There's a problem with strategically selected sources. Use them, and you end up with a book that's promoted as telling "the full story told for the first time" in a 52-second video that doesn't bear any resemblance to reality. Unfortunately, this is the sad truth that has befallen journalist Christie Blatchford's newest work.
Christie Blatchford's book, Helpless, was published this week. She stated that her book isn't about land claims. Excuse me? If her book doesn't address the context of native land claims in which the events occurred, how can it be the full story?
In a website promotion for her book, images of native people -- amid words such as "vandalism" and "violence" -- suggest her perspective of the 2006 Caledonia event without having to crack the cover.
An image of Gary McHale, blood running down his forehead, suggests aggression directed toward non-natives from natives.
If Blatchford had been at the site of the Caledonia land reclamation on the long weekend in May 2006 as I was, she may have realized that aggression originated from different directions.
If she had dug deep, she may have learned that it wasn't only the people of Caledonia who felt unheard. If she had been as strategic in selecting Six Nations sources, she would have been on her way to getting the "full story."
Some initial reviews of the book have called it "a fine book," while other comments are not so flattering. One website devotes its entire content to criticizing her writing. "Reading one of her articles is like staring into the sun. After a few seconds, you have to turn away or risk suffering permanent damage," the blogger writes.
Blatchford is an award-winning columnist and is paid to have an opinion. But having an opinion doesn't mean both sides of a story shouldn't be presented when writing a book about a historical event. Everyone knows, there's no shortage of documentation regarding the Caledonia reclamation. I must have two or three boxes myself.
Trying to understand Blatchford's inability to portray the event fairly, my only deduction is that she doesn't know any better. If the Caledonia reclamation has taught us anything, it's that the public's level of misinformation and misunderstanding about Six Nations land rights before Feb. 28, 2006 was embarrassingly minimal. Who could blame them? The land rights issue is complex and isn't easily explained or understood.
I wondered why the Canadian people didn't ask the question, "If the provincial government knew that Six Nations were in the wrong and could prove it, why did they take a remarkably short period of time to pay the Henning brothers for the land and eliminate them from the equation?" Everyone knows the wheels of government don't usually turn that quickly.
There are a multitude of questions that this event raised. Will we find answers to all our questions about Caledonia? Maybe not. But should we place our pursuit for the truth in one misinformed piece of commentary that will eventually take its place on the archival shelf along with all the other incorrect writings that have been penned about First Nations people over the years? If Canadians want the full story, they need to look further that the pages of Helpless.
L.M. VanEvery is a journalist from Six Nations of the Grand River and a member of The Expositor's Community Editorial Board.