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Conversations With a Dead Man: Indigenous Rights and the Legacy of Duncan Campbell Scott
The second edition of Mark Abley's acclaimed creative biography, revised and expanded with a new introduction by the author. When he died in 1947, Duncan Campbell Scott was revered as one of his country's finest poets and honoured as a devoted civil servant. Today, because of his work as head of the Department of Indian Affairs, he's widely considered one of history's worst Canadians. When word of this reaches Scott's ghost, he returns to the land of the living to ask poet and journalist Mark Abley to clear his name, and in the ensuing research, Abley learns of a man who could somehow write vibrant poems about Indigenous people in one moment, and in another institute policies designed to destroy Indigenous culture and force assimilation. With intelligence, moral ferocity, and a hunger for truth, Abley delves into Scott's professional and personal lives while also exploring the hostile government policies--including the residential school system--that damaged and continue to damage the lives of hundreds of thousands of Indigenous people. By mixing traditional non-fiction with an imagined debate between the author and Scott's ghost, Conversations with a Dead Man makes it clear that "the villain was a man, and his nation is our nation. Abley's act of radical empathy makes it harder to turn the page on a chapter of our history we might otherwise slam shut" (Andrew Stobo Sniderman, Maclean's ).
348 pages, Paperback
First published April 8, 2014
5 people are currently reading
69 people want to read
About the author
Mark Abley
21 books25 followersMark Abley is a Rhodes Scholar, a Guggenheim Fellow, a husband and a father of two. He grew up in Western Canada, spent several years in England, and has lived in the Montreal area since the early 1980s. His first love was poetry, and he has published four collections. But he is best known for his many books of nonfiction, notably Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages and The Organist: Fugues, Fatherhood, and a Fragile Mind.
His new book, Strange Bewildering Time: Istanbul to Kathmandu in the Last Year of the Hippie Trail, describes his travels across west and south Asia in the spring of 1978. Mark kept detailed journals during his three-month journey, allowing him to recreate his experiences from the standpoint of a much older man.
In 2022 Mark was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Saskatchewan for his contributions to the literary community.
His new book, Strange Bewildering Time: Istanbul to Kathmandu in the Last Year of the Hippie Trail, describes his travels across west and south Asia in the spring of 1978. Mark kept detailed journals during his three-month journey, allowing him to recreate his experiences from the standpoint of a much older man.
In 2022 Mark was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Saskatchewan for his contributions to the literary community.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
December 31, 2013
A biography of a fascinating man made more interesting by its device of bringing him back to life to defend his actions, which seem so indefensible by today's standards.
The sections reviewing some of Scott's milestones, poems, and policy decisions shed light on the man and the thinking behind some of Canada's most brutal colonial policies. The conversations between the author, Abley, and the subject, Scott, were an effective way to understand the broader cultural context in which Scott operated and viewed the world without excusing his actions. They were less engaging though as pieces of writing, probably because it's nearly impossible to write engaging platonic dialogue. [I've tried, and Abley did a better job than I.]
I highly recommend this book if you want to try to wrap your head around Canada's colonial history and the white men of power who shaped it.
The sections reviewing some of Scott's milestones, poems, and policy decisions shed light on the man and the thinking behind some of Canada's most brutal colonial policies. The conversations between the author, Abley, and the subject, Scott, were an effective way to understand the broader cultural context in which Scott operated and viewed the world without excusing his actions. They were less engaging though as pieces of writing, probably because it's nearly impossible to write engaging platonic dialogue. [I've tried, and Abley did a better job than I.]
I highly recommend this book if you want to try to wrap your head around Canada's colonial history and the white men of power who shaped it.
June 28, 2022
I really enjoyed this book because the opening scene with the arrival of the ghost of Duncan Campbell Scott sets up the plot, the characters, and the impossibility of it all. I was drawn in, and I'm not sure that Mark Abley was making it up. Setting the record straight. This is a remarkable work in this time of Reconciliation. It's sad, funny, infuriating, and kept me up past my bedtime. How the author negotiates for the reader the pieces of Scott that really don't fit together, gives Scott a voice, argues with him. The poet and the bureaucrat, the quiet boring Ottawa man, musician and bereaved parent, 'architect' of the residential schools and the resulting genocide -- thank you, Mark Abley, for laying out the pieces of the puzzle that will never fit. And, also thanks for believing in ghosts!
June 8, 2015
Abley's approach was, I think, a good choice, particularly from the perspective of an eductor in an era when we are making an effort to balance hindsight with understanding of contextual perspective and encourage students to think critically about both as analytical lenses through which to consider historical events.
