Gaadgas Nora Bellis’s So You Girls Remember That: Memories of a Haida Elder offers us a rare first-hand account of the changes that followed the arrival of settlers in what had been an island where no one went hungry and there was “no crime.” The book is a collaboration between Bellis’s family, friends, and notably, author and editor Jenny Nelson. It’s told largely in Bellis’s voice and includes photos, quotes from her children and friends, as well as the Indian agent. Her stories cover many pivotal moments including the land giveaways, the welcoming of the white man, the devastation the Spanish flu brought to her community, the effects of logging, life with an Indian agent, and so much more.

Widowed with six children, Bellis was clearly a feisty and resourceful woman with an entrepreneurial spirit. She had a love of music and could play many instruments; “…my fingers was born with it.” Generous and unapologetic about following her own heart, it was her love of music that brought her close to the church where she first learned to play the organ. Always one to forge her own path, she wove together Christianity and the Haida teachings to create a life unlike any other I have had the privilege to bear witness to. 

Her daughter Jean says, “there was a strong feeling in Old Masset towards Nora marrying Fred”, her father, who was white. “Married to a white man” she lost her “Native status and rights,” but still managed to somehow keep “her place in both worlds.” This is a common theme throughout the book: Bellis’s ability to adapt as changes came her way.  One of the things I appreciated most about the book was that Nelson did not edit Bellis’s voice. In the preface, she says, “These are Nora’s words, excerpted from the cassette tapes” and that her son, Charlie Bellis, wanted the book to include “the Haida political relationship with Canada.” The teachings offered by Bellis left me with an even deeper appreciation of not only what was lost through colonization, but also the resilience of Indigenous women. Bellis’s son Dick Bellis says, “The older I get, the more I realize how wise the old woman was.” 

So You Girls Remember That is a good reminder that we might want to ask more questions and listen more deeply to the elders/Elders in our families. I am grateful that Bellis took the time to record her stories and that others, including Nelson, stepped in to make this book a reality. It is a rare gem.   

Jónína Kirton, a Métis Icelandic poet, graduated from the Simon Fraser University’s Writer’s Studio in 2007 and is currently an Adjunct Professor with the UBC Creative Writing Program. She was sixty-one when she received the 2016 Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award for an Emerging Artist in the Literary Arts category. Her second collection of poetry, An Honest Woman, was a finalist in the 2018 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Her third book, Standing in a River of Time, released in 2022, merges poetry and lyrical memoir to take us on a journey exposing the intergenerational effects of colonization on a Métis family.