Surviving the City

The Highwater Press graphic novel, Surviving the City, tackles weighty issues connected to the No More Stolen Sisters movement focused upon addressing the problem of violence against Indigenous women and girls in Canada. The book does so in a manner that provides for high school readers an understandable yet appropriately sober introduction to the issues. In the book, Miikwan and Dez are best friends helping one another face the challenges of growing up as Indigenous youth in an urban environment. Miikwan is Anishinaabe (Ojibway) and Dez is Inninew (Cree).

Tasha Spillett and Natasha Donovan’s skillful collaboration will be especially appreciated by high school girls, but, indeed, this is a book of educative value for males and females. In Surviving the City, Dez lives with her grandmother until that caregiver becomes too sick to be able to continue. Dez then faces the prospect of relocation to a group home. In order to avoid this fate, Dez disappears into the city, leaving her best friend worried for her welfare. Miikwan is especially worried given that her own mother is herself a missing “Stolen Sister.”

In the author pen portrait, it says that Tasha Spillett draws strength from her Nehiyaw (Cree) and Trinidadian bloodlines. This ancestry no doubt contributed greatly to her inspiration to write Surviving the City. The same is true for Natasha Donovan who is a member of the Métis Nation of British Columbia. Yet concerns about the issues raised in the book cannot be restricted only to Indigenous peoples, and this latest offering in the Highwater Press “Debwe Series” is of value to all high school children. My understanding is that debwe is an Ojibway word referring to telling the truth and so, whilst tackling unpleasant issues, Surviving the City fits neatly within the series.

In the CBC Books of the Year for 2018, Surviving the City was included on the list recognizing the best Canadian “comics” of the year. While I don’t personally recognize graphic novels as comics, the recognition as one of the leading graphic novels of the year is deserved.

Donovan’s full-colour illustrations include ghostly “guardian angel” types of figures representing missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Likewise, dark, sinister “alien” figures symbolize threats to the females within the story. These additions to the illustrations add an extra dimension to the story and reflect the ongoing, pervasive nature of the Stolen Sisters problem.

Surviving the City is a powerful, troubling, educational graphic novel for high school readers.