Lakes, Cottages, Manoomin, and Encroachment – A Book Review of Cottagers and Indians

Presently, the Kawartha Lakes area, along with Muskoka, is Ontario’s top cottage country. A few decades ago, even before the pandemic-fueled cottagecore craze, owning a cottage was a sign of having made it in this country because you had the surplus income to buy a recreational house in addition to your main home in the city. When only your grandparents or close relatives owned one, you were middle-class adjacent, and for the many millennials now who can only afford to rent one for the weekend, you were the aspirant middle class.

The cottage lifestyle exudes class privilege. The aesthetics of the cottage life, with its docks, hot tubs, Muskoka chairs, Riva boats, fire pits, water tubing, and jet skis, make up the lifestyle promised by an elevated position in the socioeconomic structure. Flaunting the cottage life on social media, therefore, signals material success in Canada.

Cottaging is also tied to a rather old fantasy of nature as escapism. For cottagers, nature is an aesthetic object of pleasure; the sunset, the gleaming waters, and the trees are all props for recreation. The nature-filled fantasy conveniently forgets that there is nothing natural in shoreline alteration, motorized boats, and septic tank leaks, all of which are ecologically harmful. The fantasy is maintained, furthermore, on the erasure of the Michi Saagiig Anishinaabeg, for cottage culture forgets its original inhabitants and their descendants by gatekeeping the waterways and developing more invasive cottage infrastructure, even though it is the historical displacement of the Indigenous peoples that permitted the emergence of cottages in the first place. 1

In Drew Hayden Taylor’s 2019 play Cottagers and Indians, the Michi Saagiig Anishinaabeg confront the cottagers. The relatively short play involves only two characters: an Anishnawbe man, Arthur Cooper, and a cottager, Maureen Poole. To Maureen’s vexation, Arthur is repopulating the lakes with Manoomin (wild rice, yet its literal translation is “good seed” or “spirit food,”) which (according to my research) used to be as plentiful as the grass itself. 2

The two characters’ views on nature are incommensurable: Arthur understands nature as a living entity while Maureen sees nature as a commodifiable object subjected to her will. In planting the Manoomin, Arthur affirms the water as life-bearing, as the lakes nourish the growth of the traditional crop. To him, the extensive beds of the Manoomin in the shallow freshwaters are “beautiful,” while cleared shorelines free of the plant represent evil, indicative of a dead biosphere (16). Meanwhile, the water is a place of leisure for Maureen. Wild rice stalks are intruders infringing on the cottagers’ right to swim and boat. Aesthetically, the plant is monstrous, “horrid” (28), and “hideous” (35), and the swampiness of the dead rice stalks, which are needed for germination, is a blight to the beautiful pristine waters of her shoreline.

Taylor’s genius is his humorous portrayal of Canadian (neo)liberalism through Maureen. Maureen is more concerned with appearing tolerant than being tolerant. Even though she vehemently refuses to listen to Arthur, Maureen justifies why she can’t be racist: “I practiced Buddhism, which as you may know, is quite anti-racist” (13). The dramatic irony of name-dropping Buddhism while conveniently forgetting that the Buddhist path involved ethical listening without ego or reactivity hilariously presents the hollowness of Maureen’s words. Buddhism becomes just a label to be used to avoid accountability.

Similarly, Maureen’s understanding of the Indigenous betrays a preoccupation with sounding politically correct. As she states at the start of the play, “This Otter Lake seemed like a nice reserve…sorry, First Nation. It seemed like a nice First Nation” (15). Her self-correction exposes her understanding of Indigeneity at the surface level: it’s at the level of signifier and not at the level of index (i.e. actual Indigenous individuals like Arthur, their communities, and spaces). Her repetition of “seemed” further reflects her fixation on appearances. The stammering Maureen parodies Canadian (neo)liberalism for its performative allyship. It’s about saying things politely rather than doing things right because that would require actual humility and sacrifice of consumer satisfaction.

What lies beneath the mask of Maureen’s liberal politeness is hostility. When Arthur refuses to stop planting Manoomin, Maureen tells him she is “phoning to complain” (32), and later, she threatens him, “If you do not desist, we will take you to court” (33). Maureen is more than ready to exercise instruments of power (rule of law and property rights) against Arthur when he resists her demands. Here, Maureen anticipates the memetic figure of the “Karen,” commonly a white middle-class woman who readily wields racial and class power to the detriment of racialized people under the guise of following rules. 3

Through Maureen, Taylor peels away the Canadian (neo)liberal veneer, exposing its “Karen” tendency to neutralize Indigenous resistance in the name of justice. The Canadian nation-state displaced Indigenous groups through law and violence, then penned a national narrative that casts them as outsiders, alienating them materially, socially, and rhetorically. Whenever Indigenous peoples resist, settler-colonial figures then play “Karen,” branding them as violent and unreasonable invaders of their land before performing the role of the powerless victim by centring their discomfort. The trap lures Indigenous peoples to justify themselves through the terms of colonial frameworks so that they would affirm colonial frameworks in their direct resistance.

