The Night Wanderer

“The Welcome to the Otter Lake First Nations sign whizzed past them. Another fifteen minutes and she’d be home, nestled in her lower middle-class Aboriginal existence. Tiffany Hunter was band member 913, out of an estimated 1,100 or so.”

Citing Tiffany Hunter’s specific number in the band characterizes the subtle dehumanization that happens to her people on reserves; this also foreshadows the fact that she will come to think of herself as a nameless statistic. Tiffany’s disconnection from her own home starts with the system itself. Rather than being a person who lives there, she is a number from the very beginning. Additionally, by emphasizing that she is lower middle-class, this passage illuminates the financial disparity between her and Tony.

“Native mythology was full of dangerous and mysterious creatures—wendigos who were cannibal spirits that ate anything and everyone, spirits that took over a body and made people do crazy things, demon women with very sharp elbows and teeth in parts of the female body that weren’t supposed to have teeth. Tiffany occasionally thought of them when she and her friends played video games.”

This passage introduces the imagery from Indigenous mythology that lingers throughout the novel and introduces the sense of disconnection that Tiffany feels about her own heritage. Significantly, the video games are more real to her than her own culture is. At the same time, however, the creatures from Indigenous mythologies never make a real appearance in the novel, while vampires, a European invention, do; this pattern implies that colonization has even managed to have an effect on the supernatural.

“Tiffany tried to find herself or even her father or grandmother in that picture, in the faces of those Indians, but couldn’t. The image in the book had about as much in common with her as carvings on the wall of King Tut’s tomb had with modern Egyptians. Though those pictures had been carved by actual Egyptians. These ones had been drawn by Europeans, and the Native people looked like demented savages. They weren’t the people she knew or cared about. Therefore, why should she care?”

This passage summarizes Tiffany’s disconnection from a version of history that has been perpetuated by a culture that has no regard for her as an individual or for her people as human beings. While later sections of the book will allude to humanity’s constancy, this passage uses the inclusion of the Egyptian allusion to articulate the ways in which people and societies change. Tiffany is connected to her heritage and to modernity, creating an inherently contradictory and painful perspective.

“He navigated his environment like death was his friend, not his enemy. Plus, he was dark. Darker than most of the migrating passengers, as if he came from an ancient time where white people were unknown. Yet, that darkness was softened by the peculiar pallor that affected him, washing out his dusky complexion. It was like the sun had once kissed his skin but had long since abandoned him.”

This passage emphasizes that Pierre’s vampirism is not what separates him from society. Due to the color of his skin and his mere identity as an Anishinaabe man, he is already isolated from others and regarded with suspicion, even if he tries to avoid it. Pierre attracts attention, not necessarily because he is a vampire, but because he is a man out of time, a type of person that modern society is far too used to erasing.

“Whatever it was, it was gone. It was as if a page had been seamlessly removed from the book of her life. She took out another cigarette and, lighting it, looked up at the stars. Otter Lake sure was boring, Trish thought. Sure wish something interesting would happen around here.”

This passage takes place directly after Pierre uses his vampiric nature to control Trish into giving him directions to the Hunter house. The author utilizes irony to build fear about Pierre’s abilities while also characterizing Pierre as cold and calculating; the vampire is unafraid to manipulate a teenage girl to get what he wants and does not balk at using his powers to protect himself. While earlier chapters establish Pierre as sympathetic, this chapter turns the perspective to portray him as a potential threat.

“Luckily, Otter Lake had been one of the few Native communities that had a school located on the reserve. For many years now, Granny Ruth had heard horror stories about what went on at all those government places they called residential schools. Every day she thanked God for letting her stay in Otter Lake, with her family.”

The reference to residential schools contradicts Tiffany’s feelings that the reserve is trapping her. Residential schools isolated Indigenous children from their culture and families, forcing them to adopt Christianity and other white traditions in lieu of their own. The number of children who died in such residential schools is still unknown and while Tiffany views the outside world as a place of salvation, Granny Ruth’s perspective is tempered by the racism of the dominant culture and by knowledge that Indigenous people off the reserve have suffered for centuries; thus, she views the reserve as a blessing, not a curse.

“A long time ago, in the before time, the stranger had gone by the name of Owl. He had answered to that name, proudly given to him by his parents. His parents…it was hard to believe a creation like him could have parents, born of a loving mother, taught to swim, hunt and fish by a loving father. But like many things in his life, memories such as those had dimmed. Some by time, some by intention.”

In most Anishinaabe cultures, owls are symbols of death, making Pierre’s own childhood name a form of foreshadowing of his eventual fate. Language like “stranger” and “creation” additionally separate Pierre from his own humanity, which, regardless of his own personal beliefs about himself, still lingers through his memories and his love for his homeland. These words also help to build the Gothic mood of the novel through subtle ties to creations like Frankenstein’s monster.

“For a second, Tiffany stood at the bottom of the steps. It was bizarre, but it was almost like she could feel she was being watched. Something in the woods had eyes on her. Having grown up here all her life, she knew the woods were alive with things she would never or rarely see. But tonight was different. There was a curiosity, an interest that she had never felt before. Even the insects had decided better of announcing their presence.”