Although Abley does engage is some speculation in the process of creating the dialogue between himself and the shade of Duncan Campbell Scott, the author has done his research meticulously, and provides extensive notes to substantiate the basis on which he builds DC Scott as a conversationalist. Wherever possible, Abley has actually incorporated specific details from primary documents directly into the conversation between the two authors, and done so transparently - something that is made possible because of the given circumstances of the book, that Duncan Campbell Scott has returned from the Other Side to seek a someone, a fellow writer and poet, a fellow Canadian, who will listen, he hopes impartially, and hopefully explain to him, how he has come to be the name and face of Canada's national shame, the Residential School system that cost so many Aboriginal people their lives and many hundreds of thousands of more tremendous pain, and negative impacts on their health.
Abley strikes an evenhanded balance between non-fiction and fictionalizing the story of a man who was, contrary to what his legacy might suggest, passionate but yet detached, oddly liberal for his time but a staunch believer in Canada as a land of good, a land of progress and a land of opportunity for anyone willing to devote effort, strength of mind and fortitude of will to their goals.
Abley also manages to address his own obvious ambivalence about his subject - he makes no bones about the fact that he finds the repercussions of Scott's politics and actions to be reprehensible on a level of purely human compassion, regardless of the context of the times, and he refuses to become Scott's apologist, or to allow the character of Scott himself to become unrealistically sorrowful or repentant. Abley does, however, obviously admire some of Scott's work as a poet, and more than the artistry of wordsmithing itself, he sees in Scott's writing a dialectic - a nostalgia-tinged respect for the 'Indians" Scott already believed to be, for all intents and purposes, dead to their traditional ways of life.
For someone steadfastly determined to focus on the pragmatic realities of economics and politics, governance and education, when it came to the arts - poetry, music - to War and Glory, to history and to the Aboriginal people that he met, and more importantly perhaps, those he imagined, Duncan Campbell Scott was, in fact, a man of his time, romanticizing what Thomas King refers to his work, The Inconvenient Indian as the "dead Indian": the leathered, beaded and feathered icon, at once noble and savage, admired for being natural but condescended to and needful of guidance in the mind of White men of the era (recall, White women of the time also lacked agency, although they got the vote and legal status as 'persons under the law' decades prior to those same rights being permitted to Aboriginal peoples, including those Aboriginal people who served Canada in World Wars I and II).
Abley also does something else - he works very hard to stay the course as a White man speaking to another White man, not FOR Aboriginal people, but as a White man who is disgusted with a horrible time in Canadian history and one which is not only not far in our collective pasts, but one which is still being played out in subtle (and sometimes less than subtle) systemic and embedded racism in Canada today. It can be a difficult thing to be an ally to peoples whose voice has been the target of campaigns to enforce silence for decades, centuries even. It is vital that those of us who are not Aboriginal, or whose roots in the Aboriginal community are so distant that we cannot speak with authority about what it means to live as an Aboriginal person in Canada today, do not speak of our anger and horror about what happened as if the pain is our own. Although we may have good intentions, to let our voices drown out the authentic, vibrant and still-very-much-with-us voices of hundreds of thousands of Aboriginal people who did not allow their cultures to be destroyed, who have not surrendered their identity, or who are actively seeking to rebuild their communities, their connections to their lands, to their language, and to their traditional teachings, is functionally the same behaviour as trying to 'teach' them 'better', or to 'take care of them' by making them wards of the state. First Nations people do not need non-Aboriginal people to speak for them, to save them, to fix them. To work in partnership? Yes. To accept history, without justifying, minimizing or qualifying? Absolutely. To acknowledge the validity of their cultures, their experience, their autonomy? Yes. These are, however, the hopes of peoples with agency, not supplicants to superiors. When systemic racism persists in forcing them, through inequitable access to basic services, into the position of supplicants, we perpetuate abuses that are centuries old, and Abley examines this unflinchingly, acknowledging the responsibility of Canadians now to fix what is in front of us, even if we ourselves are not the "ones who did it", because we are the ones who have benefitted and continue to benefit.
This book is written in a very accessible voice, but full of important information for anyone interested in Canadian history, the history of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples on this continent, and anyone interested in matters of social justice.
Speaking as an educator, I believe that this is a book that should be introduced to every Canadian, of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal ancestry. It provides excellent starting points for many discussions that need to be begun, and it does so without cringing from that which is distasteful, without sugarcoating and without forgetting that there was an entirely different way of thinking when Duncan Campbell Scott headed the Department Of Indian Affairs. A way of thinking we must examine closely if we do not want to repeat its mistakes, over and over.
