Ice cubes like glass | A novel at the heart of indigenous history

We all know about residential schools for Aboriginal people. But what do we really know about the Sixties Scoop?

For years, Wendat ethnologist and chronicler Isabelle Picard has worked, among other things, as a speaker and consultant to publicize the history and realities of the First Peoples of Quebec. And after writing the youth series Nishshe is now writing her first novel for adults, Ice cubes like glassinspired by the story of his own family and that of other Aboriginal people who saw theirs scattered across the province during the 1950s and 1960s.

The pillars of the Picard family are Henri and Belle, who live in Huron Village – the former name of Wendake. Towards the end of the 1950s, at the beginning of the novel, the mother succumbs to cancer which leaves her husband alone with their 10 children. The eldest, Liliane, then begins to look after her younger brothers and sisters, helped by her aunts when her father has to go to work in the woods. But the State, through the Indian Affairs agent (who manages all the day-to-day affairs of the reserve), does not leave them alone.

One by one, Henri will see all his children, except Liliane, sent to orphanages, foster families or reform schools – and even adopted without their father’s consent -, under the pretext that “it’s better this way “.

“The boarding schools were expensive,” explains Isabelle Picard, met during her visit to Montreal. In foster care, in reform schools, by having us adopted, it cost less. It was another way of assimilating us, but they still achieved their goal. »

Digging into memories

Isabelle Picard admits, the subject is still delicate in the communities. She waited until she was ready to tell this story herself – ready to dig into “the dark places in the memories” of her uncles, aunts and father, who didn’t necessarily want to talk. Then her aunt – the Liliane of the novel, who is now 80 years old and still looks after the whole family – and her father both encouraged her to tell this story.

“I heard my uncles and aunts recounting memories of when they were young. They used a lot of humor to play down the drama, but it was heavy. And I needed to create some kind of string that ties it all together. »

Ice cubes like glass is a gripping novel that can be read in one sitting. A novel whose pages we scroll through with a mixture of anger and indignation, although Isabelle Picard never takes sides. It is through nuance that she has constructed characters who are neither entirely good nor entirely bad, but rather stuck in an in-between. And along the way, she planted “little seeds” that make us want to know more about what really happened during those years.

“I didn’t find everything and that’s why I used the novel, instead of the story,” she says, “because there are still blanks. I didn’t want to push doors that people didn’t want to open. I respected that. » She does not talk about the attacks that were suffered, for example, even if we can guess between the lines.

In his opinion, the novel is also another way of teaching and transmitting, adds the ethnologist who also travels to schools to meet young people. The novels in his series Nishwhich have had great success with young people, are even required reading in many schools now (particularly in Montreal), which allows teachers to discuss several issues that are not on the program with their students.

Knowing your history, your language, your culture, your spirituality instills an incomparable inner strength in a people, underlines Isabelle Picard. “I know this because I lived the first 13 years of my life without having access to it. Afterwards, there was this sort of awakening, and we learned. I’ve experienced both and the difference… my God, it’s not the same! When you know your culture, you communicate with the territory, you understand how the language works – not only the words, but the whole vision of the world behind it. It’s extraordinary ! »

Ice cubes like glass

Isabelle Picard

Flammarion Quebec

394 pages