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The AIH Transcript For October 15, 2021

[hosts]Carol Off, Chris Howden[/hosts]

CAROL Off: Hello, I'm Carol Off.

CHRIS HOWDEN: Good evening. I'm Chris Howden. This is As It Happens.

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Prologue

CH: Tonight:

CO: In the line of duty. British MP Sir David Amess is stabbed to death while meeting with constituents; a colleague remembers him as a kind and funny man who was devoted to serving the public.

CH: Crude proposition. A decaying tanker off the coast of Yemen is at imminent risk of causing a catastrophic oil spill, leaving tens of millions of people without water -- but our guest says there's still time to act.

CO: It no longer comes with the territory. Citing legal action by First Nations, the government of New Brunswick orders employees to stop making Indigenous title acknowledgements.

CH: "Hatchet"'s job. The late Gary Paulsen's best-selling book Hatchet captivated generations of young readers with its tale of outdoor survival -- but his son tells us that, for him, the adventures were real-life.

CO: Following his bassist instincts. After a stormy exit a couple of months ago from the band he'd played bass for since 1979, Simon Gallup finds the cure for what ailed him by rejoining The Cure.

CH: And… a cry for kelp. Researchers in BC discover there's no need to worry that otters are damaging seagrass -- because they've learned the clam-diggers are actually helping the ecosystem thrive.

CH: As It Happens, the Friday edition. Radio that suggests: for instant results -- just add otter.

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Part 1: British MP Killed, NB Land Acknowledgements, Gary Paulsen Obit

British MP Killed

Guest: Pauline Latham

CH: The U.K. is reeling after the murder of a Member of Parliament. Conservative MP Sir David Amess was stabbed today -- during a constituency meeting in Leigh-on-Sea, a seaside town east of London. He died before even making it to hospital. Essex police have arrested a 25-year-old man. Sir David Amess was elected in 1983. He was one the country's longest-serving MPs. He was pro-Brexit, a devout Catholic -- and very serious about getting a town in his district, Southend, designated a city. He was so dedicated to that fight that he brought it up pretty much every week in Parliament. Just yesterday, he spoke with BBC Essex about why.

SOUNDCLIP

SIR DAVID AMESS: Well, if the House of Commons wants... want to shut me up [chuckling] being the city bore, they need to grant it to us. Because I... I've spent all my time really mentioning it at every conceivable opportunity, and I will.

HOST: So you're just going to wear them down? [laughing]

SDA: [chuckling] Yes, yes. If... if they want to shut me up, if they're sick to death of hearing about all the reasons why Southend should become a city, then they should grant us to it. It's a no-brainer. The benefits are enormous, frankly. And we are engaging local residents in the situation. We've got some great events planned, and we've got a wonderful team of people who put in our bid together. So I'm really, really excited about the prospect. It could just absolutely transform things in the Southend and raise civic pride and really make people, I hope, get behind the bid.

CH: That was Sir David Amess speaking with BBC yesterday. The Conservative MP was stabbed to death today. He was 69. Pauline Latham is a Conservative MP. We reached her in Mid Derbyshire.

CO: Ms. Latham, first of all, I'm sorry for your loss.

PAULINE LATHAM: Yes, it's been a terrible shock for everybody today to hear about the tragic death of Sir David Amess.

CO: What do you understand about what happened?

PL: Well, as far as I know, he was having a surgery, which is what most MPs do, where they meet constituents with problems. But he was holding his in the local church. And somebody went in... now, whether that was a planned surgery appointment or somebody burst in, we don't know at this point, and stabbed him, I understand, five times. And although the medics were there very quickly to try to save him, they weren't able to, which is, you know, just such a tragedy.

CO: We just got a bit of a sense of what he is about and how for decades, he has been... been trying to get changes for his constituents, and he speaks of civic pride. What was he like?

PL: He was a man who everybody liked, who was respected, who never particularly wanted to be a minister. He was very happy to be on the backbenches. He worked incredibly hard for his constituents. And, as you say, he wanted it to get city status. And I think there be a campaign amongst those who are still left who will want that to happen in his memory because I cannot remember a time in my 11-and-a-half years in Parliament where he didn't mention it. And he was the sort of person that has a twinkle in his eye. He had a sense of some, but he was a very kind gentleman who was respected by colleagues from all political parties. I don't think you'd ever hear anything bad said about him from anybody in the House of Commons.

CO: He may not have been ambitious to be a minister, but he was recognized for his contribution, wasn't he? He was... he was knighted in 2015. And I understand he dressed... he dressed up from head to toe in armour and sat on a horse. [laughing] And... and... and he... was that sort of... of his nature, of his character?

PL: Yes, because he has a sense of fun and because he loved life, and he was obviously deeply honoured by being made Sir David Amess, rather than just plain David Amess, but he didn't get pompous or brag about it. He was just very proud of that honour that was given to him.

CO: Are there any... is there any news today as to who is suspected and what motive might have been suspected in the slaying of Sir David?

PL: Yes, there's been a 25-year-old man who has been arrested at the scene, and the knife was found. The police are not looking for anybody else. We don't know whether it was any sort of terrorist type of incident. We don't know if it was a hate crime. We don't know anything other than the fact that he tragically lost his life doing his duty. If you can't go about your business safely and peacefully, what is democracy all about? Certainly, when we have a surgery and people coming to see you, we're often the last port of call. People don't know where else to go, and they desperately need our help. We try to help them to the best of our ability to try and unlock what the problem is. And that's exactly what Sir David was busy doing in his surgery. That's what we all try to do to help people. And he was just one of those lovely people that you enjoyed working with, and I was fortunate enough to sit on the committee with him for some time, usually sat next to him, and he had a sense of fun. But he took the job very seriously, too.

CO: I'm sure that people are thinking about what happened in 2016 to another MP, Jo Cox, who was killed in very similar, strikingly similar circumstances. And that... her murder was something that that was talked about around the world. It was… it became an international concern about exactly what you're talking about, parliamentarians, people who represent their constituents, who need to go out and speak and are vulnerable to these kinds of attacks. So what needs... we talked then about what needs to change, but what needs to change to make lawmakers safe in order to do that?

PL: It's a very difficult situation. I mean, the police, I understand, some forces are going and talking to all their Members of Parliament about how to make themselves safe and that they're there for us. But they can't be there every second of the day. So we will always be vulnerable, I think. And I think we will be a bit more worried about going out and about than we have been in the past. And, you know, we are up there trying to uphold the law and trying to do a good job for society, and we have put ourselves up. But of course, with that, it means that we are in more danger than the average person in the street. You know, that is terribly sad. Having said that, we do have a bit of a knife crime problem in this country at the moment, and I think maybe this is something that the police are going to have to really reflect on.

CO: How will you remember him from your own experiences?

PL: As a man of fun. As a man who took this job seriously. Obviously, as a father and a husband. And a colleague.

CO: And what about... do you fear for your own safety now with what's happened to him?

PL: I will be looking behind me probably a little bit more, but he was probably facing the person that murdered him. So I think we all have to reflect. But now is the time to think about his family and the time for protecting Members of Parliament. And more importantly, protecting democracy is for next week and beyond. At the moment, we're thinking more, much more, about his friends and family and his work colleagues in his constituency.

