THE BIRTHING TREE

In Nova Scotia, a Mi’kmaq woman who loses the grandmother who raised her is inspired to reclaim her past.

“There is no word for goodbye in our language because there is no such thing. You can’t give a name to something that doesn’t exist. For us, we are always walking among the ancestors. We will see each other again someday is always true.” The follow-up to Peters’ successful debut, The Berry Pickers (2023), continues to illuminate Mi’kmaq cultural traditions, this time with a dual timeline story set in the past and present of a young nurse named Aliet Paul. Aliet knows about walking among the ancestors from an early age, as her mother died giving birth to her and without revealing the identity of her father. Her grandmother Kiju was the midwife for the tragic delivery and channeled her grief over this and other losses into parenting her granddaughter and grounding her in Mi’kmaq ways. But as we meet Aliet in the present, she is working at her nursing job in an urban hospital several hours away from the village where her family is among the very few Native landowners, having managed to buy back from white settlers land that was originally stolen from them. She has not been home in a long time when she gets word that Kiju has died, and when she sees the state of her grandmother’s house, she realizes how remiss she has been. The novel follows her decision to return permanently to the village, while also exploring the story of her childhood and the reasons for her flight. Peters punctuates the chapters of Aliet’s narrative with brief italicized comments on her journey; by the end, their source is clear, and roots the novel even more firmly in traditional culture. Without being directly addressed, the matriarchal feminism of that culture comes through loud and clear.

A quietly compelling portrait of a young woman finding her truth.