“This Place: 150 Years Retold - Anthology

Explore the last 150 years through the eyes of Indigenous creators in the graphic novel anthology, This Place: 150 Years Retold. Beautifully illustrated, these stories are an emotional and enlightening journey through magic realism, serial killings, psychic battles, and time travel. See how Indigenous peoples have survived a post-apocalyptic world since Contact.

This is one of the 200 exceptional projects funded through the Canada Council for the Arts’ New Chapter initiative. With this $35M initiative, the Council supports the creation and sharing of the arts in communities across Canada.

This was an intense experience. It was depressing, and enraging to see how Canada has consistently tried to steal the land of the Indigenous Peoples, and used force to try to destroy their languages, their family ties, their traditions, and their connection to the land. It was also sad to reflect upon how little of these stories I were familiar with. The school system needs to do better to telling these stories. Canada needs to learn from its mistakes.

There are no filler stories in here. Every story was incredibly drawn, and a gut punch of a story. At the beginning of the story is a note from the author. There is also a timeline of events that explain the context of the story. In the back of the book are also references, so people can go find the news articles about these events.

It feels to me there will always be animosity between the State and Indigenous people. The State knows they exist on stolen land and keep trying to legitimatize this theft through ’treaties’, apologies, and rewriting of history. What is the path forward? Every Nation State is built upon the bones of Indigenous people, and on their stolen land.

Too many authors/illustrators to list in the title of this review: Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, Chelsea Vowel, Katherena Vermette, Jen Storm, Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair, David Alexander Robertson, Richard Van Camp , Brandon Mitchell, Sonny Assu, Rachel Qitsualik-Tinsley, Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley, Alicia Elliott(Foreword), G.M.B. Chomichuk (Illustrations), Scott B. Henderson (Illustrations), Tara Audibert (Illustrations), Natasha Donovan (Illustrations), Kyle Charles (Illustrations), Scott A. Ford (Illustrations), Donovan Yaciuk (Illustrations), Andrew Lodwick (Illustrations), Ryan Howe (illustrations)

Thank you to all the creators of this anthology and sharing your stories. We need to remember this history, not just the ‘official’ history of Canada. I shall share these stories when my daughter.

Rating: ★★★★★ Book #92 in my #ReadingChallenge2021 #GraphicNovel #Canada #NativeAmericans #anthology #comics #Colonialism #historical #IndigenousPeoples #Metis #inuit”,