Whitemud Walking

By Matthew James Weigel | Coach House Books (2022)

WINNER OF THE 2020/2021 ALCUIN SOCIETY BOOK DESIGN AWARD FOR POETRY

WINNER OF THE ROBERT KROETSCH CITY OF EDMONTON BOOK PRIZE

WINNER OF THE 2023 STEPHAN G. STEPHANSSON AWARD FOR POETRY

WINNER OF THE GERALD LAMPERT MEMORIAL AWARD

WINNER OF THE INDIGENOUS VOICES AWARD FOR PUBLISHED POETRY IN ENGLISH

SHORTLISTED FOR THE DAYNE OGILVIE PRIZE FOR LGBTQ2S+ EMERGING WRITERS

LONGLISTED FOR THE RAYMOND SOUSTER AWARD

An Indigenous resistance historiography, poetry that interrogates the colonial violence of the archive

Whitemud Walking is about the land Matthew Weigel was born on and the institutions that occupy that land. It is about the interrelatedness of his own story with that of the colonial history of Canada, which considers the numbered treaties of the North-West to be historical and completed events. But they are eternal agreements that entail complex reciprocity and obligations. The state and archival institutions work together to sequester documents and knowledge in ways that resonate violently in people’s lives, including the dispossession and extinguishment of Indigenous title to land.

Using photos, documents, and recordings that are about or involve his ancestors, but are kept in archives, Weigel examines the consequences of this erasure and sequestration. Memories cling to documents and sometimes this palimpsest can be read, other times the margins must be centered to gain a fuller picture. Whitemud Walking is a genre-bending work of visual and lyric poetry, non-fiction prose, photography, and digital art and design.