Taylor neutralizes the trap through satire. The play not only mocks the logic of settler-capitalism but reverses it. Maureen’s insistence on framing Arthur as an encroacher only ironically underscores her invasive role. In the play, Maureen consistently pushes against the planting of Manoomin under the settler logic of property value, safety, and aesthetics, but Arthur’s humorous rebuttals turn her logic on its head. For example,

MAUREEN: Mr. Cooper. My name is Maureen Poole and I have a /cottage on Starling Lake. ARTHUR: Well, good for you. (32)

And in another part—
MAUREEN: Well, if you must know, I would like you to stop spreading /your seed where it’s not wanted.
ARTHUR: I hope you’re talking about manoomin. (33)

Humour has long played a role in Taylor’s work and the broader history of Indigenous oral and print storytelling. 4 Arthur is a Trickster figure, teaching while creating transformation. His deadpan humour exposes Maureen’s logic as delusional and entitled while simultaneously neutralizing her bids for control through indirect refusal. Refusal is grounded in Nishnaabeg law and other Indigenous epistemologies. 5 As Leanne Betasamosake Simpson notes in As We Have Always Done; Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back (2017), grounded normativity in everyday land-based practices like Arthur’s follows Nishnaabeg law and not Western legal codes. Arthur requires no permission or settler understanding to plant Manoomin. Arthur’s intrinsic legitimacy reconfigures Maureen as the actual invasive presence needling him. Maureen’s behaviour becomes more absurd when she, as the one invading Arthur’s space, acts as a victim.

Though critical, Taylor is not interested in condemning Maureen. Maureen and Arthur exist in relationality with each other, connected by the land and its natural laws of life and death. When Maureen loses her husband, Justin, who succumbs to his long illness, she finds common ground with Arthur through collective grief, as he has also lost a loved one—his daughter Marie. Yet, grief takes them in different directions. Maureen’s deep attachment to the cottage and cottaging is made stronger through her husband’s slow death because the cottage is an extension of her husband. The cottage is a geras (γέρας), a valuable object awarded to those who have worked hard in society. 6 For her, changing any aspect of the cottage risks forgetting her husband. In contrast, Arthur grieves by planting Manoomin. Marie’s death results from diabetes complications, a problem in Indigenous communities due to a lack of food sovereignty. 7 Planting Manoomin gives life, restores justice, and cleans the waters. So, while the attachment to property ungenerously necessitates Arthur’s disappearance, the Indigenous-centred commitment to Manoomin enacts a restorative ethic for the benefit of all beings.

Taylor’s script extends beyond the dispute. Cottagers and Indians allegorize the broader incommensurability between Indigeneity in “so-called Canada” and settler colonialism in Canada. Settler colonialism, with its articulations of settler capitalism and (neo)liberalism, sees land as a resource. Settler colonialism views Indigenous claims to the land as a challenge, so it seeks the assimilation of Indigenous peoples into settler norms or their erasure, exemplifying Patrick Wolfe’s “logic of elimination.” 8 To manage sentiments, settler (neo)liberalism invites Indigenous knowledges into institutions to avoid real material change while disavowing ongoing violence. As Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang argue, Indigenous knowledges are continually co-opted and absorbed into settler frameworks like education and justice as a “move to innocence,” any action that relieves or defers the settlers’ responsibility without giving up privilege or change. 9 The inclusion of Indigenous knowledge and texts in classrooms, for example, may play a role in neutralizing Indigenous resistance through settler rubrics.

Cottagers and Indians is now a commonly taught text for grade 11 high school English in Ontario. The inclusion of the play into the Canadian educational institution reconfigures unsettling knowledge into measurable learning outcomes. 10 Even non-Indigenous students with the sincerest intentions find themselves rewarded only for their fluent English—or French, sorry—expression of government-approved solidarity. Allyship becomes competitively capital for modern geras. Non-Indigenous students will perform Indigenous allyship for 90% to outperform their peers. That 90% in NBE3U English—earned by that argumentative essay about water rights—can be a ticket to Rotman, Lassonde, McMaster Health Sci, or Waterloo computer science Artificial Intelligence specialization, 11 prerequisite courses for that ever-shrinking middle-class table. Decolonization is not a career path. A six-figure salary is the only way to survive settler-capitalism. Then comes the first property. After that, the second. Not a cottage—that’s too ’90s. The second home in the 2020s is the condo. It looks different, but it works the same. Doesn’t the relentless drive for success and to purchase markers of success, shaped by capitalist logics, continue to uphold settler-colonial power structures?

