Through Black Spruce

“In my waking world, I was not worthwhile. I hadn’t been for years. Booze will do that for a man. But booze is not the root of the problem. Just a condition.” 

Will uses alcohol to escape. Since losing his family, he has abused alcohol to escape more and more. Will is aware of this physical dependency even in his dream state

“In their lives, they’ve gone from living on the land in teepees and askihkans, hunting, trapping, trading in order to survive, to living in clapboard houses and pushing squeaky grocery carts up and down aisles filled with overpriced and unhealthy food.” 

White Europeans had a detrimental influence on indigenous culture. The theme of colonization is present throughout the novel, which shows the harm that everything from alcohol to poverty to heart disease brought to a culture previously unaware of these ails.

“My memories of me and my father are like watching those old movies before people talked. Silence, but one that wrapped around me like a blanket.” 

Silence does not have to be awkward. In the novel, silence is a very important part of native life. The silence of nature brings peace and calm to different characters. Silence is also a healing force that allows Will and Annie to process their experiences and accept the ways those traumas have changed them.

“But sometimes when you are all alone in the bush, deep in winter, and the northern lights come, you can actually hear them. A crackling. Like a radio on real low, moaning and sighing.” 

Nature is an integral part of indigenous life. White culture wrought such havoc on native populations because it diminished that connection between people and the natural world. The northern lights are not just a symbol for indigenous populations, they are truth.

“What I’m amazed by is that the Indian community in this monster city is as tight as our own up north. They all know each other, and where to meet.” 

Community ties are a constant theme throughout the novel. As Annie travels south, she learns that this is not just a characteristic of her hometown in northern Ontario but a part of Indian life regardless of location. This community will come to save her life multiple times.

“The government gave up on them, showed their weakness, and my mother and her brothers and sisters grew up never knowing the wemestikushu language, their ways, their schools. Lucky her.” 

Will is jealous of his mother’s family, as they were never sent away to white boarding schools. These boarding schools cruelly separated indigenous children from their culture. Will still harbors resentment that he was sent away to this school and separated from his family. The theme of colonization is deeply present in this practice.

“They used lots of big words to convince her that if she was giving, they would be, too. They would help her find her missing daughter, but a price is always attached.” 

Authority is not highly regarded in the town of Moosonee, one reason being that the authority is white. Whiteness is closely tied to colonization, and this causes many trust issues. When Suzanne goes missing, the police lie to Lisette about how much they can help her to secure her as an informant.

“I’ve been telling him stories about what’s happened to me the last year. It’s kind of weird. I almost feel like I’m at confession.” 

Boyden uses storytelling as a narrative framework. Storytelling is an indigenous way of passing history, culture, and values from generation to generation. It is a fitting that a book featuring indigenous characters is written in such a style.

“I can’t quite believe what stares back. I see the long black hair first, then the tall, thin body. The high cheekbones. Then I see the bright eyes. What has happened? I can see you, Sister. I see you, Suzanne.”

The theme of identity is present when Annie views the transformation before her in the mirror. As she learns more about Suzanne’s life in Montreal, she starts to act like her, to look more like her. Annie enjoys her new reality and her new look since she has always been jealous of her sister.

“The fear worst of all is that I am losing myself. The fear is that where I am going is where my sister has ended.” 

When Annie travels south, she does so to find her sister, but she also ends up finding herself. She has always been jealous of Suzanne and the life she made with her beauty. As she starts to living Suzanne’s life, the life of a model, Annie fears she doesn’t know who she has become.

“Already the bottle in my pack called to me. Maybe I’d sneak sips soon. Some of my finest memories were of being half-drunk.” 

Alcohol is a huge problem in Will’s life, as it is in the lives of many indigenous people. Will struggles to combat this addiction, this escape method, his entire life.

“I’ll just keep whispering my story to you in the hopes you will hear even the echo of it and that it somehow feeds you just a little, that my words help you where they can.” 

As Will speaks to his nieces from his coma, he is aware that he is not in the present world. While Annie tries to feed Will with her words, Will tries to do the same for her with his.

“So, you’re fighting, are you? I sit beside the bed, facing the door so I can see if anyone comes in. Maybe, just maybe, some of my words are getting through to you.” 

