Val Wake the Author

White Bird Black Bird

Val Wake's first novel begins with the following poem:
When the white birds come from the south the season changes
Gone is the snow revealing the earth rotting and giving life.
The big wing gulls come from across the mountains
They ride the thermals to reach their nesting grounds.
Below the black birds wait, finding order in chaos
Pecking their way through the town's alleyways.
The white birds swoop claiming their summer roosts.
The black birds rise and engage the invader
Their cawing scratching the blue enamel sky.
But there is no doubt about the outcome.
The black birds retreat leaving the white birds to nest by the lakeshore.
When the snow returns the white birds leave to fly back to their Pacific home.
The black birds reclaim their winter ground with its cold heart and dark days.
It is natures cycle.
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When Val Wake was the resident news reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in the new Northwest Territories capital of Yellowknife, he used to watch the town ravens patrolling the alleyways around town, tipping the garbage cans, to get juicy leftovers from wasteful households. When the Pacific gulls arrived in May Val knew that summer could not be far away although the day time thermometer rarely rose above freezing.
Val worked for CBC News in northern Canada from 1969 to 1973. He visited over 70 settlements in 1.3 million square miles of territory which made up his patch. It was an experience that he would never forget but it wasn't until some 30 years later that he began to write seriously about his time in the north in the form of a novel titled White Bird Black Bird.
Warren Pritchard, the hero or anti-hero of White Bird Black Bird is a young Toronto reporter starting out. He has a drink problem and a strong sense of mission. A curious combination that makes him go to Arctic Canada, to seek a solution to both his issues. Warren makes his choice without knowing much about the north. But he believes the north can be his salvation by giving him a sense of purpose and restoring his self esteem.
The north is not like what Warren thought it would be. He finds that it is a bureaucratic playground where Ottawa rules like an absentee landlord, pretending to grant provincial rights and responsibility while using its agent, the Territorial Government, to reinforce its rule as the federal authority.
Val Wake the Author
Val Wake the Author
Warren finds that the native people of the north, who make up the majority of the residents by about three to one, are largely ignored by the Territorial Government while ironically the Federal Government is taking a pro-active role in sponsoring the political development of the native people. In broad terms the Territorial Government seems to represent the views of the white minority while the Federal Government is trying to increase the influence and authority of the native majority.
It is a mess. Warren finds that this mess is reflected in relationships in his own organisation and he chooses to ignore the local hierarchy claiming editorial independence and finding his own path. In the process he befriends a Hare Indian teacher's aide who introduces him to native life and values.
As far as the south is concerned Arctic Canada is a place to visit but not a place to live. However as far as southern consumers are concerned it does have an important asset. According to the latest geological surveys the Arctic is rich in minerals, oil and gas. When the southern oil and gas men arrive, they are inevitably men, with the plans to build a pipeline up the Mackenzie River Valley to bring the natural gas of Alaska to markets in the American Midwest; the natives greet the proposal with strong opposition. The proposed pipeline is going to cross prime hunting and trapping land. Plans to bring in mobile bordellos to serve the work camps further offend the local people.
The native people organise. First forming the Northwest Territories Indian Brotherhood and then the Committee of native People's Entitled know as COPE. The leader of COPE, Franky Carpenter, is a colleague of Warren Pritchard. She is station manager of a CBC radio station in Inuvik.
Warren feels challenged by Franky, both editorially and sexually, but he remains true to his first love -the teacher at the Dogrib settlement of Rae.
Rae is the largest Indian settlement in the Northwest Territories and is the home of the Northwest Territories Indian Brotherhood. Warren spends a lot of time in Rae and attends many Brotherhood meetings.
When the pipeliners arrive to tour the Mackenzie Valley and explain their pipeline proposal to the local people, Warren is invited to come along. He knows that the Brotherhood strongly opposes the pipeline. During the pipeliner's tour Warren witnesses an epiphany of the pipeliner party when they suddenly realise that people live in the valley they want to turn into a work camp.
Val Wake the Author
Val Wake the Author
The pipeline plan is shelved. The native organisations apply to the Territorial Supreme Court to stop all future development applications. A native leader is accidentally shot and killed by the RCMP which heightens strong feelings of resentment right across the Arctic. A secret cell within the Brotherhood plans its own moves which result in more violence and a Territorial bid to reconcile differences.
This is a story of well intentioned government officials getting things wrong as they try and come to terms with indigenous cultures. It is a story with universal truths that apply to any society where minority and majority groups of people strive to seek an accommodation with mutual respect and understanding.
Copies of White Bird Black Bird can be bought at www.amazon.com by entering the title or the name of the author.