CO: Ms. Latham, I really appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

PL: Thank you.

CH: Pauline Latham is a Conservative MP. We reached her in Mid Derbyshire. And we have more on Sir David Amess on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[music: indie rock]

NB Land Acknowledgements

Guest: Patricia Bernard

CH: The political landscape is changing in New Brunswick. Emphasis on "land". Attorney General Ted Flemming has sent a memo to employees of the provincial government -- ordering them to stop making territorial or title acknowledgements, referring to Indigenous land, at meetings and events, in documents, or in email signatures. The province says the new rules are a result of ongoing legal action taken against the government by some First Nations. Last year, six Wolastoqey First Nations filed a lawsuit asserting title to their traditional lands, which cover about half the province. That includes Madawaska Maliseet First Nation -- whose chief is Patricia Bernard. We reached her in Edmunston, New Brunswick.

CO: Chief Bernard. What does this memo suggest to you about how the province might see its relationship with Indigenous people in the province?

PATRICIA BERNARD: Well, I see this as an act almost of desperation forcing approval on their employees. And I find it somewhat ridiculous, almost unprecedented, to... to tell the employees of New Brunswick to which numerous of these employees are Indigenous, not to say something that they most likely believe.

CO: And what have you heard? Have you been talking, speaking with Indigenous government employees about this memo?

PB: I've spoken to a few, and some of them were scared, actually. We have people who live in our community who are non-Indigenous but are in relationships with Indigenous people, and they were actually afraid of what might happen. What are the ramifications if you disobey this memo? Will you be fired? Are you pointed out because you might be Indigenous, or you might be married to an Indigenous person? At this point, I'm just trying to wrap my head around what exactly the premier is trying to do? what is his end game here?

CO: Or trying to signal, perhaps?

PB: Exactly. I think he's signalling that this is not going to be a negotiated topic. Now what would... what would Canada think if Justin Trudeau came out and said to all the federal government employees, you cannot say that you are on unceded or unsurrendered lands where you are because we're... we're in litigation. It just doesn't make sense.

CO: Now, he says in the memo, this is a quote, as you may be aware, the government of New Brunswick is involved in a number of legal actions which have been initiated by certain First Nations against the province, including a claimed ownership and title to over 60 per cent of the province. Is your Nation involved in that as well?

PB: We are part of that group. But when he says 60 per cent, what he doesn't realize is that 100 per cent of the province is unseated and unsurrendered. It's just that only certain groups have started claims. It doesn't mean the other communities won't do that.

CO: So what do you think he might be signalling to New Brunswickers in general about how he's going to fight this?

PB: I don't understand his... his motives for doing things, but this doesn't seem to help at all. Like, are you expecting that if a government employee says something that, oh, that's an admission of law? Everyone has individual opinions on things, and you're stifling that. You're gagging them from saying what they think. That just sounds ridiculous. And, in fact, it's racist.

CO: As you know, there's a claim or a fear that somehow people are going to lose their homes or their property with these land claims. Do you think he is playing into that concern?

PB: You know, that could very well be that he's doing some fear-mongering here. He must have known that this was going to go viral somewhat and that people are going to be outraged. But I think it's backfiring. It's backfiring in that he's trying to censor or control people's thoughts.

CO: The terms unseated and unsurrendered are not just thoughts; they are historical facts. But they are being challenged as legal facts, right? And we know that in legal language, every word, every comma, has... carries weight. So is it possible that the government of New Brunswick has legal advice not to use these terms because while they might be historical facts, they're not legal facts yet?

PB: If you're a civil servant and you say something, that doesn't mean it's the law. You're being respectful. This has been done in the past. Civil servants in New Brunswick have said unseated and unsurrendered land hundreds of times, and they're recorded. And now, all of a sudden, because we're in litigation, stop saying it isn't taking away the fact that it is a fact. This is all going to be interpreted by the courts through legal principles as to whether or not the underlying ownership of land is Aboriginal title or Crown title.

CO: And that's... and that's what you're pursuing in the courts. That you want this not just to be historical fact, but you want it to be established as legal fact that it's unseated and unsurrendered.

PB: We are seeking a legal declaration that these lands are unseated and unsurrendered, which ultimately what that means is the New Brunswick government is no longer the landlord of Crown Lands, but the First Nations are.

CO: Right. But is it possible the government of New Brunswick is trying to avoid anyone using language that is being challenged in court as whether or not it's legal fact?

PB: they may be doing that. But how ridiculous is that? I mean, what is the lawyer supposed to do? Go to court and say, yeah, well, Joe, who's the manager of Department of Transportation, he said unseated lands. So, therefore, it's law. That's ridiculous! At the same time, what if Joe from Department of Transportation believes that? What if he is an Indigenous person, and he's been teaching this to his children, and he's now being stifled and to be disrespectful in acknowledging what territory they... they're having this meeting on? Now you can say the ancestral homelands, and this is what's referred to in the memo. But ancestral homelands basically says that we don't exist anymore. We're still here. It's... it's a racist move directly, and it's ridiculous! It's just... it's utterly unfathomable to think about it.

CO: The suggested language is we respectfully acknowledge the territory in which we gather. We strive for respectful relationships with all the peoples of this province, as we search for collective healing and true reconciliation and to honour this beautiful land together. What do you think he wants to signal with that language?

PB: Those are. Those are just words. They're empty words. He has done nothing towards truth and reconciliation. Canada, this country, is striving towards truth and reconciliation, while New Brunswick is striving towards lies and rejection.

CO: Do you think that this memo has set back reconciliation and the progress that's been made in these past months?

PB: Well, there has been no progress with... with the Wolastoqey, I can tell you that. So it's set... it's setting back even further. He's going backwards. He is going to go down as the worst premier in First Nation government relations in the history of New Brunswick.

CO: Chief Bernard. We'll leave it there, and we'll be following this story. And I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

PB: Thank you.

CH: Patricia Bernard is the Chief of the Madawaska Maliseet First Nation in Edmunston, New Brunswick.

[music: industrial]

Gary Paulsen Obit

Guests: Jim Paulsen, Jennifer Flannery

CH: For generations of reluctant young readers, Hatchet was the novel that first sparked their interest in books. The best-selling story about a boy who teaches himself to survive in the wilderness has been a favourite in classrooms and libraries since it was first published in 1986. Gary Paulsen -- who wrote that book, and countless others -- didn't have Hatchet to introduce him into the world of fiction. But he had a local librarian who changed his life by giving him a library card.

SOUNDCLIP

GARY PAULSEN: Nobody gave me anything. Nobody. Parents. Nobody. And she gave me a library card, and it's my identity. It's what I became. And what... God, yous have no idea. You really don't. I... it wasn't just pivotal; it was everything. I started to read then.

CH: That was author Gary Paulsen speaking on the American Writers Museum podcast in January. Mr. Paulsen died on Wednesday. He was 82. Jim Paulsen is Gary Paulsen's son. We reached him Tularosa, New Mexico. And Jennifer Flannery is Mr. Paulsen's literary agent. She is in Naperville, Illinois.

CO: Jim, I'm going to start with you. First of all, sorry for the loss of your dad.

