Resource Scarcity and Food Ethics in Contemporary Canadian Dystopian Fiction
By Cameron Barone
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Resource scarcity is a driving narrative element in the genre of speculative fiction. The treatment of the world’s resources is a pressing concern amidst the climate crisis, the outbreaks of viruses like bird flu and Covid-19 variants, global wars and conflicts, and an increasingly technologically driven world. This article examines how Canadian authors portray environmental collapse and resource scarcity, looking specifically at similarities and differences in how non-Indigenous and Indigenous authors discuss resources. Using Margaret Atwood鈥檚 Oryx and Crake and Emily St. John Mandel鈥檚 Station Eleven as examples of speculative fiction written by non-Indigenous Canadians, and Cherie Dimaline鈥檚 The Marrow Thieves, and Waubgeshig Rice鈥檚 Moon of the Crusted Snow as examples of speculative fiction written by Indigenous writers. I explore some of the major anxieties of Indigenous and non-Indigenous authors through their literature in relation to our current world and the ways they depict the future1. These novels point to Indigenous communities being better equipped to survive apocalypse because they have already done so. I examined how traditional knowledge is a driving force in the survivance of the Indigenous communities in Dimaline and Rice鈥檚 novels2. Teaching the next generations to hunt and prepare food, as well as respecting the earth who provides it, is integral to the long-term survival of Indigenous communities. Finally, food and water are very rarely discussed in Emily St. John Mandel鈥檚 novel, indicating a privileged perspective that allows the author to not overtly address aspects of survival. Additionally, I will consider what it means to be privileged with resources during an apocalypse, examining the individual versus communal values of survivors. In the case of speculative fiction, privilege is complicated by considering how Indigenous communities may not have access to unlimited resources. This analysis of resource scarcity and food ethics is situated within contemporary Canadian food and water discourse.
Discourse surrounding resource access has changed throughout the timeline of the publication of each of these novels, spanning from 2003-2018. Canada鈥檚 current discourse surrounding food has come to include an understanding of the environmental, systemic, and personal impact of food production and access. Canada鈥檚 National Pathways document, published in July 2023, outlines the country’s resource concerns and the steps being taken towards adopting healthier, more sustainable, and more equitable food systems. Under the 鈥淐ontext and Vision鈥 header, Canada claims strength in their food systems but acknowledges the impact of the global pandemic and the climate crisis as having exposed and worsened inequities. Canada’s National Pathways report echoes discussions taking place globally around the importance of sustainable food systems. For example, the UN Food Systems Summit aims to incentivize world leaders towards achieving the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. These goals include ending poverty and hunger, supporting clean water and sanitation access, responsible consumption and production, overall sustainability of our treatment of land, water, and life. As demonstrated through the need to incentivize world leaders to invest in the future of the planet, access to resources cannot be untangled from a capitalist growth mindset. According to the Bank of Canada, the increase in global trade has incentivized the uptake of new technologies and production to stay relevant in the global trade landscape; inspiring companies to invent new products and technologies to maintain their market share. The National Pathways document does not explicitly address the industrialization and technological increase in food production, but it refers to economic advancements and building consumer trust amongst growers and consumers.
Canada鈥檚 National Pathways document speaks directly to the country鈥檚 treatment of Indigenous communities, who disproportionately face food insecurity. On average across all of Canada over a ten year period, 38.3% of First Nations households on-reserve experienced moderate or severe food insecurity. On October 9, 2024 Sioux Lookout First Nations Health Authority reported that, 鈥淔irst Nations families are spending nearly a quarter of their monthly income on basic foods.鈥 Additionally, there are 31 long-term drinking water advisories on public systems on reserves in 29 communities as of November 7, 20243. These statistics inform Canadian cultural attitudes towards food sovereignty, agency, access, and knowledge. Furthermore, the ways in which Canadian authors engage with resources in their novels, whether their characters are directly working to secure food or whether they鈥檙e privileged in not having to think about such things.
