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Paying the Land
Paying the Land | Joe Sacco
5 posts | 4 read | 9 to read
From the heir to R. Crumb and Art Spiegelman (Economist), a masterful work of comics journalism about indigenous North America, resource extraction, and our debt to the natural world The Dene have lived in the vast Mackenzie River Valley since time immemorial, by their account. To the Dene, the land owns them, not the other way around, and it is central to their livelihood and very way of being. But the subarctic Canadian Northwest Territories are home to valuable resources, including oil, gas, and diamonds. With mining came jobs and investment, but also road-building, pipelines, and toxic waste, which scarred the landscape, and alcohol, drugs, and debt, which deformed a way of life. In Paying the Land, Joe Sacco travels the frozen North to reveal a people in conflict over the costs and benefits of development. The mining boom is only the latest assault on indigenous culture: Sacco recounts the shattering impact of a residential school system that aimed to remove the Indian from the child; the destructive process that drove the Dene from the bush into settlements and turned them into wage laborers; the government land claims stacked against the Dene Nation; and their uphill efforts to revive a wounded culture. Against a vast and gorgeous landscape that dwarfs all human scale, Paying the Land lends an ear to trappers and chiefs, activists and priests, to tell a sweeping story about money, dependency, loss, and culturerecounted in stunning visual detail by one of the greatest cartoonists alive.
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jlhammar
Paying the Land | Joe Sacco
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#12Booksof2021 My pick from July is this epic work of graphic journalism. Sacco travels to the Canadian Northwest Territories to interview members of the Dene Nation. Covers their past, present and struggle for the future. Deep & eye-opening.

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review
Adventures_of_a_French_Reader
Paying the Land | Joe Sacco
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Pickpick

As usual, Joe Sacco doesn't disappoint with this graphic documentary about the Canadian Northwest Territories. He documents the history of these territories, how the natives used to live, the arrival of the Europeans, the treaties, how developments change the way of life of the natives... But this book is mainly about the present, about the effect all this is having.
It's a very interesting read, as it shows the challenges faced by the natives.

quote
Lindy
Paying the Land | Joe Sacco
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Joe: “What do you mean by paying the land, Erick?”
Erick: “You give it something. A bullet, perhaps water, tobacco or tea. It‘s like visiting someone. You bring the land a gift.”

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quote
Lindy
Paying the Land | Joe Sacco
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[Grade 8 girl]: “I‘m going to get drunk until I black out.”
[Teacher: Why?]
[girl]: “That way I won‘t know who abuses me. I won‘t remember.”
The rate of sexual assault in the NWT is 5 times the national average, according to Statistics Canada‘s 2016 report, surpassed only in Nunavut, where the rate is more than 7 times the national average.

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blurb
Lindy
Paying the Land | Joe Sacco
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“…outside activists paint oil and gas extraction apocalyptically, as if this is going to end the world.”

I am encountering a lot of eschatology in my reading lately, even in nonfiction comics like this.