Although Abley does engage is some speculation in the process of creating the dialogue between himself and the shade of Duncan Campbell Scott, the author has done his research meticulously, and provides extensive notes to substantiate the basis on which he builds DC Scott as a conversationalist. Wherever possible, Abley has actually incorporated specific details from primary documents directly into the conversation between the two authors, and done so transparently - something that is made possible because of the given circumstances of the book, that Duncan Campbell Scott has returned from the Other Side to seek a someone, a fellow writer and poet, a fellow Canadian, who will listen, he hopes impartially, and hopefully explain to him, how he has come to be the name and face of Canada's national shame, the Residential School system that cost so many Aboriginal people their lives and many hundreds of thousands of more tremendous pain, and negative impacts on their health.
Abley strikes an evenhanded balance between non-fiction and fictionalizing the story of a man who was, contrary to what his legacy might suggest, passionate but yet detached, oddly liberal for his time but a staunch believer in Canada as a land of good, a land of progress and a land of opportunity for anyone willing to devote effort, strength of mind and fortitude of will to their goals.
Abley also manages to address his own obvious ambivalence about his subject - he makes no bones about the fact that he finds the repercussions of Scott's politics and actions to be reprehensible on a level of purely human compassion, regardless of the context of the times, and he refuses to become Scott's apologist, or to allow the character of Scott himself to become unrealistically sorrowful or repentant. Abley does, however, obviously admire some of Scott's work as a poet, and more than the artistry of wordsmithing itself, he sees in Scott's writing a dialectic - a nostalgia-tinged respect for the 'Indians" Scott already believed to be, for all intents and purposes, dead to their traditional ways of life.
For someone steadfastly determined to focus on the pragmatic realities of economics and politics, governance and education, when it came to the arts - poetry, music - to War and Glory, to history and to the Aboriginal people that he met, and more importantly perhaps, those he imagined, Duncan Campbell Scott was, in fact, a man of his time, romanticizing what Thomas King refers to his work, The Inconvenient Indian as the "dead Indian": the leathered, beaded and feathered icon, at once noble and savage, admired for being natural but condescended to and needful of guidance in the mind of White men of the era (recall, White women of the time also lacked agency, although they got the vote and legal status as 'persons under the law' decades prior to those same rights being permitted to Aboriginal peoples, including those Aboriginal people who served Canada in World Wars I and II).
Abley also does something else - he works very hard to stay the course as a White man speaking to another White man, not FOR Aboriginal people, but as a White man who is disgusted with a horrible time in Canadian history and one which is not only not far in our collective pasts, but one which is still being played out in subtle (and sometimes less than subtle) systemic and embedded racism in Canada today. It can be a difficult thing to be an ally to peoples whose voice has been the target of campaigns to enforce silence for decades, centuries even. It is vital that those of us who are not Aboriginal, or whose roots in the Aboriginal community are so distant that we cannot speak with authority about what it means to live as an Aboriginal person in Canada today, do not speak of our anger and horror about what happened as if the pain is our own. Although we may have good intentions, to let our voices drown out the authentic, vibrant and still-very-much-with-us voices of hundreds of thousands of Aboriginal people who did not allow their cultures to be destroyed, who have not surrendered their identity, or who are actively seeking to rebuild their communities, their connections to their lands, to their language, and to their traditional teachings, is functionally the same behaviour as trying to 'teach' them 'better', or to 'take care of them' by making them wards of the state. First Nations people do not need non-Aboriginal people to speak for them, to save them, to fix them. To work in partnership? Yes. To accept history, without justifying, minimizing or qualifying? Absolutely. To acknowledge the validity of their cultures, their experience, their autonomy? Yes. These are, however, the hopes of peoples with agency, not supplicants to superiors. When systemic racism persists in forcing them, through inequitable access to basic services, into the position of supplicants, we perpetuate abuses that are centuries old, and Abley examines this unflinchingly, acknowledging the responsibility of Canadians now to fix what is in front of us, even if we ourselves are not the "ones who did it", because we are the ones who have benefitted and continue to benefit.
This book is written in a very accessible voice, but full of important information for anyone interested in Canadian history, the history of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples on this continent, and anyone interested in matters of social justice.
Speaking as an educator, I believe that this is a book that should be introduced to every Canadian, of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal ancestry. It provides excellent starting points for many discussions that need to be begun, and it does so without cringing from that which is distasteful, without sugarcoating and without forgetting that there was an entirely different way of thinking when Duncan Campbell Scott headed the Department Of Indian Affairs. A way of thinking we must examine closely if we do not want to repeat its mistakes, over and over.