Margaret Atwood, a non-Indigenous Canadian author, published the first novel in the MaddAddam trilogy Oryx and Crake in 2003. The novel follows the aftermath of a bioengineered pandemic with some chapters taking place before the fall of mankind. The novel follows the only anticipated human survivor, Jimmy. Jimmy has been given the vaccination for the virus, and the responsibility of looking after the surviving non-human beings, Crakers. The Crakers were bio-engineered by Crake, the antagonist of the novel who created the virus and left Jimmy, known as Snowman to the Crakers, responsible for dealing with his creation.
Atwood鈥檚 chapters set before the pandemic allude to the intersecting factors that led to the fall of mankind. The global destruction of the environment, the unchecked powers of multinational corporations, and the faltering human ethics were all enactments of human exceptionalism, capitalism, and individualist values. The final demonstration of these values was Crake鈥檚 belief that an ecological utopia could be created through mass genocide and re-population of life via bioengineered beings. We might read the world depicted before the collapse as an extension of Atwood鈥檚 anxieties, with the majority of power lying in massive biotechnology companies, where the government falls to the wayside of industry. Atwood speculates that the end of the human-inhabited world was already situated to happen through structural flaws leading to the decline of the environment, inspiring biological warfare and escalating the timeline of decline.
Crake鈥檚 inclination towards biotechnological advances led to the unchecked destruction of the planet. The beings that he created are immune to his disease, and are designed to be free from flaws such as greed and violence. The pandemic in Oryx and Crake is an act of biological terrorism, created at a company called RejoovenEsense, whose work engaged with extending the human lifespan and preserving youth. Crake creates this virus with the transhumanist hope that he might reset the world and repopulate it with Crakers. Crake鈥檚 beliefs align with the transhumanist belief, 鈥渢hat science and technology can allow us to transcend the limitations of human life providing longer, better lives and even immortality鈥 (Yoo 662). The Crakers are an extension of the transhumanist impulse to enhance, develop, and improve the human condition using technology.
Resources in Oryx and Crake are depleted, requiring technological advancements to produce enough food to feed the population. The novel grapples with the tension of technological advancement and reality: what is real when every food, feeling, and experience is produced, manufactured, and curated? Atwood writes of the Earth鈥檚 decline that,鈥 as time went on the coastal aquifers turned salty and the northern permafrost melted and the vast tundra bubbled with methane, and the drought in the midcontinental plains regions went on and on, and the Asian steppes turned to sand dunes, and meat became harder to come by鈥 (Atwood 24). The earth that Atwood depicts is entrenched in the climate crisis, anticipating a future where food and water resources are scarce.
Atwood鈥檚 anxiety about 鈥渞eal鈥 food is complicated by the technologies that have shifted the ways of producing food from the field to the lab. With the introduction of lab grown meat, the environmental and ethical impacts are less clear. When Jimmy is shown a ChickieNob, in the 鈥淣eoAgriculturals鈥 department at Crake鈥檚 prestigious university, Watson-Crick, it is described as a 鈥渓arge, bulblike object that seemed to be covered with stippled whitish-yellow skin. Out of it came twenty thick fleshy tubes, and at the end of each tube another bulb was growing鈥 (Atwood 202). The question of empathy and autonomy are distinctly challenged when the subjugation of animal bodies changes as the need for 鈥渟ustainability鈥 increases. Stephanie Lance coined the term, 鈥減ost-industrial slaughterhouse,鈥 to explain how Atwood鈥檚 biotechnology meat production is an extension of power exerted over animal bodies by deeming them unrecognizable, and therefore making their suffering unfamiliar (Lance 60). Lance defines the post-industrial slaughterhouse as a rhetorical space 鈥渨hich utilizes advancements in science to redefine how animal bodies are 鈥渟laughtered,鈥 and how the manipulation of those bodies alters how we perceive human-animal relationships鈥 (Lance 61). Atwood works within this rhetorical space with the naming of the corporations: OrganInc Farms, NooSkins, and HelthWyzer. The corporation’s names utilize words like 鈥渙rganic鈥 and 鈥渘ew鈥 to allude to the work that they do with animal bodies, think 鈥渙rgan鈥 and 鈥渕oo,鈥 with a green-washed human oriented appeal.