JIM PAULSEN: Thank you. Thank you. He's sorely missed.

CO: When you hear him talking about getting that library card, which just changed so much in his life, what goes through your mind?

JP: Well, I think, first of all, he... as much as he was a writer to everybody else, for me, he was... he was Dad. He was my father, you know? And a lot of the adventures he wrote about, he took me on. And I think about when... when I hear him talk about that, I think about how impossible my life is. I had the perfect childhood. I mean, he was... even when we were just dirt poor, he was an amazing father. And I... when we were poor, I didn't know we were poor. I had no idea that... that I was living a life that other people were trying to avoid. You know, we lived off the land, we enjoyed life. And I think about that librarian and now, and in retrospect, and that card, and how much that meant, how much that... that affected my own life. I mean, and by consequence, millions of lives around the world.

CO: Interesting you mentioned about living off the land and his... your father's connection to land and nature because this is two parts of it, right? The library card introduced him to the whole idea of fiction and writing, and storytelling. But the land was his inspiration. And Jennifer, and also to you, I'm sorry for the loss of your friend.

JENNIFER FLANNERY: Thank you.

CO: And I want to ask you about... Gary Paulsen had already been a writer for some time before he published Hatchet, which was an instant classic, as you know, and became an entry point for so many young people when they started to read. What do you think made that book so special?

JF: You know, Gary talked a lot about pacing. He tapped into the natural pacing of how children read, how the human body works. He left every chapter on a hanging note so that you had to turn the page. But I think the most important thing about Gary and his writing is that he never pulled any punches. He never lied. Jim said it earlier today when we were talking... he carved pieces off of himself and put them in the book. And I think that the kids really were... everybody, all the teachers, librarians, booksellers and most importantly, the young readers responded to that authenticity. That it was Gary gave it to you straight.

CO: Jim, I'll ask you also about Hatchet and also just on what Jennifer is saying about how he connected with young people, how he wrote for them. What did he tell you about that?

JP: To him, a young reader was... was everything. I mean, his life with books before he even started writing was... was... I mean, it was a stepping stone that got him there. And he understood because he was a reluctant reader because he was a kid who... who, you know, had nothing and got everything from books, I think that kind of fuelled where he ended up as a writer and how he touched so many lives. I think that... that... I mean, he's still Dad to me. So, you know, I have a kind of a different take on everything. I was around him for 51 years; he left on my birthday. And that leaves... I'm kind of caught in the middle, you know? He's my father on one hand, so I was always around him, and I inherited his love of reading and his love of books. And I'm hoping to carry on his legacy so that he's not forgotten, so that, you know, everybody always remembers how... how much he cared for younger readers.

CO: And he spoke about that, didn't he? He talked about how young people are the only hope. [chuckling] And he didn't have much hope for adults, who he said are... are locked into car payments and divorce and work.

JP: [chuckling] Yes.

CO And they haven't got time to think fresh, unlike young people. And so... and so he was very inspired to write for them, wasn't he?

JP: Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, it's not that he never wanted to write for adults, it's just that he... he really found a way to speak to young people. I think something that I'm reminded of a lot in tweets and social media since he passed is that a lot of people read him as a... as a... as a kid, as a young person, and they didn't feel talked down to. He was speaking to them as them, and he never... he always had a gift to be able to talk to young readers, talking to them, not talking down to them. He managed to be one of them, you know, right to the end.

CO: I think somebody else mentioned that he was perfectly... was able to speak to young people, with the exception of not being as gross as young... young boys [CO and JP chuckle] are at that age when they're reading. And Jennifer, just for you, what do you think made his book so approachable for young readers?

JF: He... he was just honest to a fault. He... he would... he would write things that I had never read before in children's books. And he said, no, no, it'll be fine. You know, there were really gross things and... and dangerous things, and he just never shied away from telling kids what they needed to know, giving them the tools and the skills in the pages of the book to deal with whatever came their way. And I think the survival adventures that he had were really metaphors for real life. I don't think a lot of adults spend a lot of time telling kids, here's how to survive. And Gary did. Gary knew that it was not easy, and he would always ask whenever we went to bookstores, libraries, classrooms, he would always pull the adults aside and say, is there anybody in trouble? Is there anybody who has a bad home life? Is there anybody who's not making the grade here? And he would spend time with them afterwards talking, put his arm around them, go off into a corner and they would just sit and talk. Two… [beginning to cry] I'm sorry. Two broken people were connecting, and he was telling them it's going to be OK. You'll be OK. It's not OK now. I'm not going to lie to you. It really sucks right now, but if I can do it, you can do it. And that really meant... that was a beautiful thing to see. It... he gave me many gifts over the last 30 years and 131 books, but that's what I... that's what I'll think of when I think of my friends Gary.

CO: And Jim, I'll go back to you because it's... what Jennifer just mentioned about broken people, and that he spoke in that clip we just heard about nobody gave me anything. He grew up hardscrabble in many respects, didn't he? And what is it... what is that experience... what did he bring to his writing from his own childhood and adolescence?

JP: Oh, yeah, I mean, he... he wrote directly about it quite often. I mean, there was a lot of him in everything he wrote. And sometimes, it was things he learned as an adult that he kind of transposed into his youth as well. You know, I mean, he kind of carried that... that hardscrabble attitude even after he made it. It seems negative to a lot of people, his childhood, but there were some real beautiful moments, and he spent a lot of time capturing those moments in... in his books and in his stories. And it fuelled who he was. I mean, and he burned... burned the candle down to the end. I couldn't be prouder of him.

CO: Jim, I appreciate you sharing stories about your dad, and Jennifer. Thank you both for telling us about Gary Paulsen.

JP: Take care of you very much.

JF: Me too. Thank you.

CH: Jim Paulsen is the son of author Gary Paulsen. He's in Tularosa, New Mexico. Jennifer Flannery is Mr. Paulsen's literary agent. She's in Naperville, Illinois. Gary Paulsen, author of Hatchet and many other novels, died on Wednesday. He was 82.

[music: sad acoustic guitar]

Part 2: Red Sea Oil Tanker, Otter Sea Grass

Red Sea Oil Tanker

Guest: Ian Ralby

CH: Off the coast of Yemen, there is a decaying tanker with more than a million barrels of oil on board. It's called the F.S.O. Safer -- and experts say it is a ticking time bomb. For years, the ship has been sitting in the Red Sea, with a skeleton crew that's only able to do minor repairs. The United Nations says it's been trying to find a solution -- but the Houthi rebels who control the area will not allow it. Ian Ralby is one of the experts sounding the alarm. He is the CEO of the maritime law and security firm I.R. Consilium. We reached him in Baltimore, Maryland.

CO: Ian, why do you think it is dangerously likely that there could be an oil spill in the Red Sea from the F.S.O. Safer?

IAN RALBY: Well, based on the last several years of efforts to at least inspect the F.S.O. Safer, making no progress along that time, it's unlikely that we'll make any significant progress in the near future. The F.S.O. Safer is well past its prime. It is likely to corrode to the point of either sinking or spilling in... in the near future. And, unfortunately, thus far, there has been no clear path to resolving what seems to now becoming... to becoming an intractable problem. The area around the Safer is mined. That makes the access to it both dangerous and requiring a prerequisite mine-sweeping operation, as well as a security operation during any kind of offloading operation that does occur. Thus far, we've made no real headway in... in actually getting to the point of being able to conduct either of those operations.

