ABSTRACT
A mother and son of First Nations ancestry sit in the waiting area of a methadone clinic in the Downtown Eastside neighborhood of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Their attention is directed toward an offscreen TV. A cartoon plays, featuring an instrumental version of “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” that mingles with the operating sounds of the clinic and ambient noise from the street outside. The tune is punctuated by a metal clinking sound at the beginning of each bar, calling to mind the sound of driving railway spikes that once echoed just down the street. (The City of Vancouver was incorporated in 1886 as the western terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway, beginning the cycle of state-sanctioned erasure of indigenous title to the land.) The familiar voice of Bugs Bunny chimes in: “Uh, what’s all the hubbub, bub?”
