Reviewed by Kate Champlin
Content Warnings: Structural racism, colonialism, and ableism
Jack tapped Trout’s arm. “Bear,” he said. As they slipped back to the trail, Trout turned to admire the snow cave that protected the lone sleeper. Crystal ridges rimmed the hole where the bear slept. (220)
This novel’s most recent cover is gorgeous: a mix of blue, gold, white, black, and lilac reminiscent of Van Gogh’s The Starry Night. The novel’s prose is equally gorgeous, and Hunter’s detailed, evocative descriptions allow us to fully appreciate two settings as they existed in the 1960s. These settings are the small Canadian town of Ogden and the Kootenay Plains area of the Canadian Rockies. The novel bears witness to the beauty of the natural world, the costs of cultural imperialism, and the friction that disabled and deaf teens experience in an ableist mainstream culture.
Closely based on Hunter’s lived experiences, the novel comments candidly on the natural beauty of the North Saskatchewan watershed. Hunter spent two childhood summers in this wild country of national parks and isolated ranger stations. The author’s deep love for that ecosystem comes through in each of his vivid and moving descriptions. Here is one of the many places in the area that Hunter’s prose makes nearly magical:
Siffleur Canyon was gouged in a schism of rock; on one side, contained by the hard, nearly vertical limestone of the ancient seabed that set a straight course for the river and, on the other, a steep bank of soft shale eroded by millions of years of current. They hiked the trail along the top of the gorge to Siffleur Falls, where the air was sweet and wet in the brief September heat. Squatting on the lip of the waterfall, they watched the torrent that dropped over the sheer ledge. (181)
The novel addresses the discrimination and isolation that deaf youth experienced at the time and often continue to endure; specifically, Hunter explores the frequent discrimination that occurred during the 1950s and 1960s. Trout, a white deaf teen raised in Ogden, is both the main character and the character whose experience most closely matches Hunter’s. Trout attends school decades before accommodations or accessibility would become standard anywhere in North America. Although his mother and several school officials remain determined to advocate for him, there are limited options for Trout’s education. The nearest school for the deaf and blind is in the adjacent province and provides only trade education.
Trout remains in the local public school, where he misses teacher questions and is forced to rely on visual cues to understand his lessons. He also experiences bullying and isolation from his classmates. This social isolation contributes to his eventual legal trouble. Trout makes only one real friend at public school: Kenny Dawes. Kenny convinces Trout to join him in breaking into the local hardware store, where Kenny steals a gun to protect himself from his abusive father (Mr. Dawes). This incident lands Kenny in juvenile prison and prompts Trout’s parents to send him to the Kootenay Plains to live with Trout’s aunt and uncle.
Trout’s Uncle Jack is also deaf. Trout’s year on the Kootenay Plains presents a heartwarming example of solidarity between deaf individuals, reflecting on the importance of Deaf culture as well as welcoming and respectful family dynamics. Both Uncle Jack and Aunt Shelah teach Trout the value of living deliberately—with purpose and intention. While Trout resides with his aunt and uncle, he builds a small cabin from scratch with scrap materials and helps his aunt to deliver a litter of puppies.
As a Canadian ranger who is also deaf, Jack serves within the narrative arc as a positive disabled role model; he rescues hikers, fights fires in the wilderness, and attempts to protect his indigenous neighbors from the worst effects of Canada’s cultural imperialism. Jack was initially in conflict with his neighbors, the Wesley or Goodstoney band of the Stoney-Nakoda people, because he had acted as a government agent.1 His first orders were to force the Goodstoney people back within boundaries set by the Canadian government and to shoot their horses if it aided in achieving this goal. Jack later located and fenced in Goodstoney graves, an act that showed respect for the dead and made the graves easier to locate.2
When Trout arrives on the Kootenay Plains, Jack has recently defied his superiors by giving his neighbors “permission” to hold a Sun Dance.3 Jack’s friendship with the Moses family–who are based on real-life elder Silas Abraham and his descendants—provides Trout with the opportunity to witness key moments and changes in this indigenous community. Through his family connections to the Goodstoney community, Trout is privy to a third pivotal and tragic event: the creation of Lake Abraham. Bighorn Dam was constructed in 1972.4 The dam created Lake Abraham by flooding about half of the original Kootenay Plains area. The water currently covers the original sites of many Goodstoney homes, traditional cemetery fields, and other sacred sites. Canada committed these acts of cultural imperialism without regard for indigenous communities’ sacred spaces, the boundaries established by treaties, or the Goodstoney’s protests.
Hunter’s novel depicts a political rally in favor of the dam. Both politicians and white voters discuss prosperity while mocking or ignoring the perspectives of the indigenous residents. In contrast, Carrie Moses asserts that the entire valley can be considered sacred territory. She worries about her future, since the dam will force her to relocate, and about displaced wildlife. Meanwhile, legal approval for the dam also leads to further acts of imperialist violence. Another ranger burns Charlie Moses’ cabin because it is in the way of the Canadian government’s planned changes. He does so even though Jack reminds him that the cabins can be moved.
Today, one of Canada’s official tourism websites calls the lake “an Instagram-worthy stop” and raves about the effect created by methane bubbles trapped beneath its winter ice.5 The website exemplifies how the cultural imperialism and treaty violations associated with the dam project are still being ignored by both the Canadian government and North America’s majority population. The lake was ultimately named for Silas Abraham, a man who—Hunter reminds us in his afterword—staunchly opposed the dam’s creation. Such official erasure makes In the Bear’s House especially important. Hunter’s novel recenters and critiques a series of crimes committed against indigenous people, testifying to the grief, betrayal, and anxiety that attended and continue to attend these acts’ occurrence.
Hunter’s lush and evocative prose will transport readers to the Saskatchewan watershed and to the less wild, but no less fascinating, town of Ogden. Readers will join its characters in bearing witness, both to the isolation that Trout faces in an ableist culture, and to the cultural violence underscored by the Lake Abraham project.
Title: In the Bear’s House
Author: Bruce Hunter
Publisher: Frontenac House
Date: 2025 (originally published 2009 by Oolichan Books)
Notes:
- As Hunter notes, the band recently changed their name to honor Jacob Goodstoney.
- The fences also helped the tribe to find and relocate sacred graves after the plans for Lake Abraham were finalized. Jack assisted in the relocation efforts.
- This particular example of cultural violence goes almost unremarked in the novel. Silas Moses seems resigned to the fact that his neighbors must ask “permission” to hold cultural ceremonies on their sovereign land. He does not bother mentioning that the surrounding lands “belong” to the Canadian government only because of colonial warfare and the land having been stolen. Instead, the Moses family treats Jack’s “permission” (intended as a gesture of respect from a Canadian government agent) as unusual enough to be notable. Their overall concern seemingly remains with other acts of cultural imperialism (such as the dam project) that they hope to prevent.
- Bighorn Dam Safety Review: https://canprojects.com/projects/dam-safety-water/big-horn/
- Abraham Lake: https://www.travelalberta.com/listings/abraham-lake-8562
Read Kate Champlin’s reviews of Disabling Relations: Wounded Bodyminds and Transnational Praxis and Notes from the Ward in this issue of Wordgathering.
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About the Reviewer
Kate Champlin (she/her) is a late-deafened adult and a graduate of Ball State University (Indiana). She currently works as a writing tutor and as a contract worker for BK International Education Consultancy, a company whose aim is to normalize the success of underserved students.