Paying the land

Joe Sacco

Book - 2020

"The Dene have lived in the vast Mackenzie River Valley since time immemorial, by their account. To the Dene, the land owns them, not the other way around, and it is central to their livelihood and very way of being. But the subarctic Canadian Northwest Territories are home to valuable resources, including oil, gas, and diamonds. With mining came jobs and investment, but also road-building, pipelines, and toxic waste, which scarred the landscape, and alcohol, drugs, and debt, which deformed a way of life. In Paying the Land, Joe Sacco travels the frozen North to reveal a people in conflict over the costs and benefits of development. The mining boom is only the latest assault on indigenous culture: Sacco recounts the shattering impact o...f a residential school system that aimed to "remove the Indian from the child"; the destructive process that drove the Dene from the bush into settlements and turned them into wage laborers; the government land claims stacked against the Dene Nation; and their uphill efforts to revive a wounded culture. Against a vast and gorgeous landscape that dwarfs all human scale, Paying the Land lends an ear to trappers and chiefs, activists and priests, to tell a sweeping story about money, dependency, loss, and culture--recounted in stunning visual detail by one of the greatest cartoonists alive"--

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Review by Booklist Review

Best known for his Palestine books--most notably, Footnotes in Gaza (2010)--frequent Eisner Award--winner Sacco's nonfiction titles share essential overlapping features: talking heads given agency to speak their truths, exquisitely detailed artwork, meticulously revealed events. Here Sacco heads to Canada's Northwest Territories, home to Dené people since "time immemorial." Accompanied by a Yellowknife (the Northwest Territories' only city) local in a borrowed truck, Sacco visits remote communities to learn about Indigenous history and colonization, government-admitted "cultural genocide" through 150 years of residential schools, the legacies of abuse and addiction, the battles over extraction of natural resources, and the ongoing quest for autonomy. Sacco records elders and activists, those who stayed, others who escaped yet returned, young adults desperate for connection with their vanishing heritage. Amidst the arduous journeys of survival (and not), Sacco's occasional godfather-of-manga-Tezukaesque self-parodies--for example, as "Joe of the North" with a netted trout, announcing, "He has engaged with the fauna and redeemed himself in the eyes of his readers"--provide welcome, momentary (can't resist) comic relief. Harrowing and enlightening, Sacco presents another solemn, resonating dispatch.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Eisner-winner Sacco (Safe Area Goražde) travels to northern Canada to talk with members of the Dene, a First Nations group located largely in the Northwest Territories, in this arresting exploration of a community on the brink. Fracking is the hotly contested issue at hand; it brings money and jobs, but devastates the environment. Sacco delves deeper than the current debate, exploring the long, fraught relationship between the Dene, the Canadian government, and the land. The powerful middle chapters collect first-person stories of the atrocity haunting Sacco's investigation: the mass forced separation of aboriginal children from their families to be "reeducated." Separating young people from their communities, Sacco argues, robbed generations of identity and direction, as Sacco learns from the testimonies of Dene people from all walks of life, from tribal leaders and elders who grew up in close-knit nomadic tribes to a young man hunting his first caribou. Sacco's densely composed, meticulous black-and-white art has grown even more realistic and carefully observed in this work, though he still presents himself as a caricature with buckteeth and Coke-bottle glasses. He wisely withdraws his presence to the background, allowing the Dene and other locals he interviews to take the spotlight, interspersing close-ups of faces with images of the breathtaking northern vistas. Sacco again proves himself a master of comics journalism. Agent: Nicole Aragi, Aragi (July)

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Review by Library Journal Review

For generations, the Dene lived in tight-knit communities with a strong sense of tradition tying them to one another and the land. In this exhaustive study of the Dene Nation's history and current way of life, Sacco (Footnotes in Gaza) asks, "Why do the indigenous people of the Northwest Territories seem adrift, unmoored from the culture that once anchored them?" A partial answer is provided via firsthand accounts of the Canadian government's deeply shameful attempt to assimilate Dene children by forcing them to attend schools where they experienced emotional and physical abuse, and the legacy of abuse and addiction attributed to this experience. Sacco also explores the ramifications of oil, gas, and diamond mining in the area, which some Dene embrace as an economic opportunity, and others find exploitative and ecologically disastrous. VERDICT Sacco's reporting, accompanied by impressively drawn black-and-white illustrations, is occasionally overwhelmingly detailed, but with good reason: this is a vitally important story about an underrepresented people.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

An epic graphic study of an Indigenous people trying to survive between tradition and so-called progress. Eisner Award winner Sacco's Palestine (2001) and Footnotes in Gaza (2009) are classics of contemporary graphic journalism. This is his first book since the stunning The Great War: July 1, 1916 (2013), and it's well worth the wait. The author and illustrator spent six weeks reporting with the Dene people, a native society with deep roots in the Mackenzie River Valley in Canada's Northwest Territories. Partly oral history and partly a compassionate portrait, the narrative recounts the people's transition from a culture that respected and lived off the land to one faced with challenges that threaten to erase the fundamentals of their culture. Sacco portrays the Dene's old ways with his extraordinary illustrations, vividly showing how they once lived. The title comes from citizen Frederick Andrew's memories from his youth. "You give it something," he says. "A bullet, perhaps, water, tobacco or tea. It's like visiting someone. You bring the land a gift." Many readers will be distressed by the many indignities that modern society has visited upon the Dene people. The recent phenomenon of fracking creates division between those who see economic opportunities and those who believe the practice is a defilement of their land. Sacco also portrays in stark relief the pervasiveness of problems stemming from substance abuse. Another theme involves the arrival of the first airplane, the signal that Canada intended to remove Dene children to residential schools that "were essentially used as a weapon for assimilation and acculturation and Christianization." The children also suffered horrific abuse from both teachers and other students. Part of what makes Sacco's portrayal so masterful is his proficiency as a journalist; he uses the real words of Dene citizens to tell their stories, augmenting them with his extraordinary artistic insight. A startling depiction of an Indigenous people struggling to remain true to their traditions. Yet another triumph for Sacco. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.