Grandma’s curried bologna
Kim Spencer's ongoing tale of a young Indigenous girl coming of age in 1980s Prince Rupert where she lives with her mother, uncle and much-loved grandmother.
July 04th, 2025
Kim Spencer is from the Gitxaała Nation and lives in northwest BC. Photo by Sean Pullen.
Mia is now in secondary school dealing with the loss of her white best friend. In the midst of balancing her traditional values with contemporary western culture, she is faced with losing another important person in her life.
Review by Heidi Greco
In her new memoir-like novel, I Won’t Feel This Way Forever (Orca $14.95), Kim Spencer revisits characters from her award-winning Weird Rules to Follow (Orca, 2022), which earned, among a slew of other prizes, a place on the list of finalists for 2023’s Governor General Awards. The main character, Mia, is back, though it’s now 1989, and she’s still on the outs with Lara, the non-Indigenous girl who’d been her best friend since kindergarten. The gap between the two, who were once practically as close as sisters, only grows now that they’re both in secondary school. Lara seems to have found a new crowd to hang out with, leaving Mia behind.
Along with her Uncle Dan and her mother, Mia lives in Prince Rupert in a small house owned by the family matriarch, the grandmother, a woman whom Mia adores. Mia is fortunate to travel frequently with her grandmother—often to Vancouver, whether for medical appointments, to visit the PNE’s Playland, to see family or to attend Christian revivals. The two make a great team, especially as the grandmother doesn’t speak a lot of English, and still mainly uses her Sm’algyax language. Besides keeping the language alive, Mia’s grandmother keeps many of the old ways, which Mia admires. When Mia is allowed to help prepare the salmon for jarring with her aunt and uncle, she’s excited to report to her grandma that she’s learned a new skill.
Kim Spencer at the PNE. Photo taken by Kim’s grandmother.
The family relies on the grandmother’s wisdom as well as her daily survival knowledge. Once, when she’s away for a revival (without Mia this time), Mia begins to realize just how much her grandmother does to keep the family fed and comfortable. In addition to frequently serving jarred salmon as a staple of their diet—along with less-traditional foods like beef, chicken or pork—she has devised many ways of serving bologna, including as a curried stew. As for her assessment of the latter, Mia confesses: “I’d never say this to Grandma, but certain things in life should not be curried—bologna is one of them.”
It’s hard to know just how much of Lara’s snobby behaviour is intentional, or whether it’s the result of peer pressure from a new group of girls, ones who perhaps don’t understand how Lara could be friends with an Indigenous girl. Whatever the cause, Mia feels hurt, and sometimes dwells on the good times the two of them shared. But she also recalls their differences, how Lara’s family always put so many restrictions on their daughter, not allowing her the freedom to roam that Mia always had, or how Lara considered it boring to go down to the docks where they might see eagles or seals or sea lions. Mia explains these thoughts to herself with the justification that “Maybe because Lara isn’t Native, she doesn’t enjoy these things as much as I do.”
Over the course of the summer many things change, as Mia’s grandmother becomes seriously ill and needs to be hospitalized in Vancouver. Some family members make the long drive down to the city to be near her and to help however they can. During this time a number of stories unfold—about the hardships endured, especially during the time of “those schools” (residential schools). Mia learns that the grandmother herself experienced many hardships, from the death of her parents when she was an infant to having two of her own ten children die shortly after they were born, and later, losing “three grandchildren in tragic accidents over the years.”
Kim Spencer with her grandmother on the banks of the Skeena River.
Any adult who remembers how hard early-teen transition years were will have sympathy for the emotional confusion and sadness Mia goes through. Besides the person she loves most being gravely ill, Mia and her family take up residence in a motel near the hospital so that they can be near at hand—hardly the way a young teen would choose to spend her summer holiday.
Then, by one of those lucky flukes that life sometimes grants, Mia sees a notice for a basketball camp, which she is quick to join. Having previously played, this experience helps her regain some of her old confidence and spirit.
When at last the family needs to go back home, they bear heavy hearts. And yet this is one of the most interesting parts of the book, as the author, herself from the Gitxaała Nation, offers some of the arrangements they “as Tsimshian people…must follow.” Such explanations serve to enlighten readers and never feel preachy or intrusive.
In so many ways, Spencer has given us a book that we as West Coasters will immediately recognize as part of us, like this poetic interior monologue from Mia: “I stare out the window at the dreary sky. It’s drizzling. That fine rain that seems harmless yet coats you in wet.”
Although it isn’t essential to read the first book, it does enhance one’s understanding of what life is like for Mia and her family, including some of the ways they experience discrimination. It will be interesting to see whether Spencer might decide to add another volume to this insightful coming-of-age story. 9781459838208
Heidi Greco is a Surrey-based poet, reader and reviewer.
Kim Spencer on Tofino Beach.
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