Wake, gives readers a unique insight into the development of indigenous rights movement in Canada’s Arctic.

Based on the author’s experience as a journalist, working for CBC Northern Service from 1969 to 1973, White Bird Black Bird has, by the author’s own account,had a long gestation period but the issues its raises are just as alive today as they were more than 30 years ago.

As southern consumers, with their shopping mall mentality, continue to consume and demand more fossil fuels, northern societies like the Inuit and the Indian tribes of Dogrib, Chipewyan, Loucheux and Hare continue to come under stress as they adjust their customs and lifestyle to modern needs.

Today many indigenous communities have successfully adapted to the entrepeneaurial society by issuing their own development licenses and running businesses like airlines.

But there is still the fundamental problem of maintaining their identity in a modern world.

White Bird Black Bird goes some way to explaining this problem by following in the tracks of a young reporter on his first serious assignment to work out of the new Territorial capital of Yellowknife.

What Warren Pritchard lacks in experience he makes up for with enthusiasm. He becomes directly involved in the land rights claims of the Indian people and is instrumental in drawing the native rights bid to the attention of a national audience.

In the process he forms a relationship with a local Hare woman, a teacher trainee, working at the Dogrib settlement of Rae.

The twists and turns of the political and social development of the indigenous people and the attempts by government and the oil and gas people to reach an accommodation are well documented in this story.

White Bird Black Bird by Val Wake is published by Booksurge, ISBN 13-9781439203453 and is available on www.amazon.com pp 521 $19.99 US.

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