Canoe Song

Canoe Song

This poem by Long Lance may seem like it is about an Indigenous person who misses being able to live his life before the influence of Europeans. If you look at the life of the author, you can see the hidden meaning. This poem uses aspects of Indigenous life to talk about how the author wants to go home. Home for Long Lester is being African American. He faced a lot of segregation growing up, so he changed his identity to Indigenous to avoid it. He never openly spoke about his Black heritage, but he wrote about it. The Canadian Prairies helped Long Lance in his hidden identity as Indigenous, but it was also in the Canadian Prairies that he was seen as Black.

Karina Vernon

"Canoe Song" from Vernon, Karina, Black Prairie Archives: An Anthology, Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2020, 103.

Wilfrid Laurier University Press

2020

University of Ottawa Library