Lance argues that the 鈥渁dvancements鈥 in the novel work toward justifying capitalist narratives that harm humans, nonhumans, and the environment. Where Atwood has eradicated the horrors of the factory farming system as we know it, Lance鈥檚 anxieties seem to lie in the unknown about how animals will be treated within the capitalist value system when there is a greater push toward the technological reconceptualization of large-scale farming. Lab-grown meat may eliminate traditional slaughterhouses and the exploitation of human labor in that space, providing more food and nutrients using fewer resources, but it also perpetuates the devaluation of animals and nature by normalizing the idea that they are a product for consumption. In the novel, the entire lifecycle of the animal occurs in a laboratory with the goal of prolonging their life to harvest their parts for food. Atwood鈥檚 depiction of pigoons, creatures created as organ donors to produce human body parts, is an example of this exploitation. The geneticists who created pigoons for human organ harvest hoped that 鈥渘one of the defunct pigs ended up as bacon and sausages: no one would want to eat an animal whose cells might be identical with at least some of their own鈥 (Atwood 24). The class of workers in the compounds who created food and science technologies are not exempt from consuming their creations, and do so with moral trepidation as the line between human and animal blends. The reconfiguration of the suffering of the pigoons is less obvious than the suffering witnessed in current large-scale agricultural facilities and Lance considers whether animal welfare hinges on perceivable suffering, and what it means when 鈥渉umane鈥 meat is the goal, rather than a respect for other beings.
Beyond the ethics of 鈥渞eal鈥 and lab-grown food production, food access emerges as an indicator of wealth in Oryx and Crake, dividing the pleeblands (cities) from the Compounds (the biotechnology company living quarters). Food serves as an indicator of power through access. Only wealthy people have real butter and real meat, and the rest of the population consume artificial, or lab-created, food items. When visiting Crake鈥檚 University, Jimmy indulges in popcorn with butter. In response to Jimmy鈥檚 excitement and his recognition that his less prestigious university, Martha Graham Academy, does not have real butter, Crake responds, 鈥淣othing but the best at Watson-Crick鈥 (Atwood 223). Crake cements the expectation that the social and academic elite have access to the best food, while others do not.
We can see Atwood鈥檚 anxieties come to fruition in the post-pandemic chapters of the novel where the bioengineered animals, pigoons and rakunks, have re-claimed the land. Food scarcity is a concern for Snowman, the suspected only surviving human being, because environmental collapse has made access to fish, non-bioengineered animals, and vegetables scarce. Jimmy also lacks the ability to fish or hunt, and resorts to scavenging and using the Crakers鈥 skills to provide him with food. Atwood鈥檚 Oryx and Crake enacts an othering of nature through scientific advancements cultivating an opposition between nature and man, allowing for nature to be used to depletion.
Emily St. John Mandel鈥檚 2014 novel, Station Eleven, similarly eliminates the majority of the population through biological decline and relies heavily on scavenging from already available food sources. Mandel鈥檚 novel oscillates timelines and locations, demonstrating different attitudes about food and water resources through the lens of individuals and communities, spanning years before the virus until 15 years after. The novel follows Kirsten and her troupe of nomadic performers, The Travelling Symphony, who stage Shakespeare plays for communities of survivors. In the aftermath of the virus, life has sprouted in unlikely places 鈥 the Severn City airport has turned into the Museum of Civilization, a place where the electric world is eulogized. Settlements around Lake Michigan house quirky communities and occasionally dangerous survivors. All of the survivors have adopted various beliefs and values, holding on to relics from the past with greater importance because of the collective trauma endured by the loss of life and electricity. Kirsten鈥檚 troupe uses Shakespeare as their anchor to humanity, while the Prophet, a leader of a kidnapped clan of children, uses a fictional comic book called Station Eleven.
Mandel鈥檚 engagement with the climate crisis and food scarcity provides an underlying tone to her primary theme of the survival of art and culture in a changing world. The climate crisis in Station Eleven is less prevalent than in Oryx and Crake because the novel鈥檚 pre-pandemic world is not so explicitly dysfunctional. The characters are all described as seemingly middle class. They have careers, live comfortably in their homes and apartments, and travel the world for various reasons. The destruction of the environment, unchecked corporate power, and faltering human ethics as described by Atwood in Oryx and Crake are not emphasized in Station Eleven.