Words are a powerful tool. In Annie’s case, she is trying to coax Will back into consciousness. She knows that he is stuck in a dream state and hopes to speak him back to the land of the living.

“I can sense wabusk, polar bear, snuffling and drooling here where I walk and rest, nieces, here where I remember the parts of my living world that led me to this dream world.” 

There are two symbols in this quote, the polar bear and the dream world. For Will, bears keep coming back to him, from his bear friend in town to the wild polar bear that destroys his camp. The polar bear is a symbol of Will’s fears and his inability to control nature. The dream world represents the coma from which he tells his stories.

“My father, he was the only one I could think of as the storm shook my lodge until it gave in and collapsed, chunks of it, chunks of everything I wanted and owned and needed, flying away with a roar.” 

Loss is a recurring theme in Will’s story. He loses his wife and two sons, his bear, his sanity, and his consciousness. In this particular passage, he is losing his shelter. He thinks of his father, his family, when this happens, and draws strength from their memory.

“Something I am envious of in the turn of her neck […] I’m impressed. I am jealous. I am not you, Sister. I’m not you.”

Annie cannot ignore that she is not her sister, not even after stepping into Suzanne’s shoes, taking on Suzanne’s job, clothes, apartment, friends, and boyfriend. Despite all this, when Annie looks at a magazine photo of her sister, she is still jealous.

“All I knew was that people looked at me now in a different way but didn’t want to stop and chat anymore. I had the mark on me. Why, then, did so many in this town stand up and protect me, even speak up and claim I was truly gone when Marius was shot?”

Will feels talked about in town, like his community doesn’t want to speak with him. Yet he knows that the town has been loyal to him, has stood up for him and lied about what day he left for the bush. The book’s theme of loyalty extends from family to friends to the entire community.

“But with the cold, sunny days, I could feel in my bones the end of them. Something bad was still on its way, and it was not far, just through the trees.” 

Throughout the novel, characters often have a feeling or vision of bad things to come. This feeling is often connected with nature. Here Will feels something bad lurking through the black spruce trees.

“‘You really are meant to be a healer, just like old Will here says.’ I’m embarrassed by his words. They make me think of my seizures. I don’t know why I’ve associated that word, healer, with those horrible things.” 

Annie’s seizures are often accompanied by visions. Annie’s uncle has always thought that her visions and seizures made her a healer in an ancient indigenous way. This is one part of her identity that Annie has always been uncomfortable with.

“My uncle, skinny as an old man, your head now shaved and your body littered with tubes and wires, hovering in an ugly hospital by the river, and me knowing, despite your inability to speak, that you were preparing to dive in. That you were ready to go.” 

Will’s coma illustrates the novel’s theme of silence. He is unable to speak, but Annie knows that his spirit is still inside, that he is deciding whether he will come out of his coma. Many characters in the novel are in touch with the spirits, living and dead.

“I hear water rushing not so far away, a big river’s voice. I’m scared of it, me. I’ve not truly felt that feeling so strong till here. Something’s there. Through the black spruce, just on the other side. […] The sound of the rushing water, it makes me feel like drowning. The water closer to shore babbles like children’s voices. The sound makes me want to go to it. But I’m afraid.” 

Throughout the novel, black spruce trees are a screen that separates two feelings or possibilities. In his coma, Will is aware of his unconscious state, seeing consciousness on one side of the trees and unconsciousness on the other.

“All of it, my nieces, and I felt my wife smiling down and nodding, turning away from me, both of us, with the knowledge she and I would see each other again in the future.” 

Voices from the dead are present in the novel, as Will hears from his father and wife multiple times. Just because a family member has died does not mean that they are no longer present. With their help, Will works through his guilt that he failed his family toward a renewed sense of self. Part of moving forward is starting a relationship with Dorothy.

“‘Justice is slow’ is all Dorothy said. ‘Especially for an Indian.’” 

With the colonization of indigenous cultures comes racism. The criminal justice system has a history of racism against the Bird family, from not believing Will when he reports Marius’s arson to incarcerating Antoine for self-defense against Marius and Danny.