Kiss of the Fur Queen

by Tomson Highway

Kiss of the Fur Queen CRP.pdf


Kiss of the Fur Queen, Cree playwright/pianist Tomson Highway’s debut novel, is the story of champion dog-sled racer Abraham Okimasis and his sons Jeremiah, a pianist, and Gabriel, a dancer. As the brothers journey from northern Manitoba to residential school and then to Winnipeg, a mysterious trickster figure – the Fur Queen – plays witness to their lives. The resulting story is about sibling rivalry and sibling love, and the effects of re-education and religious conversion on one family’s existence. Quill and Quire

Through the divine figure of the Fur Queen, who watches over them, Highway explores the concept of Cree divinity and mythology, and its profound importance to reaffirming Indigenous identity.

Tomson Highway was born in a snow bank on the Manitoba/Nunavut border to a family of nomadic caribou hunters. He had the great privilege of growing up in two languages, neither of which was French or English; they were Cree, his mother tongue, and Dene, the language of the neighbouring "nation," a people with whom they roamed and hunted.

https://www.tomsonhighway.com/

“From 1986 to 1992, Tomson Highway was artistic director of Native Earth Performing Arts, one of Canada’s most prominent Indigenous theatre companies. His brother René, a dancer and choreographer, was also heavily involved in Native Earth. In 1990, René died of AIDS, a personal loss that triggered Highway to write his autobiographical first novel, Kiss of the Fur Queen (1998). The book was shortlisted for the Canadian Booksellers’ Association Fiction Book of the Year Award and the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award.”

Boyd, Colin. “Thompson Highway”. The Canadian

Curriculum Connections

Reading: Reading for Meaning; Making Inferences


1. Resources, strategies, videos and activities to practice inferencing with your students from the NY Times The Learning Network.


2. Activities to practice inferencing for large and small groups using images, words, videos and advertisements.

https://the-teacher-next-door.com/my-blog/reading/8-activities-to-build-inference-skills

Writing: Using knowledge of Form and Style; Form

1. Blog Post by Kellie McGann

2. Purpose Audience & Form by Vicky Maxted

Oral Communication: Listening to Understand: Interpreting Texts: Oral Texts

Library and Archives Canada. "Our Voices, Our Stories". Oral Storytelling Educational Resources.

https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/stories/020020-4002-e.html

Aboriginal Oral Tradition

  • There is a difference between ordinary storytelling and Aboriginal storytelling.
  • Traditional Aboriginal storytellers earned the right to be a storyteller. They were important in teaching and in preserving the history of the group.
  • Traditional stories contain some of the most authentic content and perspective of Aboriginal peoples.
  • Different Aboriginal groups have different stories although some characters or themes may be similar.

Media Studies: Understanding Media Texts: Audience Responses

1. Defining the Audience | Quick Intro

by Grant Abbitt

2. What’s On Your Playlist? Lesson

by Edugains

Media_ Edugains_What'sOnYourPlaylist.pdf

Essential Questions

1. Who are Indigenous people? Where are they? Do I know them or are they in museums? Why are they famous all of a sudden? Who are settlers? How were they treated differently in the past, and are they treated differently now?

2. How are stereotypes formed? Why are they used? How did so many Indigenous stereotypes form? What are the realities of being Indigenous?

3. How are words different when you read them as opposed to when you hear them or see them on an image? Which do you prefer? When you combine seeing and reading how does that impact your understanding? What would happen if most texts included words in different languages to help express meaning or improve cultural understanding? What would happen if all text included images?

4. How is personal writing different from academic writing? Can personal writing be academic or vice-versa? What forms best express different styles and means of writing? Do advertisements count as writing or are they art? Do we need both?

Key Quotations

The next thing Abraham knew, or so he would relate to his two youngest sons years later, the goddess floated up to a sky fast fading from pink-and-purple dusk to the great blackness of night, then became one with the northern sky, became a shifting, nebulous pulsation, the seven stars of the Great Bear ornamenting her crown. And when she extended one hand down towards the hunter on Earth, a silver wand appeared in it, simple as magic. Now a fairy-tale godmother glimmering in the vastness of the universe, the Fur Queen waved the wand. Her white fur cape spread in a huge shimmering arc, becoming the aurora borealis. As its galaxies of stars and suns and moons and planets hummed their way across the sky and back, the Fur Queen smiled enigmatically, and from the seven stars on her tiara burst a human fetus, fully formed, opalescent, ghostly (12).

“We didn’t have much choice, he would have added, if the language had been his” (70)

“He could already taste the Cree on his tongue” (88)

“And should the collar of his rented black tuxedo choke off his windpipe, so be it; hands on the keyboard, dressed for the casket, he would die a Cree hero’s death” (267)

Trigger Warnings

“The purpose of trigger warnings is not to cause students to avoid traumatic content, but to prepare them for it, and in extreme circumstances to provide alternate modes of learning” Lockhart

The resource contains first hand accounts of traumatic experiences that may refer to, physical, emotional and sexual abuse, alcoholism and drug addiction and cycles of family violence.

Teachers are encouraged to prepare themselves and their students for discussing these events, to remind them the classroom is a safe space for discussion but they are not forced to speak, to encourage them to acknowledge important feelings about personal or group trauma and to remind them there are many caring adults in the building who are here to help and support them.

Memories of both young boys include molestation by priests at their Residential School. This is related through the eyes of each child as they understood it as children, and then re-examined later through their adult perspectives.

There are references to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women that are startling in the violence. The murder and discovery of bodies of three Indigenous women are part of the narrative, not directly related to events. The narrator thinks of the women, their families, the lives they could have lived in short additions at chapter ends. This highlights the incredible violence that Indigenous women face daily.

Discussion Strategy: Talking Circle

Promoting discussion, sharing feelings, being personally accountable for our own feelings and understanding how our words affect others.

Alberta Education; Our Words, Our Ways: Teaching First Nations, Métis and Inuit Learners, 2005, p. 163

https://www.learnalberta.ca/content/aswt/talkingtogether/facilitated_talking_circle_fact_sheet.html

Text to Self Connections

Text to Text Connections

After Disney's Pocahontas was released, the Powhatan Nation was furious that the real story of Pocahontas was distorted in the name of entertainment.

(See the Powhatan's letter here.)

After exploring the different resources on Pocahontas, do you agree with the Powhatan in believing that Disney should not have portrayed Pocahontas incorrectly? Why would Disney have changed the facts in the first place? Give evidence to support your opinion. (Post as ANONYMOUS, using first & last initial and class period only!)

Text to World Connections

Classical Music in Tomson Highway's Kiss of the Fur Queen. W. Krotz.pdf
2012_Building_on_the_Legacy_of_NWAC_Faceless_Doll_Project.pdf

National Aboriginal Month Playlist

Potential Strategy from Engaging Readers and Writers with Inquiry

Structuring Essential Questions

Wilhelm, Jeffrey. “Appealing to Students’ Sense of Identity”. Engaging Readers and Writers with Inquiry. Scholastic, 2007, pg 57.

Questions cycle: From Personal Understandings to Civic Applications.

  1. Personal Identity: What do people find worth fighting for? How can I best stand up for what I believe in? How does this impact my identity?
  2. Group Affiliation: What is a good relationship? How can I improve the relationships in my own life? What relationships do I have? What groups do I belong to?
  3. Cultural Identity: How does culture shape who we are and what we believe? What are the costs and benefits of being shaped by our culture? How can we overcome the costs?

Living Together: What are rights and freedoms and where did they come from? How can we promote and protect civil rights in our own school and community?