In Three Day Road, the Indigenous people of Northern Canada are constantly plagued by the wemistikoshiw, or white settlers, whose encroaching presence threatens their traditional way of life. Indigenous people in Boyden’s novel are met with blatant racism and are forced to assimilate to wemistikoshiw ways, which threatens to completely erase their own Native culture and identity. For example, the mother of Xavier, the novel’s protagonist, goes to the Moose Factory reserve as a young Cree girl named Rabbit and is transformed into Anne, an obedient student of the wemistikoshiw’s Christian school. Assimilation in Three Day Road does not mean adopting some aspects of wemistikoshiw culture in addition to one’s own Native identity; it is effectively the loss of Native identity all together. The culture and identity of Indigenous people is erased by the racism and assimilation of the wemistikoshiw in Three Day Road, a point which Boyden implies is reflected in broader society as well.
When Rabbit moves to the reserve, she brings her mother and sister, Niska, with her, and the wemistikoshiw try to completely erase Niska and Rabbit’s cultural identities. Unlike Rabbit, Niska refuses to go to the school on the reserve, but when the priests find out an “Indian” girl is running around Moose Factory “uncivilized as an animal,” they come to take her away. Niska tries to run, and when she is caught, she fights “like a lynx,” “scratching” and “biting.” Niska wants to stay with her mother and live her traditional lifestyle as best she can in Moose Factory, but the wemistikoshiw priest overpowers her and forces her to attend the residential school. At the wemistikoshiw school, Niska’s mouth is washed out with lye soap for speaking Cree, and the nuns cut her hair, a symbol of Niska’s Native identity, much shorter than the other girls as punishment for her resistance. With this, Niska is forcibly stripped of her culture and identity and is made to adopt wemistikoshiw ways. Still, Niska resists the school’s attempts to stamp out her Native identity, and she sneaks into the barber shop and shaves her head down to a “stubbly field.” The nuns, determined to break Niska’s spirit, throw her into a basement room with little food as punishment until her hair grows back, but Niska’s mother rescues her and they escape into the bush. Niska never returns to Moose Factory, and she spends the rest of her life living off the land in the traditional way.
Blatant racism is seen throughout the novel, and Indigenous characters are constantly sidelined and punished for their identities. When Xavier’s best friend, Elijah, goes to the residential school, a nun tells him that the Cree are “heathens” who “anger God.” She tells him that the Cree are “backward people” and “God’s displeasure” can be seen in the Cree rivers, which flow north instead of south, like those in “the civilized world.” She strikes Elijah and tells him that when he accepts God, “He will perform a great miracle” and set their rivers in the right direction. The nun’s claims are complete nonsense, and she abuses a small boy simply because he is Indigenous and she considers him a savage “heathen.” Similarly, when Xavier and Elijah enlist in the war and must take a train out of Moose Factory, they are stopped immediately as they board. “No Indians in this car,” a wemistikoshiw man says. “You belong four cars to the back.” Since Xavier and Elijah are Indigenous, and thereby seen as uncivilized and less than the wemistikoshiw, they are forced to ride in the rear car of the train. Lastly, when Elijah and Xavier are trained as snipers and make several difficult shots across no man’s land, their commanding officer, Lieutenant Breech, is dubious. “Was an officer present to verify?” he asks. “Your claim seems a bit exaggerated to me.” Breech refuses to give them credit for the kills. Because Elijah and Xavier are Cree, Lieutenant Breech considers them liars and incapable of such impressive shooting.
Elijah and Xavier must endure racist comments from many of the officers and soldiers in their unit, and they feel as if they are the only Native people in the whole war. They aren’t, of course, and they soon meet another Indian soldier, an Ojibwe. "There are more Anishnabe than you might guess who wander these battlefields,” the man says. Indeed, while it is impossible to ascertain exactly how many Indigenous people fought for Canada during World War I, it is estimated that some 4,000 Native men volunteered, about one-third of the First Nations population ages 18 to 45. Like Elijah, at least 50 medals were awarded to Indigenous soldiers after the war, a fact that Boyden implies is not widely known. The racism and assimilation that erases Native identities in Three Day Road has erased the stories of thousands of Native soldiers as well, which Boyden brings to light through Elijah and Xavier.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Racism and Assimilation ThemeTracker
Racism and Assimilation Quotes in Three Day Road
Elijah swings again, and again the marten squeals. My stomach feels sick. I pick up a heavier piece of wood, step up, and give it a sharp blow to its head. The hide noose snaps and the marten drops to the ground. It doesn’t move. I club its head once.
Elijah stares at me.
“We had to do it,” I say.
I'd much rather be outside on the cool grass, me, but the officers won't allow it. We've been over here in this place that some call Flanders and others call Belgium for three weeks now. I felt stupid and small when Elijah had to explain that Belgium is a country, like Canada, and Flanders is just one small part of it, like Mushkegowuk. I'm still uncomfortable with the language of the wemistikoshiw. It is spoken through the nose and hurts my mouth to try and mimic the silly sound of it. I opt to stay quiet most of the time, listening carefully to decipher the words, always listening for the joke or insult made against me. These others think that I'm something less than them, but just give me the chance to show them what I'm made of when it is time to kill.
Smithy shakes his head and looks away. He is small and skinny. He's going bald. He looks like a Hudson's Bay Company man I know back in Moose Factory who teaches Sunday school to the children who live on the reserve and not in the bush, the homeguard children. "That ain't true atall," Smithy mumbles. "There's another Indian feller goes by the name Peggy. Ojibwe, I think." He looks over at me. ''He's got close to a hundred kills but no officer wants to give him credit since he likes working alone." Smithy suddenly stops talking and looks embarrassed that he's said so much. "Peggy's salt of the earth," he adds as an afterthought. "Every Canadian enlisted man knows he ain't no liar."
