Bad Cree

Mackenzie’s dreams contain important visions and messages. She is not the only member of her family to experience prophetic dreams and visions; the shared ability to tell the future through dreams becomes a trait that connects Mackenzie to her mother, sisters, cousins, and aunties. In a novel so thematically interested in The Affirming Power of Family and Community, dreams are a way for the author to explore the ties that bind people together within families. Mackenzie’s dreams reveal the presence of a wheetigo, a mythically undead creature that feeds on greed and despair. The wheetigo isolates its victims before attacking them, and banding together to protect themselves from the wheetigo becomes a central way that Mackenzie and her family members renew and strengthen their connection. For Mackenzie’s family, togetherness is the glue that binds everyone together, and they are stronger together than they are apart. Their shared ability to dream prophetically and the shared goal of defeating the wheetigo evidence the importance of togetherness, and dreams become a powerful motif in the novel.

The phrase “Bad Cree” is a motif as well as the text’s title. It is a pejorative that both the novel’s protagonist and her mother use to label themselves, and it speaks to the theme of The Affirming Power of Family and Community. “Bad Cree” refers to an individual who separates themselves from their family and community. Mackenzie considers herself a “Bad Cree” because she fled her family in their time of grief to live alone in the city. She does not discuss their shared loss and knows that she has created a rift within the family. Similarly, her mother considers herself a “Bad Cree” when she is unable to slow down and experience life within a family. She gets caught up in the necessarily solitary hustle and bustle of powering through grief by making her way through a series of to-do lists.

Although Mackenzie is less involved in her family’s affairs than her mother, each woman understands that togetherness is a key familial and cultural value within their community. Each loses some of their familial bond and community connection through their isolationism. By the novel’s conclusion, each woman has reconnected with their family and community, and each has vowed to remain connected through whatever difficulties might come their way in the future.

Mentions of anti-Indigenous prejudice and racism abound within the novel and become one of its key motifs. These incidents speak to the theme of The Impact of Extractive Industry on First Nations Communities, depicting social friction between Indigenous and white individuals and the danger that outside industry poses for families like Mackenzie’s. Moments of anti-Indigenous prejudice range from small microaggressions or threats to an engagement with the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women in both Canada and the United States. Mackenzie and her family members are used to white men harassing and catcalling them, and they develop a thick skin in these situations. They have also been in interactions during which the behavior of white men indicated the very real threat that they posed to Indigenous women’s safety. Additionally, Mackenzie and her family discuss the uptick in missing persons cases and murders in First Nations communities that are a dangerous result of the oil boom and extractive industry.