Reuben Martens suggests that Emily St. John Mandel engages in 鈥減etro melancholia,鈥 a love of the petroleum world so much so that she grieves losing it. Other scholars suggest that Mandel鈥檚 novel does more than grieve the luxuries of a petroleum world, she paints it as a utopia, or a 鈥減etrotopia鈥 (Smith 10). Station Eleven includes a chapter titled,听 鈥淎n Incomplete List,鈥 which eulogizes and emphasizes society’s reliance on cheap energy as a driving force in the creation of contemporary western culture (Mandel 31). Mandel laments, 鈥淣o more diving into pools of chlorinated water lit green from below. No more ball games played out under floodlights. No more porch lights with moths fluttering on summer nights. No more trains running under the surface of cities on the dazzling power of the electric third rail. No more cities鈥 (Mandel 171). The grid failure in Station Eleven is not due to overconsumption of oil, but rather to the fragility of the electrical grid (Smith 10). Mandel鈥檚 depiction of the collapse of mankind centers human resilience in a way that absolves them of responsibility for the collapse.
At the beginning of the novel and the flu pandemic, we see Mandel鈥檚 characters grappling with what survival looks like. She writes, 鈥淛eevan鈥檚 understanding of disaster preparedness was based entirely on action movies鈥 He started with water, filled one of the oversized shopping carts with as many cases and bottles as he could fit鈥 The next cart was all toilet paper. The cart after that was more canned goods, also frozen meat and aspirin, garbage bags, bleach, duct tape鈥 (Mandel 21-23). Jeevan had access to a grocery store moments after hearing the news of the deadly Georgia virus, one within walking distance of his brother’s apartment. This alludes to the food security privilege that Jeevan and his brother Frank had before the virus. Jeevan has access to a deep line of credit which enables him to pay for carts full of groceries. Additionally, Jeevan鈥檚 purchase of as much food and water as he could carry indicates an individualistic attitude about survival. He isn’t concerned with the rest of the community who may rely on the grocery store for resources, and he likely has no idea who or how many people there are to be concerned for. Mandel emphasizes this sentiment, writing, 鈥淎ll evidence suggested that the center wasn鈥檛 holding 鈥 Was this actually happening? They asked one another 鈥 but personally they had food and water, they were at least momentarily secure and not sick鈥 (Mandel 193). Jeevan and Frank were isolated together, and therefore their survival was their main concern. In times of crisis, not knowing one鈥檚 neighbors or community members allows for isolation, individualism, and the stockpiling of resources.
In contrast with Jeevan and his brother Frank, the community of survivors at the Severn City airport work communally to survive. On the third night of their isolation, the survivors break into the Mexican Restaurant in the airport and share a meal. They are more concerned about stealing from the airport than they are about being stranded with strangers. Their concerns are eased by a character who puts down his credit card to cover the expenses, assuming that modern currency still holds value. The survivors trusted one another and invested in the survival of the group. Mandel writes that, 鈥淏y Day Three, all of the vending machines in the airport are empty鈥 On Day Four the food from the Mexican restaurant ran out, also the food from the sandwich place in Concourse C鈥 (Mandel 242-243). The community prevails through experimentation with farming and hunting. Fifteen years later, the Severn City airport community accommodates more than 300 members. Mandel notes, 鈥淚n former times, when the airport had had fewer people, Clark had worked all day at the details of survival; gathering firewood, hauling water to the restrooms to keep the toilets operational, participating in salvage operations in the abandoned town of Severn City, planting crops in the narrow fields along the runways, skinning deer鈥 (Mandel 259). Mandel does little work to discuss the logistics of acquiring seeds to sow, learning how to hunt, butcher, and preserve food. This knowledge isn鈥檛 entirely excluded from the concerns of the characters, and suggests an increased likelihood of success within a community versus individuals who are confined by the limits of their knowledge. During an early conversation between Frank and Jeevan, Frank asks,
鈥溾楤ut what would be out there? 鈥
鈥業 don鈥檛 know, a town somewhere. A farm?鈥
鈥淎 farm? Are you a farmer? Even if it weren’t the middle of winter Jeevan, do farms even work without electricity and irrigation systems? What do you think will grow in the spring? What will you eat there in the meantime?鈥
鈥業 don鈥檛 know, Frank鈥
鈥楧o you know how to hunt?鈥
鈥極f course not. I鈥檝e never fired a gun.鈥
鈥楥an you fish?鈥
鈥楽top it鈥 Jeevan said鈥 (Mandel 183).
