Terminal Avenue By Eden Robinson Summary

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Eden Robinson’s short story “Terminal Avenue” presents readers with the dystopian near-future of Canada where Indigenous people are subjugated and placed under heavy surveillance. The story’s narrator, Wil, is a young Aboriginal man who struggles with his own inner-turmoil after the suicide of his father and his brother’s subsequent decision to join the ranks of the Peace Officers responsible for “adjusting” the First Nations people. Though “Terminal Avenue” takes place in Vancouver there are clear parallels drawn between the Peace Officers of Robinson’s imagination and the Canadian military sent to enforce the peace during the stand-off at Oka, Quebec in 1990. In writing “Terminal Avenue” Robinson addresses the armed conflict and proposes …show more content…

The Oka Uprising was initially a peaceful protest over the expansion of a golf course on Mohawk territory that turned violent after Quebec’s provincial police, the Sûreté du Québec, responded to the protest with tear gas and flash-bang grenades, eventually escalating to a gun battle between protesters and police. Years after the stand-off, revisionist military historians have praised the Canadian military for avoiding bloodshed because of their “personal commitment [and] calm and attentive approach to native reality,” in which they ought to be commended for “carrying the burden of peace” (Conradi 548). However, Robinson rejects this notion and instead proposes a re-imagining of the Oka conflict through the “adjustment” of First Nations people who fought at Oka with the “bombing of the last Canadian reserve” (Robinson 211). Through “carrying the burden of peace” the Officers are given the power to destroy any semblance of Indigenous tradition, such as the potlatch, and to violently corral all First Nations people to sectioned off “Urban Reserves”. By disrupting popular Canadian perception of law enforcement Robinson succeeds in creating a dystopian image of corrupted power that allows readers to sympathize with the subjection of First Nations people of

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