May 6, 2014
Mark Abley has written a fabulous book on the life of Duncan Campbell Scott,one of the most reviled men in Canadian history. He was Minister of Indian Affairs in the early 20th century and Aboriginals blame him for the plight of our First Nations community to this day. He was responsible for the residential school system that wreaked havoc in the lives of Aboriginal families. I believe that this book should be read by every Canadian in order to better understand our history and to support Canada's original inhabitants.
December 6, 2017
It took me a really long time to finish this book. The first chapter had me absolutely captivated, but unfortunately the rest of the book sort of dragged on. I loved the idea of bringing someone's ghost in to tell their own story; it's such a unique way of writing creative nonfiction. However, the majority of the book was not told through conversation, but from plain history. I'll admit that the history sections were less dry than textbook writing, but they definitely weren't can't-put-it-down kind of writing.
Even the conversation sections didn't live up to the first chapter; the conversations often felt forced and unrealistic, as both Abley and Scott would often quote entire passages from historians and poets, as if they'd both memorized entire books before sitting down to chat. Sometimes Abley made it a little more realistic by saying he searched through his papers for the exact quote, but much of the conversation just didn't feel natural or genuine.
The Abley in the book didn't seem to be quite the same as the Abley that wrote the book. The Abley that wrote the book obviously wanted to give a voice to Scott and allow him to tell his story, but the Abley in the book just didn't want to give Scott a chance. It almost felt like Abley wanted his own character to represent the purely progressive point of view so that he didn't seem like a sympathizer of the damned. This tactic kind of worked against itself for me, because I thought the point of the book was to provide a sense of relativism for Scott's actions and inactions. Then again, I suppose the true point of the book was to provide an unbiased report of his life by laying down both sides of the story, Scott representing his own side, and Abley representing the other, thus allowing the readers to make their own judgements. In that sense, it worked very well.
All criticism aside, Conversations With A Dead Man provides a very thorough and well-researched look into Scott's life and legacy, and though I found it dense and difficult to get through, I respect the heck out of it for tackling such a sensitive topic.
Even the conversation sections didn't live up to the first chapter; the conversations often felt forced and unrealistic, as both Abley and Scott would often quote entire passages from historians and poets, as if they'd both memorized entire books before sitting down to chat. Sometimes Abley made it a little more realistic by saying he searched through his papers for the exact quote, but much of the conversation just didn't feel natural or genuine.
The Abley in the book didn't seem to be quite the same as the Abley that wrote the book. The Abley that wrote the book obviously wanted to give a voice to Scott and allow him to tell his story, but the Abley in the book just didn't want to give Scott a chance. It almost felt like Abley wanted his own character to represent the purely progressive point of view so that he didn't seem like a sympathizer of the damned. This tactic kind of worked against itself for me, because I thought the point of the book was to provide a sense of relativism for Scott's actions and inactions. Then again, I suppose the true point of the book was to provide an unbiased report of his life by laying down both sides of the story, Scott representing his own side, and Abley representing the other, thus allowing the readers to make their own judgements. In that sense, it worked very well.
All criticism aside, Conversations With A Dead Man provides a very thorough and well-researched look into Scott's life and legacy, and though I found it dense and difficult to get through, I respect the heck out of it for tackling such a sensitive topic.
December 28, 2018
I really enjoyed Abley's effort to imagine a dialogue with Duncan Campbell Scott, the head of the Canadian Department of Indian Affairs during some of its most repressive policies against Indigenous peoples. What really struck me was the idea that Scott wanted to be known for his poetry, and his work as a cog in the governmental machinery was somehow incidental to this "true" calling, something that would eventually disappear from the history books just as Scott hoped Indigenous peoples themselves would disappear through assimilation into the settler majority. Yet Scott miscalculated; just as the peoples the government claimed as its wards have not disappeared but are vibrantly reclaiming their cultures (see Alicia Elliott's impressive round-up of artists contributing to the "Indigenous renaissance": https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.4955973), Scott's legacy is now less focused on his literary work than his role in orchestrating an attempted genocide. Abley's fictional scenes in which a ghostly Scott appears in his living room, tasking him with investigating the issue of Scott's deteriorating reputation, are interspersed with a historical narrative of Scott's life and career, as well as more recent events that have recast these in a different light. This treatment could have come off as cheesy; it is effective because Abley brings to "life" a Scott that is detestable yet human. Exploring the relationship between Scott's careers as a bureaucrat and a poet, Abley offers no justifications but demonstrates how the "incidental" filling of a power vacuum can cause generations of pain and suffering.
