The Fate of the Oolichan: Prospects of Eco-Cultural Restoration in Eden Robinson's Monkey Beach

Abstract

In Monkey Beach Haisla/Heiltsuk-Canadian writer Eden Robinson depicts both the social disintegration and dynamic adaptation that result when the cognitive maps of a traditional culture are compromised by new realities. In the novel, colonization, industrial development, and ecological degradation have irrevocably changed the “old ways” of the Haisla. The oolichan, a smelt-like staple of the traditional Haisla diet, has been all but extirpated in the rivers of the tribe's ancestral territory. Economic and social realities have changed radically as well. These factors result in the growing irrelevance of Haisla traditions, threatening the integrity of their social cognitive maps. Through the topos of “fascinating cannibalism” Robinson frames a canny critique of literary hermeneutics, fabricating an “authentic” account of Haisla subjectivity and creating moments that are fraught with ambiguity and charged with undisclosed cultural significance; she thus urges readers, in the words of Doris Sommer, to “proceed with caution”. Ultimately, Robinson's assertion of cultural difference troubles the novel's easy assimilation into the Canadian postcolonial literary canon.