Writing Mazie Baker’s biography was like putting a jigsaw puzzle together, according to a Salmon Arm author.
“Hopefully when you finish there isn’t any pieces missing,” Kay Johnston laughed.
Johnston will be doing a book launch at Okanagan College in Salmon Arm, Oct. 19 at 7 p.m. for her new non-fiction The Amazing Mazie Baker: The Squamish Nation’s Warrior Elder.
The biography shows the many sides of Baker, who tackled injustices she witnessed, “especially against indigenous women, who were denied status and property rights.”
“She’s fighting for native women’s rights and for her people so they understand what’s going on,” said Johnston.
Baker placed emphasis on understanding the issues that were presented to her.
She met the Squamish elder while working on her last non-fiction, Spirit of Powwow, in 1999, which gives the reader a guide to powwows from an outside perspective.
Baker was covered in flour when the pair were introduced, making bannock, a First Nations’ fried bread.
Johnston recalled being increasingly inspired by Baker the more she learned about her, as Baker couldn’t read or write.
“She was quite the woman, had a fabulous sense of humour and a sharp wit. We became friends and I became friends with the family,” she said “The more I heard about her I’m going, ‘Oh my God, this woman has accomplished so much.’ She’s a member of what they call the lost generation, the generation whose parents went to residential school,” she added.
Baker died in 2011 from a heart attack, after addressing Shuswap Indian Band council. The book wasn’t completed until 2015.
Baker fought against the Squamish Nation band codes in 2011, which, if passed, would allow the elected chief and council to have authority over land use from the federal government.
“If it was passed, it would allow the band to take people’s property. She and a few of her friends defeated this whole thing,” said Johnston.
Johnston remembers saying this must be the last chapter for the book, but Baker had other plans as they talked in a White Spot in North Vancouver.
She had called for a vote of non-confidence in the Shuswap band council. The motion was on the floor when she suffered the heart attack.
“You know people, – she called them her people – when you vote for this, whichever way you choose, just know that you must understand what you are voting for,” she said. “Then she sat down and she had a heart attack.”
Johnston believes First Nations stories need to be told.
“It was a story that needed to be told and it had to come from someone from the inside. It needed to be (Baker’s). She was the feather and I was the pen. This book took me down pathways I never knew existed, it took me inside. The more I learned, the more impressed I was.”
The book started in 2007, after Johnston nervously approached Baker, as she was unsure of what Baker’s reaction would be.
Johnston doesn’t enjoy politics, but Baker opened her to a new perspective.
“Talk about the Google black hole,” she said.
The research was done through recordings, due to Baker’s illiteracy.
Johnston has been in Salmon Arm for the past 11 years.
Her biggest struggle with the non-fiction was to make the appropriate transitions. She wanted to show the many sides of Baker, from the woman on the steps of Parliament, to the mother, and child.
“You are not just one person, you are many,” said Johnston.
She plans to do a book tour and said she would like the book to be available in libraries and in universities.
One can find a copy through amazon.com.
