Interview with author Richard Van Camp
by Judith Saltman

This is one of 136 interviews that Gail Edwards and Judith Saltman have conducted for their book Picturing Canada: A History of Canadian Children's Illustrated Books and Publishing (University of Toronto Press, 2010), with Canadian authors, illustrators, editors, librarians, booksellers, critics, and other contributors to Canadian children's book publishing. The interview was conducted in September 2003 in Vancouver, Canada and is partially reprinted here with permission. For information on the Canadian Children's Illustrated Books project, visit their website.

Please note that the bio and sidebar information on this page were added by PaperTigers.

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A Dogrib (Tlicho) Dene from Fort Smith, NWT, Richard Van Camp is an internationally renowned storyteller and best-selling author. He is the author of two children’s books illustrated by Cree artist George Littlechild, A Man Called Raven and What’s The Most Beautiful Thing You Know About Horses? He has also written the novel The Lesser Blessed and two collections of short stories, Angel Wing Splash Pattern and The Moon of Letting Go. His book Welcome Song for Baby: A Lullaby for Newborns was selected for the Books for BC Babies program and given to every newborn baby in British Columbia in 2008. In 2007 he was awarded Storyteller of the Year for both Canada and the US by the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers.

Richard’s first comic book, Path of the Warrior, with Cree artist Steve Sanderson, is forthcoming with the Healthy Aboriginal Network.

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Did you always know from the time you were a child that you wanted to write?

When I was growing up in Fort Smith, in the Northwest Territories, I had the best childhood. I was privy to the best storytelling in the world, because northerners love stories. Stories for us are the best medicine. Where I'm from, storytelling is how we honour one another.

I didn't know I was going to be an author but people tell me was that I was always drawing, growing up. I have in a trunk, in my dad's garage, stacks of notepads filled with drawings. As I got older, I started to worry more about the titles of my drawings than the actual drawings. My drawings became smaller and my titles got longer. Finally the drawing stopped. The titles turned into stories. That's how I became a writer.

Why I became an author is very simple: nobody was writing the stories that I wanted to read. Nobody was writing the stories about my life and my experience. So I sat down and I wrote for five years. At the time I didn't know it was a novel. All I knew was I wanted to write something that ultimately I would want to read. That became my first novel, The Lesser Blessed.

About six months after my novel came out, I got a phone call from a publisher named Harriet Rohmer, of Children's Book Press. Harriet wanted to start a new generation of children's books for her publishing house. She wanted to work with people who came from strong background of oral tradition and were gifted storytellers.

She called me and said, "I haven't read any of your work but Clifford Trafzer said that you were a joy to work with. Do you have any children's stories?" I had had a short story called Raven, about animal cruelty, published in the anthology Steal My Rage. But that was intended for young adults and up.

I spent the next week writing down the children's stories that my mother had told me growing up. When I sent the stories and and a copy of "Raven" to Children's Book Press, I didn't think I would ever hear from them again.

Harriet called me back about two weeks later and said, "We love the story Raven. Can you rewrite it for children?" I said, "Yes, I can". So I rewrote it for them and they bought it. Then they asked, "How would you like to work with George Littlechild as your illustrator?". I could not believe it. I had been George Littlechild's biggest fan for five years, so for them to ask me that was beyond anything I ever could have imagined.

When I receivedthe a printed copy of A Man Called Raven, nothing could have prepared me for the beauty of the book. I can remember that day clearly. It was the first day of snow in 1997.

When Children's Book Press called me again and said "We want to do another book with you", I said "I want to do a story about the Northern animals." Harriet said, "Oh, wait a minute, Richard. George had to learn about ravens and the Dogrib people [to do A Man Called Raven]. Now he wants to do a book about horses." And I said "Oh! I've got a million stories about horses." But that was a fib. Where I'm from we don't have any horses. It's too cold. They said, "Good, you've got five days to show us what you can do, because we're getting ready for our fall line-up."

So in five days I wrote What's the Most Beautiful Thing You Know About Horses? How I wrote it was simple: I asked everybody, "What's the most beautiful thing you know about horses?" Everyone who called my house, every elder I could think of, all my neighbours, all my friends, "What's the most beautiful thing you know about horses?". And that was how I came up with that book.

How did you change your adult version of the Raven story to one for children? How did you feel the voice changed?

I put more of a rhythm in it. When you grow up, you grow up dancing, you grow up with song, you grow up with spirit. As you age, so many of us stop singing, stop dancing. We think: "Oh God, please don't ask me to dance." So I went back and I put a dance in there. When I read it, I can't help but sway. I think I really managed to call that spirit of innocence back.