CO: What exactly is it? And how did it come to be sitting there with all this oil and, I guess, a pipeline involved as well?

IR: Correct. The F.S.O. Safer was was actually built as an ultra-large crude carrier in the mid-70s. It was converted to a floating storage and offloading facility in the late-80s, and since 1988, it has been connected to the Marib – Ras Isa pipeline. Marib light crude oil coming out of Yemen is extremely valuable oil. And this was the main export terminal for it from 1988 until the outbreak of the war in 2015. The Safer was only supposed to be in place for 10 years. Its capacity is up to three million barrels, and when the war broke out in 2015, it was more than a decade passed when it was supposed to, almost two decades past when it was supposed to be decommissioned. And the tanker has... has stayed with 1.14 million barrels on board ever since. To put that in context, that's roughly four times or more than four times the size of the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989. And to put it in stark contrast, the recent spill off of California was about 3,000 barrels, and here we're talking about 1.14 million.

CO: Just give us a sense of what would be the consequences for that very fragile and well-populated region if there should be a spill of this oil?

IR: This primarily is a huge humanitarian concern because two main factors make this different. One, most of the food keeping the already under famine population of Yemen alive come through the port of Hudaydah, nearby to where the Safer is moored. Unfortunately, this spill would likely disrupt the access to that port, and any disruption in food supplies will consequence in death. That is the sad reality of this situation. Furthermore, the coastline of the Red Sea is populated with desalination plants, which provide the drinking water for tens of millions of people along the coast. So this is a major humanitarian situation for the entire region, not just Yemen.

CO: Well, the United Nations recognizes this... this could be a humanitarian disaster and has been trying to get on board to examine the tanker. The Houthi rebels, as you know, have not allowed that. So you mentioned military intervention. What are you talking about?

IR: Well, military intervention sounds terrible, and we have to remember a couple of things. One, military intervention doesn't have to be an armed assault on land, and that is not at all what would be helpful in this context. What we need is the use of military resources, specifically minesweepers and a security operation, to prevent any access to the Safer during an offloading operation. And so the UN Security Council would be well within its both competence and rights to at this point, for the greater good, to pass a resolution to allow for a limited military operation to de-mine around the vessel and secure the offloading operation. Because the consequences are not fundamentally environmental, they are fundamentally humanitarian.

CO: But you know how fragile this is. I mean, this situation between the Houthi rebels and the Yemeni regime is... could.. I mean, it's already bad enough as it is, and the humanitarian tragedy that's already happening there. Don't you fear that by bringing in a foreign vessel... you're calling for a Chapter Seven Resolution... for a resolution from the Security Council under Chapter Seven. This is, you know, pretty interventionist, don't you think, don't you fear, that that could actually cause more trouble?

IR: Well, I mean, it depends on what your magnitude of concern is. Increasing conflict that has already been raging for five years or loss of drinking water for tens of millions of people and almost certain death for multiple millions of people on account of loss of basic goods and humanitarian needs. We have to... we have to take action on this because the consequences of not doing so are too grave.

CO: We have been covering the war in Yemen since 2015, and have done so many interviews with players who talk about how there is so little international concern about what is happening there and the crises, the famine, the situation for… for people in that region and we never see anything happen. So what do you think is possible? Do you think that the international community really would intervene because of this?

IR: Well, I honestly, I don't understand. I think the Yemeni people are among the kindest, warmest I have ever worked with in my life. And it is... it is a real tragedy that, for whatever reason, Yemen seems to be a sort of black hole of global attention. I do think, however, that there are enough vested interests in other issues that, even for self-interest, many of the P5 of the UN Security Council should take action. If you look at just even the basing along the Red Sea, a catastrophic oil spill of over a million barrels will affect so many different actors in so many different ways.

CO1: So even if you don't care about Yemen, which seems to be clear, you're talking about enlightened self-interest?

IR: I wouldn't even call it enlightened, but just self-interest. I mean, it is... it is really quite sad. But the fact is there are... whether it's the global economy and the access through the Red Sea, or if it's just the... the opportunity to... to enjoy the beauty of the Red Sea coral systems, you can... you can certainly get there. And there are enough players who have a direct interest in getting this resolved, if they see it, that we should be able to build enough momentum to do it. But I have to say, after all these years, I struggle to find glimmers of hope.

CO: Well, Ian, I appreciate you sounding the alarm on this, and thanks for speaking with us.

IR: Absolutely. Thank you.

CH: Ian Ralby is the CEO of the maritime law and security firm I.R. Consilium. He was in Baltimore, Maryland.

[music: banjo!!!]

FOA: Toronto Banksy Exhibit

CH: Sometimes it doesn't seem like a coincidence that the word "bank" is in the name "Banksy". In October of 2018, a work by the secretive, world-famous artist called girl with balloon sold for 1.7 million dollars Canadian at auction. It was a big moment. Immediately followed by a bigger one: as it sold, a tiny shredder installed inside the frame began to "self-shred' the work. It was an outrageous, mocking stunt. Or it was supposed to be. Except that Sotheby's chairman of modern and contemporary art praised it as "one of the most ingenious moments of performance art this century." And yesterday, whoever originally bought that half-shredded painting made a huge profit: the damaged work, now known as Love is in the Bin, sold at auction for a second time, for close to 20 times its pre-shredded price: about 31.5 million dollars Canadian. So much for that pointed commentary. Speaking of which: in 2018, before the shredding incident, the world's largest Banksy exhibit opened in Toronto. And tickets were 35 dollars a pop. Which prompted one artist to protest outside. Here's Carol asking artist George Warner about that show, and about Banksy.

SOUNDCLIP

GW: I think it's deplorable. You know Banksy is supposed to be a socialist. I mean if you look at his art, he projects the common man, and the frustrations, and the protest. But I don't see that. I don't see him moving to the next level now. You like David Suzuki when he got popular. You know he made the world know about ecology. What has Banksy done?

CO: Well, hang on now, George, because you know he didn't endorse this exhibition. This is not approved by him. It’s people making a business out of it. It's not Banksy.

GW: That’s right. I call that a cash grab.

CO: OK. So are you protesting against Banksy, or against the people you think are exploiting him?

GW: The whole gambit. There's so much involved. I've been talking to people left and right. They understand where I'm coming from. They've gone in and saw the work, they've come out, and you know they're a little bit puzzled.

CO: But isn't it supposed to make you a bit puzzled?

GW: It depends what the artist is trying to portray and what he's trying to emphasize. I mean some artists create a mirror image of society, which is realistic and you know honest. Some people they don't. You know some people are trendy, what’s hip? Let’s do that. You know you shouldn't be dictated to do art for a buck. It should come from the soul.

CO: But Banksy, as you point out, he's a public artist. He was putting up his stuff on walls for free. His whole point was that he would do mural art and it was for was for the people, and not for his pocketbook. So his work is a social protest against exploitation. It's about workers. It’s about peace. You disagree obviously.

GW: Yes. You know, he’s getting a little cheesy now, you know?

