‘Cottagers and Indians’ is about manoomin, an Anishnawbe ‘good seed’ planted around a lake and which stands above the waterline, but it is also about Gertie, Justin and Marie. The seed causes consternation with cottagers who argue that it is hampering swimming, fishing, boating and property values. This play is a conversation between Arthur Copper, grain planter and Indigenous man and Maureen Poole, well-to-do non-Indigenous woman in her mid-fifties, and the audience through the lens of Indigenous and non-Indigenous land and food sovereignty issues set in the context of a lakeside spat between the two protagonists. Leanne Betasamosake Simpson provides the afterword on land and reconciliation: having the right conversations, reproduced with permission. Shortlisted 2020 for The Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour.