Alone, the brothers had very little experience or knowledge about food production. Their modern existence was entirely separate from the food systems that provided for them, leaving them without the ability to farm, hunt, or fish. With regard to the Travelling Symphony, there are few depictions of their everyday survival. They scavenge, notably for production props, rather than food items. It is assumed that the Symphony hunt deer and rabbit, and access water from the freshwater lake that they perform around. The omission of detail about the Travelling Symphony鈥檚 day-to-day survival indicates that they seemingly lack concern about resources. Luckily, 鈥渢he Georgia Flu was so efficient that there was almost no one left鈥 (Mandel 192), therefore the characters in Station Eleven have access to the remaining processed and preserved food in the world, and earned time to learn how to hunt and grow their own food.
Traditional knowledge sharing is a central theme of Georgian Bay M茅tis writer Cherie Dimaline鈥檚 The Marrow Thieves (2017). Dimaline鈥檚 novel focuses on an Indigenous community鈥檚 survival amidst a government sanctioned hunt to extract their bone marrow. The apocalypse of the novel is both structural and biological. The climate crisis has caused such psychological distress that non-Indigenous people have lost the ability to dream and require the bone marrow of dreamers, Indigenous people, to survive. This form of bodily extraction follows the over-extraction of natural resources from the earth, resulting in waterways that are 鈥減olluted to muck,鈥 and 鈥済rey and thick like porridge鈥 (Dimaline 24). Dimaline鈥檚 novel follows a family of survivors whose biological families have gone missing. Miigwans leads his kin: French, Wab, RiRi, Chi-Boy, Slopper, Rose, and their elder and connection to the language, Minerva. Without their shared knowledge of Indigenous history and language, French wouldn鈥檛 know to take pride in his nickname, which comes from 鈥淸his] people鈥 the M茅tis.鈥 He boasts, 鈥淚 came from a long line of hunters, trappers, and voyageurs鈥 (Dimaline 21). French鈥檚 pride in the survival and success of his people positions his own survival as communal, a result of traditional knowledge passed down through generations.
Extractive capitalism is the basis for the conflict that paves The Marrow Thieves鈥 speculative future. The ailment that causes non-Indigenous people to lose their ability to dream is a result of polluted water and resource scarcity. As Christine Turner suggests, water is a major place of colonial extraction and subjugation. The surviving Indigenous people have a relationship with water, and the earth more generally, that aligns with the Metis and Cree concept wahkohtowin, meaning 鈥渒inship,鈥 鈥渇amily,鈥 or 鈥渞elation鈥 (Tuner 1). Characters in The Marrow Thieves discuss the earth as 鈥渉er,鈥 and recognize the interconnectedness of their bodies and the world around them. Turner explains that, 鈥渨ahkohtowin describes kinship between Metis people, where 鈥減eople鈥 denotes not only humans but bodies of water and the beings who subsist on or in those bodies of water鈥 (Turner 3). This kinship is demonstrated in The Marrow Thieves when French is hunting alone and sees a moose for the first time. He raises his gun, and notices the moose turn towards him. He imagines the world that has shaped the moose, 鈥渓ike he had watched all of this happen鈥 (Dimaline 49). He contemplates the benefits of taking the animal’s life, thinking to himself, 鈥淭his was food for a week. Hide and sinew to stitch together for tarps, blankets, ponchos. This was bones for pegs and chisels鈥 (Dimaline 49). Ultimately, French decided that the kill would be superfluous, wasteful. French asks himself, 鈥淐ould we travel with this meat before it rotted? No. And could we smoke and dry it? No鈥 (Dimaline 49). French鈥檚 concern for waste is more pressing than his desire for food to eat at that moment. He recognizes the kinship between himself and the moose, both beings struggling to survive.