The world is a different place in this new century, Nephew. And we are a different people. My visions still come but no one listens any longer to what they tell us, what they warn us. I knew even as a young woman that destruction bred on the horizon. In my early visions, numbers of men, higher than any of us could count, were cut down. They lived in the mud like rats and lived only to think of new ways to kill one another. No one is safe in such times, not even the Cree of Mushkegowuk. War touches everyone, and windigos spring from the earth.
The next morning after stand-to, Thompson approaches Elijah and me. He talks to both of us, but his words are for Elijah. "What do you think of the last days, Whiskeyjack?" he asks, lighting a cigarette, exhaling and looking at the sky.
I can see that Elijah knows exactly what Thompson's asking. Thompson is asking if Elijah likes killing. Elijah considers it for a moment. "It's in my blood," he finally says.
Thompson smiles, then walks off. He didn't ask me the same question. Does he sense something? How am I different? A strange sensation, one I do not recognize, surges up my spine.
I know that Xavier wants to talk to me. He goes so far as to let words come out of his mouth when he sleeps. He says very little when he's awake. I'm not able to make out more than the odd sentence when he is sleeping, though, and sometimes when he dreams he speaks aloud in English. I can't help but smile a bit when he does. As a child he was so proud that more than once he claimed he would never speak the wemistikoshiw tongue. And now he does even in his sleep. He cannot speak to me yet, and so I decide, here on the river, that I will speak to him. In this way, maybe his tongue will loosen some. Maybe some of the poison that courses through him might be released in this way. Words are all I have left now. I've lived alone so long that I realize I'm starved to talk. And so, as I paddle him gently with the river, I talk to him, tell him about my life.
The awawatuk accepted that I was the natural extension of my father, the new limb through which my family's power travelled. By the time I was living my seventeenth winter, men would come to me not for what men usually seek women out for, but to ask questions and advice. Most often, they wanted to know where to find game, and so I divined for them, placing the shoulder blade of the animal on coals and dripping water onto it as I had watched my father do. The rare hunter came to me wanting to understand the symbol of a dream and sometimes to learn his future. If I had not experienced a fit in some time, I constructed a shaking tent and crawled into it, summoned the spirits of the forest animals to come inside and join me, so many of them sometimes that the walls of my tent puffed out and drew in with their breath, becoming a living thing all its own. Most often, though, it was the spirit of the lynx that came to me first and stayed through the night, showing through its sharp eyes the secrets of the forest.
The other soldiers often ask Elijah about his name too. And he is happy to talk. His Cree name is Weesageechak. But that is something he doesn't share with the wemistikoshiw. Whiskeyjack is how they say his name, make it their own. He has told me that what they do to his name is what sounds to my ears like a longer word for bastard, making his name a name without a family.
"Whiskeyjacks should fly better," he says.
Elijah looks at him. "How do you know my name?"
"I don't," the man says. "I was dreaming. There was a flock of whiskeyjacks." He looks confused. "They were pecking at something dead."
Elijah stands and walks back to me.
"What did the old man say to you?" I ask.
"He knew my name. Claims he was dreaming of whiskeyjacks."
"It's a sign,” I say.
"Everything's a sign to you." Elijah looks out the window. "Hey, there’s a sign," he says, pointing outside. "It says Abitibi River. But you wouldn't know that, considering you're a heathen."
I lie deep in the trench when the day is calm and think about how the world of the soldier consists of staring up at the sky, crawling upon the earth at night and living beneath it during the day. In the dark of night I think that my life has been divided into three for me by these wemistikoshiw. There was my life before them and their army, there is my life in their army, and, if I live, there will be my life after I have left it and returned home. They must have some magic in their number of three. I know that you, Niska, taught me that we will all someday walk the three-day road, and now I'm left wondering what connection there might be between their world and mine. I need to find out if we share something, some magic. Maybe it will help me get through all this.
"Why does she call you Nephew and not your real name?" he asked.
"Nephew is my real name," you answered. "I am her nephew."
“Does she ever call you by your Christian name?" he asked.
You shook your head, looked at me nervously. "My name is Nephew."
"Your name is Xavier," your friend answered.
It was not said meanly. I could tell from his voice that the boy was simply trying to understand.
"Your Christian name is Xavier," he said. "And mine is Elijah."
"Show us how the grouse danced," Old Francis said, and drunk from the attention, you stood, and made everyone else stand around the fire too. You imitated the big grouse, and everyone lifted their arms and moved around the circle. Do you remember? You called out and we moved around the circle, and then you raised your arms and called out again and we all touched our fingertips above our heads and moved the other way, you rustling your arms like feathered wings and everyone laughing. And that is when I said, "From now on we call you Little Bird Dancer," and everyone laughed and agreed it was a good name for you.
I do not know how to make them understand who I am. To them I am Elijah Whiskeyjack, sniper and scout. Hero. When I want medicine, I tell the pretty-mouthed nurse that the pain is too bad, that I need a little of it. She leaves for a short time, comes back carrying a needle. I spend hours staring out the window; rubbing at the stub of leg through the pinned-up material of the pajamas, feeling the warm river rushing below me. It is easier not to tell them anything, easier not to explain at all. I allow myself to believe that I am Elijah. In this way he is still alive.
