A review by debr
The Curve of Time by M. Wylie Blanchet

3.0

The curve of time is one of those stories that definitely seems impossible. One woman on a 25 foot boat for months with five kids in the rugged Canadian wilderness? Pre cell phones? For that alone it is worth reading. I also got the sense that she was a no-nonsense lady who got this done through more than a bit of nerves of steel. And I can’t say because of this that this is a woman who would be easy to like, but that isn’t really the point or her obligation. It’s an incredible story. It is also a story that is very much of a time. I would hope no one would treat ceremonial or seasonal dwellings or burial grounds of native peoples today the way she treated them, which was as so as much a thing to be explored or entered into as a neighborhood park or your own house, but no one would disrespect their own dead like that, I don’t think- in any case that was painful to read and I felt embarrassed for her in those writings, while recognizing, again, it is of a different time when that standard of seeing native cultures as a curiosity rather than worthy of respect was far more the norm. As another reviewer wrote, this was “a sorrowful reminder of what was acceptable behavior in the past.” I wish I could say I could separate that from other parts of the book, which are incredibly beautiful and exciting, but I really can’t.