Pierre becomes the personification of the woods in this passage, a characterization that continues throughout the rest of the novel. His eyes are a recurrent motif that represent fear and the uncanny. This passage builds tension and an eerie tone, but unlike the other people whom Pierre frightens, Tiffany interprets his unseen presence as curiosity, foreshadowing her resilience to his sinister aura.

“[Pierre] had an odd way of talking, like he didn’t want to open his mouth too wide. She had seen some ventriloquists on television when she was young. He talked like them. But everybody had their own little oddities. It might be fun to have him around.”

This passage plays with perspective and omniscience; while many parts of the novel operate in the third person omniscient, this passage emphasizes exactly how much Tiffany does not know. While the author implies that Pierre speaks strangely to hide his vampiric fangs, Tiffany assumes that this is just a harmless quirk, and her assumption demonstrates her disconnection from the supernatural.

“As Keith slid into the passenger seat, Charley asked, ‘Who was that?’ Doing up his seatbelt, Keith’s only reply was, ‘Just a guy staying in my basement.’ Charley put the truck into reverse and started backing out of the driveway. ‘Looks kind of weird to me.’ ‘Yeah, he’s from Europe.’”

This section of dialogue uses humor to emphasize the lengths to which people are willing to go to explain away the things they do not understand. Keith and others attribute Pierre’s strange appearance and effect to their assumption that he is European. The relative isolation of the people at Otter Lake aids with this; to people who have never traveled far beyond their home, someone from Europe is as foreign, and potentially as dangerous, as a vampire. The exchange also inserts a healthy dollop of irony into the plot, emphasizing Pierre’s estrangement from his own homeland, for even the local inhabitants of the reserve see him as foreign despite his deep roots in the area.

“Granny Ruth missed the long conversations [she and her husband] would have in Anishinabe. He was such a good talker. Albert knew the Anishinabe language like nobody else, just like the way English scholars know English. But they didn’t give out degrees to Native people for their mother tongue. Sometimes, when she was lonely, Granny Ruth would replay conversations she had with Albert fifteen or twenty years ago, just to hear him talk in her head.”

This passage parallels Albert’s skills with white scholars, highlighting the disparity between the ways in which Indigenous people and white people are perceived. Albert’s intelligence is disregarded because his knowledge of his language is viewed as something inherent (since he is Anishinaabe) and as something unimportant (due to racial and cultural biases). Additionally, Granny Ruth’s own intelligence—since she could hold those conversations with her husband to begin with—is equally ignored, both by the world at large and by the people around her, who cannot converse with her in Anishinaabe anymore.

“All three would spend hours debating their future lives, but Tiffany was the only one not quite so set on her future plans. Like her friends, she wanted to explore the possibilities beyond the reserve boundaries. The world out there, not here. The idea of more school, let alone intense university-type stuff, definitely did not appeal to her. Maybe a job. Somewhere down the road she knew she’d have to make some tough decisions. But that was what tomorrows were for.”

This passage foreshadows Tiffany’s crisis and suicidal ideation at the end of the novel. While her friends can picture futures for themselves, even if they are not necessarily achievable, Tiffany has no concept of her goals beyond a desire to leave her home. While her lack of tangible ideas is also a sign of her youth, it shows that, when tensions escalate, she does not believe that she has anything concrete to live for.

“People of Granny Ruth’s generation had cleaned their houses. People of Keith’s age had guided them to all the best fishing locations on the lake. And Tiffany’s generation had to deal with this baggage.”

Tiffany’s assessment succinctly summarizes the tensions that First Nations people have experienced for nearly a century, not including the discrimination and tension of the centuries prior. Contextually, this passage emphasizes that the prior generations have worked as functional servants to the white people outside, and now Tiffany must face renewed prejudice for perceived “privilege” that does not exist. While the generations are connected through a shared heritage and culture, they are also connected through cultural rejection or outright discrimination, which only worsens internal tensions.

“From the top of a tall pine tree, some distance away, the man watched her leave. He even managed to smile a little. The more things changed, the more things stayed the same. He knew he was observing one of the truest laws of the universe—a need for young people to escape the presence of their parents. Usually clandestinely. What Tiffany was doing had in one way or another been done by the youth of every culture in every part of the world, ever since windows had been invented, and before. He himself had not been immune to its cry.”

Pierre’s uncanny age and nature often help him to be the most human character in the novel. He can see Tiffany like nobody else does—as a human being living outside the patterns of her own humanity. While Pierre believes that time and monstrosity have fully separated him from his humanity, his sensitive application of his vast experience to gaining insight about the humans around him demonstrates the opposite. He has paid attention to humanity’s behaviors and uses this insight to show Tiffany the only sympathy she receives from anyone.

“Income taxes. Does your father pay them? My father keeps talking about that thing with your status card and he says you guys get a lot of freebies. My father hates that. He thinks all Canadians should pay taxes. I have to pay taxes for the work I do for my father and I’m only seventeen. I don’t think it’s right that your dad or you don’t have to.”

