Fort McMurray - BLM solidarity march

Today was the protest in support of BLM and against racial violence in Canada and USA.

I managed to go, but it started later than expected, so I wasn't able to stay for all of it. Still, I'm glad I went.

It was held in Jubilee Square rather than directly in front of the city hall, so there was a lot of room for everyone to spread out.

This was slightly different from other protests I have gone to, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but it turned out to be a very... Fort Mac type of event, for lack of a better word. Very neat, tidy, organized, and relatively low-key. Some very good speeches, which were followed by the obligatory walk down Franklin Avenue and then back up again, and then more speeches.

It was cold and cloudy and drizzly, but a very large amount of people showed up in spite of that, which is great.

I also encountered some people that used to work with me. It was kind of nice to see people that I knew. Normally I don't see any familiar faces at things like this. ...On the other hand, I wasn't thrilled that somebody recognized me in spite of the trouble I took to conceal my appearance, but whatever.

There are some big problems in our community, and I'll confess, I'm pretty pessimistic about the likelihood of anything changing. But at the same time, it's important to have events like this and the conversations that happen with them, and hopefully it will lead to something positive.

[Books] CBC Indigenous History Month Rec List

CBC put out a rec list of Indigenous books, since it's National Indigenous History Month.

I'll put a copy of the list under the cut for reference. Just the titles/authors.

( 35 titles )

Of the works on this list, I'm only familiar with a few.

The Red Chesterfield by Wayne Athurson is a good, artsy crime novel - like litfic meets mystery fiction. Though for someone who prefers straightforward crime fiction, his other novels are also really good.

Waubgeshig Rice's Moon of the Crusted Snow is one I would recommend to anyone who likes fiction set in the early days of apocalypse.

Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson is great if you like YA urban fantasy. Her works for adults are more to my taste, though.

Chasing Painted Horses by Drew Hayden Taylor is a stirring novel; he has quite a way with writing vivid characters. I've liked all of the fiction by him that I've read.

I haven't read Gwen Benaway's new collection day/break yet, but I've read some of her other poetry and really liked it a lot (Passage is the collection I have). I hope I'll be able to get my hands on her latest soon.

Going to have to put some of the titles that are new to me on the to-read list... McBride's Crow Winter sounds like something I'd like to read. And I'm curious about pretty much all of the poetry titles. Hopefully the library will have some of them whenever it opens up again. (Probably not for a long time, but that's fine - I can wait.)