by Ron Thompson
“The train comes out of the tunnel, and everyone’s in their seats. But the separatist has a bright red hand print on his cheek.
“No one speaks.
“The old lady thinks: Oh, youth is wasted on the young . . . That handsome man must have tried to kiss that sweet girl in the dark—and she slapped his face.
“The girl thinks: I’ll bet that creep tried to grope me in the dark, but missed and fondled that old lady—and she slapped his cheek!
“The separatist thinks: That maudit anglais with the merde on his boots must have groped the hottie in the dark. She tried to slap him but missed and got me instead! Ah, beautiful women . . . They are wasted on the anglais.
“And the farmer sits looking out the window, thinking to himself: I hope there’s another tunnel, so I can smack that goddamn separatist again, and not have him go bitching and screaming to Ottawa!”
There was laughter around the table, and at the time I—unable to read anyone’s thoughts—took it for just that. But now, in hindsight, I hazarded a guess at what each was thinking.
Mom was thinking—that’s my boy!
Dad was thinking—the darn separatist had it coming.
Simon was thinking—Victor, Victor, that is so old. Genny (the only one not smiling) was thinking—that’s offensive. It trivializes sexual assault and plays on gender, cultural, and physical stereotypes. It’s ageist, racist, and sexist. And girls don’t have breasts! Women do.
Victor was thinking—this broad’s got a nice rack herself; but, clearly, no sense of humour.
And as for me—well, I did not have the presence of mind to think anything at the time. I was too busy observing, such is my nature. But now, in the car, I cast a retrospective look at all of them and thought: these are the ones I come from, this is the one I want to be with.
This is who I am right now. And who I can become is up to me.
I stole one last look in the rear view mirror. The morning sun glinted off the pavement streaming back towards Poplar Lake.
Or was that just the rosy glow of hindsight?
READER NOTE
The incidents described in Poplar Lake are fictional. I havedrawn extensively upon Laura Robinson’s Crossing the Line: Violence and Sexual Assault in Canada’s National Sport (McClelland & Stewart, 1998), a grim account of sexual abuse and hockey culture.
“Treaty 4A” is fictitious; in fact no treaty adhesion signatories secured the kinds of concessions the narrator ascribes to Little Trickster in his fanciful story of the town. However the description of conditions on the Canadian prairies in the 19th century is materially correct. Clearing the Plains (James Daschuk, University of Regina Press, 2013) is a sobering account of the treatment of indigenous peoples by Canada’s government in the years following its acquisition of Rupert’s Land, and of the abuses perpetrated subsequent to the conclusion of treaties. There were many deaths and much suffering among the First Nations because of deliberate institutional decisions and blatant corruption.
The Bugelmann family is based loosely on the Bronfman family. For inspiration, I have drawn on Peter C. Newman’s Bronfman Dynasty: The Rothschilds of the New World (McClelland and Stewart, 1978); The Whiskey Man, The Balmoral Hotel—Bronfman Saga, Fact, Folklore and Tunnel Tales (City of Yorkton, 2003, Therese Lefebvre Prince, ed. by Mark Claxton); and James H. Gray’s Red Lights on the Prairies (Macmillan of Canada, 1971).
Violet Harris Abernethy is based loosely on Violet McNaughton, Saskatchewan feminist, suffragette, social reformer, and activist.
Poplar Lake’s Great Ruby Rush is based loosely on the actual Great Ruby Rush that occurred in Harris, Saskatchewan, in 1914. The accounts of prohibition, and of the extension of the vote in Canada, are both materially correct.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to John MacMillan, Lorna Clark, and Kaitlin Thompson, all of whom provided invaluable advice, insight, and encouragement when I needed it the most. Thanks also to those who gave gentle feedback on various drafts or shared ideas for this novel, particularly Beverley Trull, Kathryn Shailer, Nancy Clark, Aaron Badgley, Andrew Judd, Bill McCutcheon, Laurie Leclair, Andrew Hamilton, and Mary Coyle.
I also wish to acknowledge that I was born in the region covered by Treaty 4, which is the traditional territory of Cree and Salteaux peoples and others who came before. Reconciliation begins and continues with small steps in a forward direction.