Taylor originally penned the play to spotlight the efforts of Arthur Cooper’s real-life counterpart James Whetung, a Curve Lake First Nation, whose cultivation of Manoomin in the Trent-Severn Waterway led to major pushback from Pigeon Lake residents. Residents tried to dispute Whetung’s actions legally, but to no avail. Some even started the Save Pigeon Lake Initiative. Eventually, some sought a compromise while others remained resentful.

Whetung never sought settler approval to plant Manoomin. He continues to be rooted in his community, cultivating rice together and sometimes even hosting educational events for the public. He enacts Indigenous Law through his seeding of Manoomin as practice.

Sources

1. Indigenous peoples in Canada include First Nations, Métis, and Inuit, each with distinct histories, cultures, and legal relationships to the state.

2. Rhyno, Darcy. “The Cross-Border Indigenous Battle for Wild Rice.” Atlas Obscura, 12 Feb. 2020, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-wild-rice

3. In Karen Grigsby Bates’ article “What’s In a ‘Karen,’?” she traces the memetic figure of “Karen” in African American vernacular history, connecting it to “Miss Ann” and “Becky,” slang for white women who are complicit with the system that upholds her status. A “Karen” is a privileged subject who uses power against racialized people, coding their racism with supposed neutrality, and while it is most associated with whiteness and white womanhood, but not bound by them. White men can karen. Minoritized people internalizing proximity to whiteness or power can karen. (See corporate token minorities or model minority enforcers for more information.) The current Canadian social structure, with its neoliberal moral order of hyper-individualism, karenifies people who perform the labour of surveillance and control the state once monopolized.

4. Deerchild, Rosanna. “Healing through Humour: Author Drew Hayden Taylor on why laughing matters.” CBC, 8 May. 2020, https://www.cbc.ca/radio/unreserved/unreserved-s-self-isolation-book-club-what-indigenous-authors-are-reading-during-the-pandemic-1.5556414/healing-through-humour-author-drew-hayden-taylor-on-why-laughing-matters-1.5559465
Humour is used and discussed in Thomas King’s The Truth About Stories (2003), Drew Hayden Taylor’s Me Funny (2005), Jo-Ann Episkenew’s Taking Back Our Spirits: Indigenous Literature, Public Policy, and Healing (2009), Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s As We Have Always Done; Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back (2017) and This Accident of Being Lost (2017), and Daniel Heath Justice’s Why Indigenous Literatures Matter (2017). Yvette Nolan and Ric Knowles’s edited Performing Indigeneity—New Essays on Canadian Theatre also addresses humour. There are many, many more.

5. Glen Coulthard of Yellowknives Dene First Nation in Red Skin, White Masks (2014) coined “grounded normativity.” Kahnawà:ke Mohawk Nation’s Audra Simpson, in her Mohawk Interruptus: Political Life Across the Borders of the Settler States (2014), outlines how a politics of refusal is key to the Mohawk people practicing sovereignty in their terms.

6. Seen in Homer’s Iliad, geras (γέρας) is a war prize or honour awarded to heroes like Achilles for their valour. The bigger the prize, the more it represents the recipient’s status and reputation. Aren’t cottages and middle-class houses the modern geras for surviving the battles of neoliberal life?

7. Billy-Ray Belcourt, a Driftpile Cree Nation writer and academic, wrote about diabetes in his 2017 essay “Meditations on Reserve Life, Biosociality, and the Taste of Non-Sovereignty,” where he argues that diabetes is “a key manifestation of” the exhausted existence of being Indigenous, of “feeling of not properly being of this world.” Arthur’s planting of Manoomin is thus creating a world where the Indigenous belong.

8. Wolfe, Patrick. “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native.” Journal of Genocide Research, vol. 8, no. 4, 2006, pp. 387–409.

9. Tuck, Eve, and K. Wayne Yang. “Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor.” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, vol. 1, no. 1, 2012, pp. 1–40.

10. So many well-meaning educators exist and bear the burden of care in the Canadian education system, which is increasingly eroded by budget cuts, but the system fails to support teachers and brings students along the path of settler futurity.

11. Chua, Alyanna Denise. “How Dispossessed Indigenous Lands Financed U of T’s Development.” The Varsity, 30 Jan. 2023, https://thevarsity.ca/2023/01/30/how-dispossessed-indigenous-lands-financed-u-of-ts-development/. Accessed 11 May 2025.
Universities are built on dispossessed Indigenous lands and then become the engines of settler-capitalist logics. Joseph L. Rotman made his fortune in resource extraction, then he founded Clairvest Group Inc., an equity firm that invests in sectors including natural resources. Rotman School of Management, named after him, is famous for producing graduates who enter finance sectors; these fund and facilitate settler expansion through real estate development and mining. Lassonde Engineering is named after Pierre Lassonde, a founder of Franco-Nevada and former president of Newmont Mining, which built its wealth on gold extraction from Indigenous territories.  Engineering industries appear “neutral” while reinforcing settler notions of progress by facilitating extraction and building infrastructure.