Could you say something about your work with George Littlechild? Did you get to meet with or communicate with him?

I had been whining for a year about how I had been unable to meet George. I wanted to know what those drawings were going to look like, but I was not allowed to contact him. It was agony. After A Man Called Raven came out, Dorothy Christian [of Vision TV] arranged for us to meet for the first time and did a show about it. It was a Cree interpretation of a Dogrib story: two tribes that were traditional enemies were working together.

What was that meeting like?

It was absolute heaven to meet my hero. His work is so sensual. It's so graceful and sacred. To work with somebody that spiritual and that generous with his spirit... it was beyond anything I ever could have imagined. I knew I was in the presence of the sacred when I shook his hand.

Do you feel he captures the Dogrib society and the life and environment in his art? Do you feel his art works with your stories?

When you look at A Man Called Raven, the panel of the raven flying over the drummers, that is Dogrib. I'll tell you another story about George Littlechild. One thing my publisher let me do when we were working on A Man Called Raven was send books and pictures to George about how the Dogrib dressed, what the Dogrib looked like, how we keep our hair short. You can always tell Dogribs just by their noses, their chins, their cheeks, and by how dark their eyes are. I sent pictures of my whole family to him. In fact, those pictures that I sent to him are the pictures that you see in What's the Most Beautiful Thing You Know About Horses?.

When we did our first reading together in Vancouver at our book launch, I said to the audience, "Now, ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, I want to show you the most beautiful picture that George did of my mother." I saw George's eyes kind of bug out (he quickly hid that, but I saw it). Afterwards, when we went for coffee, I said, "George, what happened when I said 'Look at the picture that he did of my mom?'" He said, "Richard, you sent me pictures of your brothers, your dad, your uncles, your grandma, your grandpa, all of your best friends and all of your buddies. You never sent me a picture of your mother."

I said, "I did so, I remember I sent out a whole stack of pictures."

He said, "I never got them. I went on how you look and how your brothers look, and I imagined the most beautiful Dogrib woman."

I swear to God he drew my mother. When you compare the portrait he did for a A Man Called Raven with the true picture of my mother, Rosa Wah-shee, from What's the Most Beautiful Thing You Know About Horses? - that's the same woman.

After that book tour, I went back home and I looked around for those pictures. Do you know where they were? They were on top of my fridge. I forgot to mail them. He had a vision...

A Man Called Raven and What's the Most Beautiful Thing You Know About Horses? are the two books that you've created for children. What about stories that haven't yet been published?

I have a manuscript called The Magic of Wolverines. I also have two adventure stories based on my grandma and my grandfather, Pierre and Melanie Wah-shee. One is called The Mysterious Case of Grandma and Grandpa and Wolf Teeth in the House, which is about personal hygiene, taking care of your teeth. It's based on a true story about the day my grandfather got brand new teeth and how my grandmother threw them away, thinking they were wolf teeth. It's a tragicomedy. The other is a story about my grandmother and grandfather, and this is based on true story as well, about the biggest moccasins in the world. It's a true story of an encounter my grandparents and my uncle Eddy as a little boy had with a Sasquatch. It's a story about respect.

Could you discuss the values and themes in your stories? Respect seems to be a theme, as does a sense of the sacred. When I read them, that's what I feel...

Family, identity, culture, and the essential question: "What does it mean to be Dogrib?" I was raised away from the Dogribs because my parents were taxidermists in Forth Smith (I was raised in a town that is officially quadrilingual: French, Chippewayan, Cree and English. Forth Smith is the Métis capital of the North). I was raised away from my people. So, because I'm half White and half Dogrib, family and identity are recurring themes in my writing.

How about your attraction for animals and your use of animals as important symbols and presences?

My grandfather used to sneak into wolf dens to gather wolf cubs. He raised them, walked with the wolves, and bred them with dogs, so his dog team was half wolf, half dog.
Growing up, I listened to a lot of creation stories. For example, for the Dogrib people, we come from a woman who gave birth to six pups. We have creation stories about cat, wolverine and loon.. We know many secrets about the animals because we learn from the animals how best to live our lives.

I always tell children when I read that, if there's an animal they love, they should learn as much as possible about that animal, and try to help them. We're a wolf clan, my family. We're wolves. I really believe that we have so much to learn from animals. We have a responsibility as caretakers of this earth for the seven generations to come. That's why I love to write about animals and to learn about them.

How much of your stories are autobiographical?

