As Long as the Rivers Flow

As Long as the Rivers Flow is Loyie's (2002) attempt "to recapture the feeling of freedom he had felt when he lived with his family" before being taken to residential school; unfortunately, he found things at home were never the same when he returned from his four-year absence (epilogue). I debated whether As Long as the Rivers Flow qualified as a picturebook since it is a text-heavy chapter book. However, I think the collaboration between Loyie and Holmlund epitomizes the shared space Harde (2020) describes as "a transformative way of being together" (p. 4) and "the first step in the potential negotiation of different perspectives and sharing of experience" (Robinson, 2016, p. 11, as cited in Harde, 2020, p. 4). It's notable that the pictures do not add much information to the text; rather, they "depict the [narrative] with full-colour, realistic paintings that reflect the text almost exactly" (Harde, 2020, p. 5) and act to "[complement] and [amplify] the words of Indigenous writers" (Harde, 2020, p. 20) as a sort of "shared truth telling" (Regan, 2010, p. 190, as cited in Harde, 2020, p.20).

Holmlund clearly drew inspiration for her illustrations from Loyie's family pictures as can be seen from comparing the photograph of Loyie's kokum (grandmother), found in the epilogue, to the paintings of her done by Holmlund (for example, at the eleventh opening). Her depictions of family life and the land Loyie grew up on lend an emotional depth to the story that would be lacking without illustrations.

The majority of the story is spent getting ready for departure, with the family spending time together and the elders imparting wisdom and strength to the children about to be taken away. The story closes with the children being loaded into the back of a truck with sides so high that "he couldn't see his family. He couldn't see Ooh-Hoo [his owl] sitting in a tree....all Lawrence could see was the sky" (Loyie, 2002, seventeenth opening). The accompanying illustration shows Loyie wrapping his arms around his siblings as they all cry in the back of the truck.

This focus on preparation and departure, rather than on the experiences at residential school, is similar to the storyline in Shi-shi-etko (2005). Both stories have an open ending, though whereas Shi-shi-etko's story is continued in Shin-chi's Canoe (2008), more of Loyie's experience continues in the epilogue. Loyie doesn't talk much about his experience at school, other than to note that the students had to do so many chores they "spent so little time in the classroom that many could not read or write when they left" so he "returned to school to learn English grammar" later in life so that he could become an author (Loyie, 2002, epilogue). He also notes that healing from his experience has been made possible by "talking about the past" and "relearning...traditions" (Loyie, 2002, epilogue).

While it may seem like the focus on preparation and life risks turning the residential school experience into a footnote (see: Quiet Hero, Saltypie, Sharice's Big Voice), but Harde (2020) asserts that by "[emphasizing] one or more parts of the cycle,"—of removal, the school experience, and homecoming—authors (and illustrators) "aim their criticisms at different aspects of colonisation" (n.p.). When the plot focuses solely on the removal of the child, as in As Long as Rivers Flow and Shi-shi-etko, they show "Indigenous families and communities [nurtured] their children in their traditional territories" during a time in history that was so fraught with "colonial fragmentation" (Harde, 2020, n.p.). It shows the child in their rightful place, surrounded by family, being tenderly cared for and instructed in valid, traditional practices. These stories, then, stand in sharp contrast with stories that discuss how children were treated at school.

Works cited:

Harde, R. (2020). Talking Back to History in Indigenous Picturebooks. International Research in Children’s Literature, 13(2), 274–288. https://doi.org/10.3366/ircl.2020.0358