Things that scare me.

[leahbobet]

It's -9 C in Toronto tonight; with the windchill, it feels like -15 C. I came home this afternoon huddled down in jeans and sweater and my big wool pea coat, scarf and hat and lined gloves, and my knees were still freezing by the time I made it the four blocks from the office home.

Those of you who caught the prior post know that Peter Watts, whom I like and respect and count as a friend, was detained, beaten, and pepper-sprayed by US border guards while trying to cross back into Canada; while coming home. When he was released from custody on the other side of the border, it was "coat-less and without a vehicle, in a winter storm."*

Let me tell you a little story about the cold.

---

In 1990 in Saskatchewan, a 17-year-old boy named Neil Stonechild was found frozen to death in a field outside Saskatoon. He had last been seen, handcuffed and bloodied, being packed into the back of a squad car.**

Ten years later, two more Native men were found frozen to death outside the city in a single week. A third came forward with a story of being driven around outside the city by the police and threatened. There was a public inquiry. Two police officers on the Saskatoon force were ultimately charged and lost their positions.

There's a name for this thing. It's called a starlight cruise.

I found out this story from a CBC documentary in 2003 or so. matociquala was over visiting. It had long, lingering landscape shots of the frozen prairies; the very epitome of winter.

I started crying and I couldn't stop.

---

See, here's the thing about living in a cold-weather society. You stick together, because you have to: it's you against the winter. That is, on a certain level, the basic division of life. That's where the concept of the Wendigo comes from. A wendigo is famine, starvation, greed; the insatiable need to eat until you eat the members of your own society. Wendigo are creatures of the cold, the North. They are supernatural, but a human being can become one, if they resorted to cannibalism.

A wendigo is what happens when human beings turn away from their own and throw in with winter.

---

These are the worst sins of a cold-weather society, the ones that are irredeemable: siding with winter. Feeding off your own. Taking another person as prey, or leaving them as prey for the winter, in jeans and a shirt with no wool coat or scarf or hat; with no lined gloves and no transit home, knowing full well what the winter does.

These are the things that scare me.

I will not be travelling to the United States for the forseeable future.


*Citation.
**Citation.

Comments

[pnkrokhockeymom.livejournal.com]

Hey dear: just deleted my comment because it dawned on me that it might be a bit too "connecty" in a public post of my IRL me with my elljay me. I'll message you later.

[wirewalking.livejournal.com]

I wish I could be shocked that this happened. Way too many abuse-of-authority stories out there. Way too many. I'm so sorry that someone close to you is on the receiving end of one.

And on a selfish note, I'm going to miss you at cons this year. :(

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

I will not be travelling to the United States for the forseeable future.

I'll miss you. But I can't blame you.

[delta-november.livejournal.com]

I don't have the words to express myself properly right now, but this whole story has made me very sad. Peter has a good support network, of which you are a part, and I am optimistic that things will turn out okay for him. I grieve, however, for the less well-connected people who must also be going through this.

[kats-kradle.livejournal.com]

Mark read your entry and his comment was along the lines of 'Tis a pity that they can't screen out the undesirable elements of society from jobs of this importance.'

We ended up having a conversation about my experiences at the border. Having dated him for two years I had my experiences but they were with the Canadian border guards rather then the U.S. ones but that's either through luck or the fact that I'm a U.S. citizen. I don't know which one it is or if it's a factor of both. I wish it wasn't something I have to wonder about. I am sorry that this is the final nail in your U.S. traveling coffin. I'm sorry your friend is going through this (Mark and I are tight right now but we're looking at our budget to see if there's wiggle room somewhere). I'm sorry there are people who do this bullshit and I'm sorry beyond measure that there are people who've paid the ultimate price for those who pull this bullshit.

<>

[ckd]

I'll also miss you at the US cons, but I completely understand your decision. I guess I'll just have to plan at least one trip to the Great White North....

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

Yes. Thank you for saying this. It's been bubbling below the surface, not quite coherent.

I have emailed David.

[coffeeem.livejournal.com]

Sigh. I can't fault your logic. 8>(

Your observation about human solidarity in the face of winter is a good one. The same has been true of places like Arizona, for the same reason on the opposite end of the climate scale. People who cross the border illegally from Mexico into the U.S. are at the mercy of the Sonoran Desert, which, while beautiful, has no mercy at all. Only the most appalling of the Protect-Our-Borders vigilantes will destroy the unmanned emergency aid/water stations placed there by U.S. authorities to save the lives of people trying to cross that landscape.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I wish I weren't reading this on the first full day of Chanukah, the day also of mrissa annual lussekater post. To me those are the beginning of the holiday season, the fight against cold and darkness. A celebration of the anti-wendigo. I will be making a donation, though I'm also still looking for more of the story. (What I've seen is enough to convince me there's a problem, whatever else comes out.)

[rosefox]

I will very much miss you at Readercon. I'm so sorry my country is so fucked up.

[boywhocantsayno.livejournal.com]

Now I'm wondering how to I'm going to deal with Customs in three weeks, when I'll be going to Atlanta. I don't generally have a problem when I'm going to a con - sometimes they'll ask who will be there, and I rattle off a couple of names, and they're satisfied. Or I show them a flyer or progress report. But this time, I'm simply going to visit my boyfriend for a few days over New Year's. US Customs aren't big on acknowledging same-sex relationships, and being in one with someone who lives 1600km away may seem odd to them.

I'll be keeping an eye on this story because not only is Peter an acquaintance of mine, he's also slated to be one of our author guests at Polaris next year and I want him to be able to attend.

(I wouldn't quite say he's a friend, but that's only because we haven't spent any significant amount of time socializing - I know him well enough to say hi at a con, and chat for a few minutes. He was dating a friend of mine for a while, but that ended a year or so ago.)

[artemishi.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing those other stories, and pointing out the particular cruelty in the border guards' releasing of Dr. Watts. We are trying to get some public news interest in this story, down here in Seattle. There needs to be widespread public outrage over this, and a shift toward change.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

That is a heart-breaking set of stories. And a beautiful post. Thank you.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

(here via comodorified via nancylebov...)

This is a very interesting observation/explanation; thank you for sharing it.