November 5, 2020
A clever written creative non-fiction historical novel.
I knew nothing about Duncan Campbell Scott. While reading the Conversations with a Dead Man by Mark Abley I learned a great deal about the colonization and assimilation/cultural genocide of Canada’s indigenous population. Duncan was the first deputy superintendent of the Department of Indian Affairs and a poet.
I found the dichotomy of Duncan’s character curious – on one hand he was a poet, lover of nature writing romantic prose of the Canadian wilderness – while on the other hand, he was heartless and ignored the pain and suffering inflicted on the indigenous people in Canada.
Even though the Indigenous people of Canada received apologies and a move towards reconciliation (Harper never acknowledged colonization) we are living with the consequences of Duncan’s legacy, the Indian Act, Treaty rights and the Residential School Program.
I knew nothing about Duncan Campbell Scott. While reading the Conversations with a Dead Man by Mark Abley I learned a great deal about the colonization and assimilation/cultural genocide of Canada’s indigenous population. Duncan was the first deputy superintendent of the Department of Indian Affairs and a poet.
I found the dichotomy of Duncan’s character curious – on one hand he was a poet, lover of nature writing romantic prose of the Canadian wilderness – while on the other hand, he was heartless and ignored the pain and suffering inflicted on the indigenous people in Canada.
Even though the Indigenous people of Canada received apologies and a move towards reconciliation (Harper never acknowledged colonization) we are living with the consequences of Duncan’s legacy, the Indian Act, Treaty rights and the Residential School Program.
June 21, 2022
A documentary on the life of Duncan Campbell Scott as a respected Canadian poet and administrator of Canada's Residential Schools and the Department of Indian Affairs, told in an intriguing manner. Scott makes period visits to the home of Mark Abley and holds discussions with him regarding his concern over his tarnished image as administrator in the Indian Affairs department. Much of the conversation centers around the role the churches played and the government's unwillingness to go against the favor with which the churches were held and the willingness of the churches to operate the schools. His other argument involves the general disrespect which the world in general regarded the Irish, Blacks, and virtually every other non british race. A very interesting read about a man with two very different sides, artistic and impassioned at the same time as unfeeling and unyielding.
October 29, 2023
This is a very instructive and effective primer on the history of relations between the indigenous people of Canada and the Canadian government. 'Instructive' because it deals most every imaginable argument or excuse for the governance and management of indigenous people by the government over time. 'Effective' because of the way the novel is structured as a debate (more than a 'conversation') with the ghost of the senior bureaucrat accused of being responsible for many of the programs that caused so much harm. Readers may find themselves virtually participating as the ghost and the author debate such issues as whether it is meaningful to hold historical figures accountable to contemporary moral standards.
July 27, 2023
I already knew some of the atrocities that happened in residential schools, but in the grand scheme of things, I knew so little of what Indigenous people went though and are still trying to heal from as they continue to go through more. Scott was infuriating in every way, and God did I hate him. My one complaint would be that the language in the conversations was a bit (very) unrealistic, and the end of the book was a bit corny and definitely did not fit the mood of the rest of the book.
September 29, 2015
A grave and moving account of the facts surrounding the Canadian Aboriginal residential school system, this book is a tough read, palatable only because of the wit and smart narrative structure with which the writer graces it. It's tough because it's a no holds barred look at the devastation and the rationale for same, that was wreaked upon the Aboriginals by the authors of The Indian Act and, more particularly, Duncan Campbell Scott, architect of the residential school system. Yet, there is wit, grace and care in the writing. The device of conversation with the ghost of Mr. Scott is brilliant. Thank you, M Abley!
December 14, 2016
Interesting format used. This is an essay discussing Canada's First Nations: Residential Schools, Canadian Government policy, assimilation, plus Truth and Reconciliation, intermixed with an engaging modern dialogue between the author and Duncan Campbell Scott, who died in 1947.
Scott was the head of the Department of Indian Affairs, besides being a poet and writer.
Abley did a fine job with his research and presentation.
Scott was the head of the Department of Indian Affairs, besides being a poet and writer.
Abley did a fine job with his research and presentation.
July 30, 2014
I found the book worth reading for the interesting info about Duncan Campbell Scott and the context he lived in (Indian Act, Indian Residential Schools and the imperialism and racism of his time). The "conversations" that the author had with Scott were a bit clumsy, I thought, and that aspect of the book didn't work for me. Interesting idea, tho.
Want to read
July 22, 2014Heard interview on CBC Radio
August 6, 2014
Very well done. Harrowing. Necessary.
October 10, 2016
Well worth reading
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews