Bad Cree

Mackenzie’s mother is deeply embedded within her family and community. She has close relationships with her husband, sisters, daughters, and niece, and taps into the vast knowledge base of her extended family in multiple instances. In a novel devoted in part to highlighting the strength and resilience of Indigenous families, she is an important matriarch. Although she and Mackenzie initially have a fractured relationship because of Mackenzie’s move to Vancouver, she deeply loves her daughters, and it is evident even during strained conversations that she cares for her children.

The text characterizes her by her energetic nature. Mackenzie observes that she “has that busy energy” (128), and she is constantly at work on one project or another. She is an avid scavenger and frequently spends time driving around the region looking for discarded items that she can repurpose. During one of these outings, she encounters a white man whose body language, demeanor, and communication style spell danger for her and the girls. Mackenzie observes the way she deftly diffuses the situation, using humor and a self-effacing attitude to ensure their safety. Like all the rest of the women in her community, she has long lived with the constant threat white men pose to Indigenous women, particularly those employed in outside industries like oil, and has developed a set of behaviors to keep herself safe. She passes on this situational resourcefulness to her daughters, and Tracey is especially adept at self-protection. Mackenzie’s mother is also gifted (or perhaps cursed) with the power of prophetic dreams, and this ability becomes an important point of connection between her and the other women in her family.

Kassidy is Mackenzie’s cousin. The narrative initially characterizes her by the strength of her familial bonds and her close relationships with her family members. She still lives in the rural community in which she was raised, and unlike Mackenzie, she does not struggle to maintain relationships with her loved ones. Johns also characterizes Kassidy by her strength and resilience. She and the other Indigenous women in her small, remote village grow up with near-constant taunts and harassment from white men, and she is easily able to brush this unwanted attention off and remain unbothered by racist verbal abuse.

Kassidy is additionally empathetic and compassionate. She has more forgiveness in her heart for Mackenzie than Mackenzie’s sister does and seems to understand that Mackenzie separated herself from the family because she was grieving and needed space not because she did not love them. Like all the women in Mackenzie’s family, Kassidy has prophetic dreams. Mackenzie is shocked when Kassidy tells her, “I see the future in my dreams” (45), and Kassidy’s admission becomes a new point of connection between Mackenzie and her family. Kassidy’s dreams help Mackenzie better understand herself and contextualize herself within her broader family unit.

Sabrina was Mackenzie’s sister and Tracey’s twin. She is no longer living by the time the narrative begins, but her presence informs its events and haunts its narrator. Like many of the novel’s characters, she helps the author explore the importance of The Affirming Power of Family and Community. Sabrina was closely bonded with her sisters, her mother, her cousin, and her aunties, and Mackenzie feels her absence acutely. In the wake of Sabrina’s death, Mackenzie struggles to maintain her family relationships and recalls, “Sabrina was always the glue between me and Tracey” (111). Although all three girls were close, Sabrina’s role in their triad was important. Part of Mackenzie’s healing journey is renewing her bond with Tracey and learning what their relationship will look like without Sabrina.

The narrative also characterizes Sabrina by the encounter she has with the wheetigo. The wheetigo attacked her after she became separated from her sister Tracey in the woods during a family camping trip. The wheetigo represents greed, specifically the greed of white men and predatory oil companies. The family notes that white men victimized many women during the oil boom, and Sabrina’s victimization at the hands of the wheetigo is a symbolic representation of the dangers that outside industry poses to Indigenous women in small, First Nations communities.

Tracey is Mackenzie’s sister and Sabrina’s twin. She is tough and resourceful. Tracey grew up in a small, rural First Nations community and was often the target of racist taunts and harassment. Because of this, she learned to protect herself physically as well as guard herself emotionally, and she is a figure of strength and resilience within the novel. Of her sister, Mackenzie recalls, “When I was ten, Tracey taught me how to headbutt” (69). Tracey additionally taught Mackenzie how to fight, instructing her to “punch” with her elbow instead of her fist, and that domestic beer bottles break easier than do imports, making them better for hitting someone over the head.

In addition to her strength, the text also characterizes Tracey by the depth of her familial and community bonds. She and Sabrina were twins, and Sabrina’s death deeply impacted Tracey. She briefly misused alcohol to self-medicate, but she ultimately finds resilience and healing through family ties and music. She is hurt by Mackenzie’s rejection and need for distance, but she eventually forgives her sister, and their reconnection speaks to how important family is to Tracey. Tracey, like the other women in her family, also experiences prophetic visions and dreams. Along with Kassidy, she and Mackenzie vanquish the wheetigo, reaffirming for each girl that there is strength in unity.

Joli and Dianne are close family friends of Mackenzie’s mother. They live in Vancouver and become an important part of Mackenzie’s support system away from home. They are members of the Squamish First Nation and live between Vancouver and Squamish. Because Dianne is friends with Mackenzie’s mother, she becomes a surrogate mother figure for Mackenzie, and Mackenzie is especially drawn to her during the period when she is quasi-estranged from her own family. Because of their fierce love for Mackenzie and the support they provide to her, Dianne and Joli become emblematic of extended familial (both blood-related and chosen) support networks that operate in and around First Nations communities.

Mackenzie’s relationship with the two characters is another way in which the novel engages with the theme of The Affirming Power of Family and Community. Their bond echoes the bond Mackenzie observes between her father and her sisters. Although not related by blood, they are closely tied to one another. Joli is an important friend to Mackenzie, as both characters are in their early twenties. Joli is “tall with a round face that drew in light like the moon draws in the tide” (7). Joli uses they/them pronouns, but their gender identity is not a focal point within the narrative.