A Man Called Raven is based on the Dogrib stories my mother told me of a man who loved to torture animals, but I braided that with two crazy boys I knew from Calgary, when I did my Grade 3 there - Chris and Toby. They loved to torture animals. I said, "I wonder what would happen if that man that my mom told me about, who turned into a Raven, met Chris and Toby?" That's how I wrote A Man Called Raven. I braided my mother's teachings with real people, two little boys who meant horrible sorry business with the animals.

There's a very strong sense of the mythic and the real together in a Man Called Raven. Were you looking for that tone?

I wanted the story to be culturally relevant for today's children. I wanted kids in the city and kids in the villages and hamlets all over the world to read it.

Who do you see as the primary audience for your children's books? Do you think all children, or do you think First Nations children?

I really believe my kids' books are for all ages, for all races. I've read the books in schools that are completely on-reserve, 100% Aboriginal, and I've read them in schools where there is not one Aboriginal student in the class. Each time they're a hit.

I find the mix of poetry, warmth and humour in your stories just wonderful. Could you discuss your sense of humour?

Aboriginal people are very funny. The stereotypes out there are, of course, that we're lazy, and every other stereotype there is. That's not how we are. We're very witty, fast, smart. With my books I want to show how cheeky we can be, but, at the same time, how intelligent and how sincere. We're willing to welcome you into our homes to share with you our stories. "I'm inviting you into my home, the home I grew up in, to listen to my mother's stories, my grandfather's stories, my grandmother's stories... I'm going to be cheeky, I'm going to tell you off, I'm going to make you laugh, but ultimately I'm going to honour you and pass on our teachings."

Do you have to strive for an oral voice in your written stories?

I think it's just plain there, because I was born with it; I was raised with it. It's inherent. When you read The Lesser Blessed you see that my main character is a traditional storyteller, and he's only 16. He knows that stories are medicine.

Do you want to say something more about this? Stories are medicine...

When you read the Good Book it says, "In the beginning was the Word." Words are powerful. Words can maim. Words can stop somebody from growing - but they can also heal, help mend. With words you can give people the answers they've been looking for their whole lives... you can give someone their wings back.

Do you think children's picture books can do that too?

Oh yes. Children's literature is such incredible "medicine" because it speaks to the little one in all of us... it honours a little girl in you and a little boy in me.

Did multilingual, bilingual, Aboriginal English heritage shape your stories? The sense of language, the sense of a First Nations language...

The history of the people and the storytelling shaped me, but not the Dogrib language, unfortunately. I know very little of my language and am very sad about that. I wish I knew it. I'm trying to reclaim it, but it's a very slow and arduous journey.

Who are some of the First Nations authors writing for children that you admire?

I admire Michael Kusugak. I went out of my way in 1990 to meet him. I was studying land claims in Yellowknife at Aurora College, and Michael was on a book tour in Yellowknife. I tracked him down and asked him questions about what it was like being a writer. At that time I didn't think I was ever going to write a children's book but I was interested in him. I didn't know any authors and he was the first, true-blue author I ever met. Somebody who toured, somebody who had a publisher behind him, somebody who was working with a great artist like Vladyana Langer Krykorka. Michael put up with me for an hour in the hotel. He answered every question.

Years later, I saw him again; by that time my children's books were out. He said, "I always knew that you would go on to publish your stories. It was already there. You knew what you wanted, you just didn't know how to get there." That's the story of so many people, especially in the world of indigenous publishing. They know they want to do it, but they don't know how. They don't know how to get the agent. They don't know how to get the publishing house. They don't know the mechanics.

Any other First Nations children's book writers/books that you admire?

I love This Land is My Land, by George Littlechild... Li Minoush, by Bonnie Murray. I also like W.D. Valgardso's work.

[W.D. Valgardo] did a good job with Sarah and the People of Sand River... Which brings up the question of cultural appropriation. He's a good example of someone who spoke about First Nations people.

Yes, he spoke about them, but he wasn't speaking for them. And he spoke about them with respect, so I respect that. But nowadays you can choose – you can read W.P. Kinsella, for example, or you can read the work of Sherman Alexie, Robert Arthur Alexie, Drew Haydon Taylor, Jeannette Armstrong, Lee Maracle, Maurice Kenny, you name it.

Do you feel, with your children's books, that you have a role in creating cultural identity for First Nations children?

Canadian cultural identity is based on Aboriginal history. I like to think that Canadian history should really uplift, uphold and respect Aboriginal history and identity. I hope that my literature is being embraced and uplifted by Canadian literature, because I'm very proud to be Canadian and I'm very proud to be Dogrib.

Partial reprint- posted April 2010

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