CO: So you are outside with your work, and are people coming to look at your paintings after?

GW: Absolutely, of course. It's so different from his stuff. It's so different.

CO: And are you selling your work?

GW: Yes, I've had many offers; I'm negotiating on a few.

CO: George, doesn't that make you a capitalist?

GW: No, no. Because you know what I do? Somebody says oh, I like that, can I buy that? I say what do you see in that? What does that mean to you? And if they give me some kind of in-depth study, in-depth soul-searching idea well then you know I look at the shoes and way the way they dress and make me an offer. You know I'm a very easygoing guy. I just want to see in them something that is real. You know I don't want speculators. I'll buy that. I'll buy that. I'll buy that. Well, why? It doesn’t matter. I just want to buy. Well, what type of guy is that?

CH: From our archives, that was George Warner, a Toronto artist, speaking to Carol about Banksy in June 2018.

[music: electronic]

Otter Sea Grass

Guest: Erin Foster

CH: If you want a plant in your garden to flourish, you would think ripping up the roots would be… counterproductive. But according to a new study, an underwater plant called "eelgrass" thrives on that kind of destruction. Although, in the case of that particular seagrass near Vancouver Island, it's not humans who are out there with trowels, beneficially tearing up roots. It's otters. With their own built-in trowels. Erin Foster is the lead author of the study, which was part of her PhD work at the University of Victoria. We reached her in Nanaimo, British Columbia.

CO: Erin, can you just give us a picture of what these otters are like when you can see them underwater? What are they doing to the eelgrass?

ERIN FOSTER: Well, you know, they start out by swimming, often on their side. They use their whiskers and their paws to feel for siphons or clams or worms. And then they go sort of vertical, so head down, paws out in front and they dig... dig a pit.Aand they're trying to get the clam or the worm or whatever is in there out to eat. And the eelgrass is sort of in the way. And so, it's a... it's a casualty of the pit. They're ripping out little chunks of the eelgrass's rhizomes, which are... which are like its roots, just sort of a matted… a matted web of roots and rhizomes that the otters dig through to get to some of their food.

CO: And what does the seafloor look like after the otters have had their way with it?

EF: Well, it looks a bit like a moonscape, but with... still with a lot of eelgrass growing around it. So maybe a vegetated moonscape with these pockmarks everywhere.

CO: And so the theories were that the otters were doing a fair bit of damage to this eelgrass, right? So what... why did you decide that you wanted to re-examine that?

EF: Well, I don't think there was a theory necessarily that the otters were damaging it. My professor in my undergraduate work, Jane Watson, who is a friend and mentor of mine now, and was really involved with the study, it was her idea. And so she was looking at these pits and thinking, you know, sea otters have been on the coast of North America for 600,000 to 700,000 years old. They're digging all that time. Eelgrass must have some way to be OK, or we wouldn't have any eelgrass. And so, she's well versed in natural history, and she knew that most terrestrial plants, when they're... when they're stressed out, the flower, it's sort of like a last ditch effort to get your genes out before you die. And so she wondered if the digging might cause flowering in eelgrass? And eelgrass flowering would be really important because it's largely clonal. So that means when you get to a meadow, an undisturbed meadow, you often find that every single plant that you see is actually not a plant. It's... it's just a genetic copy of the neighbour. And the eelgrass has been spreading through roots and shoots, and everything is genetically identical. So if you can... if the otters are digging, the pits are causing eelgrass to flower and then also providing the pit for the seed to settle in and get sunlight and grow, you can imagine how that might change the genetic diversity of the bed. And then that genetic diversity, in turn, would make eelgrass more resilient to change.

CO: Is that what you're actually observing? That it is flowering and it is reproducing that way and not just through the rhizomes?

EF: Anecdotally. So we tried to measure flowering going on with the cuadrat over the three weeks that we were collecting the DNA samples. And with the geographic extent of the study, so most of the west coast of Vancouver Island and then the central B.C. coast, we couldn't capture the flowering periods of all the meadows. And so we just used observations. But the genetic data, really there was no other. We tested everything else we could think of that might have affected genetics, and nothing seemed to fit the data the way that sea otter disturbance was fitting it.

CO: So what have you concluded then?

EF: So that the longer otters are in an area, the more genetically diverse eelgrass becomes.

CO: And so, that explains why the eelgrass thrives, [chuckles] even though the otters are pretty voracious eaters and they tear up this eelgrass wherever they are?

EF: Yeah, I mean, genetic diversity is like playing a lottery. And the more genes that you have in the population, the better chance of one of those plants is going to be adaptive to whatever hits it next, be it heat or acidification or more disturbance, maybe a grazing disturbance this time. And so you just have a better chance that the eelgrass plants will survive and go on to reproduce in these different disturbance stressors that they might experience.

CO: You also look at the effects of traditional Indigenous harvesting of the eelgrass and what effect it has. What did you learn there?

EF: Well, you know, there's this beautiful paper, Severn Cullis-Suzuki is the lead author of it, and it's... it's written with a bunch of collaborators up and down the coast. And she describes how Indigenous people go out in their canoes, and they use a long digging stick and they twirl the rhizomes up the stick and bring them up to the surface. And it's a really important food staple. It's an important starch in people's diets. And she suggests in her paper that this disturbance might also contribute to inducing flowering, enhancing flowering of eelgrass and enhancing genetic diversity.

CO: You had a fair bit of media coverage, including The New York Times has covered your study and plays up the language of the sex, the New York Times said that the otters are stimulating sexual reproduction in eelgrass. And that... that seagrass has more sex when otters are around. What do you... what do you make of that?

EF: [chuckling] Oh, I just had to chuckle. Life's too short to get too worked up. It's... it's a funny way to describe a plant, but to each their own, I guess.

CO: But, I mean, there is a kind of partial truth to it in the fact that the reproduction through the flowering is happening. And that's what you... what you're learning, right? I mean, [chuckling] so even though they decided to play up calling it the sex lives of seagrass, it is what's going on, isn't it?

EF: Well, I suppose so, yes. [chuckling]

CO: Erin, it's really good to speak to you about all this. Thank you.

EF: You're welcome.

CH: That was Erin Foster in Nanaimo, talking about research she led on eelgrass and otters. Ms. Foster is doing her postdoctorate with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and also is a research affiliate at the Hakai Institute in B.C.

[music: “A Forest” by The Cure]

A Cure For The Cure

CH: After 40-plus years, it seemed like he'd finally decided The Cure was worse than the disease, which was also The Cure. On August 14th, Simon Gallup made an announcement on Facebook. "With a slightly heavy heart," he wrote, "I am no longer a member of The Cure! Good luck to them all..." And when a fan asked if he was suffering from health problems or something, Mr. Gallup responded, "I'm okay -- just got fed up of betrayal." On one hand, this was a surprise, because -- except for one period in the '80s -- Simon Gallup has played bass for The Cure since 1979. Plus, bandleader Robert Smith has always referred to him as his best friend. On the other hand, describing The Cure as "a bit dramatic" is a bit like describing Adele as... "a bit dramatic". So dark claims of treachery are kind of on-brand. Still, even if those claims were baseless, it seemed like the band was bass-less as well. Until this week, when -- on Facebook again -- someone asked if Mr. Gallup was still a member of The Cure. To which he replied, "Yes I am." Well, that was fast. First Simon Gallup said he was out, and now Simon Gallup says he's back in. Maybe he didn't say "Simon says". Regardless, it's good news that he realized he could be part of the problem, or part of The Cure -- even if they're the same thing.

[music: that “Corner Gas” diner song]

Part 3: Feature: Brian Thomas Isaac

Feature: Brian Thomas Isaac

Guest: Brian Thomas Isaac

CH: At first glance, Brian Thomas Isaac's novel, All the Quiet Places, may seem like a fairly typical debut. It's the kind of semi-autobiographical, coming-of-age story that often begins a writer's career. But with this book, that's where the expectations end. First, the story itself is an uncommon one. It's about a boy raised on the outskirts of the Okanagan Indian Reserve in British Columbia by a mother determined that he learn the ways of settlers. Second, it's uncommonly good. And perhaps most notably of all, its author is making his debut at 71 years old. Brian Thomas Isaac is a writer from the Okanagan First Nation. His novel, All the Quiet Places, is out this week. We reached Mr. Isaac in the Okanagan Valley, just outside Vernon, B.C., for a feature conversation.

CO: Brian Thomas Isaac, welcome to As It Happens.

BRIAN THOMAS ISAAC: Hi, Carol. Thank you for having me.

CO: Big congratulations on this book. It's beautifully written.

BTI: Well, thank you very much. I appreciate that. I'm very proud of that book.

CO: How does it feel to have made your debut as a published novelist for the first time this week? How does... how did you react when it finally came out?

BTI: You know, it's a very funny thing with me, surreal, actually. But my wife says that I'm the kind of person who always waits for the other shoe to fall. And to me, it's not about me, it's about the book. So I don't feel the emotion that my wife does feel. It's a little more distant. I don't know why that is. Maybe it's the way I was raised to not talk about yourself. And I think it's... there's a little bit of separation between the book and me. It's more about the book than it is me.

CO: What's the emotion that your wife has?

BTI: Oh, she's giddy. She was giggling and laughing and having a great time. But I just... it's kind of bounced off me, sort of thing.

CO: This is Marlene you're talking about?

BTI: Yes. Yes.

CO: But you're waiting for something bad to happen?

BTI: [laughing] I hope not! But, no, I... I've been raised to always wait a little longer, [CO chuckle] but I am pretty excited about actually to tell you the truth. And it just doesn't affect me the same way as it does her.

CO: Let's talk about All the Quiet Places and the story of a boy named Eddie, who is uncommonly aware of his environment, and so observant of things, and anticipates things that are going to go wrong [laughing] all the time. Hmmm, I wonder who he is based on?

BTI: [laughing] Yeah.

CO: What… just tell us about Eddie?

BTI: Well, he just... he just... he's a young boy who notices everything. I guess you could say he's hypervigilant, but he notices everything. He loves the natural world, and he would sooner be out in the natural world than being in the house where his mother's kind of strict. He's got to share his toys or whatever with his little brother. It was a pain. So he prefers to be outside by himself, or walking down to visit his grandma, or going fishing in the river, all by himself. Even at a very young age, he was able to do this. So he has freedom.

CO: He... and he's unaware, though, even though he's so aware of his environment, he's unaware of the fact that he is... his family is very poor.

BTI: Yeah, he doesn't realize how poor he is. Later in the book, somebody comes into the house and sees how he lives and then he becomes aware. He does realize at that point that there is something different going on here.

CO: You have a tremendous attention to detail. You have... this is set in the 50s and 60s, and you describe things so vividly, the colour of a towel beside a wash basin, or the... the look of a man's clothing, his haircut and everything. And so... such an amazing recall of this. Can you describe Eddie's house?

BTI: It's got... It's actually one to three rooms. It's just one big kitchen with a kitchen stove in the very centre, and to one side is a bedroom for him and his brother, and on the other side is his mother's bedroom. And they have... they don't have blankets. The mother has one blanket, but they have coats that they use for blankets. And no water, no power, no... no indoor bathroom. The outside is asphalt shingles, grey asphalt shingles, very generic at the time, red roof. It... I guess if you looked at it right now, you'd think, well, that's a shack. It's more of a shack than a house. But it was a home to them. And it wasn't built the best. The insulation in the walls was sawdust. And after a while, it settled down, and my brother actually, it's a renovation of the old house, he took the wall off, and the sawdust was two-thirds of the way down the wall, so there was hardly any insulation. The window where he eats breakfast looks down towards the river. And you walk up the front door, and there's a bit of a deck or a porch, the slop bucket and the dogsit, so.

CO: And is this similar to where you lived as a boy?

BTI: It's exactly… [chuckle] it's exactly the same. I had to use it for a reference. I... you know, throughout the book, I do use my own life experiences as a reference, I guess because that's all I know. I can't write a mystery, I can't write a science fiction because I don't know that. I know what I know about my life, and that's what I kind of use as my template.

CO: The novel begins when Eddie hasn't yet started school and the family, he and his and his mother and his brother and... and two others, well, three others, another boy, travel to the United States to work, pick fruit and vegetables and work on farms. Is that an experience that you know as well?

BTI: Yes, we did the same thing. We... there's a lot of families who went down that we knew and lived close by to us, and they worked really hard, and we played really hard, got in trouble, everything else. It was a strange experience because we had money at the time. I mean, they worked hard, and they got money. And the yeah, the joys of a candy store were pretty vivid in my imagination -- the same as Eddie's. And, yeah, we did. We went down every year. It's a long trip. We went by train while other people would drive down, but we never had a vehicle.

CO: In this... in this story, though, Eddie... there's a terrible tragedy that happens, so we won't tell people what it is, on one of those farms that actually comes from a very small thing that happens in a candy store, as you just mentioned. Another vivid recall, even the colour of the all-day sucker that was involved in this. Just one tiny mistake that leads to such tremendous tragedy. How is Eddie's life shaped by what happens that day?

BTI: Well, that's a very tragic thing that happened to him. He's not used to that. He was just an innocent little boy, and that changed everything. Now, it's going to start piling up a little bit as he goes along. Yes, it... it affected him greatly.

CO: What strikes me about that is... and so many other incidents in Eddie's life is that small mistakes... I mean, when you live close to the edge, anyone who's grown up the way you did and the way Eddie did know that small mistakes, things that happen that that can so often lead to cataclysmic effects. That other people might experience what was a mistake, and it's not of huge consequence. But everything that happens to Eddie seems to lead to such consequences, doesn't it?

BTI: Yes, yes it does. I think because his mother, she went to day school, lived on the reserve and then she moved away from it. She doesn't really know how to cope with the new life, and she's very protective, overprotective. Eddie doesn't really know. He doesn't know any better. He takes chances, and it... yes, he gets caught a lot of times doing some things that turn bad, that he didn't mean to start out that way.

CO: You're listening to As It Happens, and I'm speaking with Brian Thomas Isaac about his debut novel, All the Quiet Places. It's a coming-of-age story about a boy named Eddie and his turbulent childhood. And you just mentioned at his mother, Grace, who is always at his side through all these traumas. And she's a tough, no-nonsense mom who knows what she wants for her boys. I think you just hinted at it. Who is the inspiration for Grace?

