Native American Perceptions of the Other in Louis Owens’ Wolfsong
Louis Owens’ widely-discussed novel Wolfsong (1991) illustrates both the homecoming nature of Native fiction, and an eco-conscious world view which exists in opposition to the view of the white community and westernised Indians. At the opening of the novel, a road crew is carving a new route through the temperate rainforests in the Cascade mountains of western Washington state. The land has been designated a wilderness area [i] , but government authorities have recently granted permission for the construction of an open-pit copper mine. From the cover of the trees above the road crew, Jim Joseph makes a one-man protest, shooting at the bulldozers to disrupt their progress.