GOING BACK: What Home Means (Episode 37)
Guest: Kazim Ali, Author of Northern Light: Power, Land, and the Memory of Water.
Music: Cullah
The child of South Asian migrants, Kazim Ali was born in London, England, lived as a child in the cities and small towns of Manitoba, and made a life in the United States. As a queer, Muslim man passing through disparate homes, he has never felt he belonged to a place. And yet, one day, the celebrated poet and essayist finds himself thinking of the boreal forests and lush waterways of Jenpeg. After 40 years away from the place, Kazim returned to Jenpeg where he lived as a child while his father worked on Manitoba Hydro’s Jenpeg Generating Station.
Kazim’s return visit after those 40 some years away is documented in his book, Northern Light: Power, Land, and the Memory of Water. The book is beautiful – layered and insightful, part memoir, part history, part journalism and at the heart of it is the history of the dam and a history of broken promises to the Pimicikamak Cree of Cross Lake and the dam’s environmental toll on the land and the people.
LINKS
His book, Northern Light: Power, Land, and the Memory of Water.
ATPN's report on the Jenpeg Dam Generating Station and its impact on the Pimicikamak People