BTI: [chuckling] Well, my mother was that, and even more. She was tough. She was very tough. She... she wasn't a huggy person. Just touching you was good enough. And she was always on the watch. She never, ever took her foot off the gas pedal as far as, you know, being vigilant. When she grabbed you by... she was... she wasn't very big, she was barely five feet tall. And she had hands like iron. When she grabbed your shoulders, it really hurt. [CO chuckles] And men would back away from her and stuff, you know? She was really tough. And my grandma was just as tough.

CO: That's the other really strong woman in this story.

BTI: Yes. Yes. She shows a lot more kindness and love than Eddie's mother. I don't think Grace had much of that growing up the same way as, well, Eddie was until his grandmother comes along occasionally and makes him feel better and speaks kindly to him and kind of looks after him. There's a little more softness.

CO: It's so interesting. All the women in this novel have a kind of, well, they're gentle in one way or another, but they're…. they're… they're caring. They... they look after people. And the men, not so much, right? The men bring chaos and harm into life.

BTI: That's true.

CO: And that's... that's what the men represent in this story.

BTI: Yes. Yes. It wasn't the case for everybody, but in my... in my experience, the women were... they were the ones who looked after everything, and they're the ones who... yeah, they... they weren't afraid. They couldn't be afraid. They... they tackled everything head-on. My mother tackled the Indian agents head-on about so many things that weren't happening out there. And, yeah, she was fearless. My mother was fearless. My grandmother was just as fearless. And the guys just took a backseat. Maybe didn't even care, maybe. But the women cared. They went headfirst into battle sometimes.

CO: You just mentioned the Indian agents, and this is... this haunts... these people haunt the background of this story of your novel, and they are always... yes, people that Grace is going after to provide electricity, provide things that other people have in other communities that they lack.

BTI: Yes.

CO: But the Indian agents are always a threat, aren't they? There's always this idea, and this is a key to what we're learning these days, always the threat that they're going to come and take the children away and take them to a residential school.

BTI: Yes, that's true. That really wasn't the case in my family because... because of my mother, it was so tough. And she spoke to the Indian agents the way Grace speaks to Indian agents in the book. No nonsense, asks straightforward questions. They didn't threaten us. One time, though, I didn't really write about it too much. The Indian agent came down the road with a police car behind, and he said, I've come to take your boy, to take him. My mother said you're not taking him anywhere. You're going to have to kill me first. And she kind of put her arms... put us behind her, stuck her arms out and said you're going to have to pull that gun out there, to the cop, and kill me. I'm not moving. They went... they left. They didn't bother us again after that.

CO: That's not... that's not a story in your novel, [chuckle] that's --

BTI: No.

CO: That happened to you?

BTI: Yes, I actually should have put that in. People told me afterwards. But I... I didn't want to dwell on it a lot. I... the direction I wanted to take with my book was I wanted Eddie to be looked at as an innocent young boy who's living a good life, fun life. He doesn't realize how poor he was. And his mother was strict and tough, but he assumed that's what they all were because his grandmother was like that. And... I didn't want to preach politics, even though there are some in there. I could have spoken more about certain things, but I didn't... I didn't want to. I didn't want to speak about residential schools too much because I never went. It would be an insult to all the people who did go whose lives were changed. I just didn't feel qualified, so.

CO: But you know... but you... you didn't have to. You don't have to because the reader will bring that to the experience.

BTI: Yes.

CO: Because I kept thinking about children in this community, the Indigenous children that you... who grew up on this reserve. Many of them could possibly have been the children that are in those graves in Kamloops.

BTI: Yes, could very well have been. A lot went, especially on the neighbouring reserve, a lot went. More over there than in ours. And I heard about it. I was... I was speechless. It was so tragic. You always hear about the atrocities of war. I mean, that's what this was without the war, though some might call it a war.

CO: At the same time, this… the woman in the novel, Eddie's mother Grace, and I understand your mother as well, very determined to learn the ways of white people or summa as they're called in the book. And why is that?

BTI: Well, I'd visit my grandma quite a bit. And I went there one day, and there was six old ladies, and they're all talking the Okanagan language. But they would laugh and laugh and laugh, and then they would say some more. So when they left, I said to my grandma, hey, can you teach me how to talk like that? And she said, no, you don't need to know that. You just go to school and get good grades so you can get a good job. And, yeah, you don't need to learn the language. You don't need it. And my mum said the same thing to me. So, that was very important to them that I do that.

CO: And it's very important to Grace that Eddie go to a white school and not to a school, other residential school, especially, but not even on the school on the reserve.

BTI: No, no. She... she was determined. She wanted to change. Because her... her brother, Alfonse, was quite content to stay on the reserve and not... you know, to him, life was good enough on the reserve. And he… he had no aspirations to go out and explore the world. Not like... Eddie was an explorer. You know, not only the natural world. He was very curious. And I think maybe Grace saw. Perhaps he saw this, that he... he was a learner. He... he could soak up stuff like a sponge. And Grace, all she wanted to do was have her two boys go to that school.

CO: There's another female character in this that Eddie is quite smitten with. [BTI chuckles] A very, very beautiful white girl named Eva, who is... who just knows [chuckle] how to wrap him around her finger. Whether she is conscious of what she's doing or not, she has a tremendous effect on… on little Edie in so many ways.

BTI: Yes, yes.

CO: And physical as well. Is there... was there an Eva in your childhood?

BTI: [chuckle] Oh, you know what? OK, I'll tell you what. My… my wife had five brothers and five sisters. They were... they were the Clups in the book, right? They were… they lived across the bridge of the reserve. They were a white family. And I liked all of the the kids. I got along with all of them. The girls, one or two especially, were very… well, one, the oldest one was very pretty and very kind. And when I finished the book, I would show two of my sister-in-laws some of the passages that I wrote, and it was about Eva. And I heard them talking, they said, are you Eva or am I Eva? [CO chuckles] So I said, neither one of you. There's... neither one of you. It's a composite character. All your best qualities, all your worst qualities. So it was kind of funny that way.

CO: This is As It Happens, and you're listening to our conversation with the author of this wonderful new novel, All the Quiet Places, and it's written by Brian Thomas Isaac, an Okanagan First Nation writer, and this is his first novel. It's... you set out to write this book in retirement. I know you were… it’s such an accomplished book, and I can't... I kept on thinking, how could this have been? You just... you were working as a bricklayer in the oil patch until you retired. I mean, you couldn't have just started from nothing to create these... this kind of language, these kinds of images. How long have you been actually writing this book?