Reviews

A gripping account of a period in the Far North of Canada that is little known or understood. The plot twists through politics, relationships and extremism to reveal some fundamental truths about the fragile landscape of the North and its diverse population. The story's main character is a dedicated journalist who moves North to recharge his professional batteries but finds he has more than a professional interest in the people who make the news. He arrives at a time when native land rights are rising up the news agenda and gas and oil men are lobbying to build a pipeline in the virgin forest. The clash of interests triggers a series of events that culminates in violence but ultimately brings redemption. A really good read with characters you care about and issues that are still contentious.
Michelle Johnson
White Bird Black Bird is a must read for those who want to define the northern areas of Canada by more than ice and snow, blizzards and polar bears in a wilderness. Val Wake brings those areas to life. He is an author of quality who tells a story with a brisk Hemingway economy in the episodes of violence and who shows a sensitive humanity in handling the clash of cultures implicit - and more and more explicit - in the inevitable evolution of self-assertion by indigenous peoples. The plural of that last word is important. I had never heard of some of the "indigenes" before but there are more than one or two in that vast territory and harmony between them takes on much the same complexities as the relationship between new settlers and indigenous inhabitants anywhere. The "other" next door might be even harder to tolerate than the monster in Ottawa. Wake, who knows the Territory well at first hand, has written an intriguing book, well worth a five-star rating.
Dr. James Cumes
Sprawling saga draws on the real-life culture clash between aboriginal Northern Canadians and resource-hungry land developers. Dedicated, young Toronto cub reporter Warren Pritchard loves his craft, but after a hurricane sweeps through the region, he takes stock of his life in the quaint town of Weston.
Deciding a change of scenery might provide professional purpose and a fresh start-and stem a ballooning alcohol habit- Warren heads north to Yellowknife where he is commissioned to form a territorial-wide radio news service. This happens amid a hotbed of political controversy involving oil pipelines and racial unrest between native Inuit citizens and "rival government agencies, struggling to control the human and natural resources of the north." Warren becomes embroiled in the turmoil along with "political fixer" Dougie Green, a straight-laced, two-year veteran of the never-ending controversy, awash in rumours and small-town gossip.
As his mission becomes more and more personal, Warren explores his environs, meeting many quirky locals while picking up information to craft a well-balanced article on the palpable racial tension in Yellowknife and the trouble surrounding its impending gentrification and industrial development. A good-natured priest educates Warren on the dangers of pipeline expansion and how it affects the indigenous people nearby just as a regional supervisor for the impending construction butts heads with a grass roots Native rights movement. But it's Cindy- a Native Indian woman from the Hare tribe- who steals Warren's heart.
A violent shooting and a politically-motivated kidnapping preface a somewhat surprising, unorthodox conclusion. While Wake, a former journalist, excels in cultivating an authentic sense of place (he spent four years living in the Canadian Arctic region), his 500-plus page narrative is verbose and becomes weighted down with the expounding details and melodrama of his character's machinations - alturistic or otherwise.
A harmless distraction with philanthropic overtones in need of edits.
Kirkus Discoveries, New York, April 2009
White Bird Black Bird, Epic Novel of the Rights of Native Canadians vs. the Development of Oil and Gas Resources
White Bird Black Bird was written by Val Wake, the Australian-born journalist who worked for many years in Canada and England before returning to his native land. Wake worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) from 1969-73, the time when a mascent native rights movement, ran head-on into oil and gas development, big business and government policies. Wake's fictionalized account of the conflicts comes directly from his personal experience as the broadcast reporter who covered this story on location for the CBC, doing so by travelling from his base in Yellowknife throughout the Arctic regions of Canada.
While the rights of the indigenous peoples have now been established to some extent in various countries, this was not the case during the tumultuous, initial development of energy resources in the Canadian north. In fact, it was only in 2007 that the United Nations adopted its Declaration on the Rights of Indigenuous Peoples.
Wake tells his story from the perspective of fictional journalist Warren Pritchard and provides the kind of details that give his fiction true credibility. For such an important story in a relatively unknown time and place, we are lucky to have Val Wake's insider knowledge as the basis of his book. I'm sure that Wake's time as an information officer for the British Government added insight into the relationship between government and big business.
Those with an interest in human rights, the rights of indigenous peoples, the politics and business of exploiting energy resources, or one of the little-known stories of North American development, will see that White Bird Black Bird provides the goods. The novel also offers a rich and exciting read for fiction lovers everywhere.
White Bird Black Bird is available at amazon.com. I hope to follow up this brief post with an author interview accomplished by email.
Jim Bashkin nearlynothingbutnovels.blogspot.com

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Nearly Nothing but Novels: https://nearlynothingbutnovels.blogspot.com/2009/09/white-bird-black-bird-epic-novel-of.html

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