As Long As The Rivers Flow by Larry Loyie

One day ten-year-old Lawrence's papa returns from checking his trapline with a surprise - a baby owl - and owlet he has found beneath a tree. Unable to find its mother, Papa has brought it home and tells Lawrence and his younger sister, Maruk to care for it, feed it wild meat until it is big enough to return to the forest. They decide to fix a place in the shed for the owlet to roost. Lawrence suggests they call it Ooh-Hoo, which means owl in their language. Every day the children feed Ooh-Hoo pieces of uncooked rabbit meat, bring him clean water and keep the shed clean. At night the children take him out to play: he loves hanging upside down on the clothesline.

 

Soon Papa and Grandpa work on the wagon, greasing the axels in preparation for the journey to the summer camp near the river. While Lawrence and his family eat moose stew and fresh bread inside their log home, Mama talks about taking the vegetables and the canvas tarp for drying berries. She tells Papa that Kokom has heard "that children are being taken from their families and put in school far away." This puzzles and worries Lawrence because he doesn't want to leave home. 

The time to leave for summer camp arrives. While Lawrence and his mother retrieve the remaining vegetables from last summer from the root cellar, his Uncle Louis hitches Blackie and Nellie, their horses to the wagon. With Papa and Uncle Lois leading the way on foot to clear branches that may have blown down, Grandma and Grandpa sit in the front seat of the wagon. Maruk will stay behind with Aunt Jenny to look after Ooh-Hoo. Accompanying Lawrence's family is another wagon with Auntie Rose, Uncle James and his cousins Clara, Leo, William and Sammy.

The two families camp at the same spot on the river every year. Lawrence and his cousin Sammy go swimming after rubbing down the horses. Grandpa and Grandma set up the lean-to for sleeping, laying canvas tarp and blankets over the spruce boughs. During the summer camp, Lawrence helps pick tasty saskatoon berries and works on his bush skills. But it is while out with his kokom looking for medicinal plants that Lawrence has his greatest adventure!

But when they return home from their summer camp, Lawrence and his  sister learn that they will be taken away from their home to go to a school far away. They must go otherwise their parents will be sent to prison. When the day arrives, both Lawrence and his sister cry as they are put into the truck with its high sides. 

Discussion

As Long As the Rivers Flow offers young readers a window into the life of a young Cree boy before he is taken way to a residential school. Ten-year-old Lawrence doesn't attend school but is busy learning the ways of his people; learning bush skills, how to care for animals, medicinal herbs and so forth. Life is simple, carefree, and almost idyllic. It is a life that includes many generations of his family, his grandparents, uncles, parents and siblings and it is a life in which knowledge and oral history are passed from one generation to the next.

Loyie fills his account with many pieces of  Indigenous knowledge and ways of life. For example, while out on a walk with his kokom, Lawrence is told,  "When it is dried, this rat root is good for a sore throat or a cold. Chew a small piece or make a tea with it. I always carry rat root wherever I go." His father encourages him to practice certain skills that will enable him to be a good hunter. "There's a family of beavers living in the river. They come up for food early every morning and late in the evening. If they smell you, they will dive down and go somewhere else. See if you can fool them." Descriptions of preparations for summer camp, making the beds in the lean-to portray a simple but practical way of life in the bush. The sense of community is demonstrated after his grandmother kills an attacking grizzly bear;  the bear is taken back to camp, the meat cut into portions, smoked and dried to be shared with all the families.

Loyie's detailed account of his last journey to his family's summer camp gives readers some sense of what he lost by being forcibly sent away from his family to school. It's not just the cultural knowledge that was never learned, but the time spent with parents and grandparents, the experiences of living with family and community over the years that were forever lost. 

 

The lovely water colour illustrations by Heather D. Holmlund capture the beauty of the land where Lawrence and his family lived. This beautiful artwork also captures the wide range of emotions from the joy of Lawrence and Marluk when they are shown the owlet, Lawrence's quiet patience by the beaver pond, the grief of his mother and grandmother over their children being forcibly removed to the childrens' sadness as they are driven away in the truck.

The title, As Long As The Rivers Flow is a reference to what Lawrence's grandfather tells him during a family gathering, " This land has always given us what we need to live...Like they told us long ago, as long as the rivers flow, this land is ours. It is up to all of us to care for it..." Despite the injustice of the residential schools, Lawrence worked to reclaim his Cree heritage in an effort to heal.  The Epilogue, at the back of the book is filled with black and white photographs of Lawrence and his siblings, the residential school and his grandparents. Lawrence attended St. Bernard's Mission residential school in northern Alberta. He would not return home until he was fourteen-years-old and struggled to fit in to a very changed world as an adult. He taught himself to type and had a successful career as a First Nations author. 

As Long As The Rivers Flow won the Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children's Nonfiction. Lawrence (Larry) Loyie passed away in 2010 after a lengthy battle with cancer.

Book Details:

As Long As The Rivers Flow by Larry Loyie
Toronto: A Groundwood Book    2002