Northern Light

Power, Land, and the Memory of Water

By: Kazim Ali

Narrated by: Kazim Ali

The child of South-Asian migrants, Kazim Ali was born in London, lived as a child in the cities and small towns of Manitoba, and made a life in the United States. As a man passing through disparate homes, he has never felt he belonged to a place. And yet, one day, he finds himself thinking of Jenpeg, a community thrown up around the building of a hydroelectric dam on the Nelson River, where he once lived for several years as a child. Does the town still exist, he wonders? Is the dam still operational?

When Ali goes searching, however, he finds not news of Jenpeg, but of the local Pimicikamak community. Facing environmental destruction and broken promises from the Canadian government, they have evicted Manitoba's electric utility from the dam on Cross Lake. In a place where water is an integral part of social and cultural life, the community demands accountability for the harm that the utility has caused.

Troubled, Ali returns north, looking to understand his place in this story and eager to listen. Over the course of a week, he participates in community life and learns about the politics of the dam from Chief Cathy Merrick. In building relationships with his former neighbors, Ali explores questions of land and power - and in remembering a lost connection to this place, finally finds a home he might belong to.

©2021 Kazim Ali (P)2021 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Powerful memoir

Such glorious imagery and deep emotions you feel like the characters come alive. What a great story!

A moving story of finding home and yourself

Where that story of “Northern Light” truly begins is, in fact, up to the reader. One could argue it begins as early as the 18th century when French and British colonizers began taking over land that would eventually become part of northern Manitoba, Canada. The story could begin in the late ‘70s when the Canadian government, along with the utilities company Manitoba Hydro, signed a treaty with five Indigenous bands to build a hydroelectric dam at the nearby Nelson River. Or does the story really begin in 2014 when the Pimicikamak Cree Nation began to occupy that dam, citing that their “homeland has been ruined” and that “the promises of fair treatment have been ignored”?

For Ali, however, the story begins around the mid-‘70s when his family moved to Jenpeg, Manitoba. “Northern Light” immediately recounts Ali’s family history, that of Muslim parents driven from their ancestral home in India to Pakistan, then moving to London and eventually emigrating to Winnipeg. There, Ali’s father began working for as an electrical engineer for Manitoba Hydro, specifically helping to design hydroelectric dams to generate electricity to nearby towns. It’s in Jenpeg where Ali spent a good chunk of his formative years and recalls with a poet’s grace in the book.

One of “Northern Light’s” greatest strengths is Ali’s ability to weave between his personal connection to the land and the history of the people who call it home. In one particularly moving passage, he tells a Cross Lake elder, “I don’t think I can understand my childhood until I know what happened in your community.” He dove headfirst into the proverbial waters of researching the history of the people that make up the land, something he was hardly used to.