Chris La Tray transforms a standard literary newsletter into a searing meditation on the cost of erasure, the fragility of cultural memory, and the quiet violence of modern indifference. While the piece begins with the mundane logistics of book tours and festival preparations, it quickly pivots to a profound confrontation with the "Old White Guy" who insists Native people have benefited from colonialism, and the "Old White Lady" who claims Icelandic ancestors arrived in North America centuries before Indigenous peoples. This is not merely a travelogue; it is a forensic examination of how ignorance operates as a tool of displacement, and how art becomes the only viable vessel for truth-telling when official channels fail.
The Architecture of Erasure
La Tray's most striking contribution is his refusal to let the "progress" of modernity mask the devastation it has wrought on Indigenous lifeways. He recounts a frustrating exchange where a skeptic asks, "Would you rather you were still riding around on horseback?" to which La Tray replies, "Yes!" This blunt affirmation serves as a rejection of the narrative that technological advancement equates to moral superiority. He argues that our current trajectory has merely "stirred up the basest kind of evil in all of us," a sentiment that reframes the debate from one of resource management to one of spiritual and ethical decay.
The author's critique of the Montana Folk Festival offers a concrete case study in how institutions tokenize Indigenous voices while stripping them of context. He describes an event where the organizers failed to list the poets' names, bios, or photographs on the website or in print materials, despite the event being explicitly titled "Stories from Montana's Native Poet Laureates." "To say I was pissed is kind of an understatement," La Tray writes, noting that the oversight felt like "clueless erasure" designed to allow organizers to claim, "Hey, we got some Indians!" and call it good. This incident highlights a critical failure in cultural stewardship: the willingness to use Indigenous presence for aesthetic value while refusing to acknowledge the humanity or history of the people on stage.
Critics might argue that festival organizers are simply overworked or that the omission was an honest mistake rather than malice. However, La Tray's insistence on the pattern of invisibility suggests that such errors are symptomatic of a deeper systemic disregard. When the event description is vague and the participants are unnamed, the message is clear: the content matters, but the creators do not.
The Weight of Lost Time
Beyond the external conflicts, La Tray turns his gaze inward, exposing a "spiritual crisis" born of the generational gap caused by colonial suppression. He questions the legitimacy of his own practices, wondering if the tobacco and sweetgrass offerings he performs are authentic or merely "performative" because he lacks the direct lineage of experience. "My generation will be the older end of elderhood and I don't feel like we know shit," he admits, capturing the terrifying speed at which cultural knowledge evaporates when the chain of transmission is broken. This vulnerability is rare in public discourse, where cultural leaders are often expected to project unshakeable certainty.
The piece also touches on the broader geopolitical violence that often goes unnoticed by those insulated by privilege. La Tray notes his own disconnection from global tragedies like the bombing of Iran or floods in Texas, acknowledging that the news cycle moves too fast to carry alongside the "simple grind" of daily life. Yet, he connects this local apathy to a global indifference, suggesting that the "roadkill" strewn across highways is a metaphor for how society treats both nature and marginalized communities. "I'm noticing just how much roadkill there is strewn all over our highways... that leaves me unsurprised that we are also so often awful to each other as humans," he observes. This parallel draws a direct line between the physical neglect of the natural world and the social neglect of Indigenous peoples.
The only thing stronger than actual film as far as getting things across is actual direct action, putting your body in a position where people have to react against it.
La Tray anchors his hope in the resilience of community, specifically the power of the drum. He describes the Little Mountain Cree drum group as "medicine" that revived his spirit, calling the instrument "the instrument that makes the sound of the heart." In a world defined by "genocide of people, older-than-human and human alike," he finds that the drum speaks to a "timeless" reality that transcends the despair of the present. This section serves as a powerful counter-narrative to the isolation he describes elsewhere, suggesting that the answer to erasure is not just individual resistance, but collective, rhythmic presence.
Bottom Line
Chris La Tray's commentary is a masterclass in connecting the personal to the political, using the friction of a book tour to expose the deep, unhealed wounds of colonialism. Its greatest strength lies in its refusal to offer easy answers, instead sitting comfortably in the discomfort of a "spiritual crisis" and the anger of being erased. The piece's vulnerability is its heavy reliance on the reader's willingness to confront their own complicity in systems of ignorance, but that is precisely where its power resides: it demands not just attention, but a reckoning.