BTI: Well, I'll tell you what. I started writing In 2003. What happened was we moved to Kelowna in 1999. It was a big dream of ours to move to Kelowna. My wife worked in Kelowna. It was like a 50 mile drive. And so we thought we should just move down there. And we did. We had our 18-year-old son come with us, and then one day he moved out, got his own place. I don't know if you've ever had an 18-year-old move out of your house, but it's time for celebration, right? And I always cooked a great meal and then we danced. And it was great fun. And then, one time I was doing the renovations and Bill Richardson came on. The sad goat, I think, he was called at the time. And he said, I want your stories. I want... I want you to send me your stories about this subject. And one time it was favourite article of clothing or best memory of a bike or something. I don't know. And that became a regular thing. And then, four years later, my wife came to me and said, here I... I got a ticket for you to the Penticton Writers Festival. You should go. It's all writers are going to be there, aspiring writers, they’re going to have workshops. So I went. So after the first day, the host said I want to announce the finalists in the writing category, so I thought to myself, why didn’t... I should have said something. And as she read off the finalist for the non-fiction, playwright, poetry, and then she said, Brian Isaac. I just looked at her. My jaw dropped and she looked at me and she said, What? Why are you so surprised? I said, well, I didn't send anything. She said, well, somebody did. It was my wife that sent it in without my knowledge. But then the next night, I won. And that's what made me sit down, and I just started to write, 2003.

CO: But had you kept a diary? I mean this... the recall, the details, the vividness of this and the way you craft these images. Were you keeping notes at some point?

BTI: No, not really. I should... I forgot to tell you, too. When I was younger, I wrote a lot of poetry. I read a lot. There was no power and water in our house. And my uncles all read. And they read pocketbook westerns or anything they could get their hands on. So I read a lot. And then, I did... I did pretty well in school. And I started to write poetry. And I was into art. And it was quite... quite good at poetry. And it taught me how the rhythm of a sentence and the cadence and how every paragraph should be a short story in itself. So I learned all that at a very young age. When it came time to write the book, it just kind of came back. Because there was quite a gap between writing poetry and reading a lot and then getting out into the world and you have to go to work. You get married. And then I sat down and started to write. There's quite a gap. But I did remember of all of those things, and I do have a very… [chuckle] a child's imagination, some people say. I can remember so many things about being that age, fishing and a storm or making a kite. All those things, they mean a lot to me, they meant a lot to me then. And I do recall them quite vividly.

CO: One of my favourite images is when you describe Eddie with his grandma when they go fishing and they catch all these fish. And they're too hungry to go home with the fish and clean it. So they clean it right there on the spot and cook it up on a fire. And every single... you just... it's so clear to the reader that what you're seeing and even the taste of it. Eddie describes the taste of the fish and it’s the best thing he ever had.

BTI: There’s nothing like fresh trout with salt over a fire. You just can't beat it. It’s amazing. Yeah, I... that actually... we did do that, my grandmother and I. We did go fishing at the Salmon River, and it was really a day that I... I remember quite well. All of that didn't happen, but I do remember that day very well. It was amazing.

CO: Do you have that passage? Can you read that to us?

Reading:

BTI: OK. Grandma didn't fish for fun. She was all business. She had a knack for knowing where the fish were hiding in shady spots and how to coax them out. Today, she pulled trout after trout out of the water, re-baited the hook and tossed it back into the river. She didn't use weights because the hook would sink and tangle in tree roots or sticks. Her method was to toss a line above a deep hole and let it float downstream on top of the water. When she felt a strike, she’d put the line with a hard jerk, yank the trout out of the water and slam it on rocks behind her. The fish would die instantly, saving Eddie the trouble of knocking it on the head with a stick. Once a fish came off the hook in midair and flew deep within the bushes. He thought about listening to it flipping around in the undergrowth. Eventually, Eddie put down his fishing pole because he was too busy removing fish from Grandma’s line. After he hooked 20 pan-sized trout through the gills with sticks, he said they’d caught enough. It wasn't soon enough for Eddie, who had lost his thrill of fishing hours earlier. She had turned his favourite pastime into work. Now he was so hungry he didn't think he had the strength to pack home all the fish. Go find some birch bark and some dry wood, Grandma said. I've got to have something to eat before I fall over. And bring back any clean moss if you see any. Ten feet from the river, two logs, one higher than the other looked as if they’d been placed there so that a person could sit down above the stony ground on one and lean back against the other. Grandma gave the lager thankful pat as she sat down. She squeezed her eyes together and let out a weary breath. Eddie watched her to make sure she was all right. But when she opened her eyes, she was irritated to see him watching her. What are you standing around for? If you had of gone by when you were supposed to, you could have been back by now. Eddie walked into the trees until he came across an old birch log with its white bark split open and curled up like rolls of paper. He peeled off long strips and gathered up dry branches and green moss from the side of a large stump. When he returned, he saw she had fallen asleep. He worked as quietly as he could to make piles as small as pieces of tinder on the bottom. Then he scratched a match across a rock and held under the pile of tinder. The crackling of the flame awakened Grandma. Her eyes on Eddie instantly. You got a fire going already. Good boy. She brought out a knife from her bag and rubbed it across a flat stone. We might as well clean them right now. House is stinky enough. Geez, that Alphonse can really smell a place up. His feet are so bad it's like they died and he don't even know. As Grandma ran the knife along the white belly and pulled out the guts, Eddie’s job was to rinse the fish in the river and scrape up the black stuff next to the backbone with his thumb. He felt proud to see so many clean trout on sticks in the river. She skewered four nice-sized ones on some green willow branches which she stuck in the ground close to the fire. White beads of fat dropped into the fire and filled the air with a mouth-watering smell

CO: That is Brian Thomas Isaac reading from his novel, All the Quiet Places. And you're called an emerging writer [laughing] at the age of 71. And though people who are writing about this book already are calling it pure brilliance, Richard VanCamp says it's a read that live wire into your soul and haunt you for a good long while and others are saying similar things. How does it feel to hear some of your contemporaries talk about your writing that way?

BTI: Well, as I said before, it feels like they’re talking about the book. You know, they're saying it's a good book. That's great. You know, I really appreciate that. I'm very proud of the book. It took a long, long time to get it together. I went over every sentence, every... every word so many times. But it turned out beautiful, and I'm… I'm really proud of it.

CO: This is... this book is for your grandchildren. And you write in the acknowledgements, on the day you sit in front of a fire and read it to your grandkids, of course, you will skip over the swear words and the sex parts. When one of them asks you who wrote this? And you will say, my Papa.

BTI: Yeah, yeah, that's... it's for my grandbabies. They're the most beautiful little things. Yeah.

CO: What do you hope that your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren take from this book?

BTI: Well, my oldest granddaughter, she's 16 years old. She's really proud of that. She's pretty proud of her Papa. And that means a lot to me. They're getting a glimpse into something that they didn't know, being raised about no power and water and all these... no iPads, nothing. She's pretty amazed to hear about it. I did a reading at the Riga Festival on Zoom, and she snuck downstairs and sat around the corner, her and her mother actually. And they listened and they were... they learned. They learned something they didn't know before about... about their Papa.

CO: Well, Brian, I learned a lot I didn't know before from reading your book. And I appreciate very much reading it and speaking with you. Thank you.

BTI: I appreciate you having me. This has been just great. Thank you. Thank you very much, Carol.

CO: Take care, Brian.

BTI: You too. Bye-bye.

CH: Brian Thomas Isaac is a writer from the Okanagan First Nation. His debut novel All the Quiet Places is published by TouchWood Editions. For more on this story, you can visit our website at: www.cbc.ca/aih.

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October 15, 2021 Episode Transcript

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