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Transmotion   Vol 1, No 1 (2015) 
 
 

	
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Rice, Waubgeshig. Legacy. Pendicton: Theytus, 2014. 192 pp.  
 
http://www.theytus.com/Book-List/Legacy  
 
At once both heartbreakingly devastating and breathtakingly hopeful, Waubgeshig Rice truly 
gifts his readers a Legacy with his debut novel. Published by Indigenous-owned and operated 
Theytus Books, this work acknowledges the hardships facing today’s Indigenous communities, 
while simultaneously affirming the resilience of Indigenous, and specifically Anishinaabe, 
identity.  
 
Legacy opens with the story of Eva, a young Anishinaabe woman who has left her home on the 
Birchbark Indian reservation to attend university in Toronto. With his first chapter, Rice captures 
the uncomfortable reality of Indigenous students leaving the close-knit communities of home and 
being thrust into the urban world of Academia where our Indigineity is an unavoidable reality. 
Being Indian becomes a badge that Rice’s characters struggle to wear proudly in the face of 
institutional and individual racism. As an example of this, Eva is challenged by an ignorant 
professor in her Intro to Canadian Politics class who essentially tells her to “get over it,” in 
regard to issues of “poverty and despair” on Native reserves. While non-Indigenous readers may 
be surprised at the tone this professor takes, or may accept it based on the fact that Legacy’s first 
chapter is set in 1989, Indigenous Academics will see all too familiar echoes of our own 
experiences in university as we read Eva’s frustration. 
 
Though much of the novel is set in Ontario cities, shown as dark and dangerous places where the 
Indigenous characters struggle (with some failing) to survive, the heart of the book lies in the 
Birchbark Indian Reservation, a fictional community located on the beautiful north shore of Lake 
Huron. Between tragic and sometimes violent moments, Rice weaves intricate details depicting 
the beauty of the land, helping to transform the stereotypical images of a reserve life setting into 
something deeper—an acknowledgement of the spiritual connection that his Anishinaabe 
characters hold with this place. We see Eva reflecting on her favorite memories of the beach she 
grew up on, remembering her mother asking, “You see all the sand on the beach here? This is all 
ours to share, but it’s yours to use however you want.” In moments like these, Rice gives us 
insight into Anishinaabe ways of knowing—concepts about how land connects us as a 
community.  
 
Notably, Legacy does not solely subsist on celebrating the beauty that can and does exist in 
reserve life. There is a consistent undercurrent of suffering and the desire to numb the pain 
throughout Rice’s novel that points to the complexities behind Indigenous issues in Canada. We 
learn within the first few pages that Eva’s parents have been killed by a drunk driver, and 
without giving too much away, later on, how death continues to ravage the family. Rice 
masterfully illustrates the suffocating and never-ending affects of grief in the way he formats the 
novel—every chapter following Eva’s gives us a different perspective from one of her four 
siblings, Stanley, Maria, Norman, and Edgar, and simultaneously moves us through time, each 
story beginning two years from where the last chapter has left us. Even as years pass through 
every chapter, propelling the story forward, the reader is consistently brought back to the vivid 
moments of each character experiencing the news that their parents had been killed as if it had 
just happened. We see each sibling grappling with various reactions to grieving: Stanley heading 



Angela Semple   Review of Legacy 
 
 

	
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off to school to try and follow in his sister Eva’s footsteps; Norman and Maria stumbling their 
way through, numbing the pain with alcohol and drugs; Edgar, the eldest, trying to raise his 
younger siblings, as well as a family of his own, after dropping out of university himself.  
 
Rice courageously gives us an honest picture of Indigenous life in Ontario, from alcoholism, 
violence, racism, and tragedy, to the uplifting connections with language and land, honouring 
important Anishinaabe teachings by sharing them with his reader. In the end, what allows each 
of these siblings to come through their darkness is a strong connection to Anishinaabe tradition 
and ceremony. Culture is celebrated in Rice’s book as we see both Maria and Norman healing 
from their alcoholism through learning about sacred medicines and sweat lodge teachings. Far 
from painting a bleak future for Indigenous peoples, Rice illustrates the power of reconnecting 
with Indigenous traditions as we see this family begin to overcome their haunting past and 
strengthen their bonds with each other by learning the teachings of their ancestors.  
 
If there is one thing I can say as a criticism of Legacy, it would be that there are a few moments 
where pronoun use can get a little choppy. While this may be a deliberate choice to create a 
dream-like quality (especially in chapters where we see characters under the influence of 
alcohol) there were some moments where it was simply distracting having to go back and re-read 
more than once to understand which “he” was “him.” Also, on a personal note, Rice sets up his 
final chapter with an agonizing feeling of dread, which left me almost wishing he had left the 
ending out so as to save me from a harsh dose of reality. That being said, the finale of this novel 
carries on the distinct honesty found throughout Rice’s work, which illustrates the author’s in 
depth understanding of Anishinaabe thought, where truth and honesty are highly valued. 
Therefore, Rice’s ending lends to the authenticity of his voice, and without it the story would be 
left unbearably incomplete.   
 
Overall, Legacy is an important read for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous readers alike. For 
Anishinaabe readers, it is a celebration of Indigenous identity: a look at the resilience of our 
communities and the power of connecting to our traditional languages, homelands and cultures. 
For non-Indigenous readers, Rice allows a window into Indigenous life that resists stereotypes by 
actively acknowledging the inescapable truths of colonialism. On the surface, Rice gives us a 
story of tragic deaths in an individual Anishinaabe family, but this work goes much deeper than 
that in examining the larger legacy of Canada’s colonial history and the continued effects of it on 
our communities, broken only by reconnection to our truths as Indigenous peoples.  
 
Angela Semple (Ktunaxa), Trent University