Review
Review of Song of the Earth: The Life of Alfred Joseph
Song of the Earth is the story of Alfred Joseph, a long time Wet’suwet’en hereditary chief, a respected “knowledge holder” of the Nation’s history, an artist, teacher, and a noted defender of Wet’suwet’en rights. It is also the story of how the arrival of European settlers changed Wet’suwet’en lives.
Albert Joseph was born in 1927 in Hagwilget, a Witsuwit’en village on the lower Bulkley River in northwestern British Columbia. Until the European settlers arrived, the villagers were independent. They fished, trapped, hunted, and gathered berries and medicinal plants in their territory. As the settlers’ development encroached on their land, the villagers had to depend on the wage economy, finding work in off-reserve industries such as fish canneries and logging.