The Marrow Thieves depicts Indigenous futurism, a way of thinking that allows people to imagine and build futures where their traditions, culture, language, and autonomy are centralized in all of society, not just Indigenous communities4. Indigenous futurism may look like a widespread understanding to only take what is needed from the earth, striving for balance. Non-Indigenous futurity is positioned as the default, valuing capitalist growth at the cost of the environment and other beings. Indigenous futurity does not 鈥渞equire the erasure of now-settlers in the ways that settler futurity requires of Indigenous people,鈥 (Tuck and Gaztambide-Fern谩ndez 80). I disagree with this statement, citing Canada鈥檚 violent resource extraction and 鈥渢he facilitated replacement of Indigenous people and ultimately (cultural) genocide, or simply death, often for fossil fuel extraction on their Native lands鈥 (Martens 196). Canadian policy demonstrates values that are entwined in capitalist consumption and directly oppose the survival of Indigenous communities. Indigenous futurity may require the erasure of non-Indigenous people, or at least a major upheaval of individualistic consumerist capitalist ideologies that currently drive non-Indigenous governments and economies to wreak havoc on the Earth鈥檚 resources.
The problem of non-Indigenous-state-imposed ideologies and infrastructure is a driving force in Waubgeshig Rice鈥檚 Moon of the Crusted Snow, published in 2018. The novel is set in a remote Anishinaabe community in Northern Ontario and follows Evan Whitesky and his community after a power outage caused by the breakdown of a hydro dam. The outage leads to a winter of trying to sustain food supplies, which challenges the community’s reliance on infrastructure and reinforces traditional ways of surviving. Colonialism has forced many Indigenous communities to adopt non-Indigenous-state-promoted infrastructures of energy production and distribution, which as Rice discusses, often fail and prove to be unreliable. Reuben Martens explains that this forced uptake was done 鈥渢hrough the promise to fulfill the social aspirations of the colonized, yet with a complete disregard (inertia) as to how this affects local communities, ecosystems, and political structures鈥 (Martens 196). Food plays a massive role in this novel, as a means of physical survival and as a way to preserve cultural survival through knowledge sharing.
The first scene of Moon of the Crusted Snow depicts a moose hunt, setting the stage for understanding how Evan Whitesky engages with the natural world. He offers gratitude to 鈥渢he Creator and Mother Earth for allowing him to take this life鈥 (Rice 5). There is an awareness of the gravity of taking a life, just as French understood the gravity in The Marrow Thieves and decided against shooting the moose. There is also a sense of necessity because 鈥渇ood from the south was expensive and never as good, or as satisfying, as the meat he could bring in himself鈥 (Rice 3). When Evan takes inventory of the animals he has hunted, he notes,
It was more than enough for his own family of four, but he planned to give a lot of the meat away. It was the community way. He would share with his parents, his siblings and their families, his in-laws, and would save some for others who might run out before winter鈥檚 end and not be able to afford the expensive ground beef and chicken thighs that were trucked or flown in from the south (Rice 6).
Even before the total collapse of infrastructure, there is an expectation that food from the south is inaccessible. It is expensive, and it is flown or driven in, which means that any bad weather may result in food shortages. The community anticipates failure and had proactively stockpiled food and fuel in case of emergencies like the one they鈥檙e facing. Preparation like this would likely not occur to non-Indigenous communities who have not faced systemic failures as frequently or as harshly as Evan鈥檚 community has.
Grace Dillon explains that the novel echoes traditional social structures, where generally the elders are taken care of first, and the rest of the resources are split up amongst those in need. Even with enemies, there is an expectation of love and generosity in taking care of one another. Rice writes,
The Anishinaabe spirit of community generally prevailed鈥urvival had always been an integral part of their culture. It was their history. The skills they needed to persevere in this northern terrain, far from their original homeland farther south, were proud knowledge held close through the decades of imposed adversity (Rice 48).