Tony’s words in this passage emphasize the power of parents to either break or renew cycles of behavior and racism. Tony’s father dislikes Tiffany, and Tiffany’s father dislikes Tony. However, the former dynamic has a larger ripple effect in society; while Keith’s dislike for Tony makes him uncomfortable, Tony’s father’s dislike contributes to the overall discrimination and difficulties that Tiffany and her generation will face as Tony inherits and accepts his racism as right.

“One time that pine tree had been young, just like he had. Now they had both seen too much and lived through too many years. Maybe he had known that tree when he was young. Perhaps as a child he had tripped over it in play, or maybe shot an arrow into its side as he struggled to become a warrior. It was unimportant. The past was the past. Pierre had long ago given up the notion of changing the past, for it was a harsh mistress, and it would change for no one. Only the present and the future were his to mold.”

Pierre’s internal dialogue is often full of contradictions. While he views the past as unimportant, he lingers on memories and even imagined interactions with the land to help tether him to his humanity. He might not be able to change the past, but viewing it as unimportant is contextually more of a coping mechanism than a rational perspective on the world and his own existence.

“Though he’d only been in the house for a brief period, he had already assessed a pattern of life among these people. And now it seemed to have been broken. Dishes left over from the morning not washed. The kitchen looked uncharacteristically still in use. And Granny Ruth looked tired and worried. Something was amiss. Not that Pierre cared. It was just something he noticed.”

Once more, Pierre contradicts himself through the lens of his own perceived monstrosity. While he is not necessarily a kind person and may not be consciously experiencing concern, his observant nature does compel him to care about the Hunter family. Pierre has decided that he is not caring, yet he notices Granny Ruth’s exhaustion and even hunts down Tiffany to try and help the family, revealing the vestiges of his own humanity despite his vampiric nature.

“We can watch the moon rise. I used to be much more of a night person, like you, when I was young. Now, I get tired so early. Enjoy your youth while you can, Pierre. There will come a day, young man, when you will be going to bed with the sun. Mark my words.”

Granny Ruth’s words unwittingly foreshadow Pierre’s death hours later. This passage also uses irony to emphasize the inherent tragedy of Pierre’s existence and nature; while Granny Ruth repeatedly calls him “young,” he is anything but. To “go to bed with the sun” necessitates his death, and through that, his reassertion of his own identity as a human being.

“That’s one story. Another says they were once humans who, during winter when food was scarce, had resorted to cannibalism. By eating the flesh of humans, they condemned themselves to aimless wandering, trying to feed a hunger that will not be satisfied.”

This passage describes the wendigo and illustrates Granny Ruth and Pierre’s different perspectives on the nature of monstrosity. In the previous paragraph, Pierre describes wendigos as demonic, but Granny Ruth emphasizes that they were humans who became monstrous through suffering. Her perspective, while not forgiving, is much more compassionate than Pierre’s. Pierre loathes the part of himself that became a monster like a wendigo, but Granny Ruth’s view proves that she is would be able to view him as human even if she were aware of his true nature.

“She knew all the stats about Native youth suicide, there were posters all over the community center, and there were pamphlets given out at school and at the medical clinic. But in the end, they were all just words on a page. Nothing to do with real life. Words on paper meant nothing compared to pain in your heart.”

There is a large disparity between how Indigenous people are perceived and discussed and their actual experiences. The stereotypes discussed throughout the book are born from places of real suffering and pain. Tiffany knows that if she dies by suicide, she will contribute to an ongoing problem, but this perspective lacks regard for her individual suffering. The statistics might not be useless, but in the end, they do nothing to alleviate societal and systemic problems.

“You come from a new land, a new people. I am intrigued. I will let you become the first of your kind to join my kind. If you survive long enough, maybe you will return to your home.”

The vampire’s motives are vague, but he colonizes Owl in the same way that the French do. They, too, view him as intriguing, and they also make no promises that he will be able to return home. Owl’s transformation into the vampire Pierre is a brutal, fantastic depiction of the loss of agency that millions of Indigenous children experienced during the years of overt colonization, when they were taken from their families and forced to become something entirely unfamiliar in order to survive.

“Such a petulant little child you are. I have not seen my family in longer than you could imagine. I left them all behind so long ago, and I would give anything to see their faces one more time. So don’t whine to me. The world is far more complex than in your small, pathetic imagination. I have no time for it.”

This passage illuminates simultaneously broad and narrow Pierre’s perspective. While he thinks that his age and nature elevate him above Tiffany, he, too, is viewing the world selfishly and through his own pain. Both he and Tiffany are desperate for meaningful human connection, and both lash out at the world for not showing them an ounce of mercy on their quest for some form of compassion.

“Just think, Tiffany. For hundreds or even thousands of years, Anishinabe people lived here. They hunted, laughed, played, made love, and died in the village that once stood here. And in that same village over those same centuries were hundreds and possibly thousands of young girls just like you, asking the same questions. Standing right where you are standing.”

This passage delivers the central message of the novel. While Tiffany is a product of her generation and her time, she is simultaneously the same as thousands of people who came before her, including Pierre. The author therefore states that the thread of humanity is not so easily damaged, and this lesson is something that both characters must learn through this tenuous encounter with one another. Both are products of the world and of their experiences, and while they are both unique, they also have much in common.