This spirit of community and survival was passed on through generations because the elders taught survival skills to the newer generations. Evan鈥檚 father taught him to hunt, and Evan plans to teach his children when they come of age. Evan鈥檚 parents, and the elders of the community, while afraid of the possibility of starvation, still center storytelling as a means of survival to process and share information. One elderly character, Aileen, is known throughout the community for her stories. She shares her knowledge of old medicine ways with Evan鈥檚 partner, Nicole, and prides herself on telling stories to anybody who visits her. She is a pillar in the community for traditional knowledge sharing and survival. Aileen, just like Minerva in The Marrow Thieves, is a resource for Indigenous youth to gather knowledge about the past and learn about ways of surviving.
Grace Dillon coined the term 鈥楴ative Apocalypse鈥 which she describes as already having taken place. In a conversation with Evan, Aileen echoes this sentiment, saying,
Our world isn鈥檛 ending. It already ended. It ended when the Zhaagnaash came into our original home down south on that bay and took it from us. That was our world. When the Zhaagnaash cut all the trees and fished all the fish and forced us out of there, that鈥檚 when our world ended […] But we always survived. We鈥檙e still here. And we鈥檒l still be here, even if the power and radios don鈥檛 come back on and we never see any white people ever again. (Rice 149鈥50)
In this novel, the resilience and ability of Indigenous communities to survive 鈥渁pocalypse鈥 over and over again makes them the most knowledgeable about how to keep their people fed, safe, and alive. Kirsten Bussiere argues that apocalyptic narratives have the ability to exemplify hope for the future. She believes that the annihilation of the government, organized medical care, and modern infrastructure has allowed the community in Moon of the Crusted Snow the opportunity to begin again, opening the possibility of utopia (Bussiere 55). Without non-Indigenous imposed infrastructure, Indigenous communities are able to organize medical care systems, food and firewood distribution, and other community services free from legal or physical barriers. Communities are able to build infrastructure around their needs and the communities goals.
In examining how Canadian dystopian fiction authors portray resource scarcity and food ethics, there is a divergence between non-Indigenous and Indigenous narratives. Atwood and Mandel reflect non-Indigenous anxieties surrounding the loss of technological infrastructure and a reliance on artificial solutions to sustain resource-depleted societies. Whereas, Dimaline and Rice present Indigenous communities grappling with the ongoing realities of resource scarcity while emphasizing traditional knowledge, generosity, kinship, and resilience as pathways for survival. These narratives highlight the complexity between privilege, survival, and the ethics of resource consumption in speculative futures. The perspectives of these novels work to emphasize the necessity of addressing systemic inequities in contemporary food systems, as echoed in Canada’s National Pathways document, and the global movement for food sovereignty. Indigenous writers, in particular, challenge readers to reconsider the interconnectedness of humans, the environment, and non-human beings, offering criticism of extractive capitalism. Indigenous authors also offer hope, rooted in the necessity of community perseverance. This research, while focussed on food and water access depicted in four novels, works to connect speculative fiction, real-life policy, and apocalyptic events that have systemically affected Indigenous communities. The resource-driven survival of the characters in these novels reflect the authors broader concerns for the climate crisis, economic inequality, and cultural resilience. Their narratives urge readers to question the sustainability and ethics of our current systems and imagine alternative futures grounded in equity, sustainability, and respect for the Earth and its inhabitants.
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Endnotes
1 My identity as a non- Indigenous white cisgender woman has shaped my understanding of this research.
2 Published in Gerald Vizenor鈥檚 Native liberty : natural reason and cultural survivance, 鈥淣ative survivance is an active sense of presence over historical absence, the dominance of cultural simulations, and manifest manners. Native survivance is a continuance of stories鈥 (Vizenor 1).听
3 As of February 8, 2025, there are thirty-three long-term drinking water advisories on public systems on reserves in thirty-one communities.
4 Coined by Anishinaabe scholar Grace Dillon.
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